AE - Divine Love - XVII
Every person has eternal life according to his affection of use, for the reason that affection is the person himself; consequently, such as the affection is, such is the person.
[5] 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.
Spiritual affection is acquired by shunning evils because they are sins; which is done by means of combat against them. The evils that a person must shun are all set forth written in the Decalogue. So far as person fights against them because they are sins, he becomes a spiritual affection, and thus he performs uses from spiritual life....
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 no others is it granted by the Lord to love Him above all things and the neighbor as oneself.
If a person, 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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment