fire in wood under ashes or like matter in an unopened wound; for all
evil which is repressed increases and does not stop until it destroys
all. Lest evil be repressed, therefore, everyone is allowed to think in
favor of God or against God and in favor of the sanctities of the church
or against them, without being punished for it in the world. Of this the
Lord says in Isaiah:

From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness; wound,
and scar, and fresh bruise; they have not been pressed out, nor bound up,
nor softened with oil.... Wash you, make you clean, remove the evil of
your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good. . . .
Then if your sins have been as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; if
they have been red like crimson, they shall be like wool. . . . But if
you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword (Isa 1:6, 16,
17, 18, 20).

To be devoured by the sword signifies to perish by falsity of evil.

[6] Sixth: _The cause, hidden so far, why evils cannot be removed apart
from their being searched out, appearing, being acknowledged, confessed
and resisted._ In preceding pages we have mentioned the fact that all
heaven is arranged in societies according to affections of good, and all
hell in societies according to the lusts of evil opposite to the
affections of good. Each person as to his spirit is in some society, in a
heavenly one if in an affection of good, but in an infernal one if in
some lust of evil. While living in the world man does not know this and
yet as to his spirit he is in some society; otherwise he cannot live; and
by it he is governed by the Lord. If he is in an infernal society, he
cannot be led out of it by the Lord except according to the laws of
divine providence, among which is this also, that a man shall see that he