4943. They said that they also could tell what sort of affection the preacher had, whether he was preaching from a feeling stemming from spiritual and heavenly love or from a feeling stemming from a love for a reputation, for an eminent position, for profit, and the like. Preachers are anguished on this account, scarcely knowing what they will say.
Here lies the difference between preaching in the other life and preaching in the world: in the world the affection can stem from a love of self and of profit. It can be entirely filthy yet still be heard as if it were an affection stemming from a love for what is good, the reason being that the preaching is taken in by a bodily sense, which is in the world, but with those [in the spiritual world] by an inward sense.
4943. They [i. e. those in the church mentioned] said that they also perceive in what affection the preacher is, whether he is in an affection of spiritual and celestial love, or, whether he is [preaching] from an affection of the love of reputation, of honor, of gain and such things. Preachers are also distressed by this, hardly knowing what they are going to say. In this, there is a difference between preachings in the other life and preachings in the world: in the world, an altogether filthy affection of the love of self and of gain may yet sound to the hearing like an affection of the love of good. The reason is, because the sensual-corporeal which is in the world receives what is said, but with them [i. e. with those in the spiritual world] it is the interior sensual.
4943. Dicebant quod etiam percipiant in qua affectione est praedicator, num ex affectione amoris spiritualis et coelestis, vel ex affectione amoris famae, honoris, lucri, et talium, praedicatores etiam anguntur ideo, vix scientes quid loquuturi; in hoc est differentia praedicationum in altera vita, cum praedicationibus in mundo, in mundo potest affectio amoris sui et lucri, prorsus spurca usque audiri sicut affectio amoris boni, causa est, quia sensuale corporeum, quod in mundo est, recipit illud, et apud illos sensuale interius.