259. The Word is like a garden, and may be called a heavenly paradise, in which are delicacies and delights of every kind, delicacies in its fruits and delights in its flowers; and in the middle of the garden are the trees of life, and near them fountains of living waters, with forest trees round about the garden. The man who from doctrine is in Divine truths is in the center where the trees of life are, and is in the actual enjoyment of the delicacies and delights there; while the man who is in truths not from doctrine, but only from the sense of the letter, is in the parts round about, and sees only the forest. But he who is in the doctrine of a false religion, and has confirmed in himself its falsity, is not even in the forest, but is outside of it on a sandy plain, where there is not even grass. That this is the state of such after death, has been shown in the work on Heaven and Hell.
