Apocalypse Revealed (Coulsons) n. 908

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908. That all the things of heaven and the Church are derived from the good of love, and the good of love is derived from the Lord, cannot be seen, and therefore cannot be known, unless it is demonstrated. The reason why it cannot be known because it is not seen is because good does not enter into a man's thought as truth does, for truth is seen in thought because it is derived from the light of heaven, but good is only felt because it is derived from the heat of heaven, and it is rare for anyone, while reflecting on the things that he is thinking, to pay attention to the things that he is feeling, but [he is only concerned with] the things that he sees. This is because the learned have attributed all things to thought and not to affection; and it may be seen above (n. 875) that the Church has attributed all things to faith and not to love, when yet the truth that is at present in the Church called 'the truth of faith' or 'faith' is only the form of the good that is of love. Now because a man does not see the good in his thoughts, for the good, as was said, is only felt, and is felt under various species of delight; and because the man does not pay attention to what he feels in his thought, but to what he sees there; therefore he calls good all that he feels delightful (ex jucundo), and he feels evil delightful because this has been engendered in him by birth, and proceeds out of the love of self and the world. This is why it is not known that the good of love is everything of heaven and the Church, and that this does not exist in a man except from the Lord, and that it does not inflow from the Lord with any other man but one who flees from evils with their delights as sins. [2] These are the things that are understood by the Lord's words, that the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments:-

Thou shalt love God above all things, and the neighbour as thyself Matt. xxii 37-40 [Schm. 35-38].

And I can firmly assert that not a grain of truth that in itself is truth is given with a man except so far as it is derived from the good of love from the Lord; and consequently not a grain of faith that in itself is faith, that is, a living, saving and spiritual faith, except so far as it is derived from the charity that is from the Lord. Since the good of love is everything of heaven and the Church, therefore the entire heaven and the entire Church have been arranged by the Lord in accordance with the affections of love, and not in accordance with anything of thought separated from them; for thought is affection in form, just as speech is sound in form.


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