Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/251

 heaven, who would have been drawn to destruction with them. This is what the Lord foretold in Matthew xiii. 24-30, 37-40. The consummation of the Age [there mentioned] is the last time of the church; the tares are those who are inwardly evil; the wheat are those who are inwardly good; the gathering the tares together to burn, is the last judgment upon the evil; the care lest a separation before the last judgment should bring ruin upon the good, is meant by "lest in collecting the tares you root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together till the harvest."

III. All enlightenment comes to man from the Lord through heaven, and enters by an internal way. So long as there were congregations of such spirits between heaven and the world, or between the Lord and the church, man could not be enlightened. It was as when a sunbeam is cut off by a black interposing cloud, or as when the sun is eclipsed and its light arrested by the interjacent moon. Therefore if anything had been then revealed by the Lord, either it would not have been understood, or if understood, it would not have been received; or if received, still it would afterwards have been suffocated. Now since all these interposing congregations were dissipated by the last judgment, it is plain (IV.), That the