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. .

631. 14:8 And another angel followed, saying, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city." This symbolically means that the Roman Catholic religion has now been dispelled with respect to its dogmas and doctrines.

Another angel symbolizes something new now from the Lord, as in no. 626 above. The great city Babylon symbolizes the Roman Catholic religion with respect to its dogmas and doctrines. To fall means, symbolically, to be dispersed, for falling is said of a city, but dispersed is said of a religion and its doctrine, which is what the city Babylon symbolizes. That a city symbolizes doctrine may be seen in no. 194 above.

This declaration is now made about Babylon because after the Lord formed the New Christian Heaven, He at the same time formed a new one with people who were of the Roman Catholic religion. The reason is that the Christian heaven composed of the Protestant Reformed forms the core, and Roman Catholics are situated round about it. Consequently, when the core is new, what is on the peripheries is at the same time new. For the Divine light, which is Divine truth, propagates itself from the middle as a center into the peripheries round about, and the things that are in them are also put in order. It is for this reason that this brief reference to Babylon is made now, even though it is the subject taken up specifically in chapters 17, 18.

That Protestant Christians constitute the core, and Roman Catholics form the great peripheral area surrounding it, and that spiritual light, which is the Divine truth emanating from the Lord, radiates from the center all around to the peripheral areas, even to the last of them, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, nos. 104-113 and in the small work, The Last Judgment48.

It may be seen from this that after dealing with the New Christian Heaven and preaching the gospel, the declaration regarding Babylon follows in the sequence. This, too, is the symbolic meaning of the word "followed."