to be different or to come from any other source. Revealing another true
faith besides this one is as impossible as riding a horse to some constella-
tion in the sky, grabbing one of its stars, hiding it in your coat pocket,
and bringing it back with you!”
He included this last comment to make his friends laugh at any
new faith.
[ 4 ] The men on the right side, though, who were bearded and wore no
wigs, were upset when they heard this. One of them, an old man, stood
up. (Later, however, he looked like a young adult, because he was an angel
from heaven, where people of every stage of life become young adults.)
The old man said, “I have heard the nature of the faith you all
have—the faith the chairman praised just now. But that faith is nothing
but the tomb of our Lord after the resurrection, locked up again by
Pilate’s soldiers. I have opened that faith but found nothing inside it
except magicians’ wands used by the sorcerers in Egypt for doing mira-
cles. To your eyes, your faith looks like a treasure chest made of gold and
encrusted with precious stones; but when it is opened, the chest is empty,
except perhaps for some dust from papal relics left in the corners. Papists
have the same faith, you see, except that they are hiding it now behind
external acts of piety.
“To use a simile, your faith is also like the Vestal virgin in ancient
times who was buried alive for extinguishing the sacred fire. In fact, I can
state it directly: to my eyes your faith looks just like the golden calf
around which the children of Israel danced after Moses had left to go up
to Jehovah on Mount Sinai [Exodus 32 : 1 – 20 ]. [ 5 ] Don’t be surprised that
I have spoken about your faith in these analogies—this is the way we
who are in heaven speak about it.
“Our faith, on the other hand, is, was, and will be to eternity a belief in
the Lord God the Savior, whose humanity is divine and whose divinity is
human. It is a faith, then, that is adapted for reception. It is a faith that
unites what is divine and spiritual to what is human and earthly. It
becomes a spiritual faith on an earthly plane. What is earthly then becomes
transparent from the spiritual light of our faith.
“The truths that constitute our faith are as many as the verses in the
sacred tome. These truths are all like stars, whose light reveals, and
shows the shape of, our faith. People acquire this faith from the Word
by means of their earthly light—the light of knowledge, thought, and
persuasion; but if people believe in the Lord, he turns this faith into
conviction, trust, and confidence. Through this process their faith comes
singke
(singke)
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