December 20, 2018

THE LOVES OF SELF AND OF THE WORLD (pt. 13)

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine
Emanuel Swedenborg
Doctrinal Series
THE LOVES OF SELF AND OF THE WORLD
(pt. 13)

The love of self and the love of the world are altogether opposite to love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor.

Wherefore the love of self and the love of the world are infernal loves, for they also reign in hell, and also constitute hell with man.

But love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor are heavenly loves. They also reign in heaven, and also constitute heaven with man.

...all evils are in and from those two loves; for the evils which were enumerated (in part 10) are common; the others, which were not enumerated, because they are specific, are derived and flow from them. Hence it may appear, that man, because he is born into these two loves, is born into evils of every kind.

In order that man may know evils, he ought to know their origins, and unless he knows evils, he cannot know goods, thus he cannot know of what quality he himself is: this is the reason that these two origins of evils are treated of here.
(The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 78-80)
In the manuscript, the author, Emanuel Swedenborg, annexed to each section of the doctrine extracts from the  Arcana Coelestia, because in the  Arcana Coelestia the same things are more fully explained.  Arcana Coelestia is available in print or online.