Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/135

Rh "Every man's character is known from his [dominant] love; for love is the esse of every one's life, the veriest life itself deriving its existence from it. The man, therefore, is such as is the nature of the love which rules in him. If it be the love of self and the world, and consequently of revenge, hatred, cruelty, adultery and the like, the man as to his spirit, or the interior man that lives after death, is a devil, whatever be his outward appearance. But if his prevailing love be the love of God and the neighbor, and consequently the love of goodness and truth, also of justice and honesty, he, whatever be his outward appearance, is an angel as to his spirit that lives after death." (A. C. n. 6872. See also n. 379, 33, 10,284. Ap. Ex. n. 251.)

"It is of no advantage to a man to know much unless he lives according to what he knows. For knowledge has no other end than goodness; and he who is made good [that is, pure and unselfish in his character] is in possession of a far richer treasure than he whose knowledge is the most extensive, and yet is destitute of goodness; for what the latter is seeking by his great acquirements, the former already possesses. . . . They who know little, but have a conscience [or who follow the little light they have], become enlightened in the other world even so as to become angels; and then their wisdom and intelligence are inexpressible." (A. C. n. 1100.)

A man's character, therefore, or his spiritual nearness to God, depends not so much on what he understands, thinks or believes, as on the kind and degree of his love—the state of his heart, or Rh