Selection from Divine Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. (Matthew 13:31, 32)Man has eternal life according to his affection of use.
Since affection is the man himself, and use is its effect and work, and is as a field or theater for its exercise, and since affection is not found apart from its subject, even so the affection of man's life is not found apart from use; and since affection and use make one, so man, who is affection, is known as to his quality from use, - imperfectly and slightly in the natural world, but clearly and fully in the spiritual world. For the spiritual discloses the affection and all its particulars, since in its essence the spiritual is Divine love and Divine wisdom, and in its manifestation is the heat and the light of heaven; and these disclose the affections of uses, as the heat of the sun of the world discloses objects of the earth by odors and flavors, and its light discloses them by its various colors and distinctions of shade. Every man has eternal life according to his affection of use, for the reason that affection is the man himself; consequently such as the affection is, such is the man.
But affection of use in general is of two kinds:—
• there is the spiritual affection of use
• there is the natural affection of use
In external form the two are alike, but in internal wholly unlike; for this reason they are not known the one from the other by men in the world, but are readily known by angels in heaven; for they are wholly opposite, since the spiritual affection of use gives heaven to man, while natural affection of use, without the spiritual, gives hell - for the natural affection of use looks only to honors and gains, thus to self and the world as ends - while spiritual affection of use looks to the glory of God and to uses themselves, thus to the Lord and the neighbor as ends
For there are men in the world who discharge their duties and offices with much zeal, labor, and earnestness; magistrates, overseers, and officers, performing their functions with all diligence and industry; priests, leaders, ministers, preaching with warmth as if from zeal; learned men who write books full of piety, doctrine and learning; and others of a like character; and thereby they perform eminent uses to the church, to their country, to society, and to their fellow-citizens; and yet many do these things from natural affection alone, which is for the sake of self, that they may be honored and exalted to dignities, or for the sake of the world, that they may gain wealth and become rich. In some these ends so enkindle the affection for doing uses that they sometimes perform more excellent uses than those do who are in the spiritual affection of use. I have spoken with many after death when they had become spirits, who had been in this kind of affection of use, and who then demanded heaven on the ground of merit; but as they had performed uses from merely natural affection, thus for the sake of self and the world, and not for the sake of God and the neighbor, they received answer like this in Matthew:
Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, have we not prophesied by Thy name, and by Thy name have cast out demons, and by Thy name done many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I know you not; depart from Me all ye that work iniquity (7:22, 23).And in Luke:
Then shall ye begin to say, We did eat and drink before Thee, and Thou didst teach in our streets. But He shall say, I say unto you, I know you not whence ye are, depart from Me all ye workers of iniquity (13:26, 27).Moreover, they were examined as to what they had been in the world, and their interiors were found to be full of lusts and evils therefrom pressed together, and with some these appeared fiery from the love of self, with some livid from the love of the world, with some dusky from the rejection of things spiritual; while their exteriors from uses in external form still appeared snow-white and purple. From all this it is clear that although they had done uses, yet with themselves they had given no thought to anything but reputation with a view to honors and gains, and that these belonged to their spirit, and they were in them and these were their life, also that their good actions were either purely deceptive appearances, or merely means conducive to these things as ends. Thus much about the natural affection of uses.
But the spiritual affection of use is both internal and external, and it is external or natural to the same extent that it is spiritual; for what is spiritual flows into what is natural, and arranges it in correspondence, thus into an image of itself. But as there is in the world at the present day no knowledge of what the spiritual affection of use is, and what distinguishes it from the natural affection, since in outward appearance they are alike, it shall be told how spiritual affection is acquired.
It is not acquired by faith alone, which is faith separated from charity, for such faith is merely a thought-faith, with nothing actual in it; and as it is separated from charity it is also separated from affection, which is the man himself; and for this reason it is dissipated after death like something aerial.
But spiritual affection is acquired by shunning evils because they are sins; which is done by means of combat against them. The evils that man must shun are all set forth written in the Decalogue.
So far as man fights against them because they are sins, he becomes a spiritual affection, and thus he performs uses from spiritual life.By means of combat against evils, those things that possess one's interiors are dispersed; and these, as has been said above, with some appear fiery, with some dusky, and with some livid. In this way one's spiritual mind is opened, through which the Lord enters into his natural mind and arranges it for performing spiritual uses which appear like natural uses.
To these and to no others is it granted by the Lord to love Him above all things and the neighbor as oneself.If a man by means of combat against evils as sins has acquired anything spiritual in the world, be it ever so small, he is saved, and afterwards his uses grow like a grain of mustard seed into a tree (according to the Lord's words, Matt. 13:31, 32; Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:18, 19).
(Divine Love XVII)