from good. It is
this spiritual equilibrium that causes man to think and will in
freedom; for whatever a man thinks and wills has reference either to
evil and falsity therefrom or to good and truth therefrom. [3]
Therefore when he is in that equilibrium he is in freedom either to
admit or accept evil and its falsity from hell or to admit or accept
good and its truth from heaven. Every man is held in this equilibrium
by the Lord, because the Lord rules both heaven and hell. But why man
is held in this freedom by such an equilibrium, and why evil and
falsity are not taken away from him and good and truth implanted in
him by Divine power will be told hereafter in its own chapter.

538. A perception of the sphere of falsity from evil that flows forth
from hell has often been granted me. It was like a perpetual effort
to destroy all that is good and true, combined with anger and a kind
of fury at not being able to do so, especially an effort to
annihilate and destroy the Divine of the Lord, and this because all
good and truth are from Him. But out of heaven a sphere of truth from
good was perceived, whereby the fury of the effort ascending from
hell was restrained. The result of this was an equilibrium. This
sphere from heaven was perceived to come from the Lord alone,
although it appeared to come from the angels in heaven. It is from
the Lord alone, and not from the angels, because every angel in
heaven acknowledges that nothing of good and of truth is from
himself, but all is from the Lord.

539. In the spiritual world truth from good is the source of all
power, and falsity from evil has no power whatever. This is because
the Divine Itself in heaven is Divine good and Divine truth, and all
power belongs to the Divine. Falsity from evil is powerless because
truth from good is the source of all power, and in falsity from evil
there is nothing of truth from good. Consequently in heaven there is
all power, and none in hell; for everyone in heaven is in truths from
good, and everyone in hell is in falsities from evil. For no one is
admitted into heaven until he is in truths from good, neither is any
one cast down into hell until he is in falsities from evil, (That
this is so can be seen in the chapters treating of the first, second,
and third states of man after death, n. 491-520; and that all power
belongs to truth from good can be seen in the chapter on the power of
angels in heaven, n. 228-233.)

540. Such, then, i