Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/151

 moral life, which teach that we must not bear false witness, nor covet the goods of others.

Such is the character of every man who denies the Divine, and has no conscience formed from religion. That all such are of this character, appears manifestly from similar spirits in the other life, when their externals are removed, and they are let into their internals. Then, because they are separated from heaven, they act in unity with hell, and are therefore associated with those who are in hell.

It is otherwise with those who in heart have acknowledged the Divine, and in their actions have had respect to the divine laws, and have obeyed the first three precepts of the decalogue as well as the rest. When these, on the removal of their externals, are let into their internals, they are wiser than they were in the world. Coming into their internals is like passing from shade into light, from ignorance into wisdom, and from a sorrowful life into a blessed one, since they are in the Divine, thus in heaven. These things are said in order that the real character of both these classes of persons may be known, although they have lived a similar external life.

Every one may know that thoughts move and tend according to the intentions, or in the direction which a man intends; for the thought is a man's