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النشر الإلكتروني

IV.

That after the Consummation or End of this Church, the Lord Jehovih appears, and executes Judgment upon the Men of the former Church, and separates the good from the evil, and elevates the good to himself into Heaven, and removes the evil from himself into Hell.

10. THAT about the end of every church the Lord Jehovih appears, to execute judgment upon those who have lived from the first establishment thereof to it's consummation, shall be confirmed in the following pages, wherein a distinct account shall be given of each church. Every man indeed is judged after death; but at the end of a church all are collected together, and a common [or general] judgment is executed upon them; and this to the intent that they may be conjoined into heavenly order, which is effected by the orderly arrangement of the faithful into a New Heaven, and of the unfaithful into a New Hell under it; conceriting which arrangement we shall speak more at large in the following article.

11. The judgment, which is the last of every church, does not take place in the natural world, but in the spiritual world, into which all are collected after death; and they are collected into heavens distinctly according to religion, thus according to faith and love. The reason why the judgment takes place in the spiritual world is, because every man after death is a man, not a material man, as before, but a substantial man: the mind or spirit

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of every man is such a man; the body, which he carried about in the world, is only a covering, and like cast-off clothes, which he hath laid aside, and out of which his spirit hath extricated itself. Now since the mind or

spirit of a man thought in the material body, and did so either from religion or not from religion, either for God or against God, either from the truths of faith or from the falses of faith, either loved his neighbour or hated him, and since the material body was only obedience, it follows, that the mind, which is the substantial man, and is called the spirit, undergoes judgment, and is rewarded or punished according to the intentions and acts of his life. From these considerations it may be clearly and plainly seen, that the judgment, which is the last of every church, takes place in the spiritual world, but not in the natural world.

12. The judgment, which takes place upon all of the past church, is effected to the end that the good may be separated from the evil both generally and particularly, and that the good may be elevated into heaven, and the evil cast down into hell. Were this not to be done, when the church is consummated, that is, when it is no longer in truths and goods, not a single person therein could be saved; the reason of which is, because not a single person could be regenerated, and every one is regenerated by the truths of faith and the goods of love. To the above reason may be added the following, that from the time of the vastation of the church until it's consummation, hell increases from below to such a degree, as to veil and obscure the whole angelic heaven, through which regenerating truths and goods descend

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from the Lord to men on earth; and when the angelic heaven is so veiled and obscured, not any truth of thought from faith, nor any good of will from charity, can penetrate, unless it be through chinks; yea, what does penetrate is perverted either in the way before it reaches man, or else by man himself, when he is in it; that is, the truth is either rejected or falsified, and the good is either checked or adulterated; in a word, the church at it's end is as it were obsessed by satans; they are called satans, who take pleasure in falses, and are delighted with evils. In order therefore to remove the total damnation, which hangs over the head of every one, and threatens to fail upon him, it is necessary that hell, which hath raised itself on high, and, as was said, grown up from below even to heaven, be removed, not only depressed, but also dispersed and subjugated, and that the good be then separated from the evil, that is, the living from the dead. This separation, and at the same time the elevation of the good into heaven or into the earth of the living, and the casting down of the evil into hell or into the earth of the dead, is what is called the judgment. That such a judgment was executed in the year 1757 upon the men of the present christian church, has been made public and described in a small treatise on the subject, published at London in the year

1758.

13. Who doth not see the necessity there is, that the evil should be separated from the good, lest the latter be infected with the deadly contagion of evil, and perish? for evil, being from the birth implanted in human nature, and more and more engendered in children from their

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parents, as the church advances towards consummation, is like the pernicious disease called a cancer, which spreads itself around, and gradually destroys the sound and living parts. What husbandman or gardener is there, who, when he sees an increase of briars, nettles, thorns, and thistles, doth not root them out, before he sows and dresses his land for the production of corn and esculent plants? What planter, when he sees the herbs and grass consumed by worms or locusts, doth not dig a ditch, and separate the field which is in a flourishing state from that which is laid waste, and thus take measures for the preservation of his standing corn and green fields? What shepherd, when he observes the wild beasts to multiply about the pastures of his sheep, doth not call together the neighbouring shepherds and servants, for the purpose of killing or driving away those wild beasts with darts or other weapons? What king, when he sees the cities of his kingdom round about his metropolis captured by enemies, and the property of his subjects in their possession, doth not collect troops, and drive the enemies out, and restore the property taken by them to the rightful owners, and in addition thereto present them with the valuable spoils of the enemy, and thereby console them?

v.

That after these Things the Lord Jehovih founds a New Heaven of the good who are elevated to himself, and a New Hell of the evil who are removed from himself; and that he induceth Order over each, that they may stand under his Auspices, and under Obedience to him, to Eternity.

14. WE read in Isaiah, Jehovah said, Behold I create NEW HEAVENS and a NEW EARTH, chap. lxv. 17: and again in the same prophet, As the NEW HEAVENS and the NEW EARTH, which I will make, shall stand before me, chap. lxvi. 22. In the Apocalypse, I saw a NEW HEAVEN and a NEW EARTH; the former heaven and the former earth passed away, chap. xxi. 1. And in Peter, We expect, according to promise, NEW HEAVENS and a NEW EARTH, in which justice shall dwell, Epist. II. chap. iii. 13. Heretofore it hath not entered into the mind of any one to suppose otherwise, than that by heaven in the above-cited passages is meant the visible heaven, that is, the whole firmament with the sun, moon, and stars, and that by earth is there meant the habitable earth or globe, and that these will perish in the day of the last judgment; when nevertheless by heaven is there meant the angelic heaven, and by earth the church. That by earth in the Prophetic Word throughout is meant the church, hath been fully shewn in the APOCALYPSE REVEALED, n. 285. The reason why by new heavens and a new earth men have heretofore understood the visible heaven and the habitable earth, is, because they have heretofore known nothing

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