Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/482

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
386
THE NEW CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

was the metropolis of the land of Canaan; and there were the temple and the altar, there the sacrifices were offered, and thus there the actual Divine worship was performed to which every male in the land was commanded to go up three times in the year; and because the Lord was in Jerusalem, and taught in its temple, and afterwards glorified His Human there. Hence it is that the church is signified by Jerusalem. That the church is meant by Jerusalem, is very evident from the prophecies in the Old Testament repecting the new church to be instituted by the Lord, in that it is there called Jerusalem. Only those passages shall be adduced from which every one endued with interior reason may see that the church is there meant by Jerusalem. Let these passages only be cited therefrom: "Behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth; the former shall not he remembered. . . . Behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy, and I will rejoice over Jerusalem, and joy over My people. . . . Then the wolf and the lamb shall feed together; . . . they shall not do evil in all the mountain of My holiness" (Isaiah lxv. 17-19, 25). "For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. Then the nations shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory; and thou shalt he called by a new name, which the mouth of Jehovah shall name. And thou shalt be a crown of glory . . . and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God., . . Jehovah shall delight in thee, and thy land shall be married. . . . Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, His reward is with Him. . . . And they shall call them The holy People, The redeemed of Jehovah; and thou shalt be called A city sought for, not forsaken" (lxii. 1-4, 11, 12). "Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on the garments of thy beauty, O Jerusalem, the city of holiness; for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down, O Jerusalem. . . . The people shall know my name in that day, for it is I that speak, behold, it is I. . . . Jehovah hath comforted His people. He hath redeemed Jerusalem" (lii. 1, 2, 6, 9). "Thus saith Jehovah, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; wherefore Jerusalem shall he called, the City of Truth, and the Mountain of Jehovah of Hosts, the Holy Mountain" (Zech. viii. 3). "Then shall ye know that I am Jehovah your God, dwelling in Zion the mountain of holiness; and Jerusalem shall be Holiness. . . . And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and. the hills shall flow with milk, . . . and Jerusalem shall abide from generation to generation" (Joel iii. 17, 20). "In that day shall the branch of Jehovah be beautiful and glorious. . . . And it shall come to pass that he that is left in Zion, and he that re-