but not intellectually conceived, it was therefore necessary that the above positions should be confirmed also by ocular proofs; otherwise a man who belives only the evidence of his senses, in consequence of the faith previously implanted, would object thus: "If men lived men after death, I should certainly see and hear them: who has ever descended from heaven, or ascended from hell, and given such information?" In reply to such objections it is to be observed, that it never was possible, nor can it ever be, that any angel of heaven should descend, or any spirit of hell ascend, and speak with any man, except with those who have the interiors of the mind or spirit opened by the Lord; and this opening of the interiors cannot be fully effected except with those who have been prepared by the Lord to receive the things which are of spiritual wisdom: on which accounts it has pleased the Lord thus to prepare me, that the state of heaven and hell, and of the life of men after death, might not remain unknown, and be laid asleep in ignorance, and at length buried in denial. Nevertheless, ocular proofs on the subjects above mentioned, by reason of their copiousness, cannot here be adduced; but they have been already adduced in the treatise on Heaven and Hell, and in the Continuation respecting the Spiritual World, and afterwards in the Apocalypse Revealed; but especially, in regard to the present subject of marriages, in the memorable relations which are annexed to the several paragraphs or chapters of this work.
40. yi. Consequently there are marriages in heaven. This position having been confirmed by reason, and at the same time by experience, needs no further demonstration. 41. VII. Spiritual nuptials are to be understood by the Lord's words, " after the resurrection they are not GIVEN in marriage." Iu the Evangelists are these words, Cer- tain of the Sadducees^ who say that there is no resurrection,^ asked Jesus, saying, Master, Moses wrote, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother . Now there were with us seven brethren / and the first, when he had married a vjife, deceased, and having no issue, left his wife xinto his brother j likewise the second also, and the third unto the seventh ; last of all the woman died also • there- fore in the resurrection lohose wife shall she be of the seven f But Jesus answei'ing, said unto them. The sons of this generation marry, and are given in marriage ' but those who shall be ac- counted worthy to attain to another generation, and the resurrco' Hon from the dead, shall neither marry nor be given in marriage^ neither can they die any m,ore • for they are like unto the angels, and are the sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead rise again, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ; for he is fiot the God of the dead, but of ihe 41
