VIII.
WHY CANNOT THE RULING LOVE BE CHANGED AFTER DEATH?
THE doctrine revealed for the New Church—revealed so clearly, too, that there is no ground for a difference of opinion on this subject—is, that the love which rules supreme in the heart of man at the time of or previous to his death, will forever remain unchanged in its nature. Very often does the illumined herald of the New Church declare, that, "As man is when he dies, such he remains to eternity." "The life of a man cannot be changed after the body dies." "If evil is not removed [from the soul] in the world, it cannot be removed afterward." "The life which a man contracts [or forms for himself] in the world, remains with him for ever." "To change the ruling love in a spirit, would be to deprive him of his life, or to annihilate him." "No one's life can possibly be changed after death." "Evil life can by no means be changed [after death] into good life, nor infernal life into angelic." "The angels declare that it were easier to change a bat into a dove, or an owl into a bird of paradise, than an infernal spirit into
