were experienced upon the one hand, and the universality of the advantages which are in course of being developed upon the other, are well known and extraordinary. Those wars, in accordance with the natural tendency of evil, wore themselves out. Following every convulsion, a milder spirit endeavoured to find its way into the minds of men, and when peace came, the new era that had begun manifested to the world that henceforth goodness would be supreme. The escutcheon of the period was, and still may be, tarnished with disastrous stains, but those stains have been, and we believe always will be, local in their origin and operations; nor can they ever extinguish the light which a wise Providence has mercifully enkindled.[1]
Thus the circumstances which distinguished Christendom, both before and after the period to which we assign the last judgment, were very similar to those which have taken place at the close of all preceding dispensations. They were necessary to indicate the catastrophe, and were requisite to exhibit to men the evidences of its execution.
This judgment is called the last, to express the idea that it is the final general judgment by which a corrupted Church was brought to its end. Other judgments will, of course, follow upon all who subsequently pass into the world
- ↑ After the judgment there is not to be expected any great changes in the natural world as to its external forms. There will be treaties of peace and also wars as before, and other things which relate to the general and particular government of societies. But the state of the Church will be changed; it may be as to external appearances, similar to that which it had been, but it will be dissimilar as to its internal. The man of the Church will be in a freer state of thinking about matters of faith, consequently about spiritual things which belong to heaven, because spiritual freedom is restored. Swedenborg's Last Judgment, 116. How truly are the facts thus related being experienced; and does not this realization prove the spiritual insight of the writer?
