Verses 1-3. The worship of the Lord from the highest degree of celestial love is described.

Verse 4. Then follows a description of worship from interior celestial love, or charity to the neighbour, showing how it is connected with that from the highest celestial good, which is pure love to the Lord, and the lowest

Verses 5-6. A similar description of worship from celestial good in the Internal of the Natural succeeds, accompanied by an account of the arrangement of truths there, and of the influx of inmost celestial good.

Verse 7. And lastly, worship from the External of the Natural is described, showing that it is similar to worship from higher loves, but is in a lower degree

Verses 8-10. It is then shown that celestial worship in all these degrees and ways involves certain particulars, namely: the power to worship must be ascribed to the Lord; it must be acknowledged to be from celestial good inmostly derived from Him; and it must be exercised from Him. Also the worshiper will realize the conjunction of truth with good as from himself; he will be able to devote his life to the service of the Lord; he will experience a state of heavenly joy and peace; he will be able to appropriate good and truth; and he will worship the Lord from pure love

Verses 11-13. Again this worship of the Lord must be free from falsity; it must not be vitiated by merely natural delight; such imperfect worship only appertains to preparatory states; and in all worship there must be the mutual desire of truth for good and of good for truth, or in other words, every one who really loves the truth will desire also to be good, and all who sincerely desire to be good will also long for the truth

Verses 14-16. And also, during such worship, in preparatory states, it will be from natural good, and truth influenced by celestial good, and involving the sincere acknowledgement of the Lord.

4976. 'And ministered to him' means that factual knowledge was assigned to its own good. This is clear from the meaning of 'ministering' as serving by supplying what another has need of, in this case as being assigned to since the subject is natural good to which factual knowledge is to be assigned. 'Ministering' is also used to describe known facts, for in the Word a minister and a servant mean factual knowledge or natural truth because this is subservient to good as its lord. Factual knowledge stands in relation to delight present in the natural man - or what amounts to the same, natural truth stands in relation to its good - in exactly the same way as water does to bread, or drink to food. Water or drink enables bread or food to be dissolved, and once dissolved to be conveyed into the blood, from which it passes into all parts around the body and nourishes them. Without the water or drink the bread or food is not broken down into extremely small particles and carried around the body to fulfill its purpose.

[2] The same applies to factual knowledge in relation to delight, or truth in relation to good. That being so, good longs for and desires truth, and does so because of the purpose such truth can fulfill by ministering to it and serving it. Food and drink also correspond to these. No one in the next life is nourished by any natural food or natural drink, only by spiritual food and spiritual drink, spiritual food being good, and spiritual drink truth. This is why, when bread or food is mentioned in the Word, angels understand spiritual bread or food, which is the good of love and charity; and when water or drink is mentioned they understand spiritual water or drink, which is the truth of faith. From this one may see what the truth of faith without the good of charity is, and also what kind of nourishment the former without the latter is able to supply to the internal man; that is to say, it is like the nourishment supplied by water or drink alone without bread or food. It is well known that a person fed on water or drink alone wastes away and dies.