Page:The Gist of Swedenborg.djvu/83

DEATH AND THE RESURRECTION

AN has been so created that as to his inward being he cannot die; for he can believe in God, and also love God, and thus be united to God in faith and love; and to be united to God is to live to eternity. —Heavenly Doctrine, n, 223

HEN the body is no longer able to perform its functions in the natural world, a man is said to die. Still the man does not die; he is only separated from the bodily part which was of use to him in the world. The man himself lives. He lives, because he is man by virtue, not of the body, but of the spirit; for it is the spirit in man which thinks; and thought together with affection makes the man. It is plain, then, that when a man dies, he only passes from one world into the other. . . . . . .The spirit of man after separation remains awhile in the body, but not after the motion of the heart has entirely ceased. This takes place with a variation according to the diseased condition of which the man dies. As soon as the motion ceases, the man is resuscitated. This is done by the Lord alone. —Heaven and Hell, nn. 445, 447