Page:Arcana Coelestia (Potts) vol 1.djvu/159



And in David:—

But the works of charity are living, and of them it is declared that they "take root downward, and bear fruit upward;" as in Isaiah:—

To "bear fruit upward," is to act from charity. Such fruit is called the "fruit of excellence," in the same Prophet:—

It is also the "fruit of salvation," and is so called by the same Prophet:—

. That by an "offering" is meant worship, is evident from the representatives of the Jewish Church, in which, sacrifices of every kind, as well as the first fruits of the earth and of all its produce, and the oblation of the firstborn, were called "offerings," in which their worship consisted. And as they all represented heavenly things, and all had reference to the Lord, it must be obvious to every one that true worship was signified by these offerings. For what is a representative without the thing it represents? or what is an external religion without an internal but a kind of idol and a thing of death? The external has life from things internal, that is, through these from the Lord. From these considerations it is evident that all the offerings of a representative church signify the worship of the Lord; and concerning these of the Lord's Divine mercy we shall treat in particular in the following pages. That by