Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/466

 promise made to their fathers; that there were with them no truths and goods of the church, but only falsities and evils; and that therefore they were rejected and expelled from the land of Canaan, as is evident from all the passages in the Word where that nation is described. (A. E. n. 433.)

The Most Ancient church, which was celestial, and before the flood, was in the land of Canaan; and the Ancient church which was after the flood was also there, and in many countries besides. Hence the origin of the fact that all the nations there, and also all the lands, and all the rivers there were clothed with representatives; for the most ancients, who were celestial men, perceived through all the objects that they saw such things as belong to the Lord's kingdom; and so through the countries too and the rivers of the land. Those representatives, and also the representatives of the places there, remained in the Ancient church. The Word in the Ancient church had also representative names of places therefrom; as also the Word after their time, which is called Moses and the Prophets; and because it was so Abraham was commanded to go thither, and a promise was made to him that his posterity should possess that land. And this not for the reason that they were better than other nations,—for they were among the worst of all,—but that by them a representative church might be instituted, in which nothing should turn upon person or upon place, but upon the things which were repre-