The Three Essentials of a church

Divine Providence 259. There are three essentials of the church, an acknowledgment of the Divine of the Lord, an acknowledgment of the holiness of the Word, and the life that is called charity. According to the life which is charity is every one's faith; from the Word comes the knowledge of what the life must be, and from the Lord are reformation and salvation. If the church had held these three as essentials it would not have been divided, but only varied, by intellectual dissensions, as light varies the colour in beautiful objects, and as various circlets give beauty in the crown of a king.


True Christian Religion 712. It is also known that there are three essentials of the church, God, charity, and faith, and that all things in the church have relation to these three as their universals. These are identical with the three named above, since in the holy supper God is the Lord, charity is the Divine good, and faith the Divine truth. What is charity but the good that man does from the Lord? And what is faith but the truth that man believes from the Lord? And this is why there are three things in man in respect to his internal, namely, soul, or mind, will, and understanding. These three are the receptacles of the three universals; the soul itself, or the mind, is the receptacle of the Lord, for it lives therefrom; the will is the receptacle of love or good; and the understanding is the receptacle of wisdom or truth. Thus each thing and all things in the soul or mind, not only have relation to the three universals of heaven and the church, but they go forth from them. Mention anything that goes forth from man that does not contain mind, will, and understanding. If anyone of these were taken away, would man be anything more than any inanimate thing? Likewise there are in man's external three things, to which each thing and all things have relation, and upon which they depend, namely, the body, the heart, and the lungs. And these three things of the body correspond to the three of the mind, the heart corresponding to the will, and the lungs or respiration to the understanding. That there is such a correspondence has been fully shown in former treatises. Thus then have each and all things in man been so formed, both universally and particularly, as to be receptacles of the three universals of heaven and the church. This is because man was created an image and likeness of God, and he was so created in order that he might be in the Lord and the Lord in him.
Man supposes that life is his own

Apocalypse Explained 349 [2] Since it is at this day believed in the world that the life that each one has was given and implanted, and is thus one's own, and does not flow in continuously, I desire to say something respecting it. The opinion that life is in man in such a way as to be his own is merely an appearance that springs from the perpetual presence of the Lord, and from His Divine love, in that He wills to be conjoined to man, to be in him, and to impart to him His life, for such is the Divine love; and because this is perpetual and continuous man supposes that life is in him as his own; yet it is known that there is not a good or a truth in man, but that they come from above, thus that they flow in. It is the same with love and faith; for everything of man's love is from good, and everything of his faith is from truth; for what a man loves is good to him, and what he believes is truth to him. This makes clear in the first place that no good and no truth, so neither love nor faith, is in man, but that they flow in from the Lord. Life itself is in good and truth, and nowhere else. The receptacle of the good of love with man is the will, and the receptacle of the truth of faith with him is the understanding; and to will good does not belong to man, nor to believe truth. These are the two faculties in which is the whole life of man; outside of these there is no life.

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