DFAITH 20-21, 22-23 - The Neighbor

DFAITH 20-21, 22-23

Because charity is love for the neighbor,
we must say what the neighbor is.

In the natural sense,
the neighbor is mankind collectively and individually.
Mankind collectively is the church,
the country, and society.
And mankind individually
is one’s fellow countryman,
who in the Word is called brother and companion.

In the spiritual sense, however,
the neighbor is goodness,
and because useful endeavor is good,
the neighbor in the spiritual sense is useful endeavor.

It must be acknowledged by everyone
that useful endeavor is the spiritual neighbor.
For who loves someone only for his person?
Rather he loves him for what he has in him,
which makes him the kind of person he is,
thus for his character;
for this is the real person.

This character that makes a person loveable
is useful endeavor,
and it is called good.
This is accordingly the neighbor.

Because the Word at its heart is spiritual,
therefore loving useful endeavor
is what it is to love the neighbor
in its spiritual sense.

DFAITH 21

Yet it is one thing to love the neighbor
for the good or use he may be to us,
and another to love the neighbor
for the good or use we may be to him.
To love the neighbor
for the good or use he may be to us
is something an evil person can do;
but to love the neighbor
for the good or use we may be to him
is something only a good person can do.
For it is the goodness in him
that prompts a good person to love good,
or the affection for useful endeavor in him
that prompts him to love useful endeavor.

DFAITH 22

Properly speaking,
love is love toward the Lord,
and love for the neighbor is charity.
It is impossible for a person
to have love toward the Lord
unless he possesses charity.
It is in charity
that the Lord conjoins himself with a person.

Because faith in its essence is charity,
it follows that no one can have faith in the Lord
unless he possesses charity.
It is charity operating through faith
that brings about conjunction —
charity occasioning a conjunction
of the Lord with a person,
and faith a conjunction
of the person with the Lord.

DFAITH 23

In brief: 
In proportion as any one shuns evils as sins,
and looks to the Lord,
in the same proportion he is in charity,
and therefore in the same proportion he is in faith.