Apocalypse Revealed # 758
758. 18:3 "For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her licentiousness, and the kings of the earth have committed whoredom with her." This symbolically means that Roman Catholics have produced nefarious dogmas, dogmas that are adulterations and profanations of the Word's goodness and truth, and have imbued with them all those born and brought up in the kingdoms under their domination.
That this is the symbolic meaning of these words can be seen from the explanations in nos. 631, 632 and 720, 721 above, where similar imagery occurs, and we have no need to add more, except to say that similar statements regarding Babel are made in Jeremiah:
Babylon was a golden cup in Jehovah's hand, that made all the earth drunk. The nations drank of her wine; therefore they are deranged. (Jeremiah 51:7)
And:
Babylon shall become... a hissing... When they are inflamed I will lay their feasts; I will make them drunk, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep and not awake. (Jeremiah 51:37, 39)
The wine that they drink that makes them drunk symbolizes their dogmas, and how nefarious these are may be seen in no. 753 above. One of those dogmas is this nefarious one, that the works people do in conformity with their tenets earn merits, by causing the Lord's merit and righteousness to be transcribed into the works and thus into them. And yet every bit of charity, and every bit of faith, or all good and truth, comes from the Lord, and what comes from the Lord continues to be the Lord's in its recipients. For what comes from the Lord is Divine, which can never become a person's own.
Something Divine can be present in a person, but not in his native self, for a person's native self is nothing but evil. Therefore someone who claims for himself something Divine as his own, not only defiles it, but also profanes it. Something Divine from the Lord is kept carefully separate from a person's native self, being elevated above it and never immersed in it.
But because Roman Catholics have transferred all the Lord's Divinity to themselves, and so have appropriated it as their own, it flows like rainwater mixed with pitch, from a fountain of tar.
The case is the same with the dogma that justification is real sanctification, and that their saints are holy in themselves, even though the Lord alone is holy (Revelation 15:4).
For more on the subject of merit, see The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine (London, 1758), nos. 150-158! Could not find a match for this book: nos. .
The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings # 151
151. Good that is really good must be done from a love of what is good and therefore for the sake of the good that is accomplished. When we devote our lives to this love we do not want even to hear about getting credit because we love what we are doing and find real pleasure in it. Quite the opposite: it saddens us if people think we have done something out of self-interest. 1 It is very much like helping our friends for the sake of friendship, our sisters and brothers for the sake of family, our spouse and children for their sakes, and our country for its sake, and therefore doing what we are doing out of friendship and love. If we think of it, we even tell them with conviction that we are not being helpful for our own sake but for theirs.
Notas de rodapé:
1. The Latin here translated "self-interest" is proprio, literally, "what belongs to oneself," "one's own. " Though the Latin word is an adjective in origin, it is commonly used as a noun, as in this passage, to mean the self and the qualities that belong to the self. For further discussion of the Latin term, see note 1 in New Jerusalem 70. [GFD]
