AC 8165 - despair; AC 8175 - imagine the hells as the ocean

AC 8165 [2]
. . . those who are in despair,
which is the last of temptation,
think such things,
and then they are as it were on the slope,
or are as it were sinking down toward hell.
But at this time such thought does no harm whatever,
nor do the angels pay any attention to it,
for every person's power is limited,
and when the temptation
arrives at the furthest limit of his power,
the person cannot sustain anything more,
but sinks down.
But then, when he is on the downhill course,
he is raised by the Lord and thus liberated from despair;
and is then for the most part
brought into a clear state of hope
and of the consequent consolation,
and also into good fortune.

AC 8175
That the Lord alone
sustains the combats of temptations, and conquers,
is because the Divine alone can conquer the hells.
Unless the Divine acted against them,
they would rush in like a vast ocean,
one hell after another,
for the resisting of which
a person is of not the slightest avail;
and the less so because in respect to what is his own,
man is nothing but evil, thus is hell,
from which the Lord then withdraws him,
and afterward withholds him.