same with children, whose interiors are not only formed by means of innocence flowing through them from the Lord, but also are continually being fitted and arranged for receiving the good of heavenly love, since the good of innocence acts from the inmost; for that good, as has been said, is the being [esse] of all good.  From all this it can be seen that all innocence is from the Lord.  For this reason the Lord is called in the Word a “lamb,” a lamb signifying innocence.{1} Because innocence is the inmost in all the good of heaven, it so affects minds that when it is felt by any one-as when an angel of the inmost heaven approaches-he seems to himself to be no longer his own master and is moved and as it were carried away by such a delight that no delight of the world seems to be anything in comparison with it.  This I say from having perceived it.

  {Footnote 1} In the Word a “lamb” signifies innocence and its
  good. (n. 3994, 10132).

283.  Everyone who is in the good of innocence is affected by innocence, and is affected to the extent that he is in that good; but those who are not in the good of innocence are not affected by innocence.  For this reason all who are in hell are wholly antagonistic to innocence; they do not know what it is; their antagonism is such that so far as any one is innocent they burn to do him mischief; therefore they cannot bear to see little children; and as soon as they see them they are inflamed with a cruel desire to do them harm.  From this it is clear that what is man’s own, and therefore the love of self, is antagonistic to innocence; for all who are in hell are in what is their own, and therefore in the love of self.{1}

{Footnote 1} What is man’s own is loving self more than God, and the world more than heaven, and making one’s neighbor of no account as compared with oneself; thus it is the love of self and of the world (n. 694, 731, 4317, 5660).  The evil are wholly antagonistic to innocence, even to the extent that they cannot endure its presence (n. 2126).

284.  XXXII.  The state of peace in heaven.

Only those that have experienced the peace of heaven can have any perception of the peace in which the angels are.  As man is unable, as long as he is in the body, to receive the peace of heaven, so he can have no perception of it, because his perception is confined to what is natural.  To perceive it he must be able, in respect to thought, to be raised up and withdrawn from the body and kept in the spirit, and at the same time be with angels.  In this way has the peace of heaven been perceived by me; and for this reason I am able to describe it, yet not in words as that peace is in itself, because human words are inadequate, but only as it is in comparison with that rest of mind that those enjoy who are content in God.