Spiritual background for REVELATION 6    previous  -  next  -  text  -  Revelation  -  BM Home  -  Full Page

AR Chapter 6

AR 341. To the above I will add this Relation.

I saw some of the English clergy assembled, to the number of six hundred, who prayed to the Lord that they might be permitted to ascend to a society of the higher heaven; which being granted them, they ascended. And when they entered, they saw their king, the present king‘s grandfather , and they were glad, who went up to two bishops that were among them, whom he had known in the world, and entering into discourse with them, asked them, "How came you here?" They replied, that they had made supplication to the Lord, and it was granted them. He said to them, "Why to the Lord, and not to God the Father?" And they answered, that they were so instructed below.

And he said, "Did I not sometimes tell you in the world, that the Lord ought to be approached, and also that charity is primary? What reply did you then make concerning the Lord?" And it was given them to recollect, that they had made answer, "That when the Father is approached, the Son also is approached."

But the angels who were about the king said, "You are mistaken, you did not think so, nor is the Lord approached, when God the Father is approached; but God the Father is approached, when approach is made to the Lord, because they are one, like soul and body. Who approaches a man’s soul, and thus his body? When a man is approached as to his body which is seen, is not his soul also approached, which is not seen?" To this they were silent.

And the king went up to the two bishops, with two gifts in his hand, saying, "These are gifts from heaven." They were celestial forms of gold which he wished to present to them, when a dusky cloud covered them, and separated them. And they descended by the way that they had come up; and they wrote these things in a book.

The rest of the English clergy, who had heard that their companions had been permitted to ascend to the higher heaven, assembled at the foot of the mountain, where they waited for their return. On their return they saluted their brethren, and related what had happened to them in heaven, and that the king had presented the bishops with two celestial forms of gold, most beautiful to behold; but that they fell out of their hands. They then went out of the public place into a grove, which was near, and discoursed among themselves, looking about to see if anyone heard them; but nevertheless they were heard. Their discourse was about unanimity and concord, and then about supremacy and dominion. The bishops spoke, and the rest assented. And on a sudden, to my surprise, they no longer appeared as many, but as one great figure whose face was like the face of a lion, having on his head a turreted mitre, on which was a crown: and he spake in a lofty tone, and walked proudly; and, looking behind, he said, "Who else has a right to supremacy but me?"

The king looked down from heaven and saw them, first all as one, and afterwards as several unanimous; but most of them, as he said, in a secular dress.