1134. Saying, Woe, woe, that great city Babylon, signifies lamentation over that doctrine and over that religion. This is evident from the signification of "woe, woe," as being lamentation, especially over destruction and devastation (See n. 531; also from the signification of "city," as being doctrine (See n. 223; also from the signification of "Babylon," as being that religious persuasion which, because of the falsification and profanation of the truth and good of the church, is called "a harlot" and "the mother of whoredoms and of the abominations of the earth." This makes clear that "Woe, woe, that great city Babylon," signifies lamentation over that religious persuasion.
(Continuation respecting the Athanasian Faith and respecting the Lord)
[2] God has all power, and men and angels have none at all, because God alone is life, and men and angels are only recipients of life, and life is that which acts, and the recipient of life that which is acted upon. Everyone can see that a recipient of life cannot act at all from itself, and that its action must be from the life that is God. Nevertheless, it can act as if from itself, for this can be granted to it; that it has been granted to it has been said above. If man does not live from himself it follows that he does not think and will from himself, neither does he speak and act from himself, but from God who alone is life. That this is so appears as a paradox, for man has no other feeling than that these things are in himself, and thus are done by himself; and yet when he speaks from faith he acknowledges that everything good and true is from God, and that everything evil and false is from the devil, although everything that a man thinks, wills, speaks or acts, has reference to what is good and true or to what is evil and false. For this reason when a man does good he says within himself, or his teacher says to him, that he was led by God, and when he does evil that he was led by the devil. Also every man who preaches, prays that his thought, his discourse, and his tongue, may be led by the spirit of God, and sometimes he adds after preaching that he has spoken from the Spirit; and some even have a perception of this in themselves. Moreover, I can myself testify before the world that all things of my thought and will have entered by influx, the goods and truths through heaven from the Lord, and the evils and falsities from hell. It has been granted me for a long time to perceive this.
[3] Angels of the higher heavens feel this manifestly; and the wisest of them do not wish to think and will even as if from themselves. On the other hand, infernal genii and spirits utterly deny this, and are angry when told that it is so. Yet to many the truth has been made evident by living proof; but afterwards they were indignant. Since, however, this seems to many to be a paradox, it is important that it should be seen from some idea of the understanding how this takes place, that it may be acknowledged that it does take place. The essence of the matter is as follows. From the Lord's Divine love, which appears in the angelic heaven as a sun, light and heat proceed. This light is the life of His Divine wisdom, and this heat is the life of His Divine love. This spiritual heat which is love, and this spiritual light which is wisdom flow into subjects that are recipient of life, as natural heat and natural light from the sun of the world flow into subjects not recipient of life. And although light simply modifies the substances into which it flows, and heat simply changes their state, yet it follows that if these were living subjects, they would feel these changes in themselves, and would suppose them to be from themselves; and yet they recede with the sun and return with the sun. It is because the life of the Lord's Divine wisdom is light that the Lord in many passages of the Word is called light, and it is said in John:
The Word was with God, and God was the Word. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men (John 1:1-4.)
From all this it is now clear that God has infinite power because He is the all in all. But how an evil person can think, will, speak and do evil, when God alone is life, will be told in what follows.
