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the city of our solemnities; thine eyes shall see JERUSALEM a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken," Isaiah xxxiii. 20; not to mention other passages, as Isaiah xxiv. 23, chap. xxxvii. 32, chap. lxvi. 10 to 16, Zech. xii. 3, 6 to 10, chap. xiv. 8, 11, 12, 21, Mal. iii. 4, Psalm cxxii. 1 to 7, Psalm cxxxvii. 5, 6, 7. That the church which was to be instituted by the Lord, is meant by Jerusalem in these passages, and not the city of Jerusalem inhabited by the Jews, is plain from every particular of its description; as that Jehovah God would create a new heaven and a new earth, and also Jerusalem at the same time; and that this Jerusalem would be a crown of glory and a royal diadem; that it was to be called holiness, and the city of truth, the throne of Jehovah, a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that should not be taken down; that the wolf and the lamb should feed together there, that the mountains should drop new wine, and the hills flow with milk, and that it should remain from generation to generation; beside other circumstances, as respecting the people there, that they should be holy, all written for life, and should be called the redeemed of Jehovah. Moreover, all those passages relate to the coming of the Lord, particularly to His second coming, when Jerusalem shall be such as it is there described; for before this she was not married, that is, made the bride and the wife of the Lamb, as the New Jerusalem is declared to be in the Revelation. The former or present church is meant by Jerusalem in Daniel, and its commencement is described by these words: "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the Word to the restoration and the building of JERUSALEM, even unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and after threescore and two weeks the streets shall be built again, and the trenches, but in troublesome times," chap. ix. 25; its end, however, is described in these

words: "At length upon the bird of abominations shall be desolation, and even to the consummation and decision it shall drop on the devastation," verse 27: this end is described by these words of the Lord in Matthew: "When ye shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place, let him that readeth note it well," chap. xxiv. 15. That Jerusalem, in the passages above adduced, does not mean the city of Jerusalem, which was inhabited by the Jews, may appear from many places in the Word, as where it is said of that city that it was entirely destroyed, and that it was to be pulled down, as Jer. v. 1, chap. vi. 6, 7, chap. vii. 17, 18, chap. viii. 6, 7, 8, chap. ix. 10, 11, 12, chap. xiii. 9, 10, 14, chap. xiv. 16, Lam. i. 8, 9, 17, Ezech. iv. 1 to the end, chap. v. 9 to the end, chap. xii. 18, 19, chap. xv. 6, 7, 8, chap. xvi. 1 to 63, chap. xxiii. 1 to 40, Matt. xxiii. 37, 38, Luke xix. 41 to 44, chap. xxi. 20, 21, 22, chap. xxiii. 28, 29, 30; besides many other passages; and also where it is called Sodom, Isaiah iii. 9, Jer. xxiii. 14, Ezech. xvi. 46, 48, and in other places.

783. That the church is the Lord's, and that by virtue of a spiritual marriage, which is that of good and truth, the Lord is called the Bridegroom and Husband, and the church the bride and wife, is known among Christians from the Word, particularly from the following passages: "John said of the Lord, He that hath the BRIDE is the BRIDEGROOM; but the friend of the BRIDEGROOM, who standeth and heareth Him, rejoiceth greatly because of the BRIDEGROOM's voice," John iii. 29:" "Jesus said, can the CHILDREN OF THE BRIDE-CHAMBER fast as long as the BRIDEGROOM is with them ?" Matt. ix. 15, Mark ii. 19, 20, Luke v. 35: “I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a BRIDE ADORNED FOR HER HUSBAND," Rev. xxi. 2: "The angel said to John, come hither, I will shew thee the BRIDE, THE LAMB'S WIFE; and from a high mountain he shewed him that great

city, the holy Jerusalem," chap. xxi. 9, 10: "THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB is come, AND HIS WIFE hath made herself ready; blessed are they which are called unto the MARRIAGE SUPPER OF THE LAMB," chap. xix. 7, 9. "I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning star; THE SPIRIT AND THE BRIDE say come, and he that is athirst let him come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely," chap. xxii. 16, 17.

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784. It is agreeable to divine order, that a new heaven be formed before a New Church on earth; for the church is both internal and external, and the internal church forms a one with the church in heaven, and consequently with heaven; and that the internal must be formed before the external, and afterwards the external by the internal, is a truth known and acknowledged by the clergy in the world. proportion as this new heaven, which constitutes the internal of the church in man, increases, in the same proportion the New Jerusalem, that is, the New Church, comes down from that heaven; so that this cannot be effected in a moment, but in proportion as the falses of the former church are removed: for what is new cannot gain admission where falses have before been implanted, unless those falses are first rooted out; and this must first take place among the clergy, and by their means among the laity; for the Lord saith, "No man putteth new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out; but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved," Matt. ix. 17, Mark ii. 22, Luke v. 37, 38. That these things cannot come to pass till the consummation of the age, by which the end of the church is meant, is plain from these words of the Lord: "Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way: and when the blade was sprung up, then appeared the tares also: so the servants of the householder came and

said to him, wilt thou that we go and gather up the tares? 'But he said, nay, lest, while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them: let both grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn: the harvest is the consummation of the age; as therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so also shall it be in the consummation of the age," Matt. xiii. 24 to 30, 39, 40: by wheat, in this passage, the truths and goods of the New Church are meant, and by tares the falses and evils of the former church: and by the consummation of the age the end of the church is understood, as may be seen in the first article of this chapter.

785. That there is in every thing an internal and an external, and that the external depends on the internal, as the body does on its soul, must be evident from every particular in the world, if attentively considered. In man this truth is very manifest; his whole body is dependent on his mind, and consequently there is an internal and an external in whatever proceeds from him; in every action there is the will of his mind, and in every expression of speech there is the understanding of his mind; and the case is the same in every bodily sense. There is an internal and an external also in every bird and beast, nay, in every insect and worm; as well as in every tree, plant, and shrub, nay, in every stone and smallest particle of mould. It may suffice, for the illustration of this fact, to mention a few particulars of the silk-worm, the bee, and a particle of mould. The internal of the silk-worm is that from which its external is impelled to spin its silken web, and afterwards to assume wings as a moth, and to fly abroad. The internal of a bee is that from which its external is impelled to suck honey out of flowers, and to construct its waxen cells after a wonderful form. The internal of a particle of mould, by

which its external is impelled, is its tendency to make the seeds of plants vegetate, exhaling somewhat from its little bosom, which insinuates itself into the inmost parts of the seed, and produces this effect; and that internal attends the plant's vegetation even to the formation of new seeds. The case is the same in forms of an opposite nature, which also have both an internal and an external; as for instance, in a spider its internal, by which its external is impelled, consists in the faculty, and the inclination thence derived, to weave a most curious web, in the centre whereof it may lie in wait for intruding flies, and seize upon them for its food: the same is true with every other noxious insect, and also with every serpent and wild beast of the forest: the like is true of every wicked, cunning, and deceitful man. X. THAT THIS NEW CHURCH IS THE CROWN OF ALL THE CHURCHES, WHICH HAVE BEEN UNTIL THIS TIME ON THE TERRESTIAL GLOBE.

786. It has been already shewn there have been from the beginning, in common, four churches on this earth; one before the flood, another after the flood, a third called the Israelitish Church, and a fourth the Christian; and as all churches depend on the knowledge and acknowledgment of one God, with whom the members of the church can have conjunction, and none of the four churches above-named have been in that truth, it follows, that a church is to succeed those four, which shall know and acknowledge the one God; for the divine love of God could have had no other end or design in creating the world, but to conjoin man to Himself, and Himself to man, and thus to dwell with him. That the former churches were not in the truth, is plain from this circumstance, that the Most Ancient Church, which existed before the flood, worshipped the invisible God, with whom there can be no conjunction; so likewise did the Ancient Church which existed after the flood; the Israelitish Church worshipped Jehovah, who in Himself is the invisible God, Exod. xxxiii. I

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