720. 17:2 "With whom the kings of the earth committed whoredom." This symbolically means that the Roman Catholic religion adulterated the church's goods and truths that it had from the Word.

To commit whoredom means, symbolically, to falsify and adulterate truths, as said just above in no. 719. The kings of the earth symbolize the church's truths that it has from the Word - kings symbolizing truths springing from goodness, and the earth symbolizing the church.

That kings symbolize people who possess truths springing from goodness from the Lord, and so in an abstract sense the truths themselves that spring from goodness, may be seen in nos. 20, 664 above. Here they symbolize those truths adulterated and profaned.

We are told that the kings of the earth committed whoredom with the great harlot, as though the church's truths from the Word did so, truths being symbolized by the kings of the earth. But this accords with the style of the Word in its literal sense, in which we find attributed to God and to the Divine things emanating from Him - which include the Word's truths - qualities and actions which nevertheless are those of mankind and its evils, as has often been shown above. Consequently the genuine meaning - namely the spiritual sense - is that the Roman Catholic religion adulterated, indeed profaned, the church's truths which it had from the Word.

Someone who is unacquainted with the Word's spiritual meaning may easily be deluded into believing that the kings of the earth mean earthly kings, when in fact it is not those kings that are meant, but truths springing from goodness, and in an opposite sense, falsities springing from evil.

[2] To make it still more apparent that kings of the earth mean nothing else than a church's truths or falsities, and that kings' whoredoms are the falsifications, adulterations and profanations of the church's truths that is has from the Lord, we will cite several passages from the book of Revelation and Daniel, from which anyone capable of reflecting may see that it is not kings that are meant. The passages are these:

...Jesus Christ... has made us kings and priests... (Revelation 1:5-6)

...you have made us kings and priests to our God, that we may reign on the earth. (Revelation 5:10)

...you (shall) eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains..., the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them... (Revelation 19:18)

The seven heads (of the scarlet beast) are seven mountains... They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, and one is... And the beast... is... the eighth (king), and is of the seven... (Revelation 17:9-11)

The ten horns... are ten kings that have not yet received a kingdom... (Revelation 17:12)

We are also told later, as in the present verse, that the kings of the earth have committed whoredom with and taken delight in the harlot (Revelation 18:3, 9).

Who that is capable of reflecting does not see that kings here do not mean kings?

[3] Similar things are said in Daniel. For example, that the hairy male goat means a king, and the large horn between its eyes is the first king; and that when their transgressions have reached their height, a stern-faced king will arise who understands cunning schemes (Daniel 8:21, 23). That the four great beasts that arose out of the sea were four kings that would rise up from the earth, that the fourth beast's ten horns were ten kings, and that another would arise after them that would lay low the three kings (Daniel 7:17, 24). So, too, that the king of the south and the king of the north would fight against each other; that the king of the south would send his daughter to the king of the north; that the king of the north would exalt himself against God, and would acknowledge a foreign god; that people who acknowledged that god he would honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and desirable things, and cause them to rule over many, and would divide the land for a price; that he would plant the tents of his tabernacle between the seas, in the vicinity of the glorious holy mountain; but that he would come to his end - besides much else (Daniel 11).

[4] The king of the south symbolizes a kingdom or church consisting of people in possession of truths, and the king of the north symbolizes a kingdom or church consisting of people caught up in falsities. For the text is prophetic of churches to come, such as they would be in the beginning, and what they would be like after that.

People who possess truths springing from good from the Lord are called kings because they are called the Lord's children, and having been regenerated by the Lord, they are said to have been born of Him and to be His heirs, and the Lord is the King, and heaven and the church are His kingdom.

484. To this I will append three accounts of events that occurred in the spiritual world.

The first event: I once heard in the spiritual world what sounded like the noise of a mill. It was in the northern zone there. I wondered at first what it was, but then I remembered that in the Word a mill and the grinding of grain means to seek from the Word something usable for doctrine (no. 794). Therefore I went over to the place that I heard the sound coming from, and when I drew near, the sound died away, and I saw a kind of domed structure over the earth, with an entrance leading into it through a cave. Seeing this, I went down and entered, and lo, I found a room in which I saw an elderly man sitting, surrounded by books, holding a copy of the Word in front of him and seeking from it something he could use for his doctrine. He had slips of paper lying all around, on which he recorded the texts he found. In an adjoining room there were clerks who would collect the slips of paper and copy them onto a whole sheet.

I began by asking him about the books he had around him. He said that they all dealt with justifying faith, profoundly so those from Sweden and Denmark, more profoundly those from Germany, and still more profoundly those from Britain, but most profoundly those from the Netherlands. And he added that though they differed on various points, they were all in agreement on the article of justification and salvation by faith alone.

After that he told me that he was now collecting from the Word texts in support of this first tenet of justifying faith, that God the Father turned away from grace toward the human race on account of its iniquities, and that to save the human race there arose a Divine need for someone to take upon himself the condemnation required by justice, in order to effect satisfaction, reconciliation, propitiation, and mediation, and that only His Son could possibly accomplish this. He said, too, that after that, a means of approach to God the Father was opened for the sake of the Son. Moreover he said, "I have seen and still see that this accords with all reason. How could God the Father be approached except by faith in this merit of the Son? I have also now found that this accords as well with Scripture."

[2] Listening to this, I was astounded to hear him say that it accorded with reason and with Scripture, when in fact it is contrary to reason and contrary to Scripture, and I also frankly told him so. At that his zeal moved him to hotly retort, "How can you say that?"

Therefore I told him my opinion, saying, "Is it not contrary to reason to think that God the Father turned away from grace toward the human race and rejected mankind? Is not Divine grace an attribute of the Divine essence? To turn away from grace, then, would be to turn away from His own Divine essence, and to turn away from His Divine essence would mean He was no longer God. Can God be estranged from Himself? Believe me, grace on the part of God - as it is infinite, so is it eternal. The grace of God can be lost on mankind's part if people do not accept it, but never on God's part. If grace should depart from God, it would be all over with the whole of heaven and with the whole human race, to the point that people would no longer be in the least bit human. Therefore grace on the part of God continues to eternity, not only toward angels and people, but also toward the devil himself.

"Since this accords with reason, why do you say that the only means of approach to God the Father is through faith in the merit of the Son, when in fact there is a continuing approach through grace?

[3] "Furthermore, why do you call it a means of approach to God the Father for the sake of the Son, and not to God the Father through the Son? Is not the Son the Mediator and Savior? Why do you not approach the Mediator and Savior Himself? Is He not God and man? Who on earth goes directly to some emperor, king, or prince? Must one not find a deputy or someone to introduce him? Do you not know that the Lord came into the world to Himself introduce people to the Father, and that the only means of approach is through Him? Search the Scripture now, and you will see that this accords with it, and that your way to the Father is as contrary to Scripture as it is contrary to reason. I say to you also that it is an act of impudence to climb up to God the Father directly ¹ and not through Him who is in the bosom of the Father ² and who alone is in Him. ³ Have you not read John 14:6?" ⁴

When he heard this, the elderly man became so angry that he leapt from his chair and shouted to his clerks to throw me out. And when I immediately left of my own accord, he threw out through the exit after me a book that his hand chanced upon, and that book was the Word.

[4] The second event: After I left, I heard the noise again, but this time it sounded like the noise of two millstones crashing into each other. I went in the direction of the sound and it died away, and I saw a narrow entryway leading gradually down to a kind of domed building divided into little compartments, in each of which two men were sitting, who were also collecting from the Word proof texts in support of faith. One of them would find them, and the other would write them down, and this by turns.

I went to one of the compartments and, standing in the doorway, asked, "What texts are you collecting and writing down?"

They said, "Texts about the act of justification or faith in act, which is faith itself, justifying, vivifying and saving - the principal tenet of doctrine in Christianity."

And at that I said to one of them, "Tell me some sign of the act when that faith is introduced into a person's heart and soul."

He replied, "A sign of the act exists the moment a person is moved, by grief at his being damned, to think about Christ as having taken away the condemnation of the Law, and when, conscious of that merit of Christ, with confidence in it, he turns with it in mind to God the Father and prays."

[5] "So that is how the act occurs," I said then, "and that is the moment."

And I asked, "How am I to understand what we are told about the act, that nothing in a person cooperates with it any more than if he were a stock or a stone? Or that as regards the act a person cannot initiate, will, understand, think, do, or contribute anything to it, and cannot conform or accommodate himself to it?

"Tell me how this agrees with what you said, that the act happens when a person thinks about the judgment of the Law, about his damnation having been taken away by Christ, about the confidence with which he is conscious of that merit of Christ, and with it in mind turns to God the Father and prays? Does the person not do all these things as though of himself?"

But he said, "The person does not do them actively, but passively."

[6] And I replied, "How can anyone think, have confidence, and pray passively? Take away a person's active or reactive participation - do you not also take away his receptivity, thus everything his own, and with that the act as well? What then does that act of yours become but something purely theoretical, which we call a figment of the imagination?

"I know that you do not believe in agreement with some that an act of this kind is possible only with those people predestined to it, who are not at all aware of the infusion of faith in them. These may as well cast dice to find out if it has occurred.

"Therefore believe, my friend, that in matters of faith a person operates and cooperates as though of himself, and that without that cooperation the act of faith, which you call the principal tenet of doctrine and religion, is no more than the pillar into which Lot's wife was turned, having the faint sound of nothing but salt when scratched with a writer's pen or fingernail (Luke 17:32 ⁵ ). I say this because as regards that act you makes yourselves to be like statues."

When I said that, the man arose and picked up the lamp violently to throw it at my face. But suddenly then the lamp went out and the room became dark, so that he hurled it at the forehead of his companion. And I went away laughing.

[7] The third event: I heard in the northern zone of the spiritual world what sounded like the rushing of water. I went therefore in that direction, and when I drew near, the rushing sound stopped, and I heard what sounded like a gathering of people. Moreover a house full of holes then appeared, surrounded by a wall, from which I heard the sound coming. I approached and found there a doorkeeper, and I asked him who were inside. He said that they were the wisest of the wise, who were coming to conclusions together about metaphysical subjects.

He spoke as he did out of the simplicity of his faith, and I asked if I might be permitted to enter. He said that I could, provided that I not say anything.

"I can let you in," he said, "because I have permission to let in the gentiles here who are standing with me at the door."

I went in therefore, and lo, I found an amphitheater with a rostrum in the middle of it, and the company of the so-called wise were discussing mysteries of faith. The matter or proposition submitted for discussion then was whether the good that a person does in a state of justification by faith, or in the progress of that state after the act, constitutes the good of religion or not. They were unanimous in saying that the good of religion means good that contributes to salvation.

[8] It was an acrimonious discussion, but those prevailed who said that any good that a person does in a state of faith or its progression is only moral, civic, or political good, which contributes nothing to salvation, but that only faith contributes anything. They established this as follows:

"How can any work of man be coupled with something free? Is not salvation bestowed gratis? How can any good work of man be coupled with the merit of Christ? Is not Christ's merit the only means of salvation? And how can any operation of man be coupled with the operation of the Holy Spirit? Does not the Holy Spirit accomplish everything without the help of man? Are not these three elements the only saving ones in any act of faith? And not do these three also continue to be the only saving ones in the state or progression of faith?

"Therefore any additional good that a person does can by no means be called a good of religion, a good which, as we said, contributes to salvation. If, however, someone does that good for the sake of salvation, it must rather be called an evil of religion."

[9] Two of the gentiles were standing by the doorkeeper in the vestibule, and having heard this, they said to each other, "These people do not have any religion. Who does not see that to do good to the neighbor for God's sake, thus in association with God and impelled by God, is what we call religion." And one of them said, "Their faith has made them foolish." And they asked the doorkeeper who the people were.

The doorkeeper said, "They are wise Christians."

To which they replied, "Nonsense. You are wrong. They are buffoons. That is how they talk."

I then went away. And when after a time I looked back at the place where the house had stood, behold, it was a marsh.

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[10] These events that I saw and heard, I saw and heard while awake in both body and spirit, for the Lord has so united my spirit to my body that I am present in both simultaneously.

My visiting those houses, and the people's deliberations on those matters then, and its happening as described, came about under the Lord's Divine auspices.

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