completed. Three of these had been known to me in the world, and I told them that preparations were now being made for the burial of their bodies. I said "for their burial;" on hearing which, they were struck with a sort of amazement, saying that they were alive, but that only that which had served them in the world was to be buried.
They afterwards wondered exceedingly that, during their life in the body, they did not believe in such a life after death, and especially that the same unbelief prevailed almost universally within the church.
They who, while in the world, did not believe in any life of the soul after the death of the body, are very much ashamed when they find themselves alive. But they who had confirmed themselves in such unbelief, are consociated with their like, and separated from those who had believed in man's immortality. Such sceptics are, for the most part, bound to some infernal society, because they have also denied a Divine, and despised the truths of the church: for so far as any one confirms himself against the everlasting life of his soul, he confirms himself also against the things which belong to heaven and the church. (H. H. 448-452.)
