IN THE DEGREE THAT A MAN IS IN THE LOVE OF USE, HE IS IN THE LORD, IN THAT DEGREE ALSO HE LOVES HIM AND LOVES THE NEIGHBOUR, AND IN THAT DEGREE IS HE A MAN

A consideration of the love of uses teaches what is meant by loving the Lord and loving the neighbour, and in addition, what is meant by being in the Lord and being a man. "Loving the Lord" means to do uses from Him and for His sake. "Loving the neighbour" means to do uses to the Church, to one's Country, to human society and to one's fellow-citizen. "Being in the Lord" means to be a use, and "being a man" means to do uses from the Lord to the neighbour for His sake.

[36.] The reason loving the Lord means to do uses from Him and for His sake is that all the good uses a man does are from the Lord; good uses are "goods," and the latter, it is well known, are from the Lord; and loving them is to do them, for what a man loves, that he does. There is no other way in which the Lord can be loved, for uses, which are goods, are from the Lord and are therefore Divine, or rather, they are the Lord Himself with man. These are what the Lord can love; except by means of His own Divine things, He cannot be conjoined in love to any man, consequently He cannot enable a man to love Him, for a man cannot from himself love the Lord: the Lord Himself draws the man and conjoins him to Himself. On account of this, loving the Lord as a Person and not loving uses, is loving Him from oneself, and that is not loving. He who does uses, or goods, from the Lord, is also doing them for His sake. These things can be illustrated by the celestial love in which angels of the third heaven are. These angels are in love to the Lord more than angels of the other heavens; they do not understand loving the Lord to be anything else than doing goods that are uses, declaring that uses are the Lord with them. By "uses" they mean the uses and good services of one's office, administration or occupation, as well in the case of priests and officials, as of those engaged in trade and industry. Good services that do not come within the scope of their duties they do not call "uses" but alms, benefactions and favours (gratuita).

[2] [37.] The reason loving the neighbour means doing uses to the Church, to one's Country, to a society and to a fellow-citizen, is that these are the neighbour in both its wide and narrow senses; nor can these be loved in any other way than by doing the uses connected with one's occupation. Church, Country, society and citizen, thus the neighbour, is being loved by a priest if he is teaching and leading his hearers from a zeal for their salvation. Church, Country, society and citizen, thus the neighbour, is being loved by those in authority and by governors if they carry out their duties from a zeal for the general good: by judges, if from justice; by traders, if from uprightness: by workmen, if from honesty: by servants, if from faithfulness: and so on. When there is faithfulness, honesty, uprightness, justice and zeal with these, then there is a love of their use from the Lord; and from Him they have love towards their neighbour in both its wide and narrow senses. For who is there, faithful, honest, upright and just at heart, that does not love the Church, his Country and his fellow-citizen?

[38.] All this makes it clear that loving the Lord is the doing of uses "as from their source" ("a quo"), and that loving the neighbour is the doing of uses "as towards their object" ("ad quem"); and that "for the sake of him who benefits" ("propter quem") is for the sake of the neighbour, of the use, and of the Lord; and that thus the love returns to Him from Whom it comes; for every love "as the source" does, by way of love "as regards its object," return again to the love "as source," this return constituting its reciprocal. Thus love is continually going forth and returning again by mean of deeds that are uses, for loving is to do, because if love does not become deed it ceases to be love, the deed being the effecting of its purpose, and that in which it has its existence.

[3] [39.] The reason that in the degree that a man is in a love of use, he is in the Lord, is that in the same degree he is in the Church and also in heaven. The Church and heaven are from the Lord as one man, the forms of which, called organic forms, superior, inferior, interior, and exterior, are made up of all who love uses in doing them; and it is the uses themselves that compose that man, because it is a spiritual Man, consisting not of the persons but of the uses with them. Always in that Man are all who receive from the Lord a love of use, and they are those who do them for the sake of the neighbour, for the sake of the uses and for the sake of the Lord. And as that Man is the Divine proceeding forth from the Lord and as the Divine proceeding forth is the Lord in the Church and in heaven, it follows that they are all in the Lord.

[4] [40.] The reason that they are a man is that every use which is in any way of service to the general good or the community is a man, beautiful and complete in form according to the quality of the use and at the same time the quality of affection for it. This is because there is in each single part in the human body, by virtue of the use it serves, something typical of the whole (universum); for each part regards the "whole" there as its own on which it depends, while the "whole" regards each part as its own, by means of which it has its existence. It is owing to there being in each part what is typical of the whole that each single use in the body is a man, and this is so in the small parts as well as in the large; organic forms are equally men, in their parts as in their wholes; indeed, as all perfection increases towards interior things, the parts of those parts, being more interior, are men in a greater degree than are the parts compounded from them. For all the organic forms in man are compounded of more interior forms, and these again of forms still more interior, and so on to the inmost: by means of these, communication with all the affection and thought of man's mind is made possible. For a man's mind, in each separate part of it, extends into all things of his body; it is into all things of the body that its range of activity is, for it is the very form of life. Unless the mind had that field, there would not be a mind, nor a man. It is in consequence of the above that the choice and good pleasure of a man's Will instantly bring forth and determine actions, altogether as if the thought and Will were themselves in the things of the body, instead of being above them.

The idea that every least thing in man, by virtue of the use it serves, is a man, is one that does not find place in natural thought as easily as it does in spiritual; in spiritual thought a man is not a person but a use, for spiritual thought does not include any idea of person, any more than of matter, space and time; accordingly when in heaven any one sees another, he sees him, certainly, as a man, but he thinks of him as a use. Moreover, an angel's face is in accordance with the use in which he is, and his affection for it makes the life of his face.

From all the above, it can be seen that every good use is in form a man.