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Dhammapada · narration sample

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A Continuation Concerning the Last Judgment · 1 of 12

The Last Judgment Has Been Accomplished

1.I. THE LAST JUDGMENT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED. In the former small work on The Last Judgment, the following subjects were treated of: The day of the Last Judgment does not mean the destruction of the world (n. 1-5). The procreations of the human race will never cease (n. 6-13). Heaven and hell are from the human race (n. 14-22). All who have ever been born men from the beginning of creation, and are deceased, are either in heaven or in hell (n. 23-27). The Last Judgment must be where all are together; therefore in the spiritual world, and not on the earth (n. 28-32). The Last Judgment exists when the end of the church is; and the end of the church is when there is no faith, because there is no charity (n. 33-39). All the things which are predicted in the Apocalypse are at this day fulfilled (n. 40-44). The Last Judgment has been accomplished (n. 45-52). Babylon and its destruction (n. 53-64). The former heaven and its abolition (n. 65-72). The state of the world and of the church hereafter (n. 73-74).

2.The subject of the Last Judgment is continued, principally that it may be known what the state of the world and the church was before the Last Judgment, and what the state of the world and the church has become since; also, how the Last Judgment was accomplished upon the Reformed.

3.It is a common opinion in the Christian world, that the whole heaven we see, and the whole earth inhabited by men will perish at the day of the Last Judgment, and that a new heaven and a new earth will exist in their places; that the souls of men will then receive their bodies, and that man will thus again be man as before. This opinion has become a matter of faith, because the Word has not been understood otherwise than according to the sense of its letter; and it could not be understood otherwise, until its spiritual sense was disclosed, also, because by many the belief has been acquired that the soul is only a breath exhaled by man; and that spirits, as well as angels, are of the substance of wind. While there was such a deficiency of understanding concerning souls, and concerning spirits and angels, the Last Judgment could not be thought of in any other manner. But when it comes to be understood, that a man is a man after death, just as he was a man in the world, with the sole difference that then he is clothed with a spiritual body, and not as before with a natural body; and that the spiritual body appears before those who are spiritual, even as the natural body appears before those who are natural, it may then also be understood, that the Last Judgment will not be in the natural, but in the spiritual world; for all the men who were ever born and have died, are together there.

4.When this is understood, then may the paradoxes be dissipated, which man would otherwise think concerning the state of souls after death, and their reunion with putrid corpses, and concerning the destruction of the created universe, thus concerning the Last Judgment. The paradoxes concerning the state of souls after death that he would think are these: That man would then be like an exhalation, or like wind, or like ether; either that he would be floating in the air, or not abiding in any place, but in a somewhere, which they call Pu; and that he would see nothing, because he had no eyes; hear nothing, because he had no ears; speak nothing, because he had no mouth; and would therefore be blind, deaf, and dumb; and continually in the expectation, which could not but be sad, of receiving again at the day of the Last Judgment, those functions of the soul from which all the delight of life proceeds. Also that the souls of all who have lived since the first creation, must be in a like miserable state, and that the men who lived fifty or sixty centuries ago, were likewise still floating in the air, or remaining in Pu, and awaiting judgment; besides other lamentable things.

5.I pass over paradoxes, similar to, and equally numerous with these, which the man who does not know that he is a man after death as before, must think concerning the destruction of the universe. But when he knows that a man after death is not an exhalation or a wind, but a spirit, and if he has lived well, an angel in heaven, and that spirits and angels are men in a perfect form, can then think from his understanding concerning the state of man after death, and the Last Judgment, and not from faith separate from the understanding, from which mere traditions go forth: and he may also with certainty conclude from his understanding, that the Last Judgment, which is predicted in the Word, will not exist in the natural world, but in the spiritual world, where all are together: and furthermore, that whenever it does exist, it must be revealed, for the sake of belief in the Word.

6.Put away from you the idea that the soul is like an exhalation, and then think of your own state, or of the state of your friends, or of the state of your infants after death. Will you not think that you will live a man, and they likewise? And since there is no life which is life without the senses, you cannot think otherwise than that they also see, hear, and speak; thus also panegyrists write over the deceased, placing them in heaven among the angels, in white garments, and in paradises. But if afterwards you relapse into the idea, that the soul is an exhalation, and has no sensitive life until after the Last Judgment, can you help being distracted when you think, What and where shall I be in the meantime? Shall I float in the air, or remain in Pu? Yet the preacher teaches me that after death I shall come among the happy, if I have believed well and lived well. You may believe then, as the truth is, that you are a man after death as well as before it, with only the difference that there is between the natural and the spiritual. Thus also all those think who believe in eternal life, and know nothing of this hypothetical tradition concerning the soul.

7.From what has been said already, it may appear that the Last Judgment cannot exist in the natural world, but in the spiritual world. That it also has existed there, may be seen from the things related of it from sight, in the former small work on The Last Judgment (n. 45-72), and still further from the particulars about to be related from sight, of the Last Judgment upon the Reformed. He who attends may also see it from the new things which are now revealed concerning heaven, the Word, and the church. What man can draw such things from himself?