X.
IS HELL TO UNDERGO ANY CHANGE? IF SO. OF WHAT NATURE?
SWEDENBORG has disclosed with great clearness the condition of the wicked in the other world. Nor does he pretend to give us merely his opinion on the subject, but to set forth what he actually heard and saw when his spiritual senses were opened. He has told us what sort of people he found in hell, or of whom it consists. To cite his own language:
"Hell consists of spirits who, while living in the world, denied God, acknowledged nature, lived contrary to divine order, loved evils and falsities (although not so much before the world on account of the appearance) and who, therefore, were either insane in regard to truths, or despised and denied them, if not with the mouth, yet in heart [and in their lives]. Of all such, who have lived from the creation of the world, hell consists."—Athanasian Creed n. 41.
The wickedness of the infernals is described as terrible—surpassing all belief. Speaking of their "malignity, cunning, fraud, deceit, and cruelty," he says:
"These are such and so great that, if they were told
