We must rid ourselves of certain false ideas commonly entertained on this subject before we can see the truth unfolded by Swedenborg in all its beauty and grandeur. We will state these fundamental errors as we consider them, enter our protest against them, and beg the reader to dismiss them from his mind, until he sees them rationally disproved by the counter-statement of the truth itself.
Hell is not a place created by God for the punishment of sin. On the contrary it is the heaven of the wicked, created by themselves. They rush into it and abide in it of their own accord.
There is no attribute of God which calls for the punishment of sin or which could receive the least satisfaction from such punishment, any farther than it may be made a means of reforming and blessing the sinner. God is infinite love. His anger is a false inference drawn by the sensual man from his own state of evil and misery. God wills the same love, wisdom, peace, joy, to all in hell that he wills to all in heaven. He is the I Am, the sole-existing, the unchangeable.
There were no angels who fell from heaven and became devils; but all angels and all devils were
