and unfolds gradually, "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." (Mark iv. 28.) Such passages plainly teach that the heavenly life is acquired not suddenly, but by slow degrees, just as a plant or tree unfolds and matures; and that one proceeds according to the laws of divine order as surely as the other. And the Lord takes care that the seed-germs of the heavenly kingdom shall be early and securely stored up in the interiors of every little child.[1]
Only those, then, can go to heaven, who begin on earth (when of mature years) to develop and strengthen within themselves the life of heaven: Which is done through religious obedience to the laws of that life—by shunning all known evils as sins against God. No others, after they shall have left the material body, will have any desire to go there; nor could they breathe its pure atmosphere, nor endure its light and warmth. They would be as much out of their element in heaven, as a fish is out of his when taken from the water. They would find the sphere of heaven so suffocating as to cause them unutterable anguish. Accordingly Swedenborg says:
- ↑ "It would be impossible for any one to live as a man without a germ of innocence, charity and mercy, or something of a similar nature thence derived. . . . This germ man recieves from the Lord during infancy and childhood, as may be seen from the states of infants and children. What he then receives is treasured within him, and is called in the Word a Remnant or Remains, which are of the Lord alone with man, and furnish him with the capacity of becoming truly man on his arrival at adult age." -A. C, n. 1050.
