“These things I have spoken to you in parables, but the hour is coming when I will no more speak to you in proverbs, but will announce to you plainly concerning the Father.” - John 16:25
Kempton New Church

Introduction

Uses (Introduction)

I am the Vine, you are the branches. He who remains in Me, and I in him, this one brings forth much fruit; for without Me, you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

Uses

Lesson: John 15

1 I am the true Vine, and My Father is the Vinedresser.
2 Every branch in Me that does not bring forth fruit, He takes it away; and every one that brings forth fruit, He prunes it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
3 Already you are clean through the word that I have spoken to you.
4 Remain in Me, and I in you; as the branch cannot bring forth fruit from itself unless it remains in the vine, no more can you, unless you remain in Me.
5 I am the Vine, you are the branches. He who remains in Me, and I in him, this one brings forth much fruit; for without Me, you can do nothing.
6 If anyone does not remain in Me, he is cast out as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If you have remained in Me, and My sayings have remained in you, you shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.
8 In this My Father is glorified, that you bring forth much fruit; and you shall become My disciples.

Lesson: Divine Love 13

… To love the Lord means to do uses from Him and for His sake, for the reason that all the good uses that man does are from the Lord; good uses are goods, and it is well known that [goods] are from the Lord.

Loving these is doing them, for what a man loves he does….

Divine Love 13:2. Loving the neighbor means performing uses to the church, one’s country, society, and the fellow-citizen, because these are the neighbor in the broad and in the limited sense. And these cannot be loved otherwise than by the uses that belong to each one’s office.

A priest loves the church, the country, society, the citizen, and thus the neighbor, if he teaches and leads his hearers from zeal for their salvation. Magistrates and officers love the church, the country, society, the citizen, and thus the neighbor, if they discharge their respective functions from zeal for the common good. Judges [love the neighbor, collectively and individually], if [they perform their duties] from zeal for justice. Merchants [love the neighbor], if [they act] from zeal for sincerity; workmen, if [they act] from rectitude; servants, if from faithfulness; and so forth.

When with all these there is faithfulness, rectitude, sincerity, justice, and zeal, there is the love of use from the Lord, and from Him they have love to the neighbor in the broad and in the limited sense. For who that in heart is faithful, upright, sincere and just, does not love the church, the country, and his fellow-citizen?


Some other parts of Divine Love no. 13:

No one can love the Lord in any other way [than by doing uses]. For uses, which are goods, are from the Lord, and consequently are Divine. In fact, they are the Lord Himself with man.

John 14:15. If you love Me, keep My commandments.

These [uses] are the things [with us] that the Lord can love. The Lord cannot be conjoined by love to any man, and consequently cannot enable man to love Him, except through His own Divine things. For man from himself cannot love the Lord; the Lord Himself must draw him and conjoin him to Himself. And therefore loving the Lord as a Person, and not loving uses, is loving the Lord from oneself, which is not loving.

To love the neighbor, viewed in itself, is not to love the person, but the good that is in the person (TCR 417).

He that performs uses or goods from the Lord performs them also for the Lord’s sake.

These things may be illustrated by the celestial love in which the angels of the third heaven are. These angels are in love to the Lord more than the angels in the other heavens are, and they have no idea that loving the Lord is anything else than doing goods which are uses, and they say that uses are the Lord with them.

By uses they understand the uses and good works of ministry, administration, and employment, as well with priests and magistrates as with merchants and workmen.

The good works that are not connected with their occupation they do not call uses. They call them alms, benefactions, and favors.

Divine Love 13:2 … From what has now been said it is plain that loving the Lord is performing uses from Him, and loving the neighbor is performing uses to him.

And the object [or purpose] on account of which uses are performed is the neighbor, the use, and the Lord; and that love thus returns to Him from whom it is. For every love as a source, through love for its object, returns to love as the source, and this return makes it reciprocal. And love continually goes forth and returns through deeds, which are uses, since to love is to do.

For love, unless it becomes deed, ceases to be love, since deed is the effect of love’s end, and is that in which it exists.

“All uses are church uses.”

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