Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/177



this time Swedenborg began to project his treatise on the Worship and Love of God. He seems to have felt a Divine call to write it, and at times to have doubted whether he ought not to leave his other work for the purpose. Yet it was with reference to this treatise that he received the following caution:—

"October 6 and 7. . . . Afterward I lighted upon these thoughts and received this instruction, namely, that all love for whatever object—as, for instance, for the work on which I am now engaged—when the object is loved in itself and not as a means to the only love, which is to God and Jesus Christ, is a meretricious love. For this reason also this love is always compared in the Word of God to whoredom. This I have also experienced in myself. But when love to God is man's chief love, then he does not entertain for