Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/242

 had lived before the Lord's coming into the world; but all who composed it lived after his coming, for a last judgment is effected at the end of every church, a former heaven being then abolished, and a new one created or formed. For all who led an outwardly moral life, and lived in piety and sanctity that was external, although not internal, were tolerated from the beginning to the end of the church; and this so long as the internals which belong to the thoughts and intentions, could be held in bonds by the laws of society, civil and moral. But at the end of the church their internals are unveiled, and judgment is then executed upon them. Hence a last judgment has been executed upon the inhabitants of this planet twice before, and is now for the third time. Thus a heaven and an earth have twice passed away, and a new heaven and a new earth have been created; for the heaven and the earth are the church in either world.

Hence it is plain that the new heaven and the new earth mentioned in the prophets of the Old Testament, are not that new heaven and new earth mentioned in the Apocalypse; but that the former existed from the Lord when He was in the world, and the latter exist from Him now. Concerning the heaven and the earth in the prophets of the Old Testament, it is written, "Behold I am about to create a new heaven and a new earth; neither shall the former be remembered" (Isaiah lxv. 17).