Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/119

 an angel of heaven." "Infernal love can never be changed into heavenly love [after death]. . . . This is what is meant by the words of Abraham addressed to the rich man in hell: 'Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, etc. "Hence it is evident that all who go to hell, remain there for ever."

In such clear and explicit declarations on this subject, do the writings of Swedenborg abound. If then, we accept his teachings concerning the future life, as a divinely authorized revelation of the solemn realities of the spiritual world, we must believe that a person's ruling love cannot be changed after death and therefore that the condition and character of the wicked in the Hereafter, will remain essentially the same to all eternity.

And we cannot reject this doctrine, or set up another in its place, viz. this:—that all who pass into the other world in an infernal or supremely selfish state, will ultimately be brought out of that state and become shining angels—without undermining or deranging the entire system of Swedenborg' s spiritual philosophy. To be consistent, we must set aside his doctrine of degrees his doctrine concerning the nature of the final judgment; his doctrine of human freedom and the law of moral growth; his doctrine of spiritual equilibrium; together with his great law of spiritual affinity which determines all associations in the spiritual world. So intimately are all truths linked or dovetailed together, that it is no easy matter to remove one, or substitute a falsity in its place,