Apocalypse Explained, volume 1 - Swedenborg Foundation

APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED 228truth, even from the Word, and to falsify them; “to commitadultery with stone and wood” is to pervert and profane all truthand good; “stone” signifying truth, and “wood” signifying good.[6] In the same:Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and seek in thebroad places thereof, if ye can find a man [vir], if there be any doingjudgment, seeking truth. When I fed them to the full they committedwhoredom and came by troops to the house of the harlot (Jer. 5:1, 7).To “run to and fro through the streets, and to seek in the broadplaces of Jerusalem,” is to see and explore the doctrinals of thatchurch; for “Jerusalem” is the church, and “streets” and “broadplaces” are doctrinals. “If ye have found a man, if there be anydoing judgment, seeking truth,” means whether there be any truthin the church. “When I fed them to the full they committedwhoredom,” means that when truths were revealed to them theyfalsified them. Such a church, in respect to doctrine, is the “houseof the harlot,” into which they “came by troops.”[7] In the same:Thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thywhoredom, thine abominations on the hills in the field have I seen.Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem; thou wilt not be made clean (Jer. 13:27).“Neighings” are profanations of truth, because a “horse” signifiesthe intellectual where there is truth; “the hills in the field” aregoods of truth in the church, which have been perverted.[8] In the same:In the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible stubbornness inadulterating and in walking in a lie (Jer. 23:14).They have wrought folly in Israel, and have committed adulterywith their companions’ wives, and have spoken my 11 word in my namefalsely (Jer. 29:23).