Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/118

consideration it is manifest that the church, consisting of those who are not dragons, is understood by the earth which helped the woman, and swallowed up the stream, which the dragon cast out of his mouth. (A. E. 765.)

The reason why they who have confirmed faith alone to be the very arcana of justification and salvation thereby, cannot take away any truth and good of faith, nor the affection and perception of them, from any but those who are not in the faith of charity, is, that they are scarcely comprehended by any one but the priest who teaches and preaches them. The layman hears them, but they enter in at one ear and go out at the other; which the priest himself who utters those arcana, may certainly know from this circumstance, that he himself spent the whole force of his genius in acquiring a knowledge of them in his youth and afterwards in retaining them in adult age. What then must be the case with a layman who simply thinks of faith from charity when he hears these mysteries.

Hence it may be seen that faith alone, as being competent to justification, is the faith of the clergy and not of the laity (save such of them as live unconcernedly) who imbibe no more from their arcana than that faith alone saves; that they cannot do good of themselves nor fulfil the law; and that Christ suffered for them; besides some other universals of a similar nature. (A. R. 426.)