206 HEAVEN and HELL §360
d. It is from use and in proportion to use that everything good derives its delight: 3049 , 4984 ,
7038 ; and its quality as well; so the quality of the use determines the quality of the good: 3049.
All the happiness and delight of life comes from use: 997. In general, life is a life of useful activi-
ties: 1964. Angelic life consists of the good fruits of love and thoughtfulness, and therefore of
being useful: 453 [ 454 ]. The Lord, and therefore the angels as well, focuses on nothing in us
except our goals, which are useful activities: 1317 , 1645 , 5844. The Lord’s kingdom is a kingdom of
useful functions: 453 [ 454 ], 696 , 1103 , 3645 , 4054 , 7038. To serve the Lord is to be useful: 7038.
Our quality is determined by the uses we fulfi ll: 4054 , 6815 ; with examples: 7038.because these latter were led into love for themselves and the world by
the profi ts and the positions they were given because of their administra-
tion of justice and morality and of profi ts and positions. This in turn led
them to defl ect their thoughts and affections from heaven and direct
them toward themselves; for to the extent that we love ourselves and the
world and focus on ourselves and the world exclusively, we estrange our-
selves from the Divine and move away from heaven.361 Broadly speaking, what lies in store for rich people in heaven is this.
They live more elegantly than others, some in palaces where everything
within gleams like gold and silver. They have everything they need for a
useful life. However, they do not set their hearts on such things but on
their useful activities. These they see clearly and in full light, while the
gold and silver are relatively hazy and shadowy. The reason is that in the
world they had loved being useful and had loved gold and silver only as
subservient means. This is how useful things gleam in heaven—what
works for good like gold, what works for truth like silver.d The quality of
the useful functions they served in the world determines their wealth,
their pleasure, and their happiness.
Good and useful activities include providing the necessities of life for
oneself and one’s own, wanting ample resources for the sake of one’s
country and one’s neighbor, whom a rich person can benefi t in far more
ways than a poor person can. [These activities are useful also] because they
lead the mind away from an idle life, which is destructive, since in that
kind of life our thoughts turn to evil because of our inborn evil nature.
These useful activities are good to the extent that the Divine is within
them—that is, to the extent that we focus on the Divine and on heaven
and invest ourselves in these as good, investing in wealth only as a subser-
vient means.362 What awaits rich people who do not believe in the Divine Being and
reject matters of heaven and the church from their minds is quite the
opposite. They are in hell, where they fi nd fi lth and wretchedness and
want. When wealth is loved as an end, it turns into things like these, and