Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/39

Rh that God has no respect to men's works, but to faith alone; that there is no connection between charity and faith; that man in conversion is like a stock; with many more heresies of the same kind; ... and that the heresies from the first times of the church to the present day, have sprung from no other source than the idea of three Gods.

"XVII. That the infestation from falsities and the consequent eclipse of every truth, or the desolation which at this day prevails in the Christian churches, is what is meant by the great affliction such as was not from the beginning of the world, nor ever shall be, Matt. xxiv. 21.

"XXII. That the opening and rejection of the faith of the present church, and the revelation and reception of the tenets of the faith of the New Chtirch [with a life conformable thereto], is what is meant by these words in the Apocalypse: 'He that sat upon the throne said, Behold I make all things new, xxi. 5.' "

Now, contrary to the old tripersonal doctrine, and contrary also to that dreary pantheism which doubts or denies the Divine Personality, the New Theology as expounded by Swedenborg, teaches the strict personal unity of God. It teaches that He exists as one Divine Person, in whom nevertheless is a Trinity represented in Scripture by Father, Son and Holy Spirit: This, however, is not a trinity of persons, but of the great essentials in the one Divine Being—Love, Wisdom Rh