Page:The Other Life.djvu/54

 Christian Church, because it seems to be taught in the letter of the Bible.

More rationally and philosophically, Swedenborg, from actual observation, affirms that the natural and spiritual bodies co-exist from birth; that death occurs when their union is sundered; that the resurrection from the dead is the extrication of the spiritual body from the natural, which occurs just after death. Death, the resurrection, the judgment, the end of the world, the second coming of the Lord, all receive far more rational interpretations in the new than were given them in the old theology. Swedenborg's is indeed the apotheosis of truth, elevating it from sensuous interpretations to spiritual life—to divinity.

The soul, therefore, which can never exist or be manifested for a moment without a spiritual body, has on earth an additional and temporary covering, through which it is brought for a while into sensible communication with the objects of the natural world. It renounces this external garment at death, never to resume it, for all the conditions of its being and of its happiness are amply provided in a spiritual world.

We are, therefore, living all the time in our spiritual bodies. Every thought, emotion and sensa-