312. The Conscience of a Hyena
But, after all, what I really want to do is to destroy the idea of eternal punishment. That doctrine subverts all ideas of justice. That doctrine fills hell with honest men, and heaven with intellectual and moral paupers. That doctrine allows people to sin on a credit. That doctrine allows the basest to be eternally happy and the most honorable to suffer eternal pain. I think of all doctrines it is the most infinitely infamous, and would disgrace the lowest savage, and any man who believes it, and has imagination enough to understand it, has the heart of a serpent and the conscience of a hyena.
313. I Leave the Dead
But for me I leave the dead where nature leaves them, and whatever flower of hope springs up in my heart I will cherish. But I cannot believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a soul for eternal pain, and I would rather that every God would destroy himself, I would rather that we all should go back to the eternal chaos, to the black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony.
314. Calvin in Hell!
Swedenborg did one thing for which I feel almost grateful. He gave an account of having met John Calvin in hell. Nothing connected with the supernatural could be more natural than this. The only thing detracting from the value of this report is, that if there is a hell, we know without visiting the place that John Calvin must be there.