contend until one destroys the other. Those who are at the same time in
evil and in good are meant in the Apocalypse in these words of the Lord
to the church of the Laodiceans:

I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot; would that you were
cold or hot; but because you are lukewarm, I will spue you out of my
mouth (3:15, 16):

also in these words of the Lord:

No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love
the other, or cleave to the one and not heed the other (Mt 6:24).

19. ( viii) _That which is in good and at the same time in truth is
something; that which is in evil and at the same time in falsity is not
anything._ See above (n. 11) that what is in good and at the same time in
truth is something. It follows that what is at once evil and false is not
anything. By not being anything is meant that it is without power and
without spiritual life. Those at once in evil and in falsity (all of whom
are in hell) have power indeed among themselves, for an evil man can do
evil and does so in a thousand ways. Yet he can do evil to the evil only
by reason of their evil; he cannot harm the good at all; if, as sometimes
happens, he does, it is by conjunction with their evil.

[2] In this way temptations arise; they are infestations by evil spirits
who are with a man; so combats ensue by which the good are freed from
their evils. Since the wicked have no power, all hell in the Lord's sight
is not only nothing, but nothing at all in point of power, as I have seen
proved by much experience. But it is remarkable that the evil all deem
themselves powerful, and the good all think themselves powerless. This is