Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 447
lived a life withdrawn from worldly employments are inflamed
with the idea of their own merit, and are continually desiring
heaven on that account, and thinking of heavenly joy as a
reward, utterly ignorant of what heavenly joy is. When such are
admitted into the company of angels and into their joy, which
discards merit and consists in active labors and practical
services, and in a blessedness resulting from the good thereby
accomplished, they are astonished like one who has found out
something quite foreign to his belief; and since they are not
receptive of that joy they go away and ally themselves with
spirits of their own kind that have lived in the world a life like
their own.
[2] But those who have lived an outwardly holy life,
constantly attending church and praying and afflicting their
souls, and at the same time have thought constantly of
themselves that they would be esteemed and honored for all
this above others, and finally after death would be accounted
saints—such in the other life are not in heaven because they
have done all this for the sake of themselves. And as they have
defiled Divine truths by the self-love in which they have
immersed them, some of them are so insane as to think
themselves gods; and are consequently in hell among those like
themselves. Some are cunning and deceitful, and are in the
hells of the deceitful. These are such as by means of cunning
arts and devices have maintained such pious conduct as
induced the common people to believe that they possessed a
Divine sanctity.
[3] Of this character are many of the Roman Catholic saints.
I have been permitted to talk with some of them, and their life
was then plainly disclosed, such as it had been in the world and
as it was afterwards. All this has been said to make known that
the life that leads to heaven is not a life withdrawn from the
world, but a life in the world; and that a life of piety separated
from a life of charity, which is possible only in the world, does
not lead to heaven; but a life of charity does; and a life of
charity consists in acting honestly and justly in every