Doctrine of Life #4

By Emanuel Swedenborg

Study this Passage

  
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4. Nevertheless, there are in the Christian churches many who teach that faith alone saves, and not any goodness of life or good work. They add, too, that no evilness of life or evil work condemns those who have been justified by faith alone, because they abide in God and in His grace.

What is astonishing, however, is that although they teach these ideas, still they acknowledge, as a result of their common perception from heaven, that those who live right are saved, and that those who do not live right are damned.

That they still acknowledge this is apparent from the prayer read out to the people in churches, both in England and in Germany, Sweden and Denmark, when they come to Holy Supper. It is common knowledge that in those kingdoms they teach the aforesaid faith alone.

The prayer read out to the people in England who come to the sacrament of the Supper is as follows:

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.