Page:Swedenborg's Doctrine of Correspondence.djvu/23

This page has been validated.
THE SECOND COMING.
17

men to the Lord and establishing His kingdom among them. At different periods in the history of His kingdom on earth, He has made use of men as his instruments. Thus, when the time came for the institution of the Jewish Church, He raised up Moses, who had from his very childhood in Egypt been educated and prepared for the mission, to accomplish the work. In like manner, when the Jewish Church had run its course, and the Lord came into the world and took our nature upon Him, He called His twelve disciples around Him, and educated and instructed them, that through their instrumentality the Christian Church might be established. And now in these latter days, after the first Christian Church has finished its course, and fulfilled the prophecy of its end, the Lord in accordance with His promise has accomplished his Second Coming by unveiling the spiritual sense in His Word which is from Him and is Himself.

The Second Coming of the Lord is not in person as at His first advent; for then He assumed a human nature and glorified it for reasons of redemption and salvation, that He might become in His Humanity the visible God, and acquire to His Humanity "all