OUR RULING LOVE
A Sermon by Rev. Douglas M. Taylor
"May you also do good who are accustomed to do evil?"
(Jeremiah 13:23).
"A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings
forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure
brings forth evil things" (Matt. 12:35).
"Man after death continues to eternity such as his will or
ruling love is" (HH 480).
The key word in our first text is "accustomed." What we
are accustomed to do throughout our adult life in this world
determines our lot to eternity. If we are accustomed to
doing evil, we cannot do good that is genuinely good, and we
will spend eternity in hell among hellish people. If we are
accustomed to doing good from the Lord, we are doing genuine
good, and will spend eternity in heaven among heavenly
people. Out of the good treasure of our heart we will bring
forth good things.
When we read in our second text that "a good man out of
the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things," we
do not think of "the heart" in a literal or physical sense.
We instantly realize that it means what we love. This we
know from common speech. In everyday language we speak of
being "light-hearted," "down-hearted," "heavy-hearted," even
"broken-hearted." In using or hearing such expressions we
never think of that cardiac organ that resides in our chest.
We know almost instinctively that the subject is what we
love, what we are accustomed to love. We use the expression
"a good-hearted" man as a synonym for "a good man." The
"good treasure" of a good man's heart means the precious
thoughts that belong to his good love, the wise thoughts by
which he expresses his goodness in act. This good love from
which he speaks and acts was developed because he has been
accustomed to do what is good.
What we are accustomed to do--whether good or evil--
determines our ruling love. We all have many loves or
interests, many things that delight us, many things in our
lives that bring us pleasure. Many of these loves are
related to our inherited abilities or talents.
But in each person there is one love that rules over
all these lesser loves like a king or supreme ruler. It is
called our ruling or reigning love. It organizes and unifies
all our lesser loves, and determines how we use them,
whether for good or for evil.
For example, a person may be very interested in public
affairs. He may have the right kind of personality to
succeed in a public office. When he attains that office, how
he conducts himself will be determined by the love that
rules him, by what he has been accustomed to do. If he is a
good man, then from the good treasure of his heart he will
place the common good above his own advantage. He will not
be concerned to make a name for himself as the supreme
purpose of his activities. He will sincerely strive to serve
the common good.
However, if he is accustomed to do evil in his mind and
in his life, he will put self and his worldly status before
the common good. Self-interest will rule him and enter into
his every decision.
It should be abundantly clear by now that our ruling
love is what constitutes our character, good or evil. Tell
me what your ruling love is, and you are telling me what
kind of person you are.
There are two good ruling loves and two evil ones. The
two good ones are the fulfillment of the two great command-
ments--love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor. The
two evil ruling loves are the direct opposite--loving
oneself instead of the Lord, and loving the world instead of
the neighbor.
A person whose mind is ruled by love to the Lord puts
the Lord's wishes first--in every situation, in every kind
of company. His first thought, conscious or unconscious, is,
"What would the Lord have me do here and now?" He trusts the
Lord. He trusts that He will provide all that is needed for
his spiritual welfare. He is completely willing to be led by
the Lord, wherever He leads. His main characteristics are
tenderness, innocence (in the sense of a willingness to be
led by the Lord), genuine humility before Him, thankfulness,
contentment and peace of mind. He abhors the opposites of
these things if he sees them in his own mind. He regards
them as loathsome in the Lord's sight, as sins against Him.
And he has an inner perception of the truth and goodness of
the Lord's Word. For him the Lord is indeed King of kings
and Lord of lords, King over all the kingdoms of this world.
No one is born into this supreme love to the Lord. It
comes from the Lord alone. It goes forth from Him as a
Divine and Infinite love of the whole human race. But it is
returned to Him in the form of love for Him--not a sentimen-
tal love but an all-pervading willingness to do the Lord's
commandments because they are what He wishes. A person comes
into this love by way of charity toward the neighbor. That
is a stepping stone to the greatest love that human beings
can receive. So it is that a person whose ruling love is
love to the Lord also lives in mutual love and charity with
his neighbor.
A person whose mind is ruled by charity toward the
neighbor has fulfilled the second of the two great command-
ments. He loves his neighbor as himself. He has long ago
rejected the principle of doing to others as they do to him.
Instead, he does to others what he would like them to do to
him. He does love the Lord. But it is indirect. It is not
the direct love for the Lord practiced by a person who has
fulfilled the first and great commandment. Rather, he is at
the stage of loving the Lord indirectly, loving the Lord as
He is received by another person, by a group of people, by
his country, by the church, and especially in the Lord's
kingdom. He sees the Lord reflected in others. If love for
the Lord is like the sun, charity toward the neighbor is
like the moon--a reflection of the sun. What is from the
Lord in others he calls the neighbor that is to be loved,
fostered and developed. By long practice he has become
accustomed to focusing his gaze on the goodness from the
Lord received by another. We read with regard to those whose
ruling love is charity toward the neighbor that "they
scarcely see the evil of another, but observe all his good
things and true things, and put a good interpretation on
what is evil and false. Such are all the angels, which they
have from the Lord, who bends all evil into good" (AC 1079).
Because he is accustomed to looking to the Lord in the
neighbor, both in general and in particular, he has a good
heart. From the good treasure of his heart he brings forth
good things in all areas of his life. This charity toward
the neighbor pervades his occupation and whatever benefac-
tions he does, whatever obligations and responsibilities he
undertakes. It enters into his observance of ritual worship.
It even dominates his recreation, which he regards as a
means of returning refreshed to the duties of his occupa-
tion. He is supremely interested in promoting the common
good.
But what of a person whose mind and life is ruled by
the love of self? His first thought is always, "What will I
get out of it?" Lest we have only a general idea of what the
love of self is when it rules, the Heavenly Doctrine lists
its symptoms or manifestations as follows: "The evils of
those in the love of self are, in general, contempt for
others, envy, enmity against those who do not show them
favor, and from that hostility toward them, hatreds of
various kinds, acts of revenge, acts of cunning and deceit,
mercilessness and cruelty.... As evils of this kind come
forth from the love of self, falsities of the same kind do
too; for from evils arise falsities" (NJHD 75). From that
list we readily see that hatred of others is the chief
characteristic of the love of self. A person ruled by this
love hates all others unless he can use them, unless they
can be made to serve him and his interests.
One whose ruling love is love of the world is always
wanting to get from the world,not to give, as do those who
are ruled by charity toward the neighbor. Love of the world
is indeed "not opposed to heavenly love to the same extent
as love of self is, inasmuch as such dire evils are not
stored up within it" (NJHD 77). However, it is dangerous to
our spiritual life because it leads us away from spiritual
love, away from heaven. Its essential characteristic is
covetousness, the desire to obtain the goods of others for
oneself. It is never satisfied. It produces a merciless
goading to acquire an ever higher status in the world as the
goal of life. It can cause us to set our hearts upon riches,
to love wealth for the sake of mere wealth, whether we have
it or not. This is avarice or a miser's love. If the love of
the world rules us, we are not really very interested in the
life after death. That is another world, far away, remote in
time. We cannot serve God and mammon.
Such are the two good ruling loves are the two evil
ruling loves. It is important to realize that what we regard
first of all, that we truly love, that we truly worship is
our God. "For any person or thing that is loved above all
things," we read, "is a god and is divine to the one who so
loves. For example, to one who loves himself or the world
above all things, himself or the world is his God" (TCR
293).
Knowing now the nature of love of self and the world
when they rule, we can understand why our text from Jeremiah
says that those who are accustomed to do evil cannot do what
is good. Even actions that are of benefit to others and help
the common good are not genuinely good if the ruling love is
evil. Such actions are always self-regarding or done with an
eye to the honors and praises of the world. It is only
outward-seeming good--pharisaic good. It does not proceed
from a genuinely good love.f It does not come from the Lord,
who alone is goodness itself.
We have been speaking of the loves of self and the
world when they rule the mind. Their proper place is to be
subordinate to love to the Lord and charity toward the
neighbor. When either of these two good loves rules the
mind, love of self and the world can be useful servants. We
must have some love of self, some self-respect. We must have
some desire to protect ourselves from danger, else we would
not survive. Similarly, we must have some love of the world,
otherwise we would live the life of a recluse. We are to be
in the world but not of the world. But let us not deceive
ourselves: these loves always strive to rise up and domina-
te. It is their nature to want to rule. We must always be on
our guard against them.
Our third text introduces us to another aspect of the
subject. "Man after death continues to eternity such as his
will or ruling love is" (HH 480). It is our ruling love that
awaits us after death. This is what judges us, either to
heaven or to hell, nor can it be changed.
In the spiritual world we are not judged according to
specific acts done here on earth, whether they be good or
bad. We are judged according to our character, our ruling
love, according to what we are accustomed to feel, think, do
and say. In fact, we judge ourselves. We find ourselves at
home only with those whose ruling love is similar to ours.
Nor are we punished on account of evils that we have
done in this world. In the case of good spirits, those who
love the Lord and the neighbor, we read that "although they
had done evils in the world, [they] are never punished,
because their evils do not return" (HH 509). In other words,
the evils that they had done before repenting and changing
their life for the better, changing their ruling love, are a
thing of the past. They are forgiven and forgotten. They are
not part of their true character, which alone determines
their lot to eternity.
In the case of those whose ruling love is evil, they
are not punished either on account of the evils that they
had done in the world, but only on account of the evils that
they continue to do in the spiritual world. Remember: unless
we have repented, we will continue to eternity to live
according to an evil ruling love. "Man continues the same as
he had been in the life of the body" (HH 509).
The concept of a ruling love is a distinctively New
Church teaching. It is in marked contrast to the teaching of
the denominations of the Christian Church. The thought that
is common to all denominations there is that if we have
committed any sin at all, we must pay the price for it.
In the Roman Catholic Church the teaching is that
specific sins must be confessed and paid for by some form of
penance or punishment, either here or hereafter. In the
Protestant churches the teaching is that since we have all
sinned at some time or other, we cannot be saved from the
consequent punishment of hell unless the price is paid.
Recent research has shown that even today a surprising
number of denominations teach that this price was paid by
the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, that His punishment and
suffering absolved us from the punishment due to our sins--
past, present and future--provided we believe that. This is
what is meant by salvation by faith alone. However, in some
denominations it is added that, having such a belief, we
would not want to do anything evil; in fact, that this faith
produces good works. If a person lapses back and commits any
further specific sins, he must beg the Lord to forgive his
specific acts and utterances.
No doubt these beliefs have arisen from a too literal
interpretation of certain scenes in the Word of God,
especially in the Apocalypse or book of Revelation. For
example, we read: "And I saw the dead, small and great,
standing before God, and the books were opened. And another
book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead
were judged according to their works, by the things which
were written in the books" (Rev. 20:12). The appearance here
is strong that every evil deed we have ever done is recorded
in a black book which is opened before us as we stand before
some kind of tribunal. But the "books" mean the deeper
levels of our memory, which contain nothing but what we are
accustomed to do. Our interior memory is altogether accord-
ing to our ruling love. Again, we are judged according to
what we have become accustomed to do by habit.
So we do need to pay close attention to what we are
accustomed to do. This determines our ruling love, and this
determines our character. We are born into certain inclina-
tions to be delighted by the various symptoms of the loves
of self and the world. We therefore have to shun these
things as loathsome to the Lord, lest they continue to rule
in us. We have to do this in cooperation with the Lord, so
that He may give us a new heart, a new ruling love--one of
the two loves of heaven.
Let us, then, examine ourselves most earnestly,
remembering that it is our ruling love that awaits us after
death. Let us examine what we are accustomed to do; let us
examine the feelings that prompt us into action and into
speech. Let us be quite specific about this, knowing that
these things make our character and determine our lot to
eternity.
"May you also do good who are accustomed to do evil?"
(Jeremiah 13:23). "A good man out of the good treasure of
the heart bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of
the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things" (Matt. 12:35).
"Man after death continues to eternity such as his will or
ruling love is" (HH 480). Amen.
Lessons: Jeremiah 13:18-23, Matthew 12:33-37, HH 480
Preached in Bryn Athyn June 26, 1988
* * * * * * *
Heaven and Hell 480
Man after death continues to eternity such as his will
or ruling love is. This too has been confirmed by abundant
experience. I have been permitted to talk with some who
lived two thousand years ago, and whose lives are described
in history,and thus known; and I found that they continued
to be just the same as they were described, that is, in
respect to the love out of which and according to which
their lives were formed. There were others known to history
that had lived seventeen centuries ago, others that had
lived four centuries ago, and three, and so on, with whom I
was permitted to talk; and I found that the same affection
still ruled in them with no other difference than that the
delights of their love were turned into such things as
correspond. The angels declare that the life of the ruling
love is never changed in anyone even to eternity, since
everyone is his love; consequently, to change that love in a
spirit is to take away or extinguish his life; and for the
reason that man after death is no longer capable of being
reformed by instruction as in the world, because the outmost
plane, which consists of natural knowledges and affections,
is then quiescent and not being spiritual cannot be opened
(see above, n. 464); and upon that plane the interiors
pertaining to the mind and disposition rest as a house rests
on its foundation; and on this account such as the life of
one's love had been in the world, such he continues to be to
eternity. The angels are greatly surprised that man does not
know that everyone is such as his ruling love is, and that
many believe that they may be saved by mercy apart from
means, or by faith alone, whatever their life may be; also
that they do not know that Divine mercy works by means, and
that it consists in man's being led by the Lord, both in the
world and afterwards to eternity, and that those who do not
live in evils are led by the Divine mercy; and finally that
faith is affection for truth going forth from heavenly love,
which is from the Lord.