Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/210

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XIX.

THE LAST JUDGMENT ACCOMPLISHED.


THE last judgment does not take place on the earth, but in the spiritual world, where all who have lived from the beginning of creation are together. Since this is so, it is impossible for any man to know when the last judgment is accomplished; for every one expects it to occur on earth, accompanied by a change of all things in the visible heaven, and in the countries of the earth, and in mankind who dwell there.

Lest therefore the man of the church from ignorance should live in such a belief, and lest they who think of a last judgment should expect it for ever, whence at length the belief of those things which are said of it in the literal sense of the Word must perish, and lest haply therefore many should recede from their faith in the Word, it has been granted me to see with my own eyes that the last judgment is now accomplished; that the evil are cast into hell and the good elevated into heaven; and thus that all things are reduced to order,—the spiritual equilibrium between good and evil, or between heaven and hell, being thence restored.

It was granted me to see from beginning to end