True Christian Religion (Chadwick) n. 733

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733. The seventh group, whom the light rendered invisible to the rest, was from the east of heaven. They were angels from the same community as the angel with the trumpet. When the news reached them in heaven that not a single person in Christendom knew what the joy of heaven and everlasting happiness were, they said to one another: 'This cannot possibly be true. There cannot be such thick darkness and mental stupor among Christians. Why do we not go down too and hear whether this is true? If it is, it is certainly a portent.'

Then they said to the angel with the trumpet: 'You know that every person who had longed to go to heaven and had any definite ideas about its joys is after death allowed to experience the joys he imagined; and after they have found out by experience what those joys are like, and realised that they are empty ideas in their minds and ravings of their imaginations, they are taken away from them and taught. This happens to most people in the world of spirits, who in their previous lives had thought deeply about heaven, and come to some conclusion about its joys, so as to desire to experience them.' On hearing this the angel with the trumpet said to the six groups summoned from the wise of the Christian world: 'Follow me, and I shall bring you to experience the joys you imagine, and so into heaven.'


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