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
481. (iii) The man who has heavenly and spiritual love goes to
heaven; while the man who has corporeal and worldly love and no
heavenly and spiritual love goes to hell. This has been made evident
to me from all whom I have seen taken up into heaven or cast into
hell. The life of those taken up into heaven had been derived from a
heavenly and spiritual love, while the life of those cast into hell
had been derived from a corporeal and worldly love. Heavenly love
consists in loving what is good, honest, and just, because it is
good, honest and just, and in doing this from love; and those that
have this love have a life of goodness, honesty, and justice, which
is the heavenly life. Those that love what is good, honest, and just,
for its own sake, and who do this or live it, love the Lord above all
things, because this is from Him; they also love the neighbor,
because this is the neighbor who is to be loved.{1} But corporeal
love is loving what is good, honest, and just, not for its own sake
but for the sake of self, because reputation, honor, and gain can
thus be acquired. Such, in what is good, honest, and just, do not
look to the Lord and to the neighbor, but to self and the world, and
find delight in fraud; and the goodness, honesty and justice that
spring forth from fraud are evil, dishonesty, and injustice, and
these are what are loved by such in their practice of goodness,
honesty, and justice. [2] As the life of everyone is determined by
these different kinds of love, as soon as men after death enter the
world of spirits they are examined to discover their quality, and are
joined to those that are in a like love; those that are in heavenly
love to those that are in heaven, and those that are in corporeal
love to those that are in hell; and after they have passed through
the first and second state they are so separated as to no longer see
or know each other; for each one becomes his own love, both in
respect to his interiors pertaining to his mind, and in respect to
his exteriors pertaining to his face, body, and speech; for everyone
becomes an image of his own love, even in externals. Those that are
corporeal loves appear gross, dusky, black and misshapen; while those
that are heavenly loves appear fresh, bright, fair and beautiful.
Also in their minds and thoughts they are wholly unlike, those that
are heavenly loves being intelligent and wise, while those that are
corporeal loves are stupid and as it were silly. [3] When it is
granted to behold the interiors and exteriors of thought and
affection of those that are in heavenly love, their interiors appear
like light, and some like a flamy light, while their exteriors appear
in various beautiful colors like rainbows. But the interiors of those
that are in corporeal love appear as if black, because they are
closed up; and the interiors of some who were interiorly in malignant
deceit appear like a dusky fire. But their exteriors appear of a
dirty color, and disagreeable to the sight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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