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Doc. 5.] 45
ROBSAHIPS MEMOIRS.
42. Swedenborg added that when a person who has be
come matured in wickedness, is removed from the earth by
the law and the axe, although to all appearance penitent,
he still remains wicked to eternity; because his conversion is
compulsory, and not brought about by his own free will, as
required by God. For unless his crimes cast him into prison,
where he sees death impending, he will never direct his
thoughts towards God, and still less his heart, hardened by
habit; and such a one, when he finds that he lives as before,
rushes headlong into the practice of all those evil works which
he did in the world ; and he, consequently, quickly leads himself
to hell, with the spirits of which he had been conjoined during
his life -time upon the earth.
43. It is quite different
, however, with those who are
executed on account of some crime which they had committed
while in a state of intoxication, anger, or indignation, or
from rashness, without any real intention of doing it; such
repent bitterly of what they have done, and if they do not
confirm themselves against the Lord’s commandments during
the remainder of their life, they become after their death
happy and blessed spirits.
44. When a certain clergyman died in Stockholm , who by
his eloquence and his pathetic mode of preaching had always
his church filled with hearers, I asked Swedenborg whether
he was not in a blessed state. “ This man ," answered he,
“went straightway to hell among the societies of hypocrites; for
he was only spiritually minded while in the pulpit; at other
times he was proud of his talents, and of the success he had
in the world ; he was an inflated man. “No, no,” he added,
“there, no dissimulation and no deceitful arts are of any avail;
for all these disappear with death, and man involuntarily shows
himself either to be good or evil."
45. The Dutch ambassador Marteville43 died in Stockholm .
His widow, some time afterwards, was asked to pay a large
sum of money, which she knew had been paid. At last
she discovered the document among his papers; and there
was a general talk in town, that Swedenborg had con
tributed towards it by his conversation with the deceased
ambassador. I asked Swedenborg about it, and he said that
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