10. In Revelation, chapter xxi, the Holy Jerusalem is thus described:
In her was a light like a stone most precious, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon which are the names of the twelve tribes of the Children of Israel. The wall was a hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper; and its foundations of all manner of precious stones, of jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolyte, beryl, topaz, chrysoprasus, jacinth and amethyst. The gates were twelve pearls. The city itself was pure gold, like clear glass; and it was four-square, the length, the breadth and the height being equal, twelve thousand furlongs [Rev. xxi 11, 12, 16-21 with many other particulars].
That all these things are to be understood spiritually may be evident from this, that by the Holy Jerusalem is signified a new Church which is to be established by the Lord, as is shown in THE DOCTRINE OF THE LORD Nos. 62-65. Since the Church is here signified by Jerusalem it follows that all things said of it as a city, of its gates, its wall, the foundations of its wall, as well as of their measures, contain a spiritual sense; for the things which relate to the Church are spiritual.
What the particulars signify is explained in the work on THE NEW JERUSALEM, published in London in the year 1758, No. 1; and I therefore refrain from any further explanation of them here. It is sufficient to know from that work that there is a spiritual sense within all the particulars of the description, like a soul in the body; and that without this sense nothing relating to the Church would be understood in the things there written; as, that the city was of pure gold, its gates were of pearls, its wall of jasper, the foundations of its wall of precious stones, that its wall was a hundred and forty and four cubits, which is the measure of a man, that is, of an angel; that the city was in length, breadth and height, twelve thousand furlongs, and so on. Anyone, however, who has a knowledge of the spiritual sense from the science of correspondences understands those things, as for instance that the wall and its foundations signify doctrine from the literal sense of the Word, and that the numbers twelve, one hundred and forty and four, and twelve thousand have a like signification, namely, the sum total of all the truths and goods of the Church.