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man believeth unto righteousness." And Swedenborg often says that a genuine belief, or belief in the Lord, involves obedience to the Divine precepts, and can have no existence without it. To cite a single passage:

"By believing in the Lord, man has conjunction with Him, and by conjunction, salvation. To believe in Him, is to have confidence that He will save; and because no one can have such confidence but he who leads a good life, therefore this also is meant by believing in Him."—A. R. 67. See also T. C. R. n. 151; A.C. 896, 9239; A. I. 349.




XV.

ARE EARTHLY RELATIONSHIPS CONTINUED IN HEAVEN?.

HAVING ascertained the law that determines all associations in the Hereafter, an interesting question arises: Are the ties of natural consanguinity continued in heaven? In other words. Will those who have sustained on earth the relation of parents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, dwell together (supposing they all become regenerate) in the same angelic society, and maintain a similar relation toward each other in heaven to that they bore on earth? Or will these natural relationships cease with the death of the body, and new relationships take their place?

There is something surpassingly beautiful—something, indeed, holy—in the ties that bind kindred and friends together on earth. Every one recognizes the