Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/261

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THE PURPOSE IS THE VITAL THING.
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herein is. He may imagine that the delight of the natural loves which are self-love and the love of the world, cannot agree with spiritual truth and good; for he does not know that man, in the course of regeneration, is altogether to be inverted, and that when he is inverted he is with his head in heaven; but until he is inverted, he is with his head in hell. He is with his head in hell when he regards the delights of self-love or the love of the world as an end; but he is with his head in heaven when these delights are as means conducive to an end. For the end which is love, is the only thing appertaining to man that is living, the means conducive to the end being of themselves not living, but receiving life from the end. Hence means from the ultimate end are called middle [or mediate] ends, which, so far as they regard the ultimate end which is the principal, are living.

Hence it is that when a man is regenerated, consequently when he regards as an end to love his neighbor and to love the Lord, then he regards as means to love himself and the world. When a man is of this character, while he looks at the Lord he accounts himself and the world as nothing; and if he regards himself as any thing, it is that he may serve the Lord. (A. C. 8995.)


THE INNER LIFE REVEALED.

The single character by which a man's affections are distinguished, is grounded in their end. For if they

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