Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/128

 can be no heaven. (A. C. 10,243.) We must deny the declared existence of degrees to the mind or that no higher degree of life can be entered and enjoyed in the other world, than the degree which has been opened in this. We must deny that the lower or natural degree bears any such fixed and permanent relation to the higher, as the eye bears to seeing or the ear to hearing. And considerably more must we deny, if we would be consistent.

Who that has studied Swedenborg enough to grasp a tithe of his deep and comprehensive philosophy, and has felt constrained by the illuminating power of his writings to acknowledge that he was, indeed, a man ordained and sent of God, dares venture on such a string of denials? Yet they all follow inevitably from the denial of his doctrine concerning the eternity of the hells, or the assumption that a man's ruling love may be changed after death.

Then apply to the doctrine taught by Swedenborg on this subject one other test—that most searching one of all—that divinely authorized touch-stone of truth and of error expressed in the formula, "By their fruits ye shall know them."

Judge the doctrine by its fruits—that is, by its obvious influence on the character of believers. Compare it in this respect with that other doctrine which some would substitute in its place—viz., the doctrine that a man may repent and his ruling love be changed in