Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/216

32 To the above I shall add the following. lt may be necessary here to remark, for the information and satisfaction of such as may not be already previously acquainted with our author's works, wherein he treats more particularly on the nature of these his spiritual communications, that all things which exist in the spiritual world have their origin and existence from the affections and thoughts of the inhabitants there, and thus the things that there exist, are to be considered as strictly in agreement with, or representative of the state of their minds, according to the subjects meditated upon, or conversed about. The appearances therefore which our author here describes, are all to be considered in that light, and that they are nothing more than the mere representatives of the states of mind of the spirits and angels with whom he was at those times in spiritual association, and which representatives, or appearances, can only be understood according to the science of correspondences, as explained by our author throughout his various theological writings. It is on this same principle of correspondence between things represented, and the things themselves, that we are to understand the wonderful things seen by the apostle John, as described in the Revelations, and so of all that was seen by prophets and others, as related in the Sacred Scripture. It is further to be observed, that the particular part of the spiritual world wherein our author beheld the scenes he here describes, was what he distinguishes by the name of the world of spirits, that is, an intermediate state between heaven and hell, into which the spirit of man first enters, on leaving the body, and there continues for a shorter or longer period, until it is prepared for its final place of destination, either in heaven or hell, according to the kind of life, whether good or evil, which the person has lived in the body, but as to the particular purpose of the spirit being detained for a time in this intermediate state, the reader is referred to the writings themselves, for further information, which, to give a full and satisfactory description of here, would much exceed the limits of the present undertaking. . In the spiritual world there are climates, and zones, as well as in the natural world, there being nothing in the latter world, but what