Heaven and Hell for John Smith, as for Boehme and for Whichcote, "have their foundation laid in Men's own souls."[29] They are rather something within us than something without us. Sin and hell have the same origin, "the same lineage and descent." "The Devil is not only the name of one particular thing, but a _nature_. He is not so much a particular Being designed to torture wicked men in the world to come as a hellish and diabolical {313} nature seated in the minds of men. . . . Could the Devil change his foul and impure nature, he would neither be a Devil nor miserable. . . . All Sin and Wickedness in man's spirit hath the Central force and energy of Hell in it, and is perpetually pressing down towards it as towards its own place. There needs no fatal necessity or Astral influences to tumble wicked men down forcibly into Hell: No, Sin itself, hastened by the mighty weight of its own nature, carries them down thither with the most swift and headlong motion."[30] "Would wicked men dwell a little more at home, and _descend into the bottom of their own Hearts_ they would soon find Hell opening her mouth wide upon them, and those secret fires of inward fury and displeasure breaking out upon them."[31] So, too, the Kingdom of Heaven is within. It lies not so much in external things, golden streets and crowns, as in the quality and disposition of a man's mind. The enjoying of God consists not so much in a change of place as in participation in the nature of God and in assimilation to God. Nothing can stand firm and sure, nothing can have eternal establishment and abiding permanence that "hath not the everlasting arms of true Goodness under it."[32]