ADVERTISEMENT. The present edition of this work is a reprint of the last English edition (1839.) The work has received a new translation. In the Advertisement, it is said—" As regards the translation, we have striven to be faithful to the original, and to give correctly-verbal, rather than doctrinal renderings, of the author's abstract terms (such as naturale, spirituale, &c. &c.); it being no part of a translator's function to lead other persons to look at the subject through the medium of his notions of it. We have simply endeavored to pour the author's ideas from Latin into English vessels, and we hope it will be found, that but little of meaning or of force has been wasted in the process of transfusion. It is proper to mention here, that the word "animus" ("innumerabiles affectiones constituunt animum,") has been carried into the translation, from the extreme difficulty of rendering it into English; since "mind," by which it has been usually translated, refers too exclusively to the intellect to convey the meaning at all, and "disposition," although much nearer to the mark, is a rendering which does not admit of uniform adoption. The reader will also detect a few new and unusual expressions, which we have not adopted without a deliberate conviction of their necessity, and which we just glance at, to prevent him from mistaking them, for the results of haste, or mere unwittingness." OF THE LAST JUDGMENT, AND THE BABYLON WHICH HAS BEEN DESTROYED. THAT THE DAY OF THE LAST JUDGMENT DOES NOT MEAN THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD. 1. THEY who have been unacquainted with the spiritual sense of the Word, have always understood that all things in the visible world will be destroyed in the day of the last judgment; for it is said, that heaven and earth are then to perish, and that God will create a new heaven and a new earth: in which opinion they have also confirmed themselves because it is said, that all men are then to rise from their graves, and that the good are then to be separated from the evil, with more to the same purport: but it is thus expressed in the literal sense of the Word, because this sense of the Word is natural, and in the ultimate of divine order, of which the whole and every part contains a spiritual sense within it for which reason, he who comprehends the Word only according to the sense of the letter, may be led into various opinions, as actually is the case in the Christian world, where so many heresies exist from this ground, and every one of them is confirmed from the Word. But since no one has hitherto known, that in the whole, and in every part of the Word there is a spiritual sense, nor even what a spiritual sense is, therefore they who have embraced this opinion concerning the last judgment, are pardonable. But still they may now know, that neither the visible heaven nor the habitable earth will perish, but that both will remain forever; and that by a new heaven and a new earth is to be understood a new church, both in the heavens and on the earth: it is said a new church in the heavens, for there is a church in the heavens, as well as on the earth; for there also is the Word, and likewise preachings, and divine wor ship like that on the earth; yet with a difference, that ail these things are in a more perfect state, because they are not in the natural world, but in the spiritual; hence all who dwell there are spiritual men, and not natural as they were in the world. That it is so, may be seen in the work on HEAVEN, in a special article, on the conjunction of heaven with man by the Word. n. 303 to 310; and on divine worship in heaven. n. 221 to 227. 2. The passages in the Word, in which mention is made of the destruction of heaven and earth, are the following: "Lift up your eyes to heaven, and look upon the land beneath: the heavens are about to perish like smoke, and the land shall wax old like a garment." Isaiah li. 6. "Behold, I am about to create new heavens, and a new earth; neither shall former things be remembered." Isai. lxv. 17. "I will make new heavens and a new earth." Isai. lxvi. 22. "The stars of heaven have fallen to the earth, and heaven has departed like a scroll rolled together." Rev. vi. 13, 14. "I saw a great throne, and one sitting thereon, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and their place was not found." Rev. xx. 11. "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away." Rev. xxi. 1. In these passages, by a new heaven is not meant a visible heaven, but the very heaven where the human race is assembled; for a heaven was formed from all the human race, who had lived since the commencement of the Christian church; but they who were in it were not angels, but spirits of various religions; this heaven is understood by the first heaven which was to perish; but how this was, shall be specially declared in what follows; here is related only so much as serves to show what is meant by the first heaven which was to perish. Every one even, who thinks from a somewhat enlightened reason, may perceive, that it is not the starry heaven, the so immense firmament of creation, which is here meant, but that it is heaven in a spiritual sense, where angels and spirits are. 3. That a new earth (or land) means a new church on earth, has hitherto been unknown, for every one by land in the Word has understood the land, when yet by land is meant the church; in a natural sense, land is the land, but in a spiritual sense it is the church, because they who are in the spiritual sense, that is, who are spiritual, as the angels are, when land is named in the Word, do not understand the land itself, but the nation which is there, and its Divine worship; hence it is that by land is signified the church; |