After this had been said I looked towards the border of the west, and there I saw lakes of fire and brimstone. 'Why,' I asked the angel, 'do the hells there appear in such a form?'

'They look,' he said, 'like lakes because of the falsifications of truth, water being in the spiritual sense truth. The appearance of fire around and in them results from the love of evil, the appearance of brimstone from the love of falsity. These three, lake, fire and brimstone, are appearances corresponding to the wicked loves of those there. All of them are shut up for ever in labour-camps, where they work for food, clothing and bed. When they commit crimes, they suffer severe and grievous punishments.'

[2] I asked the angel another question. 'Why did you say that the people there are spiritual and natural adulterers? Why not criminals and unbelievers?' 'Because,' he replied, 'all who think nothing of committing adultery, all, that is, who commit these acts in the firm belief that they are not sins and with deliberate purpose, are at heart criminals and unbelievers. For the principles of human marriage and religion go hand in hand; every pace and every step away from or towards religion is also a pace and a step away from or towards the principles of marriage, which is the special quality belonging to a Christian.'

When I asked, 'What is this principle of marriage?' he said, 'A desire to live with a single wife, a desire a Christian has the more, the more religious he is.'

[3] After this I felt very sad in spirit that marriages, which had been most holy in ancient times, were so corrupted and changed into adulteries. 'It is the same,' said the angel, 'with religion today. For the Lord says that at the ending of the age the abomination of desolation foretold by Daniel will take place; and there will be great affliction such as there has never been since the beginning of the world (Matt. 24:15, 21). The abomination of desolation means the falisfication and removal of all truth; affliction means the state of the church when it is attacked by evils and falsities. The ending of the age, about which these things are said, means the final period or end of the church. The end is now, since there is no truth left which has not been falsified; and the falsification of truth is spiritual licentiousness, which goes so closely with natural licentiousness that they make one.'