2652. THAT THOSE WHO IN ANY MANNER WISH TO MERIT HEAVEN, PUT THEMSELVES FOR FROM HEAVEN. I discoursed with spirits concerning such as wish to merit celestial joy or heaven, through piety, to wit, through prayers, gifts to the poor, and self-humiliation, by abnegation of the world from themselves, and the like, whereby man supposes, sometimes in simplicity, that thus he may merit heaven. Likewise also that thereby in the life of the body he has contributed something to the Lord's church, and this he attributes to himself as a merit: of such [men] there are genera and manifold species; further, when I was in discourse with spirits, I have also perceived in spiritual idea, that the more anyone thinks he merits heaven through such things, thus approaches to heaven, the farther he puts himself away from heaven, because he attributes the merit to himself and takes it away from the Lord,