Heaven and its Wonders and HellSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Heaven and its Wonders and Hell
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Future life -- Christianity -- Early work to 1800; Heaven -- Christianity; Hell -- Christianity
{Footnote 1} Baptism signifies regeneration by the Lord by
means of the truths of faith from the Word (n. 4255, 5120,
9088, 10239, 10386-10388, 10392). Baptism is a sign that the
man baptized is of the church in which the Lord, who
regenerates, is acknowledged, and where the Word is from which
are the truths of faith, by means of which regeneration is
effected (n. 10386-10388). Baptism confers neither faith nor
salvation, but it is a witness that those who are being
regenerated will receive faith and salvation (n. 10391).
330. When children die they are still children in the other life,
having a like infantile mind, a like innocence in ignorance, and a
like tenderness in all things. They are merely in the rudiments of a
capacity to become angels, for children are not angels but become
angels. For everyone passing out of this world enters the other in
the same state of life, a little child in the state of a little
child, a boy in the state of a boy, a youth, a man, an old man, in
the state of a youth, a man, or an old man; but subsequently each
one's state is changed. The state of little children surpasses the
state of all others in that they are in innocence, and evil has not
yet been rooted in them by actual life; and in innocence all things
of heaven can be implanted, for it is a receptacle of the truth of
faith and of the good of love.
331. The state of children in the other life far surpasses their
state in the world, for they are not clothed with an earthly body,
but with such a body as the angels have. The earthly body is in
itself gross, and receives its first sensations and first motions not
from the inner or spiritual world, but from the outer or natural
world; and in consequence in this world children must be taught to
walk, to guide their motions, and to speak; and even their senses, as
seeing and hearing, must be opened by use. It is not so with children
in the other life. As they are spirits they act at once in accordance
with their interiors, walking without practice, and also talking, but
at first from general affections not yet distinguished into ideas of
thought; but they are quickly initiated into these also, for the
reason that their exteriors are homogeneous with their interiors. The
speech of angels (as may be seen above, n, 234-245) so flows forth
from affection modified by ideas of thought that their speech
completely conforms to their thoughts from affection.
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