Afterlife: A Guided Tour of Heaven and Its Wonders - Swedenborg ...

AFTERLIFE
dom stems from love; so the greatest freedom comes from
marriage love, which is the essential heavenly love. On
the other hand, the path of adultery led toward hell, step
by step to the very lowest where there is nothing that is
not grim and terrifying. This is the kind of fate that awaits
adulterers after their life in the world. By “adulterers,” we
mean people who find pleasure in acts of adultery and not
in marriage.
What Angels Do in Heaven
There is no way to list all the functions that people have
in the heavens or to describe them in detail, though it is
pos sible to say something on the subject in general terms;
they are innumerable and vary depending on the roles of
the com munities as well. In fact, each community plays a
unique role, since the communities differ depending on
their virtues and therefore on their function. This is
because virtues for everyone in the heavens are virtues in
act, which are functions. Everyone there does something
specif ically useful, for the Lord’s kingdom is a kingdom of
uses.
There are many services in the heavens just as there are
on earth, since there are ecclesiastical, civic, and domes -
tic affairs there. The existence of the ecclesiastical ones
fol lows from what was presented about divine worship,
the exis tence of civic ones from what was presented about
forms of government in heaven, while the existence of
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