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nearer to himself, as their leader. With the greatest enthusiasm, and firmest confidence, Luther was incessantly setting forth his doctrine of Justification by faith alone, before this circle, when he was suddenly disturbed by the information, that that doctrine was thoroughly false, and, that if he wished to enter into beatitude, he must utterly renounce it. For a long time he would not yield, until at last he began to doubt, whether he were in the truth. Swedenborg, on his departure, received from an angel the consolatory assurance, that Luther seemed really to perceive his errors, and afforded every hope of a thorough amendment. Swedenborg assigns the following reason for this. Before the beginning of his Reformation, Luther was member of a Church, which exalts charity above faith. Educated in this doctrine from infancy, he was so thoroughly imbued with it, that, though without a clear consciousness of it, it ever regulated his inward spiritual life; and, on this account, even after he had declared war against the Catholic Church, he was enabled to give such excellent instruction in respect to charity. His own doctrine of Justification by Faith alone, on the other hand, so little set aside the conviction of his youthful days, that it belonged more to his external, than internal man. * It was otherwise with his dis

* Vol. ii. p. 553. "I was informed by the examining angels, that this chieftain of the Church is in a state of conversion, far before many others, who have confirmed themselves in the doctrine of Justification by faith alone; and that, because in his youthful days, before he began his work of Reformation, he had received a strong tincture of the doctrine, which maintains the pre-eminence of charity: this was the reason, why, both in his writings and sermons, he gave such excellent instruction in regard to charity; and hence, it came to pass, that the faith of Justification with him, was implanted in his external natural man, but not rooted in his internal spiritual man.”

ciples, who had been confirmed in his doctrine. As an illustrative instance, he recounts the destinies, which, after his death, befell Melanchthon. He, too, was no inhabitant of heaven :-on the contrary, he must previously abandon his opinions respecting Justification by faith alone, before he can enter into eternal life. Philip Melanchthon was seen by Swedenborg, as he was zealously engaged in the composition of a book; but, he was unable to make any progress in his work. He was ever writing down the words: "Faith alone saves;" when the words as often again disappeared. The reason of this phenomenon is, that they are utterly devoid of truth, and in the next world no error can endure. All attempts to bring this Reformer to a better way of thinking, have hitherto failed. On one occasion, indeed, he wrote down the proposition, "Faith together with charity, justifies ;" but, as that proposition did not spring out of the inmost feelings of his soul, but had only been taught him, it could be attended with no success. In vain we seek for an assurance, that Melanchthon, too, could look forward to a termination of his painful state; Calvin experiences a still worse fate, because he was always, as Swedenborg says, a sensual man; and, beside the Lutheran doctrine of Justification, maintained also the revolting error of an absolute and eternal predestination of some to beatitude, and of others, to damnation. Swedenborg saw him, on that account, thrown down into a pit, filled with the most abominable spirits.

The Catholics, too, according to our seer, must, in many respects change their convictions, before they can quit the immediate state in the next life, and enter into a higher sphere. Strangely prejudiced, however, as Swedenborg is, against the Catholic Church-ill as he

is wont to speak about popes, bishops, and saints, he yet communicates the information, that if Catholics. perform works of charity only in simplicity, and think more of God than of the pope, their transition to pure truth, and thereby to eternal felicity, is as easy, “as it is to enter into a temple, when the doors are thrown open; or, into a palace, by passing between the sentinels, who keep guard in the outer courts, when the king enjoins admission; or, as it is to lift up the countenance and look toward heaven, when angelic voices are heard therein."*

Evident, as it now is, that Swedenborg's reforming zeal was particularly directed against the errors in the Protestant doctrine of Justification; yet, his attempts to undermine the same, were conducted with a destructive ignorance; for he undermined withal, the very foundations of Christianity. Looking for the connexion, wherein the notion of faith, as prevalent among his former fellow-religionists, stood with other dogmas, he fell into the error, that the doctrine of the Trinity was the basis of the former opinion, and hence, he thought it incumbent upon him to subvert it. Secondly, he observes (and in this instance with perfect justice), that the Lutheran and Calvinistic doctrine of original sin, forms the ground-work of the Protestant theory of Justification. He rejected, accordingly, the article of the fall of man in Adam; and human freedom, which the Reformers had denied, he exalted to the highest pitch. Lastly, he assailed the doctrine of the vicarious death of Christ, in order to cut off the last link, which could connect the notion of Justification, by faith alone, with any other dogma. A nearer inves

* Vol. ii. p. 578.

tigation of these three points will, therefore, be our next task.

§ LXXIX. Swedenborg's doctrine on the Trinity.-His motive for assailing that of the Church.

The connexion, which Swedenborg established between the dogma of the Trinity, and the Protestant doctrine of Justification, attacked by him with such extreme vehemence, is as follows:-" After men had discovered three persons in the Deity, they were forced to allot to each a separate office. The first Person, accordingly, was regarded as the One which had been offended by mankind; and the second, was considered to be the Mediator. By the establishment of so powerful a mediation, the Father has been involved in the necessity of bestowing unconditional pardon; that is to say, without regard to moral worthiness, through faith in the merits of the Son alone.* In order to prevent the possibility of the very idea of such an intercession, the new Reformer turned against the doctrine of the Trinity itself, and, indeed, with that decided hos

* Vol. i. p. 255. "That this idea concerning redemption and concerning God, pervades the faith, which prevails, at this day, throughout all Christendom, is an acknowledged truth; for, that faith requires man to pray to God the Father, that He would remit their sins, for the sake of the cross and the blood of His Son, and to God the Son, that He would pray and intercede for them; and to God the Holy Ghost, that He would justify and sanctify them, &c." Vol. ii. p. 319.

"Since a mental persuasion of three Gods has been the result, it was impossible for any other system of faith to be conceived or formed, but what was applicable to those three Persons, in their respective stations; as for instance, that God the Father ought to be approached, and implored to impute the righteousness of His Son, or to be merciful for the sake of His Son's suffering on the cross, &c."

tility, which, whenever a dogma is assailed from a practical point of view, is ever wont to arise. Swedenborg says, the falsity of the doctrine of three Divine Persons, is clear from the fact, that the angels, with whom he held intercourse, declared to him, that it was impossible for them to designate in words that opinion, and that if any one approached them, with the intention of giving utterance to it, he was compelled to turn away from them; and that if he really uttered the opinion, he was immediately transformed into a block in human shape. A man, who seriously, and with full conviction professes the Church doctrine of the Trinity, he compares, in consequence, to a statue with moveable limbs; in whose interior Satan lodges, and speaks by its artificial mouth. The old Christian faith in a Triune God, he, accordingly, places on a level with Atheism; for there is not, in fact, he says, a God-head with three Persons, or, as he expresses himself, there are not three Gods.*

He teaches, on his part, that in the Divinity there is but one Person, the Jehovah God (probably the Jehovah Elohim) of the Old Testament. The same hath in Christ assumed human nature; and the energy of this GodMan, that is ever working for our renovation, is the Holy Ghost, whom Swedenborg calls the Divine Truth, and the Divine Power, which worketh the regeneration, renovation, vivification, sanctification, and justification of man. Hence, he adopts, indeed, a Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; but in his language, he explains it to be three objects of one subject, or three attributes

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* Vol. i. p. 46 p. 339. "The present faith of the Church is a faith in three Gods."-Compare p. 45, p. 335.

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