Five Precepts Doctrinal Ideas of the Faith and Charity of the New Church

From Conjugial Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The doctrinal ideas of the Church which is meant by the 'New Jerusalem' are as follows:

• (1) There is one God, in whom is the Divine Trinity, and He is the Lord Jesus Christ.

• (2) Saving faith is to believe in Him.

• (3) Evils are to be shunned as sins, because they are of the devil and from the devil.

• (4) Goods are to be done, because they are of God and from God.

• (5) They are to be done by a man as of himself; yet he must believe that they are from the Lord with him and through him.

'That there is one God, in whom is the Divine Trinity, and that He is the Lord Jesus Christ' - Is not God one and indivisible? Is there not a Trinity? If God is one and indivisible, is He not one person? If one person, is not the Trinity in that person? That He is the Lord Jesus Christ:-

• He was conceived of God the Father (Luke 1:34, 35);

so that as to the soul He is God, and hence, as He Himself says:-

• The Father and He are one (John 10:30)

• He is in the Father and the Father in Him (John xiv. 10, 11)

• He who sees Him and knows Him, sees and knows the Father (John 14:7, 9)

• No one sees and knows the Father but He who is in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18)

• All things of the Father are His (John 3:35; 16:15)

• He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by Him (John 14:6)

Thus He is from Him because He is in Him; and, according to Paul:-

• In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9)

Further:

• He has power over all flesh (John 17:2)

• He has all power in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18)

It follows that He is the God of heaven and earth.

'That saving faith is to believe in Him.'

• This is the will of the Father, that every one who believes in the Son shall have everlasting life (John 6:40).

• God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

• He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; but he who believes not the Son shall not see life, but the anger of God abides on him (John 3:36).

'Evils are to be shunned as sins, because they are of the devil and from the devil.'

'Goods are to be done, because they are of God and from God.'

'They are to be done by a man as of himself; yet he must believe that they are from the Lord with him and through him.'

What need is there to prove that 'evils are to be shunned because they are of the devil and from the devil'?  And that 'goods are to be done because they are of God and from God'? And that 'these things ought to be done by man as if of himself, yet that he ought to believe that they are done from the Lord with him and through him'?

Sacred Scripture from beginning to end confirms the truth of these three doctrines. What else does it contain in summary but admonition to shun evils and do goods and to believe in the Lord God?  Without these three, moreover, there is no religion. Is not religion a matter of life?  And what is life but shunning evils and doing goods?  And how can a man do and believe these things except as of himself? Therefore if you take these doctrines away from the Church you take away the Sacred Scriptures from it, and you also take religion away from it, and when that is removed from it, the Church is not a Church.

(Conjugial Love 82)