Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/135

 In order, therefore, that they might be withdrawn from their foolish belief, they were taken up to the first or ultimate heaven, that they might enter some angelic society. But in the very entrance, their eyes began to be darkened by the influx of the light of heaven; then their understandings were confused, and at length they panted for breath like persons at the point of death; and when they felt the heat of heaven, which is heavenly love, they began to be inwardly tortured. Therefore they were cast down thence.

Afterwards they were instructed that knowledges do not make an angel, but the life itself which is acquired by means of them; since knowledges viewed in themselves are out of heaven, but life acquired by knowledges is in heaven.

After spirits have, by means of instruction, been prepared for heaven in the places above mentioned,—which is effected in a short time, by reason that they are in spiritual ideas which comprehend many things at once,—they are then clothed with angelic garments, which for the most part are white as if made of fine linen; and then they are brought to the way which leads upward toward heaven, and are delivered to the angel-guards there, and afterwards are received by other angels, and introduced into societies and