E-text donated by the Kempton Project, submitted by William Rotella
Heaven and its Wonders and Hell
From Things Heard and Seen
by Emanuel Swedenborg.
Translated by John Ager.
1. The Lord, speaking in the presence of His disciples of theconsummation of the age, which is the final period of the church,{1}says, near the end of what He foretells about its successive statesin respect to love and faith:{2}
Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn; and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send forth His angels with a trumpet and a great sound; and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the end to end of the heavens (Matt. 24:29-31).
Those who understood these words according to the sense of the letterhave no other belief than that during that latest period, which iscalled the final judgment, all these things are to come to pass justas they are described in the literal sense, that is, that the sun andmoon will be darkened and the stars will fall from the sky, that thesign of the Lord will appear in the sky, and He Himself will be seenin the clouds, attended by angels with trumpets; and furthermore, asis foretold else where, that the whole visible universe will bedestroyed, and afterwards a new heaven with a new earth will comeinto being. Such is the opinion of most men in the church at thepresent day. But those who so believe are ignorant of the arcana thatlie hid in every particular of the Word. For in every particular ofthe Word there is an internal sense which treats of things spiritualand heavenly, not of things natural and worldly, such as are treatedof in the sense of the letter. And this is true not only of themeaning of groups of words, it is true of each particular word.{3}For the Word is written solely by correspondences,{4} to the end thatthere may be an internal sense in every least particular of it. Whatthat sense is can be seen from all that has been said and shown aboutit in the Arcana Coelestia; also from quotations gathered from thatwork in the explanation of The White Horse spoken of in theApocalypse. It is according to that sense that what the Lord says inthe passage quoted above respecting His coming in the clouds ofheaven is to be understood. The "sun" there that is to be darkenedsignifies the Lord in respect to love;{5} the "moon" the Lord inrespect to faith;{6} "stars" knowledges of good and truth, or of loveand faith;{7} "the sign of the Son of man in heaven" themanifestation of Divine truth; "the tribes of the earth" that shallmourn, all things relating to truth and good or to faith and love;{8}"the coming of the Lord in the clouds of heaven with power and glory"His presence in the Word, and revelation,{9} "clouds" signifying thesense of the letter of the Word,{10} and "glory" the internal senseof the Word;{11} "the angels with a trumpet and great voice" signifyheaven as a source of Divine truth.{12} All this makes clear thatthese words of the Lord mean that at the end of the church, whenthere is no longer any love, and consequently no faith, the Lord willopen the internal meaning of the Word and reveal arcana of heaven.The arcana revealed in the following pages relate to heaven and hell,and also to the life of man after death. The man of the church at