Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/194

 himself that his spirit contained so great wickedness arid subtlety, or that in himself he was such a devil as he becomes after death, when his spirit comes into itself and into its own nature.

Such wickedness then manifests itself as exceeds all belief. There are thousands of evils which burst forth from evil itself, among which, also, are such as cannot be expressed in the words of any language. I have been permitted to learn and comprehend their nature by much experience; for it has been granted me by the Lord to be in the spiritual world as to my spirit, and at the same time in the natural world as to my body.

This I can testify, that their wickedness is so great that it is hardly possible to describe a thousandth part of it; and furthermore, that unless the Lord protected man, it would be impossible for him ever to be rescued from hell; for there are with every man both spirits from hell and angels from heaven; and the Lord cannot protect a man unless he acknowledge the Divine and live the life of faith and charity. Otherwise, he averts himself from the Lord, and turns toward infernal spirits, and thus becomes imbued as to his spirit with similar wickedness.

Nevertheless, man is continually withdrawn by the Lord from the evils which, on account of his association with those spirits, he attaches, and as it were attracts, to himself. For if he cannot be