Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 169
All this has been said to make known what power angels have
with man.
229. But so great is the power of angels in the spiritual world
that if I should make known all that I have witnessed in regard
to it, it would exceed belief. Any obstruction there that ought
to be removed because it is contrary to Divine order the angels
cast down or overthrow merely by an effort of the will and a
look. Thus I have seen mountains that were occupied by the
evil cast down and overthrown, and sometimes shaken from
end to end as in earthquakes; also rocks cleft asunder to their
bottoms, and the evil who were upon them swallowed up. I
have seen also hundreds of thousands of evil spirits dispersed
by angels and cast down into hell. Numbers are of no avail
against them; neither are devices, cunning, or combinations;
for they see through them all, and disperse them in a moment.
(But more may be seen on this subject in the account of the
destruction of Babylon.) Such power do angels have in the
spiritual world. It is evident from the Word that they have like
power in the natural world also when it is permitted; for
instance, that they have given to destruction entire armies; and
that they brought on a pestilence from which seventy thousand
men died. Of this angel it is said:
The angel stretched out his hand against Jerusalem to destroy
it but Jehovah repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that
destroyed the people, It is enough, now stay thy hand. And David
saw the angel that smote the people (2 Sam. 24:16, 17).
Besides other passages. Because the angels have such power
they are called powers; as in David:
Bless Jehovah, ye angels, mighty in power (Ps. 103:20).
230. But it must be understood that the angels have no
power whatever from themselves, but that all their power is
from the Lord; and that they are powers only so far as they
acknowledge this. Whoever of them believes that he has power