796. And power to act was given unto him forty and two months. That this signifies destruction until nothing of truth and good remained, is evident from the signification of the power to act, as denoting actions destructive of goods and truths; for by the mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, as was explained just above, is signified doctrine, and thence instruction, preaching, and reasoning, utterly destroying the goods of the Word, and its truths. Therefore by the power to act which was given to him, is signified the process of destroying them; and from the signification of forty and two months, as denoting a full vastation and consummation (concerning which see above, n. 633), consequently destruction, until nothing of truth and good remains. The same is also signified by the number forty-two, 2 Kings ii. 24, where it is said that forty-two boys were torn in pieces by two bears (concerning which see above, n. 781).
[2] The subject treated of in this and the following verse is the destruction of the church, which is entirely destroyed when its truths are turned into falsities, and its goods into evils. That this is done by the doctrine of faith separated from life, is evident from this, that the doctrine of the church is a doctrine of faith, and that the doctrine of life, which is called moral theology, is a forensic doctrine, considered as serviceable to the church at pleasure; but having nothing of salvation in it, because nothing of faith. When, nevertheless, faith separated from life is not alive but dead, and, therefore, can save no one.
[3] It is supposed that man, from the doctrine of separate faith, can believe that there is a God, that there is a heaven and a hell and a life after death, that the Word is Divine, and, therefore, that the things therein declared are to be believed. These things man may indeed know, and also think, and in some measure understand from the light of reason, but still he cannot have that faith in them that will remain long after death. For the faith that pertains to life remains, but not faith apart from life. Every one has this life only as he abstains from evils, and shuns and is averse to them because they are contrary to the Word, and thus contrary to the Lord. Faith from such life remains after death, because it is from the Lord, and thus the Lord's with man.
From these things it is evident that man from faith alone cannot truly believe in the existence of God, and how then can he believe other things? It follows, therefore, that the doctrine of faith separated [from life] destroys the church as to all its goods and truths. That it is so has been made quite clear to me from such persons after death with whom I have spoken. The followers and defenders of that faith who have only cleansed the outside of the cup and platter, and not the inside, after a brief stay in the world of spirits, reject what they have said and believed in as part of their faith, and have acknowledged as gods, either themselves or others who excel in power by means of arts known in hell; in fact, they laugh at the truths of the Word which they called holy when they were in the world.
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