224. [227.] 86. How English preachers who wish to gain a reputation for learning compose their sermons with great elegance and seemingly profound wisdom, especially as regards the influx of faith into an effort to do good, and the state of the person then in respect to his affection, reception, and enlightenment by the Holy Spirit. Some of the English complained, saying that the sermons thus delight their ears with their elegance and are pleasing when they hear them, but when they try in themselves to apply something from them, they do not know what the preachers have said as to whether it is permissible to add their volition and so consciously will and do a thing. When asked about it, the preachers make such equivocal replies that it seems as though they may and may not, saying finally that it is a transcendent mystery, in order that their listeners, being able to gather either conclusion from them, may praise them; but because of the preachers' ambiguous utterances, which conceal in them some hidden meaning like a snake in the undergrowth, their listeners do not like them. The preachers tell them to remain in the doctrine which is taught in the customary prayer at the Holy Supper, and that if they, do not do so of their own will, perhaps the devil will enter into them as he did into Judas.* The sermons of English preachers are also filled with a sense of trust and confidence in themselves. * A reference to the following statement in the declaration: "Therefore if any of you be a blasphemer of God, or hinderer or slanderer of His word, or adulterer, or be in malice or envy, or in any other grievous crime, repent you of your sins, or else come not to the Holy Table; lest after the taking of that Holy Sacrament the Devil enter into you, as he entered into Judas, and fill you with all iniquities, and bring you to destruction both of body and soul." (From The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem, no. 5.)