id objects, but in hell such as are filthy and
unclean. The ground of the difference is, because all in the heavens
worship God, and all in the hells worship nature; and the magnificent
and splendid objects in the heavens are correspondences of the
affections of good and truth, and the filthy and unclean objects in the
hells are correspondences of the lusts of what is evil and false. Judge
now, from these circumstances, whether God or nature be all in all." To
this the satans replied, "In the state wherein we now are, we can
conclude, from what we have heard, that there is a God; but when the
delight of evil seizes our minds, we see nothing but nature." These two
angels and two satans were standing to the right, at no great distance
from me; therefore I saw and heard them; and lo! I saw near them many
spirits who had been celebrated in the natural world for their
erudition; and I was surprised to observe that those great scholars at
one time stood near the angels and at another near the satans, and that
they favored the sentiments of those near whom they stood; and I was led
to understand that the changes of their situation were changes of the
state of their minds, which sometimes favored one side and sometimes the
other; for they were _vertumni_. Moreover, the angels said, "We will
tell you a mystery; on our looking down upon the earth, and examining
those who were celebrated for erudition, and who have thought about God
and nature from their own judgement, we have found six hundred out of a
thousand favorers of nature, and the rest favorers of God; and that
these were in favor of God, in consequence of having frequently
maintained in their conversation, not from any convictions of their
understandings, but only from hear-say, that nature is from God; for
frequent conversation from the memory and recollection, and not at the
same time from thought and intelligence, induces a species of faith."
After this, the satans were entrusted to a guard and ascended with the
two angels into heaven, and saw the magnificent and splendid objects
contained therein; and being then an illustration from the light of
heaven, they acknowledged the being of a God, and that nature was
created to be subservient to the life which is in God and from God; and
that nature in itself is dead, and consequently does nothing of itself,
but is acted upon by life. Having seen and perceived these things, they
descended: and as they descended the love of ev