hat there is such a difference, because from
birth and thus from nature he is in these loves, and because the delight
of these loves continually flatters and pleases him.

But let him consider that a love of ruling from delight in ruling, and
not from a delight in uses, is wholly devilish; and such a man may be
called an atheist; for so far as he is in that love he does not in his
heart believe in the existence of God, and to the same extent he derides
in his heart all things of the church, and he even hates and pursues
with hatred all who acknowledge God, and especially those who
acknowledge the Lord. The very delight of the life of such is to do
evil and to commit wicked and infamous deeds of every kind. In a word,
they are very devils.

This a man does not know so long as he lives in the world: but he will
know that it is so when he comes into the spiritual world, as he does
immediately after death. Hell is full of such, where instead of having
dominion they are in servitude.

Moreover, when they are looked at in the light of heaven they appear
inverted, with the head downward and the feet upward, since they gave
rule the first place and uses the second; and that which is in the first
place is the head, and that which is in the second is the feet; and that
which is the head is loved, but that which is the feet is despised.
(A.E., n. 951.)

He who supposes that he acknowledges and believes that there is a God
before he abstains from the evils forbidden in the Decalogue, especially
from the love of ruling from a delight in ruling, and from the love of
possessing the goods of the world from a delight in possession, and not
from delight in uses, is mistaken. Let a man confirm himself as fully
as he can, from the Word, from preachings, from books, and from the
light of reason, that there is a God, and thus be persuaded that he
believes, yet he does not believe unless the evils that spring from love
of self and of the world have been removed. The reason is that evils
and their delights block up the way, and shut out and repel goods and
their delights from heaven, and prevent their establishment. And until
heaven is established there is only a faith of the lips, which in itself
is no faith, and there is no faith of the heart, which is real faith. A
faith of the lips is faith in externals, a faith of the heart is faith
in internals; and if the internals are crowded with evils of every kind,
when the externals are t