The Noachian, or Ancient Church of this Earth

SINCE every Church is three-fold, inmost or celestial, middle or spiritual, and external or natural, therefore Noah had three Sons; and by Shem is signified the inmost, or celestial Church, by Japheth the middle or spiritual Church, and by Ham, the external, or natural Church. But there is not room here to describe with whom is the first Church, and with whom the second and third, as also what their quality is in themselves, or among themselves: for there are highest, middle and lowest heavens, to which those three degrees of the Church correspond. Moreover, this Noachian, or Ancient Church, was diffused throughout Asia, especially into Syria, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Chaldea, the land of Canaan, and the lands adjacent, Philistia, Egypt, Tyre, Sidon, Nineveh, and also into Arabia and Ethiopia, and in course of time into Great Tartary, and thence downwards as far as to the Black Sea, and thence into all the regions of Africa. That the nations in every part of the earth have been in worship from some sort of religion, is well known; and religion cannot exist except by some revelation and by the propagation thereof from nation to nation-as may be seen in the preceding work, THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION (n. 273-276); where, also, it was shown, that, prior to the Israelitish Word, there was a Word, which in process of time was lost, but is still, of the Divine Providence of the Lord, preserved in Great Tartary, from which is their Divine worship even to the present day (see also n. 264-266, and n. 279, of the said work).