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 they may possess heaven and earth, obtaining each by means of the other. To effect this, they continually devise and hatch new laws and new doctrinals. They make the same endeavor also in the other life as they had made in the world; for every one after death is such as he was in the world, especially as regards his religion.

It was granted me to hear certain of the primates consulting about a doctrine which was to be a law to the people. It consisted of many articles, but they all tended to one thing: fraudulent dominion over heaven and earth, and the ascription of all power to themselves and none to the Lord. These doctrinals were afterwards read before the bystanders; whereupon a voice was heard from heaven, declaring that they were dictated from the deepest hell, though the hearers knew it not. Which was further proved by this: a crowd of devils from that hell, of the blackest and direst appearance, ascended and tore those doctrinals from them, not with their hands but with their teeth, and carried them down to their own hell; to the amazement of those who saw it.

The reason why they were there tolerated until the day of the last judgment, was, that it is of Divine order that all who can possibly be preserved, shall be preserved, even until they can no longer remain