O daughter of My people, make thee mourning for an only begotten, a wailing of bitterness, for the waster shall suddenly come upon us (Jer. 6:26). Here "mourning" is named because of truth destroyed, and wailing on account of good destroyed; the "waster" signifies the loss of these, and thus the end of the church. In Micah:

I will make a wailing like the dragons, and a mourning like the daughters of the owl (Micah 1:8). Because "wailing" has reference to good, and in the contrary sense to evil, it is said, "I will make a wailing like dragons," "dragons" being those who are in the lusts of evil; and because "mourning" has reference to falsity it is said, "I will make a mourning like the daughters of the owl," "daughters of the owl" being those who are in falsities and their pleasantness, "owls" signify falsities, because they see in darkness and not in the light. In Zechariah:

They shall wail over him according to the wailing over a first begotten,* and they shall mourn over him according to the mourning over a first begotten (Zech. 12:10). Here, too, "wailing" is predicated of the loss of good, and "mourning" of the loss of truth. In Jeremiah:

Enter not into the house of mourning, neither go away to wail (Jer. 16:5);

where the meaning is the same. Both expressions are used on account of the marriage of good and truth, or on account of the marriage not of good and truth, which is in every particular of the Word.

(Continuation respecting the Athanasian Faith and respecting the Lord)

[3] That all things are from the life itself which is God, and which is wisdom and love, can also be made clear by reference to things created when they are viewed from order. For it is from order that the angelic heavens, consisting of thousands and thousands of societies, act as one through love to the Lord and through love towards the neighbor, and that they are kept in order through Divine truths which are the laws of order. Also it is from order that the hells beneath the heavens, which are also divided into thousands and thousands of congregations, are kept in order by means of judgments and punishments, so that they are unable to do the least harm to the heavens, although they are hatreds and insanities. It is also from order that between the heavens and the hells there is an equilibrium, in which is man in the world, and in which he is led to heaven if led by the Lord, and to hell if led by himself; for it is the law of order that man must do whatever he does from freedom according to reason. [4] Since so many myriads of myriads of men from the creation of the world have poured into the spiritual world and are unceasingly pouring in like streams, and each individual has a different disposition and love, they could by no means have been associated together as a one unless God who is life itself had been one, and unless this life had been wisdom itself and love itself, and thus order itself. Thus much about heaven. But in the world the Divine in order appears to be from the sun, moon, stars, and planets. The sun in appearance makes the years, days, and hours, also the seasons of the year, which are spring, summer, autumn, and winter, also the divisions of the day, which are morning, noon, evening, and night; and it vivifies all things of the earth according to the reception of its heat in light and of its light in heat; and according to reception it opens, arranges, and prepares bodies and matters, which are in the earth and upon the earth, to receive influx from the spiritual world. Thus in the spring time, by the union of heat and light at that season the flying things of heaven and the animals of earth return into the love of prolification, and into a knowledge of all things pertaining to that love; and the things of the vegetable kingdom return into the efforts and activities of producing leaves, flowers and fruits, and seeds in them for perpetuating their kind to eternity, and for multiplying it to infinity. [5] It is also from order that the earth produces vegetables, and that vegetables nourish animals, and that both are useful to man for food, raiment, and for pleasure; and as man is the one in whom is God, so all things thus return to God from whom they are. All this makes clear that created things follow in such order that one is for the sake of another, and that they are perpetual ends which are uses, and that the ends which are uses are constantly so directed as to return to God from whom they are. All this now shows that all things have been created from life itself, which is wisdom itself, and also shows that the created universe is full of God. * Photolithograph has "primogenito" (first-begotten); the Latin editor has "unigenito" (only-begotten).