There are many volumes in the world whose thinly spun thought, spread over page after page, it would be easy to condense into one brief paragraph; but the treatise on the Divine Love and Wisdom is not such a work. It is one of those rare books which suggest and expand thought, but can bear no abridgment or compression. We have well studied it, but do not expect to finish it during our life on earth. Time was, when, immersed in man made systems of faith, and wont to walk abroad in the green fields and woods, by the sea-side, and on the mountains—we found it difficult, nay we should rather say impossible, to see the God we read of in our books, and thought of in our chamber, to be the same kind Father to whom those wide and beauteous scenes owed their existence. Justification by faith—Jerusalem—the Jews—ephod and teraphim—the Temple, and the sacrifice—seemed to have no connection with the landscape, the wind, the falling rain, the flowing river, and the broad and limitless ocean. We knew it should not be so. If the Bible were God’s book, it must have some closer affinity with his great work of nature. We knew that one Lord was over all, and that this disunity should by no means exist. Much mental pain and travail were our portion. The easy soothsayings of Atheism beguiled us. We “wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way, and found no city (doctrine) to dwell in.” We longed for the rest of Zion. We sighed not in vain. The divine philosophy of this precious book was revealed to us, and we knew the blessing of a faith which finds a confirmation in every item and phase of creation, and makes the Bible and nature evermore at one, each confirming and illustrating the other. It gave to life new aims and aspects. It brought a mental peace we had never hoped to enjoy, and we went on our journey of life rejoicing.
“The Continuation of the Last Judgment,” is a small pamphlet forming a supplement to the treatise on the Last Judgment, with which it is now generally published. It contains a very interesting account of the Last Judgment upon the Reformed. By the Reformed, upon whom the Last Judgment was effected, Swedenborg means those who professed a belief in God, read the Word, heard sermons, partook of the sacrament of the Supper, yet lived in all manner of evils. Living like Christians in externals, and outwardly in unity with heaven, while inwardly united with hell, they were permitted after death to form societies, and to live as in the world; and by arts unknown in the world, to cause splendid appearances, and by this means to persuade themselves and others that they were in heaven. From this outward appearance, therefore, they called their societies heavens. The heavens and the lands in which they dwelt, are understood by the “former heaven, and the former earth, which passed away.” Rev. xxi. 7.
At the time of the Last Judgment, the hypocrisy of these spirits was revealed in the light of heaven, and the simple good with whom they had associated, separated themselves with horror from them. No longer able to simulate Christian lives, they rushed with delight into evils and crimes of every description, openly appeared as devils, and found for themselves the hells corresponding to their loves. At the same time all the splendid appearances they had made for themselves vanished away; their palaces were turned into vile huts; their gardens into stagnant pools; their temples into piles of rubbish; and the hills on which they dwelt, into heaps of gravel, in correspondence with their depraved dispositions and lusts.
“After the Judgment was effected,” writes Swedenborg, “there was joy in heaven, and also light in the world of spirits, such as was not before. A similar light also then arose on men in the world, giving them new enlightenment. I then saw angelic spirits, in great numbers, rising from below, and elevated into heaven. They were the sheep there reserved, and guarded by the Lord for ages back, lest they should come into the malignant sphere of the dragonists, and their charity be suffocated. These are they who are understood in the Word by those who went forth from the sepulchers; also by the souls of those slain for the testimony of Jesus, who were watching; and by those who are of the first resurrection.”
After this follows a description of many things seen in the spiritual world. He writes: “There are lands in the spiritual world, just as in the natural world: there are hills and mountains, plains and valleys, also fountains and rivers, lakes and seas; there are paradises, and gardens and groves, and woods, and palaces, and houses; there are writings, and books, functions, [functiones,] and employments; there are precious stones, gold and silver; in short, there are all the things, in general and in particular, which exist in the natural world; but in the heavens all these things are infinitely more perfect.”
He then describes “the noble English nation” in the spiritual world; the more excellent of whom are in the centre of all Christians, because they have interior intellectual light. This light they derive from the liberty they enjoy of thinking, and thence of speaking and writing. The Dutch are then described, and then the Papists, and the Popish saints. The Mohammedans, the Africans, and the Gentiles follow; and finally the Jews, the Quakers, and the Moravians. The description of all these people, as they appear beyond the grave, has an interest of a most absorbing kind; and the light thrown by Swedenborg on their internal character, serves to show cause for much that happens in the external world, otherwise difficult of explanation.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Providence.
Still living in Amsterdam, Swedenborg published, in 1764, his work entitled “Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Providence.” Its purpose is to