758. [verse 3] 'For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her whoredom, and the kings of the land have committed whoredom with her' signifies that they have brought forth wicked dogmas, which are adulterations and profanations of the good and truth of the Word, and with them have infected all those born and brought up in the kingdoms under their domination. That these things are signified by these words can be established from the things expounded above (n. 631, 632 and n. 720, 721) where there are similar words, to which there is no need to add more; only that similar things are said of Babel in Jeremiah:-
Babel is a goblet of gold in the hand of Jehovah making the entire land drunk. The nations have drunk of her wine, therefore they are mad Jer. li 7.
Let Babel be for hissing; when they have become warm, I will set their feasts and will make them drunk, that they may exult, and may sleep the sleep of an age, and not awake Jer. li [37,] 39.
By the 'wine' that they drink, and by which they are made drunk, their dogmas are signified; and how wicked these are may be seen above (n. 753). Among them also there is this wicked thing, that the works that are done in accordance with their doctrinal tenets produce merits by transcribing the merit and justice of the Lord into those works, and thus into themselves; when yet everything of charity and everything of faith, or every good and truth, is from the Lord; and what is from the Lord remains the Lord's with the recipients. For what is from the Lord is Divine, and this can never be made the proprium of a man. The Divine can be with a man, but not in his proprium, for the man's proprium is nothing but evil; and therefore he who attributes the Divine to himself as proprium not only defiles it but also profanes it. The Divine from the Lord is exquisitely separated from the proprium of a man, and is elevated above it and never immersed therein. But because they have transferred to themselves everything of the Lord's Divine, and have thus appropriated it to themselves, it flows like bituminous water while it is raining, out of a spring which is bitumen. It is similar with the dogma that justification is a real sanctification, and that their saints are holy in themselves, when yet the Lord only is Holy (Rev. xv 4). More things may be seen concerning merit in the work CONCERNING THE NEW JERU5ALEM AND ITS HEAVENLY DOCTRINE, published at London in the year 1758, (n. 150-158).
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