Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 945

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945. It is otherwise with those who have been born into the pleasures and enjoyments of life, and who have been educated in such things from childhood, such as queens, and others of noble family, and also those of wealthy parentage. These, though they have lived in luxury, splendor, and elegance, provided they have lived at the same time in faith in the Lord and charity toward the neighbor, are among the happy in the other life. For to deprive oneself of the enjoyments of life, of power, and of riches, and to think thus to merit heaven by wretchedness, is a false course. But to esteem pleasures and power and riches as nothing in comparison with the Lord, and the life of the world as nothing in comparison with heavenly life, this is what is meant in the Word by renouncing these things.


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