The Doctrine of Charity - Swedenborg Foundation

CHARITY 248119. The life of a man is in all that he wills and thinks, and saysand does. No one can do anything from any other life than hisown. All his actions are effects of his life, and have therefore alikeness to it.120. In the spiritual world affections are all imaged in variousways, as trees, gardens, birds, animals. In these, when inmostlyregarded, an image of the man appears. They are representative ofhim.121. In a word, there is an image of the man in each and allthings belonging to him. 31122. (6) The neighbor may be loved from what is not charity; butthis, in itself regarded, is not loving the neighbor. This may beillustrated by examples. An evil man may love a good man and yetnot love good in itself. A man may say of a Gentile, who says hedoes his work faithfully because it is the will of God, “An atheistcan love him.” A man who does not love his country, when hehears another speaking and knows that he loves his country, can, asit were, love him; he hearkens to him, obeys him, saying, “He is aman of good heart; he speaks from love.” I have heard somehundreds giving assent to a man renowned for love of country, andscarcely ten among them loved their country. So if one is listeningto a preacher, and he declares to his hearers that he speaks fromGod, from zeal for their souls, even those that do not love God,and do not believe, may yet be affected while they are listening tothese things, may praise him, love him, and send him gifts.Everyone who is sincere is loved by the insincere; every true man isloved by the untruthful; every faithful man, by the unfaithful; thechaste man who loves his wife, by the unchaste; and so on.31. [Annotation from the margin.] There is compassion of charity, mercy ofcharity, friendship of charity, benevolence of charity, modesty of charity; in aword, all the virtues are charity, but they come under other names, and so underanother species.