106. FROM THE ARCANA COELESTIA.

Heaven is distinguished into two kingdoms, one of which is called the celestial kingdom, and the other the spiritual kingdom; the love in the celestial kingdom is love to the Lord, and is called celestial love; and the love in the spiritual kingdom is love towards the neighbor, or charity, and is called spiritual love (n. 3325, 3653, 7257, 9002, 9835, 9961). Heaven is distinguished into two kingdoms, see the work on Heaven and Hell (n. 20-28); and the Divine of the Lord in the heavens is love to Him, and charity towards the neighbor (n. 13-19 in the same).

It cannot be known what good is and what truth is, unless it be known what love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor are, because all good is of love, and all truth is of good (n. 7255, 7366). To know truths, to will truths, and to be affected with them for the sake of truths, that is, because they are truths, is charity (n. 3876-3877). Charity consists in an internal affection of doing truth, and not in an external affection without an internal one (n. 2429, 2442, 3776, 4899, 4956, 8033). Thus charity consists in performing uses for the sake of uses (n. 7038, 8253). Charity is the spiritual life of man (n. 7081). The whole Word is the doctrine of love and charity (n. 6632, 7262). It is not known at this day what charity is (n. 2417, 3398, 4776, 6632). Nevertheless man may know from the light of his own reason, that love and charity make the man (n. 3957, 6273). Also that good and truth agree together, and that one is of the other, and so also love and faith (n. 7627).

The Lord is the neighbor in the highest sense, because He is to be loved above all things; and hence all is the neighbor which is from Him, and in which he is, thus good and truth (n. 2425, 3419 , 6706 , 6819 , 6823, 8124). The distinction of neighbor is according to the quality of good, thus according to the presence of the Lord (n. 6707-6710). Every man and every society, also our country and the church, and, in the universal sense, the kingdom of the Lord, are the neighbor, and to do good to them according to the quality of their state from the love of good, is to love the neighbor; thus the neighbor is their good, which is to be consulted (n. 6818-6824, 8123). Civil good, which is justice, and moral good, which is the good of life in society, and is called sincerity, are also the neighbor (n. 2915, 4730, 8120-8122). To love the neighbor does not consist in loving his person, but in loving that with him from which he is, consequently good and truth (n. 5028, 10336). They who love the person, and not that which is with him from which he is, love evil as well as good (n. 3820). And they do good to the evil as well as to the good, when nevertheless doing good to the evil is doing evil to the good, which is not loving the neighbor (n. 3820, 6703, 8120). The judge who punishes the evil that they may be amended, and that the good may not be contaminated by them, loves the neighbor (n. 3820, 8120-8121).

To love the neighbor is to do what is good, just, and right, in every work and in every office (n. 8120-8122). Hence charity towards the neighbor extends itself to each and every thing which man thinks, wills, and does (n. 8124). To do what is good and true is to love the neighbor (n. 10310, 10336). They who do this love the Lord, who in the highest sense is the neighbor (n. 9210). The life of charity is a life according to the commandments of the Lord; and to live according to Divine truths is to love the Lord (n. 10143, 10153, 10310, 10578, 10645).

Genuine charity is not meritorious (n. 2027, 2343, 2400, 3887, 6388-6393). Because it is from internal affection, consequently from the delight of the life of doing good (n. 2373, 2400, 3887, 6388-6393). They who separate faith from charity, in another life hold faith and the good works which they have done in the external form as meritorious (n. 2373). They who are in evils from the love of self or the love of the world, do not know what it is to do good without remuneration, thus what that charity is which is not meritorious (n. 8037).

The doctrine of the Ancient Church was the doctrine of life, which is the doctrine of charity (n. 2385, 2417, 3419-3420, 4844, 6628). Thence they had intelligence and wisdom (n. 2417, 6629, 7259-7262). Intelligence and wisdom increase immensely in the other life with those who have lived a life of charity in the world (n. 1941, 5859). The Lord flows in with Divine truth into charity, because into the essential life of man (n. 2063). The man with whom charity and faith are conjoined is like a garden; but like a desert with whom they are not conjoined (n. 7626). Man recedes from wisdom in proportion as he recedes from charity; and they who are not in charity, are in ignorance concerning Divine truths, however wise they think themselves (n. 2417, 2435). The angelic life consists in performing the goods of charity, which are uses (n. 454). The spiritual angels, who are they that are in the good of charity, are forms of charity (n. 553, 3804, 4735).

All spiritual truths regard charity as their beginning and end (n. 4353). The doctrinals of the church effect nothing unless they regard charity as their end (n. 2049, 2116).

The presence of the Lord with men and angels is according to their state of love and charity (n. 549, 904). Charity is the image of God (n. 1013). Love to the Lord, consequently the Lord, is within charity, although man does not know it (n. 2227, 5066-5067). They who live a life of charity are accepted as citizens both in the world and in heaven (n. 1121). The good of charity is not to be violated (n. 2359).

They who are not in charity cannot acknowledge and worship the Lord except from hypocrisy (n. 2132, 4424, 9833). The forms of hatred and of charity cannot exist together (n. 1860).

8037. Those who have self-love and love of the world as their end in view cannot have any charity or faith at all within them. People ruled by those loves do not even know what charity is or what faith is; they do not begin to understand that when a person desires his neighbour's good without thought of reward he has heaven within himself, or that this affection brings happiness as great as that enjoyed by the angels, which is indescribable. For those people think that if they are deprived of the joy received from the glory of holding important positions and possessing wealth, no joy at all exists any longer. But that is just when heavenly joy begins; and this joy is infinitely superior.

3804. 'And she ran and told her father' means acknowledgement by means of interior truths. This is clear from the meaning of 'running and telling' as the affection for making known, in this case from acknowledgement; and from the meaning of 'her father' as the good meant by 'Laban'. The bringing about of that acknowledgement by means of interior truths is represented by 'Rachel', who means the affection for interior truth. Consequently these words mean acknowledgment by means of interior truths. The situation is this: The existence of the good which Jacob represents, the good of the natural, like all good in general, is known and acknowledged, but not the specific character of it except by means of truths. For good receives its own specific character from truths, and so it is by means of truths that it is known and acknowledged. For good does not become the good which is called the good of charity until truths have been implanted in it. And the character of the truths implanted in it determines that of the good.

[2] This is why one person's good, though seemingly just the same, is not however like another's, for the good in every single human being throughout the whole world is different from that in any other. It is like human faces in which for the most part affections present themselves, in that none throughout the whole human race is exactly like another. Truths themselves compose so to speak the face of good, whose beauty arises from the form which truth takes; but it is good that produces the affections there. All angelic forms are such, and man would be such if from interior life he were ruled by love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour. Man was created into forms such as these because he was created in the likeness and image of God, and forms such as these are the ones whose spirits have been regenerated, whatever appearance their bodies present. From this one may see what is meant by the statement that good is acknowledged by means of interior truths.