The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine
Emanuel Swedenborg
• Doctrinal Series •
LOVE TOWARDS THE NEIGHBOR, OR CHARITY
(pt. 10)
Emanuel Swedenborg
• Doctrinal Series •
LOVE TOWARDS THE NEIGHBOR, OR CHARITY
(pt. 10)
Charity - an internal affection, from which man wills to do good, and this without remuneration; the delight of his life consists in doing it. With them who do good from internal affection, there is charity in each thing which they think and speak, and which they will and do; it may be said that a man and an angel, as to his interiors, is charity, when good is his neighbor. So widely does charity extend itself.
They who have the love of self and of the world for an end, cannot in any wise be in charity; they do not even know what charity is; and they cannot at all comprehend that to will and do good to the neighbor without reward as an end, is heaven in man, and that there is in that affection a happiness as great as that of the angels of heaven, which is ineffable; for they believe, if they are deprived of the joy from the glory of honors and riches, that nothing of joy can be given them any longer; when yet it is then that heavenly joy first begins, which infinitely transcends the other.
(The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 104-105)
• 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.