10307. 'And the incense which you make, according to its composition, you shall not make for yourselves' means that worship consisting of the Church's holy truths must not be attached to the loves that are a person's own. This is clear from the meaning of 'the incense' as worship, dealt with above in 10298; from the meaning of 'making according to its composition' as consisting of the Church's holy truths ('making according to its composition' implies making from the same spices, and those spices - stacte, onycha, and galbanum - mean the Church's holy truths in their proper order, 10292-10294); and from the meaning of 'you shall not make for yourselves' as not attaching to selfish purposes, thus to the loves which are a person's own. For what a person does for the sake of himself he does for the sake of his own selfish loves. An attaching is meant here because it speaks of their making the incense for themselves.

[2] The situation in all this must also be stated. All the truths which the Church possesses have two loves in view - love to God and love towards the neighbour. The whole Word, consisting of Divine Truth itself, from which all the truths that the Church possesses are derived, hangs on those two loves, as is clear in Matthew 22:40; Mark 12:30-31; and Luke 10:27. These places say that all the Law and the Prophets hang on them; and by 'the Law and the Prophets' the whole Word is meant. But it is quite the opposite to attach Divine Truth or the Church's truths to the loves that are a person's own. By doing this the person turns away from the Lord towards self, that is, away from heaven towards hell and becomes as one of those who are there. For those in hell have the Lord behind their back and their own loves before their face. Indeed when seen by angels they appear upside down, with head downwards and feet upwards.

[3] When God's truths become attached to the loves that are a person's own they cease to be truths, because attaching them to those loves allows evil to penetrate them, which perverts them and produces an outward display of falsity from them. But if such people are told that truths should not be treated and understood in that way but in some other, they do not wish to grasp this, and some in fact cannot do so. For to tell anyone something that goes against the assumptions reinforced by his own loves is to go against the actual person; for it is to go against his understanding as governed by his will. Those who falsify truths and adulterate forms of good by attaching them to their own selfish loves are dealt with many times in the Word, where Babel is the subject, in particular in the Book of Revelation.