The Gist of Swedenborg Part 8

--_Heaven and h.e.l.l, nn._ 402, 403, 404, 405

OUR CHILDREN IN HEAVEN

Every little child, wheresoever born, whether within the Church or out of it, whether of pious parents or of impious, is received by the Lord at death; is educated in heaven; is taught and imbued with affections of good and by these with knowledges of truth; and then, as he is perfected in intelligence and wisdom, is introduced into heaven and becomes an angel.

When children die, they are still children in the other life. They have the same infantile mind, the same innocence in ignorance, and the same tenderness in all things. They have only the rudimentary capacity of becoming angels; for children are not yet angels, but are to become angels. The state of children in the other life far surpa.s.ses that of children in the world; for they are not clothed with an earthly body, but with a body like that of the angels. The earthly body is in itself heavy, and does not receive its first sensations and impulses from the interior or spiritual world, but from the exterior or natural world.

In this world, therefore, infants must learn to walk, to control the body's motions, and to talk. Even their senses, like sight and hearing, must be developed by use. It is quite otherwise with children in the other life. Being spirits, they act at once in expression of their inner being, walking without practice, and also talking, but at first from general affections not yet distinguished into ideas of thought. They are quickly initiated into these, too, however; and this for the reason that outer and inner are h.o.m.ogeneous with them.

The Lord flows into the ideas of children chiefly from their inmost soul, for nothing has closed their ideas, as with adults. No false principles have closed them to the understanding of truth, nor any evil life to the reception of good, nor to becoming wise.

--_Heaven and h.e.l.l, nn._ 416, 330, 331, 836

TOWARD THE MORNING OF LIFE

The Lord is present with every human being, urgent and instant to be received; and when a man receives Him, as he does when he acknowledges Him as his G.o.d, Creator, Redeemer and Saviour, then is His first Coming, which is called the dawn. From this time the man begins to be enlightened, as to understanding in things spiritual, and to advance into a more and more interior wisdom. As he receives this wisdom from the Lord, so he advances through morning into day, and this day lasts with him into old age, even to death; and after death he pa.s.ses into heaven to the Lord Himself, and there, though he died an old man, he is restored to the morning of his life, and to eternity he develops the beginnings of the wisdom that was implanted in the natural world.

--_True Christian Religion, n._ 766

The people of heaven are continually advancing towards the spring-time of life; and the more thousands of years they live, the more delightful and happy is the spring to which they attain. Women who have died old and worn out with age, and have lived in faith in the Lord and in charity to the neighbor, come, with the succession of years, more and more into the flower of youth and early womanhood, and into a beauty exceeding every idea of beauty ever formed through the sight. In a word, to grow old in heaven is to grow young.

--_Heaven and h.e.l.l, n._ 414

h.e.l.l

"If I make my bed in h.e.l.l; behold, Thou art there."

--_Psalm_, Cx.x.xIX, 8

EVIL IS h.e.l.l

Evil with man is h.e.l.l with him; for it is the same thing whether we say evil or h.e.l.l. And as a man is the cause of his own evil, therefore he, and not the Lord, also leads himself into h.e.l.l. So far is the Lord from leading man into h.e.l.l, that He delivers him from it as far as a man does not will and love to be in his own evil.

All a man's will and love remains with him after death. He who wills and loves evil in the world, wills and loves the same evil in the other life; and then he no longer suffers himself to be withdrawn from it. This is the reason that a man who is in evil is bound fast to h.e.l.l and is actually there, too, in spirit, and after death he desires nothing more than to be where his evil is. After death, therefore, a man casts himself into h.e.l.l, and not the Lord.

--_Heaven and h.e.l.l, n._ 547

EVIL AND PUNISHMENT

All evil bears its punishment with it. Evil spirits are punished because the fear of punishment is the one means of subduing evils in this state. Exhortation no longer avails, nor instruction, nor fear of the law nor fear for one's reputation; for now the spirit acts from a nature which cannot be coerced or broken except by punishment.

--_Heaven and h.e.l.l, n._ 509

It is a law in the other life that no one shall become worse than he had been in the world.

--_Arcana Coelestia, n._ 6559

G.o.d WILLS THE d.a.m.nATION OF NONE

If men could be saved by immediate mercy, all would be saved, even those in h.e.l.l; and indeed there would be no h.e.l.l, because the Lord is mercy itself and good itself. Therefore it is contrary to His Divine Nature to say that He can save all immediately, and does not save them. We know from the Word that the Lord wills the salvation of all and the d.a.m.nation of none.

--_Heaven and h.e.l.l, n._ 524

MASTER Pa.s.sIONS OF h.e.l.l

Love of self and love of the world rule in the h.e.l.ls and also const.i.tute them. Love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor rule in the heavens and also const.i.tute them. These loves are diametrically opposite. Love of self consists in wishing well to oneself alone, and not to others except for the sake of oneself, not even to the Church, to one's country, or to any human society; also in doing good to them, but for the sake of one's reputation, honor and glory. Unless he sees these in the services he renders them, he says in his heart, "Of what use is it? Why should I do it? Of what advantage will it be to me?", and he leaves it undone. His delight is only that of self-love. And because the delight which springs from his love makes the life of a man, therefore his life is the life of self; and the life of self is life from man's _proprium_; and the _proprium_ of man, viewed in itself, is nothing but evil. Love of self is of such a quality, too, that, as far as the reins are given it, it rushes on until at length it desires to rule not only over the whole earth, but over the whole heaven, too, and over the Divine Himself.

--_Heaven and h.e.l.l, nn._ 554, 556, 559

"OUR NAME IS LEGION"

Men have believed hitherto that there is some one devil who is over the h.e.l.ls, and that he was created an angel of light; but that after he turned rebel, he was cast down with his crew into h.e.l.l. Men have had this belief because the Devil is named in the Word, and Satan, and also Lucifer, and in these pa.s.sages the Word has been understood according to the sense of the letter, when yet h.e.l.l is meant in them by the Devil and Satan.... That there is no single Devil to whom the h.e.l.ls are subject, is also evident from this fact, that all who are in the h.e.l.ls, like all who are in the heavens, are from the human race; and that from the beginning of the creation to this time they amount to myriads of myriads, every one of whom is a devil of a sort according with his opposition to the Divine in the world.

--_Heaven and h.e.l.l, n._ 544

COMMUNICATION WITH THE SPIRITUAL WORLD

"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the unG.o.dly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and night."

--_Psalm_, I, 1, 2

ONE'S SPIRITUAL COMPANY

The mind of a man is his spirit which lives after death; and a man's spirit is constantly in company with spirits like himself in the spiritual world. Man does not know that in respect to his mind he is in the midst of spirits because the spirits with whom he is in company in that world, think and speak spiritually. The spirit of man, however, while in the material body, thinks and speaks naturally; and spiritual thought and speech cannot be understood, nor perceived, by the natural human being; nor the reverse. Hence, too, it is that spirits cannot be seen. Yet when a man's spirit is in society with spirits in their world, then he is in spiritual thought and speech with them, too, because his inner mind is spiritual, but the outer natural; wherefore by his inner nature he communicates with them, and by his outer being with men. By this communication a man perceives and thinks a.n.a.lytically. If there were no such communication, man would no more think than a beast, nor any differently from a beast. Indeed, were all commerce with spirits cut off, a man would instantly die.

--_True Christian Religion, n._ 475

"MINISTERS OF HIS, THAT DO HIS PLEASURE"

Man is quite ignorant that he is governed by the Lord through angels and spirits, and that there are at least two spirits with a man and two angels. Through the spirits a communication of the man with the world of spirits is effected; and through the angels, with heaven. As long as a man is not regenerated, he is governed quite otherwise than when he is regenerated. While unregenerated, there are evil spirits with him, who dominate him so fully that the angels, though present, can scarcely do more than guide him, so that he shall not hurl himself into the lowest evil, and bend him to some good--to some good by means of his own desires, indeed, and to some truth through even fallacies of sense. Then, through the spirits who are with him, he has communication with the world of spirits, but not so much with heaven, for the evil spirits rule with him, and the angels only avert their rule. When, however, a man is regenerated, then the angels rule and inspire in him all good and truth, and a horror and dread of evil and falsity. The angels lead the man indeed, but serve only as ministers, for it is the Lord alone, Who, by angels and spirits, governs man.

--_Arcana Coelestia, n._ 50