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Doc. 256. CUNO ON SWEDENBORG’S DOCTRINES. 457
that we can have recourse to no other doctrine but faith
alone." This course of reasoning, that all good which man does
in obedience to God’s truth is tarnished with the idea of merit
and reward, Cuno borrowed from the Lutheran church, while
his former sentiment that "it is foolish and wicked to think
that we are not obliged to co-operate with the Lord in our
salvation," he derived from his own independent study of God’s
Word.
In order to reconcile these two contradictory positions, he
says on p. 53, that all depends on the definition of faith ; and
he claims that the faith of the Lutheran church is a faith
conjoined with love. Yet he is not so very sure that
faith in that church is conjoined with love; for in dis
cussing on p. 133, Swedenborg’s work entitled " The Doctrine
of the New Jerusalem respecting Faith" he says : "Here the
author asserts that a blind faith prevails among the Evange
lical, who have separated charity, and, if it is true that the true
Evangelical church has separated charity from faith, he is
right. " But immediately afterwards, in discussing Swedenborg’s
statement that those who live in faith separate from love are
understood in Daniel and Matthew by the he-goats, he says at
p. 138, "This may be so ; but, nevertheless, the Evangelical
acknowledge no other faith except one which is active by love."
It is evident, therefore, that while Cuno individually be
lieves only in a faith conjoined with love, he would fain be
lieve that the faith taught in the Lutheran church, to which
he belonged, is likewise a faith conjoined with love. But as
that church evidently teaches that man is saved by faith alone
without the works of the Law, in order to preserve his alle
giance to that church he is driven to make such manifestly
contradictory statements as these :
"The late Luther has beautifully compared sanctification
by works to Saul, and faith without works (unthätiger Glaube)
to David, concerning whom Israel shouted of yore, ’Saul has
slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands;’ " while on
the very next page he declares faith operating without love to
be a nonentity, "a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal ; " and
in support of this doctrine he says, " Our Saviour has most un
doubtedly directed us to have faith in Him, but He has also
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