Heaven and its Wonders and Hell | Page 2

born within the church refuse to believe in them, saying in their hearts, "Who has come from that world and told us?" Lest, therefore, such a spirit of denial, which especially prevails with those who have much worldly wisdom, should also infect and corrupt the simple in heart and the simple in faith, it has been granted me to associate with angels and to talk with them as man with man, also to see what is in the heavens and what is in the hells, and this for thirteen years; so now from what I have seen and heard it has been granted me to describe these, in the hope that ignorance may thus be enlightened and unbelief dissipated. Such immediate revelation is granted at this day because this is what is meant by the Coming of the Lord.
[REFERENCES TO THE AUTHOR'S ARCANA COELESTIA.]
{Footnote 1} The consummation of the age is the final period of the church (n. 4535, 10622).
{Footnote 2} The Lord's predictions in Matthew (24 and 25), respecting the consummation of the age and His coming, and the consequent successive vastation of the church and the final judgment, are explained in the prefaces to chapters 26-40 of Genesis (n. 3353-3356, 3486-3489, 3650-3655, 3751-3757, 3897-3901, 4056-4060, 4229-4231, 4332-4335, 4422-4424, 4635- 4638, 4661-4664, 4807-4810, 4954-4959, 5063-5071).
{Footnote 3} Both in the wholes and in the particulars of the Word there is an internal or spiritual sense (n. 1143, 1984, 2135, 2333, 2395, 2495, 4442, 9048, 9063, 9086).
{Footnote 4} The Word is written solely by correspondences, and for this reason each thing and all things in it have a spiritual meaning (n. 1404, 1408, 1409, 1540, 1619, 1659, 1709, 1783, 2900, 9086).
{Footnote 5} In the Word the "sun" signifies the Lord in respect to love, and in consequence love to the Lord (n. 1529, 1837, 2441, 2495, 4060, 4696, 7083, 10809).
{Footnote 6} In the Word the "moon" signifies the Lord in respect to faith, and in consequence faith in the Lord (n. 1529, 1530, 2495, 4060, 4696, 7083).
{Footnote 7} In the Word "stars" signify knowledges of good and truth (n. 2495, 2849,4697).
{Footnote 8} "Tribes" signify all truths and goods in the complex, thus all things of faith and love (n. 3858, 3926, 4060, 6335).
{Footnote 9} The coming of the Lord signifies His presence in the Word, and revelation (n 3900,4060).
{Footnote 10} In the Word clouds signify the Word in the letter or the sense of its letter (n. 4060, 4391, 5922, 6343, 6752, 8106, 8781, 9430, 10551, 10574).
{Footnote 11} In the Word "glory" signifies Divine truth as it is in heaven and as it is in the internal sense of the Word (n. 4809, 5922, 8267, 8427, 9429, 10574).
{Footnote 12} A "trumpet" or "horn" signifies Divine truth in heaven, and revealed from heaven (n. 8158, 8823, 8915); and "voice" has a like signification (n. 6771, 9926).

2. I. THE GOD OF HEAVEN IS THE LORD
First of all it must be known who the God of heaven is, since upon that all the other things depend. Throughout all heaven no other than the Lord alone is acknowledged as the God of heaven. There it is said, as He Himself taught,
That He is one with the Father; that the Father is in Him, and He in the Father; that he who sees Him sees the Father; and that everything that is holy goes forth from Him (John 10:30, 35; 14:9-11; 16:13-15).
I have often talked with angels on this subject, and they have invariably declared that in heaven they are unable to divide the Divine into three, because they know and perceive that the Divine is One and this One is in the Lord. They also said that those of the church who come from this world having an idea of three Divine beings cannot be admitted into heaven, since their thought wanders from one Divine being to another; and it is not allowable there to think three and say one.{1} Because in heaven everyone speaks from his thought, since speech there is the immediate product of the thought, or the thought speaking. Consequently, those in this world who have divided the Divine into three, and have adopted a different idea of each, and have not made that idea one and centered it in the Lord, cannot be received into heaven, because in heaven there is a sharing of all thoughts, and therefore if any one came thinking three and saying one, he would be at once found out and rejected. But let it be known that all those who have not separated what is true from what is good, or faith from love, accept in the other life, when they have been taught, the heavenly idea of the Lord, that He is the God of the universe. It is otherwise with those who have separated