Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem · 2 of 14

No One Can from Himself Do What Is Good

9.NO ONE CAN FROM HIMSELF DO WHAT IS GOOD THAT IS REALLY GOOD. That hitherto scarcely anyone knows whether the good done by him is from self or from God, is because the church has sundered faith from charity, and good is of charity. A man gives to the poor; relieves the needy; endows places of worship and hospitals; has regard for the church, his country, and his fellow citizen; is diligent in his attendance at a place of worship, where he listens and prays devoutly; reads the Word and books of piety; and thinks about salvation; and yet is not aware whether he is doing these things from himself, or from God. He may be doing the very same things from God, or he may be doing them from self. If he does them from God they are good, if from self they are not good. In fact there are goods of this kind done from self which are eminently evil, such as hypocritical goods, the purpose of which is deception and fraud.

10.Goods from God, and goods from self, may be compared to gold. Gold that is gold from the inmost, called pure gold, is good gold. Gold alloyed with silver is also gold, but is good according to the amount of the alloy. Less good still is gold that is alloyed with copper. But a gold made by art, and resembling gold only from its color, is not good at all, for there is no substance of gold in it. There is also what is gilded, such as gilded silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, and also gilded wood and gilded stone, which on the surface may appear like gold; but not being such, they are valued either according to the workmanship, the value of the gilded material, or that of the gold which can be scraped off. In goodness these differ from real gold as a garment differs from a man. Moreover rotten wood, dross, or even ordure, may be overlaid with gold; and such is the gold to which pharisaic good may be likened.

11.From science a man knows whether gold is good in substance, is alloyed and falsified, or is merely overlaid; but he does not know from science whether the good he does is good in itself. This only does he know: that good from God is good, and that good from man is not good. Therefore, as it concerns his salvation for him to know whether the good he does is from God, or is not from God, this must be revealed. But before this is done something shall be said about goods.

12.There are civic good, moral good, and spiritual good. Civic good is that which a man does from the civic law: by means of and according to this good is the man a citizen in the natural world. Moral good is that which a man does from the law of reason: by means of and according to this good is he a man. Spiritual good is that which a man does from spiritual law: by means of and according to this good is he a citizen in the spiritual world. These goods succeed one another in the following order: spiritual good is the highest, moral good is intermediate, and civic good is last.

13.A man who possesses spiritual good is also a moral man and a civic man; but a man who does not possess spiritual good may appear to be a moral man and a civic man, yet is not so. The reason why a man who possesses spiritual good is also a moral man and a civic man, is that spiritual good has the essence of good within it, and moral and civic good have this essence from spiritual good. The essence of good can be from no other source than Him who is good itself. Think the matter over from every point of view, and try to find out from what it is that good is good, and you will see that it is so from its inmost being [esse], and that that is good which has within it the esse of good; consequently that that is good which is from good itself, thus from God; and therefore that good which is not from God, but from man, is not good.

14.From what has been said in the Doctrine of the Holy Scripture (n. 27-28, 38), it may be seen that what is highest, what is intermediate, and what is last, make a one, like end, cause, and effect; and that because they make a one, the end itself is called the first end, the cause the intermediate end, and the effect the last end. From this it must be evident that in the case of a man who possesses spiritual good, what is moral in him is intermediate spiritual, and what is civic is ultimate spiritual. And for this reason it has been said that a man who possesses spiritual good is also a moral man and a civic man; and that a man who does not possess spiritual good is neither a moral man nor a civic man, although he may appear to be so both to himself and to others.

15.That a man who is not spiritual can yet think rationally and speak from that thought, like a spiritual man, is because man’s understanding can be uplifted into the light of heaven, which is truth, and can see from it; but his will cannot be in the same way uplifted into the heat of heaven, which is love, so as to act from that heat. It is for this reason that truth and love do not make a one in a man unless he is spiritual. And it is for this reason also that man can speak; and it is this which makes the difference between a man and a beast. It is by means of this capacity of the understanding to be uplifted into heaven when as yet the will is not so uplifted, that it is possible for a man to be reformed and to become spiritual; but he does not begin to be reformed and become spiritual until his will also is uplifted. It is from this superior endowment of the understanding over the will, that a man, of whatever character he may be, even if evil, is able to think and therefore to speak rationally, as if he were spiritual. That still in spite of this he is not rational, is because the understanding does not lead the will, but the will leads the understanding. The understanding merely teaches and shows the way, as has been said in the Doctrine of the Holy Scripture (n. 115). And so long as the will is not in heaven together with the understanding, the man is not spiritual, and consequently is not rational; for when he is left to his will or love, he throws off the rational things of his understanding respecting God, heaven, and eternal life, and adopts in their stead such things as are in agreement with his will’s love, and these he calls rational. But these matters shall be elucidated in the treatises on Angelic Wisdom.

16.In the following pages, those who do what is good from themselves will be called natural men, because with them the moral and the civic is in its essence natural; and those who do what is good from the Lord will be called spiritual men, because with them the moral and the civic is in its essence spiritual.

17.That no one can from himself do any good that is really good, is taught by the Lord in John: A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven (John 3:27). He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit; for without Me ye can do nothing (John 15:5). “He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit,” means that all good is from the Lord; “fruit” means what is good. “Without Me ye can do nothing,” means that no man can from himself do anything. Those who believe in the Lord, and from Him do what is good, are called Sons of light (John 12:36; Luke 16:8); Sons of the bridechamber (Mark 2:19); Sons of the resurrection (Luke 20:36); Sons of God (Luke 20:36; John 1:12); Born of God (John 1:13); It is said that they shall see God (Matt. 5:8); That the Lord will make His abode with them (John 14:23); That they have the faith of God (Mark 11:22); That their works are done from God (John 3:21). These things are all summed up in the following words: As many as received Him, to them gave He power [potestas] to be sons of God, to them that believe in His name; who were born, not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12-13). To “believe in the name of the Son of God,” is to believe the Word and to live according to it; “the will of the flesh,” is what is proper to man’s will, which in itself is evil; “the will of man,” is what is proper to his understanding, which in itself is falsity from evil; those “born of” these, are those who will and act, and also think and speak, from what is proper to themselves; those “born of God,” are those who do all this from the Lord. In short: that which is from man is not good; but that which is good is from the Lord.