Those who love themselves and the world are able to perform good uses, and do
perform them; but the affections of use with them are not good, because such
affections are from self and have regard to self, and are not from the Lord,
and do not have regard to the neighbor. They say, indeed, and persuade that
these affections have regard to the neighbor in the broad and in the restricted
sense; that is, have regard to the church, their country, society, and their
fellow-citizens. Some of them even dare to say that they have regard to God,
because they are from His commandments in the Word; and also that they are from
God, because they are goods, and every good is from God; when yet the uses they
perform have regard to self, because they are from self, and have regard to the
neighbor only that they may return to self. These are known, and are
distinguished from those who perform uses from the Lord, having regard to the
neighbor in the broad and in the restricted sense, in that such look to self
and the world in everything, and love reputation on account of various ends
that are uses in behalf of self. Such persons are moved to perform uses so far
as in them they see self and what is their own; moreover, their enjoyments are
all bodily enjoyments, and these are what they seek from the world. What kind
of men they are may be shown by this comparison:-
They themselves are the head;
the world is the body; church, country, and fellow-citizens are the soles of
the feet; and God is the shoe. But with those that love* uses from the love of
uses, the Lord is the head; church, country, and citizens (which are the
neighbor) are the body down to the knees; and the world is the feet, from the
knees to the soles; and they themselves are the soles beautifully shod. Thus it
is plain that they who perform uses from self, that is, from the love of self,
are wholly inverted, and that there is nothing of man in them.
[2] There are two origins of all loves and affections; one from the sun of
heaven, which is pure love; the other from the sun of the world, which is pure
fire. They whose love is from the sun of heaven are spiritual and alive, and
are raised by the Lord out of their selfhood (proprium); while they whose love
is from the sun of the world are natural and dead, and they are plunged by
themselves into their selfhood (proprium). From this it is that they see nature
alone in all the objects of sight; and if they acknowledge God, it is with the
mouth and not with the heart. These are they that in the Word are meant by
worshipers of the sun, moon, and all the host of the heavens. In the spiritual
world they appear indeed as men, but in the light of heaven as monsters; and to
themselves their life appears as life, but to the angels as death. Among these
are many who in the world were accounted as learned; and, what I have often
wondered at, they believe themselves wise because they ascribe all things to
nature and to prudence, even regarding all others as simple.
(Divine Love xiv)
* Latin has "love uses"; the
context calls for "do uses," which the Latin editor gives in the text.
