Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/241

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THE BELLIGERANT BEAST.
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two essentials of the New Church, which are meant by the witnesses. Fire is infernal love; for he who does not live according to the commandments of the decalogue, and approach God the Saviour and Redeemer, cannot he otherwise than in infernal love, and perish.

This is similar to its being said, in other parts of the Word, that fire proceeds from Jehovah to consume the wicked; and that Jehovah acts from the fire of his wrath, auger, and fury; not to mention other expressions of a like kind; by which it is not meant that this comes from Jehovah, but from the infernal love of the wicked. Such expressions are used in the Word, because they are appearances; the Word in its literal sense being written according to correspondences and appearances. (A. R. 493.)


THE BEAST THAT WARS UPON THEM.

"The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war with them, and shall overcome them, and kill them," signifies that they who are principled in the internals of the doctrine of faith alone, will oppose and assault these two essentials of the New Church, will reject them, and as far as lies in their power, will cause others to reject them.

By the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit, are meant they who came up out of the bottomless pit and appeared like locusts, chap. ix. 1-12. These were they who are in the internals of the doctrine of faith

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