When Charity is Performed from Spirituality

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

What is meant by good and truth natural not spiritual
and good and truth spiritual natural

Good in man is from a twofold source - from what is hereditary and hence additional, and also from the doctrine of faith and of charity, or with the Gentiles from their religiosity. Good from the former origin is good natural not spiritual, while good from the latter origin is good spiritual natural. From a like origin is truth, because all good has its own truth adjoined to it.

Good natural from the former origin, that is, from what is hereditary and hence adventitious, has much that is akin to good natural from the second origin, that is, from the doctrine of faith and charity, or from some religiosity, but only in the external form, being entirely different in the internal form. Good natural from the former origin [what is hereditary and hence additional] may be compared to the good that exists with gentle animals; but good natural from the second origin [from the doctrine of faith and of charity, or with the Gentiles from their religiosity] is proper to the man who acts from reason, and consequently knows how to dispense what is good in various ways in accordance with uses. This dispensing of what is good is taught by the doctrine of what is just and fair, and in a higher degree by the doctrine of faith and charity, and with those who are truly rational is also confirmed in many ways by reason.

They who do good from the former origin [what is hereditary and hence additional] are borne blindly along as it were by instinct into the exercise of charity; but they who perform what is good from the second origin [from the doctrine of faith and of charity, or with the Gentiles from their religiosity] are borne along by an internal obligation, and as it were with their eyes open.  In a word, they who do what is good from the former origin [what is hereditary and hence additional], do it from no conscience of what is just and fair, still less from any conscience of spiritual truth and good; whereas they who do what is good from the second origin [from the doctrine of faith and of charity, or with the Gentiles from their religiosity], do it from conscience. 

But how the case is with these things can by no means be explained to the apprehension - for everyone who is not spiritual, or who has not been regenerated, sees good from its external form, and this for the reason that he does not know what charity is, or what the neighbor is; and the reason why he does not know these things is that he has no doctrinals of charity.  In the light of heaven these things appear most distinctly, and hence they appear distinctly also with the spiritual or regenerate, because these are in the light of heaven.

(Arcana Coelestia 4988:2-4)