Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/335

 and courts which exceed in magnificence and splendor those of emperors and kings on earth, and honor and glory flow around them from the number of their attendants, ministers and guards, and from their magnificent vestures. But they who have the highest rank are selected from those whose hearts are in the public welfare, and who are only as to the senses of the body in the fullness of magnificence for the sake of obedience. And because it is for the public welfare that every one should be of some use in society as in a common body, and because all use is from the Lord, and is done through angels and through men as if by them, it is plain that this is to reign with the Lord."—C. L, n. 7.

"There are three things which flow as one from the Lord into our minds; these are love, wisdom and use. But love and wisdom do not exist unless ideally, when only in the affections and thoughts of the mind; but they exist really in use, because they are simultaneously in act and bodily work; and where they exist really, there they also subsist. And because love and wisdom exist and subsist in use, it is use which affects us; and use is faithfully, sincerely and diligently to perform the works of one's office. The love of use, and therefrom a fixed attention to use, hold the mind together, so that it may not flow forth and dissipate itself, and wander about, and drink in all the lusts which flow-in from the body and the world through the senses, with their allurements, by which the truths of religion and morality with all their goods, are scattered to the winds. But a studious fixing of the mind upon use, holds and binds them together in use, and disposes the mind into a form receptive of wisdom from those truths; and then it exterminates the sports and mockeries of falsities and vanities."—Ibid. n. 16.

"The wise ones said: Man when first:created was imbued with wisdom and its love, not for the sake of