Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/220

 proportion as it is unchecked, rushes on, aiming to dominate not merely over all whom it can subject to itself on earth, but even over heaven; nor does it rest there, but climbs to the very throne of God, and transfers to itself his Divine Power. That it did this, even before the Lord's coming, appears from the passages of the Word above referred to. But the Babylon here treated of was destroyed by the Lord when He was in the world; both by those who composed it being reduced to mere idolaters, and by a last judgment upon them in the spiritual world, which is understood by the prophetic sayings, that "Lucifer," who there is Babylon, "was cast into hell," and that "Babylon has fallen;" and moreover by the writing on the wall, and the death of Belshazzar; and also by the stone hewn from the rock, which destroyed the statue of which Nebuchadnezzar dreamed.

But the Babylon treated of in the Apocalypse, is the Babylon of to-day, which arose after the Lord's coming, and is known to be among the Papists. This Babylon is more pernicious and abominable than that which existed before the Lord's coming, because it profanes the interior goods and truths of the church which the Lord revealed to the world when He revealed Himself. How pernicious and abominable it is, may appear from the following summary:—