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 abode of all those since the first creation, who have lived well. But congregations of spirits are meant, who had made seeming [or imaginary] heavens for themselves between heaven and hell. And since all spirits and angels, as well as men, inhabit earths, therefore, by the former heaven and the former earth, these seeming heavens are meant. The passing away of that heaven and that land was a thing seen, and has been described from sight in the work.

II. All those who gathered themselves together underneath heaven, and in various places formed seeming heavens for themselves, and also called them heavens, were conjoined with the angels of the lowest heaven, but only as to externals, not as to internals. For the most part they were the goats and those akin to them named in Matthew xxv. 41-46; who, indeed, had not done evil in the world, for they had lived well morally; but they had not done good from a good motive, for they had separated faith from charity, and hence had not regarded evils as sins. Now, because they had lived like Christians in externals, they were conjoined with the angels of the lowest heaven, who were like them in externals but unlike them in internals,—they being the sheep and in faith, yet in the faith of charity. On account of this conjunction they were necessarily tolerated; for the act of separating them before the last judgment, would have brought ruin upon those who were in the