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.

The difference between these two is described by the Lord in Matthew 5:43-44ff.

Many say, "I love him because he loves me and is good to me." But to love someone on that account alone is not to love him inwardly, unless the person who loves him has goodness in himself and is prompted by it to love the other’s goodness. Such a person is governed by charity, while the prior is governed by a friendship that lacks charity.

Someone prompted by charity to love the neighbor associates himself with the other’s goodness, and not with his person, except insofar and for so long as the other continues his goodness. He is a spiritual person and loves the neighbor spiritually. But someone who loves another out of friendship alone associates himself with the other’s person and at the same time with his evil. After death he can only with difficulty be separated from the person in evil, whereas the spiritual person can be easily separated.

Charity accomplishes this through faith, because faith is truth, and a person in a state of charity uses truth to examine and see what there is to be loved, and he regards the nature of the use to be served in his loving another and doing him good.