"For understanding the Prophecies, we are, in the first place, to acquaint our-selves with the figurative language of the Prophets. This language is taken from the analogy between the world natural, and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic. Accordingly, the whole world natural consisting of heaven and earth, signifies the whole world politic, consisting of thrones and people, or so much of it as is considered in the Prophecy: and the things in that world signify the analogous things in this. For the heavens, and the things therein, signify thrones and dignities, and those who enjoy them; and the earth, with the things thereon, the inferior people; and the lowest parts of the earth, called Hades or Hell, the lowest or most miserable part of them. Whence ascending towards heaven, and descending to the earth, are put for rising and falling in power and honor: rising out of the earth, or waters, and falling into them, for the rising up to any dignity or dominion, out of the inferior state of the people, or falling down from the same into that inferior state; descending into the lower parts of the earth, for descending to a very low and unhappy estate; speaking with a faint voice out of the dust, for being in a weak and low condition; moving from one place to another, for translation from one office, dignity, or dominion, to another; great earthquakes, and the shaking of heaven and earth, for the shaking of kingdoms, so as to distract or overthrow them; the creating a new heaven and earth, and the passing away of an old one, or the beginning and end of the world, for the rise and ruin of the body politic signified thereby."
React to this quote
More by Isaac Newton
See allResonant Thoughts
"That's five stars to start with. That's five stars to start with. That's Gil Evans, isn't it? The only thing that disturbed me about this—the whole thing, in its entirety, was tremendously satisfying:…"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"If any person, discouraged by these difficulties, should think to relieve himself by rejecting all religion…"
— Joseph Priestley"A philosophical attempt to work out a universal history according to a natural plan directed to achieving t…"
— Immanuel Kant"The rudest heathen that worshipped Canopus, or the Caabah Black-Stone, he, as we saw, was superior to the h…"
— Thomas Carlyle"It's the last steps that are perhaps more memorable to me than that first step, because I'd been in this va…"
— Eugene Cernan"The world is a navy in an empty ocean."
— Dejan Stojanovic"Highly correlated brown and black noise patterns do not seem to have seem to have attractive counterparts i…"
— John D. Barrow
