Spiritual Experiences (Buss) n. 3906

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3906. He afterwards receded, and I spoke with him and with another who was in his company concerning love, [saying] that love is that which determines all and singular things, and that without love there is nothing but what would be confused, because wholly indeterminate, and that the genera and species of loves and their differences, which distinguish societies, are countless and indefinite; and that the life of heaven, and thence of the societies of heaven, is a life of love, namely, that everyone should love his neighbor better than himself. That life was represented to him [accompanied] with perception, and upon its being thus represented, he perceived that he was so remote from that life, that he thought he would never be able to come into heaven, for he perceived the repugnancy of his self-love. His perception was communicated to me, and thus how far distant he was from heaven. It was given to say to him that [such a love] was possible - as he began to doubt of its possibility - [and it was instanced] from conjugial love, in which he had also been, in that men love their wives better than themselves, as also their children; he thus acknowledged that it was possible, since it was possible in conjugial love and in other loves thence derived, for it is given likewise to wish better to one's friends than to one's self; wherefore being remitted into that life he acknowledged the possibility.


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