4261. CONCERNING FAITH ALONE. I spoke with those who held that faith alone was saving; their confession was that they would be saved if they believed; that the Lord had redeemed them, had delivered them from hell, and taken away all their sins, saying that they thus consoled the sick who were at the point of death, and thus taught, to which they added, that some such, when they first came into anxiety in view of death, would be in a state for receiving this instruction and of thinking piously concerning it. But it was said in reply that this might occur in sickness and anxiety, when such an effect may take place but if they returned again to life they would be as they were before, for, [in the prospect of death] the propria of man cease to act, being thus removed from his voluntary principle, and in such a state and similar ones the Lord [temporarily] operates; but this does not last; although while such a state of anxiety remains, confession and devotion agree with it, yet it immediately recedes when the man returns into his life; just as in the other life such persons may be held in a similar confession, but in such a state or a state of anxiety, the confession is from a sinful fear.