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the Sacred Oracles, that the second advent of the Great Saviour will be to destroy the earth, not to renovate it; and that on this occasion He will appear literally in the clouds of heaven with all His holy angels; and will then execute a general judgment on all who have lived since the creation of the world, and who have since been reserved in some obscure and indeterminate state of existence, short of that compleat happiness, or compleat misery, which will then be allotted them; and that at this awful period, the sun shall literally be darkened, and the moon shall literally not give her light, and the stars shall literally fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall literally be shaken, according to the description given in Matt. xxiv 29? For such are the ideas, grounded in the mere letter of the Sacred Scriptures, which at present occupy and darken the minds of christians, both learned and unlearned, on the edifying and important subject of the Lord's second advent and judgment.
It is in opposition to these gross and groundless notions, and for the establishment of the christian world in the genuine uncorrupted knowledge of the truth, that Baron Swedenborg contends for a spiritual interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures, in regard to all that is predicted in them on the above interesting_events. — From this interpretation it is shewn clearly, so as to convince the best reason of the humble and unprejudiced, that the Second ad vent of the Great Redeemer will not be for the destruction of the earth, but like His first advent, for its renovation, preservation, and blessedness. Indeed this truth, 'it is further evinced, is even confirmed by the letter of the Sacred Scriptures, where it is expressly said, "Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left:"[1] and where it is asserted further, "That the tabernacle of God shall then be with men, and he will dwell with them, &c."[2] Agreeable to the same spiritual interpretation it is further insisted, that the sun which on this occasion shall be darkened, the moon which shall not give her light, and the stars which shall fall from heaven, do not mean literally the sun, the moon and the stars, but those spiritual and eternal principles which they represent and signify according to the sense in which the apostle Peter applies the prophecy of Joel, as relating to the Lord's first advent; (see Acts ii. 16 to 22,) and according to the sense like-wise in which the terms are used by the prophet Isaiah, where, speaking of the Lord’s manifestation of the flesh, he predicts, that "the light of the moon shall then be as the light in the sun. and the light of the sun seven-fold, as the light of seven days,"[3]
1 Matt. xxiv. 40, 41.
2 Rev. xxi. 3.
3 Isaiah xxx. 26.
