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which words, it is plain, were never fulfilled, or intended to be fulfilled according to the sense of the letter. In the same spirit of enlightened and enlightening interpretation, it is also proved that the Judgment, which is to take place at the Lord's appering, doth not mean a general judgment extending to all who have lived since the creation of the world, inasmuch as they have been sen- tenced long ago to their respective destinations, whether of happi- ness or of misery, but a judgment of those in the spiritual world who have not yet passed to their final allotment, and also of those in the natural world, who are living at that time, agreeable to what Jesus Christ declares concerning the effect of His first advent, where he says "Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out."[1] From which words, it is plain, that a work of judgment was accomplished at that very period of time, the nature of which judgment is explained in another place where He asserts, "For judgment am I come into the world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind."—John ix. 39.
The result then and complex of Baron Swedenborg's explica- tions of the above grand mystery amount to this, that in the consummation of the age, as it is expressed in Matthew, Chap. 28, verse 20, by which is signified, not the end of the visible creation, but the consummation or desolation of the Church, through successive corruptions of Life and Doctrine, Jesus Christ will open anew, and is now opening (through the instrumentality of the doctrines of the New Jerusalem) the Internal, Spiritual, and uncorrupted Sense of His Most holy Word, in which, and by which, He can alone come; and make himself known to man for instruction and salvation; In this His most Holy Word thus opened, He will reveal himself as the Great lAM, the IhfHi and the Eternal, the Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and
Omega, the Only Creator, Redeemer, and Regenerator of men, because the Alone God-Man, and consequently the Alone Giver of Eternal Life and Happiness. Thus He will come and appear to
the humble and penitent in power and great glory, as their only
God and deliverer, purifying and regenerating them through the communications of His eternal Love and Wisdom, and thereby establishing amongst them a new Church of enlightened, devout and pure worshippers. At the same time he will execute judgment on the careless and impenitent, by separating them from His Church, and from all communication and conjunction with Him- self in knowledge and in life, since it is an eternal effect of the manifestation of Divine Truth from heaven, that whilst it en- lightens, consoles, and elevates the righteous, it blinds, torments,
1 John xii. 32.
- ↑ 1
