4887. The reason that they were raised up into that threshold of heaven, was because they have attended on the holy things of the church, out of custom, from infancy, and have also acknowledged them in thought and with the mouth; but still have accounted the life as of no moment, and have loved honors and profit for the sake of honors and profit, or on account of evil ends. They judged out of respect to gains, enmities, favor, grudges, and not from justice: so it was in their whole life: therefore they were elevated to the threshold of that heaven through the truths of faith which they professed in that manner, although not in the life; but when, being endowed with liberty, they were let into those things which pertained to their life, it was then discovered of what quality they were in heart. Hence it is that they separated themselves from God and adjoined themselves to that devil, whom they made their king, being willing also to acknowledge him as their God; and it was said that this would happen after some time, and further, that it could happen, because in times past men were acknowledged as gods. Those who favored him were especially those who were learned, and had, more than others, defended the truths of faith, both with the mouth and by preaching and writings, and condemned to hell all who thought contrary thereto; and, nevertheless, they had lived a life altogether worldly, - in enmity, in envy, in hatred, in revenge, in cunning and deceit, in hypocrisy - still, however, taking care that this should not come out before the world; and if it did come out, they made it appear lawful, by various arguments, as, for example, that such things do not condemn, but only the falses of faith. This according to the doctrine of such in general, to wit, that works do not condemn, consequently, not the life; when yet the fact really is, that the life remains, and so much and such a sort of faith as is conformable to the life; for the life of the body forms around it, after death, truths or falses, according to its good or evil, just as the soul forms a body about itself.