never take place; much less, in the whole visible universe. For it is abundantly declared in the Word, that a glorious church shall here be finally raised up, which shall never come to an end consequently, the globe which is to afford to this church its ultimate seat and basis, must be of equal duration.In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, AND IT shall stand for EVER.' To this popular statement of arguments against the expected destruction of the world, I will add an extract from Swedenborg, in which he opens the deep philosophical grounds of the necessity for the world's continuance in existence, in so clear a manner, as must, I should think, to every one who loves to look beyond the mere surface of things, afford both conviction and delight. To prove that the procreations of the human race will never cease, he lays down and illustrates these six propositions. "1. That the human race is the basis upon which heaven is founded. II. That the human race is the seminary of heaven. III. That the extent of heaven designed for angels is so immense, that it cannot be filled to eternity. IV. That they of whom heaven consists, are, as yet, respectively, but few. V. That the perfection of heaven increases according to the number of its inhabitants. VI. That every divine work has respect to what is infinite and eternal."-In illustrating the first proposition he makes these remarks : - "That the human race is the basis upon which heaven is founded, follows from this circumstance: that man was the last object created; and that which is created last, is the basis of all that precede it. Creation began from things supreme or inmost, because from the Divine Being, and proceeded to things ultimate or extreme, and then it first came into subsistence. The ultimate, that is, the last or lowest part of the creation, is the natural universe, in which is the terraqueous globe with all its contents. When these works were produced, then man was created, and into him were collated all things of Divine Order from first to last; into his inmost parts were collated those things which are in the first principles of that order, and into his last or ultimate parts those which are in the last or ultimate principles of that order. Thus man was made divine order in a substantial form. Hence all things that are in or with man, are either from heaven or from the world; from heaven are all things belonging to his mind, and from the world all things belonging to his body: for the things of heaven flow * Dan. ii. 44. into his thoughts and affections, and produce them, according as themselves are received by his spirit; and the things of the world flow into his sensations and corporeal pleasures, and produce them, according as themselves are received by his body, but in an accommodated manner, according to their agreement with the thoughts and affections of his spirit. Such being the order of creation, it may be evident, that there is such an inseparable connexion of all things belonging to that order, from the first to the last, that, viewed together, they constitute a one, in which that which is prior cannot be separated from that which is posterior, as the cause cannot be separated from its effect: consequently the spiritual world cannot be separated from the natural world, nor this from that; and thus the angelic heaven cannot be separated from the human race, nor the human race from the angelic heaven; wherefore it is provided by the Lord, that they should be mutually useful to each other, the angelic heaven to the human race, and the human race to the angelic heaven. Hence the angelic abodes are indeed in heaven, separate, as to sight, from the abodes of men, but still they are with man, in his affections of goodness and truth.” This the author confirms by several texts of Scripture, and by various remarks; after which he proceeds to say, "Hence it is evident, that there is such a connexion between the angelic heaven and the human race, that the one subsists from the other; and that the angelic heaven without the human race would be in the situation of a house without a foundation, for heaven terminates in the human race, and reposes on it. The case in this respect resembles that of a man individually : his spiritual things, which are those of his thought and will, flow into his natural things, which are those of his sensations and actions, and there terminate and subsist. Did not man possess the latter also; or were he destitute of these bounds or ultimates, his spiritual things, which are those of the thoughts or affections of his spirit, would flow off, as things without a termination or without a bottom. The case is similar when man passes out of the natural world into the spiritual, which takes place when he dies being then a spirit, he no longer subsists upon his own individual basis, but upon the common basis, which is the human race. Hence it may appear that the human race and the angelic heaven form a one, and owe their subsistence, mutually and reciprocally, to each other; wherefore the one cannot be taken away from the other." I know not how the above extract may recommend itself to the reader; but to me it appears to contain more solid knowledge respecting the nature of man and the economy of the uni* Last Judgment, n. 9. verse than is to be found in any other writer; and to be quite irrefutable. If so, the notion of the conflagration of the world and of the universe must be utterly chimerical; as also, I think, appears conclusively from our preceding observations. Thus, the accompaniments expected to attend the Last Judgment, if performed in the natural world, all utterly failing, again are we driven out of nature to look for it, and compelled to acknowledge, that the destined scene of its performance was not the natural but the spiritual world. SECTION IV. THE LAST JUDGMENT. PART II. The Spiritual World the Scene of it; as of all former General Judgments. That branch of our first Proposition which affirms, "That the General Judgment announced in Scripture as to be perfor med at the Second Coming of the Lord, was not to take place in the natural world," may now, it is hoped, have been proved to the satisfaction of the reflecting mind; for we have seen, as proposed," That the circumstances announced in prophecy as being to attend it, are such as cannot be intended to be literally understood, and, some of them, such as are impossible in the nature of things." Other texts also, we have seen, as explicitly affirm the contrary; while Reason has much to offer in support of their testimony. The other part of the Proposition, That the Last Judgment was to be performed in the spiritual world,"-follows then of course, as also has been seen. This, however, may be confirmed by other considerations. What then if it should be true, that although the General Judgment predicted in the New Testament is properly called the Last Judgment, because it is the last General Judgment ever to be performed on the natives of this earth, it is not the first such Judgment ever accomplished (as, indeed, its very name seems to imply); but, on the contrary, two or three general judgments have taken place before? If the Last Judg. ment was not to be performed at the end of the world, but, as shewn above, at the end of the age; and if" the age," as shewn also, denotes the whole duration of a certain order of things as regards the dispensation of God to man; then, as it is certain that there have been, since the beginning of the world, several such ages and dispensations, it will be reasonable to conclude, that the end of each of the former of them, like the end of the last, was attended with a General Judgment upon those who lived under it. Accordingly, the Scripture clearly teaches, how much soever its testimony upon this subject may generally have been overlooked, that such is the fact. As it prophetically announces that the last age and dispensation ever to come to its end or consummation would then be attended with a General Judgment, so does it historically record, that each of the former of such ages and dispensations was attended at its end by a General Judgment. Its testimony to this effect, therefore, we will briefly notice. : 66 That, from the beginning of the world, the specific connexion of its inhabitants with their Divine Parent has been regulated by four different dispensations, and they have been bound to him by four distinct covenants, the human subjects of which may be regarded as composing four general churches, is universally known. Adam and his posterity to the flood, lived under one dispensation: God then" established his covenant with Noah and his seed after him* :" another covenant was made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendantst, of ́ which the laws were given by Moses and finally, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." It is also known, that the three first of these dispensations were entirely corrupted, and the covenants broken, by those to whom they were given, among whom the churches thus formed in consequence perished: and that the case would be the same with the fourth dispensation and covenant, is predicted through a great part of the Apocalypse, and by the Lord in person in Matt. xxiv., and, summarily, in that question of his which supposes a negative answer, "Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" The language in which the judgment upon the three former of these churches is described, being of the same symbolical kind as that in which the judgment upon the last is predicted, it has not been generally understood to relate to any transaction in the spiritual world, but has been confined to the calamities with which, in the natural world, the apostate members of those churches were at length overtaken; and yet, that the descriptions refer to judgments in the spiritual world also, may easily be inferred. Thus, as has already been seen, the passing away of heaven and earth, and convulsions in the heavenly bodies equiva * Gen. ix. 9. + Gen. xvii. 7, 19. § Luke xviii. 8. lent thereto, are constantly predicated in reference to the Last Judgment, and to the coming of the Lord for its performance : and these are predicted, not only in reference to the judgment which the Christian world is still expecting, but to the judgments on each of the former churches. The Apostle Peter, for instance, informs us, that the same sort of catastrophe as is described by the prophets under the figure of the conflagration of heaven and earth, is described by Moses under the figure of a flood: he says," By the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth, standing out of the water, and in the water; whereby the world that then was, being overflowed by water, perished but the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word, are kept in store, reserved unto fire, against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. We find then, that as the destruction of heaven and earth by fire is one of the forms by which the Last General Judgment is described, so the destruction of the world that then was by a flood is the form by which the General Judgment upon the Adamic Church is described if then the Last General Judgment was not to consist solely, nor at all, in the conflagration of the visible universe, but in a judgment upon those who had passed out of the natural into the spiritual world, the judgment upon the members of the Adamic Church did not consist solely, and probably not at allt, in a flood of material waters, but in a judgment upon those who had passed from the material into the spiritual world. The Noetic Church did not long continue as one: " in the days of Peleg was the earth divided‡ :" and, being scattered at Babel, they no longer continued to be" of one language and of one speech," that is, they split into different forms of worship and doctrine; and all the ancient nations mentioned in the Old Testament were various branches of this church. Hence it does not appear that there was any General Judgment upon the whole together, till the Lord came into the world, and performed the judgment on the Jewish Church; which itself sprung out of the Noetic Church, and most of the constitutions of which, as is well known, were selected from those which had previously been in use: but specific judgments * 2 Pet iii. 5, 6, 7. That the first eleven chapters of Genesis do not contain an exact detail of natural events, but a history of the spiritual state of mankind in those ages, couched in the language of allegory, being the only style in use among the people whose history it describes; and that literally true history begins with the account of Abraham; may be seen fully established in "the Plenary Inspiration," &c. pp. 555-576. + Gen. x. 25. § Gen. ix. 1. |