Cornell University Library 
 BS2825 .H41 
 
 Ten lecture, on the booK, ' 
 
 3 1924 029 295 157 
 
 olln 
 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 /iBTL^i. 
 
 ^ :h I /') yg-» 
 
 
 
 
 ^ Wl mP 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED INU.S.A, 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tlnis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 9240292951 57 
 
THE APOCALYPTIC DISPENSATION. 
 
 TEN LECTURES 
 
 BOOK OF REVELATION. 
 
 WILLIAM B. HAYDEN. 
 
 A MIDISTEB OF THE SEW JERUSALEM CUCBOH. 
 
 BOSTON : T. H. CARTER & CO. 
 
 CHICAGO: E. B. MEYERS & CHANDLER. 
 
 1865. 
 
Entered accordtns to Act of Congress, In the year 18G5, by 
 
 T. H. CARTER & GOMTANY, 
 In the Clork'fl Office of the DiHtrict Coart of MaHsachiuetti. 
 
 LI 
 
 V 
 
 
 
SSetiicatiott. 
 
 To the members of the Society and Parish of the 
 New Jerusalem Church in Portland, Maine, endeared to the 
 author by a multitude of kindly attentions during a pastoral 
 connection of fifteen years, this volume is affectionately 
 inscribed. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Ok the Character op Plenarilt Inspired Sacred 
 
 Scripture 7 
 
 LECTUEE II. 
 
 On the true Method op interpreting Plenarilt 
 
 Inspired Sacred Scripture 27 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 On The Second Coming op the Lord, and the First 
 
 Three Chapters op Kevblation .... 47 
 
 LECTUEE IV. 
 
 SuMMART View op the Contents op the whole Book 
 
 of Revelation: Chapter IV 69 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 The Opening op the Book sealed with Seven Seals, 
 AND THE Sealing op the Twelve Tribes: Chap- 
 
 tr TT-T .^„ VTT .93 
 
b CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 The Pike op the Golden Censer, and the Sounding 
 
 OF THE Seven Teumpets : Chaptees VIII. and IX. 115 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 The Little Book in the Angels' Hand ; and the Tes- 
 timony OP the Two Witnesses : Chapteks X. XI. 137 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 The New Chuech in the Spieitual Woeld ; the New 
 Heaven and the Seven Last Plagdes : Chaptees 
 
 XII. TO XVIII. INCLUSIVE 159 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 The Inaugubation op the Apocalyptic Dispensation ; 
 THE Closing Scenes op the Judgment of the 
 Peoples out op Christendom, oe the Gentiles : 
 Chaptees XIX. and XX 181 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 Descent op the New Jeeusalem, and Foemation of 
 THE Lattee-Dat Chuech: Chaptees XXI. and 
 XXII 205 
 
 APPENDIX OF NOTES 227 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 CONTENTS : — Chaeacter op Sacred Scriptures ; 
 Reasons for beueving the Bible a truly Divine 
 Book — the Word op God to Men; The Divine Lan- 
 guage, AND Style op Writing ; Nature op Inspira- 
 tion WHEREIN it consists; HoW "THE WoRD " WAS 
 
 given to THE Prophets ; A Spiritual Sense through- 
 OUT EVERY Part ; Explanation of the remarkable 
 Vision in the first Chapter op Ezekiel ; Why the 
 First Tables of the Law were broken. 
 
LECTURE. 
 
 " For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels." — 
 Ezek. i. 20. 
 
 OuE theme this evening is the Sacred Scripture. Its 
 bearing on the general subject we have in prospect is 
 obvious. For as we come to a right apprehension of 
 the character of the whole, the better shall we be pre- 
 pared to understand correctly that particular portion 
 which will be our more especial study. 
 
 The importance, too, of the subject will be readily 
 seen and admitted. For the Scripture is the founda- 
 tion of all our beliefs in spiritual things, the fountain 
 out of which we draw the very life-Mood of our 
 religion. The church is built upon the Bible, and the 
 character she attributes to it, and the manner in which 
 she interprets it, will determine her own character, — 
 the amount and quality of her inner life. 
 
 It is the great question' of the time, this concerning 
 the Holy Writings, their canonicity, their authority, 
 their inspiration. How much there is now written on 
 the subject, and how many different solutions do we 
 hear of the several problems I What is inspiration ? 
 and where is it ? What opposite theories I And how 
 little meaning is the word sometimes made to carry I 
 But over and above, and behind all the controversies 
 of the day, there is the profound spirit of inquiry still 
 
10 LECTURE I. 
 
 unsatisfied ; the rational mind seeking for some definite 
 thought in which to rest, while the awakened Christian 
 heart longs for a clearer view of those deeper mys- 
 teries of meaning which it feels are wrapped up in the 
 pregnant sentences of this cherished Volume. 
 
 We believe the Bible to be a truly Divine Book, an 
 Inspired Writing, — a communication from the Most 
 High, — the Word of God to man. And we use these 
 phrases in their fullest sense, without the purpose of 
 giving them an interpretation which shall in effect 
 vacate or dilute their meaning. We believe that some- 
 thing of this Word was given to man at the beginning, 
 (at first oral, afterwards written,) as his instructor 
 and guide ; that the world has never been ■ without 
 portions of it, somewhere preserved, and that it has 
 been providentially kept and added to, as circum- 
 stances required, as a central influence in the develop- 
 ment of the world's history. 
 
 The contgnts of the Word are direct communica- 
 tions from the Lord. Jehovah came, and through an 
 angel talked with Moses face to face, as a man talketh 
 with his friend. He communicated to him the very 
 words of the Law, in its entire length, by a living 
 voice, on Mt. Sinai. So He communicated all the 
 days of Moses and all the days of Joshua ; so He 
 communicated with the prophets. The Ten Command- 
 ments were written by Himself on the two tables of 
 stone ; " and the tables were the work of God, and the 
 writing was the writing of God, graven upon the 
 tables." Again, we read that " Moses wrote all the 
 words of Jehovah ; " while in the Psalm it is affirmed 
 that " Jehovah gave the word : great was the com- 
 pany of those that published it." 
 
WHAT THE "WORD" IS. 11 
 
 Thus came the book which we now call, and rev- 
 erence as, the Word of God. 
 
 What? (some one may say) the Infinite make a 
 book I — the Almighty, Ineffable, Unapproachable 
 Spirit, — the great Being of beings, whom the thought 
 of man pannot reach up to, nor the understanding 
 grasp, — shall He condescend to fashion pieces of 
 stone ? Will He stoop to be an imitator of man's art 
 in composing the words of a book ? 
 
 Why not? The Infinite Mind is every day and 
 moment engaged in processes far more minute and 
 intricate, by the million, on every side of us. Did 
 you ever behold a table of stone that was not made 
 and fashioned by him ? Then, as to writing a book, 
 or causing one to be written, the wisdom, the thought, 
 and even the very expressions of which shall come 
 from Him, so that we can truly say of it, this is the 
 Divine Book, God is its Author, — what improbable in 
 that ? If man can be an author, then why not He 
 who made man ? It is Mind speaking to mind. And 
 as the Psalm asks, " He who formed the eye, shall He 
 not see ? He that planted the ear, shall He not 
 hear ? " — so we ask of all the other human faculties, 
 shall not He who formed them all, exercise them all ? and 
 that, too, in infinite degree. That He possesses the 
 power of communicating His thought by written lan- 
 guage none can doubt. What more probable, then, 
 than that He 'will exercise this power for the good of 
 His creatures ? 
 
 Man is the imitator of his Maker ; he is created in 
 
 the Divine image and likeness, and possesses no single 
 
 faculty or mental feature but is in some way a faint 
 
 ' reflection of a Divine faculty to which it corresponds. 
 
12 LECTURE I. 
 
 Man is a thinker because his Maker is a thinker. And 
 so he is an author or writer because his Maker is an 
 author and writer. The Divine Book is the first book, 
 and all human books are imitations. The revelation 
 of truth from above was the precursor and stimulator 
 of human thought. And the Word, written by Divine 
 command, for preservation, was the grand archetype 
 and suggester of all other books.* 
 
 The truth is that the human mind desires light on 
 the higher class of subjects. It looks into itself in 
 vain for replies to the soul's great questions. Men 
 everywhere distrust themselves and confess their own 
 ignorance. The heart yearns for an infallible founda- 
 tion on which to rest in peace, and the intellect longs 
 for the rule of an infallible guide ; something that 
 shall speak to it out of the invisible and unknown, 
 telling it, with authority, of unknown and invisible 
 things. Thus does humanity grope for the Eock of 
 Ages, and is not satisfied until it finds it. These words 
 of the Psalm express a feeling latent in the heart of 
 universal man : "As the hart panteth for the water- 
 brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, God. My 
 soul thirsteth for God, for the living God ; when shall 
 I come and appear before God." Here is the want, 
 and the revealed word of God is the supply. " When 
 I found thy words, I did eat them, and they were the 
 joy and rejoicing of my heart." 
 
 As children in a family naturally run to the father 
 for guidance in perplexity, and for an explanation of 
 things not understood, so the great family of man as 
 
 * We believe of course in a Holy Book or Books before the 
 time of Moses. 
 
WHAT THE "word" IS. 13 
 
 naturally and normally looks up to the heavenly 
 Father for guidance in the day of trouble, and for a 
 definite solution of the . great problems of spiritual 
 thought. And when God speaks, or they believe He 
 speaks, men will listen, but not otherwise. The Divine 
 Voice, coming through the darkness, they will rever- 
 ence and obey, but no other. None other whatever 
 could penetrate the conscience, awaken the spiritual 
 life, command the obedience, or renew the hearts of 
 men. 
 
 Look at it from one other point, — the end or Divine 
 purpose for which men are created. As it is expressed 
 in the writings of the church, this end is " that there 
 may be a heaven out of the human race." This, then, 
 is the object of all this world. This is the seminary 
 where all this training and preparation are to go on. 
 For this cause the Creator has built up this great 
 material universe, by processes millions of years long, 
 filling it with every conceivable form of useful instru- 
 mentality, and covering it at last with multitudes of 
 people, who, as the years roll by, rise into being, open 
 their minds and hearts to the varied thought and feel- 
 ing of life, develop • their characters, and then pass 
 forward to their final state. This world being all the 
 while the grand seminary, the divinely constructed 
 and appointed schoolhouse, where they were to learn 
 the great truths of being, — the nature and attributes 
 of God, their own relations to Him, their duties here 
 and hereafter, the orderly laws of their own souls' 
 growth, the infallible rules of justice and virtue, and 
 their own immortal destiny, — that so, they might 
 attain to. the divine end of their creation, and by 
 2 
 
14 LECTUEE I. 
 
 giving heed to holy instructions, be prepared to live 
 in heaven, in the pi-esence of the Lord, forever. 
 
 Would the Lord, after having fitted up the Seminary 
 on so grand a scale, liave omitted the most important 
 instrument of all, — a Book, or a series of Books, out 
 of which the necessary truths could be learned ? A 
 written work, a repository of the knowledge to be 
 gained, is an indispensable condition to the attainment 
 of the object in view. ' Is it probable, therefore, or 
 even credible, that after having done so much, the 
 Lord should fail to provide an adequate and appropri- 
 ate Book ? No, my friends, a world without a Bibl« 
 would be as great an anomaly, and as little conform- 
 able to reason, as a college or high school with no 
 library, maps, charts, or books of instruction. The 
 central instrumentality of the whole scheme would be 
 wanting. 
 
 Here, then, we stand, with the Word of God authen- 
 ticated to the reason, attested by every antecedent 
 probability that can be rationally urged, and confirmed 
 by the constant presence of such a Book, as an actu- 
 ally existing, long-established, and successive histor- 
 ical fact. The simple chronology of its authorship, 
 epanpng the ages, stretching through a long series 
 of individual prophets, of dififerent eras, and peoples, 
 and tongues, for four or five thousand years, yet pre- 
 serving through all a compact unity of purpose and 
 plan, of precept and doctrine, transcending, as it does, 
 all human ability, goes very far in attesting its Divine 
 origin. 
 
 Next, then, as to the character of this Book, oomin* 
 thus from God, and addressed to man. We believe it 
 to be imbued with the qualities of the Divine Mind, 
 
WHAT THE "WOED" IS. 15 
 
 and to be as different from a merely human book as 
 any other Divine work has points of essential differ- 
 ence from anything man can do. 
 
 Many aver that the Scripture is to be searched like 
 any human composition ; that it is to be treated pre- 
 cisely like any other book, and its whole meaning 
 ascertained in the same way, — from the plain gram- 
 matical sense. If the Bible were precisely like all 
 other books, this rule wpuld hold good ; but inasmuch 
 as in some most important respects it is wholly unlike 
 any other composition that ever existed, it is essen- 
 tially an erroneous maxim of interpretation, and can 
 never bring forth the truth out of the sacred volume. 
 The common import of the letter is to be understood 
 in that way, but the deeper meaning concealed within, 
 the spirit, which gives life to the letter, and in which 
 resides the heavenly quality of the writing, cannot 
 be reached or evolved by that process. 
 
 As we have seen, it is a Divine composition ; some- 
 thing extraordinary, something entirely aside from and 
 beyond every work of human art. It is not simple, as 
 many affirm ; it is the most wonderful and complex 
 production in the universe, corresponding to the 
 Infinite Mind that produced it. It is the Maker 
 speaking to his creatures, — " the language of God in 
 the language of men." And while it has therefore 
 an external, human element by which it is related to 
 the outward world and the natural apprehension, it 
 has also an internal, Divine element, looking upward 
 towards God and heaven. Divine love and Divine 
 wisdom have filled its pages full of meaning, so full 
 that men cannot fathom it all, it will be the study and 
 the wonder and the source of light to angels and the 
 spirits of the just forever. 
 
16 LECTURE I. 
 
 It was written for a spiritual purpose, — with a 
 spiritual end in view, to accomplish spiritual results, 
 and has a spiritual sense or meaning running through 
 every portion of it, parallel to, and yet distinct and dis- 
 tinguishable from the letter. It is in the spiritual sense 
 or meaning that its essential qualities reside, that is 
 the sense which constitutes the heavenly glory of the 
 Word, — the sense which evolves the most wonderful 
 things of wisdom to the thought, — and the sense 
 which is open to the understanding of the angels. 
 Could the Divine Mind speak, uttering its thought, 
 without speaking what would be wisdom for angels as 
 well as for men ? 
 
 As just quoted, it is " the language of God in the 
 language of men," a twofold book for a twofold 
 being, unfolding continually new and higher meaning 
 as the understanding is opened to perceive it. As 
 man has two natures, one relating him to the outward 
 world and to common affairs, the other relating him to 
 God and heaven and eternal life, so the Bible is given 
 with two parallel lines of thought, one for the natural 
 mind, to arrest, instruct, and lift it up, the other for 
 thq spiritual mind, to enlighten, to feed and nourish it 
 in the elements of eternal life. 
 
 This complex nature of the Divine Word is strictly 
 conformable to all we know of the Creator's opera- 
 tions everywhere. They are complex while man's are 
 simple. Man's operations are confined to the surface 
 of a thing ; he merely fashions substance, and smooths 
 over the outward form. But God creates substance, 
 and imparts the interior laws of its growth and com- 
 position. The genius of a human artist is all visible 
 on the outside of his production, but the wonderful 
 
WHAT THE "WOED" IS. 17 
 
 wisdom of the Creator is found displayed in the insidfe 
 structure of things, — in the chemistries and physiolr 
 ogies of natural objeets. Man makes a statue in the 
 likeness of a human being, by chiselling the outside 
 of a stone, or moulding the bronze, into a given 
 shape ; but the Lord, the Creator, fashions the, human 
 body into a living structure, its interior parts leaping 
 with motion and replete with vitality throughout, and 
 concealing a whole world of wonders, — of organ 
 within organ • and function within function, — beneath 
 the surface. 
 
 Shall not the Divine Book, then, in like manner, 
 traaiscend every human book, in the depths of its 
 wisdom, in the structure of its thought, in the style 
 of its composition, in the multiplicity of its meaning, 
 in iiie complexity of its parts ? Man makes a book, 
 transcribing the outward image of a thought, but God 
 utters supreme wisdom, the very substance of truth 
 itself, the laws of spiritual existence, the liviag 
 structure out of which spring the everlasting ideas 
 ef thought. 
 
 This remarkable character of the Divine Word is 
 abundantly confimned from the pages of the Book 
 itself. Take as an instance the chapter in which the 
 text occurs, — the first chapter of Ezekiel. The 
 prophet being brought by Divine influence into a state 
 of the spirit, "the heavens were opened" unto, him, 
 and he " saw visions of God." With the senses of 
 his spiritual body thus opened and brought into exer- 
 cise, that he might be able to see and hear things in 
 the other world, we then read further, that " The Word 
 of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel, the priest, 
 * * * and the hand of the Lord was there upon him." 
 2* 
 
18 LEOTUKE I. 
 
 A vision of the Holy " Word " was then unfolded to 
 him. And what a stupendous exhibition of symbol- 
 ism is there brought to view I Did any one ever else- 
 where read anything like it? What a wonderful 
 cluster of emblematic figures is there presented, and 
 how gorgeous and glorious is the entire array ! How 
 involved and intricate do the different parts appear I 
 — a chapter which the Jewish youth were not allowed 
 to read till thirty years of age. Does it seem as 
 though the meaning of the different parts could ever 
 be distinctly made out. What commentator, from 
 Origen to Olshausen, has given an explanation of this 
 vision ? Not one. And yet every symbol has a 
 meaning, each standing for a distinct thought, the 
 whole cohering in a most beautiful order. In the 
 letter, the vision is without definite meaning ; it is in 
 the spiritual sense, as explained in the writings of the 
 New Jerusalem, that the meaning becomes not only 
 clear, but sublime. 
 
 Here, as already said, we have a representative 
 picture of the Divine Word itself: " The Word of the 
 Lord " coming " expressly to Ezekiel, the priest ; " — 
 a description given from heaven of the wonderful 
 things contained and involved in the Word of the 
 Lord. Its inspiration or procedure from the Lord 
 himself, its living connection with Him, its descent 
 through heaven, its descent to and operation upon the 
 earth, the wonderful nature of its truths, and its great 
 glory when seen in its true light, are all distinctly por- 
 trayed. 
 
 The first thing the prophet saw was a whirlwind 
 coming out of the north, bearing along a great cloud, 
 and a fire infolding itself; with a brightness sliining 
 
WHAT THE "word" IS. 19 
 
 forth out of the midst of it and round about it like the 
 color of amber. The vision of a whirlwind, — a 
 powerful, involved, and circular motion of air, — on a 
 grand scale, applied to the Sacred Scripture, means 
 that it is a work of the Holy Spirit, that it is inspired 
 from on high, — "God-breathed," as it is expressed 
 in the original tongue. For the invisible atmosphere 
 in motion, producing visible effects, or, the wind, 
 blowing where it listeth, we hearing the sound there- 
 of, yet knowing not whence it cometh or whither it 
 goeth, — is everywhere used in the Sacred Scripture 
 as the natural symbol of spirit and its operations ; espe- 
 cially of the Holy Spirit, or Divine breatli of the 
 Lord. The " great cloud " which the whirlwind bore 
 • along, is the "letter" of the Word ; the outward, 
 natural, plain, grammatical meaning. This is uni- 
 formly the signification of that prophetic symbol ; 
 because in the letter Divine truth has descended 
 to man's atmosphere, and become involved in the 
 obscurities of his perceptions ; for the literal sense is 
 the human element running through all the Bible. 
 And the letter really clouds and obscures the bright 
 effulgence of divine truth, and the fulness of its glory, 
 as that is seen in the spiritual world, and in 'heaven, 
 and as it may be seen by men on earth when the spir- 
 itual sense is explained to them. The letter is the 
 cloudy vail hung before the inner glory, — " the vail 
 that is spread over all nations, — the covering cast 
 over " the understandings of " all people ; " at the 
 same time concealing and revealing the ineffable light 
 of Divine truth, as a cloud of rolling cumulus in the 
 eky allows the passage of distinct sunbeams through 
 its openings, yet hides the full blaze of the solar body 
 behind its folds. 
 
20 LECXUKE I. 
 
 The infolding ^re which the prophet saw behind the 
 cloud, giving forth from itself its amber glory as it 
 moved along, is the spiritual meaning of the Word, 
 everywhere behind and within the letter, filling it with 
 heavenly light and heat, and manifesting in every part 
 Divine love in active exercise, —the infinite goodness 
 of the Lord shedding forth from itself the holy illumi- 
 nation of Divine wisdom. 
 
 Space does not allow for unfolding the signification 
 of all the things which the prophet saw, — those wonr 
 derful living creatures, with their numerous emblem- 
 atic accompaniments ; we have time now only for 
 saying that as a whole they represent those living and 
 moving powers of the spiritual world which the Lord 
 in His infinite wisdom makes use of to operate upon 
 and to influence the minds of men ; emanating firom 
 Himself, flashing from their every side the lightning 
 of His penetrating and searching truths, surrounded 
 in their high and dreadful rings by the innumerable 
 eyes of the Divine intelligence, omniscience, and cir- 
 cumspection ; touching with their lowest principles, 
 their " wheels " or feet, the very earth on which men 
 stand and move, yet reaching, in their highest or top- 
 most principles, like. Jacob's ladder, up through the 
 heaven of angelB, to the very throne of the Eternal One 
 Himself; exhibiting to view the likenesses, of things 
 animate and inanimate, high and low, — taking on 
 every form necessary to adapt themselves to the man- 
 ifold wants of mind on every plane of being, in every 
 grade of its intelligence, — ascending and descending, 
 human and angelic ; and all these, — the complex and 
 — to human view — involved, yet divinely appointed 
 influences by which universal mind is affected and 
 
WHAT THE "WORD" IS. 21 
 
 moved, is awakened, regenerated, lifted up and drawn 
 towards heaven, and sustained in heaven, — all these 
 dwelling and abiding in the letter of the Word of 
 God, which is the fulcrum of their power and the 
 Smedium of their operations ; the body, indeed, in which 
 this is contained as a living soul. " For the spirit of 
 the living creature was in the wheels." 
 
 Hence we have a clear and intelligent reason for 
 believing the Bible an entirely different collection of 
 writings from all other books. We can state distinct- 
 ly where its inspiration resides, and give a definite 
 idea of what that inspiration consists in. It is this 
 divine or heavenly element, this spiritual or angelic 
 sense, this wheel within the wheel, or meaning within 
 meaning, that constitutes it. 
 
 " For the spirit of the living creature was in the 
 wheels." This is a remarkable and significant expres- 
 sion, and is repeated twice in the passage. And the 
 meaning is that the spiritual sense is everywhere 
 within the literal sense of the Word. In the symbol- 
 ical vision, as we have seen, the wheels were the 
 lowest parts of the complex figure, — the feet, as it 
 were. And they denote the lowest principles of the 
 Scripture, the external things of the letter ; for it is 
 by, or in and through these that the spirit of truth 
 from on high moves along over the plane of earthly 
 things, adapting itself to the common level of human 
 thought and feeling, and touching, with the influences 
 of its living fires, the stratum of being in which the 
 sensuous mind of unregenerated humanity habitually 
 resides. 
 
 Hence, everywhere, throughout the Word of God, 
 there is this "spirit" within the "wheel" of the 
 
22 LECTUKE I. 
 
 " letter," — this heavenly meaning within the natural 
 meaning, like a soul in a body ; this is so, even where 
 it least appears outwardly, — in law and history, in 
 doctrine, in pSalm and prophecy, in precept and par- 
 able.* The passage before us which declares this 
 truth is worthy our special attention. 
 
 " And when the living creatures went, the wheels 
 went by them ; and when the living creatures were 
 lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up, 
 Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither 
 was their spirit to go ; and the wheels were lifted up 
 over against them : for the spirit of the living creature 
 was in the wheels. When those went, these went ; 
 and when those stood, these stood ; and when those 
 were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted 
 up over against them ; for the spirit of the living crea- 
 ture was in the wheels." A most significative declara- 
 tion ; and what more impressive or distinct mode can 
 be thought of for picturing the constant and vital 
 connection there is between the spiritual meaning and 
 literal meaning of the Scripture ? There is no move- 
 ment of the letter but on account of and for the sake 
 of the spiritual sense. Every single expression in the 
 grammatical sense is dictated and determined by the 
 flow and the demands of the spiritual idea to be rep- 
 resented. And thus the letter is everywhere " lifted 
 up " and glorified by " the spirit of life " within it. 
 Every natural idea expressed in the letter has some 
 spiritual idea to which it corresponds, and which it 
 covers or clothes. 
 
 When the Lord speaks to an angel, He does not 
 
 * See note A, at the end of the yolume. 
 
WHAT THE "WOBD" IS. 23 
 
 speak to him in purely Divine language, expressive of 
 purely Divine thought ; for if He did, the angel could 
 not understand Him ; it would be above his apprehen- 
 sion. But the Lord adapts Himself to the angel's 
 capacities ; He speaks to him in a language he is 
 accustomed to hear (or at least can understand), 
 clothing His Divine thought in forms and ideas such 
 as He finds in the angel's mind, which are most suitable 
 to His purpose. 
 
 And so when He speaks to a man through an angel, 
 He does not speak to him in the purely Divine lan- 
 guage, nor yet ia the purely angelic language, for 
 then the man would not understand Him ; it would be 
 beyond the range of his knowledge and out of the 
 reach of his thought. But he selects from the man's 
 mind such knowledges and such ideas and memories 
 as are best fitted to image and convey the Divine 
 and angelic meanings He wishes to communicate, and 
 with His heavenly ideas thus vailed, or clothed and 
 covered, He speaks to the man in the man's own 
 language, and in a style of thought which he can, 
 more or less, understand and appreciate. 
 
 It is thus that the Word of the Lord was given to 
 the prophets ; it was thus the Law was given to 
 Moses ; thus that the Psalms were given to David ; 
 and thus, too, that the Word of the New Testament 
 was written. And so we have a Divine element, 
 together with a human element, throughout the Sacred 
 Scripture. 
 
 It is a common expression found in theological 
 writings of the day, that the Divine and human ele- 
 ments are " commingled " with each other in the 
 Bible. And the idea connected with it seems to be 
 
£4 LECTUKE I. 
 
 qtiite vague and indistinct, as of a ccmfiiBed mifflflg 
 of one thing with another. But this is not so. Prop- 
 erly speaking, there is no mingling of the Divine with 
 the human in any instaftce. The two elements are 
 perfectly distinct, and always separable from each 
 other, running in parallel lines, but never crossing ; 
 the earthly elements clothing the heavenly, as the 
 ideely-fitting garments of a man clothe his body. 
 
 It is to be noted, also, that even what is called the 
 human portion, — the expressions of natural thought 
 and feeling in the literal sense, — are, in a very impcrr- 
 tant sense, a Divine work. For the materials out of 
 which that portion is woven were all first divinely 
 superintended and prepared, and then divinely selected 
 and arranged, like so many carefully polished stones, 
 in that grand, inimitable mosaic, constituting the 
 literal ground or table of Holy Scripture. 
 
 This great fact, — the necessity in the nature of 
 things for the existence of this human material as a 
 literal basis for a Divine Word, — is strikingly, and at 
 the same time beautifully set forth in a transaction 
 recorded in the Book of Exodus, — a transaction 
 divinely ordered, and then recorded in the Word, that 
 It might dramatize and thus represent this very truth. 
 We read that at first Jehovah himself- fashioned two 
 tables of stone, and wrote on them with His own 
 finger all the words of the Law. This was to signify 
 that the utterance of the Word, or tJhe proclamation 
 of Divine truth, is the work of Jehovah Himself; and 
 that it is possible for Him to give it an outward 
 expression quite difierent from what it now wears, 
 and stripped of those particulars of human thought 
 and feeling which we now find in the letter. 
 
WHAT THE "WOEd" IS. 25 
 
 And we read further, fhat Moses was sent, with 
 these two Divine tables, down from the mountain. 
 And as he approached the camp of Israel, bearing 
 th>em m his hand, he discovered the people committing 
 idolatry, in worshipping a golden calf; which when 
 Moses saw, he threw the tables from him, and brake 
 them there beneath the mount. This was to signify 
 that such a Word would not reach the apprehensions 
 of such a people. It would be too pure, too high 
 above the plane of their accustomed thought and feel- 
 ing. The human heart, in its fallen state, is attached 
 to its idols, and must be lifted up before it can adopt 
 from love the purities of Divine truth. 
 
 Two other tables were therefore commanded to be 
 made. But this time Jehovah did not make them. 
 Moses made them, in the manner commanded by 
 Jehovah. Thus was the human element called in to 
 cooperate with the Divine. And then the Lord caused 
 to be written on those new tables prepared by the 
 hand of Moses, " all the words that were written on the 
 first tables." So the second tables contained every 
 truth that was inscribed on the first. By all which is 
 signified that the letter of Sacred Scripture is made 
 conformable to human states, to meet the forms of 
 thought and feeling of the people among whom it was 
 written ; true both of the Old Testament and the New. 
 But yet, notwithstanding the necessity of such con- 
 formity, in bridging the distance between God and 
 man, the heavenly meaning, the spiritual sense, remains 
 the same ; for the principles of Divine truth are eter- 
 nal in their nature, remaining unchangeable from age 
 to age, — the same "yesterday, to-day, and forever." 
 3 
 
26 LECTUEE I. 
 
 Having thus endeavored to portray something of 
 the nature or character of the Divine Word, our next 
 Lecture will be devoted to the key of its interpreta- 
 tion, or the general method by which its spiritual 
 meaning may be ascertained and learned. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 SECOND INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 CONTENTS : — Two Methods of iNTEKPEEHNe 
 Sacred Scripture, — the Jewish, or Literal, and 
 TRUE Christian or Spiritual Method. The Actual 
 Present State of Biblical Interpretation Half Way 
 
 BETWEEN these TWO, A MIXTURE OF BOTH. HoW THE 
 
 Spiritual Sense mat be learned, and the Meaning 
 OF EACH Symbol determined. The Doctrine of Cor- 
 respondence, OR Universal Law of Analogy between 
 SPIRITUAL Things and natural Things, the great Key: 
 WHEN the Law is known, the Scripture its own Inter- 
 preter. Illustrations of the Spiritual Sense, mean- 
 ing OF " Fire," " Water," " Bread," " Flesh and 
 Blood," and other literal Emblems or Symbols. 
 
LECTUEE. 
 
 " All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in para- 
 bles ; and without a parable spake he not unto them : that it 
 might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, ' I 
 will open my mouth in parables ; I will utter things which have 
 been kept secret from the foundation of the world.' " — Mait. 
 xiii. 34, 8S. 
 
 This is the way in which the Lord always speaks to 
 men, when He tells them of spiritual and heavenly 
 things ; the way in which He spake through His 
 prophets, and the way in which He spake when He 
 came into the world in person, uttering His own truth 
 from His own lips. It is the universal law by which 
 the Divine language falls into human language. For, 
 as the direct rays of sunshine, darting, through the 
 (almost) empty spaces, are insuflferahle, and blasting 
 to the human eye, yet, falling into the earth's atmos- 
 phere, become softened, refracted, mellowed, and dif- 
 fused, thus oifering an adapted and grateful medium 
 to the sight, so the light of Divine truth, iu descending 
 to the atmosphere of human perception and thought, 
 adapts itself, by a law inherent in the constitution of 
 things, to the conditions and wants of our mental 
 vision. 
 
 This law (of which we have spoken) is the law of 
 3* 
 
30 LECTURE II. 
 
 spiritual correspondences, according to which natural 
 and visible things are the types or emblems of spir- 
 itual and invisible things. This is not a fanciful 
 relationship, originating in the thought or imagination 
 of man ; it is organic, i. e. actually inwrought into the 
 system of nature, originating in the mind of the Divine 
 Author Himself. It is the grand truth expressed by 
 the Apostle, where he says, " For the invisible things 
 of Him from the creation of the world are clearly 
 seen, being understood by the things that are made, 
 even His eternal power and Godhead." Thus all 
 nature is, by Divine intention and appointment, one 
 great cluster of symbols, — a vast theatre in which 
 Divine ideas are embodied, and where spiritual and 
 heavenly things are imaged and portrayed. The 
 earth, the sea, the air, the starry heavens, the animal 
 creation, the human form, with their moving powers 
 and manifold manifestations, — instinct with a life from 
 above themselves, are so many living charts or hiero- 
 glyphical tables adorning the walls of this great 
 schoolhouse of the race, speaking to them of God, of 
 heaven, and eternal life ; picturing forth the Divine 
 goodness and the Divine truth in the endless variety 
 of their forms, laws, and operations, the inner world 
 all the time speaking to the soul while the outer one 
 addresses the senses. 
 
 Hence, when the Divine Book is opened, the Divine 
 charts are explained ; and again, when the charts are 
 understood, the meaning of the Book is more clearly 
 opened and illustrated ; for the Author of both is One, 
 while the language and style are the same. 
 
 The laws and processes of the natural kingdom 
 correspond to the laws and processes of the spiritual 
 
METHOD OF INTERPEETATION. 31 
 
 kingdom, setting them forth in a visible and tangible 
 manner to the thought and apprehension of the nat- 
 ural mind, while in the Sacred Scripture those natural 
 processes are used as types or symbols of the spiritual 
 processes to which they correspond. Hence the 
 origin of the phrase we employ when we say, that the 
 Bible is written according to correspondences. 
 
 One or two examples will illustrate this idea. Take 
 the words of our Lord to Nicodemus, in the third 
 chapter of John. " Jesus answered and said unto 
 him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be 
 born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
 Here, as we see, a natural process is named to set 
 forth an inward or mental process, and the idea is 
 further illustrated in the conversation which there 
 follows. Natural birth is an entrance into life, the 
 beginning of a new state of existence ; and corre- 
 sponds therefore to that mental operation by which the 
 plane and current of a man's soul is changed. By the 
 birth of a new love within him, his affections are 
 changed, and he begins a new state of existence ; it is 
 an entrance into spiritual life, and so, by continuous 
 growth, into heavenly and eternal life. " That which 
 is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of 
 the spirit is spirit." 
 
 Take again, for a second illustration, those other 
 words of our Lord, to the multitude on a certain 
 occasion: "I am the living bread which came down 
 from heaven ; if any man eat of this bread he shall 
 live forever ; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, 
 which I will give for the life of the world." — John 
 vii. 51. 
 Here quite a complex idea is involved, as a process 
 
32 LKOTUEE 11. 
 
 i» hinted at composed of a number of parts or ele- 
 ments. These words suggest at once not only the 
 idea of food and eating, but also of assimilation, — 
 of nourishment and the sustentation of life. And 
 that complicated process by which the life of the body 
 is ministered to and maintained, is used as a type of 
 that other process by which the true life of the soul 
 is fed, and nourished, and sustained. 
 
 In these two instances, we have a type of the Divine 
 method of communicating spiritual thought in human 
 language. Two distinct classes of ideas are involved. 
 A natural idea serving as the basis of a spiritual idea, 
 the natural covering the spiritual, like a drapery over 
 a statue, or containing it within, as a casket holds the 
 jewels entrusted to its keeping. 
 
 Many, perhaps most persons, will be disposed to 
 say, "0, yes, we understand that ; this is the figuraMve 
 language of Scripture." But we shall be very apt to 
 deceive ourselves in using phrases like this, unless we 
 consider carefully the ideas we entertain in regard to 
 it. If we mean that these are figures after the manner 
 of comparisons and metaphors found in human liteiia^ 
 ture, we fall into an error. For these are not mere 
 figures, but Divine analogies, founded from creation 
 in the nature of things ; particular instances of that 
 great law of universal analogy between things natural 
 and things spiritual springing from the conceptions of 
 the Infinite Mind, impressed on the visible world, of 
 which the comparisons, figures, metaphors, tropes, 
 allegories, and similitudes, found inhuman literature, 
 are but shadows and faint imitations. 
 
 But this human faculty of perceiving and speaking 
 by images and) emblems, so prominent in the language 
 
METHOD OF INTEEPRETATION. 33 
 
 of the race, is a type, — an image, or likeness, — of 
 that Divine faculty which produced the law, and which 
 vivifies its action through all time. 
 
 Thus in inspired language we have two parallel lines 
 of thought, running along on the two distinct planes 
 of perception and knowledge. This is the distinguish- 
 ing feature of plenarily inspired language. And 
 these two lines of thought running through the Word, 
 give rise to two distinct and very different modes of 
 interpretation, the literal and the spiritual. They may 
 also, not improperly, be termed the Jewish and the 
 True Christian, for the Jewish method is literal, while 
 the True Christian is spiritual. Illustrations of these 
 two methods occur in the passages in which our two 
 examples are recorded. Nicodemus replied, "How 
 can a man be born when he is old ? Can he enter a 
 second time into his mother's womb and be born ? " 
 His thought was directed to the natural idea ; he inter- 
 preted the Lord's words literally. But our Lord 
 immediately gave them another interpretation, opening 
 up the two parallel lines of thought in contrast with 
 each other, transferring the mind from the natural to 
 the spiritual plane for the true meaning ; thus, — 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born 
 of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the 
 kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is 
 flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. 
 Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born 
 again." 
 
 So, too, in respect to those other words, in which 
 He declared Himself to be the living bread that came 
 down from heaven, — as soon as he had uttered them, 
 " the Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, 
 
34 LKCTUKK II. 
 
 How can this man give us bis flesh to eat ? " This is 
 according to their usual method of interpretation, — 
 the way in which they have commonly understood all 
 Divine language, the way in which they understood 
 the prophets ; — fastening upon the natural idea, but 
 never lifting their thought to the spiritual idea which 
 was the inspired meaning. 
 
 And as our Lord on that occasion continued, saying, 
 "My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink 
 indeed." * * * "He that eateth me, even he shall 
 live by me," "many, therefore, of His disciples,^ 
 when they had heard this, said, This is a hard saying, 
 who can hear it ? " Even they, having then been only 
 partially instructed in heavenly things, were only half 
 prepared to apprehend His real meaning.' 
 
 What, then, is the true ■ Christian idea connected 
 with these expressions ? The Christian world at large 
 gathers from them the general idea that our Lord 
 Came to impart spiritual life. But what is the specific 
 thought connected with each separate symbol ? This 
 is a question which, we presume, we should ask of the 
 pi'evailing theological literature in vain. 
 
 We will endeavor to explain them as we are 
 instructed to in the writings of the New Jerusalem. 
 
 The Bible is God's Book for man, and is every- 
 where written with express reference to his spiritual 
 constitution. At the creation, we read that God 
 breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a 
 living soul. In the original tongue it is said that He 
 " breathed into him the breath of lives." These " two 
 lives " of his soul are those which man has by virtue 
 of the two grand departments of his nature, the 
 Understanding and the Will, by the exercise of which 
 
METHOD OP INTEEPEETATION. 35 
 
 fundamental faculties he lives, as it were, two lives, — 
 a Ufe of affection and a life of thouglit ; or, one life of 
 emotion, feeling, desire, and another life of knowl- 
 edge, intelligence, reason. 
 
 The Sacred Scripture makes constant reference to 
 ■febese two> grand faculties in man ; and hence so many 
 of its symbols occur in pairs, as silver and gold, sun 
 and moon, wood and stone, beasts and birds, corn and 
 wine, and, in the passage before us, flesh and blood. 
 The Lord feeds these two faculties of the mind, and 
 in a substantial sense, is Himself the bread which is 
 eaten. 
 
 He was. Himself, the embodiment of the Divine 
 goodness. He felt all the love which constitutes that 
 goodness, and He acted that goodness towards and 
 before men. Thus He communicated, and still com- 
 municates, to them a knowledge of it. He taught 
 them in words what it was and is ; He brought it to 
 them in His acts. He manifested it before them in a 
 visible life among men, so that they could see it, 
 understand it, be affected by it, appreciate it. 
 
 This is what is meant by His giving unto men His 
 flesh to eat, — communicating to them this knowledge 
 of His Divine goodness, to feed their emotional nature, 
 to feed their affections. For if men will be affected 
 by His goodness, will accept it, receive, appropriate 
 it, by loving and copying it, by reciprocating His 
 love, and acting out similar love towards others, it 
 will feed their souls, and nourish them to heavenly 
 and eternal life. 
 
 The "blood" has reference to the intellectual 
 nature,, and means that He likewise communicates a 
 knowledge of His truth to the understanding. He 
 
36 LECTDEE II. 
 
 was Himself the truth, —the Word made flesh. The 
 Divine truth was the very life-hlood of His soul, the 
 vital principle which constituted His wisdom and 
 circulated through all His acts. He communicates a 
 knowledge of this truth ; He taught it in words. He 
 exemplified it, he lived it. If man drinks this blood, 
 if he imbibes this truth, believes it, loves it, seeks to 
 understand it, and regulates his conduct by it, it will 
 enlarge his understanding, building up the rational 
 part of his being and making him wise unto salvation. 
 Hence He says, " he that believeth on me shall never 
 thirst," — belief being an act of the understanding. 
 
 Thus He feeds, — or nourishes and sustains, — both 
 departments of man's spiritual being, — the heart and 
 the head, or the will and the intellect. Such, then, is 
 the true Christian idea of those words. 
 
 But this spiritual flesh and blood, — this knowledge 
 of goodness and this knowledge of truth, — are some- 
 thing which come to us from ' without ; we acquire 
 them through the senses, and appropriate them by 
 acts and the exercise of fatuities which are our own, 
 and of which we are conscious. And in order that the 
 Divine work in us may be complete, in order that we 
 may have effected in us all we need to have eflected, 
 it is necessary that we should be the subjects of still 
 other influences, viz : the invisible operation of the 
 spirit influencing us to will and to do, — moving upon 
 us from within, and of which motions we are uncon- 
 scious, save from their efiects. 
 
 And hence our Lord also is said to communicate 
 these influences. For we read, in the words of John 
 the Baptist, " He that cometh after me is mightier 
 than I. * * He shall baptize you with the Holy spirit 
 
METHOD OF INTEEPRETATION. 37 
 
 and with_/ire." Here we find tlie same duplicate form 
 of expression, referring to the two human faculties. 
 The baptism of the Holy Spirit denotes the Lord's 
 internal operation upon the understanding, illustrating 
 a man's mind, enabling him to see and understand the 
 truth, while the baptism oi fire symbolizes a similar 
 operation upon the heart, filling it with love, disposing 
 it to accept the truth, and inspiring the afiections with 
 a desire for the things of the Lord's kingdom, — 
 a desire for a good and heavenly life. 
 
 Thus we see the simplicity, the spirituality, and the 
 beautiful order or definite regularity of the Divine 
 Word. It does not deal in mere generalities, or 
 vagueness, like the imaginations of men. The spirit- 
 ual sense is distinct and definite in its ideas, giving 
 clearness and fixity to the letter. And how important 
 it is that the Word of God should be so written. How 
 much more powerfully does it affect the mind, speak- 
 ing thus directly to the heart in strong natural sym- 
 bols which all can gee and feel, than if it dealt more 
 abstractly with spiritual subjects I Our thoughts and 
 our feelings most naturally run in this low plane, and 
 the truth must descend thither to arrest the thought 
 and awaken the emotions. 
 
 We have just brought into view a new symbol ; we 
 have said that the baptism of fire means a new flame 
 of life enkindled in man's heart by the Lord, and that 
 flame is a love for heavenly things. Fire, then, means 
 love, being the divine emblem of it in nature ; not only 
 divinely chosen to symbolize it, but also divinely cre- 
 ated to be an image of it. Let us remember this when 
 we turn to the Divine Book, and see how many 
 passages it will unlock for us, — see how much new 
 
38 I/ECTUEE II. 
 
 meaning will break forth to us from many of its pages. 
 The meaning is definite, distinct, clear ; ^re stands &r 
 hve, and for nothing else. 
 
 But there are many kinds and degrees of love, good 
 and evil. There is Divine love, and angelic love, and 
 human love. Then there is the love of truth, the love 
 of what is good, and love to the neighbor ; as well as 
 a love of wickedness, of what is false, a love of 
 jrevenge and cruelty ; in short, diabolical love, in all 
 its forms and degrees, which delights in doing what is 
 perverse, disorderly, and wrong. 
 
 Now all these kinds of love are spoken of in the 
 Scripture, being commended or condemned according 
 -to their quality. And they are all symbolized by fire, 
 • — fire of different kinds and origins, the ground emblem 
 remaining the same. 
 
 . With this key in our hands, how many seals of the 
 -Divine Book are opened to us 1 We shall know the 
 spiritual meaning of that pillar of fire by which the 
 Lord led His people by night in the wilderness ; we 
 see that it is the way in which He leads them in every 
 age, speaking to them in love, and holding them fast 
 by their affections. We can see the meaning of those 
 fires, holy and pure, which the Lord enjoined the chil- 
 dren of Israel to keep burning upon his altars ; and of 
 those words of Moses to the people, where he says, of 
 God, " Out of Heaven He made thee to hear His voice, 
 that He might instruct thee ; and He showed thee His 
 great fire." We shall remember, too, with a new 
 sense of their significance, the horses of fire and 
 chariot of fire in which the Lord caused the prophet 
 Elijah to be taken up into heaven. These words of 
 the Psalm, too, will occur to us as confirmatory of 
 
METHOD OF INTEEPEKTATION. 39 
 
 this meaning oi fire; — "My heart was hot within 
 me ; while I was musing, the fire burned ; then spake 
 I with my tongue." And as we .reflect upon it, we 
 shall be led to a deeper sense of the spiritual meaning 
 of that remarkable vision of the pryphet, in which the 
 angel of Jehovah took the tongs that were beside the 
 altar, and took a live coal from the fire burning upon 
 the altar, and laying it upon the lips of the prophet, 
 bade him then go forth and prophesy in His name, — 
 this act of the angel denoting the inspiration of holy 
 love from the Lord, impelling him to speak. 
 
 So of innumerable other instances to which we have 
 not space to refer. 
 
 We shall be equally enabled also to understand 
 those other passages in which that perverted and 
 wicked love is spoken of which serves to inflame the 
 bad passions and corrupted afiections of men, and 
 unclean spirits. We shall first see it typified in that 
 strange fire, which Nadab and Abihu brought to the 
 altars of the Lord, and of which strange fire they both 
 subsequently died. We shall remember it, confirmed 
 in many passages of the prophets, of which this is 
 one: "For wickedness burneth' as a fire; it shall 
 devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the 
 thickets of the forest. * * * And the people shall be 
 as the fuel of the fire." — Is. ix. 18, 21. 
 
 And again, in another place, — " Therefore shall the 
 Lord, the Lord of Hosts, send among His fat ones 
 leanness ; and under His glory He shall kindle a burn- 
 ing like the burning of afire. And the light of Israel 
 shall be for a fire, and His Holy One for a flame ; and 
 it shall burn and devour His briers and His thorns. in 
 one day ; and shall consume the glory of His forest and 
 
40 LECTURE II. 
 
 of His fruitful field, both soul and body." This is what 
 their own evil lusts will do, even to the Lord's people, 
 if they forget Him and turn away again to their own 
 follies, — the selfish and worldly things which they 
 formerly loved. 
 
 Thus does the Holy Word declare its own meaning, 
 and we have a Divine key to the sacred symbols. 
 
 And with this knowledge in mind we shall no longer 
 be in dowbt as to the meaning oi hell fire, several times 
 mentioned in the New Testament ; and the reason why 
 it is called also the fire unquenchable, will also readUy 
 occur to us, viz : because it is the nature of evil love, 
 or unhallowed desire, never to be satisfied, but to 
 reach forth continually for something more, and so to 
 burn on in its cravings forever. 
 
 One other emblem was mentioned in our Lord's 
 words to Nicodemus, which we passed over at the 
 time, but which we will now speak of for a moment. 
 
 He said, — " Except a man be born of water and of 
 the spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
 
 Born .of water? What is the meaning of water? 
 Can it be that the application of material water to the 
 body, in any way, can in the least affect the moral 
 character, or the spiritual state of the soul ? Cer- 
 tainly not. And yet, we believe there are those who 
 insist on the literal interpretation of this passage, and, 
 that the passage has given rise to no little contro- 
 versy. 
 
 But our Lord cannot mean material water here, as 
 introducing the soul into the kingdom of God. He 
 employs it as an emblem of something spiritual ; for 
 very soon after, in the very next chapter, and not 
 many paragraphs from this conversation with Nicode- 
 
SEETHOD OF INTEBPEETATION. 41 
 
 mus, He converses with the Samaritan woman at the 
 well, speaking again of water in His discourse. 
 " Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest 
 the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee. 
 Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him, 
 and He would have given thee living water." At 
 first she understood Him literally ; she interpreted His 
 words as some modern commentators do ; she followed 
 the Jewish method ; she wanted a supply of natural 
 water, which should remove the necessity of her going 
 thither to draw. 
 
 But Jesus continued His discourse, and in a manner 
 similar to that with Nicodemus, He opens up the two 
 parallel lines of thought, the spiritual above the nat- 
 ural, directing the mind to the spiritual idea for His 
 true meaning. This is the true method of Scripture 
 interpretation, — the Divine method. "Jesus answered 
 and said unto her. Whosoever drinketh of this water 
 shall thirst again ; but whosoever^ shall drink of the 
 water that I shall give him, shall never thirst ; but the 
 water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of 
 water, springing up into everlasting life." 
 
 Thus, by His words we are directed to water of 
 another order. What, then, specifically, we ask, is 
 this water of the soul to which He refers ? We 
 reply, in the language of the New Church, it is puri- 
 fying truth, — the first precepts of repentance and 
 obedience. There is a certain class of truths in the 
 Sacred Scripture designed for this purpose, and which 
 have this effect. If we imbibe them, that is, if we 
 receive the instruction they impart, and apply them to 
 the life, they not only satisfy our thirst for practical 
 knowledge, but they wash us spiritually, — they purify 
 4* 
 
42 rECTUBB II. 
 
 the mind of its evil dispositions, and cleanse our 
 conduct from its obvious sins. Such are the prohib- 
 itory commandments of the Law: "Thou shalt not 
 bear false witness ; thou shalt not steal ; thou shalt 
 not kill ; thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy 
 God in vain." 
 
 These are calculated to remove all those wrong 
 things from our characters, and to purily us of them. 
 Such truths as these are what are meant by the waters 
 of the Divine Word ; they prepare the soul for the 
 operations of the Holy Spirit, and introduce the man 
 who is obedient to them into the kingdom of the Lord. 
 Similar to them are many precepts in the Gospels, 
 inculcating repentance from evil works. They arp 
 what are meant, too, by the waters of baptism ; the 
 water employed in that holy ordinance having this 
 meaning and signification. 
 
 With this key in our hand we may search the Bible 
 anew, receiving definite and clear instruction from a 
 multitude of passages which before yielded only an 
 obscure or vague sense. In many cases, as we read, 
 we shall see the spiritual meaning shine forth from the 
 letter like a lamp of light ; from the blessing pro- 
 nounced in the First Psalm, upon the man, who, for 
 his obedience to these .truths, " shall be like a tree 
 planted by the rivers of water," to thut vision of holy 
 waters beheld by Ezekiel, flowing forth in such abun- 
 dance from the sanctuary of the Lord, purifying the 
 land and giving life as they flowed along ; and thence 
 forward, through Old Testament and New, to that 
 great river of the waters of life, clear as crystal, 
 mentioned in the last chapter of Eevelation, as pro- 
 ceeding out of the' throne of God, and watering the 
 
METHOD OF INTEEPEETATION. 43 
 
 garden of God by the streets of the Holy City. And 
 every passage we read will confirm the definite spir- 
 itual meaning of this sacred symbol. 
 
 There is, too, an opposite sense in which this general 
 symbol is not unfrequently used in the Scripture. For 
 when instead of the common truths of life and prac- 
 tice men imbibe perverted or false maxims of life and 
 conduct, then they no longer drink living waters, but 
 waters of temptation, an overrunning flood, devastating 
 instead of cleansing. But of this opposite meaning 
 we have now no space to bring forth examples. 
 
 From the few and brief illustrations of the spiritual 
 sense of Scripture we have had time to introduce, 
 there has been seen, we trust, something of that law 
 by which angelic thought translates itself into human 
 language ; and thus, also, something of the law by 
 which inspired language may be translated back 
 again, and the angelic idea be evolved from the natural 
 expression. 
 
 Such is the character of the Divine Word through- 
 out, — a wheel within a wheel, — a spiritual meaning 
 within a literal meaning ; first, a continuous stratum 
 of thought addressed to natural perception and feel- 
 ing, and then, within or underlying that, another 
 continuous stratum of thought addressed to spiritual 
 perception and feeling. Even in those passages where 
 at first we might least expect it, as in the histories of 
 the Old Testament, though at first sight there is noth- 
 ing but literal narrative, yet there it is, deep down, 
 needing only an exposition, according to the laws of 
 correspondences, to bring it out. This the Apostle 
 Paul teaches in many places, especially in Galatians, 
 where, speaking of the history of Abraham, and of 
 his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, and of Sarah and 
 
44 LECTTIEE II. 
 
 Hagar, he says, "These things are an allegory," and 
 •that by the two females and their two sons, are repre- 
 sented the two covenants, the one gendering to spir- 
 itual freedom, the other to spiritual bondage. This 
 explanation is according to correspondences. The 
 Apostle here declares the law of those ancient his- 
 tories, — they are all divine allegories ; under a vail of 
 true history setting forth things of the spiritual life ; 
 things relating to the regeneration of man, and to our 
 Lord's great work of redemption and glorification. 
 How often has this divine analogy been perceived in 
 the history of the Israelites, especially in their journey 
 from Egypt to the Holy Land, symbolizing as it does 
 the life-long progress of the Lord's redeemed ones 
 from their original state of sinfulness to a state of 
 spiritual peace and rest, and so, to the heavenly 
 Canaan above ! 
 
 Hence David, when moved by inspiration, fervently 
 prays, — " Lord, open thou mine eyes, that I may 
 behold wondrous things out of thy law." And our 
 Lord, when He would fully instruct His disciples and 
 prepare them for their work, " opened their under- 
 standings that they might understand the Scriptures ; " 
 and then, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets. 
 He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the 
 things concerning Himself," saying unto them that all 
 things written " in the Law of Moses, and in the Proph- 
 ets, and in the Psalms," concerning Him, must needs 
 be fulfilled. And in the "Prophets," in those days, 
 were included the Books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, 
 and Kings. 
 
 Thus the spiritual sense everywhere underlies the 
 letter, as the granite rock in the earth's crust underlies, 
 all other strata. And as the granite, here and there, 
 
METHOD OF INTEEPEETATION. 45 
 
 at long intervals, penetrating the upper crust and 
 rising into peaks, displays itself to the eye, visible 
 and bare, so does the spiritual sense of the Word, 
 here and there, at long intervals, crop out, as it were, 
 showing itself on the surface, expressed in plain lan- 
 guage, so that none can miss it. The two great 
 commandments in Deuteronomy, of love to the Lord 
 and love to the neighbor, the ten blessings in the 
 Sermon on the Mount, the new commandment of 
 mutual love, given in John, are instances of this. 
 
 And as the granite, though unseen, yet underlies all 
 strata, giving support to all above it, whether sand or 
 soil or gravel, so does the spiritual sense of the Word 
 underlie all parts, whether history or Psalm, whether 
 prophecy, commandment, or parable, constituting the 
 great substratum, — the Kock of continuous divine 
 truth, which is the rest and support of the whole. 
 The literal sense may, and often does, appear dis- 
 jointed, broken, confused, fragmentary ; but the spir- 
 itual sense is always consistent, connected, and 
 continuous. Like the inner vesture which our Lord 
 wore while on the earth, it is " without seam, woven 
 from the top throughout," a continuous and unbroken 
 garment of holy. Divine truth.* 
 
 And having now seen something of the right mode 
 of interpreting Scripture, we shall be prepared to go 
 forward in our next, and apply this law to unlocking 
 the meaning of certain portions of prophecy, especially 
 those relating to the second coming of the Lord, and 
 the first three chapters of Revelation ; and after that, 
 to the other chapters of the same Book. 
 
 * See note B, at the end of the volume. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 
 
 CONTENTS : — First Three Chapters of Eevbla- 
 TioN ; Eemarks on Interpretation ; The Second Advent 
 A Spiritual Advent, effected by a Definite Instrumen- 
 tality; The Meaning of "Clouds," symbolical of 
 Things in the Letter op the Word ; Examination op 
 Passages ; The Book of Revelation distinctively a 
 Book of the New Jerusalem Church ; Refers to these 
 Times ; The Second Advent consists in the Revelation 
 of the Spiritual Sense of the Word, — the Opening op 
 THE great Book, through which a new Idea of God is 
 communicated, viz : that the Lord Jesus Christ is the 
 ONLY God, in One Person, the One " who is, who was, 
 and who is to come, — THE Almighty ; " Connection op 
 
 SWEDENBOES'S MISSION WITH THIS EvENT. 
 
LECTURE. 
 
 " Behold He cometh with clouds ; and every eye shall see Him.' 
 — Bev. i. 7. 
 
 We have spoken of the Sacred Scripture ; of the 
 two senses which it contains, — the natural and the 
 spiritual ; and we have referred briefly to the two dis- 
 tinct modes of interpretation which these two parallel 
 lines of thought have given rise to, namely, the 
 literal, which we have denominated also the Jewish, 
 and the spiritual, which we have also denominated the 
 true Christian method. The actual state of Biblical 
 interpretation in the Christian world around us is a 
 middle ground, — half way between these two modes. 
 
 The Jews, adhering strictly to the former, are still 
 expecting the advent of the Messiah as a temporal 
 prince, to set up, and rule in, a powerful monarchy, 
 of which their nation is to constitute the privileged 
 aristocracy, whom all other nations are to serve as 
 subjects and common people. But when our Lord 
 came, He introduced a series of ideas of another order. 
 He declared His kingdom to be not of this world, but 
 a spiritual kingdom. He interpreted the prophecies 
 in a new way, showing that, under an imagery of nat- 
 ural things, they really meant heavenly things ; and 
 applying all those glowing and glorious promises 
 S 
 
50 LECTUKE ni. 
 
 which before ivere eupposed to relate and belong to 
 the Jewish nation, to His own faithful disciples, — to 
 the members of His spiritual kingdom throughout all 
 lands. His ii^postles followed Him, in a similar mode 
 of interpretation, and when they quoted any of the 
 prophecies of the Old Testament, gave them a corre- 
 sponding meaning, evolving from them an idea above 
 the letter, and which, until then, the letter, like a vaU, 
 Lad served to conceal. 
 
 Christian commentators have therefore followed 
 them, at least to the extent of the passages they 
 explained; but being unacquainted with the great law 
 by which the spiritual sense is made clear, and not 
 knowing that the spiritual sense is not confined to 
 certain paragraphs, but extends to the whole Word, 
 they have fallen into much confusion. For not distin- 
 guishing clearly between the two lines of thought 
 existing everywhere, they fasten upon the natural idea 
 in some places as the true and only meaning, while in 
 other passages, where the symbolism is a little more 
 obvious, they rise to the spiritual idea, declaring that 
 to be the meaning. Hence there is no determinate 
 method, every commentator being left to make his own 
 Conjectures and reason out his own conclusions. The 
 prevailing system, therefore, is one composed partly 
 of light and partly of darkness, with no key to open 
 obscurities or harmonize conflicting views. Some 
 commentators incline most to the Jewish method, 
 attaching their thought to the outward symbol, and 
 turning all things possible into the literal channel. 
 Such men expect the Divine prophecies to take effect 
 on the physical universe, and are looking for the 
 destruction of the visible heavens and the habitable 
 
THE SECOND COMING. 51 
 
 globe ; they expect the Lord to come in person on the 
 clouds floating in our earthly atmosphere ; they expect 
 to see the distant stars fall from their places to the 
 earth, and the solid ground consumed by fire. 
 
 But as the Jew has waited in vain, for 2500 years, 
 for the realization of his idea of the Messiah's king- 
 dom, and if he waits 2500 years longer, will still 
 expect in vain, so will all those literalizing Christians 
 who are looking for physical changes, and great 
 visible demonstrations in material elements, at our 
 Lord's second coming, be deceived, and may wait on, 
 for thousands and thousands of years, in vain. For 
 the Lord has founded the earth and the visible starry 
 heavens to abide forever ; the earth to be the seminary 
 of men, where they may be prepared for heaven, 
 while the human race, on this globe, is never to be cut 
 off. 
 
 The higher we look, the more we ascend into the 
 holy mountain of the Lord, the more we elevate our 
 thought to the great spiritual realities of which the 
 Scriptures treat, leaving material things behind, the 
 clearer will be the light shining in upon the soul, and 
 the more we can see the interior and truly Divine 
 qualities of the Scriptures, the more holy and pure 
 will be the influence they will shed forth upon us, and 
 the more powerfully will they operate upon our minds 
 to cleanse them of earthly things, and thus to reno- 
 vate and bless them. 
 
 What do the Scriptures teach concerning our Lord's 
 second coming ? 
 
 We will briefly state what we are taught in the New 
 Jerusalem. We are here told that the second coming 
 of the Lord consists in the revelation of the spiritual 
 
52 LECTURE III. 
 
 sense of the Bible. Here, as we have already 
 attempted to show, is an interior, spiritual meaning, 
 above and within the literal, running through the 
 entire Word of God, and hitherto unknown, or known 
 only in fragments ; the Lord now, therefore, effects an 
 opening of His Word, making known its spiritual 
 meaning, and revealing all those wonderful and hith- 
 erto undiscovered truths which that meaning contains. 
 This is a new coming of His, into the world ; a new 
 coming, in and through the Word ; a new coming, not 
 in visible, bodily form, but in and through a new 
 and fuller dispensation of His own truth. 
 
 Now let us examine, candidly and carefully, whether 
 these things be not so. Let us read the prophecies in 
 the light of the true Christian mode of interpretation, 
 and see what it really is which they foretell. 
 
 In the 24th of Matthew, Our Lord says that He 
 shall come in (or upon) the clouds of heaven with 
 power and great glory ; and in our text, where the 
 time of the. fulfilment of this prophecy is spoken of, it 
 is repeated, " Behold he cometh with clouds." What 
 is the meaning here ? What is the prophetic sense of 
 thesewords? The natural idea of a cloud is plain enough, 
 but what is the spiritual idea ? What do clouds symbol- 
 ize ? We have already briefly stated, in the first Dis- 
 course, that clouds are typical of the literal sense of the 
 Scripture, because in the letter Divine truth is clouded and 
 obscured by the natural things therein expressed. And 
 these natural symbols of the letter are what are meant by 
 clouds and what are called clouds throughout the pro- 
 phetic Scriptures, as might be clearly sho-vyn did space 
 allow of a full citation of passages. A very few must 
 suffice. Thus, the ctowcZi/ pillar, by which the Lord led 
 
THE SECOND COMING. '53 
 
 the Israelites through the wilderness, denoted the 
 letter of Scripture, — Divine truth in obscurity, — by 
 which He leads and instructs His people in all ages. 
 The same thing is signified by the "great cloud" with 
 which He enveloped Himself upon Mt. Sinai, when 
 He came and delivered the Law to Moses. He always 
 veils Himself with a covering of external truth, when 
 He comes to speak to and instruct men. It is for this 
 reason that in the prophetic language " the strength " 
 of Jehovah is said to be "in the clouds," that He 
 "rideth upon the clouds," that "His truth extendeth 
 unto the cloudy," that Ezekiel saw a cloud filling the 
 sanctuary of the temple. And the reason also why, in 
 the prophecies of Daniel and the New Testament, the 
 Lord is said to come in the clouds of heaven. The 
 form of expression is worthy of being noted. The 
 language always is, "ip the clouds of heaven." 
 
 When the spiritual meaning is thrown into the nat- 
 ural expressions of Scripture, it is like pouring a flood 
 of sunlight upon and through a cloud in the sky, 
 which thus, from being dark, becomes instantly bathed 
 in glory, and lighted up from behind with golden 
 brilliancy, and the richest-colored hues. 
 
 The light is already there, behind the cloud, but is 
 now first made to break forth and shine through, by 
 having that meaning explained, and so made apparent 
 to the mental eye. 
 
 Thus we see, the moment we apply the key of cor- 
 respondences to unlock the letter of the Word, we at 
 once come at the meaning, and discover that we are 
 to expect our Lord at His second coming to appear in 
 and upon the literal sense of Scripture, by the 
 light of Divine truth shining through it. Take also 
 
54 LECTUEE III. 
 
 that vision seen by the apostles at our Lord's ascension, 
 recorded in the first chapter of Acts. We read that 
 "while they beheld, he was taken up ; and a cloud 
 received him out of their sight. And while they 
 looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, 
 behold, two men stood by them in white apparel ; who 
 also said, — ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing 
 up into heaven ? this same Jesus, who is taken up from 
 you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye 
 have seen him go into heaven." 
 
 We have turned to this passage especially, because 
 it is the principal one employed to prove a visible, 
 personal coming, and the only one, we believe, that is 
 relied upon as giving that doctrine a sure foundation. 
 But let us examine it in the light of the spiritual 
 sense, and with the key in our hand. The apostles 
 were then in holy vision. Men are not able to gaze up 
 into heaven with their natural eyes, nor is our Lord's 
 glorified and Divine spiritual body, or the forms of 
 angels, visible to the mortal eye. John, in Patmos, 
 informs us that he was in the spirit when he thus saw 
 our Lord, and when the door ia heaven was opened to 
 him. The apostles, therefore, on that occasion, were 
 in a state similar to that in which all the prophets were 
 when they had their visions. The senses of their 
 spiritual bodies were opened, and what they heard and 
 saw they heard and saw in the spiritual world and not 
 in the natural world. 
 
 This vision, therefore, is to be interpreted like the 
 prophetic visions, and its symbols explained in the 
 same way. The cloud there has the same prophetic 
 meaning it has in all other places. It was typical of 
 the letter of the word, through which His truth should 
 
THE SECOND COMING. 55 
 
 in the latter days be revealed. The two men in white 
 raiment told them that He should come in like manner 
 as they had seen Him go ; but those men were angels, 
 and though they clothed their speech in natural lan- 
 guage, we know that the angelic thought rests in the 
 spiritual idea, and not in the natural symbol. Trans- 
 lating their words, therefore, according to the great 
 rule already given, their expression means that when 
 He should come again. He would come in and through 
 the literal symbols of His own Divine Word. He had 
 then come as the Divine Truth, as the Word made 
 flesh, and He would come again as the Divine truth, 
 as the same Word opened and explained. He had 
 manifested himself once in personal form, and the 
 Divine economy never repeats itself. 
 
 Hence, in accordance with this prophecy, where 
 His coming is again foretold, in the fourth chapter of 
 Revelation, it is described as an opening of the Book 
 sealed with seven seals, and a disclosure from within 
 it of what it contained. The Book there meant, is of 
 course the Bible ; the one great Book, the Book of 
 books. Now its seals are taken off when its meaning 
 is explained according to the spiritual and real sense. 
 The natural symbols are Qver this interior meaning 
 like so many seals. And when the spiritual idea, 
 veiled within a natural idea, is disclosed, the seal is 
 taken off. Thus, when it is revealed to us that the 
 Hesh of our Lord, occurring in His word, denotes a 
 knowledge of His goodness, that ^re is uniformly typ- 
 ical of the flame of love, that water is the divinely 
 chosen emblem of cleansing and purifying truth, the 
 seals are then taken off from all those scriptural sym- 
 bols, as well as from the passages in which they 
 
56 LECTURE HI. 
 
 occur ; and we instantly know their meaning. Thus 
 we see what is meant by opening the Book. And in 
 the writings of the New Jerusalem this is completely 
 accomplished. The symbolism of the whole Divine 
 Word is unfolded, and everything it contains made 
 known, so far as men are capable of understanding. 
 The accounts of the creation, of ante-diluvian history, 
 of the Flood, of the Tower of Babel, the whole history 
 of the descendants of Abraham, as well as the gospels 
 and the prophecies, have, in these writings, their seals 
 taken off, and their spiritual meaning disclosed. 
 
 Hence, also, where the Second Coming is still fur- 
 ther symbolized, in the nineteenth chapterof Kevela- 
 tion, where the event is set forth under that stupen- 
 dous imagery of the white horse and his Rider, it is 
 said that he is to come as the Word of God. " And 
 I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse ; and 
 He that sat upon him is called Faithful and True, and 
 in righteousness doth he judge and make war ; His 
 eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were 
 many crowns ; and He had a name written, which no 
 man knew but he himself. And He was clothed in a 
 vesture dipped in blood, and His name is called The 
 Word of God." 
 
 This, therefore, is the way in which He is to come, 
 — as the Word of God. The meaning of this vision 
 is, that in this new dispensation. He goes forth to 
 enlighten the understandings of men, to communi- 
 cate to them a better understanding of Himself, of His 
 Divine Truth, and of the spiritual meaning of His 
 Word. 
 
 But there is still one other mode in which this com- 
 ing and these latter days are spoken of in the proph- 
 
THE SECOND COJIING. 57 
 
 ets. It is uniformly characterized as a time of new 
 and glorious light ; as a morning of great brilliancy 
 and clearness ; as a day shining in fuller lustre, in 
 which the light of the moon shall be as the light of 
 the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold, as the light 
 of seven days. And the New Jerusalem is described 
 as being lighted by a more effulgent glory from on 
 high. Light is so universally acknowledged as ' the 
 Biblical symbol of truth, that in common language it 
 has come to be used as a synonyme of truth, and we 
 need not, therefore, confirm its meaning. In Daniel, 
 it is said that many shall run to and fro, and knowledge 
 shall be increased. We see, therefore, that the dis- 
 tinguishing feature of these new times, foretold by 
 the prophets, is a remarkable increase of knowledge, 
 and the diffusion of more glorious truth. But what 
 kind of knowledge and what kind of truth do you sup- 
 pose ? Not of mere physical science, or truth relat- 
 ing to natural things I no ; a knowledge of divine and 
 heavenly things, and such truth as can illumine the 
 soul, and make it wiser in the things of the Lord's 
 kingdom. 
 
 And our Lord himself says in Matthew, " For as 
 the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even 
 unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man 
 be;" and in another place, "For as the lightning, 
 that lighteneth out .of the one 'part under heaven, 
 shineth into the other part under heaven, so shall also 
 the Son of Man be in his day." 
 
 Now what is lightning but the sudden breaking forth 
 of greater light from heaven ? Natural lightning is of 
 such a character, that though it occur in ordinary day- 
 light, yet it causes itself to be seen as a flash of still 
 
58 LECTUEE III. 
 
 stronger light. And so this opening of the Divine 
 Word as to its spiritual meaning, although it comes 
 in an age when men are enjoying the common daylight 
 of Christianity as revealed in the letter of the Bible ; 
 yet, is a light of a so much stronger and intenser kind 
 as to cause itself to be seen over and above all this ; 
 and as it shines out over the world, it is capable of en- 
 lightening to a still higher degree the whole mental 
 horizon. 
 
 And in that remarkable vision in the first chapter of 
 Ezekiel, which we have already partly explained (in 
 our first discourse), this same symbol is used to typi- 
 fy the inner glory — or spiritual meaning — of the 
 Holy Word. For we there read, " As for the likeness 
 of the living creatures, their appearance was like burn- 
 ing coals of fire, like the appearance of lamps : it went 
 up and down among the living creatures ; and the fire 
 was bright ; and out of the fire went forth lightning. 
 And the living creatures ran and returned as the ap- 
 pearance oi a flash of lightning." 
 
 Such is the prophetic description of that living prin- 
 ciple of the Holy Word which giveth light and lifd. 
 Our Lord says, " I am the light of the world ; " " The 
 words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they 
 are life; " while the apostle says, " the letter MHeth ; 
 it is the spirit that maketh alive." 
 
 Thus, we find, on an examination of the prophecies, 
 one remarkable fact, namely ; that all the different 
 lines of symbolism, however they may differ in their 
 specific forms, tend towards one result. They all 
 look one way, converging to the same focus, describ- 
 ing, by a variety of emblems, one general truth, and 
 all leading us to expect that the event to which they 
 
THE SECOND COMING. 59 
 
 relate will occur in one distinct and definite way. 
 They all declare, with one voice, that the Lord's se- 
 cond coming is to consist in the opening of His Word 
 and the consequent diffusion of a fuller measure of 
 heavenly light or truth. 
 
 We have also seen, we trust, to some limited de- 
 gree, the manner in which a knowledge of correspond- 
 ences opens the meaning of the Divine Word, caus- 
 ing its chapters of otherwise obscure symbolism, to 
 yield a clear, steady, rational, and uniform light. And 
 we have exemplified, we hope, to the same extent, 
 also, the true method of scriptural interpretation, 
 which we have endeavored to show to consist, not 
 merely in an apprehension of the natural idea described 
 in the letter, nor in any mystical, or vague and un- 
 warrantable meaning attributed to the letter, nor yet, 
 in taking in one place the literal thought alone, and 
 •then in another, the spiritual thought alone, as the 
 meaning, without definite rule ; but in getting, in all 
 cases, a distinct idea of both senses. First, a clear 
 idea of the natural or literal meaning as a basis, and 
 then, a clear and distinct idea of the spiritual thought 
 to which the natural thought corresponds ; thus giv- 
 ing to each of the two senses of Scripture, its full 
 scope and meaning ; remembering always that the 
 heavenly meaning, the true angelic idea is lodged in 
 the spiritual sense and not in the literal. 
 
 This is what is meant in those three places where it 
 is said that the Lord will bring His holy angels with 
 Him at his second coming. He will come in the clouds 
 with His angels ; and in the nineteenth chapter of 
 Eevelation, it is said that the armies of heaven fol- 
 lowed Him upon white horses. By which is signified 
 
60 LECTURE III. 
 
 that He comes to communicate to men a knowledge 
 of the heavenly meaning of His Word, that hence- 
 forth they may, if they will, understand that Word as 
 the angels do ; and that the angels rejoice and coop- 
 erate with the Lord in His purpose of revealing this 
 truth to men, and in influencing men to receive it. 
 
 We have now seen what is the nature of the Lord's 
 coming ; and before leaving this branch of the sub- 
 ject, we wish to invite distinct attention to two other 
 points, which are suggested by words of our Lord in 
 the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew. He there 
 leaves two important cautions to his followers in rela- 
 tion to His coming. He says, first, "Take heed 
 that no man deceive you. For many shall come in 
 my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive 
 many." Now this caution is frequently read, but is 
 it often reflected upon ? What kind of idea do these 
 words carry with them? — " Take heed that no man 
 deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, 
 lam Christ ; and shall deceive many." But how would 
 it be possible to practise such deception, provided the 
 coming of the Lord were to be of such a nature as is 
 commonly supposed ? How would it be possible for, 
 a man to lift himself up into mid-air, among the clouds 
 of our atmosphere, there surround himself vrith 
 angels, or what should appear to be angels, and with 
 light and glory, and thus descend to the earth in great 
 power, calling on men to worship and obey him ? 
 Manifestly, it could not be done. The event, as too 
 commonly conceived, could not be imitated by man. 
 It would be one in relation to which no deception 
 could be practised, — one about which it would be 
 
THE SECOND COMING. 61 
 
 impossible there should be any mistake, for no finite 
 power could produce such outward visible manifesta- 
 tions as those, or set the world on fire, or cause the 
 visible stars to fall from the firmament. 
 
 This advice of our Lord is wholly inapplicable and 
 entirely without meaning, if the event to which it 
 refers were going to take place in that manner. And 
 these quiet words of His, coming down thus across 
 the centuries, ought of themselves to be sufficient to 
 point our minds to some different sort of fulfilment. 
 For most assuredly He would never condescend to 
 give irrelevant or untimely advice. 
 
 But change the view for a moment. Let us look 
 upon the second advent of the Lord in its true light, 
 contemplating it as an event which introduces new and 
 important truth into the world, and these words fall 
 at once into their right places in our apprehension. 
 We see their relevancy and pith. A revelation of 
 truth, committed; as it necessarily is, to writing ; con- 
 sisting, as it necessarily does, of statements and 
 doctrines printed and disseminated in books, as the 
 Bible itself was, offers a field in which the imitative 
 powers and deceptive ability of man may display 
 themselves. A revelation of truth is a thing that may 
 be feigned and pretended. Men have claimed to have 
 a revelation from heaven when they had no such rev- 
 elation, and thus have deceived the few or many who 
 have followed them. To this kind of advent our 
 Lord's words are entirely applicable. His followers 
 everywhere are enjoined to " take heed." Open the 
 eyes of the mind and inquire for yourselves. " Let 
 no man deceive you." Exercise your own rationality ; 
 bring the spiritual and intellectual powers of your 
 
62 LECTURE in. 
 
 minds into operation, and reason and judge for your- 
 selves. " Search the Scriptures," and see whether 
 these things be so. Read, compare, and examine. 
 How else can you ever see the light or ever know the 
 truth ? 
 
 The other caution to which we referred is equally 
 Bignificant, and is in these words : " Then, if any man 
 shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe 
 it not. For there shall arise false Ohrists, and false 
 prophets, and ehall show great signs and wonders ; 
 insomuch that if it were possible, they shall deceive 
 the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. 
 Wherefore if they shall say unto you. Behold, he is in 
 the desert, go not forth ; Behold, he is Ln the secret 
 chambers, believe it not." — Matt. xxiv. 23. Are men 
 apt to regard attentively what these words imply ? 
 To our apprehension, they warn us explicitly against 
 expecting a visible coming. Were He actually to 
 come in person and appear anywhere in the world, it 
 would be necessary to announce that fact by a " Lo 
 here," or a " Lo there." We should be absolutely 
 obliged to say that He had come somewhere, and in so 
 doing should fall directly under the condemnation 
 implied in this caution. We could not announce the 
 second advent, if that were to have been a personal 
 appearing, after it should have occurred, without con- 
 travening the words of this advice. 
 
 Clergymen who rely on a literal coming, have told 
 me that they did expect the Lord to appear in the desert 
 between Egypt and Palestine, on a white horse, and 
 so ride up to Jerusalem, and set up His kingdom there 
 in outward power and glory. But we are expressly 
 
THE SECOND COMING. 63 
 
 told by our Lord Himself that if any one comes to us 
 in these latter days, with such an announcement as 
 that, neither to go forth after it nor to believe it. 
 
 The more these things are pondered the more wilt it 
 be seen that all our Lord's words refer to an event of 
 a different nature. For immediately following this 
 last caution He says, — " For as the lightning cometh 
 out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so 
 shall the coming of the Son of Man be." Not a 
 local, visible, personal appearing, — some demonstrar 
 tion to the outward senses, — but a diffusion of light ; 
 a dissemination of truth and spiritual intelligence, 
 flowing everywhere, and apprehensible by the rational 
 thought. 
 
 Having thus seen what is the general nature of the 
 Lord's second coming, let us turn now, in closing, for 
 a few moments, to the first three chapters of the Book 
 of Revelation. This Book refersto these times. The 
 events it describes belong to the present age of the 
 world. They began to unfold more than a hundred 
 years ago, but their complete fulfilment, with the 
 results to follow, will last on for air ages. The Book 
 of Eevelation itself is the starting-point of the New 
 Dispensation. It is the closing Book of the canon, 
 placed there to point men forward, through the first 
 Christian ages, to that fuller dispensation promised in 
 so many of the prophets. It is a Book, therefore, 
 which, in a certain (quite intelligible) sense, may be 
 said to be distinctively the Book of the New Church, — 
 the New Jerusalem. It is so, because the New Church 
 is founded upon it, and is described in it. It is so, 
 again, because the New Church understands it, and 
 can make use of it and explain it. 
 
64 LECTUJSE III. 
 
 The first three chapters comprise a general intro- 
 duction to the Book, announcing its Divine authority, 
 and invoking at length the special and conscientious 
 attention of the Christian Church to the contents of 
 its prophecy. " He that hath an ear let him hear what 
 the Spirit saith unto the churches," is the oft-repeated 
 injunction. 
 
 The most remarkable feature of this introduction is 
 the clear and distinct declaration made with respect 
 to the Trinity and Personality of the Lord. In the 
 New Jerusalem we are taught to look to and to wor- 
 ship the Lord Jesus Christ, — a single person, — as 
 the only God of heaven and earth, as the Supreme 
 Jehovah, clothed with and appearing in a human form. 
 It is for this reason that the Church of the New Jeru- 
 salem is called, in the latter part of the Book of Rev- 
 elation, " the Bride, the Lamb's wife : " because she is 
 conjoined in love to the Lord Jesus as the only God. 
 No other church is, or ever was, so conjoined, and 
 therefore no other church is, or ever was, called " the 
 Bride and wife of the Lamb." 
 
 This idea of God, -^hich is the true and final idea, 
 the idea entertained in heaven, and cherished by the 
 angels, had to be introduced to men gradually. The 
 Incarnation of Jehovah, His appearance in the world by 
 the assumption of humanity. His work of redemption in 
 it. His glorification of that humanity, not only as to its- 
 raental part, but also as to its bodily form. His ascension 
 in it into heaven, and above all the heavens, thus* 
 taking it into the most plenary conjunction with Him- 
 self, filling it with His own Supreme, Divine life, as 
 the soul of a man fills and animates his body, — all 
 this, we say, was an event developed in time, and had 
 
THE SECOND COMING. 65 
 
 t 
 
 to occur historically. Therefore it has taken time for 
 men to apprehend it clearly, — to . learn it thoroughly, 
 and understand it rightly. But the process has 
 always been going on from the first. Jehovah declared 
 constantly in the prophets that there was no Saviour 
 and no Redeemer but Himself; that He Himself would 
 come to save and redeem His people ; and that the One 
 so promised as coming, should be called " The ever- 
 lasting Father," and " Jehovah, our Eighteousness." 
 When John the Baptist came, he came " to prepare the 
 way of Jehovah," and to make in the spiritual desert, 
 then existing, a highway for our God. 
 
 When our Lord came. He spake to the people in 
 parables ; he veiled many important spiritual realities 
 under a drapery of natural thought and symbol. He 
 did not clearly disclose everything relating to His 
 own Divine Personality. Only once during the whole 
 of His visible ministry on earth, did He treat directly 
 and explicitly of this subject at all ; and on that oc- 
 casion, in reply to the pressing inquiry of his disciples. 
 He there distinctly declares His personal identity with 
 the Father. The words are in the fourteenth chapter 
 of John. " Philip saith unto Him, show us the Fath- 
 er, and it sufflceth us." " Jesus saith unto Hm, have 
 I been so long time with you, and hast thou not 
 known me, Philip ? he that hath seen me, hath seen 
 the Father ; and how sayest thou, then, show us the 
 Father?" "The Father is in Me:" * * * "The 
 Father that dwelleth in me. He doeth the works : " 
 
 * * * * " I and the Father are One." 
 
 • It is hardly possible for language to be more direct 
 or distinct. His Divine part was God the Father. 
 His outward, human part, was the Son ; both natures 
 
 6* 
 
66 LfiCttJRE III. 
 
 being contained and dwelling together in one and tli6 
 same Person. 
 
 At another time He says to them, " I have many 
 things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." 
 * * * " These things have I spoken unto you in prov- 
 erbs, or parables ; but the time cometh when I shall 
 ilo more speak unto you in proverbs, but shall show' 
 you plainly of the Father." 
 
 That time has now arrived. The parabolic ted,ch- 
 ings of Scripture are explained. The seals upon the 
 meaning of His words are taken off, and their trile 
 Spiritual idea disclosed. And as the Book of Eevelar 
 tion is peculiarly the Book of the New Church, — the 
 church in which this idea of God is, and is to be 
 known and taught, therefore the Book itself opens 
 With a very distinct and emphatic declaration of it. 
 The Lord Jesus appeared to John in his glorified, hu- 
 man form. His Divine spiritual body, and affirmed 
 himself to be the only God : saying unto him, " I aiii 
 th6 Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending', 
 saith the' Lord. Who is, and who was, and who is to' 
 come, — the Almighty." It is true that the apostfe 
 Paul had already been moved by the Holy Spirit to 
 declare that, in the Lord Jesus, the fulness of th^ 
 Godhead dwelt bodily ; but these words seem, if pos- 
 sible, to be still more explicit, announcing, as they do, 
 the whole divine Trinity, centering and dwelling in 
 His single person. Saying, in effect, " I am He who 
 was," from eternity, the Father Almighty ; " I am he 
 who is," the Son or Humanity, visible to men ; and, 
 " I am He who is to come," the Holy Spirit, the Com- 
 forter, that was promised ; for I shed forth from My- 
 self all holy and benign and regenerating influences, 
 
THE SECOND COMINQ. 67 
 
 and I perform all holy and benign and regenerating 
 operations. Thus, " I am the Almighty," the one 
 and only God, the Jehovah of the Old Testament. 
 
 And the Book closes, saying, "/, Jesus, have sent 
 mine angel unto you to testify these things in the 
 churches." Under the old dispensation it used to be, 
 I, Jehovah, have sent mine angel unto you. But now 
 it is Jesus that sends His angel. The Lord Jesus 
 thus assuming the position and attributes of Jehovah. 
 
 These things have long been enveloped in parables, 
 in the literal sense. But as soon as the Scripture is 
 understood according to the spiritual sense, all things 
 in the letter which seem to favor a diflfei^ent doctrine, 
 are seen to be fallacious appearances', moving out of 
 the way like shadows, or becoming lighted up with 
 new meaning, like clouds illuminated with sunshine ; 
 giving forth a simple, clear, and uniform idea of God 
 in one Person, and that Person manifested in the 
 flesh. 
 
 Such, then, is the Second Coming of the Lord : the 
 announcement from out the bosom of His Word, of 
 this great truth concerning Himself, and concerning 
 all other things contained in the spiritual sense of that 
 Word. Can anything be more worthy of Him, more 
 worthy of His power and glory, more scriptural, more 
 rational, or more spiritually useful to mankind ? 
 
 The relation of Swedenborg to all this great system 
 of Heavenly truth, is simple and clear. He is only 
 the human scribe. " The servant of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ." The man prepared, qualified, and commis- 
 sioned by the Lord to receive these truths and write 
 them down for the use and benefit of mankind. This 
 
68 LECTUEE III, 
 
 is the way divine truth has always entered the woi 
 by means of some man commissioned to receive £ 
 write it. There is no other way for it to come, i 
 so it comes in this way. Wo receive the truths i 
 on his account, but on their own account ; On the 
 thority of Sacred Scripture, and in the light of tl 
 own clear rational demonstration. "In thy lij 
 shall we see light." 
 
 We may apply to Swedenborg, the words appl 
 to John the Baptist, viz : that " he was not the Lig 
 but was sent to bear witness of the Light." F 
 like John at the first coming of the Lord, he was a m 
 senger sent before to prepare the way, to tell the 
 ture and announce the fact of His Second Coming. 
 
LECTURE lY. 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE WHOLE BOOK. 
 
 CONTENTS : — View op the entire; Book op Eev- 
 ELATioN ; Treats op the Last Judgment, and the Events 
 
 WHICH ACCOMPANY IT ; ThE JUDGMENT TAKES PlACE IN THE 
 
 World op Spirits, intermediate World op the Departed 
 (Hades), Midway between Heaven and Hell, shown 
 prom Scripture, and occurs, therefore, out op Sight of 
 Men ; Brief Synopsis of the Successive Scenes of the 
 Judgment and Attendant Events, as described in the 
 Successive Chapters, from the Fourth to the Twen- 
 tieth. 
 
LECTUEE. 
 
 " After this I looked, and behold a door was opened in heaven. 
 And the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet 
 talking with me ; which said, Come up hither, and I will show 
 thee things which must be hereafter." — Revelation iv. 1. 
 
 We have seen something of the character of the 
 Sacred Scripture ; the fulness of its inspiration, and 
 the symbolical style of its language. The great law 
 of correspondences has been nientioned, and a few ex- 
 amples given of the true Christian method of inter- 
 preting Scripture, namely : by inquiring for the proper 
 spiritual idea meant by and involved in each natural 
 symbol or thought. 
 
 We have seen, too, what is the nature of the Lord's 
 second coming, and how that coming is effected ; to- 
 gether with the new and most clear idea concerning 
 Himself, communicated by the Lord, in and through 
 the Word, when its spiritual meaning is understood. 
 We are therefore, in some degree, prepared to come 
 to the Book of Eevelation and understand its con- 
 tents ; for this Book, in its spiritual sense, is filled 
 with the angelic idea of the Lord, and it treats alto- 
 gether of the events that are connected with His 
 8,econd coming. 
 
 The first three chapters, as we have seen, comprise 
 
72 LECTUEE IV. 
 
 a general introduction, containing, among othei 
 things, a prolonged and varied injunction to the Chris 
 tian churches to listen to, to search the meaning of 
 and to give heed to the contents of this Book. W( 
 come to-day, therefore, to the commencement of th< 
 great prophetic vision itself, and are to give a summa 
 ry view of the remainder of the Book. We prefer tc 
 present this general idea at starting, for then th( 
 hearer will be better able to accompany me as we pro 
 ceed; and the different parts of the exposition wS. 
 fall more easily and naturally into their respective 
 places in his mind. We are enabled to obtain thig 
 comprehensive view in the light of the New Jerusa 
 lem, for in the spiritual sense, all things related here 
 cluster around one single event, and are connected 
 together in a most coherent and orderly series. 
 
 There is, therefore, great unity and simplicity in the 
 scheme of this Book ; and its whole plan may be taken 
 in at a single glance the moment its central idea is 
 mastered and retained. The principal event described 
 in it, is the Last Judgment; that "great day" fore- 
 told in so much Divine prophecy, and here, for the 
 last time, fully and circumstantially set forth. Other 
 very important events are of course incidentally men- 
 tioned, some of them quite fully delineated ; but they 
 are all clustered about, this one as accessories, either as 
 antecedents, or as accompaniments, or as consequences 
 flowing from it. 
 
 The second coming of the Lord is antecedent to the 
 Judgment, and is the cause of it. While the other 
 events connected with it aie the consummation or 
 winding up of the first Christian Age or Dispensation, 
 erroneously translated in our version of the Scripture, 
 
SUMMARY VIEW. 73 
 
 « 
 
 " the end of the world ; " followed by the formation of 
 a new heaven, and the descent and establishment of 
 the New Jerusalem on the earth. 
 
 All these events will challenge their share of our 
 attention as our exposition proceeds ; but as (in the 
 contents of this Book), the Last Judgment is central, 
 that is what will chiefly occupy our attention to-day. 
 This is the key of the entire movement, rendering in- 
 telligible the succession of the various parts, and help- 
 ing us to understand their connection and mutual re- 
 lations. 
 
 The beginning of this fourth chapter commences the 
 real movement of the Book, and we invite special at- 
 tentioju to its opening words, that we may observe 
 the stand-point from which they speak, and prepare 
 our intelligence to understand them. " After this I 
 looked and behold a door opened in heaven ; and the 
 first voice which I heard (as it were of a trumpet talk- 
 ing with me), said, come up hither, and I will show 
 thee things which must be hereafter." John was al- 
 ready in the spirit, already under divine influence, al- 
 ready in open vision, with his spiritual eyes and ears 
 cognizant of the scenes and persons of the spiritual 
 world ; and yet, as a condition of seeing these follow- 
 ing things, and beholding that stupendous series of 
 holy symbols about to be unrolled, — he must go up 
 higher. He must, as to his mind, be lifted up still 
 further ; must be elevated in spirit yet closer to heav- 
 en, to the angels, and to the Lord himself. 
 
 Now this circumstance is highly instructive, and for- 
 cibly suggests to the student of the Apocalypse that 
 
74 LEOTUKE ly. 
 
 l>e has something to do as a personal preparative i 
 gonjjng to its pages. If we would enjoy a clear an 
 abiding perception of the meaning of these wondere 
 we must allow ourselves to pass through somethin 
 not q,l|iogether unlike that experienced by the aposth 
 That is, there must be some lifting up of soul, an eh 
 vation of mind towards suph high subjects, by an a( 
 knowledgipent of the Lord and His truth, and of th 
 reality of spiritual and heavenly things, with a desir 
 ^p know them. 
 
 The dqor operied in heaven, was a still further a,n 
 fuller opening of John's spiritual sight and hearing 
 that he might go (as to his spirit), more distinctly int 
 heaven, being for the tinie associated mentally wit 
 angels and the spirits of just men made perfect, i 
 their own world, that he might see soniething of ths 
 T^'orld and of the glorious things going to take plac 
 there ; tha;t, undpr tlie auspices of the Lord, he migt 
 a;fterwards write them in a book for the perpetual it 
 str^ction and enlightenment of men. 
 
 It is of the utmost imp,o:ftance that we attend t 
 t^ese fiyst great facts of the Book ; that we look thei 
 sq[U£^rely and steadily in the face, and let them mak 
 the^r due and full impression upon us. 
 
 Vhere was it, then, that John saw this stupendou 
 array of gorgeous symbolism ? Where did that su( 
 cp^sion of mighty events which he beheld, occur 
 Where happened the sealing of the twelve tribes, th 
 one hundred ai^d forty-four thousand, where appeare 
 the yast multitude which, no man could number, wit 
 white robes, and palms in their ha,nds ? Where wa 
 it t;l^a|t the great white throne was set, and the heaA 
 ^nly host seen, the angels, foUowir^g the Rider on th 
 
SUMMAEY VIEW. 75 
 
 White Horse ? Where was it that the war was waged 
 between Michael and his angels — on one hand — and 
 the Dragon and his angels on the other ? 
 
 Was it on earth, or in heaven ? Was it in the visible 
 world of men, or in the other world, commonly invis- 
 ible to men, in which angels and spirits, both good 
 and evU, clean and unclean, live ? Clearly, there can 
 be but one answer to these questions. They were not 
 seen in the world of men ; such scenes are never wit- 
 nessed on earth ; the events here related are not of a 
 nature to happen in the physical world, or among men 
 in mortal bodies. They belong to the other life, to the 
 immortal state of existence. They are such as occur 
 only after men have left their mortal bodies, and gone 
 into the other world. And no statements can be 
 plainer or clearer than those constantly made in this 
 Book, that that is where they did and do take place. 
 The Apostle was shown things that were to be here- 
 after. And where was he shown them ? Why, 
 plainly, partly in the heaven of angels, partly in the 
 heaven of good spirits, partly in the intermediate state 
 of souls, — in Hades, — the world of spirits midway 
 between heaven and hell ; while, too, some few open- 
 ings are made, and some few glimpses given, of those 
 lower regions in which the evil dwell, and into which 
 the wicked and ungodly are cast down. There, then, 
 is where the fulfilment of all these things takes place ; 
 for, as we have said, these events are all of such a 
 nature as to pertain to the inhabitants of the spiritual 
 world alone, and not to the inhabitants of the natural 
 world. Take up the Book for yourselves, and follow 
 it from chapter to chapter, and you will see that from 
 the moment John was taken up, and the movement of 
 
76 LECTURE IV. 
 
 the prophecy begins, — through tho fiftli, si.vlli, si 
 enth, and inf^lil.li chaptors, and so on to tlio twonl-ic 
 chapter, — all that ih told <n- lui'dHliadowod is son 
 thingtoc()inotoi)a8Haiii()iig'doj)ai'l.oil Hpirits in (lio()th 
 world. Tho viHinn doscdads lo tho (laitli only at t 
 close, in tlid twoniy-first and twiMily-HtKumd cliajjloi 
 There, ill l-lioso last two chapters, is described wh 
 is to (•liiiio in the world oC iiuiii, in conHO(iuouco ol' tho 
 great chaii};'(iH, and of those ^^rand events in hoavi 
 and the world of H[)irilH. Tho doHcont oC tho Nc 
 JoriiHaloin, — tho oslaliliHlirriont oC a lattor-day churi 
 bearing this name, unruldinf? tho lioavonly nioaniiif,' 
 the Bible, toHtiryinj? Uioho tliing'H, uridorHl.an<ling tho 
 things, teacliinft' these (liings, and pointing mon 
 the rational evidtindoH of liio Lord'H second coinin 
 is the principal visible demoiiHtraUon that will bo ho( 
 among men. 
 
 IL iH one of those Hl-mngo tilings which do som 
 times occur in tho history of huuian oiiinion, that, 
 tho popular int(!r|)r(!(.ation, tlio general plan of tli 
 Holy Book has Ikmui for tho most jmrt tui'iuMl exact 
 upside down. Wliilo thoHO ovciiIh which are doHcrilK 
 in it as occnrrinp; in iJio Hpiritual world are iiiado ' 
 apply to alfairH in tliiH world, — l.o l.ho movonicntH ( 
 states or empires, the lanl. two cliajiUM'H, — tho vci 
 portion which dooH in reality rcOalo to iJiis world, - 
 are made to refer to li(!av(ui ; and tho Now JcMiiHale 
 is thought to doscribo tho hcaverdy state of exiHionc 
 And this, too, directly in tho fiKwi of llie Hc-riptur 
 affirmation tliat the holy city is somc^tliing which com 
 down from (Jodowi! o/'lioaven, dcHcending to (MuiJi, ar 
 taking up its permanent dwelling-placo among men I 
 
 The New Jerusalem is said to come down from Gc 
 
SU5IMARY VIEW. 77 
 
 out of heaven, for clear and obvious reasons : because 
 tlie principles upon which it is founded, the doctrines 
 which constitute it, are truths revealed from God out 
 of heaven, through His word, for the establishment of 
 this church, and for the use and enlightenment of 
 men, while the influences which aid in its reception 
 and establishment among men, flow down from 
 heaven. 
 
 From these brief explanations, something, we trust, 
 may be learned towards understanding the prophecies 
 of this Book. It is useless to follow the mode of 
 interpretation too commonly adopted, of searching for 
 their fulfilment in the outward world, in the events of 
 tlie Roman Empire in its last days, in the develop- 
 ments of secular history in subsequent ages, in the 
 movements of great loaders and nations in our own 
 day ; nor yet in great changes and overturns to come 
 in the solid ground or physical elements above and 
 around us ; this is the old Jewish method continued, 
 and must be abandoned. We must remember the 
 words of our Lord, that His "kingdom is not of this 
 world,"' and His prophecies, in their interior and real 
 meaning, do not relate to civil governments and political 
 affairs, but to heavenly things, to affairs in the spiritual 
 world, and to things affecting the life of the church . 
 with men. We must change our whole point of view, 
 therefore, and look upon the' movement as going for- 
 ward in the spiritual world. 
 
 In our ordinary moods, and in our common habits 
 of thought, we are accustomed to treat the spiritual 
 world and its inhabitants altogether with too much 
 neglect.- We leave them too much out of our account. 
 In this respect we are not unlike the Chinese with 
 7» 
 
78 LECTURE IV. 
 
 regard to the rest of the world. They, you know, 
 regard themselves as the " central people," dwelling 
 in " the middle kingdom " of the earth, believing that 
 all beyond their "inner flowery land" consists of 
 fragmentary strips of territory, inhabited by barba- 
 rians, ignorant and few. And so we live on in too 
 narrow and bigoted a frame respecting the other parts 
 of God's great universe ; deeming this little world of 
 ours to be about all there is, and as containing about 
 everything worth knowing ; forgetting that the Lord 
 hath " other sheep which are not of this fold," leaving 
 out of view the vast populations inhabiting other 
 portions of the Divine domain. Two hundred generar 
 tions of men have already lived on this earth, and 
 after having had their day here have emigrated hence 
 into the spiritual world. A number at least two hun- 
 dTed times the average population of our globe must 
 therefore be now living there, gone from this earth 
 alone. And were we to extend our view to those who 
 may have gone thither from other planets, the mind is 
 overwhelmed by the countless myriads which come 
 into the thought. But allowing only for those who 
 have gone from this world, is it not natural that the 
 Apostle, to whom portions of them were shown in 
 holy vision, should speak of them as " a great multi- 
 tude, which no man could number, of aU nations and 
 kindreds, and people and tongues ? " 
 
 The Chinaman, you say, must enlarge his geogra- 
 phy, taking in the other populations. And so must 
 we. We may no longer ignore these mighty multi- 
 tudes inhabiting the various regions of the spiritual' 
 world. They are no dreamy shapes nor formless- 
 phantoms, let us forever dismiss all such vagaries 
 
SUMliLiEY VIEW. 7§ 
 
 from our minds, but stibstantial, living men and 
 women, in spiritual bodies, iniperisliabie and immor- 
 tal. They are more fully endowe'd with all the capac- 
 ities and faculties of life than they wer6 here, -^^ 
 better able to think and to will, better able to speaiK 
 and to act. And do you suppose that such vast con- 
 courses of active human beings are without a history ? 
 Do you imaginie thai the teeming airid mighty popula- 
 tions of those spiritual worlds live on there from a;^"6 
 to age, motionless and still, their communities in d 
 state of stagnation, with no events happening to break 
 the monotony, and no changes in the states of their 
 society ? If so, you are mistaken. Alteration ahdf 
 change are ineffaceably Written on the huihan cohslH^- 
 tution, and, where the Divine laws are obeyed, jprbj'r'ess 
 is the order of human development, iri the natilrErf 
 world and in the spiritual world. And those popula- 
 tions have a history, and have events trarispirin'g 
 amtohg them, — sometimes of immense maghitude, -^^ 
 more interesting, more important, and more valuable 
 to know than any taking place in the movements of 
 armies, or states, or empires, on our habitable glolie. 
 Now the Lord has caused accounts of miany of these 
 events to be written ih His Word, in which Some of 
 theiSi are very fully described, while others are le^§ 
 minutely set forth. They are given for our instriiii- 
 tioh, and for counsels of practical wisdom, takiii^ its', 
 as it were, behind the scenes, developing t6 us thi^ 
 laws of mental life in actual operation, and showiiig 
 us the issues to which the;^ lead in tlie" Spiritual and 
 eternal world. These disclosures, therefore, in the 
 Bodk of ReV^elatiori, speak with peculiar emphasis' to 
 every rational' and immortal- soul. " He that hath aii 
 
&\Jl LECTURE IV. 
 
 ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the 
 churches." " Blessed is he that readeth, and they 
 that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those 
 things which are written therein ; for the time is at 
 hand." 
 
 The time is now. If we would understand God's 
 truth as it is, and the facts of the universe as they are, 
 we must admit these things into our thought, and 
 treat those great communities of the other world, their 
 movements and their doings, as substantial realities. 
 
 Let us remember, then, that the Last Judgment is an 
 event which takes place in the world of the departed, 
 — the world of spirits, and not in the world of men. 
 
 Paul says, "It is appointed unto all men once to 
 die, and after that the judgment." Thus we see that 
 the judgment comes in that other world into which 
 men go after the death of the outward body. But, as 
 many, perhaps most persons, reading Scripture by the 
 obscure light of the letter, are at this day still expect- 
 ing a judgment, and a Great Day to come, which shall 
 break up the current of the world's history, which 
 shall be a great visible demonstration here in the nat- 
 ural world and in the sight of men, — it may be worth 
 while to read these words of the apostle again, noting 
 their full meaning. He says, " It is appointed unto 
 all men once to die, and after that the judgment." 
 How can any, then, witness such an event until after 
 death ? How will it ever be possible for the world of 
 men to see any such event ? Clearly, the entire scene, 
 occurring, as it does, in the other world, is one which 
 passes by without the knowledge of men in this 
 world. We in this world can see nothing of it, can 
 
SUMMAEY VIEW. 81 
 
 hear nothing of it, can be sensible of nothing of it, 
 except as it maybe reported to us by revelation. The 
 more we examine the Sacred Scripture, and the more 
 we reflect attentively upon the circumstances of the 
 case, the more clearly shall we perceive that this is so. 
 Every fact we know, and every part of Scripture con- 
 firms it. 
 
 Take, for instance, our Lord's parable of the tares 
 and the wheat. The meaning of tares and wheat is 
 similar to that of goats and sheep ; they typify two 
 classes of men, one of which the Lord cannot approve, 
 and which therefore must be rejected at the last day ; 
 while the other class, consisting of good and honest 
 men, can come into conjunction with the Lord, can 
 enter His kingdom in the spiritual world, helping to 
 increase the number in that new heaven which He 
 forms at His coming. The leading thought of the 
 parable is that the wheat and tares are not to be sep- 
 arated, that they are to remain together a long period, 
 even many hundred years, — our Lord says, "until 
 the harvest." And in His explanation of the parable, 
 given to His disciples. He declares the harvest which 
 He means to be the " end of the dispensation," the 
 closing up of that great period of the Church, " the 
 consummation of the " first great "age" of Chris- 
 tianity, which should be brought about by His second 
 coming.* 
 
 The question now recurs upon the place where , this 
 
 * We know that as it stands in our common Bible, this passage 
 reads as though it was at the " end of the world " that this is to 
 take place. But as we have before had occasion to remark, this 
 is an erroneous translation ; no end of the world is foretold ja 
 Scripture ; the simple meaning is, the end or winding up of the 
 dispensation, or " consummation of the age." 
 
82 LECTUEE IV. 
 
 happens. Where is it that the wheat and tares 
 remain mingled together until the harvest ? Where is 
 it that good men and evil men live on together, asso- 
 ciated in each other's society, age after age, from the- 
 time our Lord was on earth till He comes again, and 
 causes a separation by the execution of a judgment ? 
 Surely, it is not here in the natural world. Men 
 remain here but a comparatively short period at long- 
 est. Wheat and tares both soon finish up their affairs 
 here, and pass forward into the other world. More 
 than fifty generations of men have succeeded each 
 other on the stage of life since our Lord was on earth. 
 Where are they ? Do wheat and tares grow together 
 in heaven ? Are the evil taken up into heaven, and 
 kept there until the judgment, that they may remain 
 mingled with the good ? Are the good taken down 
 into hell, and kept there until the judgment, that they 
 may remain associated with the evil ? Surely, these 
 things will not be maintained. Clearly, then, there is 
 but one response that can be made to all these ques- 
 tions, and that is the answer we have already given 
 them in this Discourse. The good and evil remain 
 mingled together until the judgment, in the world 
 where the judgment occurs, — there is no other part of 
 the universe where they can do so, — and that is in the 
 Hades of the New Testament, — the world of spirits, 
 midway between heaven and hell ; — the place into 
 which all souls go immediately after the death of the 
 mortal body. 
 
 With this one great fact, therefore, as to where the 
 judgment occurs, clearly proved and appreciated, we 
 can go forwai'd, and, with attention, can understand 
 
SUMMARY VIEW. 83 
 
 the movement of events in the Book of Eevelationj 
 while without it we could scarcely understand cor- 
 rectly a single verse. 
 
 The first thing shown the apostle in the vision is 
 the preparation made by the Lord among the angels in 
 heaven for the execution of the judgment. The per- 
 ception which the angels had of its necessity, and 
 their consequent belief that it was near at hand, their 
 desire and aspirations to the Lord that He would.come 
 and accomplish it, their arrangement into order pre- 
 paratory to it, and their songs of glorification and 
 praise to the Lord when they perceived that He was 
 about to do it, are all described ; and though veiled in 
 the usual symbolism of prophecy, are still suflSciently 
 obvious in the sense of the letter. These occupy the 
 fourth chapter. In the fifth chapter, the means of 
 judgment are set forth. That is, the instrumentality 
 by which the coming work is to be accomplished, is 
 described. And as all may see, those means are 
 declared to be sacred truths coming forth out of the 
 Word of God. For then is seen the Great Book', 
 sealed with seven seals, which the Lamb is about to 
 open by loosing the seals in which much of its mean- 
 ing has hitherto been bound up. And the chapter 
 closes with the anthem of joy and praise to the Lord, 
 by the angels, when they knew that the Divine Book 
 was to have its seals taken off, that its interior mean- 
 ing was to be explained, and so, a multitude of new 
 truths be disclosed from it, which should serve to 
 increase the wisdom of the heavens, and strengthen 
 them in goodness ; which would serve, too, to protect 
 novitiate spirits, defending them against the wiles of 
 the wicked ; should disperse the fallacies current in 
 
84 LECTUKK IV. 
 
 the world of spirits, performing a judgment there, 
 separating the good from among the evil, and shining 
 down at last for the illustration and enlightenment of 
 men in the world. 
 
 Such are the contents of these two chapters. The 
 movement then proceeds. 
 
 As we hfve said, judgment is effected by means of 
 truths drawn from Sacred Scripture ; but truths of a 
 more interior and searching kind than those which men 
 commonly draw from the mef e letter of the Word. It 
 is the spiritual sense and application of the Divine 
 precepts that accomplishes this work, — '■ the truth 
 applied to the thoughts and intents of the heart. Our 
 Lord says, "the words- which I speak unto you, they 
 are spirit and they are life." And again He says, " I 
 judge no man ; the word that I have spoken, this shall 
 judge him in the last day." From which it appears 
 that it is the truth alone which performs this operation. 
 The Lord says that He judges no man. That is, He 
 does not literally and personally sit in judgment, seated 
 on a throne, surrounded by great pomp, and acting 
 out visibly the sovereignty of a judge. All such rep- 
 resentations found in the letter of prophecy, are meant 
 to symbolize the great power and majesty of Divine 
 truth, coming from the Lord, and its effectiveness in 
 accomplishing the judgment of souls in the spiritual 
 world. 
 
 When we come to think carefully, and analyze the 
 subject of spiritual judgment in the light of Sacred 
 Scripture, we shall discover that it consists of four 
 things, occurring successively, namely; 1. Exploration 
 of state; 2. Declaration of quality; 3. Actual trial by 
 truth ; 4. Execution of verdict. 
 
 Let us consider these different stages. 
 
SUMMARY YIEW. 85 
 
 First, the exploration of state. When a commu- 
 nity in the world of spirits is to be judged, the first 
 thing done is, light is let in from heaven upon that 
 community, — the light of Divine and heavenly truth. 
 And in that light "the angels can see the moral quality 
 of that community. It discloses their state as to 
 religious or irreligious life. It enables the angels to 
 see and determine the general character of such a 
 community, and the different classes of men which 
 compose it ; enables them to distinguish the wheat from 
 the tares, the sheep from the goats. This it is impor- 
 tant for the angels to see, for the angels, you know, 
 are the Lord's ministers in the performance of judg- 
 ment. 
 
 Secondly, the declaration of quality. This immedi- 
 ately follows the discovery. When it is clearly seen 
 among the angels, by examination from above, what 
 is the character of a community about to be judged, 
 a declaration is made concerning it as it appears to 
 them in the light of heaven. And the Lord has caused 
 those declarations to be recorded in His Word, for the 
 spiritual instruction of men. 
 
 Thirdly, the trial by Truth. The truth itself is then 
 carried down to that community, to see how they will 
 receive and treat it. The angels descend to them with 
 the truth, making it known among them, — declaring 
 it, teaching it. Thus they are tried by it. It is 
 brought immediately home to them, practically and 
 clearly, and they must, and will, either receive or re- 
 ject it. If they are in interior goodness, they love it 
 and are delighted with it ; and, joining themselves to 
 the angels, are led forth out of that community as Lot 
 and his family were led forth by the angels out of 
 8 ' 
 
86 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Sodom. Those, on the contrary, who are not in inte- 
 rior goodness, but rather in evil at heart, do not love 
 such truth ; it does not delight them ; they see no 
 form or comeliness in it that they should desire it, so 
 they turn away and reject it, despising it in heart, 
 and despising, likewise, those who teach and those 
 who receive it. 
 
 Thus is that community judged ; the truth itself be- 
 ing the instrument by which it is effected, the Lord 
 endowing that truth with power and might, the angels 
 acting as its agents, and the spirits themselves acting 
 in freedom, making their own choices, being, in one 
 sense, their own judges, by being judged out of their 
 own mouths ; thus fulfilling the Scripture which saith, 
 " For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy 
 words thou shalt be condemned." 
 
 Fourthly, the executiou of the Verdict. After this 
 trial by truth has been accomplished, and the good, in 
 consequence, separated from among the evil, then 
 come the final results to the two separated companies. 
 The good follow the angels, and are taken up and in- 
 structed, and become inmates of heaven. While the 
 evil turn away, seeking their like and casting them- 
 selves down from the presence of the angels, are cov- 
 ered up in their own abodes in the lower regions of 
 the spiritual world ; as Sodom and Gomorrah went to 
 destruction by their own wickedness, as soon as all 
 the good people (those willing to be saved) had been 
 gathered out of them. 
 
 Now these four things are what are described in 
 the succeeding chapters of this Book, from the sixth 
 to the twentieth, inclusive, as happening to different 
 
SUMMAET VIEW. 87 
 
 communities of spirits from this earth, congregated in 
 the world of spirits, midway between heaven and 
 heU. 
 
 In the sixth chapter, the exploration begins where 
 the apostle says, " And I saw when the Lamb opened 
 one of the seals ; and I heard, as it were, the noise of 
 thunder, one of the four beasts saying, ' Come and 
 see.' " Here the disclosure of new truth is symbo- 
 lized, and then, what appeared in the light of that 
 truth is described. Thus the exploration proceeds. 
 In this sixth chapter is given a summary view of the 
 spiritual state of the Christian populations in the world 
 of spirits ; that is, of those multitudes who had gone 
 in thither from Christendom, and been detained there 
 since the first coming of the Lord until His second 
 coming. And the chapter closes with a declaration 
 that the judgment itself is immediately at hand ; say- 
 ing, " For the great day of his wrath has come ; and 
 who shall be able to stand ? " 
 
 In the next chapter (seventh), under the represen- 
 tation of the sealing of the one hundred and forty- 
 four thousand of the twelve tribes, and the great 
 white-robed band beyond, we have the fact set forth 
 that in those vast populations which are about to be 
 judged, there will be found immense multitudes whom 
 the truth can approve, and who, therefore, can be 
 taken up iato association with angels ; and so go to 
 swell the numbers of those "new heavens," or new 
 heavenly communities which the Lord is about to 
 form. 
 
 The four succeeding chapters, from the eighth to 
 the eleventh, inclusive, are occupied with the explora- 
 tion, the declaration of qualities disclosed among the 
 
88 I/EOTUEE IV. 
 
 protestant, or nominally protestant, populations there, 
 and their experimental trial by some leading truths of 
 the Divine Word. The reason why the reformed or 
 protestant body is described first, is because among 
 them the Sacred Scripture is freely given to the com- 
 mon people, a knowledge of its literal sense is most 
 widely diffused, and they are accustomed to appeal to 
 its teachings as the standard of faith and practice. 
 They have the most light and the most of the genuine 
 elements of the church among them, and therefore are 
 the first recipients of new divine truth. For we read 
 in the prophet that when the judgment comes, it shall 
 "begin at my sanctuary, saith the Lord." 
 
 In the twelfth chapter, under the figure of the 
 woman clothed with the sun, is described the New 
 Church, the church of the New Jerusalem, as to the 
 fulness of lighi, in which'it is, from the Word of God, 
 and as to the strength and purity of her doctrines. 
 She was seen surrounded by the sun, moon, and stars, 
 all the light-giving heavenly bodies, to denote the 
 completeness of the knowledge she will enjoy, of heav- 
 enly truths and heavenly things. This church is de- 
 scribed here, midway of the scene, while the judgment 
 is going on, because its truths were then promulgated 
 in the world of spirits, and it is the church established 
 there as that world becomes cleared of the evil. Af- 
 terwards flowing down into the opinions of men, and 
 so becoming a church in this world. 
 
 The thirteenth chapter, under the emblem of the 
 beast with seven heads and ten horns, describes the 
 besetting sin of. the protestant world, — the dominant 
 evil to which it is most readily prone. More details 
 will be given about it when we come to treat of that 
 chapter. 
 
SUMMAET VIEW. 89 
 
 In the fourteenth chapter, where the apostle says, 
 " And I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on the mount 
 Zion, and with Him an hundred and forty and four 
 thousand, having His Father's name written in their 
 foreheads," is described the new heaven which the 
 Lord promised He would form at His second coming, 
 and which is composed of the good found among the 
 judged populations. 
 
 The fifteenth and sixteenth chapters are occupied 
 with the execution of the verdict on the evil found in 
 the protestant populations ; symbolized by the great 
 red dragon, and his being cast down with his associ- 
 ate spirits, into the pit. A more particular explana- 
 tion will be found in the eighth lecture. 
 
 The seventeenth and eighteenth chapters, under 
 the figure of the woman on the scarlet beast, describe 
 the exploration and judgment of the papists or Roman 
 Catholic spirits. In this view, we believe nearly all 
 protestant writers have been agreed. The only mis- 
 take they have made being the supposition that the 
 prophecy meant the visible church of Rome in this 
 world. Whereas, as we have seen, in its real meaning 
 the prophecy refers to that larger and vaster con- 
 course of papists, and that far more numerous and for- 
 midable church of Rome, congregated in the world of 
 spirits at the time of the Last Judgment. 
 
 The nineteenth chapter, under the symbol of the 
 white horse and his rider, describes certain particulars 
 connected with the manner or mode of the Lord's 
 second advent, with the closing up of the former dis- 
 pensation, and the introduction of the new one, while 
 the twentieth chapter, as may obviously appear on a 
 perusal of it, is occupied with the closing scenes of 
 8* 
 
90 LECTURE IV. 
 
 the judgment, and its execution upon Gentile spirits 
 from the nations outside of and beyond the Christian 
 world. 
 
 Then, finally, we have, in the twenty-first and twen- 
 ty-second chapters, as the result of this great judg- 
 ment, and of all the other grand events connected 
 with it, the descent of the New Jerusalem to the 
 earth, the promulgation of all these truths here among 
 men, and the establishment of a new church founded 
 upon them, teaching them and explaining them, and 
 through them leading men into more perfect obedience 
 to the precepts of the gospel. 
 
 Thus we see that the moment we have the right 
 stand-point given us, from which to view the scenes 
 of this Book, its keynote is struck. Its general 
 movement from first to last is easily understood. 
 All then becomes order and harmony. The several 
 succeeding events readily fall into their respec- 
 tive places, and the mind clearly apprehends the 
 rational connection of the different parts. There is a 
 simple and orderly chain of development from begin- 
 ning to end, and any one portion rightly examined and 
 understood, throws a rational and clear light over 
 every other portion. That which commenced in the 
 world of spirits more than a hundred years ago, con- 
 tinues there to-day. The population of the globe has 
 so increased in these later ages that 100,000 departing 
 spirits pass into that world now every twenty-four 
 hours ; a full regiment every fifteen minutes ; nearly a 
 million a week. And this great concourse, pressing 
 forward into the strong and clear light of Divine truth, 
 still shining down there from heaven, and into the 
 presence of angels, makes every day a day of judg- 
 
SUMMAET VIEW. 91 
 
 ment now ; for the flocking multitudes do not remain 
 and accumulate there as formerly, (the causes which 
 commenced the judgment serving to keep it in prog- 
 ress,) but being soon explored and separated, pass on 
 in a shorter time, the good to their elevated de&tina- 
 tions, the evil to their own places below. 
 
 The study of these parts in detail, which will be our 
 next endeavor, will not be without its practical instruc- 
 tion to us ; for the judgment here described is, as to 
 its essential laws and principles, the judgment we 
 ourselves must all pass through. And we can here, 
 therefore, study the evil qualities and false principles 
 it is necessary to avoid and shun in order to be ap- 
 proved in that day of trial, and. be able to stand ; a,nd 
 we can renew our covenant with the truth, imploring 
 the Lord for His help to render us faithful to the dis- 
 charge of its duties, and to inspire into our hearts a 
 sincere and abiding love for His salvation and for 
 heavenly and holy things. 
 
LECTURE. 
 
 "And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals; and I 
 heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts, 
 saying. Come and see." — Rev. vi. 1. 
 
 " Come and see 1 " The invitation is to us to-day 
 as well as to John then, — to turn and look ; to open 
 the eyes of our minds and examine, inquiring into the 
 meaning of these things, and reaping the practical 
 instruction in heavenly and divine truths they are 
 capable of afifording. 
 
 We treat to-day of the' fifth, sixth, and seventh chap- 
 ters of Eevelation. 
 
 As mentioned last Sunday, the fifth chapter is occu- 
 pied in describing the means of exploration and 
 judgment, — the medium or instrumentality which the 
 Lord employs to accomplish that work. And, as then 
 said, and as may be clearly seen from the contents of 
 the chapter, those means are declared to be sacred truths 
 drawn or sent forth from His Word. The Book sealed 
 with seven seals is the Bible. And in the first verse 
 of the chapter it is said that this Book is "writt&n. 
 within" as well as on the outside, to signify that the 
 Bible contains an interior, spiritual sense, or meaning, 
 within the external or literal sense. And the Book 
 was said to be sealed up, because this interior sense 
 or meaning of Sacred Scripture has not been known 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 THE OPENING OP THE SEALED BOOK. 
 
 CONTENTS : — The 5th, 6th, and 7th Chapters 
 
 TREATED ; PREPARATION MADE IN HeaVEN FOR THE EXECU- 
 TION OP THE Judgment ; Opening op the Internal 
 Meaning op Holy Scripture, in the Light op which 
 Successive Exploration is made bt the Angels of the 
 States op Populations op Spirits to be judged, signified 
 BY the Horses going forth prom the Book ; The Seal- 
 ing OF THE One Hundred and Forty-four Thousand, sig- 
 nifying the Eecognition of the Good, who are capable 
 op being saved, and capable op becoming Inhabitants 
 of the " New Heavens " about to be formed. 
 
96 LECTURE V. 
 
 until this age, when the Lord has revealed it, allowing 
 it now to be made known and taught. When a roll 
 of parchment is sealed up, then only that writing 
 which is on its outside, usually containing some gen- 
 eral description of the contents within, can be seen or 
 read. That which is within is entirely invisible, and 
 cannot be read until the seals are removed and the 
 parchment unrolled. Its interior contents can then 
 be read and understood, like the rest. And so it has 
 been with the Word of God. Its outside, — its letter, 
 
 — is what Christendom has been reading for sixteen 
 or seventeen centuries. That which is vrriitea within, 
 
 — its spiritual meaning, — has not been seen, nor 
 recognized, nor read, because it has been covered and 
 concealed by the seals of natural idea — natural sym- 
 bol and thought — contained in the letter. The seals 
 are taken off, and the Book opened, when the symbols 
 are explained, and when each spiritual idea meant and 
 denoted by each natural idea, is disclosed and ren- 
 dered clear. Men then begin to read the spiritual 
 sense. The seals are said to be seven, not from any 
 numerical force to be attached to that prophetical 
 word, but because seven is a symbolical number, de- 
 noting all, or the whole of anything that is treated of, 
 especially sacred things. Hence the number seven 
 occurs so constantly in this Book, not unfrequently 
 being used many times in a single chapter. 
 
 This spiritual sense of Scripture, together with 
 many of the leading truths it contains, and the means 
 of learning and elucidating it from the Bible, was, as 
 we have already stated and maintained, revealed and 
 disseminated in the world among men about the middle 
 of the last century, in the "Writings of Emanuel Swe- 
 
OPENING OF THE BOOK. 97 
 
 denborg. At the same time, and by processes suited 
 to that world, these truths and doctrines were promul- 
 gated and diffused among spirits in the spiritual world, 
 and, as before said, became there, in the hands of the 
 angels, the means or instrumentality of exploration and 
 judgment. The leading idea, then, of this fifth chap- 
 ter is, that the Lord Jesus Christ, at His coming, 
 reveals the spiritual meaning of His Word, and that 
 by and according to the truths written in it. He exe- 
 cutes the judgment. 
 
 The latter part of the chapter is filled with the 
 happy anthems and joyous glorifications of the angels 
 on the revelation of these truths from the Word. They 
 themselves were delighted with the truths ; they were 
 such as they had greatly desired to know more dis- 
 tinctly and fully ; and they saw the immense uses they 
 would perform, — how, by means of them, the simple 
 good in the world of spirits would be rescued from 
 among the evil, — how, by them, the wicked crew in 
 the intermediate world would soon be dispersed and 
 cast down, — and how, too, the church on earth would 
 be enlightened and strengthened, would be edified and 
 purified by them, thus diffusing the- highest and most 
 lasting benefits among mankind, — their souls over- 
 flowing with gladness at all this, they broke forth into 
 these songs of thanksgiving and praise. 
 
 It is easy to examine the next two chapters, the 
 sixth and seventh, in connection, for they are united 
 and pervaded by a common idea ; being occupied with 
 a general exploration of the populations from Chris- 
 tendom, then about to be judged, and a Declaration 
 of the state in which the Lord and His angels' then 
 9 
 
98 LECTUEE V. 
 
 discovered them to be, viewing them as they did in 
 the light of heaven and of these new truths ; a double 
 declaration, describing both the evil and the good. 
 
 The first words of the Apostle at the beginning of 
 the sixth chapter and as quoted in the text are, — 
 " And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals." 
 The idea that the opening of these seals denotes an 
 exploration by the Lord of the spiritual state of His 
 church and of the Christian world — in the light of 
 Divine truth as that is disclosed from His Word — is 
 not new in interpretation. The symbolism is so apt 
 and pertinent as to suggest readily a good deal of its 
 meaning to the careful and spiritually-minded stu- 
 dent of the Bible. And it has been common in the 
 past ages of the church for the most accomplished 
 commentators to attribute to this chapter some mean- 
 ing like this. Their point of failure is, in applying it 
 to visible Christendom, and the church among men, to 
 the neglect as we have seen of those vaster popula- 
 tions congregated in the world of spirits. Some have 
 supposed it to be a brief spiritual history of the Chris- 
 tian church from the apostolic age till the second 
 Advent of the Lord ; others, that it describes the 
 spiritual state of the church and the world as He finds 
 them at His second coming. 
 
 But to get at the core of its meaning, and have 
 every symbol fall into its right place, we must follow 
 the apostle into the spiritual world, and view these 
 declarations as applying, specifically, to the commu- 
 nities in the world of spirits, accumulated there from 
 Christendom, just before the Last Judgment. It may 
 be said, indeed, not untruly, to contain an epitome of 
 the spiritual history of the church from the beginning, 
 
OPENING OF THE BOOK. 99 
 
 for the generations of men who had lived here and 
 composed that church in the centuries gone, were then 
 and there assembled. And, so too, its descriptions 
 may be truly said to be, in some good degree, typical 
 of the spiritual state of visible Christendom' at the 
 Lord's coming, for thousands, yes, millions, who had 
 just departed from Christendom, were there, carrying 
 all their qualities and principles of life with them. 
 What, therefore, was true of those communities of 
 spirits, at the middle of the last century, would also 
 be measurably true of nominally Christian Europe in 
 the same age, and may to-day be said to be true of it 
 and of us, except so far as certain qualities or charac- 
 teristics may have undergone modification or change 
 in the lapse and progress of the last hundred years. 
 
 Let us now attend to the exploration of that vast 
 multitude of spirits as it is described in the sixth 
 chapter. It is not difficult to perceive that the open- 
 ing of the different seals, one after another, denotes 
 the disclosure of successive truths from the Word, or 
 of successive instalments of the truth, and, that in the 
 light of each one of these successive truths, some new 
 fact was disclosed, — some new spiritual quality exist- 
 ing in that community, was laid open to view. Such 
 is indeed the meaning. And it is a thought which 
 falls so readily into the apprehension from the record 
 that we have no need to prove it. 
 
 But the signification of some of the specific symbols 
 is not at first so obvious. The meaning of the four 
 horses seen in connection with the opening of the 
 first four seals, will not so readily appear. And we 
 shall not have the space to give all the Scriptural and 
 rational considerations which would make their pecul- 
 
100 LECTUEE V. 
 
 iar signification, perhaps, entirely clear ; but we shall 
 have time for a few statements which will put the 
 inquiring mind on the right track, after which it can 
 work out the remainder of the confirmation for itself. 
 
 All the members of the animal creation are corre- 
 spondences and representatives of things in man : that 
 is, of qualities or characteristics or principles which 
 are alive and active in his mind, and by which, there- 
 fore, he is animated. And in the Bible these animals 
 are employed as types or emblems of those mental 
 traits or qualities. Thus, our Lord calls Herod a, fox, 
 to denote his wicked cunning ; Issachar is called a 
 strong ass ; Dan, a serpent in the way ; Naphtali is 
 described as a hind let loose ; each one expressive of 
 some distinctive mental characteristic. Our Lord is 
 called a Lamb, to set forth His quality of Divine inno- 
 cence. He is also called the Lion. of the tribe of 
 Judah, to symbolize the great spiritual strength, or 
 power over evil, which He possesses by virtue of the 
 union of Divine Goodness with Divine Truth in His 
 human nature. This employment of animals might he 
 indefinitely confirmed, as will readily be seen from 
 every portion of the Scriptures, — from the ritual 
 ceremonies of the Jews, in which certain domestic 
 animals were offered to Jehovah, — in the histories of 
 Old Testament and New, and in the prophetical parts 
 of both. 
 
 What, therefore, is true of other animals, is true 
 also of horses ; they are frequently used for prophetic 
 purposes, and, like other animals, are emblematic and 
 significative of a certain element in man. And that 
 element is his faculty of understanding the Divine 
 Word, — that power of rational thought by which he 
 
OPENING OF THE BOOK. 101 
 
 perceives and appreciates spiritual truth. Prom this 
 explanation of their meaning we shall get a clear and 
 consistent idea from every passage of Scripture in 
 which horses are mentioned. We shall see something 
 of what is meant by the horses and chariots of salva- 
 tion, so frequently taentioned in the Old Testament ; 
 by the horses and chariots of fire, which the prophet's 
 boy, whose " eyes " had been " opened," saw round 
 about Elisha, similar to those by which Elijah had been 
 taken up into heaven. This is the reason why the 
 Lord was seen, at His second coming, in the nine- 
 teenth chapter of Eevelation, riding upon a white horse, 
 of great brilliancy and pureness, because, as already 
 explained, He now comes to enlighten the rational 
 faculty of men in relation to spiritual subjects, — 
 comes to communicate to them a higher meaning and 
 better understanding of His Word. 
 
 That there is some hidden and deep-laid analogy 
 between the bodily act of riding and the mental act 
 of exercising rational thought, may be gleaned from 
 many things in the common language of men. When 
 a man confines his thoughts principally to one chan- 
 nel, keeping it running, too much, as men think, upon 
 a single idea, we say that he is riding a hobby. If he 
 thinks too loosely, or vaguely, diffusing his thought 
 over too wide a surface, we say that he gives the reins 
 to his imagination. In the Greek and Roman mythol- 
 ogy, the winged horse Pegasus was the emblem of 
 discursive or poetic thought ; — an idea descended 
 from the correspondential symbolism of an earlier 
 time. Thus, in the prophet, where a darkened state 
 of the church is foretold, in which there should be no 
 adequate understanding of the real sense of Sacred 
 
102 LECTUEE V. 
 
 Scripture, nor any clear perception of spiritual truth, 
 — it is said, "In that day, I will smite every horse 
 with astonishment, and his rider with madness ; — and 
 will smite every horse of the people with blindness." 
 While in another place, where a different and better 
 state of the church is described, we read, — " In that 
 day, there shall be upon the bells of the horses, ' Holi- 
 ness unto the Lord.' " Then there is also the vision, 
 of Zechariah, in which four horses of different colors 
 were seen by the prophet to come out from between 
 two mountains of brass. And in one place where the 
 restoration of the church to a faithful and happy state 
 is predicted, one of the promises is, • — " And Jehovah 
 will make Judah as a goodly horse." That the four 
 horses mentioned here, mean something connected 
 with the understanding of Scripture, may be seen on 
 reflection, from the circumstance that they went forth 
 out of (he Book. And what can go forth out of the 
 great and holy Book but something relating to rational 
 thought, or the understanding of truth ? How can 
 we apprehend what is in a Book, but through the 
 understanding ? 
 
 So, did time allow, we might multiply indefinitely 
 the Scriptural and rational confirmations of the spirit- 
 ual meaning of horses and of riding. 
 
 But with what has already been adduced we shall 
 be prepared to see that, under the symbolism of the 
 four horses, there is described an exploration of that 
 multitude as to their understanding of the Word of God. 
 This is the first question to be asked concerning any 
 people. What degree of light are they in ? How do 
 they understand the truth ? What do they know 
 about spiritual and heavenly things ? As our Lord 
 
OPENING OF THE eOOK. 103 
 
 said to the lawyer who came to Him with questions, 
 " Which is the great commandment of the law, How 
 readest thou?" How readesf thou? How do you 
 understand that which has been written in the Book ? 
 And this is the first question which Heaven and the 
 angels ask of a society of spirits about to be judged. 
 "How readest thou ? " How have you understood and 
 applied the things written, for universal instruction, 
 in the Word of God ? What is your knowledge of 
 and your intelligence in heavenly and Divine things ? 
 And what are your states of life accordingly? 
 
 The declarations here made as to what was seen as 
 the successive seals were opened, are inspired infalli- 
 ble answers to these questions. 
 
 When the first seal was opened, we read, " And I 
 saw, and behold, a white horse ; and he that sat on 
 him had a bow ; and a crown was given unto him : 
 and he went forth conquering and to conquer." 
 
 This is readily seen to be descriptive of the good 
 found in that community. For, when the exploration 
 began, the first thing seen by the angels was the mul- 
 titude of righteous it contained ; sincere readers and 
 faithful doers of the Word ; and the symbols mentioned 
 in this verse are all emblematic of their state. White, 
 clear, and glistening, is heaven's own color with respect 
 to intelligence. The spiritual angels are always de- 
 scribed as appearing in white, bright, and shining ap- 
 parel. And the good spirits are seen clothed in fine 
 linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the 
 righteousness of the saints. 
 
 The white horse, therefore, clearly, is emblematic of 
 their understanding of the Word of God ; that they 
 had read their Bible with some just appreciation of its 
 
104 'LECTUEE V. 
 
 truths, and thence were gifted, both in faith and life, 
 with some good degree of intelligence in spiritual 
 things. The bow which the rider of this horse carried 
 in his hand, denotes the combat which such persons 
 are always ready to wage against their own bad pro- 
 pensities and wrong dispositions of mind. The crown 
 given unto him, is the " crown of life," — a token that 
 all such will be saved, for they are capable of follow- 
 ing the Lord when he comes to Judgment, and capa- 
 ble of becoming members of the New Heaven which 
 He then forms. This rider, being said to go forth 
 conquering and to conquer, means their continued and 
 successful resistance in temptations, overcoming their 
 own evil dispositions, in the name of the Lord, and by 
 means of His truth. 
 
 We come next to the second seal. As the light 
 shining from the spiritual sense of the Word increased, 
 and the exploration by the angels proceeded, other 
 qualities and other characters were discovered, exist- 
 ing in that great community. 
 
 ■ The next horse that went forth was red. This de- 
 notes an understanding of the Word among those who 
 are in evil. For the color red is used here in an oppo- 
 site or bad sense, of which there are in Scripture 
 many instances. In which case it denotes an evil 
 state of the heart or will. As thus, in the prophet 
 Isaiah, " Come now, and let us reason together, saith 
 the Lord ; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall 
 be white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, 
 they shall be as wool." And in the seventeenth chap- 
 ter of Revelation, where the unfaithful church is de- 
 scribed, — the church filled with all manner" of perver- 
 sions and uncleanness, it is represented under the 
 
OPENING OF THE BOOK. 105 
 
 figure of a woman seated upon a scarlet-colored beast, 
 to show that the affections which animated it were 
 evil. And that the state of the evil is here meant by 
 the red horse, is easily seen from the words that fol- 
 low; that it "was given to him that sat thereon, to 
 take peace from the earth ; and that they should kill 
 one another." This, therefore, describes those in that 
 community, who in their lives in the world had heard 
 the gospel, had heard and read the Scripture, and 
 therefore had come to some understanding of its 
 truths ; but had not applied them to life, — had not 
 repented, nor obeyed them in heart. They were hear- 
 ers, and . theoretical receivers, but not doers of the 
 Word, remaining still in the life of their selfish lusts. 
 
 Under the figure of the hlacJc horse, is described the 
 imdifferent class of persons, those who take no interest 
 in spiritual things. Though in the world they lived 
 in a community where the Scriptures were circulated 
 and these things constantly taught, yet they acquired 
 no rational knowledge of them ; their understandings 
 were totally dark, when questioned with respect to 
 the holy truths of the Divine Word ; and consequent- 
 ly they were entirely empty of that spiritual goodness 
 which those truths, properly applied, would have en- 
 abled them to procure. 
 
 Having gone thus far in the exposition of these 
 symbols, the meaning of the fourth horse will be read- 
 ily perceived. He was without proper color, being 
 of a deathly paleness. ■ Pallor, indeed, denotes death. 
 And, it is said that Death sat on him, while Hell fol- 
 lowed with him. By this is described the deniers of 
 the Word" ; those who mock at its divinity, and con- 
 temn its truths, — in understanding, in heart, and in 
 
106 LECTUEE V. 
 
 life. All such are spiritually dead ; and because they 
 are under no restraints of conscience, they live as they 
 please, giving a loose to every passion where outward 
 circumstances do not forbid. Hence it is said in the 
 description which follows, that, " power was given 
 unto them * * * * to kill with the sword, and with 
 hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the 
 earth." By which are signified evil affections, or lusts 
 and propensities of every kind. 
 
 It will be seen, therefore, that here, under these 
 four heads, there is a classification of the various hear- 
 ers of the gospel, somewhat analogous to that made 
 by our Lord in the Parable of the Sower ; the order, 
 however, being reversed. For in the Parable, the 
 Lord commences with the most wicked, ending with 
 the good ; whereas this prophetic vision commences 
 with the good, ending with the most wicked. They 
 are those respectively who receive the word, — some, 
 into good ground ; others among thorns ; others, again, 
 into stony places, or hardness of heart ; while the last 
 by the wayside only, rejecting it wholly. 
 
 The opening of the ffth seal, describes the explorar 
 tion of still another class of persons, as may be dis- 
 covered from what is then said, — a certain class of 
 good spirits. "And when he had opened the fifth 
 seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were 
 slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony 
 which they held ; and they cried with a loud voice, 
 saying. How long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou 
 not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell . 
 on the earth? And white robes were given unto 
 every one of them ; and it was said unto them, that 
 
OPENING OF THE BOOK. 107 
 
 they should rest yet for a little season, until their fel- 
 low-servauts also, and their brethren that should be 
 killed as they were, should be fulfilled." 
 
 These were simple-minded, good spirits, who, when 
 they went oat of this world, were not suflBciently in- 
 structed in the principles of divine truth, to be ration- 
 ally clear and strong in it ; and thence, not well able 
 to meet the wiles of evil spirits, or defend themselves 
 from them. It was, therefore, provided by the Lord 
 that they should be reserved in the world of spirits, 
 in a region apart by themselves, where they were 
 protected from the infestations of the wicked, until af- 
 ter the judgment, when they were liberated from their 
 circumscribed position and taken up into heaven. 
 The place where they were retained, is the same that 
 is referred to where it is said that our Lord went 
 and preached to the spirits in prison, after his resur- 
 rection, who had been retained there in Hades from 
 the days of Noah, waiting for His coming to be liber- 
 ated and taken up. It is a region in the lower part of 
 the World of spirits, here called under the altar, but 
 frequently referred to in the prophets as the lower 
 earth or the lower parts of the earth. The earth there 
 meant being the earth of the spiritual world, and not 
 the material earth of the visible world of men. 
 
 The exploration having proceeded thus far, we come 
 next to the opening of the sixth seal. And at this dis- 
 closure the picture becomes sad and gloomy enough. 
 " And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal ; 
 and lo, there was a great earthquake ; and the sun be- 
 came black, as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became 
 as blood ; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, 
 even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she 
 
108 LECTURE V. 
 
 is shaken of a mighty wind." A style of description 
 which is prolonged through the remainder of the chap- 
 ter. Under this array of dark and strong symbolism, 
 is set forth the spiritual state and general aspect of 
 things in the world of spirits, as they appeared in the 
 light of heaven when all the classes of good spirits 
 were left out of view, and the evil there were exam- 
 ined by themselves. We have not time, of course, for 
 a minute opening of all this symbolism ; but it is easy 
 to see that by it is figured a total perversion of the 
 principles of life, with everything in disorder and 
 trembling on the brink of destruction. The withdraw- 
 al of the sun, moon, and stars, every body capable of 
 shedding or dispensing heavenly light, indicates an 
 entire absence of all truth, and consequently of all 
 good, showing a prevalence there of a spiritual dark- 
 ness which was only a precursor and foreshadow of 
 that blackness of darkness into which they were about 
 be to cast forever. 
 
 They were then seen to be already prepared for the 
 next great stage, namely; for the actual Trial by 
 Truth. And the final act of judgment is manifestly 
 near at hand ; consequently, we read, as the finishing 
 words of this chapter, " For the Great Day of His' 
 wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand ? " 
 
 Here, we have a pause. And the seventh chapter 
 opens with an entire change of scene. We are not 
 any longer looking, through the glass of Divine proph- 
 ecy, down into those lower regions. Our oppressed 
 senses begin to feel relief; for we are permitted to 
 turn our eyes and follow, for a space, the direction of 
 those happy ones who have been rescued from all that 
 
OPENING OF THE BOOK. 109 
 
 terrible trouble ; who have washed their robes and 
 made them white in the blood of the Lamb ; — who 
 have not only believed and loved revealed truth, but 
 have likewise practised it, thus having washed or pu- 
 rified their lives by it. 
 
 Everywhere in the prophets, where the second com- 
 ing of the Lord is spoken of do we read of those New 
 Heavens which the Lord will institute or form when 
 He comes. And in this chapter we have an account 
 of tliose who are capable of entering into those new 
 Heavens, and becoming members of their societies. 
 The Heavenly world increases constantly in popula- 
 tion as well as the natural world, and societies there 
 increase much more rapidly than communities here, 
 for there they neither die any more, nor go any more 
 out, but members once added remain to eternity. 
 Hence the communities in heaven are continually in- 
 creasing, and with immense rapidity, and, when it 
 pleases the Lord, New Heavens are formed, by the or- 
 ganization and arrangement of new heavenly commu- 
 nities. 
 
 In the two great classes of righteous mentioned in this 
 chapter, are included all those then found in the world 
 of spirits capable of being saved, because willing to 
 be, and so of being organized into communities in 
 which the heavenly principles of life should be freely 
 obeyed from the heart, not of compulsion but from 
 choice. And communities of spirits, so composed and 
 organized, constitute societies of heaven. 
 
 The one hundred and forty-four thousand said to 
 have been sealed from the twelve tribes of Israel, rep- 
 resent religious men who are internally good, honest, 
 and true. Who, therefore, belong to some of the 
 10 
 
110 LECTDKE V. 
 
 tribes of the Lord's spiritual Israel. For in the proph- 
 ets Israel stands for the church, and the twelve tribes 
 here meant have nothing to do with the literal descend- 
 ants of the Jews. Paul says that, under the Christian 
 Dispensation, he is not a true Jew, who is so outward- 
 ly, according to the flesh, but they only are Jews, in 
 the prophetic sense, who are so inwardly according 
 to the spirit, " whose circumcision is of the heart." 
 Hence, by the one hundred and forty-four thousand 
 are typified those various classes of the righteous who 
 are very receptive of divine truth and goodness ; en- 
 joying therefrom a close interior conjunction of mind 
 and heart with their Lord and Master. Such spirits 
 constitute the superior heavens in the eternal world, 
 and become angels. The numbers here used, as twelve 
 and one hundred and forty-four, and thousands, axe not 
 employed in their arithmetical sense ; they have here 
 no numerical force. As we have already had occa- 
 sion to state, all the numbers employed in the Word 
 are symbolical, implying and describing something 
 spiritual in connection with the subject treated of 
 In the historical portions of Scripture, they do indeed 
 have a literal application for the most part, in addi- 
 tion to their spiritual meaning, but in the prophetic 
 portions they have no such literal application, and are 
 to be understood in only their spiritual or emblematic 
 sense. 
 
 The truth that is meant to be conveyed under the 
 representation of the " great multitude, which no man 
 could number, of all nations and kindreds, and people, 
 and tongues," will not be difficult to be understood, 
 after all that has gone before. This is descriptive of 
 that vast number who are in some reception of the 
 
OPENING OF THE BOOK. Ill 
 
 divine truth and goodness, but in lower degrees of it. 
 While they have not, when in the world, opened their 
 hearts to the Lord so as to enter into that interior 
 conjunction with Him mentioned above, they are nev- 
 ertheless conjoined to Him in the faith of obedience, 
 and are capable of serving Him in the eternal world, 
 because they served Him with some degree of faith- 
 fulness in this. Such do not become angels in the 
 other life, but angelic spirits ; being congregated and 
 organized into communities which constitute what are 
 called the " inferior heavens," in the spiritual world. 
 According to the natural idea of the words, here used, 
 that multitude seemed to have been gathered out of 
 every nation, and people, and kindred, and tongue in 
 the natural world. And this, indeed, is literally true 
 to a considerable extent, for they came from all the 
 nations and tongues of visible and nominal Christen- 
 dom. But in the spiritual world, the national distinc- 
 tions after a while disappear, and the differences of 
 tongues vanish away ; for in that world they all speak 
 the same language, — they are of one language and 
 one speech. In the spiritual idea, therefore, by these 
 words are meant spiritual kindreds and tongues, — 
 the different aflSnities of goodness and truth. The dif- 
 ferent degrees of moral attainment, of personal wor- 
 thiness, and the indefinite varieties of virtuous excel- 
 lence. For as one star differeth from another star in 
 light and glory, so it is with the just after resurrection 
 into the other life, there is every degree of light and 
 attainments, and hence of association and happiness. 
 
 The scenes we have been contemplating are from 
 descriptions written in the Word of God. And they 
 
112 LECTUKE V. 
 
 have been placed there for our permanent instruction 
 and guidance. In their primary application they refer 
 to certain mighty multitudes of spirits congregated in 
 the other world about the middle of the last century. 
 But in the principles involved in them, they are uni- 
 versal, reaching in their applications to all spirits and 
 to all ages ; to men in the body equally as to those 
 who have passed out of the body, and to the generations 
 that are here and to follow as well as to those which 
 are past and gone. The judgment for us will be es- 
 sentially the same as it was for them. 
 
 Similur will be the exploration that is made. The 
 same questions will be asked of us that were asked of 
 them. How have we read the Scripture ? How have 
 we understood and applied the word that has been 
 read and preached to us ? How far have we been 
 faithful in our spiritual duties ? How much knowl- 
 edge of heavenly and divine things have we actually 
 gained, and what degree of love or affection have we 
 acquired for them ? Is our love for them sufSciently 
 rooted in practice to retain ruling possession of our 
 minds when we shall come to be delivered up to our 
 own interior impulses, in the unrestrained freedom of 
 the spiritual world ? 
 
 These are questions to affect profoundly every ra- 
 tional mind. They go directly to the heart and core 
 of the soul, touching, with a most startling precision, 
 the very pivot in the will, upon which swing to and 
 fro, the unutterable destinies of an eternal life or an 
 everlasting death. 
 
 Let us be wakeful, then, and work while the day 
 lasts. Let us be faithful in the employment of those 
 talents which have been entrusted to our keeping. 
 
OPEKIKG OF THE BOOK. 113 
 
 Let us strive to clothe ourselves with a wedding gar- 
 ment, and to enter in at the strait gate. And when 
 we feel inclined to be weary or to sink in weakness, 
 let us lift up our eyes to the mountains from whence 
 doth come our help. Remembering that our help is 
 from Jehovah, who made the heavens and the earth ; 
 and that the Great Keeper of Israel is One who never 
 slumbers nor sleeps. That so, we inay learn some 
 portion of that new and heavenly song, sung before 
 the throne by the one hundred and forty-four thou- 
 sand, and which none but they could learn ; or, at 
 least, that we may be able to join in the response and 
 chorus of the great multitude, saying with them, — 
 " Salvation unto our God, who sitteth upon the throne, 
 and unto the Lamb," forever and ever. 
 10* 
 
LECTURE VI, 
 
 THE SOUNDING OF THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 
 
 CONTENTS : — Peogbess of the Jddgment ; Fire 
 FROM THE Golden Censee, — the Teial by Love ; The 
 Sounding op the Tetjmpets denotes the Ploclamation op 
 THE Teuth, and Specific Exploeation of Spieits by 
 Means of it ; Illustrations peom Sceiptuee ; Meaning 
 OF the Stae Wormwood ; General Explanation op the 
 Successive Teumpets, — Chaptbes 8th and 9th. 
 
LECTURE, 
 
 " And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the 
 altar, and cast it into the earth; and there were voices, and 
 thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. 
 
 " And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared 
 themselves to sound." — Rev. viii. 5, 6. 
 
 In our last Discourse, covering the 5tli, 6th, and 
 tth chapters of this Book, we contemplated the gen- 
 eral condition of the great congregated multitude in 
 the intermediate world of spirits, directly preceding 
 the Last Judgment. Those chapters contain a record 
 of what the angels saw as existing there, when they 
 looked down upon those mighty populations in the 
 light of heaven ; for in that light they clearly dis- 
 cerned the characters of the different classes living 
 there. 
 
 In the chapters we are to examine to-day, we pass 
 to another stage of the exploration. The text we 
 have chosen marks an important step in the progress 
 of this history, — opening a new scene in this great 
 spiritual drama. In the exploration we studied before, 
 the spirits themselves had no part. It was a heavenly 
 reconnoissance, so to speak, an examination made by 
 the angels from the heights of the spiritual world, of 
 the multitudes dwelling beneath them ; as we might 
 stand upon Mount Washington, or some similar height 
 
118 LECTURE VI. 
 
 in the natural world, and view the populations living 
 in the valleys below. The populations explored did not 
 even know that the exploration was going on, there- 
 fore it did not affect them ; it made no change in the 
 state or condition of their communities. 
 
 But, as we have said, we now pass to a different 
 scene. In the chapters we study to-day, the heavenly 
 influences begin to descend, and begin to take effect 
 in one portion of those communities. The exploration 
 as here described begins to become specific and prac- 
 tical. It is carried down by angels into those com- 
 munities, and there applied, in those congregations 
 which were to be judged first. They, therefore, now 
 are described as becoming somewhat conscious of 
 those influences ; and we begin here to see disclosed 
 some of those results which, as the Judgment pro- 
 ceeds, finally end in the disruption of those communi- 
 ties, and the complete overthrow of the wicked. 
 
 " And the angel took the censer, and filled it with 
 fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth : and there 
 were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an 
 earthquake." 
 
 We have already, in a former discourse, explained 
 the spiritual meaning of fire. It is the natural ele- 
 ment employed in Scripture to typify the flame of 
 lave or desire, continually rising up in the human soul, 
 giving warmth and animation to the affections. In 
 the connection in which it is used in the text, it stands 
 for that pure and holy love inspired into the hearts of 
 the righteous by the Lord, through the operations of 
 His spirit. 
 
 The symbolism hero, as will be seen, is borrowed 
 from the legal or representative worship of the Jews. 
 
THE SEVEN TEUMPET8. Il9 
 
 The altar denotes the worship of the Lord. And the 
 flame burning on the altar of burnt-offering was a 
 perpetual emblem of that unselfish, pure, and holy 
 love, from which the Lord ought always to be wor- 
 shipped by human beings. While the incense or 
 grateful odor rising up from the golden altar within 
 the veil, was a figure of the agreeable manner in 
 which true worship of the Lord, performed by men, is 
 perceived in heaven ; it affects the senses of the 
 angels as a spiritual perfume or incense. In the 
 Jewish worship, the priest was never allowed'to light 
 the censer of incenses from any other fire than that 
 kindled on the altar of burnt-offering, which was 
 originally kindled directly from heaven, by miraculous 
 agency. 
 
 Speaking correspondentially, according to prophetic 
 usage, • — all heaven worships the Lord with fire taken 
 from His holy altar. In other words, all heaven wor- 
 ships the Lord from that pure and holy love — towards 
 Him, and for good and right things — which is 
 inspired into their hearts from our Lord and Saviour 
 in His glorified humanity. 
 
 When, therefore, it is here said that the angel filled 
 the censer with fire from off the altar, and then cast 
 it into the earth, it is meant that now the communities 
 below are to be brought to the trial by love. 
 
 A communication is to be opened from heaven with 
 them, and heavenly influences are to be carried down 
 among them, to see how they will be affected by those 
 influences. The angels will descend to them, bearing 
 the truth, their hearts at the same time burning with 
 that holy fire which burns in heaven, — animated and 
 warmed by the zeal of a pure love for the truth and 
 
122 LECTURE VI. 
 
 And our own country at the present moment ofifers an 
 exemplification of this" spiritual law. We are, indeed, 
 as a community, undergoing one species of judgment. 
 Our institutions are being tried by the test of certain 
 practical principles, in which the hearts of different 
 classes of men are greatly but variously interested. 
 In our case, first came the "voices," — the reason- 
 ings, the discussions, the debates, the controversies. 
 Then came the more violent agitations, — the mental 
 " thunderings and lightnings," which immediately 
 preceded the appeal to arms. Now, we are in the midst 
 of the still more external and manifest "thunderings 
 and lightnings" of war, with the angry strifes and 
 sharp contests which it indicates and involves. And 
 all this, as we may clearly see, must at length result 
 in " an earthquake," which, indeed, is already going 
 on. For, as the event passes, and order and quiet are 
 once more restored,- we shall discover that there has 
 been effected, in many respects, a change of state 
 throughout the length and breadth of the land. 
 
 Now those mental laws, which are so clearly dis- 
 cernible in this world, are equally operative in the 
 other ; while there, in the spiritual world, their results 
 are most wonderful and manifest ; where many out- 
 ward impediments are withdrawn, and where every 
 circumstance quickens and facilitates their operation. 
 Can we at all wonder, then, that divine and heavenly 
 ideas, carried down thither by angels, and sent down 
 for that purpose, should cause a judgment and a sep- 
 aration of classes, in those mixed communities of the 
 world of spirits ? 
 
 " And the seven angels which had the seven trum- 
 pets prepared themselves to sound." 
 
120 LECTXIRE VI. 
 
 for good and heavenly things ; and it will then be seen 
 what is the love which animates those communities, — 
 whether they are in similar love, whether they can 
 stand that heavenly sphere, whether they have any 
 such affection for the truth, or any so pure desire for 
 heavenly and holy things. 
 
 This is indeed the great trial of the heart by the 
 standard of holy truth. And where should we be, or 
 where should we stand to-day, do you think, tried by 
 a similar standard ? 
 
 [It mhst be remembered that the earth here spoken 
 of and meant as that whereinto the fire was cast, is 
 the earth of the world of spirits ; the middle state or 
 place between the heavens and the hells, already so 
 frequently mentioned . For when a man puts off the 
 mortal body and enters that world, he seems to him- 
 self to be in a region somewhat like the earth he has 
 just left, arising from this circumstance, — that above 
 him he sees the heavens, like vast expanses in differ- 
 ent directions and at different distances, glittering 
 with light, while below him are those caverns of dark- 
 ness, the regions and dwelling-places of the loSt. 
 Hence, in the language of spirits, that middle region 
 of their world is commonly called the earth; and this 
 mode of speaking is several times adopted in these 
 chapters, as also elsewhere in the prophets.] 
 
 After the angel had cast in the fire out of the 
 golden censer, we read that " there were voices, and 
 thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake." 
 These words describe the commotion which ensued in 
 those communities, on the heavenly influences being 
 brought down to them and rendered operative upon 
 them. The influx of such love, and the promulgation 
 
THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 121 
 
 of such truth, caused great agitation and disturbance 
 among them. It created a ferment. It gave rise to a 
 talk, followed by discussions about these new things, 
 with reasonings made for and against. These are 
 represented by the " voices " which were heard. 
 
 There then met in that world two opposing spheres 
 of thought and feeling, — two spiritual atmospheres, 
 charged with two contrary kinds of spiritual electric- 
 ity. The pure air of heaven was flowing down and 
 mingling and coming in contact with the impure air 
 of a lower region. Hence, the excitement which 
 ensued, — the fierce contentions that arose, the noisy 
 debates that took place, the angry passions that -were 
 aroused, uttering themselves in loud and violent 
 denunciations of the truth, — amid all which confusion 
 and strife there are yet distinctly seen bright flashes 
 of the heavenly light, renewing itself at intervals ; — 
 all these are spoken of correspondentially in the 
 prophecy, as " thunderings and lightnings." And it is 
 difficult to call up an imagery more striking, or more 
 appropriate to set forth such a state of things. The 
 earthquake which followed, represents the commotion 
 resulting in an entire change of state in and throughout 
 that community. 
 
 Things almost the same happen in populations on 
 earth, sometimes when visited by new and important 
 ideas on religious, moral, or even political subjects. 
 Thus, how violent were the agitations caused by the 
 Protestant Eeformation ; and how successive commu- 
 nities in Europe were torn to pieces by the wars 
 that marked its early progress ! What a tempest and 
 what an earthquake followed the promulgation of 
 those ideas which led to the great French Revolution 1 
 11 
 
THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 123 
 
 The sounding of these trumpets symbolizes the pro- 
 clamation of the Truth in those communities, and the 
 consequent calling together of the righteous scattered 
 through and mingled with them. The law of the Jew- 
 ish church, upon which this symbolism is based, is 
 given in the tenth chapter of Numbers. Moses was 
 commanded to make trumpets of silver for the calling 
 of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps. 
 They were to blow with them in days of gladness, and 
 on festivals, and at new moons, and over burnt offer- 
 ings and sacrifices. Also, when they went to war 
 against enemies that infested them, it was ordered 
 that they should blow an alarm with the trumpets, 
 and it was promised that then they should come into 
 rerbembrance before the Lord their God, and be pre- 
 served from their enemies. Hence they were em- 
 ployed in that manner among the Israelites, and the 
 sound became familiar to the ears of the nation. 
 Their most common use was that of summoning the 
 congregation together for the worship of Jehovah. 
 And from a knowledge of these customs, we readily 
 perceive the prophetic meaning of the emblem. Thus, 
 in Joel, where the judgment is foretold, we read, — 
 " Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarmm 
 my holy mountain, for the day of Jehovah cometh." 
 And in one place in Isaiah it is said, — " And it shall 
 come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall 
 be blown, and they shall come which were ready to 
 perish, * * * and shall worship Jehovah in the holy 
 mountain at Jerusalem." And our Lord, in Matthew, 
 where He speaks of His second coming, and of the 
 very judgment we are now studying, says, — " And 
 He shall send His angels, with a great sound of a 
 
124 LEOTUEE VI. 
 
 trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from 
 the four winds, — from one end of heaven to the 
 other." 
 
 We see, then, that by the sounding of the trumpets, 
 is prefigured the proclamation of the truth, and the 
 consequent summoning together, in the world of spir- 
 its, of all those who acknowledge the Lord, and listen 
 to His voice, to come forth to meet Him, and join 
 themselves with those who are principled in His wor- 
 ship, and who are to remain so forever. 
 
 The correspondence of this symbol appears to lie in 
 this ; — a trumpet is a prolongation or extension of the 
 human voice by means of an instrument, causing it to 
 be heard in parts where, otherwise, it would not be 
 enabled to reach. And so it becomes, by an apt and 
 strong analogy, an image of the instrumentalities which 
 the Lord employs for the diffusion of His truth. He 
 sends it forth in the spiritual world, by angelic agency, 
 and in the natural world, by human agency, while the 
 truth itself is nothing else than a prolongation of the 
 voice of the Almighty, — an extension, into more dis- 
 tant regions, of the original Divine utterance. 
 
 We can see this significance forcibly embodied in 
 the occurrences which took place when the Lord de- 
 scended upon Mt. Sinai, in the presence of all the 
 people of Israel, to promulgate the law, — that great 
 summary of Divine truth contained in the Ten Com- 
 mandments. In addition to the other mighty wonders 
 on that occasion, we read that there was heard "the 
 voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the 
 people in the camp trembled." * * * " And Mt. Sinai 
 was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord de- 
 scended upon it in fire ; and the smoke thereof as- 
 
THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 125 
 
 cended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole 
 mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the 
 trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, 
 Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice." 
 
 Moses, and the letter of the law given through him, 
 were thence to become, as it were, the trumpet of Je- 
 hovah, speaking His truth, and making it known to 
 the people and to the ages. 
 
 Thus, as we see, the prophetic idea carried in this 
 representation of the seven trumpets, is that of a full 
 or perfect proclamation of Divine truth ; — the number 
 seven denoting what is full or perfect. And from the 
 connection in which it stands, we see, also, that here 
 it has reference to the promulgation of the Doctrines 
 of the spiritual sense of the Word, by the Lord at His 
 second coming, throiigh the agency of angels, in those 
 communities of spirits that were then about to be 
 judged. And, indeed, as a consequence, the procla- 
 mation of that truth throughout the [intermediate] 
 world of spirits. Such promulgation at the same time 
 being in effect a summons or invitation to His people, 
 — to the obedient and well-disposed of every name 
 and kind — scattered through those populations, to 
 come out from among them, and gather themselves to- 
 gether under His leadership. 
 
 In one of the prophetic Psalms it is said, — " Blessed 
 is the people that know the joyful sound ; they shall 
 walk, oh Jehovah, in the light of thy countenance." 
 And our Lord declares, — " My sheep hear my voice, 
 and I know them, and they follow me : and I give 
 unto them eternal life ; and they shall never perish, 
 neither shall any one pluck them out of my hand." 
 11* 
 
126 LECTtTBE VI. 
 
 But what we have thus far- stated is not the whole. 
 As before observed, after the angelic exploration, and 
 the prophetic declaration of the qualities beheld, there 
 comes the actual trial by truth. And now, these seven 
 trumpets which proclaim the truth, and summon to- 
 gether the Lord's faithful ones, also try the hearts and 
 the reins of the wicked in those communities, laying 
 bare and describing the iniquities which there abound, 
 together with the false principles of belief, or false 
 maxims of life, which cover or confirm those iniqui- 
 ties, thus serving to defend and increase them. This 
 may be abundantly gathered from the dreadful sym- 
 bolism of these two chapters, presenting a succession 
 of scenes, picturing in the strongest manner the vari- 
 ous elements of disorder, disaster, and woe. Each 
 successive trump — every new truth proclaimed — is 
 a fresh inlet of destruction. Each symbolic picture is, 
 if it were possible, still more dreadful than the one 
 which went before, until at length the pit opens her 
 mouth, i. e. the hell with which that community is in 
 association by means of its evils, and seems pre- 
 pared and ready to swallow up those who remain, with 
 everything that belongs to them. It is indeed an un- 
 covering of the state, with the consequent disaster, 
 not unlike that which happened to Sodom and Gomor- 
 rah after righteous Lot and his family had been gath- 
 ered out of them. 
 
 Space will not allow us to descend to the particulars 
 of this symbolism ; an explanation of each thing would 
 involve much time, and no doubt weary the patience 
 of many. The meaning of every figure and of every 
 clause, with the reasons therefor, may be read in the 
 Writings of the Church, and to those Writings, there- 
 
THE SEVEN TEUMPETS. 127 
 
 fore, we point the inquirer, for them. We shall con- 
 fine ourselves at present to the general idea involve^, 
 with a few illustrations drawn from two or three of the 
 symbols. 
 
 The Law of all this symbolism, as we have con- 
 stantly maintained, is that of the correspondence or 
 analogy existing between spiritual and natural things. 
 Outward, visible, material objects are employed in the 
 prophetic language as types or emblems of inward, 
 invisible, spiritual things ; — as types or emblems of 
 the things relating to heaven and the church, — things 
 in the hearts and minds and characters of men and 
 spirits. 
 
 Hence the movements described in these chapters, 
 — as of the moon and stars and mountains, and other 
 objects visible in the. natural world, do not mean 
 actual commotions occurring in these visible bodies, 
 but represent, by a strong and striking analogy, cor- 
 responding movements of a spiritual nature, taking 
 place in the other world. 
 
 As an illustration of this law, let us take the descrip- 
 tion of what happened when the third angel sounded, 
 given in the tenth and eleventh verses. 
 
 " And the thu-d angel sounded, and there fell a great 
 star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it 
 ■ fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the 
 fountains of waters ; and the name of the star is called 
 Wormwood : and the third part of the waters became 
 wormwood ; and many men died of the waters, because 
 they were made bitter." 
 
 These words have been not unfrequently applied to 
 some celebrated conqueror, the march of whose armies 
 has been marked by destruction and bloodshed. Thus 
 
128 LECTUKE vr. 
 
 Genseric, the barbarian, who in one age devastated 
 some of the finest provinces of the Western Roman 
 Empire, * has been pointed out as the " star Worm- 
 wood.". Others have thought it might refer to Alaric, 
 the Goth ; others, again, to Atilla, the Hun, or these* 
 successive trumpets to this succession of leaders. If 
 writing now, such commentators might designate some 
 other leader or emperor nearer our own day, as being 
 this star. Such a course of interpretation, however, 
 opens a wide door for the exercise of the imagination, 
 and leaves the meaning of Scripture indeterminate' 
 and vague. 
 
 From what has preceded, it will be inferred that we 
 need not go off to distant countries in the natural 
 world, nor search the records of profane history, to 
 find the star Wormwood ; it is an existence of a dif- 
 ferent order, and some degrees of the quality it de- 
 notes may be found much nearer home, — even in the 
 hearts and minds of many of ourselves. 
 
 It will be remembered that the fire from the golden 
 censer, cast by the angel into the earth, was explained 
 to mean the carrying down of angelic love into those 
 lower communities, and the consequent trial of their 
 love, to see of what quality it was. And it was men- 
 tioned that this trial might disclose serious discrepan- 
 cies, bringing to light affections and feelings in those 
 communities quite contrary to the mild and gentle im- 
 pulses of truly Christian or heavenly love. So here 
 in these words, we find described the results of one 
 stage of that trial. We here see pictured one of the 
 states of wrong feeling, or wicked love, then discov- 
 ered and manifested. We read that this star was seen 
 
 • African provinces. 
 
THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 129 
 
 " burning, as it were a lamp." From the connection 
 in which it stands, we can easily see that this " burn- 
 ing " signifies the flaming up of a wicked love, and 
 not of a good one ; in other words, that it typifies a 
 certain evil disposition of mind, manifested and found 
 to exist in that society of spirits, — a burning zeal for 
 something wrong. 
 
 But what particular evil is meant ? What wrong 
 desire, to which the human heart is prone, is here spe- 
 cifically set forth ? We are told that the name of it 
 is Wormwood. But what is the meaning of worm- 
 wood? What is the prophetic sense conveyed by 
 that term ? Let us turn to the Scriptures themselves, 
 and see if they afford us any light on the subject. 
 
 We find it mentioned for the first time in the twen- 
 ty-ninth of Deuteronomy. The people are there com- 
 manded at great length, and with peculiar emphasis, 
 to enter into covenant with Jehovah, to keep the pre- 
 cepts of His truth, and be obedient to them. And 
 the reason given for thus urging them to give special 
 heed to these principles of Revealed Truth, is this ; — 
 " Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or 
 family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day 
 from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of 
 these nations ; lest there should be among you a root 
 that beareth gall and wormwood ; and it come to pass, 
 when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless 
 himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace though 
 I walk in the imagination of my heart, to add drunk- 
 enness to thirst." 
 
 Here we see distinctly portrayed what is meant by 
 wormwood. Here there is divulged to us what the 
 root of bitterness is. It is that disposition of the hu- 
 
130 LECTURE VI. 
 
 man heart which leads men to accept falsity instead of 
 truth. Which leads them to parry or turn aside the 
 direct application of the divine precepts to them- 
 selves, going out in search of false maxims of liije, by 
 which to live, and regulate their practice. The dispo- 
 sition which refuses credence to the grave denuncia- 
 tions made in the Divine "Word against wicked ways, 
 — saying all the time, My self indulgence cannot cost 
 me dear ; I shall dwell in peace though I do gratify 
 my propensities, though I do add drunkenness to 
 thirst. This disposition, when it is yielded to, runs 
 out into the falsification of the truth, in various ways. 
 It not unfrequently quotes Scripture in a wrong sense, 
 in order to fortify a wrong position, or confirm the 
 propriety of improper courses. Hence it becomes the 
 fruitful source of corrupt views and false doctrines of 
 every kind ; — a root of spiritual bitterness. 
 
 It is for this reason, therefore, that the Lord's people 
 are here so strongly urged to give particular heed 
 to the declarations of His truth, — that this evil dis- 
 position might be removed from their hearts. Now, 
 the sense in which t}ie symbol wormwood is employed 
 here in Deuteronomy, is the basis of the prophetic 
 usage, and is precisely the sense in which it is em- 
 ployed in every case where it occurs in Scripture. 
 
 In the prophets, it is usually coupled with water; 
 and the reason of this will be quite obvious when we 
 reflect that waters, when used in a good sense, mean 
 truths, as was explained in our second discourse. 
 They mean the maxims by which men live. They are 
 pure and holy waters, if drawn from the Divine Word, 
 but bitter waters, if drawn from the thoughts and imag- 
 inations of an evil heart. And because the Jewish 
 
THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 131 
 
 church had greatly falsified the truths of their Scrip- 
 tures, bringing in many unwarrantable traditions to 
 turn aside the pure observances of their law, they are 
 thus denounced in Jeremiah, — " Behold, I will feed 
 this people with wormwood, and give them water of 
 gall to drink." And in another place in the same 
 prophet, — " Thus saith Jehovah concerning the 
 prophets ; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, 
 and I will make them drink the water of gall ; for from 
 the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth in 
 all the earth." 
 
 To drink the water of gall, is, of course, to vmMhe 
 these false maxims of life, and to live by them. And 
 in Amos, the Jewish church is charged with turning 
 the judgments of Jehovah into wormwood. 
 
 So we might follow this mode of expression through 
 the Scripture, wherever it is used in the prophets, 
 in the Psalms, and in Proverbs, and we should see 
 that in every instance it will yield a similar clear and 
 consistent meaning. And we can come back to the 
 star which is called wormwood in the Book of Eevela- 
 tion, better prepared to understand its signification, 
 as well as to extract the lessons conveyed by this de- 
 scription. ' 
 
 It is said that this star fell upon the rivers and (he 
 fountains of waters ; — a mode of expression that wiU 
 be readily understood in the light of the explanations 
 now given. For, as by rivers are denoted the maxims 
 of religious life current in a community, or, in other 
 words, the streams of religious opinion flowing through 
 it,- and by the fountains of waters, are meant the 
 sources from whence those opinions are drawn, — we 
 can see that on them is precisely where this worm- 
 
132 LECTURE VI. 
 
 wood would naturally fall. For this disposition of the 
 carnal or unregenerated heart to falsify the truth, of 
 course, the moment it begins to act, falls upon the re- 
 ligious thought of the community, exercising itself in 
 vitiating and corrupting its opinions. And it makes 
 its assaults upon the fountain of those opinions, by in- 
 ducing misinterpretations of Scripture, the original 
 source from whence those opinions are drawn. If we 
 look back to the past history of the church in its sev- 
 eral branches, Greek, Koman Catholic, and Protestant, 
 and also to the world by which the church has been 
 surrounded, we shall see to how great an extent this 
 disposition has prevailed among mankind. Sometimes 
 denying the efBcacy of the truth altogether, but ofteii- 
 er, stepping within the pale of the nominal church, 
 choosing to exercise itself there, disturbing the pure 
 waters of Christian teaching, by the hatching of new 
 opinions ; sometimes erecting a very subordinate sub- 
 ject into a matter of the first importance ; sometimes 
 substituting the traditions of men, for the clear utter- 
 ances of the Divine Word. But oftener than all, en- 
 shrining itself in the hearts of individual members, in- 
 ducing them to look through a false medium upon the 
 requirements of duty, and leading them to repose with 
 confidence in the external observances of the church, 
 or in the abstract exercises of a merely intellectual 
 faith, for salvation. Operating in the minds of differ- 
 ent persons in an indefinite number of different ways, 
 but having, all the while, as its essential characteris- 
 tic, the endeavor to turn men aside from simple obe- 
 dience, to the precepts of truth in the practical con- 
 duct of life. 
 It is added here, — "And many men died of the 
 
THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 133 
 
 waters, because they were made bitter." How true 
 this is I Many spirits in that community, then about 
 to be judged, had brought themselves within the 
 power of "the second death" by imbibing and living 
 from false maxims of life or duty. The spirits here 
 spoken of were already dead as to their mortal bodies, 
 and hence the word death as applied to them, means 
 spiritual death, or as it is elsewhere called, "the 
 second death," — the death of the soul, by its perma- 
 nent union with the spheres and the regions of evil. 
 But what was true of them is true of men in all ages. 
 In all ages men have died of such waters : in all ages 
 men have perished, as to their souls, by imbibing and 
 living from 'false and selfish maxims of life. The root 
 of bitterness is planted in every human heart. It 
 springs up there from seed sown by the evil one. It 
 flourishes to some extent in us all. But as we are 
 free moral agents and rational beings, the degree to 
 which it flourishes will depend upon ourselves. When 
 we find such a disposition operating within us, coun- 
 selling the indulgence of selfishness, to the neglect- 
 of the simple truth, which demands righteousness of 
 life, — we must endeavor to suppress it, — we must 
 weed it out of our garden, for we read that every 
 plant which our Heavenly Father hath not' planted 
 must' be rooted up ; and this one, if allowed to grow, 
 will turn our waters of life to bitterness. For if 
 indulged, it gives us at length a -relish for false 
 maxims, — for maxims which embody the evil wisdom 
 of selfishness, of personal emolument, and worldly 
 success, — and a distaste for the simple truths which 
 constitute the pure waters of the river of life, clear as 
 crystal, flowing out from the sanctuary of the Lord, — 
 12 
 
134 LECTUKE VI. 
 
 from the throne of God and of the Lamb, from the 
 Inspired Divine Word itself. 
 
 We have not time to explain the other symbols. 
 But enough has been given to exhibit the method and 
 law of interpretation. Under it the other symbols can 
 be made equally plain. Each trumpet as it sounds 
 discloses some new disorder found at work in the 
 minds of the evil parts of that community. The 
 meaning of these things, the spiritual sense of Sacred 
 Scripture, the doctrines of the New Jerusalem, are 
 not matters of the imagination ; they are not left to 
 conjecture ; they are not afSrmed on human authority. 
 Each thing is declared on Divine authority. It is the 
 Lord's own commentary upon His own Book, — the 
 prolongation of the Divine Voice, uttering itself 
 through the letter of the Word, — the declarations of 
 the Bible itself in regard to its own meaning. 
 
 And hence it is a system of interpretation that 
 cannot change. It is the absolute system and must 
 last forever. It is the way in which the truth is 
 understood in heaven, and has been revealed to bring 
 about unity of belief and concord of opinion in the 
 church on earth. For we read that " they shall see 
 eye to eye when Jehovah shall bring again Zion ; " 
 and that " the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the 
 earth as the waters cover the sea." It constitutes the 
 test, therefore, to which all other systems are to be 
 brought, and the standard by which they are to be 
 judged. 
 
 But why are these things promulgated now ? Why 
 is the spiritual sense of the Word revealed, and why 
 
THE SEVEN TRUMPETS. 135 
 
 are the principles on which the judgment is effected, 
 made known to men ? 
 
 It is on account of their practical bearing. It is 
 that men may see what in reality are the demands of 
 heavenly purity in the other life, and so prepare them- 
 selves for them here. It is now the privilege of all, 
 if they choose, to submit to the judgment before they 
 leave the body. They may, of themselves, if they 
 will, bring home the Trial by truth, as carried to those 
 communities, to their own characters ; to their own 
 hearts and lives. The same truths which effected 
 judgment there will effect it here. And in the light 
 of these things recorded in the Eevelation, we can 
 search our own dispositions and purposes, and see 
 what it is necessary to remove, and, with the help 
 of the Lord, we may put them away. 
 
 It is in this way that the New Jerusalem is to 
 descend. It is in this way that the church on earth is 
 to become purified, and the kingdom of universal peace 
 be established ; the glorious age for the church, so 
 frequently foretold in the prophets, be realized ; when 
 the way of life becomes plain, and the obstructions 
 existing in human character, to the inflowing of the 
 Lord's goodness and mercy, shall be moved out of the 
 way. 
 
 " No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast 
 shall go up thereon ; it shall not be found there ; but 
 the redeemed shall walk there ; and the ransomed of 
 Jehovah shall return, and come to Zion with songs 
 and everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall 
 obtain joy and gladness ; and sorrow and sighing shall 
 flee away." 
 
LECTURE YII. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF THE TWO WITNESSES. 
 
 CONTENTS: — The 10th and 11th Chapters 
 sidered; The "Mighty Angel" represents the I 
 Himself ; The " Littl/Book in His Hand open " s: 
 FiES Doctrine concerning Himself now explained, 
 these two Chapters are set forth the Truths t. 
 selves by wmcH Trial or Judgment is made, — 
 Standard to which Human Spirits are brought in 
 Eternal World. The Two Witnesses are the 
 Grand Truths of all Ebligion, — Doctrine concer: 
 God and Doctrine concerning Life, ok Man's Du; 
 Illustrations from Scripture. 
 
LECTUEE. 
 
 " And I saw another mighty Angel come down from licaven, 
 clothed with a cloud ; and a rainbow was upon his head, and hi: 
 face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire ; and he 
 had in liis liand a little boulc open : and he set liis right foot upor 
 the sea, and his left foot on the curtli, and cried whli a louc 
 voice, as when a lion roareth ; nud, wlien he had cried, sever 
 thunders uttered tlieir voices." — Mev. x. 1, 2, 3. 
 
 The subject, this evening, is the Two Witnesses; 
 and the Testimony which thoy utter ; but we bogir 
 with the preceding chapter, because its contents an 
 closely connected therewith ; the idea being continu 
 ous from one chapter to the other. 
 
 We are to remember that the scene is laid, as here^ 
 toforc, in ^he world of spirits ; and the general sub 
 ject treated is the Judgment, still proceeding. We 
 have alroiidy contemplated that event in some of its 
 stages. We have witnessed the opening of the Book, 
 and the disclosure of new and more important spirit 
 ual truths therefrom, which, in the hands of the 
 aiigols, became the means of Judgment. Wo have 
 followed the exploration made by their light, and have 
 heard the heavenly doularations as to the spiritual 
 qualities of some of the populations about to be 
 judged. At our last meeting, we proceeded one stage 
 farther, and began to contemplate those communities 
 
140 LECTURE VII. 
 
 of spirits, as they appeared after the heavenly influ- 
 ences had begun to descend to them, and take effect 
 among them. We commenced, indeed, to behold 
 something of the actual Trial by Truth, and to wit- 
 ness some of the results to which it gave rise. Those 
 results w'ere depicted by the symbolism used to 
 describe the things which successively followed the 
 sounding of the first si-x of the seven trumpets. We 
 have seen that the trial developed qualities existing 
 there, quite contrary to the truth and to heavenly 
 love. 
 
 We come now, to-day, to the sounding of the 
 seventh and last trumpet, and this subject comprises 
 the contents of these two chapters. The single idea 
 we have to contemplate in studying them, is this, — 
 here is described the truth by which those communi- 
 ties were tried. Here are given the Doctrines which 
 formed the standard of exploration and judgment. In 
 the tenth chapter, by the Utile book seen in the angel's 
 hand, is described the great central truth of the Divine 
 Word, — that concerning the being and attributes of 
 God. While, in the eleventh chapter, under the 
 name of two vntnesses, there are set forth the two 
 grand truths of all religion, which bear the Lord's 
 testimony among all people, and in every age of the 
 world ; namely, — Doctrine concerning God, and 
 Doctrine concerning life, or man's duty. These are 
 truths which have a practical interest for ws, and the 
 unfolding of some of the beautiful and striking imagery 
 of these chapters, cannot fail to instruct and enlighten 
 us all. 
 
 To repeat the text : — 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 14] 
 
 " And I saw another mighty Angel come down fion 
 heaven, clothed with a cload ; and a rainbow w^a: 
 npon His head, and His iace was as it were the snn. 
 and His feet as pUlars of fire : and He had in His hand 
 a little book open : and He set His right foot upon the 
 sea, and His left foot on the earth, and cried with a 
 loud voice, as when a lion roareth : and when He had 
 cried, seven thunders uttered their voices." 
 
 It wiD not be difficult to perceive that " the mightj 
 Angel" spoken of here, is the Lord Himself. The 
 description of His appearance is similar to that givei 
 of Him in the first chapter of this Book, and similar, 
 too, to the description by the prophet Daniel, wher 
 He appeared to him. Under the Jewish Dispensar 
 tion, the Lord always appeared to the prophets and 
 seers of that church, by means of an angel ; that is, in 
 and through an angel ; and the angel so employed 
 was called the Angel of Jehovah. Hence, the Lord 
 Himself is sometimes spoken of in the Scripture as an 
 Angel ; but always accompanied by some expression 
 by which it may be perceived and known who is 
 meant. Thus we read of the Angel of His Presence, 
 of the Angel of the Covenant, and here He is called 
 " a mighty Angel," while the description of His Per- 
 son is the same as that elsewhere given of the Lord. 
 
 He had in His hand a Utile book <^pen. Wc have 
 already seen what was meant by the great Book with 
 the seven seals, viz : that it was the Bible, the Re- 
 vealed Scripture, or Word of the Lord. And it wiU 
 not be difficult to perceive that a lUOe book, iQ this 
 connection, is significative of some portion of the 
 Bible, or of some important teaching of Divine Truth. 
 
142 LECTURE VII. 
 
 As already stated, it represents the Divine Word with 
 respect to the great central truth contained therein ; 
 — that concerning the Being and attributes of God. 
 For, as all may see, the truth that there is a God, and 
 then what are His attributes, or qualities and charac- 
 teristics, is the first great subject of all Divine Eeve- 
 lation. Besides, the fact that this little book was 
 held in the hand of the Lord, under so striking and 
 remarkable a manifestation as is here presented, may 
 help us still further to see that the truth here symbol- 
 ized and meant, must be Doctrine concerning Himself. 
 The more the entire representation is examined in the 
 light of correspondences, the more will this idea of its 
 meaning impress itself on the mind. All the sur- 
 rounding tokens concur in pointing this out. 
 
 We have already explained, in a former discourse, 
 that, in the Book of Eevelation, and in this New Dis- 
 pensation, the Lord communicates to men a new and 
 clearer idea concerning Himself. We explained also, 
 to some extent, what this idea is, namely, that, in the 
 Lord, dwells the fulness of the Godhead, bodily ; that 
 there is but one Divine Person, our Lord and Saviour, 
 who has all power in heaven and on earth, to whom 
 we are to look, and upon whom we are to call, and 
 whom we are to worship. He assumed humanity, 
 and came into the world, clothing His unsearchable 
 Divinity in a visible form, that He might save men, 
 and that they might have a distinct and apprehensible 
 form to look to and to love. In Him, therefore. 
 Divinity, and a Humanity glorified and rendered 
 divine, exist together, as soul and body exist together 
 in man, one and inseparable ; the indwelling Divinity 
 being called the Father, and the assumed Humanity 
 being called the Son. 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 143 
 
 That this doctrine is now explained, and no longei 
 left a mystery as in the past ages of the church, it 
 seen from the fact that the book was open in His hand 
 and no longer sealed up, as the Bible was at th( 
 beginniug of the vision. We also mentioned before 
 that this idea of the Lord, though declared in th( 
 prophets from the first, has fallen into the ideas of mei 
 only gradually, as the thought of the church and of th< 
 ages has been progressively prepared to receive it 
 The Lord told his disciples that the time would com* 
 when it should be made known. But he said to then 
 that they could not bear it then ; that he had veiled i 
 to them, speaking in parables, yet the time would com< 
 when he should no longer speak to them in parables 
 but would show them plainly of the Father ; that is 
 of his own Divinity, and of His Personality and attri 
 butes. The fulfilment of all this is here indicated 
 The revelation of the clear truth cctacerning the grea 
 mystery of the Godhead is here most distinctly se 
 forth. . And hence a little further on, in the sevent] 
 verse, we read, that " In the days of the voice of thi 
 seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mys 
 tery of God should be finished, as He hath declared ti 
 His servants the prophets." This, therefore, is thi 
 first great truth which the trumpet of the seventl 
 angel proclaims,' — the time to which the prophe 
 Zachariah refers when he says, " In that day, the Lor( 
 shall be One, and his Name one." He shall b( 
 thought of as one, and spoken of as one, in Hi 
 Church : and no longer as three, as has been the cas^ 
 in the past ages of the church. Fulfilling also th< 
 time dimly foretold by Paul, in fifteenth of Firs 
 Corinthians, where he says, — " And when all thing 
 
144 LECTURE VII. 
 
 shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also 
 himself be subject unto hini that put all things under 
 him, that God may be all in all." Not that the Lord 
 himself would undergo any change in the future, — 
 for he is unchangeable, but that the church herself in 
 due time, as she became more and more subdued to 
 the obedience of her Divine Master, would come to 
 view him differently ; in the light of further truth 
 communicated to her, would come at length to behold 
 him as He really is ; no longer regarding, as hereto- 
 fore, Son and Father as two separate — or even dis- 
 tinct — persons, but seeing them to be only the names 
 of two essential elements of being existing in one and 
 the same Person, -^ God indeed — being the all 
 in all. 
 
 And this same apostle, only a few pages before, 
 speaking of himself and fellow apostles, says, " For, 
 now we know [only] in part, and we prophesy in 
 part ; but when that which is perfect is come, then 
 that which is in part shall be done away." Thus do 
 the Scriptures everywhere look forward to and prepare 
 the way for a clearer Eevelation of truth from the 
 Word, a new and fuller dispensation of light and life, 
 to be fulfilled in -the new Jerusalem. 
 
 The voice from heaven said unto John, — " Go, take 
 the little book which is open in the hand of the 
 angel." 
 
 This is what all heaven is saying to us to-day. " Go, 
 take the little book that is open." "Receive this great 
 Doctrine concerning himself which the Lord has now 
 caused to be explained and made clear." And how 
 anxious the angels are that it should be received by 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 145 
 
 men ! How much they, desire it ! It is the idea 
 according to which they conduct all their worship. 
 It is the Doctrine or View of Him which reigng 
 throughout all heaven. And they are in the constant 
 wish and desire that men should regard and acknowl- 
 edge Him, as they do, as the only God of heaven and 
 earth ; that thus earthly worship may come to corre- 
 spond to heavenly worship ; that the Lord may be 
 able to draw nearer to men spiritually, and bless them 
 to a greater degree ; and that the Lord's will may 
 begin to be done on earth as it is done in heaven. 
 
 And the " mighty Angel, " — i. e., the Lord Himself. 
 — said to John, — " Take it, and eat it up," — " Take 
 it, and eat it up ! " This is the Divine injunction 
 addressed to us to-day ; — addressed to the Lord's 
 church in all future time. He desires to be acknowl- 
 edged by men in his true character, as He really is. 
 The Doctrine is to be eaten and digested spiritually. 
 It is to be received and appropriated. It must be 
 received into the understanding and appropriated by 
 the will : and thus applied to nourish and sustain the 
 spiritual life. It must be turned into bread, — into 
 living bread, for it cometh from Him, and is truly 
 meat indeed, to the soul. 
 
 The reason why this little book is said to be sweet 
 to the taste, but Miter in the digestion and appropria- 
 tion, is, because, like all other divine — and like all 
 other spiritual and heavenly truth, it is more pleasant 
 as a merely intellectual acquisition, than it is as a 
 practical precept. When introduced into the thought 
 it may not be repugnant. There is a certain satisfac- 
 tion in the acquisition of new and clear ideas on im- 
 portant subjects. The desire for knowledge is grati- 
 13 
 
146 IXCTUEE VII. 
 
 fied by it ; and the understanding experiences a cer- 
 tain expansion and exhilaration from the reception of 
 new and remarkable thoughts. The bitterness comes 
 from the attempt to apply spiritual truths in practice. 
 We then find that we have in our hearts many disor- 
 derly propensities which render the practice of the 
 truth difficult and distasteful. When the children of 
 Israel, on leaving Egypt, came, on the first day's jour- 
 ney, to the waters of Marah, they found them bitter, 
 which was to signify that the divine maxims of life, by 
 which they would be required to walk, would be dis- 
 tasteful to their natural inclinations. It is so with us 
 all. And the reason why this true Doctrine concern- 
 ing the Lord, is set forth as bitter in appropriation, is 
 because, when received practically, it involves self- 
 denial ; it involves taking up the cross, and following 
 Him in the regeneration. It involves obedience to 
 His precepts, — the giving up of our old, selfish wills, 
 and the doing of His wUl. We are called upon to go 
 forward in His strength, and overcome even as He 
 overcame. Hence there is no difficulty in perceiving 
 wherein lies the bitterness of reception, which comes 
 as this great spiritual truth descends, from the head, 
 and progressively takes effect upon the things of the 
 interior life, — upon the heart, and upon the actual 
 conduct. 
 
 We read that this "mighty Angel," — who is the 
 Lord Himself, "cried with a loud voice, as when a 
 lion roareth." This is a form of representation fre- 
 quently made use of in Scripture, concerning the Lord. 
 In the description of Him in the first chapter of Reve- 
 lation, it is said that He spake with " a great Voice, 
 
THE TWO WmfESSES. 147 
 
 as of a Trumpet ; " and dsewhere it is declared that 
 His voice is like the sound of many waters. And so 
 in Jeremiah, it is prophesied, " The Lord shall roar 
 fixtm on high, and ntter His voice fix>m His holy habi- 
 tation; He shall mightily roar upon this habita- 
 tion ; He shall give a shout, as they that tread the 
 grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth ; s 
 noise shall come even to the ends of the earth.'' 
 (sxv. 30.) Andin the third chapter of Joel, — "The 
 Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter His voice 
 from Jerusalem ; and the heavens and the earth shall 
 shake." 
 
 These expressions in the letter, are no donht in- 
 tended to impress on the natural mind and heart, a 
 deep sense of the Divine majesty and power ; and the 
 great danger there is in offending against them ; but 
 in the spiritual idea, they are expressive of deep feel- 
 ing or emotion on the part of the Maker and Savioui 
 of men. The roar of the lion, which is the londesi 
 sound in the whole range of animated nature, is a ciy 
 uttered when the animal is moved by some vivid sen 
 sation or strong impulse. And »w» are disposed t< 
 utter themselves loudly, when strongly moved in theii 
 feelings. Hence the most forcible symbols that cae 
 be found in nature, are chosen to set forth the depth 
 and power of the Divine emotions, that men may, from 
 correspondence, be impressed with some idea of them, 
 and that that idea, whoUy inadequate as it must of 
 necessity be, may yet be sofBciently correct, as for as 
 it does extend. Xow, as we know, the Lord is called 
 the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and the cry described 
 in the text, as being uttered by TTim on this occasion, 
 is one expressive of deep lamentation or sorrow. 
 
148 LEOTUKE VII. 
 
 growing out of a strong desire or love. Every one 
 familiar with the themes of natural history, is well 
 aware of the almost invincible repugnance which the 
 lion feels, to relinquish the prey which was, or which 
 seemed to be, already within his grasp ; and the loud- 
 ness with which he is disposed to utter himself, when 
 it is removed from him. And this has been employed 
 in the prophets to set forth the yearning which the 
 Lord has towards men, the disinclination he feels in 
 having them drawn away from Him by the evil one, and 
 the bitter disappointment His tender love suffers when 
 deprived of that spiritual conjunction with His church, 
 which He so much desires and seeks. He longs to have 
 them look to Him, and love Him, and receive Him as 
 He is. And if these infinite emotions of our Lord and 
 Kedeemer, our Creator and ' Saviour, were to be ex- 
 pressed audibly, — in a manner at all adequate, or at 
 all corresponding to them, they would utter them- 
 selves in the loudest tones it is possible to conceive 
 of, giving forth, indeed, volumes of sound that would 
 shake our whole material atmosphere, the heavens 
 and the earth. 
 
 The figure, then, which we are here examining, 
 shows this, — that the Lord felt grief at the time of 
 the judgment, that so many men — being in evil — 
 were lost to Him, that so many even of His nominal 
 church, were found, at the last trial, to turn away 
 from Him ; and, also. His strong desire that spirits 
 and men shall receive Him as He is, according to the 
 new and clear truth He now reveals concerning Him- 
 self, that so, in future. He may be able to draw nearer 
 to them, bless them more fully, and save them, — both 
 in larger numbers, and to higher degrees of spiritual 
 attainment. 
 
THE TWO "WITNESSES. 149 
 
 Listen now to tlie last words of this text. " And 
 when He had cried, seven thunders uttered their 
 voices." This is one of the most beautiful and sig- 
 nificant metaphors in the whole range of prophetic 
 language. The natural idea of thunder is that of a 
 heavenly noise, — and many thunders would be a pro- 
 longation of the sound, rolling along through succes- 
 sive regions of the sky. It is here employed to typify 
 the lasting and profound sympathy with the Lord, 
 which all heaven feels, in these strong emotions of 
 ECs towards the church, and towards men. They par- 
 take of His love, and of His desire in this respect. 
 And they are here represented as responding thus to 
 the Divine Voice. For, as in the natural world, any 
 loud or violent sound, like the roar of a lion, would be 
 heard repeating itself as it went forth among the val- 
 leys and hillsides, in a succession of reverberations, 
 growing more and more distant as it rolled along, — 
 80, the correspondential idea here carried, is that of 
 the loud tones of the Divine Voice, waking thus the 
 ecboeS of the Spiritual World, and calling out from 
 those heavenly communities, — as it rolls along, far 
 away among the hills and valleys of the heavenly 
 world, through their mighty and unnumbered popula- 
 tions, — responsive accents, filled with sympathy, and 
 expressive of the fullest consent and agreement. 
 
 It is, indeed, the whole heavenly world, described 
 as responding to or reechoing the sentiments and feel- 
 ings which fill the heart and animate the mind of their 
 beloved Lord and Master. 
 
 We have thus examined the tenth chapter, and in 
 so doing have prepared ourselves to understaiid' iii 
 13* 
 
150 LECTURE VII. 
 
 shorter compass, the contents of the eleventh, in 
 which the Two Witnesses are spoken of. That it is 
 the Truth itself which bears witness or gives testimo- 
 ny, and which is therefore prophetically called a wit- 
 ness, falls readily into the reason, besides conforming 
 to abundant Scripture usage. Hence, our Lord Him- 
 self, who was a perfect embodiment and exemplar of 
 the whole Divine truth, in his own person, so as to be 
 called the very truth itself, for the same reason is 
 called also, — "The faithful and true Witness." 
 (Rev. i. 5.) 
 
 As already observed, these two witnesses mean the 
 two grand Truths of Eeligion which the Lord has or- 
 dained to bear testimony of Him in all ages, before aU 
 the earth, viz : first. Truth concerning God, and se- 
 condly. Truth concerning Man. The first of these we 
 have been speaking of while explaining the meaning 
 of the "little book " open in the Angel's hands. And 
 as we examine the subject carefully, we shall perceive 
 that all Divine Revelation arranges itself under these 
 two heads. Everything contained in the Bible relates 
 to one or- the other. Either to the Divine Being, his 
 government, his character, his attributes, his provi- 
 dence, his operations, his works of redemption and 
 salvation ; or else, to Man, his creation, his being, his 
 condition and wants by nature, his destiny, his rela- 
 tions to his Maker, his duties, and the means of his 
 salvation. This analysis exhausts the cirble of theol- 
 ogy. There is no topic in the whole range of relig- 
 ious inquiry, but refers itself at once to one or the 
 other of these two Heads. 
 
 These things reappear constantly throughout the 
 Bible. The Law, given through Moses, containing 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 151 
 
 the truth then revealed, and summed up in the ten 
 commandments, was declared to be the perpetual 
 " witness " established between God and His people. 
 This Law, as you all know, was written on two tables 
 of stone, one being for God and the other for man. 
 One containing the duties we owe to the Lord, the 
 other containing the duties we owe to the neighbor. 
 And in Deuteronomy, where the Law was summed up 
 by Divine command in the shortest possible compass, 
 it is stated under these two heads, — a command to 
 love the Lord supremely and with all the heart, and 
 another, to love the neighbor as ourselves. And our 
 Lord Himself, in the gospel, reaffirms these two grand 
 truths, as containing the sum and substance of all 
 Religious Teaching, saying to His disciples, that on 
 these two " hang all the Law and the Prophets." 
 
 For this reason also it was made a statute of their 
 civil code, that no man should be put to death except 
 on the concurrent testimony of at least two witnesses ; 
 and the necessity of such a testimony became a 
 common saying. When the two tables were laid away 
 in the ark, they were named tables of witness ; the ark 
 which contained them was called the ark of the testi- 
 mony ; and when the priest entered behind the. veil, 
 into the holy of holies where the ark was deposited, it 
 was called going in unto the testimony. And over the 
 ark were placed two cherubim, to symbolize the Divine 
 Presence, and as if to watch and to guard. 
 
 So those tables, with the truths which effect con- 
 junction between God and man written on them, were 
 the two vntnesses which bore the Divine testimony in 
 all the ages of the Jewish church. It was also cus- 
 tomary for them to speak of their whole Word in this 
 
152 LEcrruEE vn.. 
 
 twofold maimer, Bumming the Books which contained 
 it under the two heads of Law and Prophets. And 
 now, when the Divine Word is complete, we have it in 
 the form of the Two Testaments, or Witnesses, the Old 
 and the 2Sew. 
 
 We have already seen how much the symbolism of 
 the Book of Revelation is based upon the divinely 
 given statutes of the Jewish Law, and also here, when 
 treating of these two witnesses, the Apostle contin- 
 ues, — " And the temple of God was opened in 
 heaven, and there was seen in His temple the arh of 
 His testament," — or testimony. In other words, the 
 ark of His two witnesses, — the ark contaioing the two 
 tables of the Law. 
 
 Thus, from a careftil observation of the things con- 
 tained in the literal sense of Scripture, the truths of 
 the spiritual sense are clearly and rationally confirmed ; 
 and we see distinctly who, or rather what, the Lord's 
 Two Witnesses are. 
 
 [Because these two witnesses are spoken of as 
 prophets, it has been conjectured by some, that some 
 two personal prophets are referred to, who in the 
 latter days shall return to the earth, declaring the 
 truth anew ; and Moses and Elias, because they came 
 and stood on the mount of transfiguration with .onr 
 Lord, are sometimes designated as probably the two. 
 Others suppose that there are to be two future proph- 
 ets raised up at that time. 
 
 But as men come to cast off first natural impres- 
 sions, and reflect in an elevated manner concerning 
 the nature of Divine Truth and the character of the 
 Revealed Word of God, they will cease giving it these 
 limited applications to men and things, clearly per- 
 
THE TWO WmrESSES. 153 
 
 cehnng lliat in its essential meaning it must of 
 necessi^ rise above merely local and personal consid- 
 erations, and express broad general principles and 
 laws, reaching CTerywhere, niuTersal in application, 
 and enduring forever. It is quite common for the 
 prophetic language of Scriptore to personify certain 
 principles of troth, as ireU as certain spiritual qnal- 
 iries, for the sake of vivid representation, and here 
 these two great traths are spoken of as prophets, in 
 accordance with an extensive Sciiptnre nsage. That 
 no two persons are me^it may be clearly seen fiom 
 what is said of these witnesses in the prophet Zech- 
 adah. It is written in the fourth chapter. The prophet 
 was shown a vision in which was represented some- 
 thing of the fatore glory of tiie Lord's kingdom. 
 Besides oliier things, there were seen staiiling beside 
 the golden candlestick with seven branches, " two 
 olive trees by il, one upon the right side of the bowl, 
 and the other upon the left side thereof' And after 
 Hie Angel had explained in a measure some portions 
 of the -rision to him, the prophet says, • • Then 
 answered I, and said unto him, what are these two 
 olive trees, upon the right side of the csmdlestick, and 
 upon the left side thereof? " To which, it seems, the 
 angel gave him no answer. So the prophet repeats, — 
 " And I answered again, and said unto him, what be 
 these two oHve branches, wMch, through the two 
 golden pipes, empty the golden oil out of themselves ? 
 And he answered me and said, knowest thou not what 
 these be ? And I said, ^o, my Lord. Then said he. 
 These are iJie two anointed ones, that stand before 
 the Lord of the whole earth." 
 
 On a moment's reflection, we can see that these 
 
154 LECTURE VIT. 
 
 cannot be persons. For no two men could hold so 
 important a ]:^lation. The Lord's kingdom is univer- 
 sal, extending everywhere, and reaching through all 
 ages. Hence any function performed by individual 
 men must be limited and ephemeral in its character. 
 But as soon as we comprehend that these two olive 
 trees, these two anointed ones, standing before the 
 God of the whole earth, exercising so important a 
 function in the perpetuity of His kingdom, are the two 
 grand Truths of Religion which inculcate love to the 
 Lord and love to man, we can then see at once the 
 relevancy and significance of the symbolism. We 
 need not remind those who are familiar with the 
 emblems of Scripture as explained by the law of cor- 
 respondences, that golden oil denotes heavenly good- 
 ness, flowing into and filling the hearts of men. And 
 while no two men that ever lived can be said to be the 
 pipes or mediums through which heavenly goodness is 
 conveyed from the Lord to the church universal, yet 
 we can distinctly see that these two grand Truths, 
 proceeding from the Lord, forever speaking His 
 Word, enjoining a life of love towards God, and'of 
 charity to Man, with the righteous performance of all 
 duties whatsoever, are the "pipes," — are the means 
 or mediums by which heavenly goodness is conveyed 
 to the church universal ; by which it is poured into the 
 hearts of the Lord's faithful ones, and rendered 
 effective in their lives. 
 
 In the fourth verse of this eleventh chapter of 
 Revelation, besides being spoken of as the two olive 
 trees and the two anointed ones, these two witnesses 
 are called also, " the two candlesticks standing before 
 the God of the whole earth." Now, in the natural 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 155 
 
 idea, a candlestick has simply one use, and that is 
 easily understood. It is an instrument for dispensing 
 light ; and it is this service which it uniformly suggests. 
 So, these two grand truths, testifiers concerning God 
 and Man, are, according to the spiritual idea, the great 
 dispensers of light ; — standing before the God of the 
 whole earth, the means of shedding forth the rays of 
 spiritual knowledge to all ages and nations.] 
 
 When we come to look over the history of the 
 world, we shall be struck with the remarkable prov- 
 idence of the Lord in this respect. It has been so 
 ordered that every people retaining any rational intel- 
 ligence, has also some form of religion established 
 among them, by which they are instructed and influ- 
 enced and led. And as we examine these religions 
 with respect to the character of their teachings, this 
 extraordinary fact will be found true of them all, viz : 
 that they are possessed of and teach these two Grand 
 Truths. They every one contain and utter something 
 of the testimony of the two witnesses. Many of them 
 teach them obscurely. Many of them mingle and 
 confuse the testimony by the addition of numerous 
 errors. None of those beyond Christendom have them 
 in fulness or clearness. But yet, among them all, 
 ancient and modern, the two grand ideas of Worship 
 and Life are preserved. They all teach that there is 
 a Divine Being, who is to be reverenced and obeyed, 
 and that the principles of moral life towards the 
 neighbor, set forth in our decalogue, are to be observed 
 and done. 
 
 Thus we see that, throughout all history, the Lord 
 has preserved His Two Witnesses alive ; and that 
 these two candlesticks of the Word, standing thus 
 
156 LECTURE vir. 
 
 before tlie God of the whole earth, have succeeded in 
 sending down some portions of their light even into 
 the murky atmosphere and cloudy gloom of paganism. 
 
 It is said here that power was given to these two 
 witnesses ; by which is signified the greater clearness 
 and fulness that is imparted to these truths, now that 
 the spiritual sense of the Scripture is made known, 
 and so every part of the Bible filled with a stronger 
 and more effulgent light. We have already stated the 
 further truth disclosed in the Writings of the New 
 Jerusalem, concerning the Lord, our Creator, as well 
 as our Saviour and Redeemer, and similar things are 
 true, also, of the other witness, — the Doctrine of 
 Life. Much new light of the highest order and of the 
 utmost value, is given in the New Jerusalem, con- 
 cerning the spiritual nature of man, his life here and 
 hereafter, — concerning his duties, the laws of the 
 human mind, the life of regeneration, with all the 
 infinite ways and means of human improvement and 
 salvation. 
 
 That those multitudes, collected in the world of 
 spirits at the time of the Last Judgment, were ex- 
 plored and tried by the standard of these Truths,- and 
 that that is what is here described, may be learned 
 from the words with which this chapter opens ; where 
 it is said that. a reed was put into the hand of the 
 Apostle, and he was commanded to rise and measure 
 the temple of God, and them that woiship tlierdn. 
 Now, to measure the worshippers of God is, of course, 
 to try them by the standard of trnth and goodness, 
 and see how nearly they conform to it, or how fax 
 they fall short of it. 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 157 
 
 The treatment which the Two Witnesses are de- 
 scribed as receiving- at the hands of those populations, 
 is typical of the states of the evil there with respect 
 to these two great truths of life and worship. They 
 disliked them. Wicked men never do like to have 
 their lives or their motives tried by so high a stand- 
 ard as these divine precepts of the gospel. In heart, 
 they are enemies to the truths which teach supreme 
 love to God, and equal love to man. Those truths 
 condemn their wickedness, adjudging it to be evil, 
 and hence they would be glad to destroy the truths ; 
 which is meant by their apparently killing the wit- 
 nesses, allowing them to lie as if dead for three days 
 and a half 
 
 All this is said to have taken place, — where ? In 
 any city of the natural world ? No, not at all ; but 
 in that great city which is spiritually called Sodom 
 and Egijpt, where also our Lord was crucified. Thus, 
 a spiritual city ; for our Lord was crucified, neither 
 in literal Sodom, nor in literal Egypt. He was cruci- 
 fied spiritually as well as naturally. He has been 
 . crucified and slain, in spirit, in all ages since, by 
 being rejected by a pen^erse and wicked world, whose 
 impure will is symbolized by Sodom, and whose dark- 
 ened understanding is typified by Egypt, according to 
 prophetic usage.. 
 
 But these Truths were, in those communities of 
 assembled spirits, and always will be, vindicated in 
 the end by the Lord, and made to appear, as they 
 really are, as divine and heavenly in their origin and 
 character. Thus are they made to ascend up to 
 heaven in the sight of all, being so clearly and so 
 plainly taught, that even their enemies are compelled 
 to behold them. 
 
158 LECTURE VII. 
 
 These Two Witnesses are uttering their testimony 
 to us to-day. It is through obedience to these truths 
 that the kingdoms of this world are to become the 
 kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, in which He 
 shall reign forever and ever. 
 
 Let it be ours, then, to give these truths a hearty 
 and affectionate reception, living in the effort, with 
 the Lord's help, to conform our conduct to them, 
 that, when we come to have the golden reed applied 
 to the measurement of our spiritual possessions, we 
 shall not be found wanting ; but be ready and willing 
 to join in the heavenly anthem here recorded as being 
 sung on that occasion by the four and twenty elders, 
 saying, with them, from the heart : — 
 
 " We give thee thanks, Lord God Almighty, who 
 art, and wast, and art to come : because thou hast 
 taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned." 
 [Kev. xi. 7.] 
 
LECTURE YIII. 
 
 THE SEVEN VIALS, WITH THE SEVEN" LAST 
 PLAGUES. 
 
 CONTENTS : — Effects of the Judgment ; Separa- 
 tion OP THE Good and Evil ; Chapters Twelve to Eight- 
 een INCLUSIVE ; The Woman clothed with the Sun, the 
 Church in the Spiritual World ; The Hundred and 
 Forty-Four Thousand on Mt. Sion, the New Heaven ; 
 The " Everlasting Gospel," the Gospel op the Second 
 Advent ; The Four Evil Beasts seen, which are Types 
 op Evil Lust, contrasted with the Four Heavenly 
 Beasts, which are Types op Holy Affections ; The 
 Seven Last Plagues, the Sum op Direful Eesults, 
 wmoH plow from persistent Wickedness op Life. 
 
LECTURE. 
 
 " And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having 
 the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the 
 earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. 
 Saying, with a loud voice. Fear God, and give glory to him ; for 
 the hour of His judgment is come : and worship him that made 
 heaven, and earth, ancl the sea, and the fountains of waters." 
 — Sev. xiv. 6, 7. 
 
 We propose to-day to examine seven chapters of 
 this Book, viz : from the twelfth to the eighteenth 
 inclusive. At first sight, this may seem too great an 
 undertaking for a single discourse, and as one involv- 
 ing a too summary or compendious style of statement 
 making it difficult for the hearers to gain a clear idea 
 of the subject matter. But in practice, it may be 
 found to be the most simple method of treatment, fix- 
 ing the subject better in the mind, and enabling them 
 to remember it more easily than another mode. For 
 the ideas which give the key to the understanding of 
 these chapters are few, simple, and closely connected 
 with each other ; and, by confining our attention to 
 them, we shall keep closer to the general scope and 
 tenor of the prophecy, and so avoid overburdening 
 the memory or losing ourselves in a multitude of 
 details. 
 
 We are studying the Last Judgment, and the events 
 which accompany it ; — the second Advent of the 
 14* 
 
162 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Lord, by the Revelation of New Truth from the Word. 
 The formation of a New Heaven by Him in the Spir- 
 itual World, and the establishment of a New Church, 
 called the New Jerusalem, proclaiming this truth on 
 the earth. 
 
 We have followed this grand development through 
 its introductory stages. We have witnessed the 
 exploration of the great multitudes collected in the 
 intermediate world from nominal Christendom, aind 
 heard a description of their qualities ; both of those 
 good ones of whom a new heaven could be composed, 
 and of those evil ones who, on account of their char- 
 acters, could not enter into such a combination. We 
 have also witnessed their Trial by Truth, and seen 
 some of the results disclosed when there was applied 
 to them the standard of those two grand Truths of the 
 Bible which bear the Lord's testimony in every age. 
 The Two Compandments requiring love to God and 
 love to Man. 
 
 In the seven chapters to be examined to-day we 
 read first a description of the New Church, next, of 
 the formation of the New Heaven, and then, of the 
 conclusion of the Judgment upon the Christian popula- 
 tions, resulting in the casting down of the evil out of 
 the intermediate world into the regions below. These 
 three things, therefore, will occupy our attention in 
 their order. 
 
 There is one principal fact which distinguishes the 
 scenes we are to contemplate to-day from those we 
 have been studying before. Heretofore, we have 
 viewed those populations rather as one great body ; 
 as composed of different classes indeed, yet still as 
 associated, and mingled together in a common mass. 
 
THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES.. 163 
 
 And*re have witnessed the successive processes of 
 exploration, angelic visitation, proclamation of the 
 truth, discussion and trial, by which, gradually, a 
 separation was effected, — by which those populations 
 of spirits were sifted, as it were, each kind being 
 drawn away in its appropriate direction, until now, 
 when we come to behold them as actually divided, — 
 as two diverse and opposing bodies, contrary in char- 
 acter, and moving in opposite directions. 
 
 Let us look a moment, carefully, at some of the facts 
 we have already been studying, and see what they 
 necessarily imply. 
 
 We have seen the opening of the great Book and an 
 explanation of its spiritual meaning. We have heard 
 the sounding of the seven trumpets, and have followed 
 the angels in their descent from heaven to the world 
 of spirits, carrying with them and proclaiming the 
 new truths or doctrines. They went as missionaries 
 to those mixed populations. And we have seen that 
 they gained adherents among them, — a mighty multi- 
 tude indeed, — even all the good or well disposed to be 
 found in those populations, who thence came out and 
 stood apart by themselves. What, then, is the essen- 
 tial fact that we are here called upon to contemplate ? 
 Why, simply this. This heavenly evangelization had 
 resulted in the collection of a great worshipping pop- 
 ulation ; in other words, a New Church had been gath- 
 ered and formed there, under the immediate ministra- 
 tions of the angels. A church, too, possessing some 
 remarkable characteristics ; whose preachers were 
 angels commissioned by the Lord, and whose members 
 were good men that had iinished their earthly labors 
 aad laid aside their mortal bodies, and who in the 
 
164 LECTUKE VIII. 
 
 great Day of trial had not been found wanting. 'fcThe 
 general assembly and church of the first born ; " a 
 church in which good spirits are instructed and pre- 
 pared, and so made ready to enter those New Heavens, 
 which the Lord also forms at His coming. A church 
 which was not disbanded on the day of its formation, 
 nor in that year, which exists now, and which will 
 exist forever, — whose membership is kept up by the 
 reception into it of obedient and teachable ones con- 
 stantly going thither from this earth. A church in 
 which the accepted ones, your friends and mine, who 
 have departed from our midst within the last year, 
 within the last month, and last week, are worshipping 
 to-day. 
 
 It is this church that is described to us in^the twelfth 
 chapter, under the figure of the Woman seen in the 
 higher parts of the spiritual world, clothed with the 
 sun, with the moon under her feet, " and on her head 
 a crown of twelve stars." The Scriptural usage, by 
 which the church is represented as a woman, being 
 also sometimes called a wife and mother, is so frequent 
 and abundant, as well as so generally acknowledged, 
 that we have no need to prove it, as all wUl readily 
 assent to its meaning. 
 
 The symbolism here employed sets forth her spir- 
 itual qualities. Her vesture of sunshine denotes the 
 fulness and clearness of heavenly truth in which she 
 is instructed, as, by derivation from her Divine Master, 
 and in imitation of Him, she clothes herself " with 
 light as with a garment." The moon and stars are 
 prophetic emblems of the faith and knowledge of 
 heavenly and divine things possessed by her. Her 
 " man-child " is the Doctrine which she brings forth, 
 
THE SEVEN LAST PLAQUES. 165 
 
 and promulgates, and teaches to all those that gather 
 around her altars. 
 
 In the old prophet, where the Lord's first coming is 
 predicted, it is spoken of in one place in a similar 
 manner. In our version it is, "unto us a child is 
 born ; unto us a son is given," &c., but in the original 
 it is, " unto us a man-child is born." We know that 
 when the Lord came the first time, He was born into 
 the world as the Divine Truth ; and so, again, at His 
 Second Advent, it is the truth of Divine Doctrine that 
 the Lord sends into the world through the medium of 
 a church, gathered and organized and instructed for 
 that purpose. 
 
 The persecution which this woman in the twelfth 
 chapter is described as having suffered from, repre- 
 sents the opposition which that church in the world 
 of spirits encountered from the evil populations by 
 which it was surrounded, and the manner in which 
 they attempted to treat it. Michael and his angels 
 ai-e the church and its adherents ; its angelic teachers 
 and their followers. The deceiving dragon which 
 fought against them, was the evil principle of false 
 but persuasive reasonings with which wicked spirits 
 assailed and contended against that church founded 
 by the angels. These false reasonings the dragon and 
 his-crew poured out of their mouths, it is said, like a 
 flood of devastating water ; endeavoring with them to 
 swallow up the woman and her child ; that is, to over- 
 turn and sweep away that church and the Doctrine it 
 was bringing forth and teaching. But we read that 
 that New Church and her doctrine were preserved and 
 protected by the Lord until the whole of that wicked 
 crew were removed, — first from the higher regions of 
 
166 LEOTUEE VIII. 
 
 the land of spirits, and then from the lower, being 
 finally cast down, with their own spiritual kindred, 
 intp the regions below. 
 
 In turning now to the fourteenth chapter, we pass 
 to a different scene. We rise to a higher plane. We 
 ascend a step in spiritual life, and, by correspondence, 
 also to a higher region of the spiritual world. The 
 view opens once more in heaven : and there the Lord 
 and Saviour is seen, with those who have been saved 
 and taken up. The apostle says, — " And I looked, 
 and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and with 
 him an hundred and forty and four thousand, having his 
 Father's name written in their foreheads. And I heard 
 a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and 
 as the voice of a great thunder : and I heard the voice 
 of harpers harping with their harps : and they sung as 
 it were a new song before the throne, and before the 
 four beasts, and the elders ; — and no man could learn 
 that song but the one hundred and forty and four thou- 
 sand that were redeemed from the earth." 
 
 We have already once contemplated this class of 
 persons, the one hundred and forty-four thousand, 
 while studying the seventh chapter, at the time of 
 their sealing. When it was made known to us, 
 through the angelic exploration, that there did exist 
 such a class in the world of spirits, — that they were 
 capable of becoming citizens of heavenly communities, 
 and that they were designated, and reserved by the 
 Lord for this purpose. 
 
 We now behold them, therefore, after the sealing has 
 taken effect. Wc behold them no longer surrounded 
 by and mingled with adverse elements ; but separated 
 and- arranged and organized by themselves. They 
 
THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. 167 
 
 have been not only gathered out of those mingled 
 multitudes into the New Church, formed by the angels 
 in the intermediate world, but having been instructed 
 there by angels for a sufiScient period of time, have 
 been at length raised up to their destined plSces in the 
 heavenly regions, and are now seen, in company with 
 their Saviour, — their Divine Lord and Master, on the 
 heavenly mountain, settled in their abodes in the 
 spiritual Canaan, from whence they are to go no more 
 out, but where they are to remain, in living conjunc- 
 tion with Him, to eternity. 
 
 In other words, we here have a description of the 
 formation and appearance of that " New Heaven," 
 which the Lord promised to form at His Second 
 Advent, to which a number of the prophets distinctly 
 refer, and which we have so frequently mentioned in 
 these Discourses. 
 
 We have said that these redeemed and purified 
 ones, of whom that New Heaven is composed, 
 ascended thither out of that New Church formed by 
 angels in the world of spirits. And this continues to 
 be the case. Prom the first day of its organization 
 that heaven has been receiving accessions. At first 
 its numbers were comparatively few, but they have 
 been constantly increasing ever since. When the 
 good there were first separated from the wicked, some 
 of them were much more nearly prepared to enter 
 heaven than others, and so were taken up at an earlier 
 period. And this occurred with every degree of 
 variety. So, too, good spirits departing from the 
 earth, began at once to enter that church, and to 
 receive there instruction and preparation. So that a 
 constant tide of emigration, so to speak, from the 
 
168 LECTURE viir. 
 
 earth, has been entering that heaven from the day of 
 its formation until now, and will continue thus to flow 
 in — and in increasing volume — forever. "For as 
 the new heavens and the new earth which I will make, 
 shall rem^n before me, saith Jehovah, so shall your 
 seed and your name remain. And it shall come to 
 pass that from one new moon to another, and from 
 one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come and wor- 
 ship before me, saith Jehovah." 
 
 And as the population of that New Heaven extends, 
 its power and its influence extend. It is capable of 
 doing more good than formerly. It is capable of 
 acting upon the world of spirits more powerfully, and 
 also capable of acting upon the world of men more 
 powerfully. We feel its influences to-day. And we 
 see in the world around us, and have seen, in an in- 
 creasing ratio, for the last hundred years, the evidences 
 of its influences upon the moral and civil life of Christ- 
 endom. It is the cause of all the progress in human 
 affairs which we have witnessed as so marked within 
 this period, and which we all feel and see to be so 
 largely on the increase. And it will be the cause, or 
 rather the medium from the Lord, through which still 
 greater light, and still greater progress will flow into 
 the minds of men, until those vast changes of good- 
 ness and peace, so often dwelt upon, and so glowingly 
 set forth in the prophets, shall have been reached and 
 realized upon the earth. 
 
 It is in this connection that the words of the text 
 occur. The apostle then continues : " And I saw 
 another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the 
 everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on 
 
THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. 169 
 
 the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and 
 tongue, and people." The " gospel " here meant is 
 the gospel of the Second Advent ; and it is called the 
 everlasting gospel, because the church and dispensa- 
 tion, formed under it, are never to pass away, but are 
 to be perpetual, as so frequently declared in Scrip- 
 ture. For we read that the new heavens and the new 
 earth which Jehovah will make, shall remain before 
 him; and by the "new earth" is signified the new 
 church corresponding to the new heaven. 
 
 And, in the prophet Daniel, where the Second Ad- 
 vent of the Lord, and the Judgment, and the latter 
 day fulfilment of prophecy, are depicted, we read 
 that, in those days, the Lord of heaven shall set up a 
 ■ kingdom, or church, which shall endure forever ; — 
 that " His dominion, which He now establishes, is the 
 dominion of an Age, or dispensation, which shall not 
 pass away, and His kingdom, that which shall not be 
 destroyed." 
 
 Such perpetuity or permanency of endurance is 
 never predicated of the church and dispensation intro- 
 duced through the agency of our Lord's Apostles. 
 They were never 'told that it would endure forever ; 
 on the contrary, it was predicted by Peter that " a 
 great falling away " should take place in that church. 
 The gospel they were sent out into the world to 
 preach, is never called the "everlasting gospel." 
 
 Not that the things then revealed and taught, were 
 not true. Very far from that. But that the Revela- 
 tion of heavenly truth was not then complete. The 
 world did not then receive the sum total ; more was 
 to come. Further important particulars were to be 
 given in the fulness of times ; not " another gospel," 
 15 
 
170 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 in the sense meant by Paul, but a further disclosure 
 from the interior contents of the same ; and to this 
 latter-day dispensation, of still greater light and illus- 
 tration, they were constantly directed to look ; as it 
 is expressed by Paul, in the words already quoted, — 
 "We (the apostles of this age, now,) know only in 
 part, and we prophesy in part, but when that which 
 is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be 
 done away." 
 
 This everlasting gospel of the Lord's Second Ad- 
 vent, is described here, in connection with the forma- 
 tion of the New Heaven, to signify that such is the 
 gospel preached in that Heaven, and that from that , 
 Heaven it will descend, first to the world of spirits, 
 being promulgated by angels there, and then to the 
 world of men, to be preached and promulgated here ; 
 and that the influences proceeding from that Heaven, 
 will be constantly given to the dissemination of these 
 truths, and to inducing the human mind to receive 
 them. 
 
 We have now examined the contents of two chap- 
 ters, the twelfth and fourteenth. And, in so doing, 
 we have observed the final effects of the judgment, 
 upon one of the two separated bodies. We have fol- 
 lowed the progress of the good in their ascent to a 
 higher and better world, until we have seen them ele- 
 vated and settled in their homes in heaven. 
 
 We are now to turn in an opposite direction. The 
 contents of five other chapters are before us, the thir- 
 teenth, and fifteenth, to the eighteenth, inclusive ; 
 and, in them, we contemplate the final effects of the 
 
THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. 171 
 
 same judgment upon the other body of spirits, — upon 
 the unregenerate and sinful. On this side, * we find 
 described the defeat of the dragon, the overthrow of 
 his hosts, and the fall of the great Babylon of the 
 world of spirits. But, although the particulars men- 
 tioned are numerous, yet the whole may be summed 
 in a single idea, and by a single phrase, and that is, 
 the Destruction of the Wicked. We here behold 
 them on their way to perdition. The qualities which 
 possess them, and which are the cause of their ruin, 
 are vividly portrayed. Those qualities are here re- 
 vealed to us in their inmost characters, and given in 
 connection with the results to which they lead. The 
 evil gathered from the nominally Christianized coun- 
 tries — both Protestant and Catholic — are what are 
 described, and we read until we behold them all re- 
 moved from the world of spirits, and cast down into 
 the hells below, signified by the "bottomless pit." 
 Since that day, the intermediate world of spirits has 
 been free from their presence, — as permanent resi- 
 dents. 
 
 The seven vials of wrath, filled with the seven last 
 plagues, are nothing else than symbols and descrip- 
 tions of the effects of human passions and lusts, — 
 the curses, the disorders, the hardships, the suffer- 
 ings, the torments and the social chaos, which the 
 unrestrained propensities of the human heart produce 
 in any community where they prevail, and especially 
 in those great communities of separated and con- 
 demned spirits of which we have here been reading. 
 
 In the description, the work of Inflicting these 
 
 * Including part of chapter 12. 
 
172 LECTUEE VIII. 
 
 plagues, is attributed to the angels. The plagues are 
 said to have been contained in golden vials, which 
 were put into the hands of angels, and by them poured 
 out upon the doomed populations below. So the 
 dragon is represented as being overthrown and thrust 
 down into the bottomless pit, by Michael and his 
 angels. And the two witnesses, in the eleventh chap- 
 ter, are said to have been gifted with the power of in- 
 flicting upon . mankind all plagues as often as they 
 will, and are also described as sending forth fire out 
 of their mouths, consuming those who persecuted 
 them. This is the common mode of representation 
 used in Scripture. The sufferings which overtake the 
 wicked, are almost always spoken of as being inflicted 
 upon them from above, — as flowing down upon them 
 out of heaven. But this is only according to the ap- 
 pearance. This form of speaking is employed because 
 the flowing down of heavenly influences are the occa- 
 sion of manifesting and bringing to light the hidden 
 corruption of the wicked ; as the sunshine, which usu- 
 ally vivifies and improves all nature, when it falls upon 
 rotting substances; only hastens the process of decay. 
 The fire proceeding out of the mouth of the witnesses, 
 denotes the blaze of evil passion or zeal aroused in the 
 minds of the evil when, in the spiritual world, they 
 hear the. truth proclaimed. And the death which is 
 said to ensue to them, is the spiritual death which 
 persistent opposition to the truth occasions to the 
 soul. 
 
 So the seven last plagues are said to have been 
 poured out of golden vials, in the hands of angels, be- 
 cause, as we have already seen, the different processes 
 of the Judgment have been conducted by the angels. 
 
THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. 173 
 
 It was through their agency that the truths were pro- 
 claimed, in the sounding of the seven trumpets, and 
 the truths are what declare, detect, and expose the 
 evil desires and corrupt propensities of the wicked, 
 laying them bare to the sight. 
 
 But there is another very important way in which 
 the preaching of the truths by the angels, had affected 
 that vast multitude of unclean spirits in a most unfa- 
 vorable manner. As we have already seen, that 
 preaching had served to select out and separate from 
 among them, all the good and well disposed spirits 
 who had formerly dwelt among them. And it was 
 this circumstance, added to the powerful promulga- 
 tion of the truth, that had destroyed the bonds which 
 held their society together, which had stirred it up 
 from its very depths, and utterly overturned it, by 
 simply delivering up to the insane persuasions of their 
 own passions and lusts, the wicked characters who 
 remained. 
 
 Thus the Lord does not actively and aflSrmatively 
 inflict any torments. Par from it ; for He is uniform- 
 ly merciful. Nor do the angels willingly afHict any. 
 They do nothing whatever for the purpose of adding 
 to the miseries of the wicked. They take care only 
 to save, and protect, and defend the good, — all who 
 are willing to be saved spiritually, leaving the evil 
 simply in freedom, to go by themselves and to behave 
 as they please. 
 
 So far from inventing means to increase their dis- 
 orders, the ministrations of the Lord through the an- 
 gels, are all directed to allay, or to modify and dimin- 
 isji the fury and malignity with which they not unfre- 
 quently annoy and torment one another. 
 15* 
 
174 LKCTUEE VIII. 
 
 The hell of the wicked in the other life, consists 
 wholly and altogether in merely being delivered up, 
 in answer to their own desire, — in answer to their 
 own choice and prayer, to the bent of their own un- 
 subdued propensities. 
 
 How would it be here in the world of men, if a sim- 
 ilar experiment were tried ? Eemove, in any commu- 
 nity the external bonds which hold society together, 
 and what would be the result ? Select out from the 
 nation all those whose conduct is ruled by the princi- 
 ples of righteousness and justice, — all who obey the 
 laws of moral probity from heartfelt conviction, from 
 their own free will, independent of the pressure of 
 public opinion, or the restraints of the civil power, 
 and remove them to a distance. Then withdraw the 
 civil laws which now serve to restrain and hold in 
 check the selfish desires and designs of the multi- 
 tude, the laws which forbid theft, and adultery, and 
 perjury, and murder, and it is not difficult to see, 
 without a very vivid imagination, some few of the re- 
 sults which would follow. We can think how disor- 
 ders of every kind would break out and abound, how 
 things would grow from bad to worse, until anarchy 
 would set in, all traces of civilization would rapidly 
 disappear, one widespread contention would be wit- 
 nessed for dominion and power, for the property and 
 goods of others, and for the means of selfish gratifica- 
 tion or pleasure, until society would crumble to pieces, 
 while social chaos and the world's night of darkness 
 would return. 
 
 Imagine, if you can, the probable state of things in 
 times like those, in some of the great centres of the 
 world's life, like London, or Paris, or New York I 
 
THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. 175 
 
 Would they not, under the conditions we have de- 
 scribed, present, to the contemplations of the truly- 
 rational and Christianized mind, a full picture of places 
 upon which the seven vials of wrath had been poured 
 out? Should we not behold the "unquenchable 
 fires " burning in every individual heart, and flaming 
 forth in every individual life ? And should we not 
 behold human society there, bleeding and suffering 
 under the woes, and distresses, and grievous torments 
 that are here prophetically depicted under the sym- 
 bolism of the seven vials ? This is so obvious to the 
 reason, that we presume none will doubt it. And all 
 this, too, in countries which are nominally Christian. 
 
 But in the merciful providence of the Lord, human 
 communities are seldom brought to the test of so se- 
 vere a trial. Only at long intervals, and then only 
 for short periods, is anarchy allowed to prevail, that 
 we may have the lesson of beholding what is really in 
 man, when left to himself. And we can see that it is 
 not necessary to cast in any other ingredients than 
 those found in corrupt and perverted human hearts, 
 in order to constitute a hell. 
 
 If these things would be true of a community of 
 men, situated in the natural world, how much truer 
 must they be of the spiritual world, where all the 
 mental laws work in greater freedom, and come to 
 their full head and operation without impediment. 
 What a melancholy picture of disorder and woe is 
 given in these five chapters, where the last state of 
 the wicked, when left to themselves, is described ! 
 No I not a particle need to be added from Divine 
 wrath — for there is no such thing as Divine wrath — 
 nothing added from the vindictive justice of the 
 
176 LECTUKE VIII. 
 
 angels, — for there is nothing of the kind ; nor even 
 any pangs of a disturbed conscience, — for there is no 
 such thing as conscience left there, all remnants of such 
 a restraining principle have been blotted out of the 
 mind before the spirit has sunken to those depths, 
 having been first, as the prophet expresses it, "seared, 
 as if with a red-hot iron," and finally drowned and 
 buried deep down in a grave of false persuasion and 
 unrepented lust. No ; nothing is done to the evil but 
 simply to separate them from among the good. 
 
 •No reader of the Book of Revelation can have failed 
 to notice the frequency with which beasts of various 
 descriptions figure in its symbolical representations. 
 We have already had occasion to refer to some of the 
 animals. At the beginning, we read of the four beasts 
 which the Apostle saw in heaven, then of the horses 
 going forth frofii the Book, frequently of the Lamb 
 representing our Saviour as to His Humanity ; and 
 here, in these seven chapters, of four other beasts, — 
 the dragon, which persecuted the woman, the beast 
 which came up out of the sea, having seven heads and 
 ten horns, the second beast, which came up out of the 
 earth, and, lastly, the scarlet beast, upon which the 
 great harlot was seen sitting. 
 
 As we have before had occasion to observe, these 
 animated forms are all types or emblems of things in 
 the human mind. For the most part, they represent 
 man as to his affections ; and, as may be clearly 
 gleaned from the descriptions, sometimes typify them 
 in an orderly or holy state of development, and at 
 others, in a most perverted, disorderly, and unholy 
 state. 
 
THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. 177 
 
 The four beasts first seen, are thus described by the 
 Apostle. "And round about the throne were four 
 beasts, full of eyes before and behind. And the first 
 beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, 
 and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth 
 beast was like a flying eagle." These four beasts 
 reappear constantly throughout the Book, in connec- 
 tion with the scenes which are laid in heaven. In- 
 deed, they represent heaven. They are intended to 
 typify or embody, and bo represent, all heavenly or 
 holy afiection. They are emblems of the pure and 
 orderly affections which move and animate the angels, 
 leading them into that high and holy fellowship, and 
 inspiring them with a love for all their duties. 
 
 As soon as we know this their meaning, we can see 
 the reason of the things which are attributed to them. 
 It is said that they rest not day and night, crying 
 Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. They are 
 represented as taking an active part throughout in the 
 occurences described in this Book ; they are said, 
 repeatedly, to join in the worship and glorification of 
 the Lord. When the four horses went forth from the' 
 Book, as each successive seal was opened, " one of 
 the four beasts said, comje and see ; and when the 
 seven last plagues were to be manifested, we read, 
 "And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven 
 angels seven golden vials full- of the wrath of God, 
 that liveth forever and ever." 
 
 This constant reference to these four beasts is to 
 signify the entrance of heavenly affections into all 
 these movements. They are the same four beasts that 
 so frequently occur in different parts of Scripture, 
 appearing first on the standards of the Israelitish host, 
 
178 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 a8 they marched and encamped, according to their 
 four grand divisions, in the wilderness. Judah, with 
 the lion on its standard, occupied the east ; Eeuben, 
 with the man, was in the south ; Ephraim, with the ox 
 or calf, on the west ; and Dan, with the eagle, on the 
 north. This form of encampment also represented 
 heaven, as to its four quarters. The figures of these 
 animals are also called cherubs or cherubim ; though 
 cherubs were most commonly composed of a combinar 
 tion of parts of each of the four in one figure. In 
 Ezekiel, they are described in connection with the 
 Word or Sacred Scriptures, as in that are embodied, 
 or expressed and described, all heavenly and holy 
 affections ; and they are there called " living crea- 
 tures," for such affections are really and truly alive, 
 having the breath of genuine spiritual life constantly 
 breathed into them by the Lord from above. 
 
 But the four beasts described in these last chapters 
 stand over against those cherubic ones in marked con- 
 trast. There is no difficulty in perceiving that they 
 are types of evil. They embody and represent human 
 affection, perverted and disordered to a most painful 
 degree. Their shapes are monstrous in the extreme, 
 being unlike any forms known in nature, or ever seen 
 in visible shape in the world of men. Each one of 
 them symbolizes the dominant disposition, ■ — the ruling 
 animus, — of some great class of evil men, now spirits, 
 or, of evil spirits, who -Were once men ; dispositions, 
 which they fed and nourished while in the body, and 
 which they carried with them when they went to the 
 spiritual world. As the four good beasts were formerly 
 displayed upon the standards of the Lord's representa- 
 tive host, so these monstrous shapes, depicted here by 
 
THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES. 179 
 
 the prophet, may be regarded as the symbolic and truly 
 corespondential devices appearing upon the standards 
 of the combined hosts of the Devil and his angels, in 
 all their grand divisions. The dragon, the serpent, 
 Satan, the Demi, the heast, etc., are only so many col- 
 lective names given to the great kingdom of Evil, each 
 one, however, expressive and descriptive of some par- 
 ticular quality, by which it is characterized or distin- 
 guished. 
 
 Did time allow, we could describe the character of 
 each of the qualities that are here symbolized. But 
 this is not required. They can all be studied in the 
 Writings of the Church. It is enough at present to 
 know that they represent wrong principles of life, 
 principles which oppose and war against heaven and 
 the church, — principles which in their inmost nature 
 are direfully and fearfully evil, and lead to the most 
 disastrous results, both in the present life and in the 
 world to come. 
 
 But what a lesson to us do these sad pictures con- 
 vey I What is the reason, do you suppose, that these 
 scenes are made to occupy so much space ? Why is 
 the description of these terrible things which overtake 
 the wicked, so much more full and minute than those 
 happy things, which are the portion of the good ? It 
 must be, because it is so important for all to know 
 them. It must be, to show us in strong and clear light 
 that there is a hell to be saved from, as well as a 
 heaven to be labored for and attained ; — a hell of 
 dreadful character, and unspeakable misery. Here are 
 unfolded the principles which make it, the evil ten- 
 dencies which, unresisted and unrestrained, lead 
 directly into it. Those tendencies we find at work in 
 
180 LECTURE viir. 
 
 the world, in every society of men, — in ourselves, — 
 in our own hearts. And these disclosures are given 
 us, that henceforth we may avoid and shun them, 
 putting them away to a distance, and laying hold of 
 that great salvation that is opened to us in and 
 through the Lord Jesus Christ, by a life according to 
 His Commandments. Thus acting like one portion of 
 those of whom we read, when it is said, — " And the 
 remnant were affrighted at these things, and gave 
 glory unto the God of heaven." And so let it induce 
 MS to give the glory unto Him, by living a life accord- 
 ing to His Precepts. 
 
EECTTJRE IX. 
 
 THE CLOSING OF THE APOSTOLICAL DISPENSA- 
 TION. 
 
 CONTENTS : — Chapters Nineteen and Twenty ; 
 The Heavenly Glorifications at the Execution of the 
 Judgment ; The stupefying Effects of the previous 
 State of Things, on the Minds of Men ; The Closing 
 OF THE First Christian Dispensation, and the Opening 
 of a Net One ; Explanation of Daniel's Image ; The 
 Spiritual History of Man until the Judgment ; The 
 New Order then introduced ; Explanation of the 
 White Horse and his Rider ; The Completion of the 
 Judgment upon the Gentiles, — beyond Christendom. 
 
LECTUEE 
 
 "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to liim : for the 
 ma,rriage of the liamb is come, aad bis wife hath made herself 
 ready." — Rev. xix. 7. 
 
 In these two chapters, the nineteenth and twenti- 
 eth, we study the Closing of the Dispensation, the 
 " end " of the first Christian Period, and the winding 
 up of its affairs. 
 
 We have followed the revelation of new Truth which 
 constitutes the second coming of the Lord, and wit- 
 nessed the effects it produced upon the mixed, good 
 and evil populations in the intermediate world of the 
 departed, gathered there from the nominally Christian 
 countries. We have contemplated the Judgment in 
 its successive stages ; seen the New Heaven formed 
 by the calling forth and preparation of the good ; and 
 beheld the separation of the evil, with their final 
 delivery over into the realms of perdition. 
 
 In these two chapters we have a brief summary 
 statement of these same things, as facts accomplished, 
 together with the closing act of Judgment upon the 
 populations not hitherto included, — the Gentile 
 world, outside of Christendom, — to whom the gospel 
 of our Lord — in their earth-life — had not reached. 
 The entire scene is laid still, and altogether, in the 
 
184 LECTURE IX. 
 
 world of the departed. We read, first, of the glorifi- 
 cations and rejoicings in the heavens on account of 
 the accomplishment of these things ; then, of the effect 
 which these things are to have upon that part of the 
 world of spirits connected with Christendom ; and, 
 lastly, of their effect upon that part of the world of 
 spirits connected with the countries beyond Christen- 
 dom. 
 
 Let us attend to these things successively in some 
 degree of detail. 
 
 The nineteenth chapter opens with a description of 
 the joyful praises of the angels on account of the 
 accomplishment of the Judgment. This fact is stated 
 with great clearness and particularity, and is one 
 worthy of serious attention, for it is highly instruc- 
 tive. The casting down of those falsely constituted 
 communities and their removal from the world of 
 spirits, was the occasion of the fullest satisfaction and 
 most unbounded joy throughout the heavenly world. 
 They broke forth into singing above and below. 
 Their hearts being filled with the most delightful 
 emotions of love and gratitude, we hear the loudest 
 acclamations of thanksgiving and praise rising up and 
 resounding from every side. Three distinct anthems 
 are here recorded as being sung in succession,, by 
 difierent choirs in that unnumbered assembly of the 
 redeemed. The strains are heard to roll along from 
 one vast multitude to another. The swelling voice 
 of the adorations hurts forth in one region of the great 
 expanse, and then is responded, to by some mighty 
 chorus, situated far away in another. The acclama- 
 tions, beginning in the lower portions of heaven, rise 
 gradually through the higher, up to the throne itself, 
 
CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 185 
 
 and then return, floating down from thence, to the 
 great multitudes constituting the lower confines of 
 ihat holy and happy world. Thus the Appstle wit- 
 nessed celebrations taking place in all three of the 
 heavens, — the lowest or first, in the second or 
 middle, and the third or highest. While the anthem 
 sung in each one is here recorded. 
 
 Prom these demonstrations, so extraordinary in their 
 nature, and made on so vast a scale, we may see that 
 a great event is indicated ; some accomplishment, 
 having an important bearing on the interests of the 
 whole spiritual world, as well as on those of the world 
 of men. While both the importance and the magni- 
 tude of the event will constantly grow upon our 
 vision, becoming enlarged as we continue to study its 
 character and its relations. 
 
 Hundreds and hundreds of millions of men, yes, 
 multitudes so vast that all attempts to estimate their 
 numbers would be useless, had been accumulating in 
 the intermediate world of the departed, for more than 
 seventeen hundred years. And he who looks over the 
 history of the nominally Christian countries for that 
 period, will have no difiSculty in understanding that 
 among those millions the evil greatly predominated 
 over the good. The evil ruled in those communities, 
 — the tares grew up to great height and overshadowed 
 the wheat. 
 
 Here, in the world of men, the career of a power- 
 ful mind is limited. A Charlemagne, a Hildebrand, a 
 Napoleon, stands before his fellow-men, exercising the 
 sway which his mental powers put into his hand, for 
 twenty-five, perhaps for thirty years or so, and then 
 passes away, leaving his functions and position to be 
 16* 
 
186 LECT0EE IX. 
 
 occupied by others. And so, too, whole generations 
 pass constantly from the stage of action, giving way 
 to the new ones conaing forward, involving continual 
 changes in the world's affairs, in the schemes of men, 
 and in the influences that are operating in society. 
 
 But in the world of spirits, before the Last Judg- 
 ment, circumstances were somewhat different in this 
 respect. There, when men arrived, they did not pass 
 off in twenty-five or thirty years, but remained, as we 
 have seen, one — two — three — five hundred years ; 
 and in some cases, a thousand or more. Hence the 
 career of a man, of a generation of men, did not come 
 to an end, but went on, their force accumulating and 
 their power extending. This led to very injurious and 
 unhappy results ; for, as we have seen, the dominion 
 was in the hands of the evil. Those communities were 
 constituted and ruled according to the maxims of 
 selfishness, and power, and policy, — maxims current 
 in the world of ungodly men, — and not by the pre- 
 cepts of love, justice, and mercy, which are the laws 
 of the heavenly kingdom. 
 
 Hence, every one departing from this world by 
 death, and entering the world of spirits, came at once 
 into a bad atmosphere, and was thrown into a current 
 of corrupt influences. Unless he was well grounded 
 in the principles of a true life, he was inevitably 
 carried away by the example and operation and strong 
 persuasion of immense numbers. The leaders and 
 rulers of those communities made use of the successive 
 ages to consolidate and strengthen and extend their 
 power. They gained a constant accession of adher- 
 ents, filling the contiguous regions of that world with 
 their inhabitants, and then annexing them to their 
 
CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 187 
 
 dominions. Thus had designing leaders of the Eoman 
 Catholic Eeligion wrought there, from age to age, untU 
 they had organized and built up there a Power, which 
 is described in the Revelation as the Great Babylon, 
 sitting upon many waters, and ruling over the kings 
 of the earth. While other designing men, from the 
 north of Europe, had done a very similar thing among 
 the populations flocking in there from the Protestant 
 nations, — holding their court and centralizing their 
 power in what is called " the Seat of the Beast," or 
 the "Place" of "the Dragon." 
 
 In addition to the destructive influences which these 
 "principalities and powers" of the intermediate 
 world shed upon the concourse of spirits departing 
 from our earth, their operation was also extremely 
 deleterious upon men still in the body. They were in 
 the regions of the spiritual world nearest to men. 
 They were in close contact with the interiors of their 
 minds. They could affect and influence their minds in 
 a thousand ways, imperceptibly, and while the recip- 
 ients were entirely unconscious of the source from 
 whence those things came. They had risen up to a 
 high altitude in the world of spirits, and the atmos- 
 phere they shed forth flowed over and around th& 
 brains and internal senses of men, forcing them to 
 breathe it, and thus to draw in some of its darkening' 
 and stupefying effects.* The Apostle Peter informs 
 us that even in his day, this spirit of iniquity had 
 already begun to work ; "the man of sin," whom the 
 Lord should destroy by the breath of His second 
 coming ; while Paul, somewhat more distinct, speakirug 
 
 * See note C, at the end of the Volume. 
 
188 LECTUEE IX. 
 
 not only for his own age, but also for the church in 
 the centuries to come after him, says to the Ephesians, 
 — "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
 against principalities and powers, against the rulers 
 of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits 
 in high places." (Eph. vi. 12.) In the later ages, 
 they had indeed risen up to and taken possession of 
 and occupied a region so high as to interfere with the 
 descent of heavenly influences. They had interposed 
 themselves between the world in which angels live, 
 and the world in which men live, hanging there like a 
 dark and dense cloud, turning aside and shedding off 
 the spiritual sunshine in its descent, and intercepting, 
 as much as possible, all intercourse between the two 
 worlds. The church on earth was spiritually block- 
 aded. The larger portion of those interior avenues 
 by which divine and heavenly influences are meant to 
 flow down into the human soul, illustrating it with 
 spiritual light, and warming it with spiritual love and 
 animation, were closed up, had been seized hold of 
 indeed, and were in possession of the enemy. 
 
 The advancement of the church in religious life, — 
 in purity and holiness, — was brought to a stand ; 
 while the moral progress of the world was arrested. 
 
 Men who lived in that age, viz : in the first quar- 
 ter or first half of the last century, felt that it was so. 
 All the history of that period is full of the depravity 
 which prevailed, and of the gloom which filled the 
 minds of the good on account of it. Moralists mourn 
 over the corruption of manners and the widespread 
 dissoluteness of the times, while the best spirits in 
 the church saw and lamented its declension, its spir- 
 itual deadness, and its powerlessness for good. It 
 
CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 189 
 
 was this dark and depressing state of things, clearly 
 perceived and keenly felt, that roused the religious 
 enthusiasm of such men as Whitefield, the two Wes- 
 leys, and Jonathan Edwards, and sent them forth into 
 the field as preachers of a " Revival," to bring about 
 a better, more hopeful condition of Religious life and 
 practice. 
 
 Thus, the darkness of the middle age threatened to 
 return. The cause of humanity and Christian civili- 
 zation was in danger of being morally lost. And this 
 retrograde, downward movement could not have been 
 arrested, if those evil communities in the world of 
 spirits had been allowed to remain there, and continue 
 their operations. 
 
 Our Lord, in Matthew, speaking of the spiritual 
 state of that time, says, — " For then shall be great 
 tribulation, such as was not since the beginning o( 
 the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And 
 except those days should be shortened, there should 
 no flesh be saved : but, for the elect's sake, those 
 days shall be shortened." Hence we .see the great 
 necessity there existed for a Judgment, that those 
 days might be shortened, and brought to an end. 
 We see the importance of the event in a spiritual 
 point of view, — its importance to the interests of the 
 Lord's kingdom, in the world of men, in the world of 
 spirits, and in the heaven of angels. We discover 
 here the ground of those great rejoicings in the 
 heavens, and of that constant language which we 
 read throughout this Book, expressing the gratitude 
 and thankfulness of the angels, that the Lord is taking 
 to Himself His great power, and beginning to reign, 
 that the hour of His Judgment, is come, and the time 
 
190 LECTUEE IX. 
 
 of the dead, that they should be judged, and that 
 "the accuser of their brethren is cast down, «vhich 
 accused them day and night before God." 
 
 This> indeed, is the final "consummation" or 
 " end," looked forward to, and pointed out, in so 
 much Divine Prophecy. The " end," not " of the 
 world," as an improper translation of the phrase 
 would make it appear ; the end, — not of these visible 
 heavens, or this habitable globe; the end, — not of 
 the historical development of humanity, nor of the 
 successive generations of men on this planet ; but the 
 " end " of that injurious and destructive state of 
 things in the spiritual world, which brought about the ' 
 " consummation" of the first great Christian " Age," 
 the closing of the Apostolical Dispensation, " the 
 winding up " of that grand system of preliminary 
 " economies," which prepared the times and opened 
 the way for the latter-day glory of the church, — that 
 clearer Dispensation of light and life, denominated, in 
 Daniel, the Kingdom that shall have no " end," and 
 in the Revelation, the New Jerusalem, coming down 
 from God out of heaven. 
 
 Daniel saw, in holy vision, this same consummation 
 upon those evil populations ; he saw until " the judg- 
 ment was set, and the books were opened." He saw, 
 also, the evil "beast," which rose up to such great 
 power, making war on the saints of the Most High ; 
 " But," he says, " the judgment shall sit, and they 
 shall take away his dominion, to destroy it unto the 
 end. And the kingdom, and dominion, and the great- 
 ness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be 
 given to the people of the saints of the Most High, 
 whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all 
 
CLOSIKG OF THE DISPENSATIOlf. 191 
 
 dominions shall serve and obey him. Hitherto is the 
 .end of the matter." Hitherto is the end of the matter ; 
 to this conclusion does the sum of all prophecy con- 
 stantly point ; — to the casting down of the evil 
 " principalities and powers " in' the intermediate 
 world, and the consequent initiation and instalment of 
 the latter-day kingdom. 
 
 The same, also, is represented by the great Image 
 seen in a dream by the king of Babylon, and ex- 
 plained according to a literal application by Daniel. 
 It is there applied to worldly kingdoms, but ^Daniel's 
 veiled explanation given to the king, is itself pro- 
 phetical, involving a spiritual meaning. Under the 
 figure of successive earthly kingdoms, are described 
 the successive dispensations of the Lord's kingdom 
 on earth, as may be clearly seen in that it runs to the 
 same conclusion or "end" of which we have been 
 speaking. 
 
 That Image, as we read, had a head of gold, a 
 breast and arms of silver, a belly and thighs of brass, 
 legs of iron, and feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 
 This Image is a representative of Man ; — of man, in 
 his solidarity, or unity, as a race ; — of man, in his 
 spiritual development, according to the history of the 
 past ; — of man, in his relations to the Lord's kingdom, 
 from the beginning until now ; — an image, therefore, 
 of the History of the Church Universal, from the 
 creation of Adam, down to the "end" of the preparar 
 tory dispensations, — down to the final judgment of 
 "Babylon" and "the Beast," which we have been 
 studying in the Book of Revelation. 
 
 The different metals are symbolical of the different 
 ages through which mankind has passed ; a symbolism 
 
192 IiECTDRE IX, 
 
 quite familiar to the thought and literature of oriental 
 and ancient times. Here are, in succession, given iq 
 figure, the " golden age," the " silver age," the " bra- 
 zen" or "copper age," the "iron age," and lastly, a 
 shorter age, partly iron, and partly " clay." 
 
 As we have said, these are the different " ages " of 
 Man, in respect to his. relations to the Church, or 
 Lord's kingdom ; and therefore, mark so many suc- 
 cessive dispensations, or churches, or Periods of Di- 
 vine, Providential economy, with respect to the 
 church. 
 
 The head of gold, a sign of the golden age, typifies 
 the most Ancient Church, the Period extending from 
 Adam to Noah, the antediluvian part of the world's 
 history. It has been called, almost universally, by 
 tradition, "the golden age," because then there was 
 greater simplicity of life and manners. Men lived 
 more in the emotions than in the later ages, and the 
 goodness which then belonged to the church was 
 more spontaneous, fuller of innocence, and more heav- 
 enly, than that which came in afterwards. 
 
 But the men of that age fell away. There had been 
 a constant decline from the days of the Adamic age 
 downward ; at length the corruption became com- 
 plete, the world prevailed over the church, the church, 
 as it had till then existed, was swept away, and the 
 event described as the Deluge, brought that Age and 
 Dispensation to an end. 
 
 Next came the "Silver Age." From Noah to the 
 days of Heber, a different state of things existed. 
 Men had become less emotional and more intellectual 
 in their character. New elements of manhood were 
 called into play, and civilizations of a different order 
 
CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 193 
 
 from those existing before, were built up. Men sep- 
 arated into distinct nations ; there was no longer, 
 "one language and one speech;" ideas of political 
 power and empire were developed, while civil law be- 
 came a force, and the bond which held society togeth- 
 er. Men, however, so far as they still listened to the 
 things of the church, were still spiritual in their ge- 
 nius ; being so near the primitive Eevelation, and ig- 
 norant of many modern corruptions, their good men 
 were interior men in their perceptions, and highly in- 
 telligent in the principles of divine and heavenly 
 things. In its later days, when the sacred Books of 
 its earlier time were lost, that church was instructed 
 by such men as Job, and Jethro, and Melchizedek, 
 who kept the lamp of the church trimmed, and the 
 holy flame burning, amidst the surrounding darkness 
 of an otherwise declining and demoralized age. It 
 was an age, as respects the church, rather of the 
 study, the contemplation, and the teaching of spiritual 
 truth, — than the spontaneous practice of benevolent 
 goodness, and hence its name, the "silver" age, 
 meaning thereby the Age of Spiritual Truth. 
 
 But that church gradually died out ; by degrees the 
 oriental peoples, among whom it existed, sank into 
 idolatry, or mythological superstitions of various 
 kinds, and it became necessary to prepare for a new 
 order of things. We. then behold the call of Abra- 
 ham. And when the Law was promulgated from Mt. 
 Sinai, and the Jewish church was established through 
 the instrumentality of Moses, a new Dispensation, 
 commenced. This was the brazen or copper age. 
 An age, that is, of merely natural goodness. Men 
 were not so intelligent in spiritual, supernatural, and 
 17 
 
194 LECTUEB IX. 
 
 invisible things, as they had been in former ages. 
 They had forgotten more of the spiritnal truths of the 
 primitive revelation. The quali^ty of the Jewish 
 church-life, was that of simple obedience to an exter- 
 nally imposed law, — moral and ceremonial, — and 
 whose inducements consisted principally of a system 
 of temporal rewards and punishments. Their good^ 
 ness, therefore, as we have already said, so far as they 
 possessed any, was natural, rather than spiritual ; and 
 the general life of the surrounding world, was of a 
 similar type, flowing alpng on the same plane. The 
 brazen serpent was elevated in the wilderness, as the. 
 type of healing, which, while it pointed forward to 
 our Lord, through whom redemption was to come, at 
 the same time symbolized and set forth the character 
 of the religious life which then prevailed. The laver, 
 too, placed in the outer court for washing, emblem- 
 atic of the purifications of that church, was of 
 brass; while the altar of burnt offering, significative 
 of their religious love or affection, was overlaid with 
 brass, and all the utensils employed in connection with 
 it were of the same metal. The molten sea was of 
 Brass, resting upon twelve brazen oxen, typifying the 
 natural afiections, and the galleries of the Temple, in 
 which Jehovah was worshipped, rested upon colon- 
 ades of brazen pillars, of great magnitude, and cu- 
 rious workmanship. 
 
 But when our Lord appeared in the world, the bra- 
 zen Age was brought to an end. He introduced a 
 new Dispensation. He revealed more truth. He. 
 taught a new and clearer system of Doctrines. He 
 fulfilled the letter of the Word. For this reason that 
 Dispensation is called the Age of Iron. That is,'th& 
 age when literal truth is at its full. In that Age, the 
 
CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 195 
 
 letter of the Bible was completed. There is to be no 
 more Sacred Scripture given. And this completed 
 letter of the Word, is the "rod of iron " by which the 
 Lord " will rule all nations," influencing them by the 
 power of His truth. Or, as another translation gives- 
 it, — " the crook of iron," with which " He will shep- 
 herdize all nations," separating the sheep from the 
 goats, drawing all who are willing to be drawn into 
 His fold, and defending them from evil after they have 
 entered it. 
 
 The first Christian or Apostolic church is founded 
 upon the letter of the Word, in its obvious, natural 
 sense, unenlightened, and not illustrated by its spir- 
 itual meaning. Its dispensation, therefore, is the Age 
 of divine natural Truth, or divine truth natural, repre- 
 sented by the legs oiiron in the Image. 
 
 The feet, partly of clay and partly of iron, are em- 
 blematic of its later and closing centuries, when the 
 Apostolical Doctrines were no longer retained pure, 
 but when a number of differing systems grew up in' 
 Christendom, and when the pure truth of the original 
 gospel had become mixed with many things of a cor- 
 rupt and earthly nature. As it is said in Daniel, — 
 " they shall mix themselves with the seed of man, and 
 the iron and the clay shall not cohere together. " So 
 these various systems of systematic theology, and 
 ecclesiastical polity, are partly genuine, and partly 
 human fallibility. With many gospel truths, which 
 they have taken for a basis, they have mixed many^ 
 things drawn from the ingenuity and persuasions of 
 men, which do not well cohere with those truths. 
 Thus, by the introduction of many hurtful fallacies, 
 they Have diminished the force of the letter of Scrip- 
 
196 LECTUEE IX. 
 
 ture, and given to the church an insecure and unsta- 
 ble foundation on which to stand. 
 
 This is now seen fulfilled in the circumstances of 
 our time. For so many different things have been 
 drawn forth from the letter of the Scripture, which 
 are not in reality taught there, that men are begin- 
 ning to distrust the whole thing. Great doubt and 
 perplexity prevail, not only with respect to the proper 
 meaning and interpretation of the Bible, but in regard 
 to its very validity. This is, indeed, the great theo- 
 logical question of the day. The best minds of the 
 church are exercised about it; and the more they 
 think rationally on it, the more they are troubled ; 
 thus fulfilling our Lord's words, that there should be 
 great "perplexity," "men's hearts failing them for 
 fear ; " " for," he adds, " the powers of the heavens 
 shall be shaken." Now the " powers of the heavens," 
 that are known and operative among men, are the 
 truths of the Divine Word; and these are "shaken," 
 when discredit is thrown upon them, and they are 
 brought into doubt. And this is done at the same 
 time, and by the same process, that mixes the iron 
 with the clay, giving revealed Scripture truth a feeble 
 and infirm hold on the rational convictions of men. 
 
 How many illustrations of this present state of 
 things might we not cite, did only time and space 
 allow 1 
 
 But the truth is, all these mixed systems are des- 
 tined to pass away. This assurance we have, dis- 
 tinctly uttered by the mouth of Divine Prophecy. 
 Daniel said to the king, — "Thousawest till that a 
 stone was cut out (of the Eock) without hands, which 
 smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and 
 
CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 197 
 
 clay, and brake them to pieces." * * * And they "be- 
 came like the chaff of the summer threshing floors ; 
 and the wind carried them away, that no place was 
 found for them : and the Stone which smote the 
 image, became a great mountain and filled the whole 
 earth." (Dan. ii. 34.) 
 
 Now, we know that, in a Supreme Sense, our Lord 
 Himself is the " Stone," and He is called so from the 
 imperishable Truth, which He is, and which He em- 
 bodies and reveals. So, here, the " stone cut out of 
 the Eock," is new truth, revealed from the Divine 
 Word ; the truth we have been' endeavoring to ex- 
 plain, the truth of the Spiritual Sense of the Bible, 
 the truth concerning Himself and His Second Advent. 
 In other words, this " Stone" is the Lord, in His Sec- 
 ond' Advent. 
 
 The " Stone" is said to have been " cut out with- 
 out hands," — a remarkable and significant expression, 
 — to denote that this Doctrine is a matter of Eevela- 
 tion, that it comes wholly and altogether from the 
 Divine Word, and is not the result of the reasoning 
 ability or of any intellectual ingenuity of man. In 
 this, it stands in marked contrast to the iron and the 
 clay. And it is this quality which gives it its power 
 of endurance, becoming, as it does, the instrument in 
 the hands of the' Lord, by which His everlasting 
 earthly kingdom is to be established. The kingdom 
 which, as we read, is to "consume all those king- 
 doms ; " that is, a Dispense^tion which is now to fol- 
 low and supersede all those dispensations which we 
 have thus briefly sketched, and which the metallic 
 " Image," in prophetic languag'e, described. 
 17* 
 
198 LECTUEE rx. 
 
 It is this change of the Dispensations, — the clos- 
 ing up of the foregoing ages, and the commencement 
 of the new and last one, — which we study here in 
 this nineteenth chapter of Eevelation ; and which, as 
 we have seen, is the ground of the heavenly rejoic- 
 ings. 
 
 We are next to follow the effects of this change. 
 
 We read immediately after this that heaven was 
 opened, and that the Lord is seen, appearing as "the 
 Word of God," seated upon a white horse, accompa- 
 nied by the armies of heaven, or the angelic hosts, 
 likewise seated upon white horses, going forth in 
 righteousness and in faithfulness to judge and make 
 war. 
 
 This describes the state of things which followed in 
 the world of spirits, immediately after those mixed 
 communities had been broken up, and the wicked 
 among them cast down. That intermediate world, so 
 far as connected with Chrisfendom, was emptied of its 
 former inhabitants. They had all been removed to 
 other regions of the spiritual universe. None of those 
 bad "principalities and powers, — none of those 
 "wicked spirits in high places," — ruled there any 
 longer, spreading their moral miasma around. The 
 atmosphere of that world had been purified by the 
 great " Crisis " which had happened, as a violent 
 thunder-storm clears the material atmosphere in this. 
 No noxious influences, strongly persuasive to evil, 
 now met the departing spirit entering that world from 
 this. Hence we read, — " Blessed are the dead, who 
 die in the Lord from henceforth." That dark cloud 
 which had hung between the heaven of angels and the 
 world of men, was rolled away. The influences. 
 
CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 199 
 
 which had poured in upon the human mind, stupefy- 
 ing it as to spiritual things, and stimulating its evil 
 fires, were withdrawn, and all the avenues, through 
 which the souls of men are mteriorly reached by 
 divine and heavenly influences, were reopened, and 
 rendered passable and available. Nothing, now, ex- 
 isted there, impeding or interfering with the descent 
 of spiritual sunshine, or the flowing down of heavenly 
 and divine operations. 
 
 Hence, as we see, this change signalized a new 
 epoch in the history of the spiritual world ; a new 
 Bra dawned then upon the populations, both of that 
 world, and of this world ; a new spiritual Age com- 
 menced, an age of greater liberty and light, an age of 
 purer and better influences, an age of enlargement and 
 progress for the whole family of man. 
 
 In this vision concerning the white horse, we see 
 the Lord and His angels availing themselves of this 
 changed condition of the "yorld of spirits to flow down 
 thither and commence their benefi cent operations . We 
 see the heaven above opened, and the heavenly influ- 
 ences beginning to descend. We here behold the 
 commencement of the New Dispensation authorita- 
 tively, and, as it were, ofBcially announced. We 
 behold the Lord in person, with an array of the 
 heavenly host around him, — assembled for the pur- 
 pose of inaugurating the new spiritual order of things. 
 His riding upon a white horse, as we have before 
 explained, is emblematic of the fact that He now 
 comes to communicate to men a better understanding 
 of His Word, to illustrate their minds more clearly, 
 rationally, and fully, with the light of spiritual truth, 
 and that He can do this now more effectually by the 
 
200 LECTURE IX. 
 
 operations of His spirit, than He could before the 
 impediments in the intermediate world were removed. 
 
 The armies of heaven, following Him, also, upon 
 "Tvhite horses, shows 1;hat the angels understand the 
 " Word of God " in its spiritual sense or meaning, and 
 that they will henceforward cooperate with the Lord 
 in his endeavors to illustrate men, and have them 
 receive it. Thus is the "marriage of the Lamb" 
 effected ;.a new and closer conjunction established, in 
 spiritual ways, between the Lord in the heavens and 
 His church on the earth. 
 
 The invitation next given, proceeding from the 
 Angel standing in the sun, addressed to the fowls that 
 fly in the midst of heaven, calling them " unto the 
 supper of the great God," is the call now made by 
 the Lord in His Second Advent, through His Word, 
 clothed in the correspondential symbolism of the 
 prophetic tongue, addressed to all men capable of 
 rational thought (for "birds flying in the midst of 
 heaven " are rational thoughts, soaring and exploring 
 heavenly things), bidding them to come, and appro- 
 priate the things that are now set before them. To 
 "come" and eat of this "great Supper." To come 
 and inquire into these heavenly knowledges, — a call 
 made to men to come and examine these wonderful 
 disclosures now made from the Divine Word ; to 
 " come " and feast the reason on these mighty truths, 
 and nourish their intelligence, and build up their souls 
 with the meat of eternal life, by learning the living 
 realities of the Heavenly system of Doctrines, the 
 spiritual state of existence, and the spiritual sense of 
 the Word, and by the practice of these truths in their 
 lives. 
 
CLOSING OF THE DISPENSATION. 201 
 
 The discomfiture of the armies opposing the heav- 
 enly host and Him that sat on the horse, by means 
 of the sword which proceeded forth out of His mouth, 
 denotes the final prevalence of this Truth, by the 
 overthrow of error, and its universal acceptance, by 
 the good and well disposed, everywhere, in the nat- 
 ural world and in the spiritual world. 
 
 The first effect of the Heavenly demonstrations and 
 influences which we have just contemplated, as they 
 descended into the intermediate world, occupying that 
 portion of it which had been cleared of inhabitants, 
 was, of course, to extend the Judgment, and so to 
 consummate its execution in the realms beyond, 
 reaching the communities of spirits collected from all 
 the other, but unenlightened countries of the world. 
 We read, therefore, as we go forward through the 
 twentieth chapter, until Satan has been entirely cast 
 down and shut up and bound. Until the universal 
 Hades has given up the dead that were in it, — the 
 small and the great standing before God, having " the 
 books opened ; " that is, having the memories of their 
 earth life explored, to see what the deeds were which 
 they then did, whether they were good or evil. The 
 " Book of Life " is the Bible, according to whose truths 
 all judgment is made. While at last, all the wicked 
 remaining, of every kind and degree, being cast into 
 the lake of fire, that is, into the hell of evil desire, we 
 behold that world, the intermediate world of spirits, 
 in its entire length and breadth, throughout all its 
 regions, cleared at length of every vestige of evil, 
 and of every malarious influence, restored to peace, 
 to purity and repose; 
 
202 LECTURE IX. 
 
 The mighty change, therefore, which has thus been, 
 wrought is wrought over the whole world. The ben- 
 efits flowing from it, though felt first by Christendom, 
 will not accrue to Christendom alone, but will reach 
 by degrees to every people and nation under Heaven. 
 The New Dispensation is for the whole family of 
 man. The .nations are no more to be shut up and 
 segregated one from another. The old barriers are to 
 be thrown down, and a common bond of intercourse 
 and brotherhood grow up, uniting all in one great 
 community of interests and of rights ; — the most dis- 
 tant lands acknowledging, in some degree, the same 
 great fundamental truths of righteousness and justice ; 
 that, as to the primary Law of Religion, love to God 
 and charity to man, there may come to be one Church 
 Universal throughout all the earth ; fulfilling our 
 Lord's words, that " there shall be one Fold, and One 
 Shepherd." 
 
 The whole world has felt the mighty impulse of 
 light and progress imparted through the influence of 
 these changes. On every side the manifestations of 
 this New Age have been accumulating around us for 
 the last hundred years. 
 
 Hitherto, we have been studying the spiritual causes 
 of this progress, as those causes were developed in 
 the spiritual world. In our next, while considering 
 the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters of this 
 Book, it will be our object to treat of the descent of 
 the New Jerusalem, following also some of the effects 
 of this New Dispensation, as they have come down 
 and manifested themselves among men — in the world. 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 
 
 CONTENTS : — The Twenty-First and Twentt-Sec- 
 ' ond Chapteks ; The New Jerusalem not the Heatenlt 
 State op Existence of the Saints, but a New Church on 
 THE Earth, teaching the Heavenly Doctrines ; Histor- 
 ical Evidences that a New Age has already commencj;d, 
 AS A VISIBLE Effect op the Judgment in the World of 
 Spirits ; — all Peoples feel it, but principally man- 
 ifest in Christendom ; The successive Generations of 
 Men to continue Forever ; No Destruction of the 
 Visible Heavens and Habitable Globe to comb ; A 
 glorious Future foe Humanity in Prospect. 
 
LECTUEE. 
 
 " And I John saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming 
 down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for 
 her husband." "And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, 
 I make all things new." — Rev. xxi. 2 and 5. 
 
 Hitherto, in the study of this Book, we have been 
 employed on events in the spiritual world. On events 
 happening out of the sight of men, and beyond the 
 limits of their observation. On events, therefore, 
 which are made known to us only through the chan- 
 nels of Divine Kevelation. 
 
 This evening, we change our stand-point, or posi- 
 tion. We come down to the earth. The scene of 
 operations is transferred from the invisible to the vis- 
 ible world. We are to study events, which, while 
 they are subjects of Divine prophecy, are also matters 
 of human observation and experience ; for they occur 
 in the sight of men, finding their places and develop- 
 ment in this living, moving, historic world of ours. 
 
 We have been occupied with events of great 
 magnitude, and of great importance ; — even the 
 rearrangement and reorganization of the mighty 
 multitudes of the world of spirits. We have wit- 
 nessed the preparations made in the heavens, and in 
 the world of spirits, for a new state of the Church ; — 
 18 
 
206 LECTURE X. 
 
 for a new instalment of Divine Truth, for a new Dis- 
 pensation of light and life, and for a new teaching of 
 Doctrine in the world of men. Thus, — for a new 
 heavenly kingdom on the earth ; which shall have no 
 end, and which shall realize for mankind all the 
 precious and glorious promises' of ages of prophecy. 
 
 By some strange fallacy of reading, which seems 
 to us almost unaccountable the New Jerusalem has 
 been commonly supposed to depict the life after death, 
 or the heavenly state of existence, the state in which 
 the saints will be after the mortal body is laid aside. 
 But there is no foundation for this idea in what is here 
 written. It is true that Paul, in one place, speaks of 
 "the Jerusalem which is above, [and] which is the 
 mother of us all," but he does not call it the Nem 
 Jerusalem. The Jerusalem which is above, that is, 
 the church in the heavens, is indeed the mother of us 
 all, for its overshadowing influences are upon us all, 
 but it remains to-day where it was, and it will never 
 come down to men ; it is nowhere called the New 
 Jerusalem in all the sacred Scripture, for it existed in 
 Paul's day, it is as old as the world is, and will remain 
 where it is, in the presence of God, and out of sight 
 of men, forever. 
 
 But the "New Jerusalem" is something different 
 from that. It was seen by the Apostle John in pro- 
 phetic vision, as something then future. It is a church 
 which does not remain out of sight in the spiritual 
 world. It descends. Its work is to be among men. 
 It comes down from God, (mt of heaven, and estab- 
 lishes itself in the world. Its function is, with the 
 help of the heavens, the creation of " a new earth, in 
 which dwelleth righteousness." It is " the tabernacle 
 
DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 207 
 
 of God" — not with departed spirits, but — "with 
 mm," enabling Him to be present with them more 
 fully than He has been enabled to be under former 
 dispensations; enabling them to become "His 
 people " more fully than they have been enabled to 
 do under former dispensations; and enabling "His, 
 sesTvants " to " serve Him " more fully than they have 
 been able to do under former dispensations. A church 
 having a fuller and clearer flow of spiritual truth, 
 "clear as crystal, proceeding forth from the throne of 
 God and of the Lamb." 
 
 A church, therefore, whose operations are to be 
 performed in human society : where men may learn its. 
 truths and practise its precepts, putting on, by means 
 of them, holiness of life ; where " the nations of them 
 that are saved " may " walk in the light of it ; " and 
 where "the kings of the earth" may "bring their 
 glory and their honor into it." 
 
 We now proceed to examine the outward manifesta- 
 tion of these events,; to trace the effects which have 
 already begun to flow from these causes ; and to study 
 the fulfilment of the prophecy as it relates to develop- 
 ments which are to take place in our own world. 
 
 We have already seen, in our last Discourse, that a 
 result of the Last Judgment in the intermediate world 
 of spirits, was the clearing of that world of its 
 inhabitants. The good had been taken up, and elevated 
 iijto heaven, while the evil, being removed, had cast 
 themselves down into hell. Thus that world was left, 
 for the time, empty ; its atmosphere clear and pure ; 
 ready, now, for the reception into it of the spirits of 
 the, deceased going from this earth ; and, more than 
 
208 LECTUEE X. 
 
 that, ready, also, for the reception and transmission 
 of heavenly influences descending into it from above. 
 This, as we have before observed, was the event 
 which marked the commencement of a new Dispensa- 
 tion, and, in the nineteenth chapter, we beheld the 
 Lord described as descending into that world with His 
 spiritual influences, accompanied by His angels, to 
 commence there a new and more eificient system of 
 operations. 
 
 Let lis observe, now> therefore, the circumstances 
 into which these changes in the spiritual world bring 
 the men of our world. Let us consider for a moment 
 what new conditions, mentally and spiritually, mankind 
 are placed in by them. What would naturally be the 
 result of these new conditions to us who are still in 
 the body ? 
 
 Two points will merit our special attention. First, 
 the human mind was, by those changes, restored at 
 once to perfect freedom. Not that the moral freedom 
 of men was ever overthrown or destroyed, — but, it 
 had been greatly impeded and hampered in its opera- 
 tions, by the previous state of things. Those old 
 communities of spirits, as we have seen, surrounding 
 man on every side, invisibly, — in close contact with 
 the interior parts of his mind, constantly infused their 
 thoughts into his understanding, and insinuated their 
 feelings into his will. Thus they held him in a species 
 of bondage. They induced him to think and to feel 
 as they did. They opposed all other influences enter- 
 ing his mind, and maintained in him, as far as they 
 could, the old superstitions and the old order of 
 things. There they hung, like a heavy .drag-chain, on 
 the wheels of his moral and intellectual progress. 
 
DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 209 
 
 Their influence was for evil, and not for good ; tend- 
 ing to darken and stupefy the common mind with re- 
 spect to all the higher classes of subjects. Such was 
 the temper, of the times that men were persecuted and 
 silenced, not only for new thoughts in religion, but 
 for new theories in science. Only the most sturdy 
 and determined intellects could throw off the yoke and 
 rise above it. 
 
 Now, the removal of those communities from the 
 intermediate world, broke up that state of things. It 
 liberated men from that strong mental bondage in 
 which they had been held, and set them free, to think 
 and to feel as they chose. This is the first point of 
 our observation, with respect to these changes. 
 
 The second is, — That, in addition to this restored 
 freedom, the human mind became, from that day for- 
 ward, the subject and recipient of those new and pow- 
 erful influences descending into that world from the 
 Lord, out of heaven. This is a most important fact. 
 For, whereas, mankind had before been in close con- 
 tact with, and surrounded invisibly by evil influences, 
 they now became at once surrounded by good influ- 
 ences in their stead. It was like removing a dense 
 shade from over a garden, and letting in the sunshine 
 upon it. It inaugurated a new period of growth. In- 
 stead of darkness, light was now shed into the human 
 understanding ; while alongside the love for what was 
 old, there came to be insinuated a desire also for 
 something new and better. 
 
 A little reflection will teach us that these circum- 
 stances are important, . and calculated to work great 
 changes in human affairs. At first sight, many might 
 be' led to imagine that such a fresh outpouring of the 
 18* 
 
210 LECTDEE X. 
 
 spirit of life from above, must produce good, and only 
 good, coatinually. But a second thought will serve 
 to correct this impression. With the well disposed, 
 such, indeed, would be the result. But the world's 
 elements are mixed, while the human mind is in free- 
 dom. Therefore, with the morally careless and the 
 evil, the results would appear to be evil. The effect 
 is to light up the various fires of the human heart, and 
 set them all burning with an intenser glow ; whUe a 
 superintending Providence is shaping the general flow 
 in a favorable direction. 
 
 As already several times remarked, this new order 
 of things commenced just after the middle of the last 
 century. According to Emanuel Swedenborg, who 
 was the seer prepared and appointed by the Lord to 
 witness and report the event, the Judgment was ac- 
 complished in the year ItS?. He described, from the 
 Word, the changes which then took place in the spir- " 
 itual world, mentioned the new conditions into which 
 the human mind had been brought by them, and spoke 
 of the results that would follow. He averred that 
 liiey marked a New Era, and would inaugurate a New 
 Age in the world's affairs. 
 
 Every year since has borne testimony to the truth 
 of his words. The history of Christendom, from that 
 day to this, has been one steady and increasing con- 
 firmation of them. The general mind soon began to 
 feel the stimulus of the new influences pouring down 
 thus invisibly upon it, and an age of activity com- 
 menced. The wheels of history received a new im- 
 pulse, and everything began to move with greater ra- 
 pidity. Men began to grow restless under the old 
 order and under the old restraints, while the masses 
 
DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 211 
 
 everywhere began to foment. As liberty had been 
 proclaimed in the spiritual world, so liberty soon became 
 a watchword in this. The elements which resulted in 
 our Revolution began immediately to work ; while 
 the Declaration of American Independence in ltY6, 
 was only an echo in the natural world, of that gener- 
 al Declaration of Freedom which had already gone 
 forth in the world of spirits, nearly twenty years be- 
 fore. 
 
 The movement was not long in crossing to Europe. 
 The great French RevoluticfQ soon followed ; an event 
 in which we see the effects of the Judgment descend- 
 ing into this world with prodigious force, operating 
 upon the corrupt and corrupting materials which they 
 found here. Witness the general overturn in Europe 
 which followed ; — the wars, lasting a generation or 
 more, of the Consulate and the Empire. Everywhere 
 the old order opposed the new, but the new order was 
 bound to make itself felt, and European society — 
 throu^out its entire length and breadth — was not 
 left as it was found at the beginning. When peace 
 came. Progress had been made. The ancient spell of 
 conservatism had been broken up. And from that 
 day to this, Libeealization is the single word which is 
 written on every important political movement that 
 has taken place in Christendom. 
 
 As we approach our own time, the prospect con- 
 tantly brightens. ,The day dawns with continually in- 
 creasing fulness. And the conflicts which we witness 
 to-day going on in the world are only parts of that 
 general war waged between that old order, — every- 
 where going out, and the new order, — everywhere 
 coming in. 
 
212 LECTOEE X. 
 
 The more faithfully we study the history of the last 
 hundred years in the light of these disclosures the 
 more shall we realize the truth of these observations, 
 and the more remarkable will the actual developments 
 of the age be seen to be. The human mind under the 
 strong stimulus of these influences, has more than 
 doubled its energy in every department of action. 
 Thought has been wide awake, and the human will 
 seems as if gifted with a new motive power. There 
 is not a field of employment that has not been revo- 
 lutionized. • 
 
 The world's philosophy has been rewritten. For 
 all our modern systems date from Dr. Reid, who be- 
 gan to publish in ITSS. He was followed by Immanuel 
 Kant, the leader of the great modern movement in 
 German thought, since whom have come the various 
 metaphysical systems of Germany and Prance, of 
 Great Britian and America. 
 
 The world's science has been reorganized. The 
 larger part of that great body of accumulated fact and 
 systematized knowledge known as "Modern Induc- 
 tive Science," has been the creation of this period. 
 For most of the branches of which it is composed, 
 were not before pursued as distinct objects of study ; 
 and those which were, have been entirely metamor- 
 phosed, having one and all been reconsidered and re- 
 constructed on new principles from cap to foundation 
 stone. The field of knowledge has been widened and 
 extended on every side. A, spirit of the most intense 
 inquiry has started up and come into exercise, which 
 has pushed human researches out into fields not before 
 dreamed of, leaving no stone unturned, — no region 
 unexplored, and no monument of the past or present 
 
DESCENT OF THE NEW JEEUSALEM. 213 
 
 unexamined, that could add fac.ts to our knowledge, 
 or throw any light upon nature, or upon man, his his- 
 tory or his relations. Readers of history have fre- 
 quently remarked the strong contrast in this respect, 
 between this age and those which have gone before. 
 Jt is like a man who has started from comparative 
 stupor, to full wakefulness. The words of the prophet 
 with respect to these times, are literally fulfilled ; — 
 that men should run to and fro, and that knowledge 
 should be increased. 
 
 A great characteristic ^difference now observed is, 
 that science and knowledge have become democ- 
 ratized, so to speak ; they now belong to the masses, 
 diffusing their light and finding their votaries among 
 the people ; and not, as before, shut up in schools or 
 cloisters, and confined to the few. 
 
 The world's practical Art has been reorganized. 
 The idea of applying science to art has come into 
 vogue. The Steam-Engine has been invented : the 
 Cotton Manufacture has been installed, — two things 
 that have revolutionized the world's industry, and the 
 world's commerce. It would be tedious and useless 
 to cite here the achievements in this department ; — 
 tedious, on account of the vast multitude of changes 
 and inventions; and useless, because all men know 
 and acknowledge the unparalleled improvements of 
 the age. The whole face of society has been changed 
 by them, having been transformed into a new and 
 better social or domestic order through their means. 
 
 It would be an interesting and instructive exercise, 
 did time allow, and were this the place, to follow this 
 subject more in detail, giving events, and names, and 
 dates, to show how strikingly the whole movement 
 
214 LECTUEE X. 
 
 falls into place around the New Chnrch ideas, and how 
 fully the developments conform to and confirm New 
 Church principles. But other parts of the subject 
 claim more our attention. 
 
 The Christian Chnrch, — where does that stand in 
 this g^eat movement ? — and how has it been afi'ected 
 by this new tide of iofluences ? 
 
 The Church is the Lord's first object of care in the 
 world, and it is for the sake of the church, — for its 
 improvement in purity of life, and its extension among 
 men, — that these great changes have been inaugu- 
 rated. Let us see, therefore, whether the churches 
 of Christendom show any signs of this Xew Age. It 
 might rationally be expected that they would. And 
 on examination we shall find that it is so. Those new 
 spiritual influences, descending from God out of 
 heaven, were intended to affect most the religious 
 state and character of men, and we shall discover 
 that it is in the religious life of the world that they 
 have produced the most remarkable and manifest 
 effects. 
 
 There had been provision made by the Lord for the 
 introduction of the new order. The Protestant Ref- 
 ormation had come, to make way and room for it ; 
 while the printing press, the mariner's compass, and 
 the invention of gunpowder, had been g^ven. These 
 lay there as three great instrumentalities to be used 
 by the spirit of the New Age, as soon as it should 
 awake and lay hands on them. The first, for the pro- 
 mulgation of the truth or the shedding forth of light ; 
 the second, for carrying it abroad to men, and its dif- 
 fusion to the world's end ; and the last, for the exe- 
 cution of judgment, in the destruction and removal of 
 the old order of things. 
 
DESCENT OF THE NEW JEEUSALEM. 215 
 
 Later, towards the middleof the eighteenth century, 
 ithere had been raised up a set of men, contemporaries 
 of. Swedenborg, who performed an important collat- 
 eral work. We have already referred to some of 
 them. It was the age of Whitefield, and the Wesleys, 
 and Bishop Butler, and Jonathan Edwards. A great 
 number of very important though less prominent 
 names might be mentioned. At the same time the 
 New Church Writings were going through the press, 
 these men were preaching and publishing. Thus the 
 attention of the Christian world was called, just at 
 that period, in a remarkable manner, to the considera- 
 tion of theological and religious themes. It was the 
 recognized date of a new era in church history and in 
 systematic theology ; and has been by many writers 
 significantly called " The Great Awakening ; " by 
 others, " The great Protestant Eevival." 
 
 Thus was the popular mind Providentially prepared 
 for the reception of. new influences and new ideas in 
 leligion. Since then the movement has gone con- 
 stantly and rapidly forward. Blindness, prejudice, 
 narrowness, bigotry, and the persecuting spirit have 
 constantly receded. The liberalization of thought has 
 everywhere made itself felt, until at length it has be- 
 come predominant. No one who has not made it his 
 special study, can conceive the change that has been 
 wrought. It is now as if we were living in a new re- 
 ligious world from that which then existed. A " new 
 earth" has, indeed, in many respects, already been 
 created. 
 
 As we have before constantly remarked, the power 
 — the spiritual power — of this New Age flows in 
 through the Bible ; the spiritual meaning of the Divine 
 
216 LECTURE X. 
 
 Word has been expounded, and is now in use in the 
 world of spirits. And thus the Word is now endowed 
 with more power in the natural world than it pos- 
 sessed before. A feeling, or tacit perception of this 
 fact, is a marked feature of these new times. New 
 attention has been called to the Bible. The churches, 
 not long after the period we have mentioned, began 
 to feel that they owed new duties in this respect ; 
 good men kept the subject agitated, until Bible socie- 
 ties were formed, and a widespread and systematic 
 effort grew up for 'its diffusion; the design being 
 formed at length of giving it to the entire people, 
 high and low, rich and poor. This was an entirely 
 new idea, — this of the universal diffusion of the Bible 
 among all classes, as a systematic effort, by means of 
 the great organizations ; it had no existence in former 
 times. The masses formerly did not have the Bible. 
 And we read that, on one occasion, when, in the year 
 1808, the British and Foreign Bible Society sent a 
 supply of thirty thousand copies to one of the Welch 
 cities, forwarding them thither in carts drawn by 
 oxen, the inhabitants, hearing that the Bibles were 
 coming, left their occupations, and went out in 
 crowds to meet them ; and, taking off the oxen, drew 
 the carts into the city themselves, amidst great re- 
 joicings. 
 
 Some negroes on the West coast of Africa, having 
 been taught to read by some Englishmen on the coast, 
 for mercantile purposes, accidentally fell in with two 
 or three leaves of a worn-out Bible, and became so in- 
 terested that they took means to send to England for 
 a complete copy ; the order resulted in the establish- 
 ment of a mission, which ever since has carried the 
 Word to the inhabitants of that region. 
 
DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 217 
 
 A missionary started from England and landed in 
 Southern Africa, without definite purpose, only that 
 he must go somewhere and preach the gospel. With 
 a few guides, he took his way due northward into the 
 wilds. 'Getting beyond the bounds of civilization, 
 they pitched their tent late one afternoon, and had not 
 long been making their preparations for the night, 
 when a party of negroes or Bushmen came and en- 
 camped near them. For fear of unpleasant conse- 
 quences, the missionary and his guides removed their 
 camp some distance. In the morning they learned 
 that their neighbors were a negro chief and a hundred 
 or more of followers, going down to the coast to learn 
 about the Bible. The chief told them that in his 
 country he had heard about the " Great Word," and 
 that he was going down to get some one who could 
 teach it to his people. Of course, the missionary 
 went home with the chief, carrying the Word with 
 him. 
 
 And when missionaries have arrived for the first 
 time on some of the islands of the sea, they have 
 found a marvellous state of preparation in the untu- 
 tored mind, that had preceded them in the work. 
 
 These instances might be multiplied to an almost 
 indefinite extent ; going to show that since the middle 
 of the last century, there has been an influx, from an 
 invisible source, into the common mind, determining 
 it towards spiritual things, and creating in it .an appe- 
 tency for the Bible and its truths. 
 
 The growth of the modern missionary spirit belongs 
 to this period. This idea, now so strongly possessed 
 by the Christian Denominations, of evangelizing for- 
 eign nations, — of sending the gospel to the heathen, 
 19 
 
218 LECTURE X. 
 
 is a thought germinated by this New Age ; it did not 
 exist before. Foreign missions, with Protestants, had 
 gone into abeyance. The same is true of almost 
 every religious, moral, and philanthropic enterprise 
 that can be named. They have all sprung into exist- 
 ence since that time. Home missions, Sunday 
 Schools, Tract societies, Temperance societies, revi- 
 vals of religion, the abolition of the African slave- 
 trade. Public charities, indeed, existed before, but 
 since then in Protestant countries, they have assumed 
 new life and new proportions, have multiplied beyond 
 measure, and devoted themselves to a much wider 
 range of objects. The career of Howard the philan- 
 thropist, began about 1760, and, as all are well aware, 
 his life and efforts mark a new era in care for the dis- 
 tressed and afflicted, in the treatment of prisoners and 
 the insane, and in the history of all benevolent and phil- 
 anthropic operations. Society everywhere, morally, 
 wears a new aspect. This modern idea which all men 
 now have so distinctly developed in their minds, 
 about the "progress of the race," is new ; men did not 
 use to believe in progress. 
 
 Thus, on looking round us, and surveying the de- 
 velopments of the last hundred years, the presence of 
 this New Age stands everywhere confessed. All 
 men feel it. All men see it. All men speak of it. It has 
 l)ecome .a theme of statesmen and orators, of poets 
 and essayists, of historians and philosophers, of 
 preachers, and of moralists. Some of the most bril- 
 liant articles of our leading Eeviews for the last twen- 
 ty years, have been devoted to it, — in sketching its 
 character, and pointing out its results. With all 
 
DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 219 
 
 these there is a general agreement as to the date of 
 its commencement. We have seen it called, in print, 
 "a new dispensation," by writers who evidently knew 
 nothing whatever of our New Church views. 
 
 But no single mind couLd do justice to the theme ; 
 no single pen could narrate and characterize all the 
 results ; they branch forth in too many directions, 
 and embrace too large a body of developments. No 
 former age has been so crowded with inagnificent 
 events. No other five centuries the world has ever 
 seen, have witnessed so many changes,, or involved 
 so much real history, as have been compressed within 
 this single one. 
 
 Some historical essayists had remarked, in view of 
 these mighty changes in society, that " ours is now 
 no longer the same world to live in that it was for- 
 merly;" to which a philosophical Christian observer 
 of our own time and country, has significantly added, 
 — " No, nor the same world to think in that it was 
 before." Here he struck the key of a true note. It 
 is no longer the same world to think in that our fath- 
 ers had. The developments of science, the discovery 
 of the laws of nature, and the accumulation of knowl- 
 edge, have been such as to surround us with new con- 
 ditions in this respect. Many things formerly be- 
 lieved and preached, could not be believed to-day, if 
 preached. While many other things, almost impossi- 
 ble to be believed then, because their rational ground 
 was unknown, can not only be believed now, but are 
 seen to be rational and true. Things before deemed 
 to be impossible, have become, not only possible, but 
 common. 
 This is of the Divine Psrovidence. This modification 
 
220 LECTURE X. 
 
 of thought is a purpose the Lord had in view. There 
 was a new unfolding of Divine Truth to be delivered, 
 a new body of Doctrine to be given and taught. And 
 this modification of the thought, and of the intellectual 
 conditions of the race, is to prepare the human mind 
 for the reception of those Doctrines, and for a higher 
 stage of thinking on religious subjects. 
 
 We have already mentioned the publication of the 
 New Church Writings about the middle of the last 
 century. This publication proceeded from the year 
 1749 to nil. In those Writings are contained three 
 distinct, important classes of Truths. 
 
 1. The Key and Explanation of the spiritual mean- 
 ing of Scripture, and its application to the regenera- 
 tion of man ; — 
 
 2. The system of Heavenly Doctrines, revealed from 
 the Word, — and 
 
 3. The Disclosure of the states of the Departed, or 
 of life in the spiritual state of existence. 
 
 The publication of this voluminous, profound, and 
 complete Body of Eevealed Doctrine, was the birth of 
 the "Man Child" into the natural world, or the world 
 of men. It was the bringing forth and promulgation 
 here of the same body of truths which we read of in 
 the twelfth chapter, as having been brought forth and 
 promulgated by the church in the spiritual world. It 
 is this system of Doctrines, as well as the Church to 
 be instituted and constituted by them, which is de- 
 scribed in the twenty-first chapter, under the figure of 
 the New Jerusalem ; Jerusalem being not only the 
 common prophetic name for the church, as is general- 
 ly acknowledged, but where it is spoken of as a city ; 
 for the church in one especial cliaractei'istic, and that 
 
DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 221 
 
 is, with respect to the Doctrine which she embodies 
 and teaches. 
 
 These Doctrines have been taught in the world about 
 one hundred years. But how different now the scene 
 from that presented when they were introduced I 
 Keligious thought has since been revolutionized. 
 
 They were sent out through the press and distrib- 
 uted over the world, especially to the universities and 
 seats of learning. Since then, ideas from them, per- 
 colating through society, have become the property 
 of the masses. The world's best opinion has been 
 constantly nearing the New Church system. Move- 
 ments have been based upon single ideas borrowed 
 frpm it. The modifications of doctrine in many 
 churches are fragments taken from this system. Its 
 full, clear, and distinct affirmation of universal infant 
 salvation, though not yet introduced into many of the 
 standards, is nevertheless, by common consent, now 
 received as the general doctrine of the churches. Its 
 doctrine of the Eesurrection, entirely disclaimed at 
 first, is now the belief (may we not say ?) of half the 
 people, despite the teaching of the standards. 
 
 Nearly all the Denominations are divided into two 
 parties, — high church and low church, — broad 
 church and narrow church, — old school and new 
 school ; that is, a party of conservatism, holding on to 
 the old, and a party of progress, looking forward to 
 the new. Of course, when men attempt to work out 
 their own progress, they will go in many devious 
 ways, but on examination it will generally be found 
 that the modifications brought in by these processes 
 tend in the direction of the New Church, and are 
 qualified by some fragments of thought borrowed, 
 19* 
 
222 LECTUKE X. 
 
 perhaps unsuspectingly, from her system. In the 
 same way new denominations have sprung up, and old 
 sects have divided. 
 
 The quickened activity of religious thought has 
 culminated in the successive formation of new Denom- 
 inations, with varying and divergent views. The 
 whole history of Methodism, as well as the develop- 
 ment of Universalism and Unitarianism, is comprised 
 within this period ; not to mention numerous others, 
 many of them of recent date, still constantly running 
 into subdivisions, ending, in not a few cases, in the 
 formation of strange and extravagant sects. 
 
 Thus the thought of the age is advancing to meet 
 the New Jerusalem. Pulpits do not preach as they 
 did fifty years ago ; nor as they did twenty-five years 
 ago ; no, nor as they did even ten years ago. The 
 mind of the Christian Public is being providentially 
 led, in a great measure unconsciously to itself, by 
 slow degrees, and yet steadily and constantly, over, 
 from the ground of the Old Age to the ground of the 
 New. 
 
 We do not believe this movement of opinion wiU be 
 arrested ; we believe it will go on, and increase, and 
 become accelerated, until the new Views are generally 
 adopted ; until the now divided Christian Church will 
 come to stand upon a common platform of Doctrine, 
 and be united in a common bond of life. For we read 
 that " They shall see eye to eye when Jehovah shall 
 bring again Zion." 
 
 In the twenty-first chapter, as we have said, under 
 the emblem of a city, there is described in prophetic 
 language, this great and perfect Body of Heavenly 
 Doctrine. As the previous Ages of the Church are 
 
DESCENT OP THE NEW JERUSALEM. 223 
 
 symbolized in Daniel's Image by different metals-, 
 more and less precious, so this New Jerusalem Age is 
 frequently described as the age of gems or precious 
 stones ; as the Age in which the church will have her 
 "foundations" of "sapphires," her "windows of 
 agates," her "gates of carbuncles, and all" her 
 " borders of^recious stones." This is to denote the 
 superior order of the truths now revealed, and the 
 greater degree of light now diffused ; for it is added in 
 the prophet, " all thy children shall be taught of the 
 Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children ; " 
 — truths of higher value, of more perfect beauty, of 
 greater clearness, and in larger variety than ever 
 known before. So here, the holy city is described, 
 with twelve foundations, composed of as many dis- 
 tinct gems, — as "garnished," indeed, "with all 
 manner of precious stones." Her "light" is spoken 
 of as being " like unto a stone most precious, even 
 like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." This is to sym- 
 bolize the spiritual sense of the Divine Word, which 
 is the peculiar foundation of the New Jerusalem. All 
 through the Scripture, the truth of the church is com- 
 paiFed to a rock, and to stones, — a " tried stone," " a 
 foundation stone," &c. but always to stones of com- 
 mon durability and hardness, to the opaque rock, as 
 we commonly see it. Now this is a figure of Divine 
 Truth, for the most part, as we see it in the letter of 
 the Word. But the gems are employed to symbolize 
 the same letter illustrated and enlightened by the 
 spiritual meaning, — the same dark literal expression 
 with the light of heaven poured upon it and through 
 it, and understood according to the angelic idea. 
 These truths, filling the Scripture from beginning to 
 
224 LECTUKE X. 
 
 end, constitute the foundations of the New Church, 
 for they are the very truths of which her doctrines are 
 composed. 
 
 Her wall, " great and high," is the array of defen- 
 sive truths, drawn from the Scripture, by which she 
 is surrounded on all sides, and protected ; by means 
 of which she can give a good, correct, ^nd rational 
 reply to every objection that can be urged against her 
 from any quarter. And can protect and deliver men 
 from their own errors and false notions, so far as they 
 are willing to be delivered' from them. 
 
 Her gates, looking every way, and composed of 
 magnificent pearls, are her introductory truths ; the 
 reasonable considerations, with which the Lord provi- 
 dentially endows her, which lead men to take notice 
 of her system of Doctrines, to examine them, to con- 
 clude in favor of them, and at length to follow them. 
 These truths, pure, cle'ar, numerous, valuable, and at- 
 tractive to every truly Christianized and rational 
 mind, are the "gates " through which nien enter her 
 precincts, and begin to abide in her palaces. 
 
 Her streets are the ways of life which her truths 
 point out; the precepts of purity and holiness, the 
 precepts of righteousness and justice, the precepts of 
 repentance and departure from evil, the precepts of 
 Supreme love towards God, and corresponding love 
 towards man. Ways of life which, if followed, restore 
 the " golden age," leading men into even more than 
 the primeval purity and charity ; for the practice of 
 heavenly goodness now, is accomplished under a 
 greater fulness of light, being penetrated by the ra- 
 tional understanding of a larger supply of revealed 
 truth. Hence we read that " the street of the city 
 was of pure gold, as it were transparent glass." 
 
DESCENT OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 225 
 
 That this city "had no need of the sun or of the,' 
 moon to shine in it," does not mean that men will no 
 longer need those material, visible luminaries, for it is, 
 prophetic language that is here used, and men will al- 
 ways require these ; but it means that the men who 
 shall come to and be willing to walk by the light of 
 the New Jerusalem, will no longer require the com- 
 mon worldly means of mental illumination. They will 
 no longer need the light that, comes from selfish love, 
 nor the light that comes from worldly love. They 
 will not have to run after the maxims, the sayings, 
 the doctrines, or the speculations of men for guidance 
 in spiritual things, or to be taught how to think op 
 divine, heavenly, and spiritual subjects. They will 
 be delivered, too, from following their own vague, 
 wayward, fallacious, and insufficient notions about 
 such things. For the Lord, through His Word, will 
 be their light, teaching them its spiritual and heaven- 
 ly meaning, and shedding down a heavenly illustra- 
 tion into their minds. 
 
 In the twenty-second chapter we read, principally, 
 a description of the effects that will gradually follow 
 the adoption and practice of the truths of the spiritual 
 sense of the Word. And we see there a most perfect, 
 beautiful, and happy state of life unfolded. A perfect 
 paradise is depicted, — holy, pure, and peaceful. 
 This is the state of things, the condition of society, 
 which Christianity, as unfolded in the Doctrines of the 
 New Jerusalem, is calculated to produce ; and a state 
 of society which will be produced just in the degree 
 that these doctrines are received into the life, and 
 honestly and thoroughly carried out in practipe. 
 
226 LECTURE X. 
 
 They are meant for the world, and they are sent by 
 the Lord in this latter day to reform, and regenerate, 
 and reorganize the world ; and they will be endowed 
 with power from on high to effect it. They will reach 
 men, because they are the Truth ; they will reach 
 their understandings, insuring belief; and then they 
 wiU reach their hearts, insuring love ; and their wills, 
 insuring obedient practice. 
 
 The Bible" begins with man in Eden, surrounded by 
 the emblems and conditions of an innocent, unspotted 
 state of life. This was the infancy of the race. It 
 follows him in his decline and falling away, like a 
 prodigal son leaving his Father's house, through all 
 his weary wanderings in sin, — the long and devious 
 wilderness journey of the world's historic ages, until 
 at length, it shows him to us, in prophetic visions re- 
 covered, the lost found, brought back to order and 
 duty, restored to more than his Eden state, with the 
 Tree of Life standing in the midst of the Garden, im- 
 bued with the repentant innocence of wisdom, more 
 trustworthy and more enduring than the innocence of 
 childhood. 
 
 What a picture is here opened to us of the world's 
 future I No catastrophe. No " end of the world ; " 
 no departure of this visible framework ; no destruc- 
 tion of mankind. But the earth given to man as his 
 perpetual inheritance, while in the mortal body ; to 
 endure forever, the seminary in which he is to be in- 
 structed for heaven, and where the human race can 
 devote the vigor of its manhood to the service of the 
 Creator ; each generation, as it rises into being and 
 passes on towards the immortal world, being prepared 
 for and becoming the inheritor of eternal life ! 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTES TO THE LECTURES. 
 
 Note A, Lecture I. 
 
 The heavenly or spiritual jneaning within the natural mean- 
 ing, eoerywhere, in the historical as well as other parts, &c. 
 This assertion is meant to apply to only the really prophetic 
 Books, and not to our entire English Bible. We use the term 
 prophetic, however, in its broadest sense, including the writings 
 of all the prophets or holy seers who received the " Word of 
 the Lord" in open vision. On examination, these will be 
 found to be — the Books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, 
 Kings, Psalms, the other prophets, in the Old Testament, and 
 the Gospels, with the Book of Revelation, in the Kew Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 It is not meant to assert, therefore, that the other Books of 
 the Canon — as the Book of Esther, or Proverbs — have any 
 deeper meaning in them than the one expressed in the letter. 
 So, with the Apostolical Epistles, — while they are deeply 
 imbued with the heavenly or spiritual element, their authors 
 writing under influences from on high, it is believed that their 
 whole meaning is conveyed by the simple grammatical sense. 
 These latter books may truly be called " inspired," according 
 to the common or general theological sense of that term, but 
 their inspiration is different in mode and kind, from the 
 former ; they are not immediate Divine utterances. 
 
228 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note B, LECTtrRE II. 
 
 The Spiritual Meaning of Scripture will be foimd drawn out 
 at length in the three following works by Emanuel Sweden- 
 borg : The Arcana Celestia, thirteen volumes ; The Apocalypse 
 Revealed, two volumes ; The Apocalypse Explained, five 
 volumes. In these works Scripture is compared with Scripture, 
 and the meaning evolved in clear light by the declarations of 
 the Word itself. The strength of demonstration attending 
 these explanations can be realized only by a careful and candid, 
 and at the same time prayerful perusal of those writings them- 
 selves. And to this perusal we would earnestly invite the 
 intelligent and truth-loving religious mind of this age. 
 
 Note C, Lecture IX. 
 
 The influences from the world of spirits stupefying the minds 
 of men. For a vivid historical picture of some of these effects, 
 drawn by an author writing from a different stand-point from 
 that of the Christian Church, see Mr. Buckle's two chapters on 
 the state of things in Spain and Scotland, respectively, — the 
 one a Catholic, the other a Protestant country, during the last 
 part of the seventeenth, and the first part of the eighteenth 
 century.