142. The reason no one is reformed in a state of serious physical illness is that at such times our reason is not in a state of freedom. The state of the mind depends on that of the body. When the body is afflicted, the mind is as well, if only by being out of touch with the world. A mind that is out of touch with the world may think about God, but not with God, because its reasoning is not free. Our rational freedom comes from our being midway between heaven and the world. This enables us to think in terms of heaven or in terms of the world, so we can think in heavenly terms about the world or in worldly terms about heaven. When we are seriously ill and are thinking about death and the state of our souls after death, then we are not in touch with the world. We are withdrawn in spirit, and when we are completely withdrawn we cannot be reformed. It can strengthen us, though, if we had been reformed before we fell sick.
[2] The same holds true for people who renounce the world and all its dealings and devote themselves totally to thoughts of God and heaven and salvation; but there is more on this elsewhere.
The result is that if people like this have not been reformed before their illness, then afterwards, if they do die, they are the same kind of people they were before the illness. This means that it is pointless to think that we can repent or accept any faith while we are seriously ill, because there is no trace of action involved in our repentance, no trace of caring in our faith. Thus both our repentance and our faith are all talk and no heart.
