Читать книгу Swedenborg: Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church онлайн | страница 10

No one answers but Swedenborg, who in his Apocalypsis Revelata describes the fulfilment, clause by clause, of the whole of this vision—not in this world, but in the vast spirit world, where were gathered an innumerable multitude, good and bad together, awaiting the judgment that the new coming of the Lord in His Word would effect. Were this conception of the judgment mere imagination, instead of the stern reality which Swedenborg affirms, how sublime! Judgment of scores of generations in place of the one or two possible on earth, without limit of space or time; judgment of the inner souls and tenets of men there revealed; overthrow of spirit ​heavens and earth, leaving this earth of ours to bide its time; angels without number bearing the Divine light down to the overthrow of the prince of darkness and all his satellites! In truth the spirit world alone could be fit theatre for the fulfilment of the vision vouchsafed to John. But on earth the seals of the Book were to be loosed at the same time, for spirits in the flesh live always in real though unseen communion with spirits in the spirit world, and their thoughts are held in common. In fact, with spirits as with men, spiritual thought must have its ultimate basis in material thought. The letter of the Word of God is human, even material, in form. The opening of its inner, spiritual, heavenly, and Divine content can be only by the Lord Himself by means of His Holy Spirit in the suitably prepared mind of man.

Before He left their sight the Lord told His disciples that He had many things to say to them, but they could not bear them then. Howbeit when He should come to them with His Holy Spirit He would call all things to their remembrance whatsoever He had said unto them and would guide them into all truth. A special fulfilment of this promise was given to these immediate disciples, ​for their special vocation, but its larger, all-embracing fulfilment could not come till the new revelation of His face in His Word, which was indeed the same thing, and before which the Gospel must first be preached unto all the nations. It was by the opening of the heart to the Holy Spirit that the revelation of the grace and truth in His Word could be given.