93. I have sometimes in the spiritual world spoken with the justifiers of men by faith alone, and I said that their doctrine is erroneous, and likewise absurd, that it brings on security, blindness, sleep, and night in spiritual things, thereby death to the soul, thus exhorting them to desist from it. But I have received for answer, Why should we desist? Does not the preeminence of the clergy above the laity, in point of erudition, depend upon this doctrine? To which I replied, that thus they do not regard the salvation of souls, but their own preeminence; and that because they had applied the truths of the Word to their own false principles, and thereby had adulterated them, they were angels of the abyss, called "Abaddons" and "Apollyons" (Rev. 9:11); by whom are signified the destroyers of the church by a total falsification of the Word. See the explanation thereof (n. 440), and the Relation (n. 566), in The Apocalypse Revealed. But they answered, What is this? Are we not, by our knowledge of the mysteries of that doctrine, oracles? And do we not from that doctrine give answers as from the sanctuary? wherefore we are not Apollyons, but Apollos. Being indignant at this I said, If ye are Apollos, ye are also Leviathans, the first class of you are crooked Leviathans, and the second class of you are oblong Leviathans, whom God will visit with His hard and great sword (Isa. 27:1). But they laughed at these things. What is meant by "being visited and perishing by the sword," may be seen in The Apocalypse Revealed (n. 52).