The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love: To Which is Added The Pleasures of Insanity Pertaining To Scortatory LoveSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love: To Which is Added The Pleasures of Insanity Pertaining To Scortatory Love
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Marriage -- Religious aspects -- New Jerusalem Church; New Jerusalem Church -- Doctrines; Sexual ethics
48.* IV. BUT SUCCESSIVELY, AS THEY PUT OFF THEIR EXTERNALS AND ENTER
INTO THEIR INTERNALS, THEY PERCEIVE WHAT HAD BEEN THE QUALITY OF THEIR
LOVE AND INCLINATION FOR EACH OTHER, AND CONSEQUENTLY WHETHER THEY CAN
LIVE TOGETHER OR NOT. There is no occasion to explain this further, as
it follows from what is shewn in the previous section; suffice it here
to shew how a man (_homo_) after death puts off his externals and puts
on his internals. Every one after death is first introduced into the
world which is called the world of spirits, and which is intermediate
between heaven and hell; and in that world he is prepared, for heaven if
he is good, and for hell if he is evil. The end or design of this
preparation is, that the internal and external may agree together and
make a one, and not disagree and make two: in the natural world they
frequently make two, and only make a one with those who are sincere in
heart. That they make two is evident from the deceitful and the cunning;
especially from hypocrites, flatterers, dissemblers, and liars: but in
the spiritual world it is not allowable thus to have a divided mind; for
whoever has been internally wicked must also be externally wicked; in
like manner, whoever has been good, must be good in each principle: for
every man after death becomes of such a quality as he had been
interiorly, and not such as he had been exteriorly. For this end, after
his decease, he is let alternately into his external and his internal;
and every one, while he is in his external, is wise, that is, he wishes
to appear wise, even though he be wicked; but a wicked person internally
is insane. By those changes he is enabled to see his follies, and to
repent of them: but if he had not repented in the world, he cannot
afterwards; for he loves his follies, and wishes to remain in them:
therefore he forces his external also to be equally insane: thus his
internal and his external become a one; and when this is effected, he is
prepared for hell. But it is otherwise with a good spirit: such a one,
as in the world he had looked unto God and had repented, was more wise
in his internal than in his external: in his external also, through the
allurements and vanities of the world, he was sometimes led astray;
therefore his external is likewise reduced to agreement with his
internal, which, as was said, is wise; and when this is effected he is
prepared for heaven. From these considerations it may plainly appear,
how the case is in regard to putting off the external and putting on the
internal after death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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