Swedenborg's sense of the inner meaning of the Scriptures he avowed he had been given by the Lord Himself, and he taught the doctrines of the New Church which he believed came into being with the second coming of Christ in 1757. From Things Seen and Heard, written in that same year, and first published in Amsterdam in 1758. All in heaven have one speech, . . . The speech of evil and infernal spirits is likewise natural to them because it is derived from affection, but from evil affections and their filthy ideas, which are held by the angels in utter aversion. The language of hell is therefore the opposite of that of heaven, and the wicked cannot endure angelic speech, nor can angels endure infernal speech.
Infernal speech is to the angels like a bad and pungent odour.
The speech of hypocrites, who are able to assume the appearance of angels of light, resembles that of angels as regards words, but as regards affection and ideas thence derived it is diametrically opposite. Consequently, when its interior quality is perceived by the wiser angels, it sounds like the gnashing of teeth and strikes them with horror. . . . Sometimes papers have been sent to me covered with writing, some like manuscripts and some like printed papers in the world. Their doctrines also are derived from it and they preach from it . . . . The Word is the same, but its natural sense, which is the sense of the letter with us, does not exist in heaven, but only the spiritual sense, which is its internal sense.