(AR) - The Book of the Apocalypse Revealed, Uncovering the Secrets That Were Foretold There and Have Lain Hidden until Now

AR 908

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908. That all things of heaven and of the church are from the good of love, and the good of love is from the Lord, cannot be seen, and therefore it cannot be known, unless it be demonstrated. The reason why it is not known in consequence of its not being seen, is, because good does not enter into the thought of man like truth, for truth is seen in the thought, because as it is from the light of heaven, but good is only felt, because it is from the heat of heaven, and it rarely happens that anyone, while reflecting upon what he thinks, attends to what he feels, but only to what he sees. This is the reason why the learned have attributed all things to thought and not to the affection; and why the church has attributed all things to faith, and not to love, when, nevertheless, the truth, which at this day in the church is said to be of faith, or is called faith, is only the form of good which is of love, see above (n. 875). Now because man does not see good in his thought, for good, as was said, is only felt, and is felt under various species of delight, and because man does not attend to the things which he feels in thought, but to those which he sees there, therefore he calls all that good which he feels delightful, and he feels evil as delightful, because this is ingenerate from birth, and proceeds from the love of self and the world. This is the reason why it is not known that the good of love is the all of heaven and of the church, and that this in man is only from the Lord, and that it does not flow from the Lord into any but such as shun evils with their delights as sins.
[2] That is what is meant by the Lord's words, that the Law and the Prophets hang upon these two commandments:
Thou shalt love God above all things, and the neighbor as thyself (Matt. 22:35-40).
And I can assert, that there does not exist a grain of truth, which in itself is truth in man, except so far as it is from the good of love from the Lord; and therefore neither is there a grain of faith, which in itself is faith, that is, a living, saving, and spiritual faith, except so far as it is from charity which is from the Lord. Since the good of love is the all of heaven and the church, therefore the whole heaven and the whole church are arranged by the Lord according to the affections of love, and not according to anything of thought separated from them; for thought is affection in form; as speech is sound in form.

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