AR 398-401 (portions) - The First Angel Sounded

The first angel sounded:
And hail and fire followed, mingled with blood,
and they were cast down to the earth,
and a third of the trees were burned up,
and all green grass was burned up.
(Revelation 8:7)

AR 398

To sound a trumpet means, symbolically,
to examine and expose.
The sounding of the first angel means
an examination and exposure
of the state of the church among people
caught up interiorly in that faith,
because it produced its effect on the earth,
as said next,
and the sounding of the second angel
produced its effect on the sea;
and throughout the book of Revelation,
when both earth and sea are mentioned,
the whole church is meant -
the earth meaning the church composed of people
concerned with its internal elements,
and the sea meaning
the church composed of people
concerned with its external ones.
For the church is internal and external -
internal in the case of the clergy,
external in the laity,
or internal in the case of people
who study its doctrines interiorly
and defend them by the Word,
and external in the case of people
who do not do that.

AR 399

Hail symbolizes falsity destroying goodness and truth.
Fire symbolizes hellish love.
And blood symbolizes the falsification of truth.

AR 400

A third part symbolizes everything
in relation to truth,
as a fourth part symbolizes everything
in relation to goodness.

. . . A tree symbolizes a person.
and because a person is human
by virtue of the affection of his will
and the perception of his intellect,
these also are symbolized by a tree.

There is as well a correspondence
between a person and a tree.
Consequently in heaven one sees paradisal parks
formed of trees that correspond to
the affections and resulting perceptions of angels.
And elsewhere, in hell,
there are forests formed of trees
that bear harmful fruit,
in accordance with their correspondence
to the lusts and resulting thoughts
of the inhabitants there.

AR 401

Green grass, in the Word,
symbolizes the goodness and truth of the church
or faith that is born first in the natural self.
It has the same symbolic meaning as
"the herb of the field."
And because faith has life
owing to goodness and truth,
therefore "all green grass was burned up"
means, symbolically,
that every constituent of faith having life
had perished.
Every constituent of faith having life perishes,
moreover, when there is no affection
for goodness or perception of truth . . ..