ten new guests, and said, "I have been informed that you were convened in the country which is immediately under this heaven, in order to declare your thoughts respecting the joys of heaven and eternal happiness thence derived, and that you professed different opinions each according to his peculiar ideas of delight originating in the bodily senses. But what are the delights of the bodily senses without those of the soul? The former are animated by the latter. The delights of the soul in themselves are imperceptible beatitudes; but, as they descend into the thoughts of the mind, and thence into the sensations of the body, they become more and more perceptible: in the thoughts of the mind they are perceived as satisfactions, in the sensations of the body as delights, and in the body itself as pleasures. Eternal happiness is derived from the latter and the former taken together; but from the latter alone there results a happiness not eternal but temporary, which quickly comes to an end and passes away, and in some cases becomes unhappiness. You have now seen that all your joys are also joys of heaven, and that these are far more excellent than you could have conceived; yet such joys do not inwardly affect our minds. There are three things which enter by influx from the Lord as a one into our souls; these three as a one, or this trine, are love, wisdom, and use. Love and wisdom of themselves exist only ideally, being confined to the affections and thoughts of the mind; but in use they exist really, because they are together in act and bodily employment; and where they exist really, there they also subsist. And as love and wisdom exist and subsist in use, it is by use we are affected; and use consists in a faithful, sincere, and diligent discharge of the duties of our calling. The love of use, and a consequent application to it, preserve the powers of the mind, and prevent their dispersion; so that the mind is guarded against wandering and dissipation, and the imbibing of false lusts, which with their enchanting delusions flow in from the body and the world through the senses, whereby the truths of religion and morality, with all that is good in either, become the sport of every wind; but the application of the mind to use binds and unites those truths, and disposes the mind to become a form receptible of the wisdom thence derived; and in this case it extirpates the idle sports and pastimes of falsity and vanity, banishing them from its centre towards the circumference. But you will hear more on this subject from the wise ones of our society, when I will send to you in the afternoon. So saying, the prince arose, and the new guests along with him, and bidding them farewell, he charged the conducting angel to lead them back to their private apartments, and there to show them every token of civility and respect, and also to invite some courteous and agreeable company to entertain them with conversation respecting the various joys of this society.
17. The angel executed the prince's charge; and when they
