g the universe in the order in which
it was created; also that murders, adulteries, thefts, frauds, and revenge
are allowable, as held by Machiavelli and his followers. These and many
like things the natural man is able to confirm, and even to fill volumes
with the confirmations; and when such falsities are confirmed they appear
in their delusive light, but truths in such obscurity as to be seen only
as phantoms of the night. In a word, take what is most false and present
it as a proposition, and ask an ingenious person to prove it, and he will
do so to the complete extinction of the light of truth; but set aside his
confirmations, return and view the proposition itself from your own
rationality, and you will see its falsity in all its deformity. From all
this it can be seen that man is able to abuse these two capacities, which
he has from the Lord, to confirm evils and falsities of every kind. This
no beast can do, because no beast enjoys these capacities. Consequently,
a beast is born into all the order of its life, and into all the knowledge
of its natural love, but man is not.

268. (3) Evils and falsities confirmed in man are permanent, and come to
be of his love and life. Confirming evil and falsity is nothing else
than putting away good and truth, and if persisted in, it is their
rejection; for evil removes and rejects good, and falsity truth. For
this reason confirming evil and falsity is a closing up of heaven, - for
every good and truth flows in from the Lord through heaven, - and when
heaven is closed, man is in hell, and in a society therein which a like
evil prevails and a like falsity; from which hell he cannot afterwards
be delivered. It has been granted me to speak with some who ages ago
confirmed themselves in the falsities of their religion, and I saw that
they remained in the same falsities, in the same way as they were in
them in the world. The reason is, that all things in which a man confirms
himself come to be of his love and life. They come to be of his love
because they come to be of his will and understanding; and will and
understanding constitute the life of every one; and when they come to be
of man's life, they come to be not only of his whole mind but also of his
whole body. From this it is evident that a man who has confirmed himself
in evils and falsities is such from head to foot, and when he is wholly
such, by no turning or twisting back can he be reduced to an opposite
state, and thus w