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 rupted, ends or perishes, while a new earth and a new heaven take its place. Does not Paul say, "Now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin?" Did the world of nature come to an end in the time of Paul?

So Swedenborg declares that the Church has come to an end; that the apostolic Church is consummated; the Dispensation ended; that prophecy is fulfilled; that the last judgment has taken place; that the Lord has come again in the clouds of heaven with all his holy angels.

When you understand what he means by these things which appear so improbable, so impossible to the natural man, the light which illumined the mind of Peter will illumine yours, and you will see that the Word of God is not to be interpreted literally but spiritually; and that the end of the world or consummation of the age, the second coming of the Lord, the resurrection, the judgment, the descent of the New Jerusalem, are spiritual events which take place in the world of spirits; and are known in the material world only by the effects they produce upon the minds and hearts of men.

In the chapter on hell and its miseries it was stated, that whenever a society in hell reacted too