3. [Letter to Bishop Mennander, September 16, 1766]
Right Rev. Doctor and Bishop:
I am sending you, most Reverend Sir a Lucubration of my youth concerning the Finding of the Longitude of places on land and at sea by means of the moon, which was recently published at Amsterdam and was communicated to Societies of Sciences and to Academies, with the courteous request that you deliver it into the hands of the Abo Professor of Astronomy that, if he finds it adequate in its nature and object, he may put it into practice. In foreign parts, various men, following this method, are computing ephemerides from pairs of stars, and from these when made up for several years, a signal use is expected. The Apocalypse is now explained, or rather revealed, but no occasion has as yet offered itself to transmit it to you, most Rev. Sir, and at the same time, to the Library. Kindly tell me to whom here in Stockholm I may deliver them.* It is being discussed by certain persons whether the present day is the consummation of the age and then the coming of the Lord, and from Him, the New Church. Some think that the faith of this day which is directed to God the Father for the sake of the Son is real saving faith. But in the Apocalypse Revealed it is demonstrated that this faith has destroyed the church and abolished religion, and thus has so devastated and consummated all things of worship that there is no longer any truth or any good; and that the works which are called the fruits of faith are nothing but those eggs spoken of in Isaiah 59:5.** Therefore, they who have confirmed themselves in that faith with its [spider's] web, and who believe that the good works which they do, are the fruits of that faith, are hallucinated and delirious, nor can they be led out of their delirium save by rejecting the confirmation of that faith, and by adopting faith in Jesus Christ - a faith which contains no such thing within it. This may be seen in the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning Faith, n. 34, 35, 36, 37.
The present day falses of faith are the following:
1. That the Lord has taken away the damnation of the law, when yet He did not take away a single jot of the law; for every one is judged according to his deeds (Rom. 2:10, 13; 2 Cor. 5:10, etc., etc., etc.). But the Lord did take away damnation, for without His Advent into the world, no one could have been saved.
2. That the Lord fulfilled the Law is a truth, it being thereby that He alone became righteousness; but He did not thereby free man from the Law, for the Lord fulfills that Law with all those who shun evils as sins and approach Him; for those who shun certain sins which they see in themselves are in the effort to shun all sins as soon as they know them.
3. That the Lord's merit is imputed to man. This is impossible. His merits are two in number-that He subjugated the hells, and that He glorified His human. These two cannot be imputed to any one; but by them the Lord put Himself into the power of saving those who approach Him, search themselves, and shun their evils as sins.
4. That God the Father is approached, in order that, for the sake of the Son, He may have mercy and may send the Holy Spirit, is the universal manner of worship, and, moreover, involves a clear idea of three gods, as, that the Father is one, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another; and if it is said that by the Son is meant His human, there is then an idea of two in respect to the Lord.
5. That man is justified by oral faith, provided that the oral faith be made with trust and confidence-this is false (Rom. 2: 10, Jas. 1:22***). There is no truth in that faith, nor is there any good; thus it is not a church or a religion; for the truth of doctrine makes the church, and the good of life makes religion.
6. It is said that good works, or the good works of charity, are the fruits of that faith, when yet the connection of that faith with good works has not yet been found by any ecclesiastical society; nay, they teach that good works do not preserve or retain faith, and therefore that there are no other fruits of that faith save the works of the Holy Spirit with the man-works of which the man knows nothing; and that if he does any good works, they are merely moral and civil which contribute nothing whatever to salvation.
7. That the saying of Paul (Rom. 3: 28 ****) upon which the present day theology in respect to salvation is founded, is falsely understood, is clearly shown in the Apocalypse Revealed n. 417.
In addition to the above, there is much else which I here forebear mentioning. From this, it can plainly be seen that if one makes fruits from that faith, he makes the eggs spoken of in Isaiah 59:5. For the teaching in the New Church is that faith can never produce the good works of charity, in the way that fruit receives its juices and their flavors from the tree; and thus that the fruits or good works of the faith of today, spoken of above, have no other juices, and so no other flavors, than confirmations of the faith, these being the falsities which are within its good works. This, man is ignorant of, but angels sensate it.
[Em. Swedenborg]
*Stiernman through whom Swedenborg had sent Mennander the volumes of the Arcana Coelestia had died in 1765. ** "They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web; he that eateth of their eggs dieth." *** "Glory, honor and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile" (Rom. 2:10). "If any be a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass" (Jas. 1:22). **** "Man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law."