Arcana Coelestia volume 7 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 3610country, and to societies in general and in particular, and thusshould take pleasure in the use of dignities. The merely naturalman is wholly ignorant what this pleasure is, and denies itsexistence; and although he too can hypocritically say the samething, he nevertheless makes pleasure from dignities for the sake ofself the lord, and pleasure from dignities for the sake of societies, ingeneral and particular, the servant; for he regards himself ineverything he does, and societies after himself, favoring them onlyinsofar as they favor him.[2] Let us take another example. If it is said that the use and theend make a thing spiritual or not spiritual—use and end for thecommon good, the church, and the kingdom of God, making it tobe spiritual, but use and end for the sake of self and one’s ownprevailing over the former use and end, making it to be notspiritual—this indeed the natural man can acknowledge with themouth, but not with the heart; with the mouth from an instructedunderstanding, not with the heart from an understanding destroyedby evil affections. From this latter he makes use and end for thesake of self a lord, and use and end for the sake of the commongood, of the church, and of the kingdom of God, a servant; nay, hesays in his heart, Who can ever be otherwise?[3] In a word, the natural man regards as utterly worthless andrejects whatever he regards as separate from himself, and he valuesand accepts whatever he regards as conjoined with himself—notknowing nor wishing to know that it is spiritual to regard everyoneas conjoined with himself who is in good, whether he is unknownor known; and to regard everyone as separate from himself who isin evil, whether he is known or unknown; for he is then conjoinedwith those who are in heaven, and disjoined from those who are inhell. But because the natural man feels no pleasure from this (for hereceives no spiritual influx), he therefore regards it as utterly vileand servile, and thus as of no account in comparison with thepleasure he feels that flows in through the senses of the body andthrough the evil affections of the love of self and of the world; yetthis pleasure is dead because it is from hell, whereas the pleasure