they clearly perceived that they had no faith, which afterwards they confessed in the presence of many. The same thing was also made apparent by other means to those who had made a profession of faith and had thought they believed, without having lived the life of faith which is charity; and they all confessed that they had no faith, because they had nothing of it in the life of their spirits, but only in some thought extrinsic to it while they lived in the natural world.
Such is the state of the church at this day [1757], that in it there is no faith because there is no charity. And where there is no charity there is no spiritual good, for that good exists from charity alone. It was declared from heaven that there is still good with some, but that it cannot be called spiritual but natural good, because essential divine truths are in obscurity; and divine truths introduce to charity, for they teach it and regard it as their end and aim; whence no other charity can exist than such as accords with the truths which form it. The divine truths from which the doctrines of the churches are derived, respect faith alone; on which account they are called the doctrines of faith, and have no respect to life. But truths which regard faith alone and not life, cannot make man spiritual; for so long as they are external to the life they are only natural, being merely known and thought of like common things. Hence it is that spiritual good is not given
