4637. About charity toward the neighbor

When holiness and goodness falls down from the Lord through angels into mankind and its enjoyments of life, then it is almost like a hidden seed falling into the ground. If the enjoyment is pride, or the love of self, then it falls into bad ground, containing thorns [Matthew 13:7, Mark 4:7, Luke 8:7], so also if it falls into the person's enjoyment of the lusting after profit, so that this kind of ground is looked upon by the angels as something sterile, rotten, and excremental, into which nothing of good can fall, without being swallowed up by evils. But if goodness and holiness from the Lord falls into the enjoyment of caring for others, into the affection for justice and righteousness, as well as into contempt for profit and honor except for the sake of a use, then it falls into good ground, and bears much seed [Matthew 13:8, Mark 4:8, Luke 8:8]. The affection itself is the ground, the quality of which is sensed from no other source than the person's enjoyment. The best ground is there if there is the affection of caring for others, and in fact, if there is the caring of faith in the Lord.

mThe enjoyment of honor and position not on account of use is the worst ground, as also the enjoyment of riches not on account of use. Such as the quality of the use is, such is the enjoyment.n