220. [222.] 82. All those preachers who in the life of the body confirmed themselves in faith alone, and because of their life cannot retreat from it, are not permitted to preach. Their priestly attire is taken from them, and afterward they do not know that they had been preachers.

Very many are permitted to preach, but as soon as they preach faith alone and justification by it alone, their listeners all leave and the church becomes empty. In this way those preachers who are able to retreat from that faith are corrected so as to receive the doctrine of heaven. The like occurs in the case of those who separate the Lord from the Father and do not make them one.

Moreover, what is new, all who are in the spiritual world more than a month reject the notion of a third person, acknowledging that the Holy Spirit is the Lord speaking through angels and spirits. The reason they reject the notion is that fanatic spirits, Quakers and many others, who are hellish, say they are the Holy Spirit from eternity.

[223.] I have had many conversations with them on this subject, remarking that because they have rejected the idea of a third person in the Godhead, they presently think of two, and asking them to see whether now of the two they may make one.