74. 17 The reference in Matthew 24:21 to “a great affliction such as has never existed since the world began and will never exist again” means an attack by falsities and the resulting end — the devastation — of all truth in the Christian denominations of today.
Survey of Teachings of the New Church #21
21. 3 The leading reformers — Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin — retained all the dogmas regarding the trinity of persons in the Divine, original sin, the assigning of Christ’s merit to us, and our being justified by faith, in the same past and present form they had had among Roman Catholics. The reformers separated goodwill or good works from that faith, however, and declared that our good works contribute nothing to our salvation, for the purpose of clearly differentiating themselves from Roman Catholics with regard to the essentials of the church, which are faith and goodwill.
