Chapter XIV., concluding the doctrinal portion of the work, describes the consummation of the age, the coming of the Lord, and the new heaven and the New Church. The consummation of the age is the last time or end of the Church. The present day is the last time of the Christian Church, which the Lord foretold and described in the Gospels, and in the Revelation. This last time of the Christian Church, is the very night in which the former Churches have set. After this night, morning succeeds; and the coming of the Lord is this morning. The coming of the Lord is not a coming to destroy the visible heaven and the habitable earth, and to create a new heaven and a new earth, according to the opinions which many, from not understanding the spiritual sense of the Word, have hitherto entertained. This, which is the second coming of the Lord, is for the sake of separating the evil from the good, that those who have believed and who do believe in Him, may be saved; and that there may be formed of them a new angelic heaven, and a New Church on earth; and without this coming no flesh could be saved. This second coming of the Lord is not a coming in person, but in the Word, which is from Him, and is Himself. This second coming of the Lord is effected by the instrumentality of a man, before whom He has manifested Himself in person, and whom He has filled with His spirit, to teach from Him the doctrines of the New Church by means of the Word. This is meant by the new heaven and the new earth, and the New Jerusalem descending out of heaven, spoken of in the Revelation. This New Church is the crown of all the Churches which have existed, to this time, on the earth. On all these subjects Swedenborg discourses at length, and in a style which, for its combined simplicity and purity, we believe, is unmatched in theological literature. Wilkinson says truly of the volume, that, “viewed as a digest, it shows a presence of mind, an administration of materials, and a faculty of handling, of an extraordinary kind. There is old age in it in the sense of ripeness. If the intellectualist misses there somewhat of the range of discourse, it is compensated by a certain triteness of wisdom. As a polemic, not only against the errors of the Churches, but against the evil lives and self-excusings of Christians, the work is unrivaled. The criticisms of doctrine, with which it abounds, are masterly in the extreme; and were it compared with any similar body of theology, we feel no doubt that the palm of coherency, vigor, and comprehensiveness, would easily fall to Swedenborg, upon the verdict of judges of whatever Church.”