6587. 'And Joseph said to his brothers, I am dying' means a foretelling that the internal of the Church is about to come to an end. This is clear from the meaning of 'Joseph' as the internal, dealt with in 6499, here the internal of the Church since the establishment of the Church by the internal, that is, by the Lord through the internal, has been the subject in what has gone before; and from the meaning of 'dying' as ceasing to be such, dealt with in 494, thus coming to an end. 'Dying' also means the final period of the Church, 2908, 2912, 2917, 2923; and a foretelling regarding that final period is meant by 'Joseph said to his brothers', for in what follows from here to the end of the chapter the subject is a further state of the Church. From all this it is evident that 'Joseph said to his brothers, I am dying' means that the internal of the Church is about to come to an end.

[2] The situation is that for the Church to exist it must be internal and external; for there are those who are in the internal domain of the Church and there are those who are in its external domain, the former being few, but the latter very many. Even so, those with whom the internal Church exists must have the external Church with them also, for the internal of the Church is inseparable from its external; and those with whom the external Church exists must have the internal Church with them also, though with them the internal Church exists in obscurity.

[3] The internal of the Church consists in willing good from the heart and being stirred by an affection for good, while the external of that internal consists in performing such good and doing so in accordance with the truth of faith, the knowledge of which springs from good. But the external of the Church consists in the sacred performance of religious observances and the practice of charitable works as instructed by the Church. From all this it is clear that the internal of the Church is the good of charity in the will. Therefore when this comes to an end the Church itself also comes to an end, for the good of charity is the essential constituent of the Church. After that external worship does, it is true, remain as it was before; yet now it is not worship but ceremony which is preserved because it is the established custom. But such ceremony, which seems to be worship, is like the shell without the nut; for it is the external that remains but does not have anything internal within it. When the Church is like this it is at its end.