Page:The Judgment Day.pdf/172

into madness, and the whole would be dispersed, as a king domon earth, where there is no law and no punishment."—H. & H. n., 573 & 581

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SECTION THIRD.

The Last Judgment, in its Individual as well as General Character.

Good and evil imperfectly developed in the natural world—how the good are led to heaven and the wicked to hell—the world of spirits—the Last Judgment in its general character—such Judgments have several times taker place—quotations from Noble's Appeal—that the last General Judgment has taken place, shown from effects in the natural world—the testimony of Swedenborg–quotations from his works—concluding remarks.

In the former part of this work, I gave some reasons for believing that the spiritual world is the theatre of the last judgment, and in the last two sections I have presented some views in regard to the nature of the spiritual world, in general, and of those opposite spiritual states, called heaven and hell. It now only remains to describe that state through which the spirit passes after it leaves the natural world, and before it arrives at its permanent abode, either in heaven or in hell.

It is very manifest that most men leave the natural world, before they become fully confirmed in the love either of good or of evil. Even with those men who are so far advanced in regenerate life, that the love of spiritual usefulness, in some form, is their ruling motive of action, yet there are always some external natural affections which have not yet been brought entirely under the dominion of the internal ruling love. Though the deepest and strongest affections, and those which exert a controlling influence over the life and character, rest upon a spiritual basis, there are still other affections, which are natural and selfish, and which ought to be entirely subordinate to the spiritual, but which are seldom or never reduced entirely to that position, while the spirit remains in its earthly tenement. These natural and