Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 9.djvu/20

 But now, because many things have been revealed concerning that world, and a description of it has been given in the work on H H, and also in the A R, that marriages are there may be even rationally established and confirmed. HUMAN BEINGS UNCHANGED BY DEATH. M. This has been hitherto unknown in the world for the reasons above mentioned. And what is wonderful, it has been unknown even in Christendom where the Word is, and thence enlightenment concerning life eternal, and where the Lord himself teaches that all the dead rise again, and that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. xxii. 31, 32; Luke xx. 37, 38). Moreover man, as to the affections and thoughts of his mind, is in the midst of angels and spirits, and so associated with them that he cannot be separated from them and live. It is still more wonderful that this is unknown, when yet every man who has died since the first creation, has come and still comes after death to his own, or, as is said in the Word, has been and is still gathered to his own.

Besides, man has a general perception which is the same with the influx of heaven into the interiors of his mind, from which he interiorly perceives truths, and as it were sees them in himself; and especially this truth, that he lives a man after death—happy if he has lived well, and unhappy if he has lived wickedly. For