(Continuation)

Let experience testify further on this subject. The quality of all who come from the earth into the spiritual world is known from their ability or inability to resist evils as if from themselves. Those who are able to do this are saved, while those who are not able are not saved. The reason is that man is not able to resist evils from himself, but only from the Lord; for it is the Lord who resists evils in man and gives man to feel and perceive as if he does it from himself. Therefore those in the world who have acknowledged the Lord, and have acknowledged that all good and truth are from Him, and that nothing is from man, and thus that power over evils is from the Lord, and not from themselves, such resist evils as if from themselves. But those who have not acknowledged this in the world are unable to resist evils as if from themselves, for such are in evils and in the delight of evils from love; and to resist the delight of love is the same as resisting themselves, their own nature, and their own life. An experiment was made whether such were able to resist evils when the punishments of hell were described to them, and even when those punishments were seen and were felt; but it was in vain; for they hardened their minds, saying, Let this be so, and let it come, but so long as I am here let me be in the pleasures and joys of my heart. The present I know; what is to come I give no thought to; no more evil will come to me than to very many others. Such when their time is fulfilled are cast into hell; and there they are compelled by punishments to refrain from doing evil; but punishments do not take away the will, intention, and consequent thought of evil; they merely take away the acts. All this makes clear that the power to resist evils is not from man, but is from the Lord with those who acknowledge Him, and that the Lord causes it to appear as if done by man.