45. CHAPTER VIII ¹ . THE CONFIRMING OF A TRINITY OF PERSONS, EACH OF WHOM IS A GOD FROM ETERNITY, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE NICENE AND ATHANASIAN CREEDS, HAS FALSIFIED THE WHOLE WORD

1. Every heretic is able to confirm his heresy, and does confirm it, by the Word, this having been written by means of appearances and correspondences. On this account the Word is said by some to be "the book of all the heresies".

2. A man, after confirming his dogmas, sees no otherwise than that they are true, even when they are false.

3. It is possible to confirm a plurality of Gods by many things from the Word; also to confirm a faith that is imputative of Christ's merit, in which faith three Gods have each their separate part; and, further, that works of charity contribute nothing towards faith, and so nothing towards salvation.

4. A plurality of Gods can be confirmed from the following:

Trinity is mentioned by the Lord.

Trinity made its appearance when the Lord was baptized.

There are "three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit". [1 John 5:7.]

Jehovah God said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness". [Gen. 1:26.]

Before Abraham three angels, who are called Jehovah, made their appearance. [Gen. 17:2-3.]

In the New Word, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are mentioned many times by the Lord in the Gospels, and by the Apostles in the Epistles, and this without its being said that they are One.

Then, too, it can be confirmed that there is a faith by which there is imputation of Christ's merit, and that this faith is the only saving faith; also that the works of charity do not conduce to salvation. Let it be added that any reasoning mind can augment the above with contributions of its own, and strengthen them.

5. Not a single one of these can be seen to be false and so be dispelled, unless reason, enlightened by the Lord through the Word, confirm that God is One and that there is a conjunction of charity and faith.

6. When this is done, it is obvious that the theology based upon a Trinity of Persons, each one of whom is God, and upon a faith made applicable to each of them separately, and upon the worthlessness of charity for salvation, has falsified the whole Word; for the reason, chiefly, that these three, God, charity, and faith, are the universals of religion to which every single thing in the Word, and every single thing of heaven and the Church therefrom, has reference.

7. The result, with him who has confirmed this enormity, is that, wherever he reads of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit, indeed wherever he reads of Jehovah and God, he thinks of three Gods because he is thinking of one out of the three; further, wherever he reads of faith, he thinks of no other faith than of one by which there is imputation of Christ's merit; and wherever he reads of charity, he thinks of it as not contributing anything towards salvation, or else he thinks of that faith in its stead. Confirmation once impressed carries this with it.

Footnotes:

1585. 'And he saw all the plain of Jordan' means the goods and truths that resided with the external man. This is clear from the meaning of 'a plain' and of 'the Jordan'. In the internal sense 'the plain surrounding the Jordan' means the external man as regards all his goods and truths. The reason the plain of Jordan has this meaning is that the Jordan was a boundary of the land of Canaan. 'The land of Canaan', as stated and shown already, means the Lord's kingdom and Church, and in particular its celestial and spiritual things; this also explains why it was called the Holy Land, and the heavenly Canaan. And because it means the Lord's kingdom and Church, it means in the highest sense the Lord Himself, who is the All in all of His kingdom and of His Church.

[2] For this reason all things in the land of Canaan were representative. Those in the midst of the land, or that were inmost, represented His internal Man - Mount Zion and Jerusalem, for example, representing respectively celestial things and spiritual things. More outlying districts represented things more remote from internals. And the most outlying districts, or those which formed the boundaries, represented the external man. There were several boundaries to the land of Canaan, but in general they were the two rivers Euphrates and Jordan, and also the Sea, ¹ for which reason the Euphrates and the Jordan represented external things. Here therefore 'the plain of Jordan' means, as it also represents, all things residing in the external man. The meaning of the land of Canaan is similar when used in reference to the Lord's kingdom in heaven, to the Lord's Church on earth, to the member of that kingdom or Church, or abstractly to the celestial things of love, and so on.

[3] Almost all the cities therefore, and indeed all the mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, and other features in the land of Canaan, were representative. The river Euphrates, being a boundary, represented, as shown already in 120, sensory evidence and facts that belong to the external man, and so too did the Jordan and the plain of Jordan, as becomes clear from the following places: In David,

O my God, my soul bows itself down within me; ² therefore I remember You from the land of Jordan, and the Hermons from the little mountain. Psalms 42:6.

Here 'the land of Jordan' stands for that which is lowly and so is distant from the celestial, as a person's externals are from his internals.

[4] The crossing of the Jordan when the children of Israel entered the land of Canaan and the dividing of its waters at that time also represented the approach to the internal man by way of the external, as well as a person's entry into the Lord's kingdom, and much more besides, Joshua 3:14 on to the end of Chapter 4. And because the external man is constantly hostile towards the internal and strives for domination over it, the arrogance or the pride of the Jordan came to be phrases used by the Prophets, as in Jeremiah,

How will you compete with horses? And confident in a land of peace how do you deal with the pride of the Jordan? Jeremiah 12:5.

'The pride of the Jordan' stands for those things belonging to the external man which rear up and wish to have dominion over the internal, such as reasonings, meant here by 'horses', and 'the confidence' they give.

[5] In the same prophet,

Edom will become a desolation. Behold, like a lion it will come up from the arrogance of the Jordan against the habitation of Ethan. Jeremiah 49:17, 19.

'The arrogance of the Jordan' stands for the pride of the external man against the goods and truths of the internal. In Zechariah,

Howl, O fir tree, for the cedar is fallen, for the magnificent ones have been laid waste! Howl, O oaks of Bashan, for the impenetrable forest has come down. The sound of the howling of shepherds [is heard], for their magnificence has been laid waste; the sound of the roaring of young lions, that the pride of the Jordan has been laid waste. Zechariah 11:2-3.

The fact that the Jordan was a boundary of the land of Canaan is clear from Numbers 34:12, and the eastern boundary of the land of Judah, in Joshua 15:5.

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