third part of the stars from heaven; which things are said, because these spirits, by means of the profession of a belief in God, by reading the Word and by outward worship, communicated with heaven. These same spirits are understood by the goats in Matthew xxiv.; to whom it is not said that they did evils, but that they omitted to do goods. And all such omit to do goods which are goods, because they do not shun evils as sins; and because, although they do not commit them, they think them allowable, and therefore commit them in spirit,—and in body, too, when they can.
Upon all such among the Reformed the last judgment was executed, but not upon those who did not believe in God, who contemned the Word and rejected from their hearts the holy things of the church; for all these, so soon as they went from the natural into the spiritual world, were cast into hell.
All who lived like Christians in externals, and made no account of a Christian life, were outwardly in union with the heavens, but inwardly with the hells. And since they could not be instantaneously torn away from their union with heaven, they were detained in the world of spirits which is mediate between heaven and hell; and it was there permitted them to form societies, and to live together as in the world; and by arts unknown in the world, to cause splendid appearances, and by this means to persuade themselves and others that they were in heaven.
