III.
THE NEW VIEW.
WE have seen what the doctrine of hell was, which was generally taught and accepted by Christians a hundred years ago. It was a doctrine quite in agreement with the sensuous appearances of truth in the letter of the Word; and in agreement, therefore, with the gross conceptions of men in a carnal and sensuous state. It taught that hell was, literally, a lake of fire and brimstone;—a place into which the wicked were to be finally cast, not out of mercy to them, or from any consideration of their comfort, improvement, or best welfare, but from a feeling of Divine wrath and vindictiveness. It was the generally accepted belief when Swedenborg wrote, that this fiery lake was created for the express purpose of inflicting upon sinners the most excruciating tortures which Divine ingenuity could invent.
Moreover, according to the doctrine of that period, the Supreme Judge of all the earth took a fiendish delight in casting his rebellious offspring into that fiery gulf, listening to their agonizing shrieks, and gazing on their ceaseless and indescribable sufferings! And no inconsiderable part of the joys of heaven, it was also believed
