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:

5689. 'And he said, God be gracious to you, my son' means that the Divine was also present with the spiritual of the celestial, which is the intermediary, because it goes forth from the celestial of the spiritual, which is truth from the Divine. This is clear from the meaning of 'God be gracious - when this is said by the celestial of the spiritual, which is 'Joseph', to the spiritual of the celestial, which is 'Benjamin', and when the latter is also addressed by the former as 'son' - as the Divine presence also with the spiritual of the celestial, which is the intermediary, because this goes forth from the celestial of the spiritual, which is truth from the Divine. For 'Benjamin' is the spiritual of the celestial, see 3969, 4592; he is the intermediary too, 5411, 5413, 5443, 5639.

[2] Since, as stated above, the Lord's inner man was the celestial of the spiritual, and this was truth from the Divine or the clothing next to the Divine Himself within the Lord, and since the spiritual of the celestial, which is the intermediary, went forth from that, it follows that the Divine was also present with this intermediary. What goes forth from something acquires its essential being from that from which it goes forth; but it is clothed with coverings such as serve to enable communication to take place and thereby enable a useful purpose to be realized in a lower sphere. The coverings that clothe it are derived in part from such things as exist in that lower sphere, to the end that the internal from which it goes forth can operate in the lower sphere through the kinds of things present there.

[3] What provides its essential being is so to speak its father, since that essential being is its soul; and what provides its clothing is its mother, for that clothing is the body belonging to this soul. This is why, as stated above, the intermediary must be derived from both if it is to be an intermediary - from the internal as its father and from the external as its mother.