DLW 426
These
loves are spiritual and celestial for the reason
that to love useful
services
and to perform them from a love of them
is divorced from
a
person's love of his own self-interest.
For one who loves useful
services spiritually
regards not himself
but others apart from himself,
being affected by a concern for their welfare.
Opposed to these
loves
are loves of self and the world,
for loves of self and the world
have regard for useful services
not for the sake of others
but for the
sake of self;
and people who do this invert Divine order,
putting
themselves in place of the Lord,
and the world in place of heaven.
Consequently they look away
from the Lord and heaven,
and to look away
from them
is to look in the direction of hell.
Still, a person is not as sensible and cognizant
of a
love of performing useful services
for the sake of those useful services
as he is of a love of performing useful services
for the sake of
himself.
Therefore he also does not know,
when performing useful
services,
whether he is doing them
for the sake of the useful services
or for the sake of self.
Let him know, however,
that he performs useful
services
for the sake of the useful services
to the extent that he
refrains from evils.
For to the extent that he refrains from these,
to
the same extent he performs useful services,
not from himself,
but from
the Lord.
Evil and good, indeed, are opposites,
and consequently to the
extent
that someone is not engaged in evil,
to the same extent he is
engaged in good.
No one can be engaged in evil and in good
at the same
time,
because no one
can simultaneously serve two masters.
We have said this much to make it known
that even though a person
does not sensibly perceive whether
the useful services he performs
are
for the sake of the useful services
or whether they are for the sake of
himself,
or in other words,
whether the useful services are spiritual
or
whether they are merely natural,
still he can know it
from considering
whether he thinks
evils are sins or not.
If he thinks they are sins,
and
on that account does not do them,
then the useful services he performs
are spiritual.
And when the same person refrains from sins
from an
aversion to them,
he also begins to perceive sensibly in himself then
a
love of useful services
for the sake of the useful services,
and this
because of the spiritual delight
he finds in them.
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