Extracts from Conjugial Love and Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
There are three things which flow from the Lord into our souls as one. These three as one, or this trine, are love, wisdom, and use.Love and wisdom exist only ideally, being solely in the affection and thought of the mind; but in use they exist really, being together in the act and deed of the body; and where they exist really, there they also subsist.And because love and wisdom exist and subsist in use, it is use that affects us; and use is to perform faithfully, sincerely, and diligently the work of one's function. The love of use and the consequent devotion to use holds the mind together lest it melt away and, wandering about, absorb all the cupidities which flow in from the body and the world through the senses with their allurements, whereby the truths of religion and the truths of morality with their goods are scattered to all the winds. But devotion of the mind to use, retains these truths, and binding them together, disposes the mind into a form capable of receiving wisdom from them; and then at the sides it banishes the mockeries and stage plays of both falsities and vanities.
As first created, man was imbued with wisdom and the love thereof, not for himself but that from himself he might communicate it to others. Hence, it is inscribed on the wisdom of the wise, that-
none is wise and none lives for himself alone unless at the same time for others.From this comes society; otherwise society would not exist. To live for others is to perform uses. Uses are the bonds of society, which are as many as there are good uses; and uses are infinite in number. There are spiritual uses, which pertain to love to God and to love towards the neighbor; there are moral and civil uses, which pertain to love of the society and state in which a man resides, and of his companions and fellow citizens among whom he lives; there are natural uses, which pertain to love of the world and of its necessities; and there are uses of the body, which pertain to the love of its preservation for the sake of the higher uses.
All these uses are inscribed on man and follow in order one after the other; and when they exist together, the one is within the other. Those who are in the first uses, which are spiritual, are also in the uses which follow; and such men are wise. But those who are not in the first and yet are in the second and from these in the following, are not wise in the same way but only appear to be so from their outer morality and affability. Those who are not in the first and second, but are in the third and fourth, are anything but wise, for they are satans, loving only the world and themselves from the world; and those who are only in the fourth are the least wise of all; for they are devils, living for themselves alone, and if for others, it is only for the sake of themselves.
Every love, moreover, has its own delight, it being by delight that love lives; and the delight of the love of uses is a heavenly delight which enters into the delights that follow in order, exalting them according to the order of their succession, and making them eternal.
With regard to use: those who are in charity, that is, in love to the neighbor (from which is the delight in pleasures that is alive), pay no regard to the enjoyment of pleasures except on account of the use.
For there is no charity apart from works of charity; it is in its practice or use that charity consists.He who loves the neighbor as himself perceives no delight in charity except in its exercise, or in use; and therefore a life of charity is a life of uses.
Such is the life of the whole heaven; for the kingdom of the Lord, because it is a kingdom of mutual love, is a kingdom of uses.Every pleasure therefore which is from charity, has its delight from use. The more noble the use, the greater the delight. Consequently the angels have happiness from the Lord according to the essence and quality of their use.
(from Conjugial Love 16;18 / Arcana Cœlestia 997)