0. Invitation to the New Church
[Syllabus]
[I.] There is no true church unless God is One, and unless He is Jehovah God under a human form--and thus that God is man and man God. [II.] The doctrinals contained in True Christian Religion agree with the doctrinals of those of the Roman Catholic Church, and with the doctrinals of those of the Protestants, who acknowledge a personal union in Christ, and approach Christ, and who partake of the two elements in the Eucharist. [III.] Various causes why now, for the first time, and not before, the above truths of the church [have been revealed]. Among these causes is this, that the New Church is not established before the former church is consummated. [IV.] The Divine Providence in these matters:
From the heresies which arose after the time of the Apostles. Why the Romish Church arose. The causes of the separation from that Church, [as from] an unworthy mother. Why the Greek Church separated from the Romish. [V.] Various things concerning miracles; that they have destroyed the church (also from the Lord's words in Matt. 24). [VI.] That all things tended in this direction, that men who were called saints were to be invoked. [VII.] That this Church is not instituted and established through miracles, but through the revelation of the spiritual sense, and through the introduction of my spirit, and, at the same time, of my body, into the spiritual world, so that I might know there what heaven and hell are, and that in light I might imbibe immediately from the Lord the truths of faith, where man is led to eternal life. [VIII.] The Advent of the Lord (from the Word and the creeds). [IX.] Invitation to the New Church, that men should go and meet the Lord (from Rev. 21-22; and also from Chap. 1, etc.). [X.] Hereafter they are not to be called the Evangelical, the Reformed, and still less Lutherans and Calvinists, but Christians. [XI.] Several things concerning miracles.