Divine Love and Wisdom (Harleys) n. 333

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333. Uses for receiving the spiritual from the Lord are all the things which belong to religion and to worship therefrom, thus all things that teach the acknowledgment and knowledge of God, and the knowledge and acknowledgment of good and truth and thus eternal life. These are acquired as other learning from parents, teachers, publications and books, and especially by applying what is learned to life, and in the Christian world, by doctrines and sermons from the Word, and through the Word from the Lord. These uses in their whole extent may be described in the same terms as the uses of the body, as nourishment, clothing, habitation, recreation, enjoyment, and protection of state, if only these are applied to the soul, nutrition answering to goods of love, clothing to truths of wisdom, habitation to heaven, recreation and enjoyment to happiness of life and heavenly joy, protection to safety from infesting evils, and preservation of state to eternal life. All these things are given by the Lord according to the acknowledgment that all bodily things are also from the Lord, and that man is only a servant and domestic administrator appointed over the goods of his Lord.


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