There are many who have labored in the explanation of the Apocalypse; but, as the spiritual sense of the Word had been hitherto unknown, they could not see the arcana which lie concealed therein, for the spiritual sense alone discloses these; on which account expositors have conjectured various things, and the most of them have applied the things that are therein to the states of empires, intermingling also some things about ecclesiastical affairs. But the Apocalypse, like the whole Word, does not in the least, in its spiritual sense, treat of worldly, but of heavenly things; thus not of empires and kingdoms, but of heaven and the church.