Week 2
Day 1

    Listen:

The Most Excellent Use

The First Essential of the Lord’s Love and the Most Excellent of All Uses

Gen. 2:7. And Jehovah God formed the man, dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives, and the man became a living soul.

TCR 43. It is the essence of Love to love others outside of oneself, to desire to be one with them, and to render them blessed from oneself. The essence of God consists of two things, love and wisdom; while the essence of His love consists of three things, namely, to love others outside of Himself, to desire to be one with them, and from Himself to render them blessed. And because love and wisdom in God make one, as has been shown above, the same three things constitute the essence of His wisdom; and love desires these three things, and wisdom brings them forth.

[2] The first essential, which is to love others outside of oneself, is recognized in God’s love for the whole human race; and for its sake God loves all things that He has created because they are means; for when the end is loved the means also are loved. All men and things in the universe are outside of God, because they are finite and God is infinite….

[3] The second essential of the love of God, which is a desire to be one with others, is recognized in His conjunction with the angelic heaven, with the church on earth, with everyone there, and with everything good and true that enters into and constitutes man and the church. Moreover, love viewed in itself is nothing but an endeavor towards conjunction; therefore that this aim of the essence of love might be realized, man was created by God into His own image and likeness, with which a conjunction is possible….

[4] The third essential of the love of God, which is to render others blessed from Himself, is recognized in eternal life, which is the endless blessedness, happiness, and felicity that God gives to those who receive into themselves His love. For as God is love itself, so is He blessedness itself; for all love breathes forth delight from itself, and the Divine love breathes forth blessedness itself, happiness, and felicity to eternity. Thus God from Himself renders the angels blessed, and men after death; and this He does by conjunction with them.

TCR 44. That such is the nature of the Divine love is known from its sphere, which pervades the universe, and affects everyone in accordance with his state. It especially affects parents, and is the source of their tender love for their children (who are outside of themselves), and their desire to be one with them, and to render them blessed from themselves.

TCR 47. From these things when rightly understood it can be seen that the universe is a coherent work from first things to last, because it is a work that includes ends, causes, and effects in an indissoluble connection. And because in every love there is an end, in all wisdom there is a promotion of an end by means of mediate causes, and through these causes effects, which are uses, are attained, it follows that the universe is a work that includes Divine love, Divine wisdom, and uses, and is thus in every respect a work that is coherent from things first to last. That the universe consists of perpetual uses, brought forth by wisdom but initiated by love, every wise man can observe as in a mirror, as soon as he acquires a general conception of the creation of the universe, and from that observes the particulars; for particulars adapt themselves to their own general, and the general arranges them in a form in which they are in harmony.

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