{Footnote 1} Charity towards the neighbor is doing what is good, just, and right, in every work and every employment (n. 8120-8122).  Thus charity towards the neighbor extends to all things and each thing that a man thinks, wills, and does (n. 8124).  A life of piety apart from a life of charity is of no avail, but together they are profitable for all things (n. 8252, 8253).

361.  As to the lot of the rich in heaven, they live more splendidly than others.  Some of them dwell in palaces within which everything is resplendent as if with gold and silver.  They have an abundance of all things for the uses of life, but they do not in the least set their heart on these things, but only on uses.  Uses are clearly seen as if they were in light, but the gold and silver are seen obscurely, and comparatively as if in shade.  This is because while they were in the world they loved uses, and loved gold and silver only as means and instruments.  It is the uses that are thus resplendent in heaven, the good of use like gold and the truth of use like silver.{1} Therefore their wealth in heaven is such as their uses were in the world, and such, too, are their delight and happiness.  Good uses are providing oneself and one’s own with the necessaries of life; also desiring wealth for the sake of one’s country and for the sake of one’s neighbor, whom a rich man can in many ways benefit more than a poor man.  These are good uses because one is able thereby to withdraw his mind from an indolent life which is harmful, since in such a life man’s thoughts run to evil because of the evil inherent in him.  These uses are good to the extent that they have the Divine in them, that is, to the extent that man looks to the Divine and to heaven, and finds his good in these, and sees in wealth only a subservient good.

{Footnote 1} Every good has its delight from use and in accordance with use (n. 3049, 4984, 7038); also its quality; and in consequence such as the use is such is the good (n. 3049).  All the happiness and delight of life is from uses (n. 997).  In general, life is a life of uses (n. 1964).  Angelic life consists in the goods of love and charity, thus in performing uses (n. 454).  The ends that man has in view, which are uses, are the only things that the Lord, and thus the angels, consider (n. 1317, 1645, 5844).  The kingdom of the Lord is a kingdom of uses (n. 454, 696, 1103, 3645, 4054, 7038).  Performing uses is serving the Lord (n. 7038).  Everyone’s character is such as are the uses he performs (n. 4054, 6315); illustrated (n. 7038).

362.  But the lot of the rich that have not believed in the Divine, and have cast out of their minds the things pertaining to heaven and the church, is the opposite of this.  Such are in hell, where filth, misery, and want exist; and into these riches that are loved as an end are changed; and not only riches, but also their very uses, which are either a wish to live as they like and indulge in pleasures, and