Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/145

 But it does not appear after all, some may say, how the devils, having once been men in the natural world, can find delight in things which here on earth are known to be agreeable only to a low order of animals.

It does not? Let the reader reflect for a moment. What has made those people devils? What kind of life is theirs?—the life, too, that they have freely chosen? It is not angelic life. It is not properly human. It is the life of self and sense—mere corporeal or animal, not celestial life. They have marred and spoiled their truly human life; or have suffered it to become stifled and overrun by a rank luxuriance of thorns and thistles and noxious weeds, which, if not carefully and betimes rooted out, are sure to spring up and take possession of the natural heart. Only a kind of bestial life, therefore, is left them—such life as corresponds to, and forms the very essence of, animals like those above mentioned. This life, therefore, must from its very nature, seek and find delight in scenes and objects which are agreeable to such animals.

Considering the nature of the devils, therefore, or the kind of life they have freely chosen and made their own, it is most reasonable that the hideous and loathsome objects by which they are surrounded, should not appear hideous or loathsome to them, but pleasant and altogether agreeable; for they are all in perfect correspondence with their life's love. And whatever corresponds to this, is always perceived as delightful.