ring its continuance, repeatedly, several were swept from the map of Europe in a single campaign: and though the most considerable were restored at the peace, it was with such great alterations, both in their internal polity and external relations, that it is strictly correct to say, that the entire face of the European, yea, of the whole Christian comonwealth, has been completely changed. To apply the prophetic phrase in the sense which commentators usually assign to it;—the former heaven and earth of every state of Christendom have passed away; and they have been, with scarce an exception, so entirely new-modelled, that they have received, politically, a new heaven and earth in their place.
Now it may be observed, as at least a remarkable coincidence, that the troubles which have had so extraordinary a career and termination, broke out at exactly the same distance of time after the date assigned by Swedenborg for the performance of the Last Judgment in the spiritual world, and of which he published his account in the year 1758, as that which intervened between the conclusion of the judgment performed by the Lord while in the world, and the troubles which led to the destruction of Jerusalem.
But if the political changes experienced by Christendom have been so great, how has it fared with her ecclesiastical constitutions? Are we not here particularly struck with the change which has been effected, almost before our eyes, in the state of the Papal Power, once so terrific and irresistible? It is a fact acknowledged by the Protestant interpreters of Scripture (and indeed the features of the portrait are so plain, that nothing but strong prejudice can close the mental eye against a recognition of the original,) that the great harlot, whose name is mystical Babylon (Rev. xvii.) is a personification of the Roman Catholic religion: consequently, the judgment denounced upon her (chaps. xvii.-xviii.) must denote, primarily, according to our view of the nature of the Last Judgment, the removal from the intermediate region of the spiritual world, to the regions of despair, of those who were confirmed in the evils of that religion: that is, of those who made religion a pretext for establishing their own dominion over the minds and bodies of men. Now the consequence of such a judgment in the spiritual world, must be, the diminution of the power of such persons in this world, and the loosening of the influence of that religion over men's minds. Do we not then behold manifest proofs, which multiply around us continually, that Babylon, even in this world, has received her judgment; and, consequently, the