WILL >> Love >> Heart

 Now since love and wisdom, and therefore will and understanding, are what are called the soul, and how the soul acts upon the body, and effects all its operations, is to be  shown in what follows, and since this may be known from the correspondence of the heart with the will, and of the lungs with the understanding, by means of that correspondence what follows has been disclosed:

 (1)          Love or the will is man’s very life.

(2)          Love or the will strives unceasingly towards the human form and all things of that form.

(3)          Love or the will is unable to effect anything by its human form without a marriage with wisdom or the understanding.

(4)          Love or the will prepares a house or bridal chamber for its future wife, which is wisdom or the understanding.

(5)          Love or the will also prepares all things in its human form, that it may act conjointly with wisdom or the understanding.

(6)          After the nuptials, the first conjunction is through affection for knowing, from which springs affection for truth.

(7)          The second conjunction is through affection for understanding, from which springs perception of truth.

(8)          The third conjunction is through affection for seeing truth, from which springs thought.

(9)          Through these three conjunctions love or the will is in its sensitive life and in its active life.

(10)          Love or the will introduces wisdom or the understanding into all things of its house.

(11)          Love or the will does nothing except in conjunction with wisdom or the understanding.

(12)          Love or the will conjoins itself to wisdom or the understanding, and causes wisdom or the understanding to be reciprocally conjoined to it.

(13)          Wisdom or the understanding, from the potency given to it by love or the will, can be elevated, and can receive such things as are of light out of heaven, and perceive them.

(14)          Love or the will can in like manner be elevated and can perceive such things as are of heat out of heaven, provided it loves its consort in that degree.

(15)          Otherwise love or the will draws down wisdom or the understanding from its elevation, that it may act as one with itself.

(16)          Love or the will is purified by wisdom in the understanding, if they are elevated together.

(17)          Love or the will is defiled in the understanding and by it, if they are not elevated together.

(18)          Love, when purified by wisdom in the understanding, becomes spiritual and celestial.

 (19)          Love, when defiled in the understanding and by it, becomes natural and sensual.

(20)          The capacity to understand called rationality, and the capacity to act called freedom, still remain.

(21)          Spiritual and celestial love is love towards the neighbor and love to the Lord; and natural and sensual love is love of the world and love of self.

(22)          It is the same with charity and faith and their conjunction as with the will and understanding and their conjunction. [DLW398] 

But it must be understood that it is the will that makes the man, while thought makes the man only so far as it goes forth from the will; and deeds and works go forth from both; or what is the same, it is love that makes the man, and faith only so far as it goes forth from love; and deeds or works go forth from both. Consequently, the will or love is the man himself, for whatever goes forth belongs to that from which it goes forth. To go forth is to be brought forth and presented in suitable form for being perceived and seen.{1} All this makes clear what faith is when separated from love, namely, that it is no faith, but mere knowledge, which has no spiritual life in it; likewise what a deed or work is apart from love, namely, that it is not a deed or work of life, but a deed or work of death, which possesses an appearance of life from an evil love and a belief in what is false. This appearance of life is what is called spiritual death. [HH474]  

Author: EMANUEL SWEDENBORG  (1688-1772)