19^th of June
and
the Last judgment

It is a rule of universal extension that the state of judgment and separation must precede that of instruction.  In man's regeneration this is seen in the fact that before he can be truly instructed he must first see the quality of the state in which he is, and must separate himself from it.  In the establishment of the New Church, as of every former Church, it is seen in the revealed fact that such establishment can never be effected until the doctrines of the former church are seen and rejected. (B. E. 102-104.)

This is the principle involved in the inter-relation of those two events, the Last Judgment, in 1757, and the sending forth of the apostles on the nineteenth of June in 1770, thirteen years later.

In the Last Judgment there was a nearer approach of the Lord to those societies in the world of spirits who, externally, were in all the form and life of heaven.  These societies were, essentially, Christian societies, - societies of spirits who had the Word, who knew the Lord, and who, on earth, had lived, to all human judgment, a more or less pious and Christian life.  Their life and worship were continued in the World of Spirits, and because their words and deeds were, at all events, in appearance, Christian, they were associated with the heavens and became, as it were, ultimate or natural heavens or societies.  Doubtless, in the first period of the Christian dispensation, the simple good were abundantly present in these natural societies: but as the Church on earth declined, so the number of spirits who were Christian in externals only but not in internals grew apace until the societies became filled with interior iniquity and the denial of God.

It is these societies that constituted the First Heaven which passed away in order that a New Heaven might be established.  They were called Heaven because they assumed the externals of the Christian Church—belief in the Lord and the Word—which were to be the externals of the New Heaven.  For the same reason they are called in the Writings, Seeming or Imaginary Heavens.

The first step in the establishment of the New Heaven and of the New Church was the exposure and dispersal of these imaginary heavens.  As was said, this was effected by the nearer approach of the Lord.  By such approach the eyes of the simple were enlightened, and the evils of those who were astute and hypocritical impostors in their societies were laid bare; so that the latter, as of themselves, entered into open rejection of all they had hitherto professed, and were then dispersed, while the former, with illumined minds, saw the rottenness concealed beneath the veil of hypocrisy, and, as of themselves, separated from their former companions.

This was the first step in the establishment of the New Heaven, and, consequently, of the New Church on earth—the Last Judgment which, commencing in the beginning of the year 1757, was the final culmination of many preceding premonitory signs and lesser judgments. (L. J. Post. 134)

The second step was the arrangement of the good spirits who had been separated from the imaginary heavens, together with others who by reason of greater intelligence and love had been separated previously and been kept by the Lord in another place—the arrangement of these into heavenly societies and their instruction in the heavenly doctrines.

By this instruction a new heaven was formed, that is, a new internal of the World of Spirits.  The former internal had been the imaginary Christian heaven, a false heaven which instead of enlightening the World of Spirits and men on earth, had interposed itself between angels and men and had obscured the light of Divine Truth.  With the formation of a new internal by the Lord, or of a heaven of genuine Christians approaching the Lord and worshiping Him in the perception of Divine Truth, the light of heaven flowed down into the minds of spirits in the World of Spirits, and enabled them to see, if they would, and discriminate between what was true and what was false, what was real and what imaginary.

It was from this new influx of light into the World of Spirits that the understandings of men on earth could be first truly enlightened to see and acknowledge the truths now revealed by the Lord.  And it is interesting in this connection to note a repeated statement of the Writings, to the effect that no revelation could be given for the New Church until the Last Judgment had been effected.  As a matter of history, the largest work of the Writings, the Arcana Cœlestia, was completed and its last volume published in 1756, one year before the Last Judgment; but it is a significant fact that until the year 1760, thus two years after the Last Judgment had been accomplished, there was not, so far as is known, a single receiver of the new revelation.  In that year Mr. Thomas Cookworthy is reported to have fully accepted it, and he was followed, in the years preceding the sending forth of the Apostles, by Beyer, Rosen, and Hartley, and perhaps one or two others.  It is undoubtedly in the light of this fact that we are to understand the statement as to revelation not being possible before the Last Judgment.  There was no reception until after that event, and the reception was then possible by reason of the light in the New Heaven then being formed.

Still, though there was this little handful of men who received the Writings of Swedenborg, their's was but the dim light which precedes the dawning of the day.  There was, apparently, no thought of a New Church in the full sense of the word; there was certainly no external separation from the former church, no new baptism, no priesthood, no worship.  The institution of the Church was still in the future.

The Last Judgment had been accomplished; the New Heaven was in course of being formed and ordinated; but still another step was necessary before there could be a descent of the New Church from the New Heaven and its establishment on earth. This step is what is represented by the Nineteenth of June.  On that day, in the year 1770, the twelve disciples who had followed the Lord in the world were sent forth into the whole spiritual world to preach the gospel. They were to preach a doctrine known to the First Christian Church—that the Lord reigneth and that His Kingdom is to eternity,—but it was in reality a new doctrine, because preached from the light of a New Heaven, and filled with new and interior truths theretofore unknown.  This New Heaven was, as it were, a new heart and lungs from which the whole spiritual world was to be renewed, vivified, and held in order, and, from the spiritual world, men on the countless earths of the universe.  During the twelve years which intervened between the Last Judgment and the sending forth of the Apostles, the process of instituting, ordaining and forming the New Heaven was going on; and it was undoubtedly for the further accomplishment of this work that, during this period, a few men, even on earth, were led to receive the doctrines and to thus become instrumental in strengthening and completing the sphere of the New Heaven.

The Nineteenth of June in the year 1770 marks the time when this New Heaven had reached such a stage of formation and ordination that from it could be sent emissaries to regenerate the universe.  At that time this heaven had not yet been completed, (Documents II, p. 383), but still the very fact that the Apostles were sent forth, itself indicates that its formation had then reached a certain stage of completion.  It would seem that the evangelization of the spiritual world was itself one of the means by which the New Heaven was to be completed in order for its descent to earth.  Before this final descent the light of the New Heaven was first to descend to spirits in the World of Spirits by which means the New Heaven itself approached to fuller completion.

The Nineteenth of June also marks the completion of the written revelation on earth, which was to provide true vessels in the minds of men for the reception of the light from the New Heaven.  And the descent of this light by the evangelization of the spiritual world, commenced in 1770, was finally ultimated seventeen years later, when, in 1787, the New Church was instituted, completely separate from the former church, and with its distinct priesthood, baptism, and worship.  As that Church remains faithful the light of the New Heaven will continue to be received therein as in a center, and itself will in turn contribute to the fuller perfection of the Heaven from whose light, pervading and enlightening the spiritual world, it will grow in heavenly beauty.

These three stages in the establishment of the New Church are what are suggested by the title of this paper: The separation from the imaginary heavens; the formation of a New Heaven; the descent of light from that Heaven.  The same stages are observed in the regeneration of man.  First is the confession of evils and separation from them; thus the formation of a new internal in the perception of the light of heaven: and finally, a descent of that internal to revivify or regenerate the whole man.

These three stages, moreover, are to be observed in the actual establishment of the Church on earth, both in the individual and in the common body, for without them the Church cannot be said to exist.

First there must be a judgment and complete separation from the former Church; for the vastated Church is, in reality, an imaginary Church or an imaginary heaven on earth.  This separation is to be effected by the Writings, that is to say, by the Lord in the Divine Truth in which He draws near to man.  That this judgment of the Old Church from the Divine Revelation of its quality, and a consequent total separation from it, is the first essential to the establishment of the New Church is not only indicated by the fact of the Last Judgment, but also by the teaching of the Writings that without such separation the doctrines of the Church will effect only a palliative cure. (Inv. 25.)

It is this perception of the state of the Old Church, of its evils and falses in theology, in religion, in science, that has been one of the great factors in the establishment of the New Church.  By seeing these things in the former church we are first enabled to see the state of the New Church,—that it is spiritual, not natural.  But failing this acknowledgment with respect to the vastated Church, there is bound to be a blindness as to the true nature of the New Church, and a consequent seeing of the presence of that Church where it is not,—of something spiritual and real where there is naught but what is merely natural and imaginary.

By the separation from the vastated Church actually, and, what is more important, in thought and life, there is formed among men a new internal of thought and life by communication with the New Heaven.  It is the descent of the new internal into externals to form new ideas, new thoughts, new actions, a new education, a new life, which, it seems to us, is peculiarly represented by the Nineteenth of June.  And it may be remarked as an interesting fact, that this day has been celebrated as a festival of the Church only where there has been a recognition of the vastated state of the Christian Church and the Christian world, a separation from it, and an endeavor to receive a new and spiritual conception of the Church.  And I think I am safe in the assertion that the Cody or Society which observes the Nineteenth of June as a day of the New Church, by that same token has something of an acknowledgment of the state of the Old Church, some actual desire and endeavor to separate from it, and some perception of the genuine nature of the New Church.

This day, therefore, peculiarly represents the intrinsic quality of the New Church, whose religion is interior or spiritual, and fundamentally opposed to the religion of the world around us.  It is peculiarly a day of the New Church, representing the descent of that Church from the New Heaven.  And the man who sees this heavenly duality in the Church and her heaven-born doctrines will hardly disregard this her festal day.  He may not actually celebrate it, but he will revere and prize all that it represents; and this state will not long exist in the Church without leading to the actual celebration of the Nineteenth, when the mind may be more fully directed to the Lord in gratitude for that new spiritual life and light which, now over a hundred and thirty years ago, the Apostles were sent forth to carry to the dwellers of the universe.  Where that new light and life are seen and prized there will this day be celebrated, where they are unseen or unacknowledged, there the day will be passed by in silence.