sake of the Word which was composed in it.

[3] These four churches are meant by the statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar in
a dream, the head of which was of pure gold, the breast and arms of
silver, the belly and thighs of brass, and the legs and feet of iron and
clay (Da 2:32, 33). Nor is anything else meant by the golden, silver,
copper and iron ages mentioned by ancient writers. Needless to say, the
Christian church succeeded the Jewish. It can be seen from the Word that
all these churches declined in the course of time, eventually coming to
an end, called their consummation.

[4] The consummation of the Most Ancient Church, brought about by the
eating of the tree of knowledge, meaning by the pride of one's own
intelligence, is depicted by the Flood. The consummation of the Ancient
Church is depicted in the various devastations of nations mentioned in
the historical as well as the prophetical Word and especially by the
expulsion of the nations from the land of Canaan by the children of
Israel. The consummation of the Israelitish and Jewish church is
understood by the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem and by the
carrying away of the people of Israel into permanent captivity and of the
Jewish nation to Babylon, and finally by the second destruction of the
temple and of Jerusalem at the same time, and by the dispersion of that
nation. This consummation is foretold in many places in the Prophets and
in Daniel 9:24-27. The gradual devastation of the Christian church even
to its end is pictured by the Lord in Matthew (24), Mark (13) and Luke
(21), but the end itself in the Apocalypse. Hence it may be manifest that
in the course of time a church declines and comes to an end; so does a
religion.

[5] Second: _Every religion declines and comes to an end through the
inversion of God's image in man._ It is known that the human being was
created in the image and after the likeness of God (Ge 1:26), but let us
say what the image and the likeness of God are. God alone is love and
wisdom; man was created to be a receptacle of both love and wisdom, his
will to be a receptacle of divine love and his understanding a receptacle
of the divine wisdom. These two receptacles, it was shown above, are in
man from creation, constitute him, and are formed in everyone in the
womb. Man's being an image of God thus means that he is a recipient of
the divine wisdom, and his being a likeness of God means that he is a
recipient of the divine lov