Heavenly Doctrine (Tafel) n. 118

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118. Those who are in faith by persuasion do not know from any internal enlightenment whether what they teach is true or false; nay, they do not care, provided they are believed by the common people, for they have no affection for the truth for the sake of the truth. Whenever, therefore, they are deprived of places of honour and gain, provided their reputation is not endangered, they decline from faith. For faith by persuasion is not inwardly with a man, but outwardly in the memory only, from which it is brought forth in teaching. Hence also, this faith with its truths vanishes away after death; for then only that much of faith remains as had been inwardly in the man, that is, as had taken root in good, and thus had become a matter of his life.


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