Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/162

156 ) in the will; and it becomes united to love only when the belief of the truth is so thorough and devout, that the individual regulates his thought, purposes and conduct by it—lives it day by day—shunning as a sin whatever evil the truth condemns, and doing whatever good and useful acts it approves or enjoins. And these acts, whereby faith becomes wedded to charity, or truth in the understanding becomes married to love in the will—if done (as the truth requires) in the hearty acknowledgment that the power and disposition to do them, are every moment given by the Lord—are the good works which consummate the heavenly marriage of good and truth in the soul. Works are the ultimate acts in which love in the will guided by truth in the understanding, terminates and rests as on a secure foundation, and without which it would have no permanence—no real existence in the soul beyond that of a shadow or a dream. Hence the reason why so much importance is attached to works in Scripture, and why it is said that in the Hereafter every one will be judged and rewarded "according to his works."

Thus the New Church teaches that charity, faith and works are united like heart, lungs and their resultant action, or like will, understanding and their joint operation in man; and that neither is genuine, or can have any real existence, apart from the other two. It teaches that love or