934. That fruits symbolize the good works that a person does out of love or charity is, indeed, something known without confirmation from the Word, for no one who reads the Word interprets fruits to mean anything else.

Fruits symbolize the goods of love or charity because a person is likened to a tree and is also called a tree (nos. 89, 400).

That fruits symbolize the goods of love or charity, which in common speech are called good works, may be seen from the following passages:

...the ax is laid to the root of the tree. Every tree... which does not bear good fruit shall be cut down and thrown into the fire. (Matthew 3:10, cf. 7:16-20)

Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree rotten and its fruit rotten; ...a tree is known by its fruit. (Matthew 12:33, cf. Luke 6:43-44)

Every branch... that does not bear fruit (shall be taken away); and every branch that bears fruit (shall be pruned), that it may bear more fruit... He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit... (John 15:2-8).

...bear fruits worthy of repentance... (Matthew 3:8)

He who received seed on the good ground is someone who hears the Word and heeds it (and) bears fruit... (Matthew 13:23)

(Jesus said to His disciples,) ."..I chose you... that you should... bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain... (John 15:16)

A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; he came seeking fruit on it and found none. He said to the keeper of his vineyard, ."..Cut it down; why should it render the ground fruitless?" (Luke 13:6-9)

...a certain householder... leased (his vineyard) to husbandmen..., that (he) might receive its fruit. But the husbandmen (killed) his servants (that he sent to them)..., and last of all... his son... (Therefore he) will lease his vineyard to (others) who will render to him the fruits in their seasons... Therefore... the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it. (Matthew 21:33-35, 37-39, 41, 43)

And so on in many other places.

908. No one can see or therefore know that everything connected with heaven and the church springs from the goodness of love unless it is demonstrated. It is not known because it is not seen, and the reason is that goodness does not enter a person's thinking as truth does. For truth is seen in thought, because it is illumined by the light of heaven, whereas goodness is only felt, because it exists in response to the warmth of heaven, and when someone reflects on what he is thinking, rarely does he pay attention to what he is feeling, but only to what he sees.

For this reason the learned have attributed everything to thought and not to affection, and the church has attributed everything to faith and not to love, even though the truth that people in the church today call faith or the truth of faith is only a formal expression of the goodness of love, as may be seen in no. 875 above.

Now because a person does not see the goodness in his thinking, inasmuch as goodness, as we said, is only felt, and is felt in the guise of various kinds of delight, and because a person does not pay attention to what he is feeling in his thinking, but only to what he sees in it, therefore he calls good everything that he feels with delight; and he feels evil with delight, because it is inherent in him from birth to do so and emanates from his love of self and the world. That is why people do not know that the goodness of love is everything in heaven and the church, and exists in a person only from the Lord, and why it flows in from the Lord only in someone who refrains from evils and their delights as sins.

[2] This is the meaning of the Lord's declaration that the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments: you shall love God above all things, and the neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-40).

Moreover I can assert that a person cannot possess a grain of truth that is in itself true except to the extent that it springs from the goodness of love from the Lord, and so cannot possess a grain of faith that is in itself faith, that is, a living, saving and spiritual faith, except to the extent that it springs from charity from the Lord.

Since the goodness of love is everything in heaven and the church, therefore the whole of heaven and the whole church are set in order in accordance with the affections of people's love, and not in accordance with any of their thinking divorced from those affections. For thought is affection given form, as speech is sound given form.