MAN HAS ETERNAL LIFE
ACCORDING
TO HIS AFFECTION OF USE
Selection from
Doctrine of Uses
from posthumous work
entitled "divine love"
Emanuel Swedenborg
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.
[2] But
affection of use in general is of two kinds; there is the spiritual affection of
use and 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.
[3] 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).
[4] 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.
[5] 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)
|
