741. 'But they receive authority as kings one hour with the beast' signifies that the Word has influence with them, and they have influence by means of the Word, as if they were in its Divine Truths. By 'to receive authority with the beast' is signified to have influence together with the Word, thus that the Word has influence with them, and they have influence by means of the Word. By 'to receive authority' is signified to have influence, and by 'the beast' is signified the Word (n. 723). By 'as kings' is signified as if they were in Divine truths out of the Word. That by 'kings' are signified those who are in Divine truths out of the Word, and abstractly the Divine Truths there [may be seen] (n. 20, 664, 704, 740). By 'one hour' is signified for some time and also in some measure. It is plain from these things that by 'they receive authority as kings one hour with the beast' is signified that the Word has influence with them, and they have influence by means of the Word, as if they were in its Divine Truths. These things have been said because they acknowledge that the Word is Divinely inspired, and consequently that the Church is a Church out of the Word. Nevertheless up till now they do not draw Divine Truths out of it, save only these general ones: that the Only God is to be worshipped, and not any man as God; and that the authority given to Peter is not in itself Divine, and that yet it is Divine to open and shut heaven, which is not in a man s own power. They confirm these things with themselves out of the Word; but before others, who do not hear the Word, they confirm them out of the rationality that, as a result of a continual influx given out of heaven, is with everyone who wishes to be in truths. Because in external or formal things they still cohere with the Roman Catholic form of religion it is of the Lord's Divine Providence that they make no further progress and do not draw doctrinal tenets of faith and life out of the Word, lest they should mix truth and untruth together, and in consequence an interior struggle should arise, which is like a fermentation that causes disturbance.