Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/156

60 very human that lives, and which had about itself, or outside of the single things of itself, an external whereby it could be in the world, and fitly act and perform its functions there. The earthly corporeal itself is no longer of any use to him. He is in another world, where there are other functions and other capabilities and powers, to which such a body as he has there is adapted. This body he sees with his eyes; not with the eyes that he had in the world, but those which he has there, which are the eyes of his internal man, and with which, through the eyes of the body, he had before seen worldly and terrestrial things. He also feels it with the touch; not with the hands or sense of touch that he enjoyed in the world, but with the hands and sense of touch which he there enjoys,—which is that from which sprang his sense of touch in the world. Every sense there is also more exquisite and perfect, because it is the sense of man's internal set loose from the external; for the internal is in a more perfect state, inasmuch as it gives the power of sensation to the external. But when it acts in the external, as it does in the world, the sensation is dulled and obscured; besides, it is the internal which sensates the internal, and the external which sensates the external. Hence it is that men see each other after death, and are together in society, according to their interior [states]. That I might be certain of these things it has even been given me to touch spirits themselves, and frequently to talk with them on this subject. Men after death,—who are then called spirits, and those that have lived in good, angels,—are greatly surprised that the man of the Church should believe that he is not to see eternal life until a last day when the world is to perish; and that then he will be clothed again with the dust that has been rejected,—when yet the man of the Church knows that he rises again after death. For when a man dies, who does not say afterwards that his soul or spirit is in heaven or in hell? And who does not say of his own infants who are dead, that they are in heaven? And who does not comfort the sick, or one condemned to death, by the assurance that he will shortly come into another life? And he who is in the agony of death, and is prepared, believes no otherwise. Yea, from that belief also many claim to themselves power to deliver from places of damnation, and to introduce into heaven, and to celebrate masses for them. Who does not know what the Lord said to the thief—"To-day shall thou be with Me in paradise" (Luke xxiii. 43); and what He said concerning the rich man and Lazarus, that the former was carried into hell, but the latter by angels into heaven? (Luke xvi. 22, 23.) And who is not acquainted with what the Lord taught concerning the resurrection, that "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living?" (Luke xx. 38.) Man is acquainted with these