This belief
involves the other-that angels were created such from the beginning;
for it is impossible to believe that heaven and hell are from the
human race when it is believed that no man can go there until the end
of the world. [2] But that men might be convinced that this is not
true it has been granted me to be in company with angels, and also to
talk with those who are in hell, and this now for some years,
sometimes continuously from morning until evening, and thus be
informed about heaven and hell. This has been permitted that the man
of the church may no longer continue in his erroneous belief about
the resurrection at the time of judgment, and about the state of the
soul in the meanwhile, also about angels and the devil. As this
belief is a belief in what is false it involves the mind in darkness,
and with those who think about these things from their own
intelligence it induces doubt and at length denial, for they say in
heart, "How can so vast a heaven, with so many constellations and
with the sun and moon, be destroyed and dissipated; and how can the
stars which are larger than the earth fall from heaven to the earth;
and can bodies eaten up by worms, consumed by corruption, and
scattered to all the winds, be gathered together again to their
souls; and where in the meantime is the soul, and what is it when
deprived of the senses it had in the body?" [3] With many other like
things, which being incomprehensible cannot be believed, and which
destroy the belief of many in the life of the soul after death, and
their belief in heaven and hell, and with these other matters
pertaining to the faith of the church.
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