can hardly come into one or the other conjunction
or union, that is, of good and truth or of evil and falsity, for during
his life in the world he is kept in a state of reformation or
regeneration. After death, however, every man comes into the one union or
the other, because he can then no longer be reformed or regenerated. He
remains such as his life was in the world, that is, such as his reigning
love was. If therefore his was a life of an evil love, all the truth
acquired by him in the world from teacher, pulpit or Word is taken away.
On the removal of it, he absorbs the falsity agreeing with his evil as a
sponge does water. On the other hand, if his was the life of a good love,
all the falsity is removed which he may have picked up in the world by
hearing or from reading but did not confirm in himself, and in its place
truth congruous with his good is given him. This is meant by the Lord's
words:

Take . . . the talent from him, and give it to him that has ten talents.
For to everyone who has, shall be given until he abounds but from him
who has not, even what he has shall be taken away (Mt 25:28, 29; 13:12;
Mk 4:25; Lu 8:18; 19:24-26).

18. After death everyone must be either in good and at the same time in
truth or in evil and at the same time in falsity, for the reason that
good and evil cannot be united, nor can good and the falsity of evil, nor
evil and the truth of good. For these are opposites, and opposites
contend until one destroys the other. Those who are at the same time in
evil and in good are meant in the Apocalypse in these words of the Lord
to the church of the Laodiceans:

I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot; would that you were
cold or hot; but because you are lukewarm, I will spue you out of my
mouth (3:15, 16):

also in these words of the Lord:

No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love
the other, or cleave to the one and not heed the other (Mt 6:24).

19. ( viii) _That which is in good and at the same time in truth is
something; that which is in evil and at the same time in falsity is not
anything._ See above (n. 11) that what is in good and at the same time in
truth is something. It follows that what is at once evil and false is not
anything. By not being anything is meant that it is without power and
without spiritual life. Those at once in evil and in falsity (all of whom
are in hell) have power indeed among themselves, for an evil man can