Swedenborg THE CORONIS or Appendix to the True Christian Religion The INVITATION to the NEW CHURCH...

7/28/2019 Swedenborg THE CORONIS or Appendix to the True Christian Religion The INVITATION to the NEW CHURCH Londo…

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/swedenborg-the-coronis-or-appendix-to-the-true-christian-religion-the-invitation 1/126

THE CORONISOR APPENDIX TO

THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION:IN WHICH IT TREATS

OF THE FOUR CHURCHES OF THIS EARTH FROM

THE CREATION OF THE WORLD, AND OF THEIR

PERIODS AND CONSUMMATION;-OF THE NEW CHURCH ABOUT T O SUCCEED

THOSE FOUR, W H ICH W IL L H ~ I ~ I , . Y CHR ISTIAN ,

AND THE CROWN OF THE PRECEDING ONES;

OF THE COMING OF THE LORD TO IT, AND OF

HIS DIVINE AUSPICES THEREIN

TO ETERNITY,

AN D FURTHER

OF THE MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION:

THEN ALSO

"THE INVITATION TO THE NEW CHURCH"

FROM THE LATIN OF

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

THE SWEDENBORG SOCIETY20 BLOOMSBURY WAY

LONDON, w.c.i

1966



THE CORONIS

OR APPENDIX TO

THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION



First printed in this edition 1931

Reprinted 1966

Printed in Great Britain

b..y Morrison and Gibb Limited, London and Edinburgh



CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME

PAGE.1. T H E CORONIS 9

2 THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE, THE SECOND COMING OF

THE LORD, AND THE NEW CHURCH 85

3 THE INVITATION TO THENEW

CHURCH 95



PREFATORY NOTE CONCERNING THECONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME

THE work, which opens the Volume-" The Coronis " - i s , as it

proclaims itself, an "Appendix to THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION ,"

and was written for the purpose of treating somewhat more indetail certain specified points which had been little more than

touched upon in that work.It suffers under the two disadvantages of never having been

issued to the world by its author, and QLbeing incom lete.

So far as known, the work in its complete form nowhere now

exists. The MS. , we are informed, was lent by Swedenborg,

during is_last_illness, to_DIIVIesSlter, ana, un orfiiIi"itely,

" n e ~ r l y one-half of i t " was "mislaid and finally lost at the

( Dr's house" (see DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG, Vol. Il l ,

p. 1022).A careful comparison of the work, as given in the following

pages, with the full plan of it outlined in the " Summaries"

prefixed to it, will show that the present Volume does not givethe complete treatise as designed by'-Swe-denborg. The working

outo f tn e lan iscan:ied orlJY. as far as to the end f P ~ o p ' o s i O i 1 V I of the" Summaries," when the matter comes to an abrupt stop

1at the successive changes of state in the Israelitish Church. This)

\ ~ s far as the r e s c u e ~ e o r t i o n of the MS. gQes.

U e e . m L ~ e < i s p . n a . ! : l l e to

P Q s ~ h a L h e _ M S was comJili:tewhen placed by Swedenborg in Dr M ~ s ~ i t e r ' s hands, and that,

therefore, the.l-<t.rge_pprJiQILoCit which_was first" mislaid and

finally lost at the Dr's house," contained th e full execution of(the ori inal lan. That it carried the work considerably beyond ]the contents of the present Volume must, at any rate;15e certain,

- T ne-fact that e m i n ~ J ~ o r t i o n c o m m e n c e d ~ i t h the dis

cussion of the Rise, Development, Decline and Fall of the First rNI Christian Church, and, after that, furnished some forecast

11 res ectin the N ew and " truly Christian " Church, makes theloss of it a matter of Rar ticular regret to th e latter Church now

existin - i n however in firm and strugglm a form-in the world.

But, imperfect though the work is, it is stITfOl high importance

to the Church, and well worthy of publication to serve as a

vu



PREFATORY N O T E

sequel to the work to which it is the "Appendix," and also of

careful study.Il THE CORONIS, together with THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE,

2 . THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD, AND T H ~ - . ! i ~ Y C ~ U R C H , and

.3 THE INVITATION TO THE NEW CHURCH, which follow it in thisVolume, would seem, from Dr R. L. Tafel's DOCUMENTS CON-

CERNING SWEDENBORG (pp . 1020 and 1022), to have the s ecialI nterest of being the last works that Swedenbor ever enned.In the Revision of THE CORONIS, I have had the benefit of the

assistance of the Revs. J . G. Dufty and P. H. Johnson, RA.,

RSc.; in that of THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE, etc., and THE

INVITATION TO THE NEW CHURCH, of the Rev. G. F. Colborne

Kitching.

References to the chapters and v e r s ~ s of Scripture ar e ~ in accordance with the Authorized VerSIon of the English Bible,even w ere Swedenborg, through his use ott neLatiii-VerSlonof Schmidius, or from any other cause, employs a ( I{ffere; t

enumeration.

JAS. F. BUSS,

Editor and Reviser.

Vll l



[ S CHEME O F "THE CORON I S , " O R APPEND IX TO

"THE T RU E CHR I ST IAN REL IG I ON " ]

Cl) THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE

1. THE LAST JUDGMENT

@!)T HE COMING OF T H E LORD

IV . RESTORATION, AND THE NEW CHURCH: ITS QUALITY

1. T H E ApPEARING OF THE LORD J EHOVIH

2. THE MORNING, OR RISE

3. T H E DAY, OR PROGRESSION

4. THE EVENING, OR V ASTATION

5. T H E NIGHT, OR. CONSUMMATION

6. TH E COMING OF THE LORD

7. THE LAST JUDGMENT

8. THE NEW HEAVEN

9. THB NEW CHURCH

10. REDEMPTION

ABOUT MIRACLES

ix



SUMMARIES

1. There have been four Churches on this earth since the

time of the creation: a First, which is to be called the Adamic;

a Second, the Noachian ; a Third , the Israelitish; and a Fourth,

the Christian.

GDThe r e have been four Periods, or successive States, of each

Church, which in the Word are meant by " morning," " day,"

" evening," and" night."

C!!9 In each Church the four changes of states have been

consecutive; the first of which has been the Appearing of the

Lord]ehovih and Redemption, and then was its Morning, or

Rise; the second has been its Instruction, and then was Mid-day,

or Progression; the third has been its Decline, and then was its

Evening, or Vastation; the fourth has been its End, and then

was its Night, or Consummation.

After itsEnd,

orConsummation, the Lord ]ehovih appears

and executes a judgment on the men of the former Church, and

separates the good from the evil, and raises the good to Himself

into heaven , and removes the evil from Himself into hell.

After these things, of the good raised to Himself He forms

a new heaven, and of the evil removed from Himself, a new hell;

and in both He establishes order, so that they may remain under

His control and under obedience to Him to eternity ; and then

through the new heaven He successively inaugurates and estab-

lishes a new Church on earth.

QD

From this new heaven, the Lord ]ehovih derives and pro

duces a new Church on earth; which takes place by means

of a Revelation from His mouth or from His Word, and bytion

.V. These periodical changes of state which occurred in

succession in the first, or Most Ancient Church, which was the

Adamic, are described by Moses in the first chapters of Genesis;

but by celestial representatives, and by other things, belonging

to the world, to which spiritual things correspond.~ T h e periodical changes ofstate which occurred in succession

in the second, or Ancient Church, which was the Noachian,

are also described in Genesis, and here and there in the four

remaining books of Moses.



THE CORONIS

@The periodical changes of state which occurred in suc

cession in the third Church, which was the Israelitish, are also

described in Moses, and afterwards in Joshua, in the Books of

the Judges, of Samuel, and of the Kings, and likewise in the

Prophets.CYlI. The periodical changes which occurred in succession in

the fourth Church, which is the Christian, are described in the

Word of both Testaments; its Rise, or Morning, in particular,

in the Evangelists, and in the Acts and writings of the Apostles;its Progression towards Noon-day, in the ecclesiastical history

of the first three centuries; its Decline, or Evening, by the history

of the centuries immediately following; and its Vastation evento Consummation, which is its Night, in the Apocalypse.

VIII. After those four Churches, a new one is to arise whichwill be truly Christian, foretold in Daniel and in the Apocalypse,

and by the Lord Himself in the Evangelists, and looked for bythe Apostles.

* * * * * * *(0The Church successively declines from the truths of faith

and the goods of charity, and it declines in the same proportion

also from the spiritual understanding and genuine sense of theWord.

X. Consequently, the Church departs in the same proportion

from the Lord, and removes Him from itself.x I:' In proportion as this is effected, it tends towards its end.

I . It is the end of the Church, when there remains no

longer any truth of faith or genuine good of charity.

XIII The Church is then in falSities a nd the evils therefrom,

and i evils and the falsities therefrom.

XIV. Hence, from the deceased out of the world hell increases,

sothat

it raises itself up towards heaven,and

interposes itselfbetween heaven and the Church, like a black cloud betweenthe sun and the earth.~ T h i s interposition prevents the access of any truth of

faith, and thence any genuine good of charity, to the men of the

Church; but, instead of them, falsified truth, which in itself is

falsity, and adulterated good, which in itself is not good.

CXVj)Then naturalism and atheism take possession together.~ X V l i ) T h i s S t a t e O f t h e C h u r c h is-meant and described in the

ord, by " Vastation," " Desolation" and" Consummation."* * * * * * *(XVn j )While Vastation lasts, and before Consummation

supervenes, the Lord's Advent is announced, also Redemption

by the Lord, and after this there is a new Church.

2



O R A P P E N D I X TO T H E T R U E C H R I S T IA N R E L I G I O N~ While the Israelitish Church still endured, these three

we.re announced in many passages of the Word in the Prophets.

(X X jT he Coming of the Lord.

cxxt:/Redemption .

~ X X I I 0 A new Church.r AliiioS'- everywhere in the prophetic Word, Vastation and

1 Consummation, also the Last Judgment, the Lord's Coming, aI new Church, and Redemption, are treated of.

* * * * * * *::"'XXIIJ)As regards Redemption in particular, through which

alone Salvation takes place, it was accomplished by J ehovahGOQ incarnate, who iS J:mr Lord Jesus Christ. -

'- XXfV :)The first part of Redemption was a total subjugation

of the hells. - - -- '~ ~ The second part of Redemption was the separation ofthe evil from the good, and the casting down of the evil into hell

and the raising of the good into heaven.

XXVI> And, lastly, there is the arrangement in order of all

in hell, and the arrangement in order of all in heaven.

<--X XV I I) And then, at the same time, Instruction concerningI the truths which are to be of faith, and the goods w@ch aretol be of charity. - ,,'

XXVIIi)And thus the Establishment of a new Church.

XXIX)The final and efficient Cause of Redemption was the

R e g ~ n e r a t i o n of man, and thereby salvation.

. X X ) ~ Lord, because He is the only Redeemer, is there

fore the only Regenerator, and thus the only Saviour.

* * * * * * *Q S . X ~ I ) B Y His first Advent, and the Redemption then

wroug t, the Lord was not able to form a new heaven of

Christians, and from that a new Church,b ~ c a u s e t h e ~ e r e

asyet no Christians, but they came into existence gradually through

the preachings and writings of the Apostles.

(X X X II . Neither was He able afterwards, since from the

beginning so many heresies broke forth that scarcely a.I!x .@<:tri!1eof' faith appeared in its own light. . _ _

\ Q Q ~ ! ! f A n d at length h ~ A p ! Q ) . ~ Doctrine. was increasingly torn, rent asunder, and adulterated by abominable

heresies.

XXXIV. This is meant by " the abomination of desolation,"and by " the affliction such as was not, either will be," and by

" the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars," in the Evangelists,

in Daniel, and also in the Prophets; likewise by " the Dragon"

and many other things, in the Apocalypse.

3



THE CORONIS

~ B e c a u s e the Lord foresaw these things, therefore

of necessity if man were to be saved, He promised that He ~ u d II

come again into the world and accomplish a Redemption, aa.d

"Youldthus institute a_new C h u r c h , ~ ~ c h wou!9.- be _ ~ y C h r i s t i a n . . A ~ I

XXXVI. TheLorc:J! Himself foretold H i s ! S e c o n ~ C o m i n g , and

the post es frequentfy prophesied respecting i0ndJohn openly

so in the Apocalypse; ~ z;

XXXVII. In like manner respecting the NeJ"Chu.!:ch ' hich

is meant y the" New Jerusalem" in the Apocalypse.XXXVIII. This Second Redem tion was effected in the same

way as t e rst (of which above, from n. xxiii to xxx),c .X X X q f ) And also for the sake of the Regeneration, and

hence the Salvation, of the men of the Church, as its final andefficient cause.

* * * * * * *C X LJ T he falsities which have hitherto desolated, and have at

length consummated, the Christian Church, were chiefly the

following:

C2'L j)They receded from the worship of the Lord, preached by

the Apostles, and from faith in Him.

They separated the Divine Trinity from the Lord, and transferred

it to three Divine Persons from eterni ty, consequently to three Gods.

e.XtIOThey divided saving faith among these three Persons.

. X I I . They separated charity and good works from that faith,

as not at the same time saving.

" XLIV. They deduced justification-that is, remission of sins,

regeneration, and salvation-from that faith alone, independently

of man's co-operation .

. XLV. hey denied to man free-determination in spiritual things,

thus asserting that God alone operates in man, and that man on

his part does nothing.XLVI. From this necessarily flowed forth Predestination, by

whic religion is abolished.

XLVII. heydecreedthat the Passion ofthe Cross isRedemption.

XLVIII. From these heresies, falsities burst forth in SUCh )abundance that there does not remain a single genuine truth which

is not falsified, nor, consequently, a single genuine good which is

not adulterated.

C X LI:X)T he Church knows absolutely nothing about this, its

Desolation and Consummation, nor can it know, until theDivine Truths announced by the Lord in the work e n t i t ~ E TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION:-ares een in light and acknowledged.

The Word is thus obscuredand-darkened, sOi: l:iat not a singletruth any longer appears in it.

4



O R A P P E N D I X TO T H E T R U E C H R I S T IA N R E L I G I O N

I

W F o r many reasons this New Christian Church is not being

established thrau 11 an miracles, as the former was.

LI. But, instead of them, the spiritual sense of the Word is

revealed, and the spiritual world disclosed; and the nature of

both heaven and hell manifested ; also, that man lives as a manafter death; which thingsfsurpass all miracles.

* * * * *..- LII This! N ~ truly Qhristian Church Jwhich is at this day

bemg established by the Lord, will endure to eternity, as isproved from the Word of both Testaments; also it was foreseen

from the creation of the world; and it will be the Crown of the

four ~ d i n g Churches, because it will have true faith andtrUe

charity.

~ I n this New Church there will be spiritual p ; ~ § - e whichis " " ," and internal blessedness of life, as is also 1 ved from

t ~ ~ d of both Testaments.

\.!:!YJ These things will.£xist ~ this New Church, by r ~ its con junction with the Lord, and F i r o u g ~ with God the

J Father.~ n invitation addressed ~ a n d to the wholeChristian world; and a l l h o r t a t i ~ to_w£rthily receive theLord, who has Himself foretold that He would come into the

world for the sake of this Church and to it. --- - ~



LASTLY, ABOUT MIRACLES

cDMiracles were performed in the Church before the Lord's

Advent, because, at that time, men were external, or natural,

and could not be led to their representative worship except by

miracles.

The Miracles performed in Egypt, in the wilderness, in the land

of Canaan, and even to the present time, are to be enumerated.

And that, yet, they never influence men.

Q£:/After the Lord's Advent, when man from external became

internal, and when the capacity of being able to know was

imparted to man, miracles were withheld.

Also, if that capacity were impeded, man would become more

external than before.

Ill. Miracles would abolish worship truly Divine, and intro

duce the former idolatrous worship; as also has taken place for

very many centuries back.

Nevertheless, the latter have not been Divine miracles, but~ ~ were wrought by the magicians of old .U V At this day, in lace of miracles, there has taken · lace

a manifestation of the L o r o ~ i m s e l f , an intromission into the

spmtual--woI- a, andeiiHghteniile'nt there, .sx immediate light

c l H e - r : o r a ~ i n suchthings as are the interior things of theChurch. ---- -

lftrt, above all, the opening of the spiritual sense in the Word,

in which the Lord is in His own Divine light.Q)These Revelations are not miracles; sinc e every: man is

in the spiritual world as to his s irit, without any separation

from his body in the natural world-I , however, with a certain

separation, though only as to the intellectual part of my mind,

but not as to the voluntary ; - and , as regards the spiritualsense,

the Lord through it is with all who approach Him in faith in the

above light; also, through that sense He is in man's natural

light.

6



THE CORONIS

OR APPENDIX TO


c.-2



8



THE CORONIS

OR APPENDIX 1 TO


I. THESE three subjects-the Consummation of the Age, the

Coming of the Lord, and the New Church-have, it is true, been

treated of in the last chapter of the work entitled THE TRUE

CHRISTIAN RELIGION. The reason why a Continuation follows

about them, is, because no one at this day knows what the Con

summation of the Age is, why a Second Advent of the Lord

must take place, or that a New Church is about to com.e; and

yet these three subjects are treated of in both the Prophetic and

the Apostolic Word, and fully in the Apocalypse. That those

three subjects are treated of in the Prophetic Word of the Old

Testament, was made evident to me while it was given me to

layit open by

meansof

thespiritual sense;

andin like mannerthat they are treated of in the Prophetic book of the New

Testament, which is called the Apocalypse: that they are also in

the Evangelic and Apostolic Word, will be plain from the follow

ing pages. Hence it follows, that, W i t h o u t ~ o w l e d g e respecting the Consummation of the Age, the ~ d v e n of

the Lord, and th New Church, the Word is as it were shut up;

D;r tiii anything: but_know e d g ~ s (J£en Jt: these are like .key}

which open the door and let one in. When this takes pJaCe

with the Word, then the treasures which 1 ~ ~ e . ! ! . L e J L t h e r e i n \ 1as at the bottom of thesea;--cc>me into view; for, at the bottom, !t ~ are in the Word notllmg else but treasures. In this !

App.!'!!l.ix.Lof. Continuqjion, I shall proceed, in hke manner as in

the work itself, by prefixed Summaries, which will be confirmed

from Scripture and illustrated from reason,

J PROPOSITION THE F IR i i J

2@THERE HAVE BEEN FOUR CHURCHES ON THIS EARTH SINCETHE TIME OF ITS CREATION: A FIRST, WHICH IS TO BE CALLED THE

ADAMIC; A SECOND, THE NOACHIAN; A THIRD, THE ISRAELITISH;

1 This Appendix is promised in Nos. 15, 177, 343, 485, 627 and 758 of thework itself.

9



2] THE CORONIS

AND A FOURTH, THE CHRISTIAN. That four Churches have existed

on this earth since the creation of the world, manifestly appears

in Daniel; first, from the image seen by Nebuchadnezzar in a

dream, and, afterwards, from the four beasts rising up out of the

sea. On the subject of Nebuchadnezzar's image we read asfollows:

Daniel said, Thou, 0 King, sawest, and behold a great image.

And the appearance thereof, standing over against thee, was

excellent, and the aspect thereof was terrible. The head of this

statue was offin.s:...gQ!d; its breast and arms, of silver; its belly and

its thighs, of brass; its legs, of iron; its feet, partly of iron and

partly of clay. Thou sawest until a stone was cut out, which was

cut without hands, and smote the image upon its feet that were

of iron and clay, and ground them to powder. Then were theiron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, ground to powder

together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors,

so that the wind carried them away, and no place was found for

them: but the stone which smote the image, became a great rock,

and filled the whole earth. In these days shall the God of the

heavens set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and

His kingdom shall not be entrusted to another people: it shall

break in pieces and consume all those kingdoms, but it shall stand

for ever (Dan. ii 31-35,44).

That this dream did not signify fQ.!!r political kingdoms on thisearth, but four Churches, which should follow one after another,

is plain from the following considerations: (I) That such kingdoms, one after another, have not existed on this earth. (2) That

the Divine Word, in its bosom, does not treat of the kingdoms of

the world, but of Churches, which consriture.God's kingdQ.I!!...Qne.ill:!E. (3) Also, because it is said that the God of the heavensshall set up a kingdom which shall not be destroyed to the ages,

and that a stone, cut out, not by hands, became a great rock,which filled the whole earth. (4) And, inasmuch as the Lord

our Saviour Jesus Christ, in the ~ d of both Testaments, is

called the " ~ ! o n e " and" Rock," it is manifest that His..kingqomis meant by die last words in this passage. (5) Moreover, the

state of the Church is described, in inmtmerable passages of the

Word, by gold, silver, brass, and iron; its spiritual state as to

the good oflove by gold, its spiritual state as to the t ruth ofwisdom

by silver, its natural state as to the good of charity by brass, and

_ n a t U l : a l ~ ~ t e astoJhe__ D L t h _ 9 f ~ ~ t h by iron (as may be seenconfirmed from the Word in the APOCALYPSE REVEALED, n. 913,

2 and elsewhere). For this reason, the wise in the first ages, who

knew the significations of metals, compared the ages which were

to follow one another from the first to the last, to those four metals,

10



O R A P P E N D I X TO T H E T R U E C H R I S T I A N R E l . I G I O N [2

and called the first age" golden," the second age" silver," the

third age "copper," and the fourth age "iron " ; and they

described them thus according to goods and truths; and, since

genuine goods and truths are from no other origin than from the

God of heaven, they described them according to the states of

the Church with those who lived in those ages; for from these

and according to these, all the civil states of kingdoms in respect

to justice and judgment exist , thrive and live.

3 That the Lord the Saviour Jesus Christ is called the" Stone"

a n ~ Rock " l ntheworcrofOOth': estaments, IS plain from the

following passages. That He is called a " Stone" from these:- :s -

Thus said the Lord Jehovih, Behold I will lay in Zion a Stone

of approval, a precious comer[-stone] of settled foundation; he

who hath believed will not make haste; then I will set judgment

to the rule, and justice to the plummet (Isa. xxviii 16, 17).

Jehovah will visit His flock; from Him will come forth the corner

stone (Zech. x 3, 4).

The Stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the

corner (Psalm cxviii 22).

Have ye not read in the Scripture that the Stone which the Ibuilders rejected is become the head of the corner? (Matt. xxi 42;

Mark xii 10, 11; Luke xx 17, 18; Isa. viii 14, 15).Ye have come to Qie Lord, the living Stone, rejected indeed of "I

men, but chosen of God ; ye yourselves --aISQ,'" as living stones, are

built up into a spiritual house; therefore, it is said in the Scripture,

I lay in Zion a corner-stone, elect , precious, and he who believeth

on Him shall not be ashamed (I Pet. ii 4,5,6).

Ye are built upon the foundations of the apostles and prophets,

w h o s e ~ o r I ! - ! : ~ g ~ J ~ I , . I ~ r i s t , by whom the whole building,

well cemented together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord;

by whom ye are built together into a habitation of God in the spirit

(Ephes, ii 20, 21, 22).J U J : : : : h is the Stone, rejected by the builders, which is become

the head of the corner; and there is no salvation in any other

(Actsiv 11, 12).

That the Lord is called a " Rock," is evident from these passages

in the Word: c;-

When Jeshurun waxed fat, he kicked, and he forsook God who

made him, and lightly esteemed Rock of his sa.kation (Deut,xxxii 15, 18).

The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spake to me (2 Sam.

xxiii 3).Let th e words of my mouth be well-pleasing, 0 Jehovah, my

Rock and my Redeemer (Psalm xix 14).

11



2-3] T H E C O R O N I S

And they remembered that God was thei r Rock, and the High

God their Redeemer (Psalm Ixxviii 35).

They all drank spiritual drink; for they drank of the spiritual

Rock; the Rock was Christ (1 Cor. x 4; Exod. xvii 6).

From these passages, it is now plainly evident that by the Stone

which smote the image, and became a great rock and filled the

whole earth, and whose kingdom shall stand for ever, is meant l jour Lord Jesus Christ.

3. The same four Churches on this earth are described by

four beasts rising up out of the sea, in Daniel; of which it is there

written:

The first was seen like a lion, but it had eagle's wings. I beheld

until the wings thereof were plucked out, and it was lifted up fromthe earth, and set up upon feet, erect like a man, and a man's

heart was given to it . Afterwards, behold another beast, a second ,

like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side; three ribs were

in its mouth between the teeth: moreover, th ey were saying thus

unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. After these things, I beheld,

and, 10, another, like a leopard, which had four wings, like birds'

wings, upon th e back of it; the beast had also four heads; and

dominion was given to it. After this, I saw in the night visions,

and beheld a fourth beast, terrible and dreadful, and strong

exceedingly, which had great iron teeth; it devoured and brakein pieces, and stamped th e residue with its feet; but it was diverse

from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. Ibeheld till thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did

sit; and the judgment was set, and the books were opened; and,

behold, one like the Son of Man was coming with the clouds of

the heavens. And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and

a kingdom; and all peoples, nations and languages should worship

Him: His dominion is a dominion of an age, which shall not pass

away, and His kingdom that which shall not perish (Dan . vii 3, 4,

5,6 , 7, 9, [10], 13, 14, etc .),

That by these beasts, in like manner, are meant and described

those four Churches, is manifest from all the particulars there

(which shall be unfolded in their order in the following pages);

more especially from the last expressions there, that after those

four beasts there will come" the Son of Man, to whom shall be

given dominion, and a kingdom which shall not pass away nor

perish"; who, also, is meant by the Stone made into" a great

Rock, which shall fill the whole earth," as may be seen above2 (n. 2, at the end). That the states of the Church are likewise

described by beasts, as well as by metals, in the Word, is evident

from numberless passages, some only of which I will adduce

here which are as follows:

12



OR A P P E N D I X TO T H E T R U E C H R I S T I A N R E L I G I O N [3

Thou causest the rain of benefits to drop; thou wilt confirm thy

wearied inheritance ; the beast I - thy assembly-shall dwell therein

(Psalm lxviii 9, 10).

Every wild beast of the forest is Mine, the beasts in the mountains

of thousands; I know every bird of the mountains, the beasts of

My fields are with Me (Psalm I 10, 11).Asshur was a cedar in Lebanon, his height was exalted; all the

birds of thc heavens made their nests in his branches, and under

his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth, and in his

shadow dwelt all great nations (Ezek. xxxi 3, 5, 6, 13; Dan. iv

7-13).In that day will I make a covenant for them with the beast of

the field, and with the bird of the heavens, and I will betroth

Myself unto thee to eternity (Hosea ii 18, 19).Rejoice and be glad; be not afraid , ye beasts of My fields; for

the habitations of the desert are become full of grass (Joel i i 21, 22).

Thou, son of man, say unto the bird of every wing, and to every

beast of the field, Gather yourselves together to My sacrifice upon

the mountains of Israel: thus I will set My glory among the nations

(Ezek. xxxix 17,20,21 ).

The enemy hath reproached J ehovah; deliver not the soul of

the turtle-dove unto the beast 2 (Psalm lxxiv 18, 19).

Jehovah gathereth th e outcasts of Israel; every beast of My

fields, come (Isa. lvi 8, 9).The spirit urging, made Jesus to go forth into the wilderness;

and He was with the beasts; and angels ministered unto Him

(Mark i 12, 13).

He was not with beasts, but with devils, with whom He fought

and whom He subdued-(not to mention a thousand other

passages, which are adduced in part in the APOCALYPSE REVEALED,

n. 567). Moreover, it is well known that the Lord Himself, in

the Word, is called a " Lamb" and also a " Lion"; likewise,that the Holy Spirit was represented as a " Dove"; that the

cherubs, also, by which the Word in the literal sense is signified,

appeared l ike" four beasts," in Eeekiel and in the Apocalypse;and that the man of the Church who acknowledges the Lord as

his God and Shepherd, is called a " sheep " ; and, on the other

hand, he who does not acknowledge Him, is called a " he-goat"

and also a "dragon"; and that an assembly of the latter is

described, in like manner as in Daniel, by

The beast out of the sea, like a leopard, whose feet were as itwere a bear's, and his mouth as it were a lion's (Rev. xiii 1,2).

1 " Thy beast" is the literal rendering of the Hebrew in this pass age, whi ch

is 'i'(l,Cl; but it is assumed, in the text here, to be used figuratively for " thy

congregation." See Fuerst, in loc. :1;Cl.

2 See R.V.; also Note I .

13



3-5] THE CORONIS

These comparisons originate from the spiritual world, where all

the affections and thoughts therefrom, of angels and spirits, are

presented at a distance from them as beasts, which also appear

in a form in all respects similar to that of the beasts in the natural

world; the affections of the love of good as gentle beasts and

good uses, but the affections of the love of evil as savage beastsand evil uses. Hence it is that beasts are so often named in the

Word; and by them in the spiritual sense are signified affections,

inclinations, perceptions and thoughts. From these considerations

it is manifest what is meant by creatures in the following passages:

Jesus commanded the disciples to go into all the world, and

preach the gospel to every creature (Mark xvi 15).

If anyone be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things havepassed away, and all things are become new (2 Cor. v 17).

These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the

beginning of the creature of God (Rev. iii 14).

By " creatures," here, are meant those who are capable of being

created anew, that is, regenerated, and thus becoming of the

Lord's Church.

4. That there have been four Churches on this earth, one

before the flood, which is to be called the Adamic; the second,after the flood, which is to be called the Noachian; and a third,

after this, which was called the Israelitish ; also a fourth, which

exists at this day, and is called the Christian, will be demonstrated

in the following pages, in the exposition of each of them separarely.5 ® T H ~ R E HAVE BEEN FOUR SUCCESSIVE S T A T ~ , OR PERIODS, !OF EACH CHURCH, WHICH IN THE WORD ARE MEANT BY " MORN

iNG," " DAY," "EVENING," AND "NIGHT." That there have

been four successive sta tes, oc periods ,o f everyone of these

Churches above-named, will be illustrated in the following pages,wherein each will be dealt with in its turn. They are described

by those alternations of time, because e ~ r y man who is born inthe Church, or in whom the Church has commenced, first comes

into its light such as that is in the dawn and morning; afterwards, he advances to its day, and, he wh o loves its truths, right

on to its mid-day; if he then stops in the way, and does not (advance into the heat ~ ~ p n g a n d ~ m e r , his day c f e c l i ~ towards evening, till at length, like the light at night-time, it

grows dark; and then his intelligence in the spirituanhings--of

the Church becomes a cold light, like the light of the days in

winter, when he indeed sees the trees standing beside his house,or in his gardens, but stripped of leaves and destitute of fruits

thus, like bare trunks. For, the man of the Church advances

1 4

I



O R APPENDIX T O THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION [5

from morning to day, to the end that he may be reformed and

regenerateCl- oy means of the light of reason, which only takes

place by a life according to the Commandments of the Lord inthe Word. I f this does not take Rlace, his light becomes darknessv ,»

- - '- - - - - --=-and the darkness, tnick darkness; that is, the truths of light with

him are turned into falsities, and the falsities into unseen evils.

I t is otherwise with the man who suffers himself to-be e g e ~ d :night does not overtake him, for he walks in -Coa.;aIia:nence is

continually in the day; into w h T C h - - : a l s o , h e " u n ~ r s ~ deatl f when lie is associated with angels in heaven. This is

understood by the following words in the Apocalypse, concerning

the New Jerusalem, which is the New Church, truly Christian:- - - - - _ . .- ------That city shall have no need of the sun and of the moon to shine

in it; for the g!9EY of God shall .lighten it, and the Lamb is the l a ~ [ > thereof. And the nations which are saved shall walk in the light of

it; and there shall be no night there (Rev. xxi 23, 24, 25; Ezek.

xxxii 8; Amos v 20; viii 9).

That the successive states of the Church are understood by

"morning," "day," " evening," and" night," in the Word, is

evident from the following passages therein:

(' Watch, for ye know not when the Lord of the house will come,\ at even, or at mid-night, or at cock-crowing, or in the morning

! (Mark xiii 35; Matt. xxv 13).

The subject there treated of is the Consummation of the Age,and the coming of the Lord at that time.

The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spake to me: He is

as the morning light, a morning without clouds (2 Sam, xxiii 3, 4).

I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright and

morning Star (Rev. xxii 16).

God shall help her, when the morning appeareth (Psalm xlvi 5).

He is calling to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night?

Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said, The morning

cometh, and also the night (Isa. xxi 11, 12).

An evil, one evil, behold, is come. The end is come [The morn

ing is come] upon thee, 0 inhabitant of' the land; the time is come,

the day is near. Behold the day, behold, it is come; the morning

hath gone forth (Ezek. vii 5, 6, 7, 10).

There shall be a day . . . which shall be known to Jehovah;

not day nor night; for about the time of evening there shall belight (Zech. xiv 7).

About the time of evening, behold, terror; before the morning,

he is not (Isa. xvii 14). ..---. -- ' - '

In ~ s v e n i E g ; ~ p i g ~ endure all night, but singing in

the morning (Psalm xxx 5).

15



5-6] TIlE CORONIS

Even to the evening and the morning,1 two thousand three

hundred; then shall the holy place be justified : . . . the vision

of the evening and the morning is true (Dan . viii 14, 26).

Jehovah in the morning will bring His judgment to light; He

will not fail (Zeph. iii 5).Thus said Jehovah, I f ye have made void My covenant of the

day and My covenant of the night, so that there be not day and

night in their season, My covenant also shall be made void with

David My servant (Jer. xxxiii 20, 21, 25).

Jesus said, I must work the works of God while it is day; the

night cometh when no one can work (John ix 4).

In this night there shall be two men on one bed; one shall be

taken, but the other shall be left (Luke xvii 34).

In these passages, the Consummation of the Age and the Coming

of the Lord are treated of. Hence it may be evident what is

meant by there being

Time no longer (Rev. x 6),

namely, that there would be no morning, day, or evening in the

Church, but night; likewise what is meant by

Time, times, and half a time (Rev. xii 14; Dan. xii 7);

as also what is meant by the

Fulness of time (Ephes. i 10; Gal. iv 4).

6 .@) IN EACH CHURCH THE FOUR CHANGES OF STATE HAVE

BEEN CONSECUTIVE; THE FIRST OF WHICH HAS BEEN THE ApPEAR

ING OF THE LORD JEHOVIH AND REDEMPTION; AND THEN WAS

ITS MORNING, OR RISE: THE SECOND HAS BEEN ITS INSTRU CTION;

AND THEN WAS ITS DAY, OR PROGRESSION: THE THIRD HAS BEEN

ITS DECLINE; AND THEN WAS ITS EVENING, OR VASTATION: THE \F O U R T ~ A S BEEN ITS END; AND THEN WAS ITS NiGilT, OR -CON- i

SUMMATION-:- Thatthere aye been in each Church four suCC;;;sive )

stat;, ;-hich in the Word are understood by" Morning," " Day,"

" Evening," and" Night," has been shown in the immediately

preceding article. That everyone of the four Churches above

mentioned underwent those states, will be fully established in the

following pages, where each will be dealt with in its turn j also,

that the appearing of the Lord Jehovih and redemption was its

" Mornmg-n-;- tn a"n IiStrliction w a s t S " ~ D a y " or progressioninto light; also, that decline was i t s" Evening" or vastation;

and that its end was its "Night" or consummation. In the

1 For the occurrence of the terms "evening and morning" in this verse,see R.V. ; also marginof A.V.

16



OR A P P E N D I X TO T H E T R U E CHRISTIAN R E L I G I O N [6-7

Word, both in its historical and its prophetical portions, those

four changes of state are everywhere treated of.

7. The order into which every man was created by God, is,

that after infancy he may become a man. For, when he is born,

he is only an external image or form of a man, and at that time

less a man than a new-born beast is a beast; but, so far as he is

inwardly perfected in this form, as to his mind, or his spirit, in

wisdom and love, he becomes a man. A man is like a tree,

which first grows from a seed into a shoot, and, when it increases

in height, puts forth branches, and from these, twigs, and clothes

itself continually with leaves; and, when it comes to maturity,

which takes place in its middle age, puts forth blossoms, and

produces fruits; in every one of which it deposits seeds, which,being cast into the earth, as into a womb, grow up into similar

trees, and thus into a garden. And if you will believe it, that

same garden remains with the man after death; he dwells in it,

and is every day delighted with the sight of it, and with the

enjoyment of its fruits. It is such a man who is described in

David by these words:

He shall be like a tree planted beside the rivers of waters, which

shall yield its fruit in its time, and its leaf shall not fall (Psalm i 3;

and likewise Rev. xxii I, 2).

2 But it is different with the man born in the Church who, when

he has spent his morning and a vanced into the first light of

day, whereby he has become rational, then sto s, and does not

( produce fruit: such a one is, or acts, like a tree a b o u n ~ leaves, ut not bearing fruit, which is rooted up out of the garden,

its branches cut off, and the trunk cleft in pieces with axe, or

saw, and the whole then cast piecemeal into the fire. The light

of his Rational becomes like the light of the days of winter, in

which the l e a ~ s ~ f ~ ~ ~ r § ! grow _yellow, then drop off,ana lastly decay. His Rational, also, may be compared with a

tree whose leaves are consumed by worms in early spring; like

wise with a crop that is choked by thorns; and also with

vegetation which is laid waste by locusts. The reason is, that

his Rational is merely natural, because it takes its ideas solely

from the world through the senses, and not from heaven through

the affections and the perceptions thence. And since, on this

account, there is nothing spiritual inwardly in his Rational, if

he then converses on anyone of the spiritual things of the Church,

his voice is heard by the angels no otherwise than as the voice

of a parrot or a goose; for his voice is merely animal because

merely natural, and not human because not inwardly spiritual;

17



7-10] THE OORONIS

for it flows forth from the respiration of the body only, and not

from any respiration of the spirit. Such is the man who does

not, from natural, become spiritual; and no one becomes

spiritual, unless, after he has become rational, he brings forth

fruits, that is, puts on charity by life.

8. That the four changes ofstate, which are called" morning,"

" day," " evening," and " night," are in the Word predicated

of the Church, is because the Church consists of men, and a man

is a Church in particular, and the total of these men is what is

called the Church . Those in this totality, or Church, who live

according to the order described above (n. 7), are trees of life,

which, also, are trees of good use; but those who do not live

according to that order are trees of the knowledge of good andevil, which also are trees of evil use. The latter are the ones of

whom" evening" and" night," or, what amounts to the same,

vastation and consummation, are predicated; but not the

former. These things, however, will be presented in the very

clearness of reason in the following pages; but it is proper, that,

at the beginning of this volume, some preliminary observations

should be made, because knowledges must precede before any

one can know that by " morning" is understood the rise of the

Church, and that this is preceded by redemption; by " day,"the progression of the new Church into light, and its intelligence;

by " evening," the decline of that Church from good and truth,

which is called vastation; and by " night," its end and destruc-

tion, which is called consummation; and so on.

9. The end of the Church, or the consummation of the age,

is when J .. ~ o ~ y genuine truth remaining, and hence not

any genuine good, or, not any good and hence !!ot aEY truth,

but; intIleir 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, w h ~ a u s e t h e y do not see anything that appears.Tin1th e light of the sun, are uncertain about all things relating to

the Church, and in general about G ~ , about heaven and hen,

and_about the life after death j and both those who confirm

themselves in the d_enial of these things, and those who remain

alternately in ~ u b a n d in affirmation, at length shun !!.le 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

I the dark"iiess o f night. This light is kindled with them, as with)

these wtld beasts, through the activities of their lusts. '

1O.CJY) .AFTER ITS CONSUMMATION, OR END, THE LORD

JEHOVIH APPEARS, AND EXEOUTES A JUDGMENT ON THE MEN OF

18



OR APPENDIX TO THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION [10-12

THE FORMER CHURCH, AND SEPARATES THE GOOD FROM THE EVIL,

AND RAISES THE GOOD TO HIMSELF INTO HEAVEN AND REMOVES

THE EVIL FROM HIMSELF INTO HELL. That towards the end of

every Church the Lord Jehovih appears to execute a judgment

on those who have lived from its first institution to its con

summation, will be established in the following pages, where

each Church will be separately dealt with. Every man, indeed,

is judged after death; but, at the end of a Church, all are

collected together and a general judgment executed on them;

and this to the intent that they may be conjoined into a heavenly

order, which is effected by the arrangement of the faithful into

a new heaven, and of the unfaithful into a new hell beneath it;

of which arrangement we shall speak more at large in the

following article.

11. Judgment, which is the last phase of every Church, does

not take place in the natural world, but in the spiritual world,

into which all are gathered after death; and they are collected

into heavens distinctly according to religion, thus according to

faith and love. Judgment takes place in the spiritual world, for

the reason that every man after death is a man j not a material

man, as before, but a substantial man. Every man's mind, or

spirit, is such a man: the body which he carried about in theworld, is only a covering, and as it were sheath, which he has

laid aside, and from which his spirit has disengaged itself. Now,

since it was man's mind, or spirit, that thought in the material

body, and then either from religion or not from religion, and in

favour of God or against God, from truths of faith or from

falsities of faith, that loved his neighbour or held him in hatred;

and since the material body was only obedience; it follows that

the mind, which is the substantial man, and is called the spirit,

is what undergoes judgment, and, according to the intentionsand acts of its life, is rewarded or punished. From these things

it can be plainly seen that judgment, which is the last of every

Church, takes place in the spiritual world, but not in the natural

world. •

12. The judgment which is executed upon all of a spent

Church, takes place to the end that, both generally and in-

dividually, the good may be separated from the evil, and the

good be raised up into heaven and the evil cast down into hell.

Were this not to take place when a Church is consummated,that is, when it is no longer in truths and goods, not one person

therein could be saved. That he could not be saved is because

he could not be regenerated; and everyone is regenerated by

means of the truths of faith and the goods of love. To this reason

19



12-13] THE CORONIS

the following is added: that, from the time of the vastation of a

Church right on to its consummation, hell surges up to so great

an extent as to overshadow the whole angelic heaven, through

which regenerative truths and goods descend from the Lord to

the men of the earth. Owing to this obscuration, neither anytruth of thought from faith, nor any good of will from charity,

can penetrate, except through chinks; yea, what does penetrate

is perverted either on the way before it reaches man, or else

by the man himself when it is in him; that is, the truth is

either rejected or falsified, and the good is either quenched or

adulterated. In a word, a Church at its end is as it were obsessed

/ by satans. (Those are called satans who take pleasure in falsities,

\... and are delighted with evils.) In order, therefore, that the total

darnnatioriWliicli then ~ e h n g everyone's head, and menaces

him, may be averted, it is necessary that hell, which has raised

itself on high, and, as was said, surged up even to heaven, should

be removed-not merely suppressed, but also dispersed and sub

jugated-and then the good separated from the evil, that is, the

living from the dead . This separation, and the coincident raising

up of the goOdinto heaven, or into the land of the living, and

casting down of the evil into hell, or into the land of the dead,

jJ \\ is what is called]udgment. That such a judgment was actually

executed in the year 1757 on the men of the present Christian

Church, was declared, and it has been described, in a separate

small work published in London in the year 1758.

13. Who does not see the necessity that the evil should be

l\

separated from the good, lest the latter should be infected with

the contagion of d e ~ y _ e v i l , and perish? Fo evil inasmuCh )as it is i ~ l a n t e ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ n a u e by birth, n more and

more in enerated in children from arents when the Church is

a p p r o ~ h i n g consummation, is like

~ J i g n a n t disease:...whiEh

is callea cancer, which spreads round about, and gradually

mortifies the healthy and living parts. What husbandman, or

gardener, when he sees briars, nettles, thorns and thistles grow

ing, does not extirpate them before he sows and tills his corn

and food crops? What farmer, when he sees his young crops

and grass consumed by worms, or locusts, does not dig a ditch,

and separate the flourishing field from the wasted one, and thus

take measures for the preservation of his crops and thriving

fields? What shepherd, when he sees wild beasts multiplyingabout his sheep pastures, does not call together the neighbouring

shepherds and the servants, and with weapons, or traps, kill

2 those wild beasts, or drive them away? What king, when he

sees both the towns of his kingdom round about his metropolis

20




taken by enemies, and the property of his subjects seized by

them, does not assemble the troops and cast out the enemy, and

restore the stolen goods to their owners, and, moreover, add

thereto the spoils of the enemies' wealth, and so compensatethem?

14.@AFTER THESE THINGS THE LORD JEHOVIH FOUNDS A~ E A V ~ O F THE GOOD RAISED UP TO HIMSELF, AND A NEW

HELL OF THE EVIL REMOVED FROM HIMSELF; AND BRINGS BOTH

INTO ORDER, SO THAT THEY MAY REMAIN UNDER HIS GUIDANCE,[,AND UNDER OBEDIENCE TO HIM, TO ETERNITY. I t is writteri'inI Isaiah:

Jehovah said, Behold I am creating-hew heave;;iI,and a new earth(Isa. Ixv 17). \, . /

And elsewhere in the same prophet:

As ~ heavens' and the new earth, which I am about to

make, shaifs tancfoerc;;.e me (Isa. Ixvi 22).

In the Apocalypse :

I saw n w h e a v ~ ! 1 - ' a n d a new earth; the former heaven and

the former earth have passed away (Rev. xxi 1).

And in Peter:

According to promise, we look fo new heavens 'and a new earth ,

whcrein Sllalf dwell righteousness (2 et. I I I

I t has not hitherto entered into the mind of anyone to suppose

otherwise than that by " heaven," in these places, is meant the

visible heaven, that is, the whole firmament, with the sun, moon

and stars; and that, by " earth," there, is meant the habitable

earth, or the globe, and that these will perish at the day of the

Last udgment; when, nevertheless, by heaven, there, the angelic

heaven is m ~ , and by e ~ r t h , the@urc!!> That by-: e ~ r t h , " e erywhere III the ProR Q.etlC Wo£d 1 meant the{Churdi. \ has

(been fu!!y s h o ~ in the A P O C ~ L YPSE REVEALED '( n ~ " : 8 5 P The

reason why, by new heavens and a new earth, have hitherto

been understood the visible heaven and the habitable earth, is

because men have not known an thin of the spiritual world,

consequently not anything of e ange lC eaven nor anyt ing

of the prophetic sense, which carries an stores up in its bosomnothing else than spiritual things; and the spiritual thing relating

to the earth is the Church. W h e n , ~ s o , t h e . angels,_inasmueh

Ill a ~ ~ y ~ E i r i t u a l , look down into the earth, they see nothing

I at all of it, but only the Church with men.

15. That when tlie ora- jenovl ounds a new heaven and

21



15-16] THE CORONIS

a new Church, He introduces order, so that they may abide

under His guidance, and un er obedience to Him, to eternity,

is b e c a u s ~ J h e _ a n g e l i c h e a Y . e n _ a n 5 L ! h e Church on earth together

constitute one body, whose Soul and Life Ts- tJie-L

ofcf]ehOVIh,who is the _Lord our S a v i o The universal a n g e l i c ~ e n , together with the q l l l ' ; r c h ~ l s o appears beforethe t o r d ~ n e man ;- and a man abides under the guidance of and obedience

to his own soul: consequently, the entire ~ n together with

th e Clll{ ch"0tbides und er the gu ida I:!f e Qf a!1d o h ~ d i e I 1 c e ~ t hW : or the L..QuLis '1LthcJJ1, ang th e are in the Lord ohn

) xiv 20; xv 4, 5; xvii 23, 26); thus,JIe_isJhe.JU n all things

there. But the order which the Lord sets up in hell is such that

in w 0 are there may be diametrically opposite to all who arein heaven: whence it is evident, that, since the Lord rules heaven

He also rules hell, and that He rules the latter by means of the

former.

16. Moreover, the arrangement of all in the heavens, and of

all in the hells, is most perfect. For every heaven tl; ; n s founded

b)' the Lord after the consummation of each Church is made

ree-Iold] it is made highest, middle and lowest. Into the

are elevated t ~ ~ ~ Oilg es _ l ; ! . . r c ~ . t < L . . . t i l l : - - . L P . . r . d and in

wisdom thence; into the middle, those who are i n p i r i t u a l l o v e ~ ~ nei hbour and in intelligence thence; into the

lowest, those who are in ~ iritual-natu;-allove towards the neigh

bour, which is called charity, and thence in the faith of the

~ truths concerning God and I I I a life according to the flrecepts of

the Decalogue. Thes t}};;;e heaveng iconstitute . m:ee expanseS

one above another, and communicate with each otner y a

Divine influx from the Lord out of the sun of the spiritual world.

In the depth underneath, there are also three expanses into

which the hells are distinguished, between which, in like manner,

there is provided a communication by means of an influx

-.. through the heavens from the Lord. By means of these com

munications there is an intimate and indissoluble eOrllllllction of

all things .in the h e ~ ~ ~ ~ ; ; d - ~ ; ' l l .things in h ~ hells ;'-- ~ t i n t h e t e ~ -i"t- is"a con'unction of all the lusts of the love of evil,

while in the heavens it is a conjunction of all the affections of(. the love of good, By virtue of that conjunction, heaven is like

one Lord sitting upon a throne girt about with wreaths formed

of precious stones of every kind; but hell ~ . . . Q I 1 ~ 1 sitting-Iupon a seat entwined with vipers, serpents and poisonous worms' --J

From this orderly arrangement, induced on both, it follows that

both abide under the guidance and control of the Lord to

eternity.

22




17. I t is well known, that, in order_that anything may jJe ) )

perfect, there -""list be a trir0in just order, one--:-uilder another,

anaa communication between-;-ancrtnat this trine must make

a one, not unlike a pillar,-at the top of which is the capital,

under this the smooth shaft, and under this again the pedestal.~ ~ h _ t r j n e ~ n : his highest part is the head, his middle

part is the body, and his lowest the feet and soles. In this

respect, every kingdom is like a man; there must be a king

there as the nead, also a d m i n i s ~ and officers as the body,

and yeomanry with servants as feet and soles: in like manner

in the Church, there must be a mitred primate, parish Rriests, J~ e th em cu:rat'es. Nor does t ~ . 5 i . itself subsist with

out three things following in order, namely, morning, noon andevening; as also the yearly spring, summer and autumn-spring

for the sowing of seeds, summer for their germination, and autumn

for bringing forth fruit: night and winter, however, do not con

2 tribute to the upholding of the world. Now since every per:(e.£t

thin _must be a trine in order to be a one, and to cohere well

together, therefore both worlds, spiritual and natural, consist

and subsist from three atmospheres, or elements; the first of

' which immediately encompasses the sun, and is called a U r ~ J the

second is under this, and is called and the third-!S'under(them both, and is calle air ) In the natural world these three\atmospheres are natural, and in themselves passive, because they

proceed from a sun which is pure fire; but the three correspond

ing to them in the spiritual world are spiritual, and in themselves

active, because they proceed from a sun which is pure love .

3 The angels of the heavens dwell in the regions of these three

atmospheres; the angels of the highest heaven 10 t e_celestia0aura which immediatel-encom asses ther un , 'Where the Lord 1.

IS; t e angels of the middle'heaven in t h ~ Q i r i t u a l e t h e r , under )the former ; and the angels of the lowest heaven in the spiritual- J~ r a air, under those two. Thus are all the heavens eo

established, from t h ~ t to this last which is p eing organized

by t e Lord at the present day. From these things it may be

apprehended whence it is that by ~ e in the WQr9 j s sigrill!edwhat complete (see APOCALYPSE REVEALED, n. 505, 875).

18. VI. FROM THIS NEW HEAVEN THE LORD J EHOVIH DERIVES J )AND PRODUCES A N E W C H i ! R ~ ON EARTH, WHICH TAKES PLACE

BY MEANS OF A REVELATION OF TRUTHS FROM HIS MOUTH, OR

FROM HIS WORD, AND BY INSPIRATION. It is written that John

Saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, descending from God out of

heaven, prepared € : ~ d o r n e d for her husband (Rev. xxi 2).

c . -3 23



18-19] THE CORONIS

By the holy city, New Jerusalem, is meant the doctrine of the

New Church, consequently the Church as to doctrine; and by

Jerusalem descending from30d 0 It of the new_heaven, is meant

that ~ t r u e doctrinecifl the Ch1,!£.ch is from I.!Q....Q!her ~ c That the ooctrine descended, is because a Church is a Church

from doctrine and according to it; apart from doctrine, a

Church is no more a Church than a man is a man without

members, viscera and organs, thus from the mere covering of

skin, which only defines his external shape; nor any more than

a house is a house without bed-chambers, dining-rooms and

articles of use within, thus from the wall and arched roof alone.The case is similar with the Church apart from doctrine. That

Jerusalem signifies the Church with respect to doctrine, maybe seen proved from the Word i l l th e worK: I t s e l ~ E TRUE

CHRISTIAN RELIGION (n. 782). From these things, it is manifest

~ that the Church on earth is derived an_d_Rroduced E y ~ e LordI' bv means of the angelic heaven.19. I will mention some marvellous things, which yet are not

marvellous in heaven; these are: (1) That ~ i ! . ! ~ d Jcould not exist exceRt from the s iritual world; nor, con~ y subsist, i n a s ~ h as subsistence-is perpetual existence.

2 (2) That the Church is not possible with man, unless its internalbe spiritual and its external natural: there cannot be a ~ h u r c h

3 purely spiritual nor a Church exclusively natural. (3) Con

sequently, that no Church, nor anything of the Church, can be

raised up with man except there be an angelic heaven, from which

its whole spiritual is derived by the Lord and through which it

4 descends. (4) Since, therefore, the spiritual and the natural

thus make one, it follows that the one cannot exist and subsistapart from the other; neither the angelic heaven apart from the

Church with man, nor the Church with him apart from theangelic heaven; for, unless the spiritual flow into and terminate

in the natural, and rest therein, it is like a prior without a

posterior, consequently like an efficient cause without an effect,and like an active without a passive-which would be like a

bird flying in the air perpetually, without any resting 'place on

the earth, and like the mind of a man perpetually thinking and

willing, without any organ, sensory or muscular, in the body, to

which it may descend and produce the ideas of its thought, and

5 bring into operation the endeavours of its will. (5) These things

are adduced to the end that it may be perceived, or known,

that, as the natural world is not possible without the spiritual I

world, nor conversely the spiritual world without the natural Jworld, so neither can there be a Church on earth unless there

24 .



OR A P P E N D I X TO T H E T R U E C H R I S T I A N R E L I G I O N [19-20

be an angelic heaven through which it may exist and subsist,

nor conversely an angelic heaven unless there be a Church on

6 earth. (6) The a f ! g e l s _ k n o ~ t h i s ; on which account, tJ:.ey

g r i e v p _ u ~ Iament..when th Church_on_earth i.s desolated by

e L a n d 3 ~ ..mated_b-¥- viis; and, at such time0 h e ycompare the state of their life with drowsiness, fDr1nen eaven (J

is to them as if its resting:IJlace were taken from beneath it, and

like a body de rived of feet; but, when the Church on earth

has been restored by the Lord, they compare the state of their

life to ~ a k e f u n e ~ 20. That the Lord derives and produces ( ~ n

earth through th:e new l i ~ b y means of a revelation of truths

from His mouth or from His Word, and bins iration, will be

shown in the section concerning the four Churches in their order,

especially concerning the Israelitish and the present Christi an

C ~ h . It should be known, that,w nen hell surge up, and

passed over the great interstice, or gulf, fixed between itself and

heaven (Luke xvi 26), and reared up its back even to the confines

of the heavens where the angels are,-which came to pass at

intervals of the vastation and consummation of the Church,-no

doctrine whatever of the Church could be conveyed through

heaven, from the Lord, to men of the earth. The reason is, that,at such times, man is in the midst of satans; and satans envelop

( his head with their falsities , and i n s p i r e ~ e l i g h t s of evil and

the conseguent attractions of falsity, wnereby all the light rrom

heaven is darkened, and all the pleasure and attraction of truth

is intercepted. As long as this state continues, there cannot be

infused into man any doctrine whatever of truth and good out(2 of heaven, because it is falsified. But, after this tangled veil of

falsities, or covering of the head by satans, is taken away by the

Lord-which is effected by' the Last Judgment (Ofwl1ic 1 a ove,) m Article IV.)- then man is led, in a freer and more s ntaneous

spirit, to discard falsitiesall ' to receive trut s. With t ose who

a r e o m p I i ~ d suffcrtnemselves to o e led by the Lord, the Irdo<:t:rine of the ~ w heaven, which is the doctrine of truth and

goo , IS afterwards conveyed down and i n t r o d u c ~ d , like the

morning dew falling from heaven tothe earth, which opens the

pores of plants, and sweetens their vegetable juices: and it is

like the manna which fell in the mornings, and was in appearance

Like coriander seed, white, and in taste like a cake kneaded with

honey (Exod. xvi 31). .

It is also like seasonable rain, which refreshes the newly-

ploughed fields and causes germination, and like the fragrance

25



20-21] THE CORONIS

exhaling from fields, gardens and flowery plains, which the breast

eagerly and delightedly draws in with the breath. But still, the

Lord compels or urges no one against his will, as one does a beast

of burden with whips; but He draws and afterwards continually

leads him wh " iIling, to all appearan ce as thou h the willingxpan did goods and believed trut IS 0 himself, wh en ye t it is

from the ora ;-Wno operates every genuine good of life, and

every~ ~ ~ n e truth of faith in him.

21 ~ T H I S DIVINE WORK IS LIKEWISE CALLED REDEMPTION,

WITHOUT WHICH NO MAN CAN BE SAVED, BECAUSE HE CANNOT BE

REGENERATED. That the redemption accomplished by the Lord

when He was in the world was a subjugation of the hells, an

arrangement of the heavens in order, and by these means a

preparation for a new spiritual Church, may be seen in the

work, THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION (n. 115-117; and the

following nos., 118-133). But inasmuch as this is new, and has

lain hidden for ages, like the wreck of a ship with its precious

cargo at the bottom of the sea, and nevertheless the doctrine of

redemption is as it were the treasure-house of all the spiritual

riches, or tenets, of the New Church, therefore, in the last section

of this volume, the Mystery of Redemption shall be treated of,

where the following propositions will be unfolded and elucidated:

2 [JJDeliverancefrom enemies is what in the Word is called Redemption.

n I.] Consequently it is deliverance from evils and falsities, which,

since they are from hell, are spiritual enemies; for they kill souls, as

natural enemies do bodies.

3 IillJ Hence it becomes evident that the first purpose i f the Redemption

accomplished by the Lord was the separation i f the evil from the good,

and the raising of the good to Himself into heaven, and the removal of

the evil from Himself into hell; for thus are the good liberatedfrom the

evil. This first thing of Redemption is the Last Judgment (which hasbeen treated of above, n. 10-13).

4 IIV'J The second purpose i f Redemption was the co-ordination i f all

things in the heavens, and the subordination i f all things in hell, by

which the good were still more distinctly separated and liberatedfrom the

evil; and this is the new heaven and the new hell (which has been treated

of above, n. 14-17).5 IT.JThe third purpose i f Redemption was a revelation of truths from

the new heaven, and thereby the raising up and establishment i f a new

Church on earth; by which means the good were further separated andliberatedfrom the evil, and are separated and liberatedfor thefuture (this

third cause has also been treated of above, n. 18-20) .6 @ lT h e final purpose i f Redemption was to make it possible for

the Lord, by virtue of His Divine omnipotence, to regenerate man,

26




and thus save him; for, unless man be regenerated he cannot be saved

(John iii 3).

7 I ~ I ' [ ' l The regeneration of a man, inasmuch as it is a separation anddeliverance from evils and falsities, is a particular redemption by the

Lord, pro...ceeding from His general Redemption .

8 [VIlli With those who are being regenerated, evils are first of allseparated from goods, and this is like Judgment; afterwards, goods are

collected into one, and arranged into a heavenly form, and this is like a

new heaven ; and, lastly, a new Church is thereby implantedandproduced,

the internal of which is heaven; and the external from the internal,

conseqE,Cntly both together, with man, is what is called the Church.

9 ~ X ) All are redeemed, since all who reject thefalsities of theformer

C urch, andreceive

thetruthsof

thenewChurch, are

able to beregenerated;but still the regenerated are, properly, the redeemed.

10 CKJ The goal of redemption, and theprize of the redeemed, is spiritualpeace.

11 /XLI A redemption has also been accomplished by the Lord at this day,because the present day is His Second Coming according to prophecy ; by

which, having been an eye-witness thereof, I have been convinced of thetruth of theforegoing arcana.

But these are only general statements, which must be unfolded

in detail, ~ n d set forth in both spiritual and natural ~ i g h . t , ~ e end of this volume where th e M sf:EY_ ol Redem tzon IS to be( treated of.

- nMoreover, it will be proved in its own article in what

follows, that the passion of the Lord's cross was not Redemption,

but the means of the inmost union with the Divine of the Father,

from which He came forth and into which He returned . In the

work, THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION (n. 132, 133), of which this

volume is the Appendix, I set out to show that the passion of

CD the Cross being believed to have been Redemption-rrseIf,Tafundamental erroro f the present Cllristia n Chu-;ch; and that

this error, together with the error concerning three Divine

cfJ Persons from eternity, has perverted the whole Church to such

an extent that not a v e s t i g ~ _ ( ) ~ Q ! r j j _ l J ~ ! ! ! Y ~ ! J l ~ i I ~ j ! ! } t . This

will also be further shown in the following pages; and, that

these two falsities and delusions have been comparatively lik.emating butterflies flying about in a garden, which produce 'ffie

eggs whence are hatched the caterpillars which entirely consume

the opening leaves of the trees therein; and further, that they

have been like the quails from the sea sent down upon the camp

of the Israelites, owing to which, while they were eating, a great

plague fell upon the people; and ffils--becausetney loathed and

spurned the manna from heaven, by which, in the highest sense,

27



22] THE C O R O N I S

is meant the Lord (Num. xi 5, 6, 32-35 ; and John vi 31, 32,

49-51, 58). And, further, these two errors have been like two }drops of black paint, or shoemaker,;; blacking, dropped into

generous wine, and shaken about in the wine-glass; in coo

sequence ot.....which all the brightness, delightful fragrance andfine flavour of the wine are changed into blackness, stench and

nauseousness.

28



OR APPENDIX TO THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION [23

-PROPOSITION THE SECOND

The Adamic, or Most Ancient Church of this Earth

23. The world has hitherto believed that by " the creation of

heaven and earth," in the first chapter of Genesis, is meant the

creation of the universe, according to the letter; and by Adam,

the first man of this globe. Seeing that the spiritual or internal

sense of the Word has not been disclosed till now, the worldcould not believe otherwise; nor, consequently, that by" creating

heaven and earth" is meant to collect and found an angelic

heaven from those who have finished with life in the world, and

by this means to derive and produce a Church on earth (as

above, n. 18-20); and that by the names of persons, nations,

territories and cities, are meant such things as are of heaven,

and at the same time of the Church: in like manner, therefore,

by "Adam." That by "Adam," and by all those things which

are related of him and his posterity in the first chapters of

Genesis, are described the successive states of the Most Ancient

Church-which are: its rise, or morning, its progression into

light, or day; its decline, or evening; its end, or night; and

after this the Last Judgment upon those composing it, and there

after a new angelic heaven from the faithful, and a new hell from

the unfaithful, according to the series of the progressions laid

down in the preceding Proposition-has been explained, un

folded and demonstrated in detail in the ARCANA CJELESTIA on

Genesis and Exodus, the labour of eight years, published in

London; which work being extant in the world, nothing further

is necessary than to recapitulate therefrom the universals respect

ing this Most Ancient Church, which will be cited in the present

2 volume. At the outset, however, some passages shall be adduced

from the Word, by which it is proved that by " creating" is

there signified to produce and form anew, and, properly, to

regenerate; on which account it is that regeneration is called a

" new creation," by which the universal heaven of angels andthe universal Church of men, exist, consist and subsist. That

" creating" signifies this, is plainly manifest from these passages

in the Word:

Create in me a clean heart, 0 God; and renew a steadfast spirit

in the midst of me (Psalm li 10).

29



23-24] THE C O R O N I S

Thou openest the hand, they are filled with good; Thou scndest

forth the Spirit, they are created (Psalm civ 28, 30).

The people that shall be created shall praise Jah (Psalm cii 18).Thus said J ehovah, thy creator, 0 J acob; thy former, 0 Israel:

Every one that is called by My Name, I have created for My glory(Isa. xliii I, 7).

That they may see, know, consider and understand, that the

hand of Jehovah hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath

created it (Isa. xli 20).In the day that thou wast created, they were prepared; thou

wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created, until

perversity was found in thee (Ezek. xxviii 13, 15):

these things are concerning the king of Tyre.

J ehovah that createth the heavens, that spreadeth abroad the

earth, that giveth breath un to the people upon it (Isa. xlii 5;xlv 12, 18).

Behold I create a new heaven and a new earth; be yt. glad to

eternity in that which I create: behold I will create Jerusalem a

rejoicing (Isa. Ixv 17, 18).

As the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall

stand before Me (Isa. Ixvi 22).I saw a new heaven and a new earth: the former heaven and

the former earth arepassed

away(Rev. xxi

I).

We, according to promise, look for new heavens and a new

earth, wherein shall dwell righteousness (2 Pet. iii 13).

From these passages it is now manifest what is spiritually meant

in the first chapter of Genesis, by the verses,

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and

the earth was waste and empty (Gen. i I, 2).

The earth's being said to be " waste and empty," signifies that

there was no longer any good of life or truth of doctrine with itsinhabitants. Tha t " wasteness " and " emptiness" signify the

lack of those two essentials of the Church, will be established in

Proposition IV of this volume, respecting the Israelitish Church,

by a thousand passages from the Word: at present let the

following in Jeremiah serve for some illustration:

I saw the earth, when, behold, it was vacant and empty; and

[I looked] towards the heavens, when their light was not. Thus

said J ehovah, The whole earth shall be wasteness; for this shall

the earth mourn, and the heavens above shall be made black(Jer. iv 23, 27, 28).

24. This Church, like the rest, is to be treated of in the

following order:

[!j Its Rise, or M nning, which is its first state.

30




(IiJ Its Progression into light, or Day, which is its second state.

Il I t ] Its Decline, or Evening, which is its third state, and is called

Vastation.

LM Its End, or Night, which is its fourth state, and is called

Consummation.

l V. / The Separation of the Evil from the Good, which is the Last

J ~ m e n t upon all who werefrom that Church.

eyfl The Elevation to God of the Good, cif whom a new Heaven is

formed ,. and the removal from God cif the Evil, of whom is formed a

new Hell.

That the four Churches of this earth-spoken of above-have

undergone these changes of state, will be shown in what follows;

and lastly, that the Church truly Christian, which succeeds thosefour at the present day, will never undergo consummation.

* * * * * * *25.c : r ; ; FIRST STA-;VOF THIS MOST ANCIENT CHURCH, OR ITS

RISE AND M O R N ~ described in the first chapter of Genesis

by these words:

God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness;

and God created man in His own image; in the image of God

created He him; male and female created He them (Gen. i 26, 27);

and also by these in the second chapter:

Jehovah God formed man dust of the earth, and breathed into

his nostrils the breath of lives j and man became a living soul

(Gen. ii 7).

That its rise, or morning, is described by his being made, or

created, " in the image of God," is because every man, when he

is first born, and while an infant, is an "image of God "interiorly;

for the faculty of receiving and of applying to himself thosethings which proceed from God, is implanted in him j and since

he is also formed "dust of the earth" exteriorly, and there is

thence in him an inclination to lick that dust like the serpent

(Gen. iii 14), therefore, if he remains an external or natural man,

and does not become at the same time internal, or spiritual,

he destroys the" image of God," and puts on the image of the

serpent which seduced Adam. But, on the other hand, the man

who strives and labours to become an " image of God," subdues

the external man in himself, and interiorly in the natural becomes

spiritual, thus spiritual-natural; and this is effected by a new

creation, that is, regeneration by the Lord. Such a man is an

" image of God," because he wills and believes that he lives

from God and not from himself: on the contrary, man is an

31



25-26] TH E CORONIS

image of the serpent as long as he wills and believes that he lives

from himself and not from God. What is man but an " image

of God" when he wills and believes that he is in the Lord and

the Lord in him (John vi 56; xiv 20; xv 4 ,5 ,7 ; xvii 26), and

that he can do nothing of himself (John iii 27; xv 5)? What

is a man but an "image of God" when, by a new birth, he

becomes a " son of God" (John i 12, 13)? Who does not know

that the image of the father is in the son? The rise, or morning,

of this Church is described by Jehovah God's" breathing into

his nostrils the breath of lives," and by his thus" becoming a

living soul," because by " lives," in the plural, are meant love

and wisdom, which two are essentially God; for, in proportion

as a man receives and applies to himself those two essentials oflife, which proceed continually from God, and continually flow

into the souls of men, in the same proportion he becomes " a

living soul"; for" lives" are the same as love and wisdom.

Hence it is evident, that the rise and morning of the life of the

men of the Most Ancient Church, who taken collectively are

represented by Adam, is described by those two shrines of life.

26. The "likeness of God," after which man was made, is

that he is able to live, that is, to will, to love, and to intend, as

also to think, reflect and choose, to all appearance as of himself;consequently, that he is able to receive from God those things

which are of love and those which are of wisdom, and to

reproduce them in an image, as God does, of himself; for God

says:

Behold the man was as one of us, in knowing good and evil

(Gen. iii 22);

for, without the faculty of recervmg and reproducing those

things which proceed into him from God, to all appearance asof himself, man would be no more a " living soul" than the

oyster in its shell at the bottom of the river, which is not in the

least able to move itself out of its place: nor would he be any

more an "image of God" than a jointed carving of a man

capable of motion by means of a handle, and of giving forth

sound by being blown into; yea, the very mind of man, which

is the same as his spirit, would actually be wind, air, or ether,

according to the idea of the present Church respecting spirit;

for, without the faculty of receiving and reproducing the things

flowing in from God, altogether as of himself, he would not have

anything of his own, or any proprium, except an imperceptible

one, which is like the proprium of a lifeless carving. But more

about the image and likeness of God with man may be seen in a

32




memorable relation in the preceding work (n. 48), of which this is

the Appendix.

* * * * * * *27.C!i.: THE SECOND S T A ~ O F THIS MOST ANCIENT CHURCH,

OR ITS PROGRESSION INTO LIGHT, AND DAY, is described in the

second chapter of Genesis, by these words:

God planted a garden in Eden at the East, and there He put

the man whom He had formed, to dress it and to keep it. And

Jehovah made to spring forth every tree pleasant to the sight, and

good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and

the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And a river went forth

out of Eden to water the garden, which was made into four heads,

in the first of which was gold and the schoham stone. AndJehovah

God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden, eat;

but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, eat not (Gen. ii

8-17).

The progression of this Church into light, or day, is described

by Adam's being placed in the garden of Eden, because by a

garden is signified the Church as to its truths and goods. That

there" went forth out of Eden a river which became into four

heads, in the first of which was gold and the schoham stone,"

signifies that in that Church there was the doctrine of good andtruth; for a "r iver" signifies doctrine, "go ld" the good

thereof, and " schoham stone" its truth. That two trees were

placed in that garden, the one of life, and the other of the know

ledge of good and evil, was because the " tree of life" signifies

the Lord, in whom and from whom is the life of heavenly love

and wisdom, which in itself is eternal life; and the" tree of the

knowledge of good and evil " signifies man, in whom is the life

of infernal love, and thence insanity in the things of the Church,

which life considered in itself is eternal death. That it wasallowable to eat of every tree of the garden except of the " tree

of the knowledge of good and evil" signifies free-determination

in spiritual things; for all things in the garden signified spiritual

things, and without free-determination in those, a man can in

no wise advance into light, that is, into the truths and goods of

the Church, and procure for himselflife; for, if he does not aim

2 at and strive after this, he procures to himself death. That a

" garden" signifies the Church as to its truths and goods, is

owing to the correspondence of a tree with man; for a tree, in

like manner as man, is conceived from seed; is put forth from

the womb of the earth as a man from the womb of his mother;

it grows in height in like manner, and extends itself into branches

as he into members; clothes itself with leaves, and adorns itself

33



27] THE CORONIS

with flowers as man does with natural and spiritual truths; and

also produces fruits as man does goods of use. Hence it is that

in the Word a man is so often likened to a " tree," and hence

the Church to a " garden"; as in the following passages:

Jehovah will set out her desert like Eden, and her solitude like

the garden of Jehovah (Isa. li 3);

speaking of Zion, by which is signified the Church in which God

is worshipped according to the Word.

Thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of waters,

whose waters shall not lie (Isa. Iviii 11; Jer. xxxi 12);

where also the Church is treated of.

Thou art full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty; thou hast beenin Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering

(Ezek. xxviii 12, 13);

respecting Tyre, by which is signified the Church as to the

knowledges of truth and good.

How good are thy dwellings, 0 Israel! as valleys they are

planted, and as gardens beside the river (Num. xxiv 5, 6);

by Israel is signified the spiritual Church; but by Jacob, the

natural Church in which there is something spiritual.Nor was any tree in the garden of God equal to him in beauty;

so that all the trees of Eden, in the garden of God, envied him

(Ezek. xxxi S, 9);

speaking of Egypt and Assyria, by which, where mentioned in a

good sense, the Church is signified as to knowledges and as to

perceptions.

To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree oflife, which

is in the midst of the paradise of God (Rev. ii 7).3 Owing to the correspondence of a garden with the Church, it

comes to pass that everywhere in the heavens gardens appear,

producing leaves, flowers and fruits according to the states of

the Church with the angels; and it has been told me, that in

some of the gardens there, trees of life are observed in the middle

parts, and trees of the knowledge of good and evil in the bound

aries, as a sign that they are in free-determination in spiritual

things. The Church is over and over again described in the

Word by a "garden," a "field," and a "sheepfold"; by a" garden" from the trees, as has been mentioned above; by a

" field" from its crops, wherewith man is nourished; by a

" sheepfold" from the sheep, by which are meant the faithful

and useful.

34



OR APPENDIX TO THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGI ON [28-29

28. In the work itself, named THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION,

it has been shown that by the two trees, the one of" life" and the

other of the" knowledge of good and evil," being placed in the

garden of Eden, is signified that free-determination in spiritual

things was given to man (n. 466-469); to which must be addedthat without such free-determination man would not be a man,

but only a figure and semblance; for his thought would be

without reflection, consequently without judgment, and thus in

Divine things, which are the things of the Church, he would

have no more power of turning himself, than a door without

a hinge, or, with a hinge, bolted with a steel bar; and his will

would be without decision, consequently no more active with

respect to justice or injustice than a tombstone, beneath which

lies a dead body. That man's life after death, and the im

mortality of his soul, is owing to the gift of this free-determination,

and that this is the" likeness of God," has been proved in the

2 work itself-as also above . Yea, man, that is, his mind, without

this would be like a sponge which imbibes water in great

abundance but is not able to discharge it, in consequence of

which both would decompose,-the water into foulness, and the

sponge into slime. Consequently, the Church with such a person

would not be a Church, and thus a temple wherein the worshipof God is performed; it would be like the den of some wild beast

under the root of a lofty tree which sways to and fro overhead;

except, only, that it would be able to take something therefrom,

and apply itself to some other use than lying in tranquillity

under it. Moreover, without free-determination in spiritual

things, man would be blinder in all and each of the things of

the Church, than a bird of night in the light of day, but more

sharp-sighted than such a bird in the darkness of night; for

with his eyelids he would close his eyes, and dim their sightto the truths of faith, but would raise his eyelids, open his eyes,

and expand their sight like an eagle, to the falsities of faith.Free-determination in spiritual things arises from man walking,

and living his life in the midst between heaven and hell; fromheaven operating into him from above, and hell from beneath;

and from the option given to man of turning himself either to

higher or to lower things, thus either to the Lord or to the Devil.

* * * * * * *29. Ill. THE THIRD S T ~ i ) OF THIS CHURCH , WHICH IS rrs

DECLINE AND EVENING, AND IS CALLED VASTATlON, is described

in the third chapter of Genesis, by these words:

The serpent became more subtle than any beast of the field

which Jehovah God had made. He said to the woman, Wherefore

35




also hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And when the woman said unto the serpent, Of the fruit of the

tree we may eat; only of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst,

God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest

ye die,-the serpent said, Ye shall not die; for God doth know,that, in the day wherein ye shall ea t thereof, your eyes shall be

opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil. The

woman, therefore, saw that the tree was good for food, and that it

was pleasant to the eyes, and to be desired to give understanding;

therefore she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave

to her man (vir) with her, and he did eat (Gen. iii 1-6).

That a decline from light to the shade of evening, that is, a

falling away from wisdom and integrity, consequently a state of

vastation of this Church, is described by these words, is because,

owing to having been made a " likeness of God" (by which is

signified that, to all appearance he, like God, thinks those things

which are of wisdom, and wills those things which are of love,

from himself,-see above, n. 26), he believed the serpent's words,

that if he should eat of that tree he would become as God, and

thus also be God, in knowing good and evil. By this" tree" is

signified the natural man separated from the spiritual, which,

whenleft to itself, believes nothing else.2 Every man has a natural mind and a spiritual mind, distinct

from each other like two stories of one house connected by stairs;

in the upper story of which dwell the master and mistress with

their children, but in the lower the men-servants and maid

servants, with other menials. From birth even to early youth,

the spiritual mind in man is shut; but after that first age the

spiritual mind is step by step opened; for there is given to every

man from birth the capacity, and afterwards the ability, of pre

paring for himself steps by which he may ascend and speakwith the master and mistress, and then descend and execute

their commands: this power is conferred upon him through the

gift of free-determination in spiritual things. Nevertheless, no

one can ascend to th e upper story, by which is meant the spiritual

mind, except he eat of the trees of life in the garden of God; for,

by eating of these man is enlightened and restored, and, receives

faith; and through the nourishment of their fruits he attains the

assurance that all good is from the Lord, who is the Tree of Life,

and not the least of it from man; and yet, that, by abidingtogether and working together, hence by the Lord's being in

him and he in the Lord, he will do good of himself, but still,

in the faith and assurance that it is not from himself but from

3 the Lord. I f a man believe otherwise, he produces a semblance

36




of good, inwardly in which there is evil, because merit; and this

is eating of the trees of the knowledge of good and evil, among

which dwells the serpent, in the dreadful persuasion that he is

as God, or else that there is no God, but that Nature is what iscalled God, and that he is compounded of its elements. Further

more: those eat of the trees of the knowledge of good and evil

who love themselves and the world above all things; but those

eat of the trees of life who love God above all things and the

neighbour as themselves. Those also eat of the trees of the

knowledge of good and evil who put forth regulations for the

Church from self-intelligence, and afterwards confirm them by

the Word; but, on the other hand, those eat of the trees of life

who procure for themselves regulations for the Church by meansof the Word, and afterwards confirm them by intelligence.

Those, again, who teach truths from the Word, and live wickedly,

eat of the trees of the knowledge of good and evil; but those

eat of the trees of life who live well and teach from the Word.

Speaking generally, all eat of the trees of the knowledge of good

and evil who deny the Divinity of the Lord and the holiness

of the Word, inasmuch as the Lord is the Tree of Life and

the Word, from whom the Church is a "garden eastward in

Eden."30. The spiritual man is an erect man, who with his head

looks to the heaven above him, and about him, and treads the

earth with the soles of his feet; but the natural man separated

from the spiritual is either like a man stooping, who wags his

head, and constantly looks on the ground, and at the steps of

his own feet; or, he is like a man inverted, who walks on the

palms of his hands, and raises his feet towards heaven, and per

forms worship by shakings and clappings of these. The spiritual

man is like a rich man who has a palace in which are upper

stories, bed-chambers and dining-rooms, the walls of which are

continuous windows of crystalline glass, through which he sees

the gardens, fields, flocks and herds which also belong to him,

and with the sight and use of which he delights himself day by

day. But the natural man separated from the spiritual is also

like a rich man who has a palace containing chambers, the walls

of which are continuous panels of rotting wood, which sheds

around an illusory light,wherein

shapes ofpride, originating

inthe love of self and of the world, appear like molten images of

gold in the midst, and of silver at the sides, before which he bends

the knee like an idolater. Again, the spiritual man, in himself,

is actually like a dove as to gentleness, like an eagle as to the

sight of the mind, like a flying bird of paradise as to progress in

37



30-31] THE CORONIS

spiritual things, and like a peacock as to their adornment from

spiritual things; but, on the other hand, the natural man

separated from the spiritual is like a hawk chasing a dove, like a

dragon devouring the eyes of an eagle, like a fiery serpent flying

at the side of a bird of paradise, and like a horned owl beside a

peacock. These comparisons are adduced that they may be as

lenses through which the reader may more closely observe what

the spiritual man is in itself, and the natural man in itself. But

the case is altogether different, when the spiritual man by its

spiritual light and spiritual heat is inwardly in the natural;

then , both make one, just like effort in motion, and will (which

is living effort) in action, and like appetite in taste, and like the

sight of the mind in the sight of the eye, and still more evidentlylike the perception of a thing in the knowledge of it, and the

thought of it in speech.

* * * * * * *31. V . THE FOURTH S T A O F THIS CHURCH , WHICH WAS ITS

END, OR NIGHT, AND IS CALLED CONSUMMATION, is described by

these words, also in the third chapter of Genesis :

Jehovah God called unto the man, and said unto him, Where

art thou? and he said, I heard Thy voice in the garden, therefore

I was afraid. Then Jehovah said, Hast thou eaten of the tree

whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not ea t of it ? And

the man said, The woman whom thou gayest to be with me, she

gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And Jehovah God said unto

the woman, Wherefore hast thou done this ? And the woman said,

The serpent deceived me , and I did eat. ThenJehovah God cursed

the serpent, and afterwards the woman , and after her the man.

Whereupon Jehovah God sent the man forth from the garden of

Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken (Gen. iii 9-23).

From the literal, or historical, sense of the description of Adam's

life, it is manifest that he was cursed because he believed the

serpent, that he should be as God; and he who believes this,

at length does not acknowledge God. And as the natural man

separated from the spiritual is in such faith at heart, however he

may talk otherwise with his mouth, therefore, when from

spiritual he became natural, he was cursed, and he was cursed

as to his Sensual, his Voluntary, and his Intellectual; for his

Sensual is signified by the serpent, his Voluntary by the woman,

and his Intellectual by the man: these three were cursed,

because one follows the other. (In the ARCANA CJE LESTIA, every

expression, and every meaning of the expressions, is laid open

by the spiritual sense, which has been revealed to me by the

Lord; which explanation, being published, may be consulted.)

38



O R A P P E N D I X TO T H E T R U E C H R I S T I A N R E L I G I O N [32-33

32. After this curse, the fourth state of this Church, which

was its state of night in spiritual things, and is called consum

mation, is described by the man being driven out from the garden

" to till the earth from whence he was taken," by which is meant

that he was deprived of the innocence, integrity and wisdom inwhich he was while he was spiritual, consequently that he was

cast down from heaven, that is, dissociated from the angels, just

as is written of the dragon:

The great dragon was cast down; the old serpent, which is called

the Devil and Satan, was cast forth out of heaven, where he fought

with Michael and his angels, to the earth; and his angels were cast

down with him (Rev. xii 9).

33. What person of sound mind is there who cannot see that,

by those things which are related of Adam are not meant any

states of the first-formed man, but states of the Church? As, for

example, that God placed two trees in the midst of the garden,

from the eating of one of which man had eternal life, and from

the other of which he had eternal death; and that He made the

latter " good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and to be desired

for giving understanding" ([Gen.] iii 6), thus as if it were to

bewitch their souls; also, that he admitted the serpent, andallowed it to speak deceitful words to the woman in the presence

of her husband, who was the image and likeness of God, and

suffered them to be ensnared by its fiatteries and arts; as,

moreover, why it was not provided,-since it was foreseen-that

they, and the whole human race from them, should not fall into

the damnation of His curse; for we read in the Christian books

of orthodoxy: "That , in consequence of this original sin, ' in

place of the lost image of God, there is in man a most inward,

most wicked, most profound, inscrutable, unspeakable corruptionof his whole nature, and of all his powers,' and that it is the root

of all actual evils (Formula Concordie, p. 640) " ; and that God

the Father turned away that universal damnation from His face,

and sent His Son into the world, who might take it on Himself,

and thus appease [Him]; besides many other things which are,

2 as everyone may see, inconsistent with God. Who may not, from

the particulars above-mentioned understood in their historical

sense, reasonably conclude, to use comparisons, that it would be

like a person who gives his dependent a most fruitful field, andin it digs a pit, which he covers over with boards that fall inwards

at the touch of a hand or foot; and, in the midst, places upon a

stand a harlot clothed in crimson and scarlet, holding in her

hand a golden cup (like the woman in Rev. xvii 4), who, by her

c . -4 39



33-34] THE CORONIS

blandishments, allures the man to herself, and so brings it to

pass that he falls into the pit and is drowned? Would it not,

indeed, be like one who makes a present to his friend of a

luxuriant field of corn, and in the midst thereof conceals snares,

and sends out a siren who, with the allurement of song and ofa sweet voice, entices him to that place, and causes him to be

entangled in the snare, from which he is unable to extricate his

foot? Yea, to use a further comparison, it would be like a person

who should introduce a noble guest into his house, in which

there are two parlours, and tables in each of them, at one of

which are seated angels, and at the other evil spirits, on the

latter of which are cups full of sweet but poisoned wine, and

dishes on which are viands containing aconite; and who should

permit the evil spirits there to represent the orgies of Bacchus,

and the follies of buffoons, and entice them to those foods and

3 drinks. But, my friend, the things related of Adam, of the

garden of God, and of the two trees therein, appear under quite

a different aspect when spiritually comprehended, that is,

unswathed by the spiritual sense. It is then clearly seen that,

by Adam, as a type, is meant the Most Ancient Church; and

the successive states of that Church are described by the

vicissitudes of his life. For a Church, in the beginning, is like aman created anew, who has a natural and a spiritual mind, and

by degrees from spiritual becomes natural, and at length sensual,

and believes nothing but what the senses of the body dictate;

and such a man appears in heaven like a person sitting on a

beast, which bends its head backward, and with its teeth bites,

tears and mangles the man sitting upon it; while the truly

spiritual man appears in heaven also like a person sitting on a

beast, but on a gentle one, which he controls with a slender rein,

and even by a gesture.* * * * * * *

34. V. THE FIFTH S T A ~ OF THIS CHURCH WAS THE SEPARA-

TION OF THE 000 FROM THE EVIL, WHICH WAS THE LAST

JUDGMENT ON ALL WHO WERE OF THAT CHURCH. This state is

described by the" flood," in which all the wicked who remained

perished; and by " Noah and his sons," by whom are meant all

the good who were saved. The end of the Most Ancient Church,

represented by Adam, is described in the sixth chapter of Genesis

by these words:

When Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was multiplied

in the world, and moreover every imagination of his heart only

evil every day, it repented Jehovah that He had made man on the

earth: therefore Jehovah said, I will blot out man whom I have

40




created from off the faces of the earth: only Noah found grace inthe eyes ofJehovah (Gen. vi 5--8).

But the Last]udgment upon them is described by the flood . It

is described by a " flood" for the reason that " waters" in theWord signify truths, and in an opposite sense falsities. Truths

are signified by the waters of a fountain, the waters of a river,

the waters of rain, and by the waters of the washings in time

past, and the waters of baptism at this day: such correspondence

arises from the circumstance that truths purify man's soul from

uncleanness, as waters do his body; hence they are called

" living waters." But in the opposite sense falsities are signified

by " waters " ; but by impure waters, such as those of marshes,

evil-smelling cisterns, urine, and deadly waters; in general, byall hurtful and death-producing waters, therefore, also, by waters

from an inundation of which man dies, consequently the

2 Noachian flood . That falsities in the mass are described by

inundations, may be evident from the following passages:

Jehovah is causing to come up upon them the waters of the river(Euphrates), strong and many; it shall pass through Judah, it shallinundate, it shall pass over, it shall reach even to the neck (Isa,

viii 7, 8).

By the" waters of the river" Euphrates, are signified reasonings

from falsities, because by Assyria, whose river it was, reasoning

is signified.

The spirit of Jehovah, like an inundating stream, shall dividein two even to the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity(Isa. xxx 28) :

by an inundating river, here, in like manner, is signified reasoning

from falsities.

Behold waters are rising up out of the north, which are like aninundating stream, and it shall inundate the land and the fulnessthereof (Jcr. xlvii 2):

here the Philistines are treated of, by whom are meant those

who are not in charity, and hence not in truths; the falsities

of these are signified by "waters coming up from the north,"and the devastation of the Church in consequence thereof, by

"a n inundating stream that shall inundate the land and its

fulness " ; " the land" is the Church, and its "fulness" all

things pertaining to it.

41



3

34-35] THE CORONIS

Say unto those who daub what is unfit, There shall be an

inundating rain, in which hail-stones shall fall upon you (Ezek,

xiii 11, 13):

the " daubing of what is unfit" is the confirmation of falsity,

and hail-stones are falsities.

In an overflowing inundation He shall make the place thereof a

consummation, and thick darkness shall pursue His enemies

(Nahum i 8):

by " the inundation" which shall consummate, is signified the

falsification of truth, and by " thick darkness," truths themselves

in the night.

Ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with

hell have we made a vision; when the scourge of inundation shall

pass over, it shall not come unto us; we have made a lie our trust,

and in falsity we will hide ourselves (Isa. xxviii 15).

Here " inundation" manifestly denotes destruction by falsi ties;

for it is said that they placed confidence in " a lie," and would

hide themselves in " falsity."

After the sixty-two weeks shall Messiah be cu t off, but not for

Himself; then the people of the Prince that shall come shall destroy

the city and the sanctuary, so that the end thereof shall be with aninundation even to desolations (Dan. ix 26);

speaking of the Christian Church that was to come, in which

the worship of the Lord would perish; which is meant by

"Messiah being cut off, but not for Himself"; that it would

perish by falsifications, is meant by " the end thereof being with

an inundation even to desolations"; "desolation" denoting

the falsification. Hence it is, that, after the Lord spoke of the

abomination of desolation foretold by Daniel the prophet, and ofthe" consummation of the age" thereby, He said

That His coming would be as in the days when the flood came,

and took them all away (Matt. xxiv 15, 39).

That by the drowning of Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the Red

Sea (Exod. xiv), is meant, in the spiritual sense, destruction by

falsities, has been shown in the ARCANA CiELESTIA, in the

explanation of that chapter.

35. Since the Churches in the Christian world, both theRoman Catholic Church and those separated from it, which are

named after their leaders, Luther, Melancthon and Calvin, trace

all sin from Adam and his transgression, it is permissible to sub-

join here something about the sources whence evils are inherited;42 •



OR A P P E N D I X TO TH E T R U E C H R I S T I A N R E L I G I O N [35

for these sources are as many as there are fathers and mothers

in the world . That inclinations, aptitudes and propensities to

various evils are derived from these, is clear as daylight from

the testimony of experience, and also from the assent of reason.

Who does not know, from the collective testimony of experience,that there is a general likeness of dispositions, and hence of

manners and features, from parents in children and children's

children, even to indefinite posterity? Who cannot thence inferthat original sins are from them? The notion suggested to every

one, when he looks at the countenances and manners of brothers

and relatives in families, causes him to know and acknowledge2 this. What reason, then, is there for deducing the origin of all

evils from Adam and his seed? Is there not equal reason for

deducing it from parents? Does not the germ of these similarlypropagate itself? To deduce the tendencies from which, and

according to which, the spiritual forms of the minds of all men

in the universe exist, from Adam's seed alone, would be exactly

like deriving birds of every species from one egg, also beasts of

every nature from one seed, and trees of every kind of fruit from

one root. Is there not an infinite variety of men? one like asheep, another like a wolf? one like a kid, another like a panther?

one like a gentle cob harnessed to a carriage, another like an

untamable wild ass before it? one like a playful calf, another

like a voracious tiger? and so on. Whence has each his peculiar

disposition but from his father and his mother? Why, then,

from Adam?-by whom, however, is described in a representative

type the first Church of this earth, as has been already shown?

Would not this be like tracing from one stock, deeply hidden inthe earth, a plantation of trees of every appearance and use, and

from a. single plant shrubs of every value? Would that not also

be like extracting light from the obscurity of the ages and ofhistories, and like unravelling the thread of a riddle that is

without an answer? Why not rather derive them from Noah,

Who walked with God (Gen. vi 9),

and

Whom God blessed (Gen. ix I),

and from whom with his three sons alone surviving

The whole earth was overspread (Gen. ix 19)?

Would not the hereditary qualities of the generations from Adam

3 be thus extirpated, as if drowned by a flood? But, my friend,

I will lay bare the true source of sins. Every. evil .i_s c o n ~ e i v e d of

the devil as a father and is born of atheistical faith as a mother;43 - -- ,



35-36] THE CORONIS

and, on the other hand, every good is conceived of the Lord as a;

father and ' is born, as of a mother, of saving faith in Hi The

generations of all goods in their infinite varieties with men, are

f!£.m no other origin than from the marriage of the Lw:d and

~ the ~ h and, on the contrary, the generations of all evilsin tliclr varieties with them, are from no other origin than fromthe union of thedevil with -t oe community of the profane.

Who does not know, or may not know, that a man m ust be

regenerated by_the Lord, that is, be created anew, and that, so

far as this takes place, so far he is In goods? Hence this foll9,ws:

that, in so far as a man is unwilling to be generated anew, _or

created a n e ~ , so far he takes up and retains tIie evilS-implanted .

inliimfrom his parents. This is what lies concealed in the first

precept of the Decalogue :

I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the

sons, upon the third and upon the fourth generationof ~ a t hQld _Me in hatred, and showing mercy unto thousands wJ:<2Jove

Me and keep My commandments (Exod. xx 5, 6; Deut. v 9, 10).

* * * * * * *36.cYi. THE SIXTH S ~ OF THE MEN OF THIS CHURCH,

WHICH WAS THE ELEVATION TO GOD, AFTER THE LAST JUDGMENT, Jl

OF THE FAITHFUL, OF WHOM A NEW 'HEAvEN WAS FORMED, AND JTHE REMOVAL FROM GOD OF THE UNFAITHFUL, OF WHOM WAS

FORMED A NEW HELL. In the preceding propositions (from

n. 10 to 13, and from n. 14 to 17), it was explained that, after

consummation, a Last Judgment was executed upon all who

were of each of the four Churches above named, and after this a

new heaven and a new hell formed from them, and thus thatt ~ have been four judgments in this earjh on....its i n h a ~ t s , and four heJ!:Lens and hells formed from them; and it has been

granted me to know, that both those heavens and those hells are

so entirely distinct from each other, that no person can by any

possibility pass out of his own into that of another. All these

heavens have been described in the little work on CONJUGIAL

LOVE; and, as the spiritual origin of love truly conjugial! is from

no other source than the marriage of the Lord and the Church,

thus from the Lord's love towards the Church and that of the

Church to the Lord (as was shown in that little work, fromn. lT6-to- n l ) , and as the most ancient people were in both

I Here, and elsewhere throughout this work, conjugialis is translated .. conjug ial " in preference to .. marriage," on account of the new spiritual conceptintroduced by Swedenborg. In the first translation of De Amore Conjugiali,Rev.]. Clowes introduced this translation of conjugialis, but in this he is notfollowed by some translators of Swedenborg.

44



OR APPENDIX TO THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION (36-37

these loves so long as they retained in themselves the image of

God, therefore, I may transcribe from that little work the follow

ing particulars respecting that heaven, to which I was at the

time granted admission; which are as follow:

37. "O n a time, when I was meditating on conjugial love,the desire seized my mind of knowing what that love had been

like with those who lived in the Golden Age, and what, after

wards, in the succeeding ones which are called the Silver, Copper

and Iron ages. And, as I knew that all who lived well in those

ages are in the heavens, I prayed to the Lord that it might bepermitted me to speak with them and be instructed.

" And, lo! an angel stood by me, and said, ' I am sent by the

Lord to be your guide and companion; and I will read and

accompany you, first, to those who lived in the first era, or Age,

which is called the Golden.' (The Golden Age is the same asthe age of the Most Ancient Church, which is meant by the

head of fine gold, on the statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar in a

dream-Dan. ii 32--of which we have spoken before.) The

angel said, 'The way to them is laborious; it lies through a

dense wood, which no one can traverse unless a guide be givenhim by the Lord.'

2 " I was in the spirit, and prepared myself for the journey,and we turned our faces to the east; and as we proceeded.jj.

saw a mountain, whose summit towered beyond the re ion of~ s . e crosse a great esert, an reached a wood

crowded with all kinds of trees, and dark by reason of the dense

growth thereof, of which the angel told me beforehand. But

that wood was intersected by numerous narrow paths. The

angel said that these were so many windings of error, and that

unless the eyes were opened by the Lord, and the olive-trees

girt about with vine tendrils seen, and the steps led from olivetree to olive-tree, the traveller would stray into Tartarus. ThiS )wood is of such a nature, to the end that the approach may beguarded; for no other race but the primeval one dwells on that

mountain.

3 " After we entered the wood, our eyes were opened, and we

saw here and there the o l i v e - t r e ~ ~ _ ~ w i n e d with vines, fromwhich hung bunches of g0E..es of a dark-blue colour, and the

olive-trees were arrangeOln perpetual windings; wherefore, we

wa.IkeClround and round as they came into view; and at length

we saw a grove of lofty cedars, and some eagJes on their branches.

When he saw these, the angel said, ' Now we are on the moun

tain, not far from its summit.' - .- -

- "-And we went on; and lo! behind the_grove was ~ r 45




plain, where were feeding male and female lambs, which were

forms" r e p r e s e ~ " t 1 i e s t a t e O T i n n o c e n c e and peace of the

-inhabitantSOf the mountain. -- cc ~ e __c"n)ssid_this_pl(lir.!"'.Jl.nd .12.! there were seen thousands

and thousands of tents to the front, and at thesides lil-eV(;ry

J

direction, as faras ffie sight could reach-.- Andt ne angeCsaId,'l'Now we---are- rn t he camp-where dwell the armies of the Lord

J e ~ f o r S O t h e y call themselves an<f their habitations:-fhese

most ancient people,whi letlley were- in-the world, dweltln

tents; for wli1cll reason they also d w e t H n l l r e ~ t Isaid, ' Let us bend our way to the south, where the wiser of them

dwell, that we may meet some one with whom we may enter

into conversation.'

4 " On the way, I saw at a distance three boys and three girlssitting at the door of their tent; but as we drew near, both the

b.2TI.. and the girls were seen as men and women of medium

height. And the angel said, ' All the inhabitants of this mountain

appear at a distance as young children, because they are in the

state of innocence, and early childhood is the appearance of

innocence.'

" On seeing us, the three men (viri) ran towards us, and said,, Whence are you ,-"and how have you come hither? your faces

<m;_Il..Qt.Q[..tb..e.. faces belonging to this mountain:

"But the angel r e p l i e d - and told the means by which we

obtained access through the wood, and the reason of our coming." On hearing this, one of the three men invited and conducted

us into his tent. The man was clad in a coat of a ~ p l e colour,and a tunic of white wool; and his wife was dressed in a crimson

robe, anOl1ad, underneath, a vest of fine e m b r o i d ~ ~ ~ 5 - a But inasmuch as the desireof Kn6wiiig "aootifthe marriages

of the most ancient people was in my mind,I

looked at thehusband and the wif<: b turns, and observed as it were a unIty

of their souls in their faces; and I said, ' You two are one.'

- " And the man answered:"'" e a re one; er IiIelsm me and

mine In her. We are two bodies, but one soul. There is between

us a union like that of the two tents in the breast, which are

called the heart and the lungs; she is the substance of my heart,

and I am lier lungs; buras by heart we here mean IQY.e, and bylungs wisdom-w e understand the latter by the formefOn account

of correspondence- she is the love of my wisdom, and I am thei wisdom of her love. Hence, as you saId, there is the appeariThce

L.- oLth-e_l.ill!!Y of our souls in our faces. Hence, it is as impossl le }Jt o ~ h e r ~ , J 9 . Q 9 inJust uRo the wife of a companion, as it isto look at the light of our heaven from the shaaeorrartarus. '

46




CV

"And the angel said to me, ' You hear now the speech of

these angels, that it is the speech of wisdom, because they speak

from causes.'

"After this conversation, I saw a great light on a hill among

the tents, and I asked, ' Whence is that light? '" He said, ' From the sanctuary of our tabernacle of worship.' )" I enquired whether it was allowed to approach; and he said

that it was. Then I drew near, and saw the tabernacle exactly

according to the descrie§>n without all:d withinJ_of the Taber

nacIe whIch was setUp for the sons ~ e l in the wi!Qerness,the form of which was shown to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exod.xxv 40; xxvi 30). I asked, further, 'What is there within, in

its sanctuary, whence so great a light proceeds? '

" And he answered, 'There is a tablet, on which is written, 1\ 11" THE COVENANT BETWEEN THE LORD JEHOVIH AND HEAVEN.'" 1,1

He said no more. '\ - z.. "

"Then, also, I questioned them about the LORD JEHOVIH,

whom they worship; and I said, ' I s He not God the Father,

the Creator of the universe? '

"And they replied, 'H e is; but, by the Lord Jehovih weunderstand J ehovah in His Human; for we are not able to look

upon Jehovah in His inmost Divinity, except throygh His~ ' : and then they exE!ained what they: understood, and

also what at this day they understand, by the

Seed of the woman trampling the serpent's head (Gen. iii 15);

namely, that the Lord ] ehoyih would come into the world, and

redeem and save all who believed on Him, and who would

believe thereafter.

" When we had finished this conversation, the man ran to his

tent, and returned with a pomegranate in which was a vastnumber of golden seeds, which he presented to me, and I brought

away: this was a token that we had been with those who lived

in the Golden Age." [See the little work on CONJUGIAL LOVE,

n. 75.]-For an account of the heavens of the remaining Churches

which succeeded the Most Ancient, in their order, see in the

same little work on CONJUGIAL LOVE (n. 76-82).38. The hell of those who were from the Most Ancient Churcn

is, beyond all other hells, the most atrocious. It consists of those

who in the world believed themselves to be as God, accoraIIlgto t e c u n n m g j l t : c l a ! : ~ t i 9 n _ Q f the s e q ~ e n t (Gen. iii 5); and thoseare deeper in that hell who persuaded themselves, from the

fantasy that God had transfused His'Divinity into men, that they

were altogether gods, ~ n d _ J h 1 J s J h a L t h e r e _ w - a S _ Q J 9 1 ! . g e r a God

47



38] THE CORONIS

in the. .tlgiverse. By reaso..!!_-9f that dreadful persuasion, there

exhaled from that hell a deadly stench, which infects the adjacent

places with so baleful a contagion, that, when anyone approaches,

he is at first seized with such a mad delirium that presently, aftersome convulsive struggles, he seems to himself to be in the agonies(. of death. I saw a certain one, in the vicinity of that place, lying

as it were dead; but, on being removed thence, he revived.

That hell lies in the middle region at the south, surrounded with

ramparts, on which stand sO!pew.Qo s h o l l ! . . 9 ~ t ) l ! : C l . l o u ~ , ~ ~ i a n ( volce,_." Approach no nearer." I have heard from the angels

who are in the heaven above that hell, that the vile spirits there

t appear like ser ents twisted into inextricable coils ; which is a

tl)consequence of their vain ecelts an InCantatIOns, by whichj t h e ~ u d e d the simple into agreeing that they are ~ o d s , and

that there is no God beside them. The ancients, who wove all

things into fables, denoted these by the " giants," who besieged

the camp of the gods, and were cast down 6y Jupiter by his

thunderbolts and thrust under the fiery mountain Etna, and

called " C ~ s . " They also called the hells of these, " ~ rtarus " and " pools of Acheron s r , and the deeps there " S ~ x " , , "aW those who dwe lt there, " Lerneean Hydras," and so fort .




LPROPOSITION THE THIRDJTh e Noachian, or Ancient Church of this Earth

. . .-------- 39. SINCE every Church is three-fold, inmost or celestial,

C!ciddle or spiritua0and ~ r o r natura t ere ore oa

had three sons; and by Shem is signified the inmost, or celestialChurch, by Japheth the middle or spiritual Church, and by

Ham, the external, or natural Church. But there is not room

here to describe with whom is the first Church, and with whom

the second and third, as also what their quality is in them

selves, or among themselves: for there are highest, middle and

lowest heavens, to which those three degreesof the Church

correspond. Moreover, this Noachian, or Ancient Church, was

diffused throughout Asia, especially into Syria, Mesopotamia,

Assyria, Chaldea, the land of Canaan, and the lands adjacent,

Philistia, Egypt, Tyre, Sidon, Nineveh, and also into Arabia

and Ethio..£ia, and in course of time into Great Tartary, andthence downwards as far as to the Black Sea, and thence into

[ all the regions of Africa. That the nations in every part of the

eartllliave been in worship from some sort of religion, is wellknown; and religion cannot exist except by some revelation and

by the propagation thereof from natIon to nation-as may be

seen in the preceding work, THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION

(n. 273-276); where, also, it was shown, that, prior to the

Israelitish Word, there was a Word, which in process of time

1\ was lost, but is still, of the Divine Providence of the Lord, pre!l.erved in _Great Tartary, from- whiChlStneITDivine worship

even to the present day (see also n. 264-266, and n. 279, of the

said work).

40. Who can deny that the universe was created for the sakeof the human race, I I I order that from It should be formedan

angelic 1:J,eavCll whereTn (}J ! l igh t dwell in the dominion of His[( gory? IT o p r ~ e and a c ~ s h this end, what me diate\

causeIs t h e r ~ J ? u t relJK!Qn?Jand what else is religion but i1 walking

with God? Moreover, ~ l ! g i g 1 . 1 ) s J i k e _ a seed producing just and

n d e s i r ~ s , and hence judgments and acts, in spiritual t -lngs,, ana-bymeans of these in moral things, and by means of the

latter and the former in civil things. In order, therefore, that

i t may be known what is the quality of the man who has religion,

49



40-41] THE CORONIS

and what of him who has not religion, it shall be stated. The

\ man who has religion is, in spiritual!:!!ings, like a pelican, nourishI ing its young with its own "oIood; but the man who has not

, religion, is in those things like a vulture, in a state of starvation,i devouring its own offspring. The man who has religion is, in

moral t h l n g s ~ : t u r t l e - d o v e in the nest with its mate, sitting

on its eggs or young; but the man who has not religion is, in

IJI these things, like a kite or hawk in the coop of a dove-coLI/The)f man who has religion is,-ii1P01tical things, like a swan flying with (

Ia bunch of grapes in its mouth; but he who has not rehgIon, (

is in these matters like a basilisk with a poisonous herb in its Imouth. t The man who has religion is, in judiciary matters, like a '

tribune riding on a noble hOI§e; but the man who has notreligion, is in those things like a serpent in the desert of Arabia

biting its tail in its mouth, and hurling itself, thus enfolded,upon a horse to coil itself about its rider. The man who has

. religion is, in other civil affairs, like a prince, the son of a king,, who exhibitst he marks o{charity and the graces of truth; but

I the man who has not religion, is like the three-headed dog

Cerberus at the entrance to the court of Pluto, foaming out

poison from its triple mouth.

41. The successive states of this Church-which are: rise ormorning; progression into light, and day; vastation or evening,and consummation or night-i t is not permitted to follow up

with a description in the same manner as we before described

the states of the Most Ancient Church, because the states of that

Church cannot be so collected from our Word; for the posterity

of Noah, through his three sons, is recorded only in a summary,

in one or two pages; and, moreover, that Church was spread

through many kingdoms, and in each kingdom it differed, and

hence that Church underwent and ran through the states2 mentioned in a different manner. That THE FIRST AND SECOND

STATE THEREOF in the regions round about the Jordan and about

Egypt, was like t he" garden of Jehovah," is evident from the

words:

The plain of Jordan . . . was . . . like the garden of J ehovah,

like the land of Egypt, where thou comest unto Zoar (Gen. xiii 10).

And that the like was the case with Tyre, appears from thefollowing:

Thou prince of Tyre, . . . full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

Thou hast been in . . . the garden of God; every precious stone

was thy covering; . . . thou was perfect in thy ways, from the day

50




that thou wast created until perversity was found in thee (Ezek.

xxviii 12-15).

That Asshur was like a " cedar in Lebanon," appears from the

following:

Behold, Asshur is a cedar in Lebanon, beautiful in branch, lofty

in height; . . . all the birds of the heavens nested in his branches,

and under his branches did every beast of the field bring forth its

young, and in his shadow dwelt all great nations: No tree

in the garden of God was equal to him in beauty, and all

those trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him

(Ezek. xxxi 3-9).

That wisdom flourished in Arabia, is evident from the queen

of Sheba's journey to Solomon (I Kings x 1-13); also from the

three wise men who came to the new-born Jesus, a star going3 before them (Matt. ii 1-12). THE THIRD AND FOURTH STATE OFTHAT CHURCH, which was that of its vastation and consum

mation, is described in various places in the Word, both in its

historical and prophetical parts. The consummation of the

nations round about the Jordan, or round about the land of

Canaan, is described by the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah,

Admah and Zeboim (Gen. xix ); the consummation of the

Church of the nations within the Jordan, or in the land ofCanaan, is described in Joshua and in the Book of Judges by the

expulsion of some and the extermination of others. The con

summation of that Church in Egypt, is described by the drowning

of Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the Red Sea (Exod. xiv ).

And so on.

42. Certain it is that this Ancient Church was a representative

Church, which, in visible and natural types and signs, figuredforth the invisible and spiritual things of the Church which was

yet to come, when Jehovah Himself would manifest Himself ina natural human form, and by this means secure for Himself

entrance to men, and for men access to Himself, and thus would

divest Himself of types, and found a Church with precepts

which should lead all who believe on Him as Man, and do His

commandments, by a ready way to heaven, the dwelling-place

of His Divinity . But, inasmuch as this Ancient Church, typical

of that which was to come, turned the representative correspond

ences into magic and idolatry, and thus into things infernal,

Jehovah raised up the Israelitish Church, in which He restoredthe primitive types, which were heavenly : such types were all

the tabernacles, feasts, sacrifices, priesthoods, the garments of

Aaron and his sons, and the anointings; besides the statutes in a

long series which were promulgated through Moses.51



43-44] THE CORONIS

43. I will touch, in a few words, upon the manner in which

the representative Church with them was turned into an idola-trous one: All the spiritual things which are of heaven and the

Church were presented before them in visible and tangible

images, as was mentioned just above; those images were takenfrom the subjects of the three kingdoms of nature, animal,

vegetable and mineral, by which were represented such things

as are of the heavenly kingdom. They placed these typical

images in their sanctuaries, in the inner chambers of their houses,

and in the market-places and streets, arranging them according

to their significations. But after the knowledge ofcorrespondences

was lost, and consequently the discernment of the signification

of those images had perished, a later posterity began to look

upon and acknowledge them as so many Divine and holy things;and then to some they bowed the knee, some they kissed, and

some they adorned and decorated with necklaces, boxes of per

fumes and anklets, just as children do their dolls, and as papists

do their images; yea, of some they made household gods, of

some guardian demigods, and of some Pythons; some, more

over, they carried in miniature forms in their hands, some they

hugged in their bosoms, stroked, and whispered petitions intheir ears; and so on. Thus were heavenly types turned into

infernal types, and the Divine things of heaven and the Church

into idols. On account of this transformation and distortion of

heavenly things, a new representative Church was raised up

among the sons of Israel, in which genuine representations, as

was stated above, were instituted; and to which it was forbidden

to celebrate Divine worship by any others, as is evident from

these words in the first Commandment of the Decalogue:

Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any figure

that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that

is in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself

unto them, nor worship them (Exod. xx 4, 5; Deut. v 8, 9).

44. It has been stated that from the people of every Church,

at its end, is formed a new heaven and a new hell; and, since

I gave an account in the preceding section of the heaven and

hell formed from those who were of the Most Ancient Church,

it seems well also to do so respecting these [of the Ancient

Church]; for access has been granted me thereto, inasmuch asI have been permitted to traverse and observe the whole

spiritual world, to the end that the New Church, truly Christian,

may not be in thick darkness concerning heaven and hell, and

concerning the lot of these after death according to the deeds

52



OR APPENDIX TO THE T R UE CHRISTIAN RELIGION [44

of their life. These things are likewise in the little work on

CONJUGIAL LOVE (n. 76).

CONCERNING THE HEAVEN FORMED FROM THESE

2 "An angel came to me and said, 'D o you desire me to

accompany you to the peoples who lived in the Silver Era, or

Age, that we may hear from them respecting the customs and

life of their times?' It was also said that they may not be

approached except under the auspices of the Lord.

" I was in the spirit, and accompanied my guide, and came,

first, to a hill on the confines of the east with the south; and

when we were on its slope, he showed me a vast stretch of

country, and we saw at a distance an eminence like a mountain,

between which and the hill on which we stood, was a valley, and

beyond this a plain, and from this plain a gently-rising ascent.

" We descended the hill to cross the valley, and saw here and

there, at the sides, blocks of wood and stone carved into figures

of men, and of various beasts, birds and fishes. And I asked the

angel, ' What are these? Are they not idols? '

( "And he replied, ' By no means; they are representative

forms.0.

f various moral virtues and spiritual truths. Thep e ? p ~ s

I of that age possessed a knowledge of correspondences; and, as

b e a s ~ · 6 i r d and fish correspond to some quality, therefore, each

carved figure represents and signifies some aspect of virtue or

truth, and many together the virtue or truth itself, in a certain

general extended form; these are what in Egypt were called

hieroglyphics.'

3 "W e proceeded through the valley, and when we entered

the plain, lo! we saw horses and carriages, the horses variously

caparisoned and harnessed, and the carriages variously shaped;some being carved out like e ~ g k s , some like U £ o ! ! ! S , and some

like wMt;s: we also saw some carts at the boundary, and stables

round about at the sides. But, when we approached, both horses

and carriages disappeared, and instead of them we saw men, in

pairs, walking, talking together and reasoning. And the angel

said to me, 'The semblances of horses, carriages and stables,

seen at a distance, are a E p e a . J : : < t n ( ; ~ of ~ rational intellig<;p.ce

of the men of that .;;lge ; for a horse, by correspondence, signifies

the understanding of truth; a carriage, the doctrine of truth;and stables, places of instruction. You are aware that all things

in this world appear according to correspondences.'

t " But we passed these things, and went up by the ascent.

At length we saw a city, which we entered; and, in walking

53



44] THE CORONIS

through it, we observed its houses from the streets and squares.

In the midst of it, were palaces built of marble, having steps of

alabaster in front, and at the sides of the steps pillars of jasper.

We saw also temples, made of precious stone of a sapphire and

azure colour. And the angel said to me, 'Their houses are of

stones because stones signify natural truths, and precious stones

spiritual truths; and all those who lived in the silver age, had

intelligence from spiritual truths, and thence from natural; for

silver has a like signification.

5 "While exploring the city, we saw here and there married

partners, both husbands and wives. We expected that we should

be invited somewhere; and, while this was in our mind (animus),

we were called back by two into a house, which we entered; and

the angel, speaking with them for me, explained the reason of

our coming to this heaven, informing them that it was" for the

sake of instruction, concerning the customs of the Ancients, of

whom you are.'

" They replied, ' We were from the peoples in Asia, and the

study of our age was the study of truths, through which we had

intelligence. This study was the study of our soul and of our

mind. But the study of the senses of our bodies was the repre

sentations of truths in natural forms; and the knowledge ofcorrespondences conjoined the sensations of our bodies with the

perceptions of our minds, thus natural and corporeal things with

spiritual and celestial, and procured for us communication withthe angels of heaven.' .

6 " On hearing these things, the angel requested them to relate

something about marriages among them. So the husband said,, There is a correspondence between spiritual marriage, which

is that of good and truth, and natural marriage, which is that

of man and wife; and as we studied correspondences, we sawthat the Church, with its truths and goods, can exist only with

those ~ h o live in truly conjugial Ioye ; for the marriage of good

and truth is the Church with man. Wherefore, all we who are

in this heaven, say that the husband is truth, and the wife the

good of his truth; and that good cannot love any other truth

than that which is its own, nor truth love in return any other

good than that which is its own; if any other were loved,t'Ile

-internal or spiritual marriage, which constitutes the Church,

would perish, and marriage would become only external or

natural, to which idolatry, and not the Church, corresponds.'

7 " On his concluding these remarks, we were conducted into

an ante-chamber, where were many designs on the walls, and

little images cast as it were in silver; and I asked, ' What are

54



O R A P P E N D I X TO TH E TR U E C H R I S TIA N R E L I G I O N [44-45

these?' They said, , They are pictures and images representative

of the many qualities, properties and delights of spiritual things';

as were also the cherubim and palm-trees on the walls of the

Temple at Jerusalem.

6 " After these things, there appeared at a distance a carriagedrawn by small white horses; on seeing which the angel said,

'That carriage is a sign for us to depart.' Then, as we were

going down the steps, our host gave us a bunch of white g@J>es

with the vine leaves attached; and lo! the leaves became silver

in our hands; and we brought them away for a token that we

had spoken with people of the Silver Age."

45. CON CERNING THE HELL FORMED FROM THOSE PEOPLES

The hells of the men of the Noachian, or Ancient Church,

consist for the most part of magicians, who have huts and feast

ing places scattered up and down in the desert. They wander

about there with rods in their hands, which are of various forms,

and some of them steeped in magical juices. By these, as in

former times, they practise their arts, which are effected by the

abuse of correspondences, by fantasies, by persuasive assurances

by w h ichwas - engendered a faith based 0!l ~ - a n d miracles were in time past performed; also, by exorcisms,

incantations, witchcrafts and sorceries, and many other magical

spell5;-by which they p r e ~ l l u s o r y a p p a ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ a The

supreme delight of their heart is to utter prophecies and prog

nostications, and to act the Python. From these, chiefly, h'!.yearisen the various fanaticisms in the Christian world. - - --

c . -5 55



46-47] THE CORONIS

[_P_R O ; ; --;;I T I O N THE FOURTH The Israelitish and Jewish Church

46. IN order that the states of this Church may be thoroughly

laid open and distinctly shown, it is of importance that we

survey them in the following order:

I. The first State of this Church was the Appearing of the Lord

Jehovih, also the Call and Couenanting ; and then was its Rise and

Morning.

II. The second State of this Church was Instruction, and eventually

Introduction into the Land ofCanaan ; and then was its Progression into

light and Day.

Ill . The third State of this Church was the Turning aside from true

representative Worship into Idolatry, and then was its Vastation or Evening.

IV. The fourth State of thi! Church was the Profanation I?l holy

thin s ; and then was its Consummation or Night. - -

V.Be ore this State, and after it, a Promise was made of the Coming

o t e Lord Jehovih into the wor ,a n res ec ing - w urch in

w le justice an JU gment s ou reign. .-...::= = ::::::

tVI. The .fif th State of this Church was the Separation of the goodfrom

the evil, and then Judgment upon those who were from it: but this was

in the spiritual world.

VII. Something respecting the Heaven and Hell from that nation.

47(!)THE FIRST STATE OF THIS CHURCH WAS THE ApPEAR-

ING OF THE LORD J EHOVIH, ALSO THE CALL AND COVENANTING;

AND THEN WAS ITS RISE OR MORNING. We are taught from theWord, that the Lord Jehovih has appeared at the beginning of

each of the four Churches of this earth. This is because God is

t ~ All-in-all of the Church and of its religion; and the acknm;

ledgment of God in it is like the soul in the body, which causesboth its interiors and its exteriors to live; and it is like the prolific

element in seed, which, abiding inmostly in all the sap drawn

from the earth by the root, accompanies it from the firstgermination even to the fruit, in which it also is, and disposes

the vegetative process so that it proceeds in its proper order.For this reason, the man of the Church, without the acknowledgment of God, is in the eyes of the angels a brute like the wild

beasts of the forest, or like a bird of night, or like a monster of

the deep; yea, without the acknowledgment of God, man is

56



O R A P P E N D I X TO TH E T R U E C H R I S T I A N R E L I G I O N [47-48

like a tree whose branches are lopped off, and the trunk cut in

pieces, and the whole piled up together in a heap set aside for

the fire; for the Lord says,

ARart from Me ye can do nothing; if anyone abide not in Me,

he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and they gather it

and cast it into the fire, and it is burned (John xv 5, 6).

Without the acknowledgment of God, man, inwardly, as to his

rational qualities, is like the ruins of a burned city; he is also

like food from which its nutritiveness is boiled out, when it

becomes refuse. And so forth.

48. But it is impossible for man to acknowledge God, or any

thing pertaining to Him, unless God had manifested Himself in

a Personal Human Form; for the Nature of the world surrounds

him, and he does not see, feel or breathe anything but what is

from it and in contact with the organs of his body. From this

his mind conceives and adopts a Rational which lies in the

interior bosom of Nature, as an embryo in the womb; nor does

it see anything until it struggles forth, and receives sight. How,

then, can a man in this state by any method look through Nature,

and acknowledge anything that is above her-as is everything

Divine, heavenly and spiritual, and hence everything religious,

which in themselves are above natural things? Wherefore, it isan absolute necessity that God should manifest Himself, and

thereby cause Himself to be acknowledged, and after acknowledgment should inspire man with His Divine spirit, and by this

received in the heart lead him, even at length to Himself in

heaven; which cannot possibly be effected except by instruction.

Must not also an emperor, or a king, first cause himself to be

acknowledged and crowned, before he enters on his government?

And before he is crowned, is he not provided with the insigniaof authority, robed and anointed? and must he not bind the

people to himself by agreed compacts, sworn to by both sides,

whereby the people become the king's, and the king the people's?Must not a bridegroom first cause himself to be seen, before he

proposes betrothal, and afterwards marriage? Must not a father

present himself before his babe, and embrace and kiss him, before

the babe can say, "Ab ba, father? " and so in other cases. Still

more must the Lord Jehovih, who is King of kings and Lord of

lords (Rev. xvii 14), the Bridegroom and Husband of the Church(Rev. xxi 9), and consequently the Father of all her offspring.

By the "Lord J ehovih" is meant the Lord our Saviour and

Redeemer: He is called the " Lord J ehovih " in Daniel, and inthe Prophets again and again.

57




49. It was stated above, that the first state with the sons of

Israel, was the appearing of the Lord Jehovih, calling and

covenanting; and we are taught from the Word, that these

three things took place, first with ~ m , secondly with Moses,

and thirdly with the entire peoFle. The appearing of the LordJehovih before Abraham is thus described in Genesis:

Jehovah appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre; he

was sitting at the door of his tent, . . . and when he lifted up his

eyes and saw, behold! three men stood by him, and as soon as he

saw them, he ran from the door of the tent to meet them, and

bowed himself to the earth, and said, 0 Lord, if I have found grace

in Thine eyes, pass not away, I pray, from Thy servant (Gen.

xviii 1-3).

It was the Lord our Saviour who appeared in His Divine Trinity,

which the three angels represented; for the Lord said,

Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw and was glad. . . .Verily, verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am (John

viii 56, 58) .

There is in the Lord a Divine Trinity; and the Divine Unity

was represented in Divine Trinity by the" three men," who were

also called" angels" (Gen. xviii 2; xix 1). But in His DivineUnity He was called "Adonai" (Gen. xviii 3; xix 18); and also

"Jehovah," very frequently (Gen. xviii 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 22,

26, 33). The appearing of the Lord J ehovih before Moses is thus

described in Exodus:

The Angel of Jehovah appeared to Moses at the mountain of

Horeb, in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; .. . Moses

therefore said, I will turn aside and see this great vision, wh y the

bush is not burnt. And Jehovah saw that he turned asid e ; . . .therefore God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and

said, Moses, Moses. . . . And moreover Moses said to God, . . .

What is Thy name? . .. God said, .. . I AM "TH AT I AM••••Thus shalt thou say unto the sons of Israel, I AM hath sent me

unto you (Exod. iii [I] 2-4, 14).

The appearing of the Lord J ehovih before the whole people isthus also described in Exodus:

Jehovah said to Moses, Say unto the sons of Israel, that they be

ready against the third day; for on the third day J ehovah will

come down in the eyes of all the people upon Mount Sinai. . . .And it came to pass on the third day, . .. that there were voices,

and lightnings, and thick clouds upon the mount, and the voice

of a trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people who wer e in the

58




camp trembled. . . . Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke,

because He descended upon it in fire; and He promulgated the

law before the people (Exod. xix 9-24, and xx 1-18).

The Lord also appeared to Joshua as Prince of the amryofJellOvah,before whom Joshua fell on his face upon the earth, and called

him his" Lord" (Josh. v 13, 14).

THE CALLING OF THE SONS OF ISRAEL TO THE LAND OF CANAAN,

thus to the Church, also took place three times; once to Abram,

that he should depart thereto out of his fatherland, and after

wards the promise that his seed should inherit that land (Gen. xii

1-7). A calling also took place through Moses (Exod. iii 16, 17);

and again through Joshua (Josh. i 3, etc., and 11).

50. A COVENANT ALSO WAS ENTERED INTO SEVERAL TIMES; firstwith Abram (respecting which, Gen. xvii 1-14); then with the

people (Exod. xxiv 7, 8) , and once again (Josh. xxiv 24, 25).From these things, it is now manifest that the first state of this

Church was the Appearing of the Lord Jehovih, also the Calland Covenanting, and then was its Rise or Morning. That by

the" Lord Jehovih," everywhere in the Word, is meant Jehovah

in His Human, who is the Lord our Redeemer and Saviour, will

be seen in what follows.

51 .@THE SECOND STATE OF THIS CHURCH WAS INSTRUCTION,

AND EVENTUALLY INTRODUCTION INTO THE LAND OF CANAAN,

AND THEN WAS ITS PROGRESSION INTO LIGHT, AND DAY. It has

been pointed out above, that this Israelitish Church, as well

as the Ancient, or Noachian Church, was, with respect to the

whole of its worship, a representative Church. This was of the

Divine Providence, because Jehovah had not yet put on the

Natural Human (which He took by incarnation in the womb of

Mary,thus

accordingto

the orderestablished from

creation);

and prior to this He could not be conjoined to man as to the

interiors of his spirit, and so manifest His Divine things,-which

are celestial and spiritual, and, thus, far above the discernment

of the senses of the body,-to man's perception there. This also

was as impossible as it is for a bird to fly in ether, or a fish to

swim in air . For if Jehovah were to enter into man except by

means of His Human, it would be like putting the severed

branch of a tree into the very focus of a burning glass, or quick

silver to a blazing log in a furnace, which would be instantlydissipated. For, from the ardour of His Divine Love, Jehovah

is like a consuming fire; and were He to en ter in to man in this

without His Human, He would destroy him, as has just been

said: for which reason He said to Moses, when he desired to

behold His glory with his own eyes, that no man could see Him

59



51] THE CORONIS

and live. It was otherwise, however, after He put on the

Natural Human, and united this, when glorified, to His Divine,and thus, in Himself, conjoined the Divine Celestial, the Divine

Spiritual, and the Divine Natural into one. He was then able,

by means of this, to conjoin Himself to man in his Natural, yea,in his Sensual, and at the same time to his spirit, or mind, in his

Rational, and thus to enlighten man's natural human with

heavenly light. That such conjunction was effected after the

Coming of Jehovah into the world, is plainly manifest from the

words of the Lord Himself:

In that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me,

and I in you (John xiv 20).

2 Now, before the Incarnation ofJehovah took place, conjunctionwith Him could not occur except through an angel, thus by

means of a representative human; on which account, also, all

things of the Church of those times were made representative,and consequently men worshipped J ehovah by types affecting

the senses of their body, and at the same time corresponding to

spiritual things. Hence it was that the men of the Ancient

Church, and still more those of the Israelitish Church, were

external and natural men, nor could they become internal and

spiritual, as men can since the Lord's Coming. But, still, those

who acknowledged Jehovah, and, with Him, the Lord I - tha t is,

the Lord who was to come, who in the Word is named the" Lord

J ehovih," " God of Israel" and" His Holy One," " Messiah"

or the "Anointed of Jehovah," " King," " Rock," and in someplaces "Son" - and who worshipped them at the same time,

received holiness in their spirits, and hence in the types of their

religion. The rest, however, did not receive it; consequently,the religion of these was not a religion but a superstition, and

their worship was not representative but idolatrous; and,

although this was similar in external form, yet it was dissimilar

3 in internal. But in order that this matter may gain some light,

it shall be illustrated by comparisons. Idolatrous worship is like

a man who reveres a king, a prince, a nobleman, or any man of

exalted dignity, solely on account of the grandeur of his retinue,

the magnificence of his carriages and horsemen or footmen, and

the gorgeousness of his crimson robe; but genuine representative

worship is like one who regards a king, prince, nobleman, or anyman of exalted dignity, from his religion and his wisdom, and

from his justice and judgment, and who attaches importance to

The reader ought to be apprised that the Latin word here is not, as usual,

Dominus, but Adonajus, the Latinized form of the Hebrew word Adonai.

60

1



O R APPENDIX TO THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION [51-52

the above-mentioned insignia of his greatness, in consideration

of these qualities. Idolatrous worship, moreover, is like a man

who regards the primate of the Church solely on account of histiara and the jewels in it, or any other prelate, or bishop, on

account of his head-covering, or mitre; but genuine representative worship is like one who regards them from the warmth

of their love for the souls of the men of the Church, and for the

eternal salvation of these, and the insignia of their heads on these

grounds. Again, idolatrous worship is like a field filled with

stalks without ears, or with ears without corn in them, or even

of these without any kernel in the corn, and so on; but genuine

representative worship is like a field filled with ripe corn, whose

grains are bursting with kernels, which yield flour and bread in

abundance. Idolatrous worship is also like an egg in whichthere is no fertilizing germ; but genuine representative worship

is like an egg in which there is the fertilized element from which

a chicken comes forth. Sill further to illustrate those two kinds

of worship by comparison, idolatrous worship is like one who haslost the sense of smell and the sense of taste by a catarrh-when

such a one applies any grape to his nostrils, or drops wine on

his tongue, he is sensible of nothing bu t their touch; but genuine

representative worship is like one who is keenly sensible at the

same time of the fragrance of the grape and the flavour of the

wine, and thus enjoys the use and sweetness of both.

52. That the second state of this Church was Instruction,

follows from order; for, when anyone is called to the Church,

he must be instructed in the precepts of the religion according

to which he is going to live. That this took place with the sons

of Israel after their calling, is plain from the promulgation onMount Sinai of the law, in which are contained all the com

mandments of love and faith towards God, and all those of love

and fidelity towards the neighbour. After instruction in the

general precepts oflife and faith, there followed the promulgation

of various laws, called" judgments" and" statutes," respecting

the hallowing of the Sabbath, stated feasts, sacrifices, the priest

hood, the tabernacle, the holy observance in it and upon the

altar outside it; also respecting the eating of the holy things,

the ministry of Aaron and his sons, likewise their garments and

the consecration thereof, and the sanctification of all things of

the tabernacle by the oil of anointing; and further, concerningthe Levitical order, marriages and divorces, cleansings, foods,

places of Refuge, besides many other things, all of which were

natural representations corresponding to spiritual things. In a

word, the last four Books of Moses are nothing else but books of

61



52-54] THE CORONIS

instruction for that Church. After these instructions, the sons

of Israel were admitted into the land of Canaan, thus into the

Church itself; for the land of Canaan represented, and thus

signified, the Church. That land also was situated in the middle

portion of our entire world: for on the front it looked towardsEurope , on the left towards Africa, and on the hinder part and

right-hand side towards Asia. But after they came into that

land, the precepts given by Moses were enriched by the prophets.!

then by their King David, and at length by Solomon after the

temple was built; as appears from the Books of Judges, Samuel

and Kings. This, therefore, was the second state of this Church,

which was its progression into light, or day.

53. The following passages in the Word may be applied to

these two states of this Church:

Jehovah, after two days, will quicken us: on the third day He

will raise us up, that we may live before him. . . . Jehovah, His

going forth is prepared as the morning; and He shall come unto

us as the rain, as the latter rain He shall water the earth (Hosea

vi 2, 3).The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me . . . . He

is as th e light of the morning, . .. a morning without clouds

(2 Sarn. xxiii 3, 4).

And in Moses:

My doctrine shall drop as the rain; My word shall distil as the

dew , as the drops upon the grass, and as the small drops upon the

herb : I will proclaim the name of J ehovah; ascribe ye greatness

to our God. The Rock, whose work is perfect, all His ways are

judgment, a God of faithfulness without perversity, just and right

is He (Deur, xxxii 2, 3, 4).

From these passages, also, it may be confirmed that these two

states of this Church were from our Lord, who is the " God ofIsrael" and the "Rock." That He is t h e" Rock," is clear

from these words in Paul:

The Rock was Christ (I Cor. x 4).

5 4@THE THIRD STATE OF THIS CHURCH WAS DECLINE

FROM TRUE REPRESENTATIVE WORSHIP INTO IDOLATRY, AND THEN

WAS ITS VASTATION, OR EVENING. Some notable things were

adduced above respecting the difference between representative

worship and idolatrous worship, from which it may be plainlyseen, that, so long as the types, figures and signs, which were

In the Hebrew canon, "the Books of Judges, Samuel and Kings" aredesignated " the former (or earlier) Prophets"; what we call" the Prophets "- Isaiah to Malachi-being called" the later Prophets."

62

1



O R APPENDIX TO THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION [54

seized upon by the senses of the body as objects of religion bythe men of the Noachian and Israelitish Churches, were not at

the same time regarded from a higher, or interior, idea, nearly

approaching to a spiritual one, truly representative worship

easily declined with them into idolatry. As for example: If, inreference to the tabernacle, they did not think at the same time

of heaven and the Church, and of God's dwelling-place in these;

concerning the bread of faces (or shewbread) therein, they did

not think at the same time of the heavenly bread for the nourish

ment of the soul; concerning the incense and the burning of it

upon the golden altar there, they did not think at the same time

about worship from faith and charity, that this is what ascends

to Jehovah as a grateful odour; about the lights in the lamps

of the golden candlestick, when lighted, they did not think atthe same time of the enlightenment of the understanding in the

objects of their religion; and about the eating of the holy things,

so that they did not at the same time think about the appro

priation of heavenly foods, and also about the holy refreshment

of their spirits from the performance of the sacrifices: and in like

manner with the other things. It is hence manifest, that, if the

man of the representative Church did not at the same time lookupon the things belonging to that worship with a rational spirit

enlightened by heavenly light from the Lord, but only with arational spirit informed by the natural light (lumen) of the world

from self, he could easily be carried away from genuine repre

sentative worship into idolatrous worship, and so be vastated;

for vastation is nothing else but a turning aside, decline and

falling away from representative to idolatrous worship; which

two kinds of worship are alike as to external appearance, but

2 not as to internal appearance. On account of this proneness to

fall away from one worship which in itself was heavenly, into

another which in itself was infernal, the interior things of the

Church and of religion-namely, concerning heaven and hell,

the resurrection, and the life of their spirits after death, and, also,

the immortality of their souls, regeneration, and, in short, the

interior things respecting faith and charity; -could not be revealed

before the Lord's Advent, and then by light from Him, inasmuch

as they would have looked upon them scarcely otherwise than

as one looks at birds over the head, or meteors in the air. And,

further, they would have covered them over so thickly with themere fallacies of the senses, that, moreover, not a single vestige

of the spiritual things revealed would have been visible, except

as much as the tip of the nose in respect to the face, or a finger

nail in respect to the hands. They would also have so distorted

63



54-55] THE C O R O N I S

them, that they would have appeared in the presence of the

angels no otherwise than like a sea-monster dressed out in a

cloak, a mitre on the head, and with a face, after being shaved

and painted, like that of an ape-whose face is destitute of hair:

and they would also have appeared before the angels like a statuefitted with movable joints and hollowed out; which, some

accomplice being introduced into it, would walk about, act and

speak, and at length cry out to the superstitious multitude,

" Prostrate yourselves; call upon me; behold me, your tutelar

deity, your protector, to whom belongs holiness and divine

3 power." Could the ideas of the thought of these concerning the

spiritual things of the Church be superior to the ideas of thought

of Nicodemus, who was a teacher, on regeneration, which was

that of the whole man being re-born in his mother's womb?for he said:

How can a man be born anew? can he en ter the second time

into his mother's womb?

To whom the Lord answered,

Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?

If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how will ye

believe if I shall tell you more than heavenly things? (John iii3,4, 9, 10, 12).

They would have raved in like manner, if interior things, which

in their essence are spiritual, concerning faith and charity, and

also the life after death, and respecting the state of heaven and

hell, had been disclosed to them. Wherefore, to open the internal

sight of their mind or spirit, as to its higher region, which alone

heavenly light illuminates, before the coming of the Lord-who

came into the world as " the Light," as He Himself says (John i1-4; viii 12; xii 35, 36, 46)-was as impossible as it is to make

a horse fly and turn it into Pegasus, or a stag run in the air,

or a calf upon the waters; yea, as it would be to convert an

agate into a ruby, a crystal into a diamond, or to put a vein of

silver into a common stone, or to make a laurel-tree produce

grapes, a cedar olives.va poplar and an oak pears and apples;

therefore, also, as impossible as to infuse the intelligence of the

learned CEdipus into the listening Davus.

55. But what vastation is, and whence it arose with the peopleof the Israelitish church, may be gathered from the passages in

the Prophets where it is mentioned, which shall, therefore, beadduced therefrom in abundance. I t must be premised, that,

in the following and the subsequent passages from the Word, by

64



O R A P P E N D I X TO T H E T R U E C H R I S T I A N R E L I G I O N [55-56

" land" is signified the Church, because the land of Canaan is

meant, in which the Church was; b y " Zion," the Church as

to the Word; by" Jerusalem," the Church as to doctrine fromthe Word; by t he" cities" in that land, doctrinals; by the

" mountains," " hills," " valleys," and" rivers," the formalitiesof the Church; and by the territories there, the general things

of the Church, and these according to the representation of the

tribe by which they were possessed.

56. The passages from the Prophetic Word, where the Israel

itish Church is treated of, in which" vastation," " desolation,"

a nd" breaking," and also a " desert" are mentioned, are the

following;

o inhabitant of Jerusalem, and man of Judah,. . .

whatshould I do to My vineyard that I had not done? I looked that

it should bring forth grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes. . . .I will make it a desolation, it shall not be pruned nor weeded, that

the briar may come up; . . . and houses shall be a devastation;

. . . for they regard not the work of Jehovah, neither see the

operation of His hands (Isa. v 3-12).Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard, they have trampled

My field, they have reduced the field of My desire to a desert of

solitude; he hath made it a solitude. . . . 0 desolate, desolate is

the whole land, because no one layeth it to heart. The vastatorscame upon all hills in the desert; . . . they have sown wheat, but

have reaped thorns (Jer. xii 10-13) .A nation hath come up upon My land, . . . and hath reduced

My vine to a waste (Joel i 6, 7).

The field is devastated; the land mourneth, for the corn is

devastated; the new wine is dried up, the oillanguisheth (Joel i 10):

by " vineyard " and " field " in these as in other passages of the

Word, is signified the Church.

In all your dwelling-places the cities shall be devastated, and the

high places shall be desolated; that your altars may be devastated

and desolated, . . . and your idols may cease, and your images

may be cut down, and your works may be abolished (Ezek. vi 6;

see also vel'. 14).

My people have forgotten Me, they have burned incense to

vanity, . . . to make the land a waste (Jer. xviii 15, 16);

" land," here denotes the Church.

The high places of Isaac shall be vastated, and the sanctuaries

of Israel shall be desolated (Amos vii 9).

Go and say to this people, Hearing hear ye, but understand not;

and seeing see ye, but know not; make the heart of this people fat,

. .. and shut his eyes: (Isa. vi 9, 10).

65



56] T H E CORONIS

then said the prophet,

Lord, how long? and He said, Until the cities be devastated,

.. . and the land reduced to a solitude: Jehovah will multiply

deserts in the midst of the land (Isa. vi 11, 12).

Behold, Jehovah maketh the land empty, and maketh it void j

. . . the land shall be utterly emptied; . . . because they have

transgressed the laws, passed by the statute, and made void the

covenant of eternity. Therefore . . . in the city there shall be a

waste, and the gate shall be smitten even to devastation (Isa. xxiv

1,3,5 , 12).

The paths are devastated, the wayfarer hath ceased, he hath

made void the covenant. . . . Conceive ye chaff, bring forth

stubble (Isa. xxxiii B, 11).I have kept silence from eternity. . .• I will desolate and devour

together. I will vastate mountains and hills (Isa. xlii 14, 15).

Thy destroyers and devastators shall go forth out of thee. . . .

For as for thy vastations and desolations, and the land of thy

devastations, .•. the devourers shall be far away (Isa. xlix 17, 19).

Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and

your sins have hid His face from you. . . . They set an asp's eggs,

and wove the spider's webs. . . . Vastation and breaking are in

their paths. . . . We look for light, but behold darkness; ... we

grope for the wall like the blind; . . . we stumble at noon-day as

in the twilight (Isa, lix 2, 5, 7, 9, 10).The cities of Thy holiness are become a desert, Zion is become

a desert and Jerusalem a waste. Our house of holiness . . . is

become a burning of fire, and all our desirable things are become

a waste (Isa. lxiv 10, -l l ),

The young lions roar against Israel; . . . they reduce his land

to a waste (Jer. ii 15).

Woe unto us! for we are devastated . 0 Jerusalem, wash thine

heart from wickedness. . . . How long shall thoughts of iniquity

tarry within thee? (Jer. iv 13, 14).

As a fountain maketh her waters to gush forth, so Jerusalemmaketh her wickedness to gush forth. Violence and vastation is

heard in her. . . . Admit chastisement, . . . lest I reduce thee to

a waste. . . . 0 daughter of My people, gird thee with sackcloth,

and roll thee in ashes; . . . for the vastator shall suddenly come

upon us (ler. vi 7, B, 26).

A voice of wailing is heard in Zion, How are we devastated!

because we have deserted the land (ler. ix 19) j

" land " denotes the Church.

My tent is devastated, all its ropes are plucked out, . for the

shepherds have become foolish, and have not sought Jehovah

(Jer. x 20, 21):

" tent" denotes worship.

66




The voice of a tumult; behold it cometh, and a great com

motion from the land of the north, to reduce the cities of'judah

to a waste, a habitation of dragons (Jer. x 22) .

The whole land shall be a desolation, a devastation (Jer. xxv 11);

" land " denotes the Church.

The voice of a cry from Horonaim, devastation and great break

ing; . . . the vastator shall come upon every city (Jer. xlviii 3, 5,

8, 9, 15, 18):

these things are about Moab, by whom is meant confidence in

one 's own works and in self-intelligence (as is manifest from

verse 29 of that chapter).

That they may want bread and water, and be desolated, a man

and his brother, and pine away for their inquity (Ezek. iv 17):

" bread" and" water" denote good and truth.

Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup

of devastation and desolation (Ezek. xxiii 33).

Woe unto them! for they have wandered; devastation unto

them! (Hosea vii 13) .

The land shall be a desolation, because of them that dwell

therein, for the fruit of their doings (Micah vii 13).

Besides many other passages, as Isa. vii 18, 19; xvii 4-6, 9-14;

xxii 4-9; xxix 10-12; li 19: Jer. xix 8; xxv 9-11,18; xliv 2, 6,22: Ezek. ix I to end; xii 19, 20 ; xxxiii 24, 28, 29: Hosea x 14;xii 2: Joel ii 20: Amos v 9: Micah vi 13,16: Hab. i 3: Hag. i

4,9: Zech. vii 14; xi 2,3.

From all these passages may be seen what " vastation " and

" desolation" are; and that it is not a vastation and desolation

of the peoples of a land and of cities, but of the goods and truthsof the Church, in consequence of which there is nothing left but

evils and falsities.

57 .@THE FOURTH STATE OF THIS CHURCH WAS THE PRO

FANATION OF HOLY THINGS, AND THEN WAS ITS CONSUMMATION,

OR NIGHT. Vastation and consummation differ from each other,

as do the shade of evening and the thick darkness of night ; for

vastation is a receding from the Church, but consummation a

complete separation from it. Vastation, therefore, is as when

anyone descends from heaven but not as far as to hell, andtarries in the middle, standing near both; but consummation

exists when anyone, standing thus, turns his face and breast to

hell, and his back and the hinder part of his hsad to heaven;

in like manner as happened with the Dragon and his angels

67



57 -58] THE CORONIS

when they were cast down out of heaven (concerning which see

Rev. xii): while they were fighting with Michael, they were in

the middle; but when vanquished, they were in hell. Vastation

takes place when man looks upon the holy things of the Church

from falsities and falsified truths; .but consummation when he2 lives in evils or in adulterated goods. But, that the difference

and distinction between the state of vastation and the state of

consummation may be still more clearly grasped, it shall be

illustrated by comparisons. The state of vastation may be com

pared with a certain garden, or grove, round a temple-which

garden, by reason of the Divine worship performed in the temple,

is regarded as holy-in which are places for drinking, feasting,

dancing, and histrionics and farce, with spectators in the courts

and windows of the temple; but the state of consummation may

be compared to the same garden, or grove, in which are satyrs

and libertines, with harlots and witches, who all together enter

the temple dancing, and there celebrate profane revels, as the

:l Pythons in their sabbaths. The state of vastation may also be

compared with a hostile army, when it enters the suburbs of

a besieged city and rules them; but the state of consummation

may be compared with the same army, when it has demolished

the wall, and rushes into the city and gives the inhabitants overto destruction. The state of vastation may further be compared

with a ship upon sandbanks, or a sandy shore, when it is violently

battered there, and tossed up and down, and the steersman,

captain and sailors bewail on account of their danger; but the

state is one of consummation when the ship's keel is fretted away

by the gravel beneath, and the ship, being shattered and pierced

with holes, sinks, and those on board, and the cargo, perish in

the waves. The state of vastation may be compared with every

disease which invades the members, viscera and organs of thebody, by reason of which the patient apprehends death, consults

a physician, takes medicines, and all the while lies in bed in

hope of recovery ; but the state of consummation may be com

pared with the same disease when it invades the breast, where

the heart and lungs reside as in their tabernacle, into which

when the disease penetrates, it makes an end of the life of the

body.

58. The state of consummation of the Israelitish Church is

described in both the historical parts of the Word, and its pro

phetic parts: in the prophetic, by the atrocious deeds of the

~ i n E s , first of those of the Israelites, and afterwards of those of

the Jews, by whom and under whom the land is said to have

been profaned. But it is needless to recite them, because they

68



O R A P P E N D I X TO T H E T R U E C H R I S T IA N R E L I G I O N [58

are well known; only those passages from the prophetic parts

shall be adduced in which the consummation and devastation

of that Church are treated of. In these passages by " earth"

and "land," "Zion," "Jerusalem," "cities," "mountains,"

" hills," " valleys," and" rivers," similar things arc signified asabove (n. 55).

The following arc from the prophetic parts of the Word:

I saw the earth, and behold it was empty and void; and towards

the heavens, and their light was not. . . . I saw, when, behold,

Carmel ' was a desert, and all the cities were desolated at the

presence of Jehovah. . . . For thus hath Jehovah said, The whole

land shall be wasteness, yet will I not make a consummation. For

this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be blackened.. . . Thou, therefore, that art vastated, what wilt thou do?

(Jer. iv 23-31; v 10,18).

The lion hath come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of

nations . . . hath gone forth from his place, to reduce the land to

a waste. . .. In that day . . . the heart of the king shall perish,

and the heart of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished

(Jer. iv 7, 9).

In that day , every place where there were a thousand vines

shall be . . . for thorns and briars, . . . because all the land shall

be thorns and briars (Isa. vii 23, 24).A voice of the cry of the shepherds and . . . of the powerfu I

ones of the flock, for J ehovah layeth waste their pastures: whence

the sheepfolds of peace were devastated. Jehovah hath forsaken

His tabernacle, for their land was reduced to a desolation (Jer.

xxv 36-38).

This house shall be like Shiloh, and Jerusalem shall be a

devastation (Jer. xxvi 9; xxvii 17).

Jerusalem, and all the cities of Judah, shall be a desolation and

a devastation in this day, because of the wickedness of your works;

. . . your land is become a desolation, an astonishment and a curse

(Jer. xliv 2, 6, 22) .

I will give the land to devastation, because they have committed

transgression (Ezek. xv 8).They shall be devastated in the midst of the devastated lands,

and her cities in the midst of the desolated cities. . . . Then I will

make the rivers drought, . . . the land into the hand of the evil,

and I will vastate the land and the fulness thereof (Ezek. xxx 7, 12).

When I shall extinguish thee, I will cover the heavens, and will

make the stars thereof black. I will cover the sun with a cloud,and the moon shall not cause her light to shine; . . . and I will

set darkness upon the land . . . when I shall bring on thy breaking

up (Ezek. xxxii 7-9);

I See R.V . margin.

69



saj THE CORONIS

in like manner as the Lord foretold concerning the consummation

of the present Christian Church (Matt. xxiv 29).

I will give Mount Seir to wasteness and to devastation. . . . I

will make thee the wastes of eternity

. . .(Ezek. xxxv 3, 4, 7, 9,

12, 14, 15).

In that day they shall bring up a proverb against you . . . and

say, In vastating we are vastated (Micah ii ,4).

Fear and the pit have taken hold of us, devastation and breaking

up (Lam. iii 47).

The mountain of Zion is vastated (Lam. v 18).

Thine iniquity is consummated, 0 daughter ofZion (Lam. iv 22).

Woe to the sinful nation, heavy with iniquity; . . . they have

provoked the Holy One of Israel. . . . From the sole of the foot

even to the head, there is no soundness; . . . your land is a

solitude. . . . The daughter of Zion is left as a tent in a vineyard,

. . . as a besieged city (Isa. i 4-8, and following verses).

What will ye do in the day of visitation and devastation? . . .Consummation is finished, justice is overwhelmed; for the Lord

Jehovih is making a consummation and decision in the whole land

(Isa. x 3, etc., 22, 23).

I have heard a consummation and decision from the Lord

Jehovih of hosts in the whole land (Isa. xxviii 22).

The prophet fell upon his face, and said, Lord J ehovih! Thou artmaking a consummation with the remnants of Israel (Ezek. xi 13).

My sanctuary was profaned, and the land ofIsrael was devastated

(Ezek. xxv 3).

Were even Noah, Daniel and Job in the midst of it, . . . they

only shall be delivered, but the land shall become a desolation

(Ezek. xiv 14, 16).

4 The completion of the consummation of the Israelitish and

Jewish Church was accomplished when the Lord our Saviour,

after receiving the sponge of vinegar, cried out upon the cross,

It is consummated (John xix 29, 30);

_. foe it is said in David :

They gave gall for My meat, and in My thirst they gave Me

vinegar to drink: .•. let their habitation be devastated (Psalm~ lxix 21, 25).

And in another place:

Without cause have they hid for Me the pit of the net; without

cause have they digged for My soul. Let devastation come upon

him before he is aware; . . . let him fall into devastation. . . .Rescue My soul from their devastators, and My only one,-that is,

the Church-from the lions' whelps (Psalm xxxv 7, 8, 17).

70




I will make Jerusalem heaps, a habitation of dragons; I will

reduce th e cities of Judah to a waste; . . . behold, I am feeding

them, even this people, with wormwood, and I will give them

waters of gall to drink (Jer. ix 11-15).

Full consummation, after this, is described in Hosea thus :

The sons of Israel shall sit many days: no king, no prince, no

sacrifice, no image, no ephod, and no teraphim (Hosea iii 4).

Such is their state at the present day. There is no need to adduce

more passages. The passages in which the vastation , desolation

and consummation of this Church are further mentioned, shall

be only named: as, for example, Isa. ix 13-21; xxii 4-14:

Jer. vii 31-34; xxv 33; xlvii 4: Ezek, xiii 14, 15; xiv 8, 15;

xix 7; xxv 12, 13; xxvi 2; xxix 9, 10, 12; xxxii 12, 15: Joel i15-20; ii 3; iii 19: Nahum i 8, 9: Zeph . i 15; ii 9 : Lam. i 16:

Psalm lxxiii 17-19; lxxiv 3. The devastated are also called

" thrust through" 1 (Ezek. xi 6, 7; xxi 30, 34; xxvi 6; xxviii

8,23; xxxi 17, 18; xxxii 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32;

xxxv 8 : Zeph. ii 12: Lam. iv 9: Psalm lxix 27: and in other

places). They are said to be "thrust through" because a

" swo;:,.q;: by which this is done, signifies falsity destroying truth.

5 9 . ~ B E F O R E THIS STATE, AND AFTER IT , PROMISE WAS

MADE OF THE COMING OF THE LORD J EHOVIH INTO THE WORLD,

AND OF A NEW CHURCH AT THAT TIME, WHEREIN JUSTICE AND

JUDGMENT SHOULD REIGN. I t is known, from the reading of the

prophetic Word of the Old Testament, that, in many places

there, the Coming of our Lord is foretold, and also that the

Lord is there designated by various names; as, that He is called

"Jehovah Zebaoth," "Jehovah our Righteousness," " J ehovahour Saviour and Redeemer," "Lord Jehovih," "Adonai,"

" Immanuel " or " God with us," " God of Israel," " Holy Oneof Israel," "Rock of Israel," " Messiah " or "Anointed of

Jehovah,"" King,"" David,"" Mighty One ofJacob," " Shep

herd of Israel," "High Priest," "Priest after the order of

Me1chizedech," "Son of God," "Son of Man," "Angel of

Jehovah," "Angel of the Covenant," the "Grand Prophet,"

" Shiloh " ; also, in Isaiah, " Counsellor," " Prince of Peace,"

"Father of Eternity"; and in the New Covenant, "Jesus

Christ," and" Son of God." That our Lord's Commg was fore

told in very many places in the Prophets, will be seen from thepredictions adduced in the following pages. But it may be asked,

1 In most of these passages our ordinary Bibles have" slain "; but Young's

Literal Translation rif the Bible has" pierced ," whi ch , of course, is the same as

" thrust th rough."

c . -6 71



59] THE CORONIS

Why was such frequent prediction of His Coming made? T ~ e were many reasons, some regarding the Israelitish and Jewish

people, and some regardmg-rrie ChrIStian eople aftertIle""m.2 But we will recount the reasons which especially regarded the

Israelitish and Jewish people. The First was that, by His being

named and recalled to mind, they might be kept in the interior

worship of Jehovah, since, without that, there was no entrance

ofJ ehovah to anyone of them, nor approach of anyone of them

to Jehovah. The case was then as it is at this day,

that no one hath seen God the Father; the Only Begotten Son,

who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath set Him forth (John i

18; v 37);

and again:

No one cometh to the Father, but by Me (John xiv 6).

The Second reason regarding that people was, that the repre

sentative types of their Church, which all looked to our Lord

and to the Church to be established by Him after His Coming,

might serve them as so many signs and symbols of their worship;

consequently, that they might acknowledge Him when He

came, and suffer themselves to be introduced into the internalsof the worship of Him, and, together with the nations that

surrounded them, become Christians. The Third reason was that,

by calling to mind His Coming, somewhat of the notion, or idea,

of the resurrection and eternal life might find entrance into their

thoughts. For who of them could not have thought interiorly

in himself, or in his heart, " What is the Messiah to us after we

are dead, unless we return then, see His glory and reign with

Him?" From this source was derived their superstition, that,

at that time, they were to be raised again, everyone out of hisgrave, and return to the land of Canaan. The Fourth reason was

that they might be succoured and healed in t h ~ i r state ofvastation

and oppression, when they were in temptations and afflictions,

like their fathers and brethren in the wilderness (Num. xxi 1-9;

John iii 14, 15); for, without such succour and healing, they

would have cast aspersions against J ehovah, and departed, incrowds, from the representative worship of Him to idolatry.

3 Indeed, temptations and afflictions, in the state of vastation and

oppression, are nothing else than combats of the Lord with the

Devil respecting man, that is, respecting his soul, which is to

possess it; of which state it may be said, that the God of Israel,

or the Lord the Messiah, stands on one side, and Beelzebub and

the Serpent, the Devil, on the other, and that the latter casts

72




forth out of his mouth blasphemies like a flood against the Lord,

but that the Lord turns them aside and bears them away, and

thus delivers man from spiritual captivity and slavery. This

combat is felt in man as if waged by himself. That temptation

is such a combat, and that there is such a perception by man,and hence co-operation, I can avow, for, having often experienced

it, I have known it perfectly. That it is carried on outside man,

and is felt in him as if by himself, and that man is standing in

the middle, and co-operates, is for the end that recompense may

be ascribed to him when he conquers; but only that man

conquers who looks to the Lord, and trusts in Him alone for

help.4 That everyone who calls upon the Lord in temptations,

conquers, but that otherwise he yields, shall be illustrated by

comparisons. It is like a ship hurled by storms near the rocks:

unless the captain knows how to divert it from its danger, and

to direct it to an outlet and thus to port, it must be lost. It is

like a city besieged by enemies: unless there be escape or aid

somewhere, the commander and his garrison become hopeless

and disheartened, and yield themselves prisoners, and surrender

their lives to the will of the enemy. It is like a person on ajourney entering unawares into

acottage where there are robbers

,unless, when he is shut in, a friend come and knock at the door,

or show himself at the window, and thereby terrify those villainsand rescue him from ill-treatment. I t is like a person fallinginto a cave where there is a bear with cubs, or into a pit where

there are a wolf and a leopard, if his father, or brother, on seeing

this, do not immediately let down to him a ladder, or a rope,and draw him up thence. It is like a person who stands, or

walks, in the day-time, in a thick fog, who consequently does

not know which way to turn, unless he light a lamp, and therebyshow himself the place where he stands or the way in which he

should walk. It is like being in the depth of winter, and short

of provisions, if not supported by the hope of a harvest to come,

on the return of summer. So, again, it is like a person wandering

at midnight in a wood, unless he comfort himself with the hope

of day, and in that hope goes to lie down, and sleeps quietly tillmorning. It is also like one, who, for the sake of salvation, is

desirous of being instructed in the things of the Christian Religion,

and who meets with mitred doctors and laurelled teachers, whoexpound them by terms borrowed from metaphysics, and wrap

them in mysteries, unless there be some other person to explain

those terms, and thereby unravel the perplexities, and to set

forth from the Word, thus from the Lord, the holy things of the

73



59-60] TI lE CORONIS

Church, in clear light: would he not otherwise be bewildered

by the falsities respecting faith, and the other dogmas which

depend on the faith laid down, just as the links of a chain hang

5 together unbrokenly from a hook fixed to the wall? The casewould be similar in temptations and the attendant infestations

from satans, unless man looked trustingly to the Lord, and fully

assured himself that the whole work and ability of deliverance

are from Him alone. It is for these reasons that the Coming

of the Lord is so frequently foretold in the Old Prophetic Word,

and for the same reasons also the Lord is proclaimed in the New

Evangelic and Apostolic Word, and his Second Coming foretold;concerning which see the statements following.

60. Now follow some things concerning the Coming of theLord collected from the prophecies of the Old Word; namely:

Jehovah God said, Lo, I come; in the roll of the Book it is

written of Me (Psalm xl 7).

J ehovah God said to the serpent, . . . Be thou cursed; . . . I

will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy

seed and her Seed; ~ n d H shaH ~ m p l e thy head-;--but thou shalt

injure th e heel (Gen. iii 14, 15).\----r'he sceptre shall not depart from J udah, nor a law-giver from

between his feet, until Shiloh come: to Him shall the cleaving ofthe peoples be (Gen. xlix 10) -

the prophecy of the father, Israel, concerning his sons.

A Star shall rise out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise up out of

Israel (Num. xxiv 17).

Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet out of the

midst of thy brethren, like unto Me; Him ye shall obey, . . . and

I will put My words in His mouth; . . . wh ence it shall come to

pass, that the man who will not obey His words, I will require itof him (Deut. xviii 15-19).

The Lord Himself giveth you a sign, Behold a Virgin shall

conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name, God with us

(Isa. vii 14).

Unto us a Boy is born, unto us a Son is given, on whose shoulder

shall be the government; His name shall be called Wonderful,

Counsellor, GOD, Hero, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace: of the

increase of His government . . . there shall be no end (Isa. ix 6, 7).

There shall come forth a shoot out of the stem of Jesse, and a

branch out of his root shall bear fruit; . . . upon Him shall restthe spirit of wisdom and intelligence, the spirit of counsel and might

(Isa. xi I, 2).

In that day the nations shall seek the Root ofJesse, which standeth

for an ensign of the peoples, and His rest shall be glory (Isa. xi 10).

Send ye the lamb of the Ruler of the land, from the rock toward

74




the wilderness: . . . His throne is established in mercy, and one

shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging, and

seeking judgment, and hastening justice (Isa. xvi 1, 5).

It shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God for whom we have

waited that He may deliver us; this is Jehovah for whom we havewaited: we will exult and rejoice in His salvation (Isa. xxv 9;

xxvi 8, 9).

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of

Jehovah, make plain in the desert a path for our God. . . . The

glory of J ehovah shall be revealed; and all flesh shall see it together

(Isa. xl 3, 5).

o Zion, thou evangelizer, get thee up upon the high mountain;

o Jerusalem, . . . thou that evangelizest, lift up thy voice with

strength; say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God. Behold,

the Lord J ehovih cometh in strength, and His arm shall rule forHim; behold His reward is with Him. . . . He shall feed His

flock like a shepherd; He shall gather the lambs in His arm, and

carry them in His bosom; He shall gently lead the sucklings

(Isa. xl 9-11).

My people shall know My name in that day; for I am He that

doth speak; Behold Me. How delightful upon the mountains are

the feet of Him that evangelizeth, that causeth them to hear peace,

that evangelizeth good, that causeth them to hear salvation, that

saith unto Zion, Thy King reigneth. . . . They shall lift up the

voice and sing; they shall see eye to eye that Jehovah is returned

to Zion. He hath comforted His people, He hath redeemed

Jerusalem: . . . all the ends of the land shall see the salvation of

our God (Isa. lii 6-10).

Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh;

His reward is with Him, and the recompense of His work before

Him (Isa. lxii 11).

Shout for joy and rejoice, 0 daughter of Zion; behold, I come,

that I may dwell in the midst of thee; . . . then many nations

shall cleave to Jehovah (Zech. ii 10, 11).Rejoice greatly, 0 daughter of Zion; shout, 0 daughter of

Jerusalem; behold, thy King cometh to thee, just (Zech. ix 9).

Behold, the days come . . . when I will raise up to David a

righteous Branch, who shall reign a King and prosper, and He shall

execute judgment and justice in the land; . . . and this is His

name, ... Jehovah our Righteousness (Jer. xxxiii 5,6; xxiii 15, 16).

Behold, I send My angel, who shall prepare the way before Me;

and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His temple,

and the Angel of the covenant whom ye desire, behold, He shall

come (Mal. iii 1).Thou Bethlehem Ephratah, it is little that thou art among the

thousands of Judah; out of thee shall One go forth unto Me, who

will be Ruler in Israel, and whose goings forth are from of old,

from the days of eternity. . . . He shall stand and feed the flock

75



60] THE CORONIS

in the strength of J ehovah, . . . and shall increase even to the ends

of the land (Micah v 2, 4).

I anoint My king upon Zion. . . . I will proclaim concerning

the statute, Jehovah saith unto Me, Thou art My Son, this day

have I begotten Thee; ask of Me, and I will give the nations forThine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Thy possession .

. . . Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish in the way; . . .Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him (Psalm ii 6-12) .

Behold, the God of my salvation! I will trust and not be afraid .

. . . Cry out and shout for joy, 0 inhabitant of Zion; for great

is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee (I sa. xii 2, 6).

In that day a man shall look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have

regard to the Holy One of Israel (Isa. xvii 7).

My Beloved had a vineyard in a horn of [the son of] oil (Isa. v l ),

Jehovah Zebaoth, Him shall ye sanctify. . . .

He shall be for

a sanctuary, although for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of

offence, .. . and for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitant of

Jerusalem (Isa. viii 13, 14; Matt. xxi 42-44; Luke xx 17, 18).

The people that walked in darkness shall see a great light; they

that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them shall the

light shine (Isa, ix 2).

Out of Zion .. . God shall shine forth; our God shall come,

and shall not keep silence (Psalm 1 2, 3).

The vision is yet for the appointed time, and speaketh out to theend; yet it shall not lie: though He tarry, wait for Him; because

He will surely come, He will not delay (Hab. ii 3).

o Jehovah, I have heard Thy fame; I have revered, 0 Jehovah,

Thy work, . . . make it present in the midst of the years. . . .

God shall come from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount

Paran. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of

His praise. His brightness shall be as the light; rays [coming

forth] from His hand; and there is the hiding of His strength

(Hab. iii 2, 3, 4).

Thus said the Lord Jehovih, Behold, I will lay in ~ i Q . v . for afoundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-jstonejof well

established foundation; . . . then I will set judgment to the rule,

and righteousness to the plummet (Isa. xxviii 16, 17).

The Lord, appearing above the mercy-seat (Ezek. i 26-28), is

described as to the Word, and is called" Lord Jehovih " (Ezek. ii

4; iii 11,27; iv 14; v 7,11; vi 3,11; vii 2, 5; viii 1). In

Isaiah liii, throughout, the Lord is treated of, and the state of

His life in the world is described by the following expressions:

That He had no form nor comeliness; He was despised and not

esteemed; He was wounded on account of our transgressions,a n ~ d foiOi:ifiniquITies; ]enovan-causeathe mlqUlties of

us all to meet in Him; He was led as a lamb to the slau hter;

He was cut off out of the land ofthe l i ~ i n g ; because He placed76 - - -



O R APPENDIX TO TI lE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION [60

their uilt on His soul His days should be prolonged; also, for

them He poured out His soul even unto death; He was numbered )

with the transgressors, and . interceded for the trans ressors

(Isa. liii 1-12).

I have called Him forth in righteousness. . . .

He shall build

My city; and He shall send away My captivity, not for price nor

for reward.. . . Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, 0

God of Israel the Saviour (Isa. xlv 13, 15).

I have caused My righteousness to draw near, . . . and My

Salvation shall not tarry (Isa. xlvi 13).

As for our Redeemer, Jehovah Zebaoth is His Name, and the

Holy One oflsrael (Isa. xlvii 4).o Jehovah, our Lord, how excellent is Thy Name in all the

earth! giving to it honour above the heavens. . . . Thou hast

caused Him to lack little compared with the angels, but Thou hast

crowned Him with glory and honour; Thou hast made Him to

have dominion over the works of Thy hands, Thou hast put all

things under His feet (Psalm viii I, 5, 6, 9).

God . . . shall come down like rain among the herb. . . . He

shall have dominion also from sea even to sea, and from the river

even to the ends of the earth. The barbarians shall bow themselves

before him, and his enemies shall lick the dust; the kings ofTarshish

and of the Isles shall bring their present; the kings of Sheba and

Seba shall offer their gift; all kings shall bow themselves to him,all nations shall serve him; for he shall deliver the wretched, who

hath no helper. . . . He shall redeem their soul from deceit and

violence: . . . His name shall be to eternity; he shall have the

name of a son 1 before the sun, and men shall be blessed in him .

. . . Blessed be God, the God of Israel: . . . blessed be the name

of his glory . . . the whole earth shall be filled with his glory.

Amen and Amen (Psalm Ixxii 6, 8, ID, 12, 18, 19).I have made a covenant with My chosen. . . . Thy seed will I

establish even to eternity, and I will build up Thy throne from

generation to generation;

. . .and the heavens shall confess Thy

wonders (Psalm Ixxxix 3, 4, 5).

* * * * * * *

[The rest is missing.]

I See for the word" son" A.V. margin.

77



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

*** The numbers of the verses being printed in heavy type, thus 1, 2, 3,indicates that theuery words of the verses are qu oted in the paragraph mentioned.

When the numbers of the verses are printed in thin type, thus I, 2, 3, it

indica tes that the substance of the verse is given, but no t the very words.Thin Italic type, thus 1, 2, 3, signifies that the verses so indicated are merely

referred to--not quoted, either substantially or verbally.

REFERENCES TO THE WORD

Genesis Exodus-continued1,2 23 xx 1-18. 4926,27 25 4,5 43

ii 7 25 5,6 358-10, 11, 12, 16, 17 27 xxiv 7,8 50

iii 1-6 29 xxv 40 375 38 XXVI 30 3769-13, 14-19,23

1414, 15

1522

33312560

3726

Numbers

XI 5,6,32-35

XXI 1-9

XXIV

5,617

2259

2760

vi

ix

xii

5-8

91191-7

3435353549

Deuteronomy

v 8,99,10.

xviii 15, 18, 19.

xxxii 2-4

43356053

xiii

xiv

xvii

10(chapter cited)1-14 .

414150

15, 18, 30 .

Joshua

2

xviii 1-3 49 Book cited. 41

2 49 3 seq. and 11 493 49 v 13,14 49

13,14,17,19,20,22,26, xxiv 24,25 50

xix

33 .I18

494949

Judges

Book cited. 41

(chapter cited) 41 Samuel

xlix 10 60 xxiii 3 23 ,4 5,53

Exodus

iii 1,2-4, 13, 14

16,17

. 49

49

1 Kings

1-13. 41xiv (chapter cited) 34,41 Psalms

XVI 31 20 i 3 7xvii 6 2 ii 6,7,8, 12 60'xix 9-11 , 16, 18 49 viii 1,5,6,9 . 60

78




Psaltns--£ontinued

XIX 14 2

xxx 5 5

xxxv 7,8,17 58

xl 7 60

xlvi 5 5I 2,3 60

10,11 3

li 10 23

Ixviii 9,10. 3

Ixix 21,25 58

26 58

Ixxii 6, 8, 10, 12, 18, 19 . 60

Ixxviii 17,19 58

!xxiv 3 58

18,19 3

Ixxviii 35 2Ixxxix 3,4 ,5 60

cii 18 23

civ 28,30 23

cxviii 22 2

Isaiah

4,6 ,7 ,8 58

v 1 60

3,4 ,6 ,9 , 12 56

vi 9-12. 56

vii 14 60

18,19 56

23,24 58

viii 7,8 34

13,14 60

14,15 2

IX 2 60

6,7 60

13--21 58

x 3,22,23 58

xi1,2

60

10 60

xii 2,6 60

xvi 1,5 60

xvii 4-6,9-14 . 56

7 60

14 5

XXI 11,12 5

xxii 4-9 56

XXll 4-14. 58

xxiv 1, 3, 5, 12 56

xxv 9 60xxvi 8,9 60

xxviii 15 34

16,17 .2,60

22 58

xxix 10-12 56

Isaiah-continued

xxx 28 34

XXXlll 8,11. 56

xl 3,5 60

9,10,11 60

xli 20 23xlii 5 23

14,15 56

xliii 1,7 23

xlv 12,18 23

13,15 60

xlvi 13 60

xlvii 4 60

xlix 17,19 56

li 3 27

19 56

lii 6-10. 60liii 1-12 . 60

(chapter cited) 60

Ivi 8 ,9 3

Iviii 11 27

lix 2, 5, 7, 9, 10 56

!xii 11 60

Ixiv 10,11 56

Ixv 17 14

17,18 23

Ixvi 22 14,23

Jeretniah

ii 15 56

iv 7,9 58

13,14 56

23, 26-28, 30 58

23,27,28. 23

v 10-18 58

vi 7,8,26 56

vii 31-34 58

ix 11,15 58

19 56

x 20,21 56

22 56

xii 10-13 56

xviii 15, 16 56

xix 8 56

XXlll 5,6 60

xxv 9-11, 18 56

11 56

33 58

36-38 58XXVI 9 58

xxvii 17 58

XXXI 12 27

XXXll l 15,16 60

20,21,25. 5

79




J eremiah-colllinu3d

xliv 2, 6, 22 56

2,6 ,22 58

xlvii 2 34

4 58

xlviii 3 ,5 ,8 ,9, IS, 18 5629 56

Lamentations

16 58

I I I 47 58

iv 9 58

22 58

v 18 58

Ezekiel

26-28 60ii 4 60

I I I 1l,27 60iv 14 60

17 56

v 7, 11. 60

vi 3, 11. 60

6 56

14 56

vii 6,7,10 5

2,5 60

VUl I 60x (chapter cited) 56

xi 6,7 58

13 58

XII 19,20 56

Xll l 11,13 34

14, IS 58

xiv 8, IS. 58

14,16 58

xv 8 58xix 7 58

xxi 30,34 58

xxiii 33 56

xxv 3 58

12, 13 58

xxvi 2 58

6 58

xxviii 8,23 . 58

12, 13 27

12, 13, 14, 15 41

13, 15 23

xxix 9, 10, 12 . 58xxx 7, 12. 58

xxxi 3,5,6, 13 3

3 ,6 ,8 ,9 41

8,9 27

17, 18 58

Ezekiel-colltinued

xxxii 7-9 58

8 5

12, IS 58

20-24, 28--32 58

xxxiii 24,28,29 . 56xxxv 3, 4,7,9, 12, 14, IS 58

8 58

xxxix 17,21 3

Daniel

11 31-35,44. 2

32 37

IV 7-13. 3

vii ~ 4 - 7 9,10,13,14 3

Vll l 14,26 5

IX 26 34xii 7 5

Hosea

11 18,19 3

iii 4 58

VI 2,3 53

Vll 13 56

x 14 56

xii 2 56

Joel 6,7 56

10 5615-20 58

ii 3 58

20 56

21,22 3

I I I 19 58

Amos

v .9 56

20 5

vii 9 56

Vll l 9 5

Micah

ii 4 58

v 2,4 60

vi 13, 16 56

VI I 13 56

Nahum

i 8 34

8,9 58

Habakkuk

3 56

11 3 60

I I I 2-4, 13, 18, 19 60

80




Zephaniah

i 15

ii 9

12

iii 5

Haggai

i 4,9

Zechariah

ii 10,11

vii 14

ix 9

X 3,4

XI 2,3

XIV 7

Malachi

iii 1

Matthew

ii 1-12.

xxi 42

42-44

XXIV 15,39

29

xxv 13

Mark12,13

XIJ 10,11

XUl 35

XVI 15

Luke

XV I 26

xvii 34

xx 17,18

17,18

John

1-4

12, 13

REFERENCES

Acts

iv 11,12

1 Corinthians

x 4

2 Corinthians

v 17

Galatians

iv 4

58

58

58

5

56

60

56

60

2

56

5

60

41

260

3458

5

3

2

5

3

20

5

260

54

25

J otui-s-continued

i 18 59

iii

v

vi

viii

viii

3 21

3, 4, 9, 10, 12 . 54

14,15 59

27 2537 59

31, 32, 49-51, 58 22

56 25

12 54

56,58 49

ix 4 5

XlI 35,36,46. 54

xiv 6 59

20 51

20 15,25

xv 4,5 15

4,5 ,7 25

5 25

5,6 47

xvii 23,26 15

26 25

XIX 29,30 58

Apocalypse

iiiii

X

XlI

xiii

XVll

xxi

XXlI

7 27

14 3

6 5

9 32

14 5

(chapter cited) 57

1,2 3

4 33

14 48

1 14,23

2 18

948

23-25 5

1 ,2 7

16 5

TO THE APOSTOLIC WORD

Ephesians

2 i 10 5

ii 20-22 2

.2, 53 1 Peter

i i ~ 23

2 Peter

5 iii 13 14,23

81



THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE,

THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD,

AND THE NEW CHURCH



THE CONSUMMATION OF THE A G E, THE SECOND COMING

OF THE LORD, AND THE N EW CHURCH: 1

[being, apparently, a sketch oJ the last work projected by Swedenborg]

The Consummation of the Age, foretold by the Lord in Daniel,chapter v, and in Matthew, chapter [xxiv] -b y means oJ articles.

The Second Coming of the Lord, foretold by the Lord in the

Prophets, the Evangelists, and by the Apostles-by means oJ

articles.

The Lord's New Church, announced by the New Jerusalem in

the Word of both Testaments, and described in the Apocalypse-

by means oJ articles.

Invitation to the whole Christian world to that Church, and

exhQrt;.tion to recei;"ctheLord worthily.One memorable matter: that all things of the New Church

~ p e - e a r b.e[ore every enlightened man, in the light of truth; RI!!,~ o o as subjected to the present-day orthodoxy of the Church,

the light of truth becomes shade.

T he particulars of the doctrine of the New Church are to be

set forth in order; likewise, those which are of the orthodoxy

of the old.

1 The original of this document was at one time in the Library of CountEngestr6m; but its present whereabouts is unknown. It is supposed to have

been removed to the Royal Library in Stockholmvbut is not to be found there.

The only Latin text availableis in an a r t l cHy the late Rev. lames Hyde, in

The New-Church Magazine for 1903, p. 234.

85



®THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION, THE CONSUMMATION

OF THE AGE, AND THE FULNESS OF T IME

1. Concerning the Consummation of the Age, and the

Abomination of Desolation at the time.

2. There is no cognition 1 of God, but such as is erroneous,

false, and entirely worthless; no cognition whatever of Omni

potence.

3. No cognition of the Lord.

4. No cognition of the Divine Human, but such as is historical.

5. No cognition of the Holy Spirit.

6. Hence, no cognition of the Divine Trinity.

7. No cognition of the holiness of the Word.8. No cognition of Redemption, but such as is false.

9. No cognition of Faith, but such as is perceived by a blind

man, which is n0 I!.e. It is similar with all things which depend

upon that faith, and which from" God" are called Theological,

from the "Church" Ecclesiastical, and from the "Spirit of

God," by which they are inspired, Spiritual.

10. No cognition of Charity.

11. No cognition of Free-determination; and hence no humanwill; and therefore man is not man.

12. No cognition of Repentance, except oral; which is not

Repentance.

13. No cognition of the Remission of Sins, and hence no

cognition of Conversion.

The term cognitiones, here used in the Latin, is translated "cognitions "

to distinguish these knowledges from those that are meant by the Latin

scientifica also used in the Writings of Swedenborg. Two of the meanings mostcommonly associated with cognitiones are (i) a particular species of knowledge,

as knowledges of the Word, of good and truth , or of spiritual things (A.C. 24,

3665,9945 ; N.].H.D. 51; H.H . 111,351 ,469,474,517,518); and (ii) a

higher tYPL.-Qf j= ledg .e which is from understanding and perceptio-;i"(tLQ,.J486-14[l; H.H . 110, ,353). ~

86

1



THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION

14. No cognition of Reformation and Regeneration.

15. No cognition of the Imputation of good and evil; thus,

no Judgment .

16. No cognition of Heaven and of Hell.

17. No cognition of Man's state after death; and hence no

cognition of salvation and eternal life.

18. No cognition of Baptism and the Holy Supper, which are

scarcely anything but ceremonies. -

19. No cognition of the Law but such as is erroneous.

20. No cognition of the Gospel-which is, that man can be

regenerated, and thus saved-except such as is erroneous.

21. There is no doctrine of Theology; thus consummation isso complete that not any truth whatever remains; which is why

the Christian Religion is rent into so many heresies.

22. The Catechism is not anything.

23. The whole Word is not anything.

24. It follows hence that there is ng Religion, Church,

Worship, Ministry;

25. Because from all that precedes, it follows that there is

mere Predestination.26. It hence follows that in the above Church there remains

not a grain of truth; thus, that it is the Abomination of

Desolation.

27. The sayings of the Word burst with the sound of a loud

report, when they are sent towards heaven by those who have

studied modern orthodoxy-from experience.

28. Falsities ~ u s t b ~ ~ ~ a < ! i c . ! ! ! ~ Q _ b e f o r ~ truths are implanted.

29. The "fulness of t ime" is the consummation, because

time signifies the state of the Church; wherefore we read in

Revelation, " time shall be no longer," neither morning nor day,

but night; neither spring nor summer, but winter. The like is

signified by " for a time, times, and half a time."

30. This state of the Church was foretold by the Lord through

Daniel, and in Matthew, and in seven chapters in the Apocalypse,

which are to be quoted.

31. The religion of this Church is not to be implanted by

means of miracles, but by the Word, and by means of ligh.ttherein from the Lord. This light enters and remains to eternity;

but religion by means of miracles extinguishes thi s light, and,

because it places the miracles before itself, therefore it perishes

with a loud report (compare Matt. xxiv 24, 25).

c.-7 87




[32.] I have spoken with Paris,' whose miracles occupy twovolumes, as to how he wrought his miracles-that it was done

through spirits who entered into man's memory.

I Franc;ois de Paris, who is referred to here and in " Invitation to the New

Church," nn. 29 and 55, and in Swedenborg's letter to Venator, was a Jansenist.The miracles at his tomb in the cemetery of St Medard , Paris, led to petitionsfor his canonization. See the volume entitled Recueil des Miracles Optfres au

Tombeau de M. de Paris, • . . Diacre, MDCCXXXII. The petitions were

ignored. The first of the two volumes referred to by Swedenborg was published

in 1737, and bears the title, La Veri/! des Miracles Optfres par l'Tntercession de

M. de Paris. Demontree conire M. l'Archev'que de Sens. Ouorage dedi! au Ray parM. de Monigeron Conseiller au Parlement, A Utrecht chez; les Librairies de la Com

pagnie, MDCCXXXVII. The second volume, without the dedication to the

King, and referring also to the Convulsionnaires, was published in 1741. Athird volume followed in 1747. See article by the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, in

The New-Church Review of Boston, Mass., D.S.A., for October 1906.

88




1. The Consummation of the Age, and the Abomination of

Desolation at the time.

2. No cognition of God except what is erroneous; therefore,

also, no cognition whatever concerning Omnipotence.3. No cognition of the Lord.

4. No cognition of the Holy Spirit.5. Hence, no cognition of the Divine Trinity.

6. No cognition of the holiness of the Word.

7. No cognition of Redemption.

8. No cognition of Faith.

9. No cognition of Charity.

10. No cognition of Free-determination.

11. No cognition of Repentance.12. No cognition of the Remission of Sins, and hence no

cognition of Conversion.13. No cognition of Regeneration.

14. No cognition ofImputation.

IS. No cognition of Heaven and Hell.

16. No cognition of the state of Man after death; and henceno cognition of salvation and eternal life.

17. No cognition of Baptism.

18. No cognition of the Holy Supper.19. No cognition of the Law except what is erroneous.

20. No cognition of the Gospel-which is, that man can be

regenerated, and thus saved-except what is erroneous.[21.] There is no doctrine of Theology; thus the con

summation is so complete that not any truth remains; which is

why the Christian Religion is rent into so many heresies, concerning which . . .

89



W H A T T H E " CONSUMMATION" AND " DESOLATION " IS, AN D

THE "FULNESS OF T IME "

1. There is no cognition of God except what is false, and

entirely worthless.

2. No cognition of the Divine Human of the Lord except what

is historical.

3. No recognition of Redemption except what is false.

4. No cognition of Faith, except such as is seen by a blind

man, which is none: it is similar with all things that depend

on this faith, and are called Theological from "God," and

Ecclesiastical from the "Church," and Spiritual from the

" Spirit" of God, by whom they are inspired.

5. There is no Charity.

6. No Free-determination, thus no human will, and thus manis not man.

7. No Repentance, except oral; which is not Repentance .

-. No cognition of the Remission of Sins.

8. No Reformation and Regeneration.

9. No Imputation of good and evil, thus no Judgment.

10. Baptism and the Holy Supper scarcely anything but

ceremonies.

11. The Catechism not anything.

12. The whole Word not anything.13. Hence it follows that there is not any Religion, Church,

Worship, Ministry.

14. Since from all these it follows that there is mere Pre

destination,

15. it follows, that in that Church there remains not a grain

of truth; thus, that it is the Abomination of Desolation.

16. H ence are so many heresies.

17. The things said in the Word, when sent towards heaven

by those who have studied present-day orthodoxy, burst with aloud report-from experience.

18. Falsities must be eradicated before truths are implanted.

[19.] The "fulness ciC- t i m e ' ' i S C o n s ~ a t i o n , because

" t ime" signifies the state of the Church; wherefore we read in

90



C O N S U M M A T I O N , DESOLATION, FULNESS OF T I M E

the Apocalypse: "There shall be time no longer," neither morning

nor day, but night; neither spring nor summer, but winter. The

like is signified by, " for a time, times, and half a time."

[20.] This state of the Church was foretold by the Lord through

Daniel, and in Matthew, and in seven chapters in the Apocalyps e -

which are to be quoted.

[21.] The religion of this [i.e., the New] Church is not to be

implanted by miracles, but by the Word , and by light from the

Lord therein. This light enters and remains to eternity; but

religion through miracles extinguishes this light; and because it

places the miracles before itself (compare Matt. xxiv 24, 25), it

therefore perishes with a loud report.

[22.] I spoke with Paris.! of whose miracles there are two

volumes, concerning how he wrought his miracles: that it wasdone through spirits who entered into the memory of the man,

and [persuaded] him; very many things concerning them. Still,

however, Paris did not apply himself to any religion, and hence

did not know anything of the truth of the Church; wherefore

he is at the present day with those who are in hell.

lSee footnote on p . 88.

91



v

CONCERNING THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE, AND

CONCERNING THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION

No cognition of God.

No cognition of the Lord.

No cognition of the Holy Spirit.

No cognition of the holiness of the Word.

No cognition of Redemption.

No cognition of Faith.

No cognition of Charity.

No cognition of Free-determination.

No cognition of Repentance.

No cognition of the Remission of Sins and Conversion.

No cognition of Regeneration.

No cognition of Imputation.No cognition of Heaven and Hell.

No cognition of Man's State after death, and hence of

Salvation.

No cognition of Baptism.

No cognition of the Holy Supper.

It hence follows that there is no Religion, and hence no

Church.

Concerning the Lord's Advent.

Concerning Miracles.Invitation to the whole world to the New Church.

-Tha t there is one Shepherd and one flock; that Jehovah

is one.

92



INVITATION TO THE NEW CHURCH

!J3



INVITATION TO THE NEW CHURCH I

THERE is no Church truly such, unless God is One, and He,

Jehovah God, under a human form.-And thus God is Man, and

Man God.

The doctrinals contained in THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION }\\ Ja ree with the doctrinals of those Of the Roman Catholic Church, ~ an wiJh_t

_ d o c . t r i n a l L o L t h o s _ ~ m o n g the Protestants whoa c k n o w l e d g L ~ - - p ~ r § . . < m . a L l l l l i . Q ! L i . ! ! Christ and a p-roach Christ,

aIld t a k ~ ~ . ! : ! ~ a r in two kinds.Various causes why now, for the first time, and not before,

those truths of the Church [have been revealed]; among which

this, ~ ~ a new Church is not instituted before the former}I Church is being-ccmsumiiiiifeCI .- - --

lhe-Divine ProvIaence in these matters:

From the heresies spread abroad after the time of the

Apostles.Why the Romish Church was permitted.

Why the separation from it took place, and the causes why

it was an unworthy mother.

Why the Greek Church separated from the Romish.

Various things concerning miracles; that they have destroyed

the Church,-also from the Lord's words in Matt. xxiv.

All things tended to the invocation of men who were calledsaints.

This Church is not instituted and established through miracles,u through the revelation or the spiritual sense [of the Word],

and throu h the introduction of :rpys irit an d a t the same time

o ml 0 y, mto tne spInua woiIO, so. tha1(!)might there know

wh,:t - eaven and hell are, an at c.!)might imbibe from the

Lord immediately in light the truths of faith, where y man IS~ ed to eternal ~ - . . .

The Advent of the Lord-from the Word and the creeds.

Invitation to the New Church that men should go t ~ h e Lord-from/Rev. xxijand xxii; and also from Chap. i, etc., etc.

1 Latin text in Volume recently returned from Upsala to The Swedenborg

Society and entitled Opuscula Varia Swedenborgii, VoJ. n. Aug. Nordenskold.Also in Immanuel Tafe1's Diarium Spiriiuale, App. vii, pp . 142-160.

95



1-7] INVITATION TO THE N E W CHURCH

Hereafter men are not to be styled Evangelicals, R eformed,

and still less Lutherans and Calvinists, but Christians.Many things concerning miracles.

1. That in Christ Jesus, Man is God, and God Man, appears

evidently from the Lord's words to His Father,

All Thine are Mine, and all Mine are Thine (John xvii IQ).

From" all Mine are Thine," it appears that Man is God ; and

from" all Thine are Mine," that God is Man.

2. During man's Eregenerationl the light of heaven, and at the

same time the heat of heaven, is instilled into natural light;

which two constitute, as it were, a new soul by means of which

man is formed by the Lord . Th is ligh t and heat are [email protected]

through the higher mind, which is called ~ sQiritual rIllil9. Byvirtue of this instilling, or insertion, man becomes a new creature,

and becomes more e n l i ~ a n d more intelligent in the things

of the Church, and in the reading of the Word; and this is the

new understanding and the new will. By means of this light

and this heat, man is afterwards led by the Lord and from natural

becomes spiritual.r (j) There is a still higher or more interior light and heat,

which is called celestial. This is inserted and instilled into the

former spiritual light and heat; ~ are the angels of the

third heaven, who are called celestial.

(£> This insertion may be exhibited by a comparison; namely,

by the grafting and budding of trees, in that the grafts receive

[the sap] inwardly in themselves, according to their form, etc.~ It is to be clearly shown that w i t h . 9 " ! ~ J the Lord's Advent,

no one could have been regenerated, and hence saved; and that

this is meant by " the Lamb taking away the sins of the world."

This may be evident from the state of the sl?iriEual world beforethe Lord's coming; which was such that not any truth of faith

nor good of chari could ass from the Lord to man. (This is

to be I lustrated by th e influx of trut an 00 into evil spirits,into the hinder part 0 t err heads, etc.),

6. Miracles close the internal man, and take away all the. free

determination by means of which, and in which, man is re

generated. Free determination belongs properly to the internal

man; a ~ d when this is closed up, man becomes external an_d

natural, and such a man does not see any spiritual truth.M i r a ~ ~ s also are like curtains and bars lest anything might

enter. But this bar, or this bolt, is gradually broken, and all

truths get dispersed.

7. By the Church of the present day it is declared, in the words

96

mailto:[email protected]





INVITATION TO THE NEW CHURCH [7-11

of Paul, that faith enters by the hearing of the Word; and some

add, by a certain meditation from the Word. But by this is to

be understood that truths ought to be drawn from the Word ,

and that man ought to live according to them . Then man

approaches the Lord, who is the Word and the 5 u h ~ andreceives faith; for all truths are from the Word, which is

spiritual light. Thus faith is acquired; because faith is of truth,

and truth is of faith, and no_thing is to be be lieved exce t truth. )

8. There are numberless CV1s I n er ror y I n man; yea, t ere

a re numberless evils in each several lust. Every lust of which(

man becomes conscious is a mass and heap of many things.

These man does not see, but only the one mass. When, there

fore, man by repentance r:.emoves this, the Lord, who sees the

(. ~ r : i ~ a ! 1 t i inmost things o f m e ~ . > r : . e ~ ~ those interior things.

Unless, therefore, man approaches the Lord, he labours i l lvain

to ~ e himself The case herein is the same as that described

in tEe Memorable Relation concerning Turtles (see THE TRUE

CHRISTIAN RELIGION, n. 462).9. A man who has thoroughly confirmed himself in the faith

and doctrine of the present-day Church, may make no account

of repentance, of the law of the Decalogue, nor of works and

charity. For he can sa , " I cannot do good from myself; thesethings are included in faith, whence they proceed one by one

without my knowing it " ; and so forth. This, also, is the source 1of the naturalism which prevails at the present time.

10. The" fulness of t ime" also signifies consummation and

desolation: the reason is that " time " signifi es the state of the

l~ h (see Rev. x 6; and in Ezekiel). The same also is signified

by " a time, times, and half a time " [see Rev. xii 14; Dan. vii

25; xii 7]. Times in the world are spring, summer, autumn;

and the fulness of them is winter. Times as to light are morning,noon, evening; and the ~ s s of these is n ~ h t , etc., etc. This

is meant by the Lord's coming being in " t e fulness of time," \

or of " t1mes " ; that 1S, wh en there is no long<;£. a ny truth of \faith and good of charity remaining. (Concerning , c the 1U:rnFss Iof time," see"Rom. xi 12;25;Ga1. iv 4, and, especially, Ephes. i9, 10; Gen. xv 16).

11. The presence of the Lord's love is with those who are in

faith in Him. This may be clearly understood from the fact

that place cannot be predicated of love, nor of faith; for eachis spiritual. That the Lord Himself is present is manifest from

the consideration that what is s iritual also has no place. It

was ever so in my own case, when I was in a spintua 1 ea. In

a__word, p r e ~ e n c e in the spiri!].l.'!L...orld is accordLI:.!&-.1Q...love.

97



11-14] INVITATION TO THE N EW CHURCH

Wherefore He is omnipresent; it is not a matter of moving

about: it is in place, but not [a proceeding] t h r o u g l ~ _ J ~ l a c e . I t is in space and in extense, but not through space and through

extense.

12. The desolation of the truth of the Church may be compared with the consummations on earth: namely, heat and all

those seasons [see n. 10, above] are consum mated by winter, U l ~ ~ n comes sJ2tiyg; and light on earth is consummated by nigi}t,ancr then comes morning. Wherefore, the Lord said to those

unde;.=me altar,

[that they should rest yet. for a little time, till their fellOW.servants, and their brethren, who should be killed as the were,

should be fulfilled (Rev . vi 11) .

(Many passages are to be adduced from the Apocalypse, to the

effect.rhar the Church has been devastated, even dow n to last1thin.g"s.)

13. At the present day, the union ofsoul and body is unknown .

This is owing to the hypothesis of the learned, es ecially that of

t ~ C a e a n s a n d others, that the soul is a substance separate\ from tJlelj()ay, in some place or other; when yet the soul isth-e,]inmost man; consequently, is man from head to ~ l . Thence it

is that, according to the ancients, the soul is in the whole, andin every part thereof, and that in whatever part the soul is not

inmostly, there the life of man is not. By virtue of this union ), it is that all things of the soul are of the body, and all t h i n ~ of

the body are of the soul; as the L o r d ~ d concerning His~ Father, that all His things are the Father's, and that all the

Father's things are His [John xvii 10]. Thence it is that the

Lord is God, even as to the flesh (Rom. ix 5; - C6loss. ii 9); and

that [He said],

" the Father in Me," and" I in the Father" [John xiv 10, 11],

thus that they are one.o@T h e human mind is of three degrees, which are the0 § a ] ) h spiritual, a n d ~ natural. In the first degree is the~ in the second, the s irit or mind, in the third is the ~ I r is the same thing, whether you say that man's mind is of treedegrees, or that man himself is. For that part of the body

which is in the beginnings-thus where its first is-is called the

mind. The remaining parts are propagated and continue therefrom. What is the mind, if only in the head, except somethingseparated or alien, and in which the mind does not exist by

continuation? Let autopsy settle it : The origins of the fibres are

the little glands, so-called,of-ihe cortical substance; thence

98



INVITATION T O THE NEW CHURCH [14-18

proceed the fibres; and these, bundled together into nerves,

descend and pass throu h the whole body, and arrange and

construct it. (T he celestial degree in which is the soul or inmost~ is the form of ove 0 t e spintual degree, in whIch is the

" ind or sp irit: this is the intermedIate man, and is a semblance

f wisdom from love; the third degree, in whi ch is the body,\ which is the ultimate man is the containant of both' a art from

- ~ ~ o r : : r r u : r geSI.ees O ~ p ! 1 o t subsist. '.nuscan be further

shown from the three heavens, the celestial, the spirity.al, and

the natural, where such men are. VVIiirefore the angels of the

h i g h ~ a v e n s are invisible to the angels of the lower if the

latter approach from their heavens.

® Thence it may be clearly seen thaUhe body_exists through

Jhe soul, as a tree from its , seed. Hence also it IS that a tree

derives ItS-qualIty from the seea. Inasmuch, therefore, as the\\

soul of Christ is from the Divine essence, It follows that HISiJOdy )

is also.~ All theologians, when preaching, know nothing of the

falsities of .their religion. For they preach that God is one;

that the Saviour is to be adored; that man, therefore, ought tQ

believe in the Word and in what is preached; that he ought to

exercise charity, and perform repentance, so as to desist from

evils. While so reaching, they remember nothing about three

Gods, ' iibout t h e i ~ q l y ~ i I fiijl li, -'!._CUt lIIlpotence n s iritual(

things, and about all the rest. But let them know, that the

\ § l ~ t Y wfiiChthey ave i!!iQibed in the schools cleaves inwardly,~ a d that the o t h . . . 1 h i n g ~ o y " ! n i l i ~ t h ; and that, after

'I death, th ey wIll come mto the m tenor thmgs of their spir i t -

wherefore, these falsities must be entirely eradica ted. And yet

they continue in the mouth, like the beard on the chin; which,

afterwards, as is the custom, is shaved off, and the man thenbecomes beardless.

17. When orthodoxy enters and explains those things which

the priests preach from the Word concerning faith, that we must

believe in God; concerning charity towards the neighbour; con

cerning conversion; concerning repentance, and hence the life

of piety and spirituality-all these things fall, as it were, into a

J:mckl':t· lilld then t ~ _ . ~ r e overthrown, as wh en men destroy abuilding, or house, so that nothing remains but ruins: and then

they say, "These -ffiingsa re-·not tnitlfs unlessy;u so believe.What does charity matter? or repentance?" etc. The very

Word then falls to the ground, etc. I t is as if one undermines

a wall by digging ditches under it. All things are overthrown.

18. B E - ~ a single examp ~ _ ~ h e r e sQ!TIeoqJ':--t!reaches devoutly- 99



18-22] INVITATION TO THE NEW C H U R C H

on the above things from t h ~ . J ' Y Q r d _ a n d , _ w Q e n his orthodox isb r o u g ~ l ) e a r up on them, you will see that 'all things that T

I(have seen and said are true . (Let an example illustrate this . . .)Thus

the affirmand

th en deny,if orthodoxy

is inthe internal

man anot lie a ove-mentlOned preached in the external. Inthis case that which then remains in the external man IS of noaccount.and becomes like ~ I t is if h ~ ~ e . e ; ; ; ~ - - e ; : ; t h quake, or as if a ship in the water were wrecked from below.

19. A striking example may also be brought from genuine

orthodoxy on the subject of faith, charity, and freedom of

choice, from which example the absurdity will appear plainly.20. That the spiritual things of heaven flow into every man,

and that things flow in through the world, is luminously confirmed thus: that spiritual and natural things flow in conjointly,

but that the evil man mverts tne two. Tfrat whICh-is wltlllii"he

places in his mind without, andtl1at which is without he places

within; so that the world is above heaven, or heaven belOw the

world. But the pious and good man receives each in its own lrder in which it flows in: the spiritual things which flow in

t h r ~ ~ g h heaven, k places above iii- hism m , and the natural

things which flow in through the world, below. This latter man

stands erect on his feet; but the former, as it were, upside down.21. The whole of Theology at the present day is nothing but

Divine omnipotence. Thus it is asserted: 1. that God gives

faith where and to whom He will; 2. that He remits sins;3. that He regenerates; 4. that He sanctifies; 5. that He imputes

and saves; 6. that He will raise the dead bodies from the graves;that He will cause the skeletons to live, and will put into them

their former souls; 7. that He will destroy the world, together

with the sun, the stars, the planets, the earths, and will create a

new universe; 8. Since omnipotence is everything, and is the

order which God is, and which is from God in the whole world,

JL followUn.at .th e.-man_o£.the-.ChIJIclLCfln imagine whatever hewill; that he can raise himself even above what is eternal, that

is, above reason; and that, wherever he pleases, he can go counter

to reason, and simply declare, "reason must be kept under

obedience to our faith. For is not God omnipotent? Who i;;

able, or dateS. t reason a ainst His omni otence?" Such are

all t mgs of the present-day faith, etc.

22. Man cannot discover a single Divine Truth, e x c ~ ! J : ! . e aPQroach the Lord immediately. The reason is, that the Lord

alone is the Word, an t a He is Light and Truth Itself, and

that ~ ~ not become spiritual, except from the Lord only,but remains natural; and the natural man, in spiritual matters,

100



INVITATION TO THE NEW C H U R C H [22-25

sees all things i n v e r ~ ~ l y . That this is so, is known from Paul.

This is the reason why not a single truth has remained in the

Church, so that there is n ~ consummation, desolation , decision,)\ and fulness. But because the Lord is not dead, therefore there

still remains " a root left in the earth" according to Daniel[iv 15, 23, 26]; also that man desires to die, but is not able,

according to the Apocalypse [ix 6]. That which is " left" is the

facult of b e L r ~ g able Fo understand t r u t n ; a n a - - - o r ~ t o will good. This--is_" the root that is left ."~ - 23.- T he ts of modern orthodoxy object that faith,

charity, goo works, repentance, remission of sins, etc ., cannot

exist with man before he has received the Holy Spirit. But, as

has been shown, the Holy Spirit is the Divine which proceeds

from the L o ~ ; and the Lord is perpetually present with every

man , evil as well as goo. I OU IS presence, no one can

rve ; aE...- t e or constantly acts, urges and st!,ives_ to be

received; wherefore, the presence of the Holy Spirit is perpetual.For the sake of con rmation, this was prove-d-in -t hes pin t; al

Iworld, in the case of a certain devil, by th e Lord's presence being

removed from him. The devil lay dead, exactly like a corpse.Thousands both of spirrts-and-6f'-t c c er saw tlus, and were

astoun e. _U s_ y virtue of the perpetual presence 0 t e ord

that man h a ~ th_e faculty 5>f thinkitrg;-u nderstandmg an wlrrmg.

These facul ties are due soleI to th e influx of f ~ f r o m the Lord.

Both Luther and M elanchthon were present, and at this were

not able to open their mouth.

24. The onl y c ~ e why the Reformation took place was that 11the Word, "WIiich lay buried, mi ht be restored to the world.

For many centuries it had een in the world, bu t at length itwas entombed b the Roman Catholics, and not a single truth

o the Church could be roughTf

orth from it. The Lord couldnot be known, but the Pope was worshipped as God, in place

of the Lord. When, however, the Word had been drawn forth

out of its t o m b ~ Lord could become known, truth could be

derived from it, and therecould be conjunction with heaven.

For this purpose the Lord raised up ~ m u n o u y so many men JJto the attack. He stirred up weaen, enmar , H olland, Eng

land, to bring it [the Word] back; and, lest it [the movement]

should be extinguished in Germany through the Pope, He

[email protected] up Gustavus Adolphus, who stood for the R eformationand rose against him.~ this little ~ o k be not added to the precedin one, theC ~ c h cannot e h ~ d ; there would oe on y a palliative-cure,

a wound in which the corrupt matter remains, and eats away

101



25-30] INV ITAT ION TO THE NEW CH URCH

the neighbouring parts. 9 rt ,doxY-d itself ~ ~ ~ ~ r r u p t matter;

)Iand th.e doctrine of the New C mrch indeed furnishes a re ,

b u t - ~ - 6 u t w a r d l y . - 26: -T he origins of all errors in the Church have been that

man had been believed to live from himself, or fr9m his own

life, and that life is increate in him; when et he is onl an or an

of life and is in the midst between heaven and hell, and thus ~ (

equilibrium, or freedom of choke.

27. No one is able to see the desolation of truth in the Church[ before the truths of the Word come to light. What heretic,

indeed, knows anything else thant:ha tall his heresies are truths?

Everyone can swear to his own. There is a delusive light

ansmgfroITICOiifirmations. In such light is the n a t u r a ! . . 2 n n until the spiritual man enlightens him. Yea, an atheistic

naturalist may swear that there is no God, and that the existence

of God is a mere vain imagination of the common herd; wheref ~ t heart, he scoffs at the learned men of the Church.~ I t is known in the Church that, the Churc is the Body

o ~ g E _ r ~ t ; bu t how this i ~ ~ ~ s not been' known hitherto. - Henceit is, thatthe whole heav<;!Visas one man before the Lord; and

this one man IS Istinguished into societies, each of which has

reference to some member or organ, and viscus, in man. Inthis man, or body, the Lord is the soul or life. For the Lord

breathes into men; a ~ d , when He is present [with them], H ~ is present through the eavenS) as the soul through itS"body

The like is the case w n 1 ~ C h u h on ~ h ; for -thlS is- the

external man . Wherefore, everyone, after-death, is gathered to

his own in that body, etc.

29. The things which are related of me are not miracles, but

testimonies that I have been introduced into the spiritual wOrld

£y: the Lord for the sake of ends which -:-..

Reasons whymiracles do not take place at this day..- .. Further, from the

Lord's words in Matt. xxiv. Concerning the miracles of Anthony

of Padua, and of many who are worshipped as saints, of whose

miracles the monasteries are full. Concerning the miracles of

Paris, concerning which there are two volumes in 4to. 1

30. That the Lord would come in the fulness of time and

would judge, is meant by His words,

When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy

angels with Him, then shall He sit on the throne of His glory; and

there shall be gathered before Him all nations: and He shall

separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the

sheep from the he-goats (Matt. xxv 31,32).

I See footnote on p. 88.

102



I N V I T A T I O N TO T H E N E W C H U R C H [30-32

This coming of the Lord is meant by the following words con

cerning Jesus Christ, in the Apostles' Creed r - " He ascended into

the heavens, He sitteth at the right hand of God the Father

Almighty; ttqm thence He shall come to judge the quick and

the dead"; and also by this concerning the Lord Jesus Christin the Nicene Creed: "H e ascended into heaven; He sitteth at

t he righ t hand of the Father; and He shall come again in glory

to judge the quick and the dead; of whose kingdo 1TJ:.JMre shall beno end."

31. And also in the A thanasian Creed: "H e ascended to the

heavens; He sitteth at the right hand ofGod the Father Almighty:

from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead . . .and they shall give account of their own deeds, And they that

have done goods shall go into eternal life: and they that have

done evils into eternal fire" (Formula Concordie [Leipsic, 1756],pp. 1,2,4).

Besides, the Schmalkaldic Articles teach the same thing as

the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian creeds; namely,

" Jesus Christ ascended to the heavens; He sitteth at the right

hand of God, . . . He shall come to judge the quick and the

dead"; and our Catechism [the one used in Sweden] teaches

the same (p. 303). From the Augsburg Confession in like manner,

" He ascended to the heavens, that He might sit at the right

hand of the Father, and reign forever, and exercise dominion

over all creatures. . . . The same Christ will openly return to

judge ~ q u c k and the d e ~ d , according to the Apostles' Creed"

(Formula Concordie, p. 10). Luther teaches the same (in the

Lesser Catechism, p. 371; Augsburg Confession, pp. 10, 14).32. That the Lord will not come to judgment in order to

destroy heaven and earth, is plain from many passages in the

Word where His coming is treated of; where it is said,When th e Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?

(Luke xviii 8) ;

besides many more passages which are quoted in THE TRUE

CHRISTIAN RELIGION, no. 765. Further, that He will not come

to destroy the visible heaven and the habitable earth (n. 768,

-> et seq.), but t o _ s l ' : p~ l 2 l t e the evil from t ! " t ~ good (n. 772, et seq.);and many more besides. The same also is declared in the Credal

Faith which is inserted in every Psalm book in the whole Christianworld, where the Apostles' Creed only is set forth. The same is

introduced thence into psalms. J 3y the _" quick," ! E ~ b o v e places, are meant those who _are in _<:!:tarity ~ ~ h and are

called "_sheep" by the Lord; but by the " d e a : g ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ' ! ! ? - t c.-8 103



32-34J INVITATION TO THE NEW CHURCH

those who are not in charity and faith, and are called by theLord " he-goats." (Add to the above, Rev. xi 18; and xx 12.)

33. Title:

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE, AND THE ABOMINATION OF

THE DESOLATION THEN.There is to be adduced what the Lord says,

I. Concerning the" abomination of desolation";

2. What He says [concerning vastationJ;

3. What the Lord says concerning the" affliction";

4. That" no flesh can be saved";

5. Concerning the "darkening of the sun and of the

moon ";

6. The things which are declared in the Apocalypse (i 18),

Behold, I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am

He that liveth unto the ages of the ages (see, also, Rev. ii 8 and v 6f.And again, the Lord says:

The night cometh when no man can work (John ix 4);

In that night, there shall be two men in one bed (Luke xvii 34).

Further, what the Lord says concerning Peter in John xxi 18;also, what Paul says concerning the last times, in 1 Tim. iv 1-3;

2 Tim. iii 1-7; iv 3, 4.

(What the Lord says in Matt. xxiv 27, that this should take

place in the day of the Last Judgment, must be explained; also,

what He says in vv. 30, 31. That this actually has thus taken

place, see THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, n. 791.)

34. The Coming of the Lord is according to the order that

the spring does not come until after the winter, nor the morning

until after the night; nor -comfort and joy to the travailing

woman until after the pain; that consolations are after temptations; one lives truly after death, even as the Lord says, ~ Except the grain . . . die, etc. (John xii 24).

The Lord exhibited the type of this order in that He suffered

Himself to be crucified and to die, and afterwards rose again.

This type signifies the state of the Church . . . . This, also, isinvolved in the image which appeared to Nebuchadnezzar, inthat the Stone became a great Rock at the last; it is further

involved in the four beasts out of the sea, and in what is relatedthere concerning that horrible nation (all of which is to beexplained). It is likewise involved in the four Ages known to

the ancients, the golden, the silver, the copper and the iron ages;

further, in the ages of every !llan, from infancy to old ag<::104



INVITATION T O THE N E W CHURCH [34-38

then is the end of the life of the body, and then comes the lifeof the spirit, which is the life of all those who have lived- well.

The same also is implied in the heaven which has first to passaway (Rev. xxi 1,2). The case with the Church is similar.

35. The keys of the kingdom of the heavens were given...t.aPeter, because he re resented the Lord as t o ~ D i v i n e T . 1 ' u t h ; and

this is what is meant by " rock," throughout the whole of the

Sacred Scripture. On this account [it is said], .

" Upon this rock," that is, on this Divine Truth, "will I

build My Church," namely, the truth that the Lord is " t ! J . ~ Son of the living God." -

It shall be shown from the Word, that "rock" has this

signification.

(" Rock" in the Word : Exod . xvii 6; xxxiii 21, 22; Num.

xx 8-11; Deut. viii 15; xxxii 4-37; I Sam. ii 2; 2 Sam . xxii

2, 3, 32, 47; xxiii 3; Ps. xviii 2, 31, 46; xxviii I; xxxi 2, 3;

xl 2; xlii 9; Ixii 2, 7; Ixxviii 16, 20, 35; Ixxxix 26; xcii 15;

xciv 22; xcv I; cv 41; Isa. ii 10; xxii 16; xlii 11; li I ; I Cor.

x 4). (" Fissures of the rock" denote falsified truths, Rev. vi

15, 16; Isa. ii 19; Jer. xvi 16; Song of Solomon, ii 14; Isa.

xlviii 21; Jer. xxiii 29; xlix 16; Obad. ver. 3; besides in the

Gospels.)In this wise also some of the Fathers explained it (see Formula

Concordie, p. 345).

, 36. Since the Son alone became Man, and not the whole

Trinity, was.not then the Divine Essence, which is a one and an

indivisible trine, separated, or disunited and divided?

37 That. the whole-.i>f the Lord's prayer, from beginning to

enc( has respect to the present time, isvery plain that s , - t ~ t God the Father is worshipped in human form. This appears if

(this prayer is rightly explained .38. That the Churches after the times of the Apostles fell

away into so many heresies, and that at the present day there

are none other than false Churches, is owing to their not having

approached the Lord, when yet the Lord is the Word, and the

Ligh! itself wEich enlightens the whole world. And yet- i t is

as impossible to see one genuine jruth from the Word , whichj s

not crowded about and defiled with falsities, and cohering with

falsities, as it is impossible to sail to the Pleiades, or to dig olit

\ the gold which is in the centre of the earth. Wherefore, in orderthat the true Christian religion might be op'ened u , it _ w a absolutely necessary that some one should be introduced into

the spiritual world, and derive from the Lord's mouth genuine

\ truths out of the Word. The Lord cannot enlighten anyone

105



38-40] INVITAT ION TO THE NEW CHURCH

with His light, unless He is approached i m m e ~ t e l y , and

acknowledged as the God of heaven.

39. Miracles do not take place at this day, for the reasons

stated in THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION [n. 50 I ] ; wherefore, the

Lord said in Matt. (xxiv 24), that they would lead astray.Again, what is more common among the Roman Catholics than

to fill the tombs of the saints and the walls of monasteries with

miracles? How many leaves of gold and silver are there not

in the tomb of Anthony of Padua! What is there not where

the three wise men are said to be buried, at Prague, and else-

where? What else than illusions can be derived from these

things? Of-more weight than all these miracles are the facts

that I...:;peak with angels and spirits in the spiritual world, that

I have described the states of heaven and hell, and of the lifeafter death; also, that the spiritual sense of the Word has been

laid open to me; besides much else. Such intercourse, as far as

I know, has not been granted by the Lord to anyone before.

These are proofs that this is for the sake of the New C ~ h , which is the crown of all Churches, and which will endure for

ever. Being in the spiritual world, seeing the wonders of heaven,

and the pitiful things of hell; and being there in the very light

of the Lord in which the angels are, surpasses all miracles.

Evidences that I am there, may be found in abundance in my

books.

40. The sole cause why the Church has immersed itself in so

many falsities that not a single truth is left in it; and why it

is like a ship that has suffered shipwreck, of which the top of

the mast only stands out, is this- that hitherto they have

not a p p ~ c h e d the Lord im..mediately; and when He is not

approached immediately, not a single truth can appear in its

own light. The reason is, that the Lord is the Word, that is,

all Divine Truth in the Word, and that He alone is the Light

which enlightens all men, as He Himself teaches; and every

truth of the Word shines from no other source than from the

Lord alone. This light it is which is meant by the " spiritual " ;

when, therefore, he has not this light, there is nothing spiritual

in man's understanding, but only the natural; and the natural

man sees only invertedly all things which contain the spiritual:

he sees falsity instead of truth. While reading the Word, there-c.

fore, he bends all things there to his own falsities, and thusfalsifies truths; and is delighted therein. For the human natural

mind is in such things as pertain to the world and to self; it is

delighted solely by such things: wherefore, unless in the above

things there is spiritual light, the natural mind transfers them to

106



INVITATION TO THE N EW CHURCH [40-41

those things which are of the world and of self, which he puts

in the first place. He thus not only shuns spiritual things, and

hides them away, but he also scoffs at them afterwards. Faith

is spiritual, that is, it can be called spiritual, from no other source

than from the truths which it contains, and thus by virtue oflight from the Lord. Unless faith is from this source, it is natural

faith, which neither conjoins nor is saving.

41. In the spiritual world no one knows another from his

name only, but from the idea of his quality. This idea causes

that other to be present, and to be recognized. Thus, and not

otherwise, parents are recognized by their children; children

by their parents; and relatives, connections by marriage, and

friends, by relatives, connections and friends. In like manner the

learned are known from their writings, and from the reputation

of their learning; great men and rulers by the fame of their

deeds; in like manner kings, emperors and popes. All are

known by these things alone. It was granted to me to converse

with such; but with others this is not possible. A spirit himself

is nothing else than his quality; on this account everyone in

that world drops his baptismal name, and the name of his

family, and is named according to his quality . Hence it is that

" name" in the Word does not signify name, but quality. As

the Lord says in the Apocalypse:

Thou hast a few names in Sardis (Rev. iii 4);

and again,

I know thee by name (Exod. xxxiii 17)

(besides a thousand other places where" name" is mentioned).

From all this, then, it is manifest, that no one has the Lord

present with him, unless he knows His quality. This quality is

made known by the truths of the Word; for, as many truths asthere are in the Word, just so many mirrors and ideas are there

of the Lord, for He is the Word Itself, and He is the Truth Itself,

as He Himself says.

Qualities are of two kinds: one kind pertains to the know-

ledge concerning Him, that He is the God of heaven and earth,

the Son of God the Father, One with the Father, that all things

of the Father are in Him- in a word, that He is the Human

of . Q o ~ L h e ~ The other kind pertains to the knowledges

of those things that proceed from Him (and the things thatproceed from Him ~ ~ l f ) ; as what He teaches concern-

ing charity, freedom of choice, repentance, regeneration, the

sacraments and very many other things. These things also make

up the idea of the Lord, because they are from Him.

107




42. I t is an arcanum from the spiritual world, that unless a

person approaches the Lord directly and immediately with an

idea concerning Him, the Lord's presence is not brought about,

and still less can the person, in that case, become receptive of

any communication. I t is as if some one stands at the side,and appears in the dark. In like manner, no one can speak

with another unless he looks directly at him; communication

then takes place when each looks at the other. Thus, and not

otherwise, ideas enter into another; and if, at the same time,

there is love, conjunction is effected. I f anyone, therefore,

approaches the Father immediately, He stands, as it were, at

the side; and hence He is unable to grant and to impart

redemption, that is, is unable to regenerate and afterwards save

hi .43 The manifestation of the Lord in person, and introduction

by t e Lord into the spiritual world, both as to sight and as to

hearing and speech, surpasses all miracles; for nowhere in

history do we read that sue 1 an mtercourse with angels and

spirits has been granted from the creation of the world. For

I am there with the angels daily, even as I am in the world

with men, and now for twenty-seven years. Evidences of this

intercourse are the books published by me concerning Heaven

and Hell, and also the memorable relations in the last work,

entitled THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION; further, what has been

there related concerning Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, and con

cerning the inhabitants of a number of kingdoms; besides the

various evidences which are known in the world, and, in addition,

many others which are not known. Say, who has ever before

known anything concerning heaven and hell? Who has known

anything concerning man's state after death? Who, anything

concerning spirits and angels? etc., etc.44. Add to these most manifest evidences, that the spiritual

~ e n e of the Word hasken_di.sclosed_py: the Lord. through me,

which has never before been revealed since the Word was written

among the sons of Israel; and this sense is the very sanctuary

of the Word: the Lord Himself is in this sense with His D i v ~ e ,

I

( and in the natural sense with His Human. Not 'a single iota

in this sense can be opened. exce ~ the L o ~ n e . l lisurgasses a ll the revelations that have hitherto been made from

the creation of the world. By means of this revelation a comr D i i l l i c a t i o ~ has -been opened between men and the angels of

heaven, and cogiunction of the two worlds has been effected;since when man -is iii- the natural sense, the angels are in the

spiritual sense. See what has been written concerning this sense

108




in the chapter on the Sacred Scripture [in THE TRUE CHRISTIAN

R ELIGION].{ 4 ~ ~ r r e s p o n d e n c e s , by which the Word, as to each and all~ of it, has been written, p ~ s e s such force and strength that

it may be called the force and stren th of Divine O mnipotence;for t roug t ese correspondences the natural acts conjoint Y

with the spiritual, and the spiritual with the natural, thus every

thing of heaven with everything of the world. Thence it is that

tnetwo sacraments are corresRondences of sp'iritual with natural

things; thence is their strength and ower,

46. What, on the other hand, do miracles amount to? Miracles

do not take place at this day, because they lead men astray, and

make th em natural. They close up the interiors of their mind,

in which faith ought to be rooted; wherefore, mere falsities pro

ceed thence (see Matt. xxiv 24). What did the miracles which

were wrought in Egypt effect with the sons of Israel? What

did those miracles effect which were wrought before them in

the wilderness? What those miracles at their entrance into the

land of Canaan? What the miracles wrought by Elijah and

Elisha? What the miracles performed by the Lord Himself?

Was anyone ever made spiritual by their means? What have

the miracles among the Roman Catholics done for them? and

those of Anthony at Padua? and of the three wise men at

Cologne? And what has been the use of the countless miracles

in the monasteries, which are filled with pictures, plates and

gifts? Has ever anyone been made spiritual thereby? Have

they not become natural thereby, so that there is scarcely any

truth of the Word among them, but only externals of worship

which pertain to men and to traditions?

47. That in Christ Godl s Man, and Man God, is confirmed

three times in theFormula Concordie ;

and also in theAthanasian

Creed, where is said, the " taking of the Manhood into God";

from the Word (Rom. xiv 11; Coloss, ii 9; 1 John v 20, 21),

as well as, by the Lord Himself, that the Father and He are one;

that the Father is in Him, and He in the Father; that all things

of the Father are His; that He has Life in Himself; that He

is God of heaven and earth. .

48. The soul is the inmost ~ , and, according to the ancients,

is in the whole and in every part of the body, for the beginning

J o£1!fe resides jn the soul; that p_arLoLthe . h o d ~ n which theI ~ o u L L nOLinmost1¥>--does i l ~ e . Wherefore, there exists areciprocal union; and hence the body acts from the soul, not

the soul through the body. Whate er roceeds from God

partakes of the human form, because God is Very Man; this

109



(

(

~


is especially the case with the soul, which is the first of

man.

\- 49, Nothing is more common in the whole heaven and in the

whole world, than for one thing -to e wltliinanother, thus an

inmost, a middle and an outmost, and for the three to inter::c o m m u n i c e - ; a i J . a f O r ' P ~ r of the middle and outmost to

be deriv.ed fr.QJ!L the n m ~ s t . That there are th ese three, on'ewithin the other, is eVIdent from each and every thing in the

human body. Around the brain there are three tunics, which

are called the dura mater, the pia mater, and the arachnoid;

and over these is the skull. Around the whole body there are

tunics, one within the other, which, together, are called the skin.Around each artery and vein there are three tunics; likewise

around each muscle and fibre; in like manner, around all the

rest of the things there. So in the vegetable kingdom. How

they intercommunicate, and how the inm.ost enters the middle,

ancrtliemlddle the last, anatomy shows, etc. Thence it follows

that it is so with light: that spiritual ~ which in its essence

is truth, is inwardly in natural light; m like manner, spiritual

h ~ which in its essence is love, in natural heat. By natural

heat is meant natural love, because that love gr; 'ws warm; an

this is covered over by t he heat of the blood.

50. All that they say about the Holy Spirit falls to the ground

as soon as it is believed that man i s . . . . n o t . . l i f e , - b u t o _ n l ~ a n organ of life, and _th.US .. lb..a..t..God is constantly present in man, and that

He strives, acts and ur es that those things which relate to

religion, an consequently those relating to the Church, to

heaven and salvation, shall be received. It is, therefore, vain

to say that the Holy Spirit is " given;r or that it is " withheld."

For the HolY Spirit-iSilothing else than th e Divine which pro

ceeds out of the Lord from the Father, and this Divine con-st1Mes man's life, and also his understanding and love; and the

presence of this Divine is perpetual. Wi t.!!.Q.u.. l ~ _ p ~ e n c e of.'\ I~ r d , . . Q ! of the Hol)' S.2irit, man would be only a kind oH

animal; but he would have no more life than salt, a stone or cl

log. The reason of this is, that man is not born with instinct,

like the beasts; wherefore, a chiCK of one day.old knows the

order of its life better than an infant.

51. It is allowable to confirm the truths of ·the Church by

reason, or the understanding, as much as one pleases, and alsoby various things in nature; and, in proportion as truths are so

confirmed, they become inrooted and shine. It is also allowable

to confirm truths by the Word, wherever one pleases, and also

to apply for this purpose many things from the Word; and the

110




Word is not then falsified. These sayings of Scripture, through

which truths are confirmed, rise into heaven: they are like the

fumes from incense; but if falsities are confirmed from the

rWord, they do not rise to heaven, but are driven back; and

\ they explode on the way with a loud report. I have heard it athousand times.

52. The__maJ!if!:Sl<!.li9!LoLthe _.Lord,_an!Ladmission into the

sgiritIJaLwo.dd.-surpass all m iracles. This has not been granted

to anyone since th e creation , as it has been to me. The men of

the golden age, indeed, conversed with angels; but it was not

granted to them to be in any other than natural light; to me,

however, it is granted to be at the same time both in spiritual

and in natural light. By this..JI1!:_ans_iLhaLheen-ZIanted ~ e / to see the wonderful things of h e a v ~ . l ! , ~ ~ m o l 1 : ~ e l s as

oneof i l iem, and-ar-fhe-same time-to imbibe truths in light, and~ c v e a n d t e a c h ~ m ; _ c o n S e q u e n t l y ) o - I ) e 1 e d b y\the Lord. But as concerns miracles: they would have been

nothing else than snares to lead astray, as the Lord says (Matt.

xxiv 24); and as is related of Simon the sorcerer, that he

"bewitched the people of Samaria," who believed that these

things were done f rom" the great power of God" (Acts viii 9

et seq.). What else are the miracles among the Papists, than

snares and deceptions? What else do they teach, than that they

themselves ought to be worshipped as deities, and that men

should give up the worship of the Lord? Have wonder-working

images any other effect? Have the idols or dead bodies of saints

throughout Popedom any other purpose? Those of Anthony of

Padua, of the three wise men of Cologne, and of all the rest,

whose miracles fill the monasteries? What have they taught

concerning Christ? What concerning heaven and eternal life?

Nota syllable.53. AnLQhurch and any coherent relig!on are impossible,

unless ' it is believed that God is One. When, therefore, the

Divine Trinity is believed to be divided into three Persons, how

can the metaphysical term" essence" make of the three one, so

long as the properties of each person are diverse, yea, so diversethat they are said not to be communicable and so long as

equal, proper persons subsist by themselves, and one person hasno part and no quality in another, or of another, person? But,

as soon as it is believed that the one God is not only Creator,but also Redeemer and Operator, then we have one God; and

then for the first time the Church exists and subsists, and religionlives. And there cannot be this union of three otherwise han, as

in every man, that of the soUl) the body;' and the roceeding.' l i l l 2- - r ~




These three make one man: and why no God-,-w-ho is·-Very\

Man from firsts to l a s t ~ These things concerning G o d - M a ~ . . . J have been explained in the book concerning " Tile Divine]

Love and Wisdom," and may be consulted; and that He is

neither ether, nor air, nor wind. That the soul of every mall isthe man himself, thence follows. - . - -

As we n o ~ have in the Church one God, who is God-Man

and Man-God, this Church is called the crown of all the churches.

54. That in Christ M an is God:

From three places in the Formula Concordie;

From Paul (Rom. xiv 11 and Coloss. ii 9) ;

From John (first Epistle V 20, 21);

and from the words of the Lord:

I. That God was the Word, and the Word became flesh;2. That all things of the Father are His;

3. That all who are of the Father come to Him;

4. That as the Father hath life in Himself, so has the Son

(" Life in Himself" is God);

5. That the Father and He are one;

6. That He is in the Father, and the Father in Him;

7. That he who seeth Him, seeth the Father;

8. That He is God of heaven and earth;

9. That He governs the universe (from the Creed);

10. That He is called" Jehovah, the Redeemer";

11. That He is called" J ehovah, our Righteousness";

12. That it is said that Jehovah would come into the world;

13. In the Apocalypse (chap. i) it is said, that He is " the

First and the Last";

rI4) In a word, that He is God the Father who is invisible, in~ u m a n which is visible before minds.Inasmuch as there is thus one God in the Church, the Church

is the Church; etc ., etc.

From the Athanasian Creed: that God and Man in Christ is one

Person, like soul and body. Also that the Human Nature wastaken up into God.

55. CONCERNING MIRACLES.

From the sons of Israel; ,

From the Lord's words concerning the rich man and Lazarus;

From the Lord's words in Matt. xxiv 24.

The Popish miracles (which are to be enumerated). Theyonly lead astray, and do not teach anything except that they are

to be invoked as deities, and this to the end that they y bri!!ggold and silver to the monasteries, or, that they may scrape

together the treasures of the whole world. The miracles of

112



INVITATION TO THE N EW C H U R C H [55-58

many of them ; as, for instance, those of Anthony at Padua;

those of the three wise men of Cologne; those of the wonder

working images, at which treasures are collected; everywherein the monasteries, where the walls are covered with piCtures-of

\ the miracles worked by -their s a i n t s , a n e t - o f - t h e 1 I d ~ T h e boofS-concerning the miracles of Paris 1 and others; what else

are they f o r , ~ b u t t p . i l . ! J s a i n t s ] may be invoked for the purpose ofraking in gifts? But who among them has thus far taught the

way to heaven, and the truths of the Church out of the Word?

For this reason it has pleased the Lord to prepare me frommy earliest youth for the perception of the Word, an<:fHe-has

Introduced me into the spiritual world, and enlightened me with the light

of HisWord more

nearly.I t

ishence

manifestthat

this sur asses all miracles.Beelzebub did miracles, more than any other of the gentile

goclS;-as is plain from the Old Testament; also Simon the

sorcerer.56. -That the Lord made the Natural Man in Himself Divine,

, to the end that He might be t he- Firstancr tIieLaSt ;a nd is thus

able to enter wi th men even to their natura man, and teach

this from the Word, and lead it. For He rose with the whole

natural or external man, and did not leave anything whateverof it in the sepulchre; on which account He declared that He

had bones and flesh, which spirits have not; and [hence it is]that He ate and drank natural food with His disciples, and indeed

before their eyes. haTH ewas-IJivine,-He sliowed by passingthrough doors, and by becoming invisible, which would have

been impossible, unless His natural man itself also had been

made Divine.57. T ha t all those things which are said by the orthodox at

the present day concerning the" sending" of the Holy Spiritfall to the ground as soon as it is known that the Lord IS con

stantly resent i r man and cau ses him to live as man;

an t at He dwells with man in order that man may go to meet

the Lord; and that even if he does not go to meet Him, he stillhas rationality from Him , which is impossible withou t the Lord's

presence. I f the Lord .were abs ent from man, he would not be

an animal, but a kind of corpse which would be disintegrated.This is meant in Genesis by " God breathing into him a living

soul" (Gen. ii 7).~ T h Lord is _he " ~ n g d o ~ - 2 . f God" (this is to be shownfrom the PvordJ; thus, H e is H eav en and the Church.

1 See footnote on p. 88.

113



59] I N V I T A T I O N TO T H E N E W C H U R C H

@ T he r e ~ ! e s t ower dwells in correspondences (to beshown),

because ! ~ . t h e m a v n and the world, or the spiritual and thenatural, are to ether; and-for this reason the Word has beep.

- wr:ffien by pure correspondences, wherefore by it there is c0!1

Junction ofm an (Wltll eaven,-and thus It t e Lord. i:J!ill;,also, the Lord i s inf irst'ai1cl at the same time in last thins-so

Therefore the sacraments have been instituted through corre

spondences, in which, therefore, there is Djyine p ~ e r

114

Swedenborg THE CORONIS or Appendix to the True Christian Religion The INVITATION to the NEW CHURCH...

Documents

Transcript of Swedenborg THE CORONIS or Appendix to the True Christian Religion The INVITATION to the NEW CHURCH...