772. [verse 12] 'Merchandise of gold and silver and precious stone and pearl' signifies that they no longer have those things because they do not have the spiritual goods and truths to which such things correspond. By 'their merchandise' no other things are signified than those that are named there; for it is known that they have gold, silver, and precious stone and pearls in abundance, and that they have gained them by their forms of religion which they have made Divine holy things. Those who were of Babylon had such things before the last judgment; for they were then allowed to form to themselves as it were heavens and to procure such things to themselves out of heaven by various arts, even to fill cellars with them as in the world. After the last judgment, however, when their fictitious heavens were destroyed, all those things were then reduced to dust and ashes and carried away by an east wind and strewn over their hells as a profane dust. But concerning these things let the things be read which, from things seen, have been described in the little work concerning THE LAST JUDGMENT AND BABYLON DESTROYED, published at London, 1758. [2] Since that overthrowing and their casting down into hell they are in a state so miserable that they do not know what gold, silver, precious stone and pearl are. This is because gold, silver and precious stone correspond to spiritual goods and truths, and pearls to the cognitions thereof. And because they do not have truths and goods any more, nor the cognitions thereof, but instead of them evils and untruths and the cognitions of these, they cannot have those things but such as correspond [to their state], which are cheap materials of a horrid colour, besides some sea-shells on which they set their heart just as they did before on the precious things named above. [3] It is to be known that there are in the spiritual world all the things that are in the natural world, with the difference only that all the things in the spiritual world are correspondences, for they correspond to their interiors. There are splendid and magnificent things with those who are in wisdom out of Divine truths and goods from the Lord by means of the Word, and opposite things with those who are in insanity derived from untruths and evils. Such a correspondence results from a creation when what is spiritual of the mind is allowed to sink into what is sensual of the body; for which reason every one there knows what another is like when he comes into his own room. [4] From these considerations it can be established that by 'merchandise of gold and silver and precious stone and pearls' is signified that they have those things no longer because they do not have the spiritual goods and truths, nor the cognitions of good and truth, to which such things correspond. That as the result of correspondence 'gold' signifies good, and 'silver' truth, maybe seen above (n. 211, 726). That 'precious stone' signifies spiritual truths (n. 231, 540, 726). That 'pearls' signify cognitions of good and truth (n. 727).