Canons of the New Church # 27
27. CHAPTER IV. THE PROGRESSION OF A CHURCH TOWARDS ITS END, AND THE END ITSELF, ARE DESCRIBED IN VERY MANY PLACES IN THE WORD
1. A successive decreasing of good and truth and increasing of evil and falsity in a Church is termed in the Word its "being laid waste" and "becoming desolate".
2. Its final state, when there is nothing of good or truth remaining, is there termed "consummation" and "being cut off".
3. The end itself of a Church is the "fullness [of time]".
4. The same things also are meant in the Word by "evening" and "night".
5. And also by these things in the Prophets and in the Gospels: then shall the sun be darkened, the moon shall not give her light, the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. 1
6. Then the Church exists no longer except in name; nevertheless, there is this "remnant" in it, that a man, if he wishes, can know and understand truths, and can do goods. 2
Poznámky pod čarou:
1. See Isa. 13:10; Ezek. 32:7; Joel 2:10, 31; 3:15; Amos 8:9; Matt. 24:29; Mark 13:24; Luke 21:25-26; Rev. 6:12-13 8:10, 12.
2. In the margin of the Nordenskjold manuscript by another hand are the words: "But now hardly one in the whole of Christendom wishes to know."
Ezekiel 1:26-28
26
And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it.
27
And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.
28
As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake.
