This faith is in God the Saviour Jesus Christ, and in its simple form is as follows: 1. That there is One God, in whom is a Divine Trinity, and that He is the Lord Jesus Christ. 2. That saving faith is to believe in Him. 3. That evils ought to be shunned, because they are of the devil and from the devil. 4. That good works ought to be done, because they are of God and from God. 5. That they ought to be done by man as of himself, but with a belief that they are from the Lord, operating in him and by him.
The faith of the present day has separated religion from the Church, since religion consists in the acknowledgment of One God, and in the worship of Him from faith grounded in charity; but the faith of the present Church cannot be conjoined with charity, and produce any fruits which are good works, because imputation supplies everything, remits guilt, justifies, sanctifies, regenerates; imparts the life of heaven, and thus salvation; and all this freely, without any works of man. In this case, what is charity, which ought to be united with faith, but something vain and superfluous, and a mere addition and supplement to imputation, and justification, to which, nevertheless, it adds no weight or value?
From this faith results a worship of the mouth and not of the life. Now the Lord accepts the worship of the mouth in proportion as it proceeds from the worship of the life.
The doctrine of the present Church is interwoven with many paradoxes, which are to be embraced by faith. Therefore its tenets gain admission into the memory only, and not at all into the understanding, which is superior to the memory, but merely into confirmations below it. Thus the tenets of the present Church cannot be learned or retained without great difficulty, nor can they be preached or taught without using great care and caution to conceal their nakedness, because sound reason neither discerns nor perceives them.
The doctrine of the faith of the present Church ascribes to God human passions and infirmities; as, that He beheld man from anger, that He required to be reconciled, that He is reconciled through the love He bore towards the Son, and by His intercession; and that He required to be appeased by the sight of His Son’s sufferings, and thus to be brought back to mercy; and that He imputes the righteousness of His Son to an unrighteous man who supplicates it from faith alone; and that thus from an enemy He makes him a friend, and from a child of wrath a child of grace:—all which dogmas are the opposite of the truth, and repulsive to every wise man.
The faith of the present Church has produced monstrous births; for instance, instantaneous salvation by an immediate act of mercy; predestination; the notion that God has no respect unto the actions of men, but unto faith alone; that there is no connection between charity and faith; that man in conversion is like a stock; with many more heresies of the same kind; likewise concerning the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Supper, as to the advantages reasonably to be expected from them, when considered according to the doctrine of justification by faith alone; as also with regard to the person of Christ: and that heresies, from the first ages to the present day, have sprung up from no other source than from the doctrine founded on the idea of three Divine Persons or Gods.
The last state of the present church, when it is at an end, is meant by the consummation of the age, and the coming of the Lord at that period. Matt. xxiv. 3.
The infestation from falses, and thence the consummation of every truth, or the desolation which at this day prevails in the Christian Churches, is meant by the great affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the world, nor ever shall be: Matt. xxiv. 21: and that there would be neither love nor faith, nor the knowledge of good and truth, in the last time of the Christian Church, is understood by these words in the same chapter of Matthew: “After the affliction of those days, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken,” verse 29.
They who are in the present justifying faith, are meant by the he-goats in Daniel and Matthew; and they who have confirmed themselves therein, are meant in the Apocalypse by the dragon and his two beasts, and by the locusts; and this same faith, when confirmed, is there meant by the great city which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where the two witnesses were slain; as also by the pit of the abyss, whence the locusts issued.
Unless a New Church be established by the Lord, no one can be saved. This is meant by these words: “Unless those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.” Matt. xxiv. 22. The reason why no flesh could be saved, unless those days should be shortened, is, because the faith of the present Church is founded on the idea of three Gods, and with this idea no one can enter heaven. Not that all who are believers in the doctrine of a tripersonal God are lost; but that, unless a New Church were provided by the Lord, and spiritual truth revealed, man, wanting truth, could never become regenerate, could never enter heaven, and thus the end of his creation would be defeated. In spite, however, of false doctrine, men are saved by the laying hold, as it were, of the truths leading to a good life, which exist in the most corrupt faiths, and goodness always contains an internal acknowledgment and love of truth, although false doctrine may fill the memory. Yet it is true, nevertheless, that false doctrine perverts, discourages, and in the end destroys all inclinations to live well. For this reason, then, the First Christian Church has come to its end, or has been consummated; and the Lord is raising up a New Church, endowed with truth capable of leading the world in the way of life, and to heaven.