Faith (pt. 6)

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
(Continued pt. 6)

The Sum of Faith is -
He who lives well and believes rightly is saved by the Lord.

That man was created for eternal life, and that every man may inherit it provided -

he lives according to the means of salvation prescribed in the Word

is admitted by every Christian, and by every heathen who possesses religion and sound reason.

Nevertheless, the means of salvation are manifold, although they each and all have relation to living well and believing rightly, thus to charity and faith, for living well is charity, and believing rightly is faith. These two general means of salvation are not only prescribed in the Word but are imposed as commandments, and as they are commanded, it follows that by means of them man can procure for himself eternal life from the power implanted in him and given to him by God; and so far as man uses that power and at the same time looks to God, so far God makes it effective in converting everything of natural charity into spiritual charity, and everything of natural faith into spiritual faith; thus God makes dead charity and faith to be alive, and the man also

There are two things that must coexist before man can be said to live well and believe rightly. In the church these two are called the internal and the external man.

When the internal man's will is right and the external acts rightly, the two make one, the external [acting] from the internal and the internal through the external, thus man from God and God through man.

But on the other hand, if the internal man's will is evil and yet the external acts rightly, they both act none the less from hell; for the man's willing is from hell, and his doing is hypocritical; and in all hypocrisy his willing which is infernal, is interiorly concealed like a snake in the grass or a worm in a flower.

The man who knows that there is an internal and an external man, and who also knows what they are, and that the two can act as one actually, and can also act as one apparently; and who knows, moreover, that the internal man lives after death, and the external is buried, possesses in potency the arcana both of heaven and of the world in abundance. And he who conjoins these two men in himself in good becomes happy to eternity; while he who divides them, and still more he who conjoins them in evil, becomes unhappy to eternity.

(True Christian Religion 340)

To be continued...