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 a sinner into a Christian or of a Christian into an angel. Such an idea is a theological fiction without basis in reason or Scripture; and he who trusts to it will be fearfully deceived.

When a man rises from the dead—that is, when his spiritual body is extricated from his physical form, the laws of the spiritual world instantaneously operate upon him. He comes into the exercise of spiritual thought. He speaks spontaneously the rich and wonderful language of spirits. The objects around him have no externeity independent of him, but they are the interior things of his own spirit presented in visible forms as a world outside of him.

This newly-risen spirit cannot instantly enter heaven. Why? Because his spiritual states of affection and thought do not accord with those of the angels. He could neither see what they saw nor hear what they heard. If it were possible for him, without the necessary changes of state or the intervention of intermediate spirits, to be placed suddenly and bodily in the midst of a heavenly society, what would result? He would be a discord in their assembly, a blot in their sky, a source of pain and terror. They would tremble at the sphere of his evil thoughts and desires. His life