HH 479 - Every Love; HH 483-484 - Love in Act

HH 479 [5]

. . . every love wishes to be nourished on
what belongs to it,
evil love by falsities
and good love by truths.

I have sometimes been permitted to see
certain simple good spirits desiring to instruct
the evil in truths and goods;
but when the instruction was offered them
they fled far away,
and when they came to their own
they seized with great pleasure upon the falsities
that were in agreement with their love.
I have also seen good spirits
talking together about truths,
and the good who were present
listened eagerly to the conversation,
but the evil who were present paid no attention to it,
as if they did not hear it.

HH 483-484

Love in act is work and deed.

It must be understood that all works and deeds
pertain to moral and civil life,
and therefore have regard to what is honest and right,
and what is just and equitable,
what is honest and right pertaining to moral life,
and what is just and equitable to civil life.
The love from which deeds are done
is either heavenly or infernal.
Works and deeds of moral and civil life,
when they are done from heavenly love, are heavenly;
for what is done from heavenly love
is done from the Lord,
and everything done from the Lord is good.
But the deeds and works of moral and civil life
when done from infernal love are infernal;
for what is done from this love,
which is the love of self and of the world,
is done from the person himself,
and everything that is done
from a person himself is in itself evil;
for a person regarded in himself,
that is, in regard to what is his own (proprium),
is nothing but evil.