True Christian Religion (Ager) n. 801

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801. And the reason why the Dutch occupy those quarters of the Christian center is that business is their final love, and money a mediate love subservient thereto; and such a love is spiritual. But where money is the final love and business a mediate love subservient thereto, as with the Jews, that love is natural and springs from avarice. The love of business,- when final, is spiritual, because of its use, in that it subserves the common good to which indeed the man's own good is closely conjoined and appears to him to be of more importance than the common good, because he thinks from his natural man. Nevertheless, when business is an end, the love of it is also the end, and in heaven everyone is regarded in accordance with his final love; for the final love may be likened to the ruler of a kingdom or the master of a house, and the other loves to their subjects or servants. Moreover, the final love has its seat in the highest or inmost parts of the mind, while the mediate loves are below it or outside of it, and subservient to its every nod. The Dutch are in that spiritual love more than any others. But the Jews are in that love inverted; consequently their love of business is purely natural, containing within it nothing of the common good, but solely their own good.


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