5. Thus much concerning the New Heaven: something shall now be said of the New Earth. By the New Earth is meant a New Church upon the earth; for when the former Church ceases to be, a New Church is instituted by the Lord. For the Lord provides that there shall always be a Church on earth because through the Church there is a conjunction of the Lord with the human race, and of heaven with the world. For there the Lord is known, and Divine truths are there through which man has conjunction. That a New Church is being instituted at this time, may be seen in the small work on The Last Judgment [and the Destruction of Babylon], no. 74. That by the New Earth is signified a New Church, is from the spiritual sense of the Word; for in that sense, by earth or land there is not meant any particular land, but the nation itself there and its Divine worship; for this is the spiritual equivalent of land. Moreover, in the Word, by earth or land, without the addition by name of any particular territory, there is meant the land of Canaan; and in that land the Church had been from the most ancient times. On this account all those places which were in it, and adjacent to it on all sides, together with the mountains and rivers, which are mentioned in the Word, have become representative and significative of those things which are the internal things of the Church, and which are called its spiritual things. Thence it is, as said above, that by earth or land in the Word, is signified the Church, because the land of Canaan is meant; such also is the meaning here of the New Earth; this is why it has become usual in the Church to speak of the heavenly Canaan, and by that to mean heaven. That in the spiritual sense of the Word the Church is meant by the land of Canaan, is shewn in the Heavenly Arcana, in various places; from which the following may be referred to: That the Most Ancient Church which was before the flood, and the Ancient Church which was after the flood, were in the land of Canaan, nos. 567, 3686, 4447, 4454, 4516, 4517, 5136, 6516, 9325. That all places then became representative of such things as are in the Lord's Kingdom and in the Church, nos. 1585, 3686, 4447, 5136. That for this reason Abraham was commanded to go there, because among his posterity from Jacob, there would be instituted a representative Church, and a Word would be written, the ultimate sense of which would consist of the representatives and significatives, which are in that land, nos. 3686, 4447, 5136, 6516. On this ground it is, that by earth or land, and by the land of Canaan, in the Word, the Church is signified, nos. 3038, 3481, 3705, 4447, 4517, 5757, 10,568.