Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/141

 no other idea than that to enter heaven is merely to be admitted from mercy alone, and that this is especially believed by those who make faith the only medium of salvation; for such persons, from the principles of their religion, have no regard to the life and the deeds of love which make the life; thus neither to any other means whereby the Lord implants heaven in man, and renders him receptible of heavenly joy. And because they thus reject every actual means, they settle down in the belief, which follows of necessity from the principles assumed, that man goes to heaven from mercy alone, to which they believe that God the Father is moved by the intercession of the Son.

To these things the angels replied, that they are aware that such a tenet follows of necessity from the assumption that man is saved by faith alone. And inasmuch as this dogma is the head of all the rest, and into this, because it is not true, no light from heaven can flow, thence comes the ignorance wherein the church is at this day, concerning the Lord and heaven and the life after death and heavenly joy and the essence of love and charity, and in general concerning good and its conjunction with truth; consequently concerning the life of man, whence it is, and what is its quality; yet no one ever derives this from thought, but from will and the deeds thence, and only so far from thought as this partakes of the will; thus not from faith, except so far as faith partakes of love.