Coronis,
or Appendix,
to
True Christian Religion
Emanuel Swedenborg
PROPOSITION THE FIRST (10 - 13)
10. (4)
After its consummation, or end, the Lord Jehovih appears, and executes a
judgment on the men of the former church, and separates the good from the evil,
and elevates the good to Himself into heaven, and removes the evil from Himself
into hell.
That about the end of every church the Lord Jehovih appears to
execute a judgment on those who have lived from its first establishment to its
consummation, will be confirmed in the following pages, where each church will
be separately treated of. Every man indeed is judged after death; but at the end
of a church all are collected together, and a general judgment is executed on
them; and this for the reason that they may be conjoined in heavenly order,
which is effected by the arrangement of the faithful into a new heaven, and of
the unfaithful into a new hell beneath it; of which arrangement we shall speak
more at large in the following article.
11. Judgment, which is the last of every church, is not effected in the natural
world, but in the spiritual world, into which all are gathered after death; and
they are collected into heavens distinctly according to religion, thus according
to faith and love. Judgment is effected in the spiritual world, for the reason
that every man after death is a man; not a material man, as before, but a
substantial man. Every man's mind or spirit is such a man: the body which he
carried about in the world is only a covering, and as it were the exuviae, which
he has laid aside, and from which his spirit has disengaged itself. Now, since
it was man's mind or spirit that thought in the material body, and then either
from religion or not from religion, and in favor of God or against God, from
truths of faith or from falsities of faith, loved his neighbor or held him in
hatred; and since the material body was only obedience; it follows that the
mind, which is the substantial man and is called the spirit, is what undergoes
judgment, and, according to the thoughts and acts of its life, is rewarded or
punished. From these things it may be plainly manifest, that judgment, which is
the last of every church, is effected in the spiritual world, but not in the
natural world.
12. The judgment which is executed upon all of a past church, takes place, both
generally and individually, to the end that the good may be separated from the
evil, and that the good may be raised up into heaven and the evil cast down into
hell. Unless this were done when a church is consummated, that is, when it is no
longer in truths and goods, not anyone therein could be saved. That he could not
be saved is because he could not be regenerated; and everyone is regenerated by
the truths of faith and the goods of love. To this reason the following is
added, that from the time of the vastation of a church even to its consummation,
hell increases to so great an extent as to stretch under the whole angelic
heaven, through which the regenerating truths and goods descend from the Lord to
the men of the earth. When this is covered over, no truth of thought from faith
nor good of will from charity can penetrate, except as it were through chinks;
yea, what does penetrate is perverted either in the way before it reaches man,
or else by the man himself when it is in him; that is, the truth is either
rejected or falsified, and the good is either clogged up or adulterated. In a
word, a church at its end is as it were obsessed by satans. Those are called
satans who take pleasure in falsities and are delighted with evils. In order,
therefore, that the total damnation which is then over everyone's head, and
menaces him, may be taken away, it is necessary that hell, which has raised
itself on high, and, as was said, increased even to heaven, should be removed,
not merely depressed, but also dispersed and subjugated, and then the good
separated from the evil, that is, the living from the dead. This separation, and
then the elevation of the good into heaven, or into the land of the living, and
the casting down of the evil into hell, or into the land of the dead, is what is
called the judgment. That such a judgment was actually executed in the year 1757
on the men of the present Christian Church, has been published and described, in
a special little work published in London in the year 1758.
13. Who does not see the necessity that the evil should be separated from the
good, lest the latter should be infected with the contagion of deadly evil, and
perish? For evil, inasmuch as it is implanted in human nature by birth, and is
more and more ingenerated in children from parents when the church is advancing
towards consummation, is like the malignant disease which is called cancer,
which spreads round about, and gradually mortifies the healthy and living parts.
What husbandman, or gardener, when he sees briars, nettles, thorns, and thistles
growing, does not extirpate them before he sows and harrows in his corn and food
crops? What farmer, when he sees his herbage and grass consumed by worms, or
locusts, does not dig a ditch, and separate the green field from the wasted one,
and thus take treasures for the preservation of his crops and green fields? What
shepherd, when he sees wild beasts multiplying about the pastures of his sheep,
does not call together the neighboring shepherds and the servants, and with
weapons, or traps, kill those wild beasts, or drive them away?
[2] What king, when he sees both the towns of his kingdom round about his metropolis taken by
enemies, and the property of his subjects taken possession of by them, does not
assemble the troops and cast out the enemy, and restore the stolen goods to
their owners, and, moreover, add thereto the spoils of the enemies wealth, and
so comfort them?
|
