Afterlife: A Guided Tour of Heaven and Its Wonders - Swedenborg ...

AFTERLIFE
tion itself is their memory. They appear extraor dinarily
simple in outward form, but they are wise and provident
inwardly. They are the ones the Lord was referring to
when he said, “Be wise as serpents and simple as doves”
(Matthew 10:16). This is the nature of the innocence
called the innocence of wisdom.
Because innocence is the very heart of all the good of
heaven, it also affects minds so strongly that people who
feel it—which happens at the approach of an angel of the
inmost heaven—feel as though they are not under their
own control. They are moved by such a joy, so taken out
of themselves, so to speak, that it seems as though all the
pleasure of the world is nothing by comparison. I speak of
this from having experienced it.
All the people in hell are absolutely opposed to inno -
cence. They do not know what innocence is. Their nature
is such that the more innocent people are, the more they
burn with desire to cause them harm. This is why they
cannot stand to see little children. The moment they do,
they are consumed with a vicious desire to inflict harm.
The State of Peace in Heaven
Anyone who has not experienced heaven’s peace cannot
know what the peace is that angels enjoy. As long as we
are in our bodies, we cannot accept heaven’s peace, so we
can not perceive it, our perception being on the natural
level. In order to perceive it, we need to be the kind of per -
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