4260. CONCERNING HEAVEN AND HEAVENLY JOY, THAT SOME SUPPOSED IT COULD BE BESTOWED UPON EVERYONE. There was a spirit with me who said he had supposed that everyone could be made a possessor of heavenly joy, however he had lived, if it seemed good to the Lord. But it was given to reply that the thing is not possible, because the evil have acquired to themselves another life which does not accord with the heavenly life. If [this kind of] joy were given them, their life would be destroyed, or would come so near it, that they could scarcely be said to live. But he said that certain of the evil in the world could, upon occasion, lay aside corporeal and worldly things, and he therefore could not see why they might not, after the life of the body, forego and forget everything of this kind and come into the heavenly life. But it was again replied that this could not be, except by the previous destruction of the life which one has acquired to himself. As to what may occur in certain states, it was shown that even the wicked may have transient good impressions, but when these states are changed, they return again to their own life. - 1749, May 6.