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XIV.
THE LORD CASTS NO ONE INTO HELL.
HE opinion has prevailed with some that God turns his face away from man, rejects him and casts him into hell; and that He is angry with him on account of sin. And it is still further supposed by some that God punishes man, and brings evil upon him. In this opinion they confirm themselves from the literal sense of the "Word, where such things are declared; not being aware that the spiritual sense of the Word, which explains that of the letter, is altogether different.
But the genuine doctrine of the church, which is according to the spiritual sense of the Word, teaches otherwise; namely, that God never turns His face away from man, never rejects him, never casts any one into hell and is never angry. Every one, also, whose mind is in a state of illustration when he reads the Word, perceives this from the single consideration that God is good itself, love itself and mercy itself; and that good itself cannot do evil to any one; nor can love itself and mercy itself cast man away from them, because it is contrary to their very essence, thus contrary to the Divine Itself.
Therefore they who think from an enlightened
