I was in a conversation with spirits about those who want to merit heavenly joy, or heaven, through piety, that is through prayers, gifts to the poor, self-imposed humiliation and renunciation of the world, and the like, by which people think, sometimes in simplicity, that they merit heaven-as also, for example, by having during their bodily life contributed something to the increase of the Lord's Church, ascribing merit to themselves for it. Of such people there are many, many kinds and species. Then, as I was in conversation with spirits, I also saw by a spiritual mental image that the more people suppose that they merit heaven by such means and thus come nearer to heaven, the more they distance themselves from heaven, because they ascribe merit to themselves and take it away from the Lord, ascribing faith, charity,