3988. There was such a sphere around me that I scarcely knew anything certain; all certainty of truth seemed to have disappeared. Spirits also complained that they, in like manner, neither knew nor saw anything clearly. They seemed to themselves to vanish into a bare idea, the whole spirit becoming, as it were, an idea, so that he wondered that one could speak at all, seeing he was scarcely aware of anything he said. Such is the faith of the Lutherans. One who has confirmed and persuaded himself that faith alone saves, thinks nothing of love, because he thinks nothing of good works, by doing away with which he does away also with love; wherefore they thus live, thinking if they only have faith [all will be well]; yet even of this they are ignorant as to what it is, regarding it as a mere intuition or thought, which still they have not, but the bare idea of a thought and that but barely, as, for instance, when they undertake to defend it against others, and thus speak of it; otherwise they are totally in the dark as to what faith is. Thus are they in the other life while in that state as to faith, that is, while it is to them as a mere indeterminate, most general, or universal idea, thus in effect nothing. When love is named they can form no notion of it except from conjugial love. - 1748, November 17.