2. The passages in the Word, in which mention is made of the destruction of heaven and earth, are the following:
Lift up your eyes to heaven, and look upon the earth beneath; the heavens are about to perish like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment (Isa. 51:6). Behold, I am about to create new heavens, and a new earth; neither shall the former things be remembered (Isa. 65:17). I will make new heavens and a new earth (Isa. 66:22). The stars of heaven have fallen to the earth, and heaven has departed like a book rolled together (Apoc. 6:13, 14). I saw a great throne, and One sitting thereon, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and their place was not found (Apoc. 20:11). I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away (Apoc. 21:1). In these passages, by "a New Heaven" is not meant the visible heaven, but heaven itself where the human race is collected; for a heaven was formed from all the human race, who had lived since the commencement of the Christian church; but they who were there were not angels, but spirits of various religions; this heaven is meant by "the first heaven" which was to perish: but how this was, shall be specially declared in what follows; here is related only so much as serves to show what is meant by "the first heaven" which was to perish. Every one even who thinks from a somewhat enlightened reason, may perceive, that it is not the starry heaven, the so immense firmament of creation, which is here meant, but that it is heaven in the spiritual sense, where angels and spirits are.