9. The end of the Church, or the consummation of the age, is when there is not any genuine truth remaining, and hence not any genuine good, or, not any good and hence not any truth, but, in their place, falsity and thence evil rules, or evil and thence falsity, and then there is the "fulness [of time]" in the Church, the members of which are like persons walking in the night, who, because they do not see anything that appears, in the light of the sun, are uncertain about all things relating to the Church, and in general about God, about heaven and hell, and about the life after death; and both those who confirm themselves in the denial of these things, and those who remain alternately in doubt and in affirmation, at length shun the light, and, if they be priests, they procure for themselves on those subjects a false light, such as night-owls, cats and mice have in the darkness of night. This light is kindled with them, as with these wild beasts, through the activities of their lusts.