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demons, are signified concupiscences of evil, n. 458; and, also, the lusts of falsifying truths; but demons, like lusts, are of several kinds; the worst are those who are lusts exercising dominion, from the heat of self-love, over the holy things of the church and over heaven; and as this love of sovereignty reigns in their hearts, they are also the lusts of profaning the truths of heaven from the spurious zeal of that love. And since they, on their becoming demons, as is the case after death, know that the Lord only rules over heaven and earth, they become hatreds against him, insomuch that after the lapse of an age they cannot endure to hear him named. From these considerations it is evident, that by Babylon becoming the habitation of demons, is signified that their hells are hells of the lusts of dominion originating from the heat of self-love, and of the lusts of profaning the truths of heaven from the spurious zeal of that love. It is not known in the world, that all after death become affections of the love which reigns within them; they who have looked up to the Lord and to heaven, and at the same time have shunned evils as sins, become good affections; but they who have looked only to themselves and the world, and have shunned evils not because they were sins, but only injurious as to their honor and character, become evil affections, which are concupiscences. These affections appear to the life, and are perceived in the spiritual world; whereas the thoughts only which proceed from affections appear in the natural world. Hence it is, that man does not know that hell resides in the effections of the love of evil, and heaven in the affections of the love of good; and the reason why he does not perceive this, is, because the lusts of the love of evil, owing to their being hereditary, are delightful in the will, and thence pleasant in the understanding and man does not reflect upon that which is delightful and pleasant, because it carries his mind along, just as the current of a river carries a ship; wherefore, they who are immersed in those delights and pleasures, cannot arrive at the delights and pleasures of the affections of the love of good and truth, otherwise than after the manner of those who with a strong arm ply their oars against the

tide but the case is different with such as have not im→ mersed themselves so deeply.

757. "And the hold of every unclean spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird," signifies, that the evils of the will and thence of the actions, and the falses of the thoughts and thence of the deliberations of such as are in those hells, are diabolical, because they are turned away from the Lord to themselves. By a hold, is signified hell, this being a place or state of confinement; by a spirit, is signified all that relates to affection and will, and thence to action; and by a bird, is signified all that relates to thought or understanding, and thence to deliberation, for which reason, by a foul spirit and an unclean bird, are signified all the evils which pertain to the will and consequent actions, and all the falses which pertain to the thought and consequent deliberations; and as these exist in hell among them, therefore it signifies that they are diabolical; and as they are turned away from the Lord to themselves, it is also called a hateful bird. Babel is described in the prophets by the like expressions; as in Isaiah: "And Babylon shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there;-but the wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces," xiii. 19-22. In the same prophet: "I will cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant:-I will also make it a possession for the bittern, xiv. 22, 23. And in Jeremiah: "In Babylon shall dwell the wild beasts of the desert with the wild beasts of the islands, and the owls.-As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring cities thereof, so shall no son of man dwell there," 1. 39, 40. From which it is evident, that by a hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird, is signified that the evils of the will and consequent actions, and the falses of the thoughts and consequent deliberations, of such as are in those hells, are diabolical, because they are turned away

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from the Lord to themselves. That a bird signifies such things as pertain to the understanding and thought, and thence to deliberation, in both senses, as well evil as good, is evident from the Word. They occur, in a bad sense, in the following places: "And in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate," Dan. ix. 27. "But the cormorant, and the bittern shall possess it, the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it," Isaiah xxxiv. 11. Nothing but infernal falses are signified by the wild beasts of the deserts and of the islands, and by the owls and dragons, in the above-cited passages, or by "the fowls which came down upon the carcasses, which Abram drove away," Gen. xv. 10. By "the fouls to which their carcasses were to be given for food," Jerem. vii. 33, xv. 3, xvi. 4, xix. 7, xxxiv. 20, Ezek. xxix. 5, Psalm lxxix. 1, 2; or by the "fowls which devour what is sowed," Matt. xiii. 3, 4. În a good sense, in the following passages: "Let creeping things and flying fowl praise the name of Jehovah," Psalm cxlviii. 10 "And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the fowls of heaven and with the creeping things of the ground," Hosea ii. 18. "Ask now the beasts and they shall teach thee, and the fowls of the air and they shall tell thee; Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of Jehovah hath wrought this?" Job xii. 7, 8, 9. "I beheld, and lo, there was no man, all the birds of the heavens were fled," Jerem. iv. 24, 25, 26. "Both the fowl of the heavens and the beasts are fled;—And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons," Jerem. ix. 9, 10, xii. 9. "Because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God,-Therefore shall the land mourn, -with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven," Hosea iv. 1, 2, 3. "I am God,-Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country," Isaiah xlvi. 9, 11. "Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon,-all the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his sha

dow dwelt all great nations," Ezek. xxxi. 5, 6. The like is said of Ashur as a cedar, and of birds or fowls in other places; as in Ezek. xvii. 23, Dan. iv. 7-18, Matt. xiii. 31, 32, Mark iv. 32; Luke xiii. 19. "Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, come to my sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel: And I will set my glory among the heathen," Ezek. xxxix. 17, 21, Apoc. xix. 17. And again, in Isaiah xviii. 1, 6, Ezek. xxxviii. 20, Hosea ix. 11, xi. 9, 11, Zephan. i. 3, Psalm viii. 7, 8, 9, Psalm 1. 11, Psalm civ. 11, 12. That birds signify such things as relate to the understanding, and thence to the thought and deliberation, appears manifestly from the birds in the spiritual world, where there are also seen birds of every genus and species; in heaven, such as are most beautiful, birds of paradise, turtle doves and pigeons; in hell, dragons, owls, screech-owls, and the like, all which are lively representations of thoughts, proceeding from good affections in heaven, and of thoughts proceeding from evil affections in hell.

758. "For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her whoredom, and the kings of the earth have committed whoredom with her," signifies, that they fabricated abominable tenets, which are the adulterations and profanations of what is good and true in the Word, and caused all who were born and educated in the kingdoms under their dominion, to imbibe them. That this is the signification of these words, may appear from the explanation above, in n. 631, 632, and n. 720, 721, where similar expressions occur, to which there is no need of adding more, except that the like is said of Babel in Jeremiah: "Babylon hath been a golden cup in Jehovah's hand that made all the earth drunken; the nations have drunken of her wine, therefore the nations are mad,” li.

7.

"And Babylon shall be for a hissing. In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake," li. 37, 39. By the wine which they drink, and with which they are intoxicated, are signified their tenets, the abominable nature of which may be seen 2

VOL. III.

above, n. 754; among them is this abominable one, viz. that works, done according to their doctrinals, constitute merit, by transcribing the merit and righteousness of the Lord into such works, and thus into themselves, when nevertheless the all of charity and the all of faith, or every good and truth, is from the Lord, and what is from the Lord, remains the Lord's in those who are recipients; for what is from the Lord is divine, and can never become

the property of man. What is divine may be in man, but not in his proprium, for the proprium of man is nothing but evil, wherefore he who attaches what is divine to himself as his own, not only defiles, but also profanes it ; for what is divine from the Lord is exquisitely separated from the proprium of man, and is elevated above it, and never immersed in it. But inasmuch as they transferred every thing divine in the Lord to themselves, and thus appropriated it, it flows like bituminous water, during a shower of rain, from a spring of bitumen. It is the same with this tenet, that justification is real sanctification, and that their saints are holy in themselves, when, nevertheless, the Lord only is holy, Apoc. xv. 4. More may be seen on the subject of merit in the work on The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine, n. 150-158.

759. "And the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies," signifies, the superior and inferior orders in that hierarchy, who by the dominion over holy things aspire to divine majesty and super-royal glory, and continually aim at establishing them by multiplying monasteries and possessions under them, and by treasures which they collect and accumulate from the world for no purpose, and thus procure to themselves corporeal and natural pleasures by having celestial and spiritual dominion attributed to them. By the merchants of Babylon, no others can be meant than those of the superior and inferior orders in their ecclesiastical hierarchy, because in verse 23 of this chapter it is said, that they are the great men of the earth; and by the abundance of her delicacies through which they are waxed rich, no other things can be meant, than the dogmatical tenets by which, as means, they acquire dominion

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