Of Charity — A New Will is Formed

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

No one can ever say that he is regenerate unless he acknowledges and believes that

• charity is the primary thing of his faith

and unless

• he is affected with love toward the neighbor, and has mercy on him.

Of charity his new will is formed. Through charity the Lord brings about good, and thereby truth, but not through faith without charity.

There are some who perform works of charity from obedience alone, that is, because it is so commanded by the Lord, and yet are not regenerate. These if they do not place righteousness in their works are regenerated in the other life.

(Arcana Coelestia 989)

In Its Practice or Use ~ Charity Consists

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

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.

And so it is with every pleasure — the more noble its use, the greater its delight.

For example, the delight of conjugial love: because this love is the seminary of human society, and thereby of the Lord's kingdom in the heavens, which is the greatest of all uses, it has in it so much delight that it is the very happiness of heaven.

It is the same with all other pleasures, but with a difference according to the excellence of the uses, which are so manifold that they can scarcely be classed in genera and species, some having regard more nearly and directly, and some more remotely and indirectly, to the kingdom of the Lord, or to the Lord. From these things it is further evident that all pleasures are granted to man, but only for the sake of use; and that they thus, with a difference from the use in which they are, partake of heavenly happiness and live from it.

(Arcana Coelestia 997)

Impossible to Convince

Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

They who are within the church and have confirmed themselves against Divine truths, especially against these -

• that the Lord's Human is Divine
• that the works of charity contribute to salvation

- if they have confirmed themselves against them, not only by doctrine but also by life, they have reduced themselves to such a state as to their interiors that afterwards they cannot possibly be brought to receive them, for what is once confirmed by doctrine, and at the same time by life, remains to eternity.

Those who do not know the interior state of man may suppose that anyone, no matter how he has confirmed himself against these truths, can yet easily accept them afterwards, provided he is convinced. But that this is impossible has been granted me to know by much experience in regard to such persons in the other life.

For whatever is confirmed by doctrine is absorbed by the intellectual part, and what is confirmed by life is absorbed by the will part; and that which is inrooted in both man's lives, the life of his understanding and the life of his will, cannot be rooted out.

The very soul of man which lives after death is formed thereby, and is of such a nature that it never recedes therefrom. This is also the reason why the lot of those within the church with whom this is the case, is worse than the lot of those who are out of the church; for those who are out of the church, who are called Gentiles, have not confirmed themselves against these truths, because they have not known them; and therefore such of them as have lived in mutual charity, easily receive Divine truths, if not in the world, yet in the other life.

For this reason when any new church is being set up by the Lord, it is not set up with those who are within the church, but with those who are without, that is, with the Gentiles. These things are often treated of in the Word.

(from Arcana Coelestia 4747)