Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
The goods that are in men, as well within the church as without it, are absolutely various, so various that the good of one man is never precisely like that of another. The varieties come forth from the truths with which the goods are conjoined.
All good has its quality from truths, and truths have their essential from goods.
Varieties come forth also from the affections of everyone's love; which are enrooted in and appropriated to a man by his life. Even in the man who is within the church there are few genuine truths, and still fewer in the man who is without the church; so that the affections of genuine truth are rare among men.
Nevertheless, they who are in the good of life, that is, who live in love to the Lord and in charity toward the neighbor, are saved. That these can be saved is because the Divine of the Lord is in the good of love to God and in the good of charity toward the neighbor, and where the Divine is within, there all things are disposed into order, so that they can be conjoined with the genuine goods and genuine truths that are in the heavens. That this is the case may be seen from the societies that constitute heaven, which are innumerable, and all of which in both general and particular are various in respect to good and truth, and yet all taken together form One Heaven; being circumstanced as are the members and organs of the human body, which, although everywhere various, nevertheless constitute one man. For a one that is formed of many is never constituted of units of exactly the same pattern, but of varying things harmoniously conjoined. Everyone is composed of various things harmoniously conjoined. The case is the same with the goods and truths in the spiritual world, which, although various, so that they are never precisely the same with one as with another, nevertheless, make a one from the Divine through love and charity.
For love and charity are spiritual conjunction; and their variety is heavenly harmony, which makes such concord that they are a one in the Divine, that is, in the Lord.
Moreover, the good of love to God and the good of charity toward the neighbor, however various may be the truths and the affections of truth, are nevertheless receptive of genuine truth and good; for they are, so to speak, not hard and resisting, but are as it were soft and yielding, suffering themselves to be led by the Lord, and thus to be bent to good, and through good to Him.
Very different is the case with those who are in the love of self and of the world. These do not suffer themselves to be led and bent by the Lord and to the Lord, but resist stiffly, for they desire to lead themselves; and this is still more the case when they are in principles of falsity that have been confirmed. So long as they are of this character, they do not admit the Divine.
(from Arcana Coelestia 3986)