The Bible

 

Genesis 1:12

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12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1002

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1002. 'Not eating' means not mixing together. This follows from what has been said above. Regarded in itself eating animal flesh is something profane, for in most ancient times people never ate the flesh of any beast or bird, but only different kinds of grain, especially wheaten bread, also the fruit of trees, vegetables, milk, and milk products such as butter. Slaughtering living creatures and eating their flesh was to them abominable, akin to the behaviour of wild animals. Service and use alone was demanded of those creatures, as is clear from Genesis 1:29-30. But in the process of time when mankind began to be as savage as wild animals, indeed more savage, they first began to slaughter living creatures and eat their flesh. And because man had become such, he was permitted to do so and is still permitted today. And insofar as he does so from conscience, it is quite legitimate, for his conscience is given form from all those things he presumes to be true and so legitimate. Consequently nobody nowadays stands in any sense condemned because he eats meat.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #2118

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2118. The expression 'Last Judgement' is used to mean the final period of a Church, and also to mean the final phase of each person's life. As regards the final period of a Church, the Last Judgement of the Most Ancient Church, which had existed before the Flood, occurred when their descendants perished, whose destruction is described by the Flood. The Last Judgement of the Ancient Church, which existed after the Flood, took place when almost all who belonged to that Church had become idolaters and had been scattered. The Last Judgement of the representative Church, which followed next, among the descendants of Jacob, came about when the ten tribes were led away into captivity and dispersed among the gentile nations; and later on when the Jews after the Lord's Coming were expelled from the land of Canaan and were scattered throughout the whole world. The Last Judgement of the Church existing at present, which is called the Christian Church, is what 'the new heaven and the new earth' is used to mean in John in the Book of Revelation.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.