in all
things and each thing that a man thinks, wills, and does (n.
8124). A life of charity is a life in accordance with the
Lord's commandments (n. 3249). Living in accordance with the
Lord's commandments is loving the Lord (n. 10143, 10153, 10310,
10578, 10645). Genuine charity claims no merit, because it is
from interior affection and consequent delight (n. 2371, 2380,
2400, 3816, 3887, 6388-6393). Man continues to be after death
such as was his life of charity in the world (n. 8256).
Heavenly blessedness flows in from the Lord into a life of
charity (n. 2363). Mere thinking admits no one into heaven; it
must be accompanied by willing and doing good (n. 2401, 3459).
Unless doing good is joined with willing good and thinking good
there is no salvation nor any conjunction of the internal man
with the external (n. 3987).

536. LVI. THE LORD RULES THE HELLS.

Above, in treating of heaven it has been everywhere shown (especially
in n. 2-6) that the God of heaven is the Lord, thus that the whole
government of the heavens is the Lord's government. And as the
relation of heaven to hell and of hell to heaven is like the relation
between two opposites which mutually act contrary to each other, and
from the action and re-action of which an equilibrium results, which
gives permanence to all things of their action and reaction, so in
order that all things and each thing may be kept in equilibrium it is
necessary that He who rules the one should rule the other; for unless
the same Lord restrained the uprisings from the hells and checked
insanities there the equilibrium would perish and everything with it.

537. But something about that equilibrium shall first be told. It is
acknowledged that when two things mutually act against each other,
and as much as one reacts and resists the other acts and impels,
since there is equal power on either side, neither has any effect,
and both can then be acted upon freely by a third. For when the force
of the two is neutralized by equal opposition the force of a third
has full effect, and acts as easily as if there were no opposition.
[2] Such is the equilibrium between heaven and hell. Yet it is not an
equilibrium like that between two bodily combatants whose strength is
equal; but it is a spiritual equilibrium, that is, an equilibrium of
falsity against truth and of evil against good. From hell falsity
from evil continually exhales, and from heaven truth