Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/252

246 from the love of self or gain. Nor is any one influenced by the love of gain for the sake of maintenance, because all the necessaries of life are given them gratis;—their habitations, garments and food." (H. H. 393.)

Thus the heaven which Swedenborg tells us of, is altogether a human heaven; involving the existence, therefore, of all kinds of affairs properly human—ecclesiastical, civil, social and domestic—and their necessary administration. Ecclesiastical affairs there, are in charge of those "who, when in the world, loved the Word and earnestly searched for the truth it contains," not for the sake of honor or gain, but for the improvement of their own and others' lives; and these are "in the light of wisdom according to their love of use, for they come into that light there from the Word." And their civil affairs are administered by those "who, while in the world, loved their country and its general good in preference to their own, and did what is just and right from a love of justice and rectitude," that is, from a love of use, and not from the love of honor or greed of gain.

Now, what can be more reasonable than this? We were evidently created to be forms of use in the kingdom of God. And we can fulfill the purpose of our creation, only by the active exercise of our God-given faculties in the doing of something useful. A life devoted exclusively to oral prayer