Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 9.djvu/22

 desires and expects conjunction with its body, that it may enjoy the senses and their delights as before in the world? Who cannot see that if it were so with man after death, his state would be worse than that of the fishes, birds and terrestrial animals whose souls do not live, and consequently are not in such anxiety from desire and expectation?

If a man after death were such a breath or puff of wind, he would either fly about in the universe, or, according to the traditions of some, be reserved in a certain somewhere, or in limbo according to the fathers, until the last judgment. Who cannot reasonably conclude from this, that they who have lived from the beginning of creation, since which there are thought to have been about six thousand years, would be still in a similar anxious state, and continually more anxious because all expectation from desire causes anxiety, and from time to time increases it; consequently, that they must still be either flying in the universe, or kept shut up somewhere, and so in extreme misery; and that it must be so with Adam and his wife, with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and with all who have lived since that time?

From this it follows, that nothing could be more lamentable than to be born a man. But the reverse of this is provided by the Lord who is Jehovah from eternity and Creator of the universe, in that the state of a man who unites himself with Him by a life according to his precepts, is more blessed and happy after death than before it in the world; and that it is more