Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/169



O treatise upon the subject that has thus far engaged our attention, would be satisfactory to an inquiring mind, which did not embrace an explanation of the terms Devil and Satan. 'These words occur very often in the New Testament, and in the closest possible connection with the term Hell. What is Swedenborg's explanation of them? Or what is the doctrine revealed through him concerning the Devil and Satan?

We know what doctrine had been generally taught and accepted by Christians up to the time he wrote. It was that of a personal Devil—an individual of unparalleled malignity, the implacable enemy of both God and man, and endued with little less than omnipotent power. And this idea agrees with the literal teaching of the Bible. It also appears from the literal sense of some passages (and this, too, has been the accepted doctrine among Christians) as if this almost omnipotent evil spirit, was once an inhabitant of the highest heaven—foremost among the heavenly host in wisdom and all angelic graces;—one