62. Those of the Papal nation have this love who have had dominion from the frenzy of its delight, and have despised the Word, and preferred the dictates of the Pope to it. They are utterly devastated as to externals, until they no longer know anything of the church, and then they are cast down into hell and become devils. There is a certain separate hell for those who wish to be invoked as gods, where such is their fantasy, that they do not see what is, but what is not. Their delirium is such as affects persons in a malignant fever, who see things floating in the air and in the chamber, and on the covering of the bed, which do not exist. This worst of evils is meant by:
The head of the serpent, which is bruised by the Seed of the woman, and which wounds His heel (Gen. 3:15).
"The heel" of the Lord, who is "the Seed of the woman," is the Divine proceeding in ultimates, which is the Word in the sense of the letter.
