Last Judgment Continued, by Emanuel Swedenborg, [1758], tr. by John Whitehead [1892] at sacred-texts.com

Last Judgment Continued

The cities in which the Dutch dwell, are guarded in a peculiar manner, all the streets in them are covered, and in the streets are gates, in order that they may not be viewed from the surrounding rocks and hills. This they do from their inherent prudence in concealing their designs, and not divulging their intentions; for these things in the spiritual world are brought forth by inspection. When anyone enters a city with the purpose of exploring their state, when he is about to depart, he is led to the closed gates of the streets, back and forth to many, and this to extreme weariness, and he is then let out; this is done to the end that he may not return. Wives who claim dominion over their husbands, dwell on one side of the city, and only meet them by invitation, given formally; and the husbands then lead them to houses, where married pairs are living, without there being any dominion of the one over the other, and show them how neat and clean their houses are, and how delightful their life is, and that these are the results of mutual and conjugial love. Those who attend to, and are affected with these things, desist from dominion, and they live together, and they then obtain a dwelling nearer to the middle, and are called angels. The reason is, that conjugial love is a celestial love, which is without dominion.

 53-1 In the days of the Last Judgment, I saw many thousands of that nation cast out of the cities there, and out of the villages and surrounding lands. They were those who when in the world had done nothing of good from any religion or conscience, but only on account of reputation, that they might appear sincere for the sake of gain; for such when the prospect of fame and gain is taken away, as is the case in the spiritual world, then rush into every abomination; and when they are in the fields, and outside the cities, they rob every one they encounter. I saw them cast into a fiery gulf stretching under the eastern tract, and into a dark cavern stretching under the southern tract. This casting out I saw on the 9th day of January, 1757. Those only were left, among whom there was religion, and a conscience from religion.

I have spoken, but only once, with Calvin; he was in a society of heaven, which appears in front, above the head; and he said that he did not agree with Luther and Melancthon about faith alone, because works are so often named in the Word, and the doing of them commanded, and that therefore, faith and works ought to be conjoined. I heard from one of the governors of that society, that Calvin was accepted in his society, because he was upright and made no disturbance.

What Luther's lot is, shall be told elsewhere, for I have often heard and seen him. Here, I shall only say, that he has often wished to recede from his faith alone, but in vain; and that therefore, he is still in the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell; where he sometimes suffers hard things.

VII. THE PAPISTS IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. The Papists, and the Last Judgment upon them, were treated of in the small work on The Last Judgment (n. 53-64). The Papists in the spiritual world appear around the Reformed, and are separated from them by an interval, which they are not permitted to pass. Nevertheless, those who are of the order of Jesuits, by clandestine arts procure for themselves communications, and also send out emissaries, by unknown paths, for the purpose of seducing them. But they are discovered, and after being punished, they are either sent back to their companions, or are cast into hell.

After the Last Judgment, their state was so changed, that they were not allowed to gather together in companies, as before; but ways were appointed to every love, both good and evil, which those who come from the world immediately enter, and go to a society corresponding to their love. Thus the wicked are borne away to a society which is in conjunction with the hells, and the good to a society which is in conjunction with the heavens; thus precaution is taken that they may not form artificial heavens for themselves as before. Such societies in the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell, are innumerable; being as many as there are genera and species of good and evil affections. And in the meantime, before spirits are either elevated into heaven, or cast down into hell, they are in spiritual conjunction with men in the world, because they too are in the midst between heaven and hell.

All those of the Papists, who have not been wholly idolaters, and who, from their religious persuasion, have done goods out of a sincere heart, and have also looked to the Lord, are led to societies which are instituted in the confines nearest to the Reformed, and are instructed there, the Word being read, and the Lord preached to them; and they who receive truths and apply them to life, are elevated into heaven and become angels. There are many such societies of them in every quarter, and they are guarded on all sides from the treacheries and cunning devices of the monks, and from the Babylonish leaven. Moreover, all their infants are in heaven, because, being educated by the angels under the guidance of the Lord, they know nothing of the falsities of the religion of their parents.

All who come from the earth into the spiritual world, are at first kept in the confession of faith, and in the religion of their country; and so therefore are the Papists. On this account, they always have some representative Pontiff set over them, whom they also adore with the same ceremony as in the world. Rarely does any Pope from the world act the Pontiff there; yet he who was Pope at Rome twenty years ago, 59-1 was appointed over the Papists, because he cherished in heart that the Word is more holy than is believed, and that the Lord ought to be worshiped. But, after filling the office of Pope for some years, he abdicated it, and betook himself to the Reformed Christians, among whom he still is, and enjoys a happy life. It was granted me to speak with him, and he said, that he adored the Lord alone, because He is God, who has power over heaven and earth, and that the invocations of saints, and also their masses, are trifles; and that when he was in the world, he intended to restore that church, but that for reasons, which he mentioned, he found it impossible to do so. When the great northern city of the Papists was destroyed, on the day of the Last Judgment, I saw him carried out of it on a couch, and taken to a place of safety. Quite a different thing happened to his successor.

Here I am allowed to add something memorable. It was granted me to speak with Louis XIV., grandfather of the reigning king of France, who while he was in the world, worshiped the Lord, read the Word, and acknowledged the Pope only as the highest one of the church; in consequence of which, he has great dignity in the spiritual world, and rules the best society of the French nation. Once I saw him as it were descending by ladders, and after he descended I heard him saying, that he seemed to himself as if at Versailles, and then there was silence round about for half an hour; at the end of that time, he said, that he had spoken with the king of France, his grandson, concerning the Bull Unigenitus, advising him to desist from his former design, and not to accept it, because it was detrimental to the French nation, he said that he insinuated this into his thought profoundly. This took place in the year 1759, on the 13th day of December, about eight o'clock in the evening.

VIII. THE POPISH SAINTS IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. It is known that man has from his parents implanted or hereditary evil, but in what it consists is known to few. It consists in the love of ruling, which is such, that as far as the reins are given it, so far it bursts forth, until it even burns with the lust of ruling over all, and at length of wishing to be invoked and worshiped as God. This love is the serpent, which deceived Eve and Adam, for it said to the woman: God knows, that in the day ye eat of the fruit of the tree, your eyes shall be opened, and then ye shall be as God (Gen. 3:4, 5). As far therefore as man rushes with loosened reins into this love, so far he turns himself away from God, and turns towards himself, and becomes an atheist; and then the Divine truths which are of the Word, may serve as means, but because dominion is the end, the means are in the heart only as they serve him. This is the reason why those who are in the mediate and in the ultimate degree of the love of ruling, are all in hell, for that love is the devil there; and in hell there are some of such a nature, that they cannot bear to hear any one speaking of God.

Those of the Papal nation have this love who have had dominion from the frenzy of its delight, and have despised the Word, and preferred the dictates of the Pope to it. They are utterly devastated as to externals, until they no longer know anything of the church, and then they are cast down into hell and become devils. There is a certain separate hell for those who wish to be invoked as gods, where such is their fantasy, that they do not see what is, but what is not. Their delirium is such as affects persons in a malignant fever, who see things floating in the air and in the chamber, and on the covering of the bed, which do not exist. This worst of evils is meant by: The head of the serpent, which is bruised by the Seed of the woman, and which wounds His heel (Gen. 3:15). "The heel" of the Lord, who is "the Seed of the woman," is the Divine proceeding in ultimates, which is the Word in the sense of the letter.

Because man from heredity is such, that he wishes to rule, and as the reins are loosened, successively over more, and at length over all, and because the wish to be invoked and worshiped as God, is the inmost of this love of ruling, therefore all who have been made saints by the Papal bulls, are removed from the sight of others and hidden, and are deprived of all interaction with their worshipers. This is done, lest that worst root of evils should be excited in them, and they should be hurried into such fantastic deliriums as prevail in the above mentioned hell. In such deliriums are those who, when they lived in the world, have eagerly sought to be made saints after death, for the purpose of being invoked.

Many of the Papal nation, especially the monks, when they come into the spiritual world, seek the saints, each the saint of his own order; yet they do not find them, and therefore they wonder. But afterwards they are instructed by others, that they are either intermingled with those who are in the heavens, or with those who are in the hells, every one according to his life in the world; and that in whichsoever they are, they know nothing of the worship and invocation of themselves; and that they who know it, and wished to be invoked, are in that separate and delirious hell. The worship of saints is such an abomination in heaven, that whenever they hear of it they are horrified, because as far as worship is paid to any man, in so far it is withheld from the Lord, for thus He alone cannot be worshiped; and if the Lord is not alone worshiped, a discrimination is made, which destroys communion, and the felicity of life which flows from it.

That I might know, for the sake of informing others, what kind of men the Popish saints are, as many as a hundred of them, who knew of their canonization, were brought up from the lower earth. The greater part ascended from behind, and only a few in front, and I spoke with one of them, who they said was Xavier. While he talked with me, he was quite foolish, yet he was able to tell me, that in his place, where he remains confined, he is not so; but that he becomes foolish as often as he thinks that he is a saint. I heard a like murmur from those who were behind.

It is otherwise with the so-called saints who are in heaven; they know nothing at all of what is doing upon earth, nor have I spoken with them, lest any idea of this should enter their minds. Only once Mary, the mother of the Lord, passed by, and appeared over head in white raiment, and then, stopping awhile, she said that she had been the mother of the Lord, and that He was indeed born of her, but that He became God, and put off all the human from her, and that therefore she now adores Him as her God, and is unwilling that any one should acknowledge Him as her Son, because in Him all is Divine.

I will here add this Relation. A certain woman in splendid raiment and with saint-like countenance, occasionally appears in a middle altitude, to the Parisians who are in a society in the spiritual world, and tells them she is Genevieve. But as soon as any of them begin to adore her, then instantly her countenance is changed, and her raiment too, and she becomes like an ordinary woman, and chides them for wishing to adore a woman, who, among her companions, is in no more repute than a maid servant; wondering that men in the world are caught by such trifles. The angels said that she appears for the purpose of separating those there who worship man from those who worship the Lord.

IX. THE MOHAMMEDANS IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD; AND MOHAMMED. The Mohammedans in the spiritual world appear behind the Papists in the west, and form as it were a circle around them. The principal reason why they appear there is, because they acknowledge the Lord as the Greatest Prophet, the Son of God, the Wisest of all, who was sent into the world to teach men. Every one in that world dwells at a distance from the Christian center where the Reformed are, according to his confession of the Lord and of one God; for that confession conjoins minds with heaven, and determines distance from the east, above which the Lord is. They who, from the life of evil, are not in that confession in heart, are in the hells beneath them.

Since religion makes man's inmost, and all the rest proceeds from the inmost, and since Mohammed is closely connected with their religion, therefore some Mohammed is always placed in their sight; and in order that they may turn their faces to the east, above which the Lord is, he is placed beneath in the Christian center. It is not the Mohammed himself who wrote the Koran, but another who fills his office; nor is it always the same, but he is changed. Once it was one from Saxony, who had been taken by the Algerians, and became a Mohammedan; and who, having been also a Christian, was actuated to speak to them concerning the Lord, that He was not the Son of Joseph, as they believed in the world, but the Son of God Himself, by which he insinuated into them an idea of the unity of the Lord's Person and Essence with the Father. To this Mohammed, others afterwards succeeded, who were actuated to declare the same. By this means, many of them accede to a truly Christian faith concerning the Lord, and they who do so accede, are carried to a society nearer to the east, where communication is granted them from heaven, into which they are afterwards elevated. In the place where the seat of that Mohammed is, there appears a fire like a torch, that he may be known, but it is invisible to all but Mohammedans.

Mohammed himself, who wrote the Koran, is not to be seen at the present day. I was told, that in early times he presided over the Mohammedans, but because be wished to domineer over all things of their religion as a God, he was cast out of his seat which he held beneath the Papists, and was sent downwards, to the right side near the south. Once some societies of Mohammedans were excited by the malicious to acknowledge Mohammed as God. To quell the sedition, Mohammed was raised up from below and shown to them, and then I also saw him. He appeared like corporeal spirits, who have no interior perception, his face approaching to black; and I heard him saying these words only, "I am your Mohammed;" and soon sinking down, as it were, he returned to his place.

As regards their religion, it was permitted such as it is, because of its agreement with the genius of the Orientals, on which account, too, it was received in so many kingdoms; and because, at the same time, it made the precepts of the Decalogue a matter of religion, and it had something from the Word, and especially because it acknowledged the Lord as the Son of God, and the wisest of all. And besides it dissipated the idolatries of many nations. The reason why Mohammed was not made the means of opening to his followers a more interior religion, was on account of polygamy, which exhales uncleanness towards heaven; for the marriage of a husband with one wife, corresponds to the marriage of the Lord and the Church.

Many of them are receptive of truth, and they see justice in reasons, as I was enabled to observe from conversations with them in the spiritual world. I spoke with them concerning the One God, the resurrection, and marriage. Of the One God they said, that they do not comprehend the Christians when speaking of the Trinity, and saying that there are three Persons, and that each Person is God, and still saying that God is one. But I replied, that the angels in the heaven which is from Christians, do not speak thus, but say, that God is one in essence and in Person, and in whom is a Trine, and that men on earth call this Trine three Persons; and that this Trine is in the Lord. In confirmation, I read before them out of Matthew and Luke, all that is said there of the conception of the Lord from God the Father, as well as the passages in which He Himself teaches, that He and the Father are one. On hearing this they perceived it, saying that thus the Divine essence is in Him. Of the Resurrection they said, that they do not comprehend Christians when they speak of the state of man after death, making the soul like wind or air, and hence is deprived of all delight before its reunion with the body at the day of the Last Judgment. But I replied, that only some talk thus, but that they who are not of that class, believe they will come into heaven after death, will speak with the angels, and enter upon heavenly joy, which they do not conceive to be dissimilar to their joy in the world, although they do not describe it; and I told them, that at the present day, many particulars of the state after death are revealed to them, which they did not know before. Of Marriage, I have had many conversations with them, and have told them, among other things, that conjugial love is a celestial love, which can exist only between two, and that conjunction with many wives does not admit the celestial of that love. They heard my reasons, and perceived their justice; as also this, that polygamy was permitted them, because they are Orientals, who without this permission would have burned for foul adulteries more than Europeans, and would have perished.

X. THE AFRICANS AND THE GENTILES IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. The Gentiles who know nothing concerning the Lord, appear around those who know of Him; so that no others make the extreme circumferences but those who are altogether idolatrous, and have adored the sun and moon. But they who acknowledge one God, and make precepts like those of the Decalogue a part of religion and of life, are seen in a higher region, and thus communicate more immediately with the Christians in the center; for thus the communication is not intercepted by the Mohammedans and Papists. The Gentiles are also distinguished according to their genius and faculty of receiving light through the heavens from the Lord; for there are some of them who are more interior, and some who are more exterior; and these diversities are not derived from their place of birth, but from their religion. The Africans are more interior than the rest.

All who acknowledge and worship one God, the Creator of the universe, have concerning Him the idea of Man: they say, that concerning God, no one can have any other idea. When they hear that many cherish the idea of Him as of a small cloud, they inquire where they are, and on being told that they are among Christians, they deny the possibility of it. But it is replied, that Christians have this idea, because God in the Word is called Spirit, and of a spirit, they are accustomed to think that it is like a particle of cloud, not knowing that every spirit and every angel is a man. Yet when they were explored, to discover whether their spiritual and natural ideas were alike, it was found that they were not alike with those who interiorly acknowledge the Lord as the God of heaven and earth. I heard a certain presbyter of the Christians saying, that no one can have an idea of the Divine Human; and I saw him led about to various Gentiles, in succession to those who were more and more interior, and from them to their heavens, and at length to the Christian heaven, and the interior perception of all concerning God was communicated to him, and he perceived that their idea of God was no other than the idea of Man, which is the same as the idea of the Divine Human.

There are many societies of Gentiles, especially from the Africans, who, on being instructed by the angels concerning the Lord, say that it cannot be otherwise than that God the Creator of the universe should appear in the world, because He created them and loves them; and that the appearance must be made before the very eyes in the Human form. When they are told, that He did not appear as the angels are wont to appear, but that He was born Man, and thus became visible, they hesitate awhile, and inquire whether He was born from a human father; and on hearing that he was conceived by the God of the universe, and born of a virgin, they say that thus He has the Divine essence itself, which because it is infinite and life itself, He was not such a man as others are. They are afterwards informed by the angels, that in aspect He was like another man, but that when He was in the world, His Divine essence, which in itself is infinite and life itself, rejected the finite nature and its life from the mother, and thus made His Human, which was conceived and born in the world, Divine. The Africans comprehended and received these things, because they think more interiorly and spiritually than others.

Such being the character of the Africans even in the world, there is, at the present day, a revelation with them, which commencing in the center, is communicated around, but does not reach the seas. They acknowledge our Lord as the God of heaven and earth, and laugh at the monks in those parts they visit, and at the Christians who talk of a three-fold Divinity, and of salvation by mere thinking, saying, that there is no man who has any worship, who does not live according to his religion, and that whosoever does not, must become stupid and wicked, because then he receives nothing from heaven. Ingenious wickedness they also call stupidity, because in it there is not life but death. I have heard the angels rejoicing over this revelation, because, by means of it, a communication is opened for them with the human rational, hitherto closed up by the blindness which has been drawn over the things of faith. It was told me from heaven, that the truths now published in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Concerning the Lord, Concerning the Word, and in The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem, are orally dictated by angelic spirits to the inhabitants of that country.

When I spoke with the Africans in the spiritual world, they appeared in striped garments of linen: they said that such garments correspond to them, and that their women have striped garments of silk. Of their little children, they related, that they frequently ask their nurses for food, saying that they are hungry, and when food is set before them, they examine and taste whether it agrees with them, and eat but little; whence it is evident, that spiritual hunger, which is a desire of knowing genuine truths, produces this effect; for it is a correspondence When the Africans wish to know their state as to the affection and perception of truth, they draw their swords; and if these shine, they know that they are in genuine truths, in a degree according to the shining; this, too, is from correspondence. Of marriage they said, that it is indeed allowed them by law to have several wives, but that still they take but one, because love truly conjugial is not divided; and that if it is divided, its essence which is heavenly perishes, and it becomes external and thence lascivious, and in a short time grows vile, as its potency diminishes, and at length is loathed when the potency is lost; but love truly conjugial, which is internal, and derives nothing from lasciviousness, remains to eternity, and increases in potency, and in the same degree in delight.

Strangers from Europe they said, are not admitted, and when any penetrate into their country, especially monks, they ask them what they know, and when they relate any particulars of their religious persuasion, they call them trifles which offend their very ears, and they then send them out of the way to work, in order that they may do something useful; and if they refuse to work, they sell them for slaves, whom their law allows them to chastise at will; and if they cannot drive them to do anything useful, they are at last sold for a small sum to the lowest class.

XI. THE JEWS IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. Before the Last Judgment the Jews appeared in a valley in the spiritual world, at the left side of the Christian center; but after it, they were transferred into the north, and forbidden to hold interaction with Christians, except with those who wandered outside the cities. In that quarter, there are two great cities into which the Jews are led after death, and which before the judgment, were called Jerusalems, but after it by another name, because after the judgment by "Jerusalem" is meant the church in which the Lord alone is adored. In these cities, converted Jews are appointed over them, who admonish them not to speak scoffingly of Christ; and punish those who still do so. The streets of their cities are filled with mire up to the ankles, and their houses are full of uncleanness, from which they smell, so that they cannot be approached.

An angel sometimes appears to them in a middle altitude above them, with a rod in his hand, and gives them to believe that he is Moses, and exhorts them to desist from the madness of expecting the Messiah even there, because Christ, who governs them and all other men, is the Messiah: he says, that he knows it to be so, and also, that when he was in the world, he knew something concerning Him. On hearing this, they retire; the chief part of them forgetting, and only a few retaining it. They who do retain it are sent to synagogues, which are composed of the converted, and are there instructed; and if they receive instruction, they have new garments given them in place of their old tattered ones, and are presented with the Word neatly written, and with a dwelling in a not unsightly city. But they who do not receive, are cast down into the hells, beneath their great tract; many also are cast into forests and into deserts, where they commit robberies among themselves.

In that world, as in the former, they traffic in various things, especially in precious stones, which, by unknown ways, they procure for themselves from heaven, where there are precious stones in abundance. The reason of their trading in precious stones is, that they read the Word in its original language, and regard the sense of its letter as holy, and precious stones correspond to the sense of the letter of the Word. On the subject of this correspondence, see The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Concerning the Sacred Scripture (n. 42-45). They sell their precious stones to the Gentiles who encircle them in the northern quarter. They also have the art of producing imitations, and of inducing the fancy that they are genuine; but they who do so are heavily fined by their governors.

The Jews are more ignorant than others as to their being in the spiritual world, believing that they are still in the natural world. The reason is, that they are wholly external men, and do not think at all of their religion from the interior. On this account also they speak of the Messiah just as they did before, as that He will come with David, and will go before them glittering with diadems, and introduce them into the land of Canaan; and that in the way, by lifting His rod, He will dry up the rivers which they will pass over; and that Christians, whom among themselves they call Gentiles, will then lay hold of the skirts of their garments, and humbly entreat to be allowed to accompany them, and that they will receive the rich according to their wealth, and that even the rich are to serve them. For they are unwilling to know, that "the land of Canaan" in the Word, means the church, and "Jerusalem," the church as to doctrine; and hence that "Jews" mean all those who will be of the Lord's church. That such is the meaning of "Jews" in the Word, may be seen in The Doctrine Concerning the Sacred Scripture (n. 51). When they are asked, whether they believe that they also are to enter the land of Canaan, they reply, that they will then descend into it. When it is said, that this land cannot possibly hold them all, they reply that it will then be enlarged. When it is said that they do not know where Bethlehem is nor who is of the stock of David, they say, that it is known to the Messiah who is to come. When asked, how the Messiah the Son of Jehovah, can dwell with those who are so evil, they reply that they are not evil. When it is said that still Moses describes them in his song (Deut. 32) as the worst of nations, they answer, that Moses at that time was angry, because he was to die. But when they are told, that Moses wrote it by the command of Jehovah, they are silent, and go away to consult about the matter. When it is said, that they took their origin from a Canaanite, and from the whoredom of Judah with his daughter-in-law (Gen. 38), they are enraged, and say, that it suffices them to be descended from Abraham. When they are told that interiorly in the Word there is a spiritual sense, which treats of Christ alone, they reply, that it is not so, but that interiorly in the Word there is nothing but gold; besides many such things.

XII. THE QUAKERS IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. There are enthusiastic spirits, separated from all others, of such gross perception, that they believe themselves to be the Holy Spirit. When Quakerism commenced, these spirits, being drawn out as it were from encircling forests where they were wandering, obsessed many; infusing the persuasion that they were moved by the Holy Spirit; and because they perceived the influx sensibly, they became so completely filled with this kind of religious persuasion, that they believed themselves more enlightened and holier than the rest; therefore also they could not be withdrawn from their religious persuasion. They who have confirmed themselves therein, come into a similar enthusiasm after death, and are separated from the rest, and sent away to their like in forests, where, at a distance, they appear like wild swine. But they who have not confirmed themselves, being separated from the others, are remanded to a place like a desert, in the extreme borders of the southern quarter, where they have caves for their temples.

After the former enthusiastic spirits were removed from them, the trembling which from these spirits had seized their bodies ceased, and they now feel a motion in their left side. It was shown, that from the first time they have gone successively into worse things, and at length, by command of their holy spirit, into heinous things, which they divulge to no one. I conversed with the founder of their religious persuasion, and with Penn, who said that they had no part in such things. But they who have perpetrated such things, are sent down after death into a dark place, where they sit in corners, appearing like the dregs of oil.

Since they have rejected the two sacraments, Baptism and the Holy Supper, and still read the Word, and preach the Lord, and speak obsessed by enthusiastic spirits, and thus commix the holy things of the Word with truths profaned, therefore no society is formed of them in the spiritual world, but after being dissociated they wander hither and thither, and are dispersed, and gathered into the above mentioned desert.

XIII. THE MORAVIANS IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. I have conversed much with the Moravians, who are also called Herrnhuters. They appeared, at first, in a valley not far from the Jews; but after being examined and detected, were conveyed away into uninhabited places. When they were being examined, they knew how with cunning to captivate minds, saying, that they were the remains of the Apostolic Church, and that therefore they salute each other as brethren, and those who receive their interior mysteries as mothers; also that they teach faith better than others and love the Lord because He suffered the cross, calling Him the Lamb, and the Throne of grace; with other like expressions, by which they induce the belief that the Christian church itself is with them. Those who are captivated by their smooth speeches and draw near to them, are examined by them to see whether they are such that they dare disclose to them their mysteries; if not they conceal them; if they can they reveal them; and then they warn and also threaten those who divulge their mystery concerning the Lord.

Since they did the same in the spiritual world, when yet it was perceived that interiorly they did not think so, in order that this might be disclosed, they were admitted into the lowest heaven; but they did not endure the sphere of the charity and faith of the angels there, and they fled away. Afterwards, because in the world they believed that they alone would be alive, and would enter the third heaven, they were also carried up into this heaven, but on perceiving the sphere of love to the Lord there, they were seized with anguish of heart, and began to suffer interior tortures, and to move convulsively, like those who are in the agony of death, therefore they cast themselves down headlong thence. In this manner it was first made manifest that inwardly they had cherished nothing of charity toward the neighbor, and nothing of love to the Lord. They were afterwards sent to those whose function it is to examine the interiors of the thoughts, and these said of them, that they hold the Lord in little estimation, that they reject the life of charity so as to abhor it, and that they make the Word of the Old Testament useless, and despise the Word of the Evangelists; only of their good pleasure selecting from Paul, where anything is said of faith alone; and that these are their mysteries, which they conceal from the world.

After it was made manifest that they acknowledge the Lord only as the Arians do, that they despise the Word of the Prophets and Evangelists, and hold a life of charity in hatred, when yet upon these three things as on pillars the whole heaven depends; then they who were in the knowledge and at the came time in the belief of their mysteries, were adjudged Anti-Christs, who reject the three essentials of the Christian church, namely, the Divine of the Lord, the Word, and charity, and were cast outside the Christian world into a desert, which is in the end of the southern quarter near the Quakers.

When Zinzendorf first came into the spiritual world after death, and was permitted to speak as before in the world, I heard him asserting, that he knew the mysteries of heaven, and that no one enters heaven who is not of his doctrine; and also, that they who do good works for the sake of salvation, are utterly damned, and that he would rather admit atheists into his congregation than them. The Lord, he said, was adopted by God the Father as His Son, because He endured the cross, and that still He was simply a man. When it was said to him, that the Lord was conceived by God the Father, he replied, that he thought of that matter as he chose, not daring to speak out as the Jews do. Moreover, I have perceived many scandals from his followers, when I have been reading the Evangelists.

They say, that they have a sensation, and thence an interior confirmation of their dogmas. But it was shown to them, that their sensation was from visionary spirits, who confirm a man in all his religious persuasions, and enter more closely with those, who like the Moravians, love their religious persuasion, and think much concerning it. These spirits also talked with them, and they mutually recognized each other.

Footnotes

53-1 There is no number 52 in the original Latin.

59-1 This was published in 1763.