Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 9.djvu/21

 who does not think thus while he elevates his mind a little above the body, and above the thought nearest his senses, which happens when he is more interiorly in divine worship, and when he lies on his death-bed awaiting his dissolution? In like manner when he hears of the deceased and their lot? I have related a thousand things respecting them, as in what condition the brethren, consorts and friends of certain persons were; and have also written about the lot of the English, Dutch, Papists, Jews and Gentiles; likewise concerning the lot of Luther, Calvin and Melancthon. And hitherto I have never heard any one say, "How can such be their lot when they have not yet risen from their sepulchres? for the last judgment is not yet accomplished. Are they not in the mean time souls which are breaths, and in a certain somewhere?" Such things I have never heard said by any one; from which I have concluded that every one perceives in himself that he lives a man after death. What man who has loved his wife and children, will not, when they are dying or dead, say within himself, if he is elevated in thought above the sensuals of the body, that they are in the hand of God, and that he shall see them again after his own death, and again be joined with them in a life of love and joy?

Who cannot see from reason if he wishes to see, that man after death is not a mere breath, of which there can be no other idea than as of a puff of air or ether, and that such breath is the man's soul which