20. That the Lord derives and produces the new Church on earth through the new heaven by means of a revelation of truths from His mouth or from His Word, and by inspiration, will be shown in the section concerning the four Churches in their order, especially concerning the Israelitish and the present Christian Church. It should be known, that, when hell surged up, and passed over the great interstice, or gulf, fixed between itself and heaven (Luke xvi 26), and reared up its back even to the confines of the heavens where the angels are,-which came to pass at intervals of the vastation and consummation of the Church,-no doctrine whatever of the Church could be conveyed through heaven, from the Lord, to men of the earth. The reason is, that, at such times, man is in the midst of satans; and satans envelop his head with their falsities, and inspire the delights of evil and the consequent attractions of falsity, whereby all the light from heaven is darkened, and all the pleasure and attraction of truth is intercepted. As long as this state continues, there cannot be infused into man any doctrine whatever of truth and good out of heaven, because it is falsified. [2] But, after this tangled veil of falsities, or covering of the head by satans, is taken away by the Lord-which is effected by the Last Judgment (of which above, in Article IV.)-then man is led, in a freer and more spontaneous spirit, to discard falsities and to receive truths. With those who are compliant, and suffer themselves to be led by the Lord, the doctrine of the new heaven, which is the doctrine of truth and good, is afterwards conveyed down and introduced, like the morning dew falling from heaven to the earth, which opens the pores of plants, and sweetens their vegetable juices: and it is like the manna which fell in the mornings, and was in appearance
Like coriander seed, white, and in taste like a cake kneaded with honey (Exod. xvi 31).
It is also like seasonable rain, which refreshes the newly-ploughed fields and causes germination, and like the fragrance exhaling from fields, gardens and flowery plains, which the breast eagerly and delightedly draws in with the breath. But still, the Lord compels or urges no one against his will, as one does a beast of burden with whips; but He draws and afterwards continually leads him who is willing, to all appearance as though the willing man did goods and believed truths of himself, when yet it is from the Lord, who operates every genuine good of life, and every genuine truth of faith in him.
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