Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/141

Rh "It is well to observe that the man who is regenerated is not deprived of the delight of pleasures of the body or the mind; for this delight he enjoys fully after regeneration, even more fully than before, but in an inverted ratio. The delight of pleasures before regeneration was the all of his life; but after regeneration the good of charity becomes the all of his life, and in this case the delight of pleasures serves as a means and an ultimate plane, in which spiritual good with its happiness and blessedness terminates. When, therefore, the order is to be inverted, then the former delight of pleasures expires and becomes as nothing, and a new delight from a spiritual origin is insinuated in its place." (A. C. n. 8413.)

"Some suppose that whoever desires to be happy in the other world must by no means enjoy the pleasures of the body and sense, but must abstain from all such delights, urging in favor of this, that corporeal and worldly pleasures abstract and detain the mind from spiritual and celestial life. They who think so, however, and therefore voluntarily give themselves up to wretchedness while living in the world, are not aware of the real truth.

"It is by no means forbidden any one to enjoy corporeal or sensual pleasures, or those arising from the possession of lands, money, honors and public appointments; those of conjugial love and love of infants and children, of friendship and social intercourse; the pleasure of listening to singing and music, or of seeing beautiful things of various kinds, such as handsome apparel, well-furnished houses, magnificent gardens, and the like, all of which are delightful from harmony;