Charity (Whitehead) n. 193

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

193. If the affection of charity is in them, then all the above- mentioned diversions are for its recreation, spectacles and plays, musical harmonies and songs, and all the beauties of fields and gardens, and social interaction in general. The affection of use remains interiorly within them, which, while it is thus resting, is gradually renewed. A longing for one's work breaks or ends them. For the Lord flows into them from heaven and renews; and He also gives an interior sense of pleasure in them, which they who are not in the affection of charity know nothing of. He breathes into them a fragrance or, as it were, sweetness perceptible only to one's self. A fragrance, it is said, by which is meant a spiritual pleasantness; and sweetness, by which is meant spiritual delight. Pleasantness is predicated of wisdom, and of the perception of the understanding therefrom; and delight is predicated of love, and of the affection therefrom of the will. They who are not in the affection of charity have not these, because the spiritual mind is closed; and in the degree that they depart from charity the spiritual mind, as to its voluntary part, is as if stuffed with something glutinous.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church