Chapter XIV. On the world and its end.

As I began this little treatise with the creation of the world, so now, as I intend to bring it to a close, I shall discuss the world’s end. I therefore pose this question: Will the world perish not only in its accidental features but also in substance and being? As everyone knows, theologians disagree about this, both among our own Protestant theologians and between them and adherents of the so-called Reformed religion. One maintains this view, another that; yet perhaps both—with all due respect to such eminent men—remain in error.

Once again I am far too insignificant to speak or write of this. Yet since by God’s grace I have learned the Hermetic art and made no few trials, I may also be allowed to disclose my simple opinion. With other philosophers of our art, I therefore conclude briefly, from the pattern supplied by the operation of our subject and the perfection of our magistery, that on the Last Day the world will end in this manner: in respect of its accidents, even the elements will melt; the excrementitious earth which we see and tread beneath our feet, together with everything in it, will be corrupted and burned; and the present moving heavens will likewise pass away.

Their substance, however, will through that passing away, melting, burning, and corruption be transmuted into crystalline clarity and a spiritual being of utmost perfection. This does not mean that everything will be melted together as one melts material in a crucible, as some mockingly suggest. Rather, particular natures will be resolved into the elements and universal principles. These universal natures will then be transformed, as stated, into a spiritual being of utmost perfection and crystalline clarity. Thus a new, immovable heaven and a new earth will be created—to use the words of the prophet Isaiah. I hope everyone who has read the relevant scriptural passages and understands nature in practice as well as theory will agree with me.

The reason is this: as argued above, universal natures were created through God’s universal and substantial Word, which is eternal and imperishable; hence those universal natures are also eternal and imperishable. Although God’s decrees—the word and command he uttered in creation, like the preached word of God—and consequently particular natures and the present moving heavens themselves will cease altogether and pass away through resolution into universal principles, the universal natures will neither cease entirely nor perish in their being. They will instead be transmuted and transformed in the manner repeatedly explained.

Then what is now invisible will become visible; there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and, so to speak, the true foliated earth. Finally, to put it briefly, its end is God’s glory; it therefore does not lack an end, as some prattle. This much may be known and discussed in our mortal state, from Holy Scripture and knowledge of nature, concerning the world’s end and future condition, or the nature of paradise. Those who do not understand nature, or what substance, accident, corruption, and resolution properly mean in natural philosophy, must lack that understanding. They cannot grasp that corruption itself is the means through which all substances, especially the elements, are freed from wastes and superfluities and brought into a new, supremely perfect form. Yet they presume to instruct and mock others.

From this also follows a powerful assurance of the resurrection of the dead and the transformation of our bodies into a likewise most perfect being, as mentioned in the preceding chapter and taught more fully by Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. Among other things, I recall the prophet Daniel’s words: “The righteous will shine like heaven’s brightness, and those who have turned many to righteousness like the stars for ever and ever.” I also recall Paul’s statement that our bodies will become like Christ’s glorified body.

Nor should we forget what our Lord and Saviour Christ himself revealed: that we shall be like God’s angels. For the rest, it remains true for the present, in every respect, as Saint Paul writes, that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor has it entered any human heart what God has prepared for those who love him.