without limit. At least one can say that thoughtful people regard his message as superlative. And therefore we present his interpretation of the 12th chapter of the Book of Revelation as at least worthy of the most serious consideration, certainly consistent with the facts in the case and deserving of deepest study, despite one's prejudices.
The story in the 12th chapter of Revelation is of the woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars, in Swedenborg's Apocalypse Revealed we read that the woman represents the Lord's New Church—or the New Christian Dispensation succeeding the old and vastated church or dispensation, which New Church is later known as the New Jerusalem in the 21st chapter. Swedenborg tells us that everywhere in the Word a woman signifies the Church, or the reception of the Lord's life—the Lord the bridegroom and the Church His wife. This understanding of the woman as symbolizing the Church is everywhere received. To be clothed with the sun means to be clothed with the Divine Love which is signified by the sun because of its heat and creative power as representing Divine Love. The moon under the woman's feet—its light derived from the sun—tells us of the New Church founded upon Faith in the Lord and about to be on the earth. The crown of twelve stars represents the completeness of the knowledges (stars) of Divine good and Divine truth from the Word.
The woman was travailing and about to bring forth a man child, the child representing the new teaching of the Christian religion about to be brought forth, the travailing signifying the resistance on the part of those opposed to the new understanding of religion. We can well understand that a new doctrine revealing the iniquity of the doctrine of Faith Alone would be resisted by those who accept Faith Alone.
Swedenborg tells us that the Great Dragon signifies those who make God three, and who make Faith saving, but not love to the neighbor with it. The two essentials of the New Church, and its doctrine, the man-child, are (1) that God is one in Jesus: (Did not Paul say: "In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily"?) and (2) that true religion is love to God and to the neighbor in
