Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/359

XXVI ] little more so, since, in order to secede thoroughly from Rome, they had given up good works, relying on being saved (justified) by the faith that the merits of Christ would be credited (imputed) to them, if they applied for them at what we might call the Bank of Grace.

This Bank of Grace existed, according to the theologians, because Jesus had sacrificed himself on the Cross to conciliate God, the Father, angry with mankind because of its original sin. Such was the doctrine of the vicarious atonement, so abhorred by Swedenborg as a calumny against Love and Wisdom. He also saw it as an invitation to humanity to go ahead and sin, and all spots could be washed out at the end by a deathbed conversion.

He, who was far from friendly to the Roman Catholic Church, said quaintly enough that its members might enter the New Church more easily than the Reformed, because although the Catholics officially still believed in being saved through Christ's merits, they did not in reality know much about it, so thoroughly had the doctrine been "removed out of sight, and withdrawn from memory, that it is like something buried in the earth, and covered over with a stone, which the monks have set a watch over, to prevent its being dug up and revived. For were it revived, the belief of their possessing a supernatural power of forgiving sins, and of thus justifying, sanctifying and bestowing salvation would cease, and therewith all their sanctity, pre-eminence and abundant gains." 2

Swedenborg had promised that he would elaborate the doctrines of the New Church in a big book soon, but Cuno was not going to wait; he frankly confessed that he was a little anxious about his being known as a friend of the author of the Summary, and he wrote a long letter to refute it, circulating it among his friends, but, honorably, sent it first to Swedenborg.

It was a clever letter, evidently meant for public consumption. Cuno did not at all answer the main contentions of Swedenborg, as stated above; he left those explosive matters alone. Instead he pleaded with the author to prove his authority for what he said, to "adduce a Divine Testimony in Divine matters." How do we know, he said, that you yourself are not like one of those persons you mention in your writings who dwell so incessantly on religious subjects that they come to see them inwardly and to hear spirits