Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence
Chapter 28
the Lord. iv. The uniting of temporal and eternal is the Lord's divine providence.
215. (i) _The temporal has to do with distinction and wealth, thus with standing and gain, in the world._ Many things are temporal, but they are all related to distinction and wealth. By the temporal is meant all that either perishes in time or at least comes to an end with man's life in the world. By the eternal is meant all that does not perish or come to an end in time and thus not with life in the world. Since, as we said, all that is temporal concerns distinction and wealth, it is important to know the following: what, and whence, distinction and wealth are; the nature of the love of them for themselves and the nature of the love of them for the sake of use; that these two loves are distinct from each other, as hell and heaven are; and that man hardly knows the difference between them. But of these points one by one.
[2] _First: What, and whence, distinction and wealth are._ Distinction and wealth in the most ancient times were quite different from what they gradually became later. Distinction in those times existed only in the relation of parents and children and was one of love, a love full of respect and veneration, accorded the parents not because of birth from them, but because of the instruction and wisdom received from them, which was a second birth of the children, in itself spiritual, being of their spirit. This was the sole distinction in most ancient days because tribes, families, and households dwelt separately and not like today under governments. The distinction attached to the head of the family. Men of old called the times golden ages.
[3] But after those times the love of ruling, just out of enjoyment of that love, crept in by stages, and as enmity and hostility did so at the same time towards those who were unwilling to submit, tribes, families, and households congregated of necessity in communities and set over themselves one whom they called judge at first, then prince, and finally king and emperor. They also began to protect themselves by towers, earthworks and walls. The lust of ruling spread like a contagion to many from the judge, prince, king or emperor as from the head into the body, and as a result degrees of distinction arose and prestige according to them, and self-love also and pride in one's own prudence.
[4] The same thing happened with the love of riches. In the most ancient days when tribes and families lived by themselves, there was no other love of riches than to possess the necessaries of life which they provided for themselves from flocks and herds and from the lands, fields and gardens which supplied their food. Suitable houses, furnished with useful articles of every kind, and clothing were also among their necessities of life. Parents, children and male and female servants, making up the household, engaged in the care and labor for all these necessities.
[5] But after the love of dominion entered and destroyed this state of society, the love of having means beyond what was needed crept in also and grew to the extreme of wanting to possess the wealth of all other men. The two loves are like blood relatives, for one who wants to rule over all things, also wants to possess all things; for then all others become servants, and they alone masters. This is clearly evident from those in the papist world who have exalted their dominion even into heaven, to the Lord's throne, on which they have placed themselves, and who at the same time seek the wealth of the whole earth and want to enlarge their treasury endlessly.
[6] Second: _The nature of the love of distinction and wealth for their own sake and for usefulness' sake respectively._ The love of distinction and standing for their own sake is self-love--strictly, the love of ruling from self-love; and the love of riches and wealth for their own sake is love of the world--more precisely, the love of possessing the goods of others by whatever device. But the love of distinction and riches for usefulness' sake is love of the use, which is the same as love to the neighbor; for that for the sake of which a man acts is the purpose from which he acts, and is first or primary, and all else is means and secondary.
[7] As for the love of distinction and standing, identical with self-love and strictly with the love of ruling from self-love, it is the love of the proprium; and man's proprium is all evil. Hence it is said that man is born into all evil and that what he has by heredity is nothing but evil. What he has by heredity is his proprium in which he is and into which he comes through self-love and especially through the love of ruling from self-love; for one who is in that love regards only himself and thus immerses his thoughts and affections in his proprium. Hence a love of evil-doing is present in self-love. The reason is that he does not love the neighbor but only himself; and one who loves himself only, sees others as outsiders or as mean or nothing worth, despises them, and does not hesitate to do them injury.
[8] For this reason one who is in the love of ruling from the love of self thinks nothing of defrauding his neighbor, committing adultery with his wife, slandering him, breathing vengeance on him even to the death, treating him cruelly, and other such deeds. This a man gets from the fact that the devil himself, with whom he is conjoined and by whom he is led, is nothing else than the love of ruling from self-love. One who is led by the devil, that is, by hell, is led into all these evils and is constantly led by enjoyments of these evils. Hence all who are in hell want to do evil to all, but those in heaven want to do well by all. From this opposition there results the intermediate state in which man is and in it is in equilibrium, as it were, so that he can turn towards hell or towards heaven. So far as he favors the evils of self-love he turns towards hell, and so far as he removes them from him he turns towards heaven.
[9] It has been granted me to feel the nature and also the strength of the enjoyment of ruling from the love of self. I was let into it that I might know. It was such as to exceed all worldly enjoyments. It was an enjoyment of the whole mind from its inmosts to its outmosts, but felt in the body only as pleasure and gratification, making the chest swell. It was also granted me to perceive that there issued from this enjoyment as from their fountainhead the enjoyments of evils of all kinds, such as adultery, revenge, fraud, slander, and evil-doing in general. There is a similar enjoyment in the love of possessing the wealth of others by whatever ruse, and from this love in the lusts derived from it; yet not the same degree of enjoyment unless this love is conjoined with self-love. As for distinction and riches sought not for themselves but for usefulness' sake, this is not love of them but love of uses; distinction and wealth serve it as means. This love is heavenly. But of it more in what follows.
[10] Third: _These two loves are distinct from each other, as heaven and hell are._ This is plain from what has just been said, to which I will add the following. All who are in the love of ruling from self-love, whoever they are and whether they are great or small, are in hell in spirit. They are also in the love of all evils. If they do not commit them, still in their spirit they believe that they are allowable, and when honor, standing, or fear of the law do not deter, they commit them physically. What is more, the love of ruling from self-love hides hatred of God deeply within itself, consequently of divine things which are of the church and especially of the Lord. If such men acknowledge God it is with the lips only, and if they acknowledge the divine things of the church, it is for fear of losing standing. This love hides hatred of the Lord deeply within it because deep in it is the desire to be God, for it worships and adores itself alone. Hence if anyone honors it, even to saying that it possesses divine wisdom and is the god of the world, it loves him with all the heart.
[11] It is otherwise with the love of distinction and wealth for usefulness' sake; this love is heavenly, for, as was said, it is the same as love of the neighbor. By uses goods are meant, and by doing uses doing good is meant, and by doing uses or good, serving and helping others is meant. Although those doing so may possess distinction and wealth, they regard these only as means for doing uses, thus for serving and helping. They are meant in these words of the Lord:
Whoever would be great among you, must be your minister; and whoever would . . . be first, must be your servant (Mt 20:26, 27).
It is these also whom the Lord entrusts with ruling in heaven. For ruling is to them the means of doing uses or good, thus of serving; and when uses or good deeds are their purpose and their love, they do not rule; the Lord does, from whom is all that is good.
[12] Fourth: _Man hardly knows the difference between the two loves._ For most men of distinction and wealth also perform uses, yet do not know whether they do so for their own sake or for the sake of usefulness. They know this the less because love of self and the world has more fire and ardor for doing uses than have those who are not in love of self and the world. The former do uses, however, for the sake of fame or gain, thus for their own benefit; but the latter, doing so for the sake of usefulness and what is beneficial, act not from themselves but from the Lord.
[13] The difference between the two loves can scarcely be recognized by man, for he is ignorant whether he is being led by the devil or by the Lord. Led by the devil he does uses for his own sake or the world's; led by the Lord, he does them for the sake of the Lord and of heaven. All who shun evils as sins do uses from the Lord; all who do not shun evils as sins do uses from the devil, for evil is the devil, and use or good is the Lord. Only so is the difference in question recognizable. Outwardly the two loves look the same; inwardly they are wholly unlike. One is like gold with dross in it, the other like gold with pure gold in it. One is like artificial fruit, looking outwardly like the fruit of a tree, but is colored wax with dust or pitch in it; the other is like noble fruit, flavorsome and fragrant, with seeds in it.
216. (ii) _The eternal has to do with spiritual standing and wealth, of love and wisdom, in heaven._ As the natural man calls the enjoyments of self-love, which are also the enjoyments of the lusts of evil, good, and confirms that they are goods, he calls distinction and wealth divine blessings. But when the natural man sees the wicked as well as the good raised to distinction and prospered, and still more when he beholds the good despised and poorly off and the wicked honored and affluent, he thinks to himself, "Why is this? It cannot be by divine providence. For if providence governed everything, it would lavish distinction and wealth on the good and inflict contempt and poverty on the wicked, and thus drive the wicked to acknowledge there is a God and divine providence."
[2] But unless he is enlightened by the spiritual man, that is, is at the same time spiritual, the natural man does not see that distinction and wealth can be blessings but also curses, and that when they are from God they are blessings, and when they are from the devil they are curses. It is well known, moreover, that the devil bestows distinction and wealth; it is on this account that he is called the prince of the world. As it is not known when distinction and wealth are blessings and when they are curses, let it be told in this order: 1. Distinction and wealth are blessings and are curses. 2. When they are blessings they are spiritual and eternal; when they are curses they are temporal and ephemeral. 3. Distinction and wealth which are curses, compared with those which are blessings, are as nothing compared with everything or as that which has no existence in itself compared with that which has.
217. The three points are now each to be clarified. 1. _Distinction and wealth are blessings and are curses._ Common experience attests that both the pious and the impious, or the just and the unjust, that is, the wicked and the good, gain distinction and wealth, and yet it is undeniable that the impious and unjust, that is, the wicked, enter hell, and the pious and just, that is, the good, enter heaven. As this is true, distinction and wealth or standing and means are either blessings or curses, blessings with the good and curses with the evil. It was shown in the work _Heaven and Hell,_ published in London in the year 1758, that rich and poor and great and small are found in both heaven and hell (nn. 357-365). It is plain from this that distinction and wealth with those now in heaven were blessings in the world, and with those now in hell were curses in the world.
[2] If he will think about the matter with reason, anyone can know when distinction and wealth are blessings or curses, namely, that they are blessings with those who do not set their heart on them, and curses with those who do. One sets the heart on them in loving oneself in them, and one does not set the heart on them when he loves uses and not himself in them. Above (n. 215) we told what the difference between the two loves, and the nature of it, is. It is to be added that distinction and wealth seduce some and not others. They do so when they excite the loves in man's proprium, that is, self-love, which is the love found in hell and is called the devil (as remarked above), and they do not seduce if they do not excite that love.
[3] Both the wicked and the good come to distinction and are prospered in means because the wicked as well as the good perform uses. The wicked perform uses for the sake of their personal standing and gain; the good do so for the sake of the standing and profit of the work which they do. The good regard the standing and profit of their work as principal causes of action, and personal standing and gain as instrumental causes; but the wicked regard their personal standing and gain as the main incentives and the standing and gain of their work as the instrumental. Yet who does not see that a person, whatever his function or standing, is to serve the affairs which he administers, and not they him? Who does not see that a judge is to serve justice, a magistrate the common welfare, a king his kingdom, and that it is not to be the other way around? According to the laws of a kingdom, a man is invested therefore with distinction and standing in keeping with the eminence of the work he does. Moreover, who does not see that the difference between the two loves is like that between what is principal and what is instrumental? One who ascribes to himself personally the eminence of a position appears in the spiritual world, when this inversion is pictured, as himself inverted, feet up and head down.
[4] Second: _When distinction and wealth are blessings they are spiritual and eternal, but when they are curses they are temporal and ephemeral._ There are distinction and wealth in heaven as there are in the world. For governments and hence administrations and functions exist there, trade also and hence wealth, for there are societies and communities. All heaven is divided into two kingdoms, one called the celestial kingdom and the other the spiritual kingdom. Each kingdom is divided into innumerable societies, larger and smaller, all of which with all in them are arranged according to differences of love and of wisdom thence, the societies of the celestial kingdom according to differences of celestial love, which is love to the Lord, and the societies of the spiritual kingdom according to differences of spiritual love, which is love to the neighbor. Inasmuch as there are such societies, and all who are in them were men in the world and hence retain the loves they cherished in the world, with the one difference that they are spiritual beings now, and that distinction and wealth are spiritual in the spiritual kingdom and celestial in the celestial kingdom, therefore those have greater distinction and abundance than others who have greater love and wisdom. And to them distinction and wealth in the world were blessings.
[5] The nature of spiritual distinction and wealth may then be plain--they attach to one's function and not to one's person. The distinguished person in the spiritual world indeed enjoys magnificence and glory like those of kings on earth, yet does not regard the distinction itself as anything but rather the uses in the administration and discharge of which he is engaged. Each also receives the honors of his high post but ascribes them not to himself but to the uses, and as all uses are from the Lord, he ascribes the honors to the Lord as their source. Such are the spiritual distinction and wealth which are eternal.
[6] It is quite otherwise with those to whom eminence and wealth were curses in the world. Having attributed these to themselves and not to uses, and not wanting the uses to control them but wanting to control the uses, which they regarded as uses only as they served their own standing and honor, they are in hell and are base slaves, despised and wretched. Their distinction and wealth are gone, therefore are called temporal and fleeting. The Lord teaches about both sorts in the words:
Do not lay up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and rust corrupt and thieves break through and steal; but lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupts and where thieves do not break through and steal; for where your treasure is . . . your heart also is (Mt 6:19-21).
[7] Third: _The distinction and wealth which are curses, compared with those which are blessings, are as nothing compared with everything or as that which has no existence in itself compared with that which has._ Everything that perishes and comes to nothing is inwardly nothing in itself. Outwardly, indeed, it is something and appears to be much and to some everything while it lasts; but inwardly in itself it is not. It is like a surface with nothing beneath or like an actor in kingly robes when the play is over. But what remains to eternity is something in itself perpetually, thus everything, and it truly is, for it does not cease to be.
218. (iii) _The temporal and the eternal are separated by man, but are united by the Lord._ For all that is man's is temporal, and he may therefore be called temporal, but all things that are the Lord's are eternal, and so the Lord is called eternal. Temporal things are such as come to an end and perish, eternal things are such as do not. Anyone can see that the two can be united only by the infinite wisdom of the Lord, thus by Him and not by man. To make it known, however, that the two are separated by man and united by the Lord, this is to be demonstrated in the following order:
1. What temporal things are and what eternal are. 2. The human being is in himself temporal and the Lord in Himself eternal, and only the temporal can proceed from man, and only the eternal from the Lord. 3. Temporal things separate eternal things from themselves, while eternal things join temporal things to themselves. 4. The Lord joins man to Himself by means of appearances. 5. He does so by correspondences also.
219. These points will be clarified and established one by one. First: _What temporal things are and what eternal are._ The temporal are all things that are proper to nature and from nature proper to man. Space and time especially are proper to nature, both of them having a limit or termination. Things thence derived and proper to man are all things of his own will and understanding, thus of his affection and thought and especially of his prudence; it is well known that these are finite and limited. Eternal things, however, are all that are proper to the Lord and from Him seemingly proper to man. What is proper to the Lord is all of it infinite and eternal, thus timeless, endless and without limit; what is seemingly proper to man thence is also infinite and eternal; but nothing of this is actually proper to man, but the Lord's alone in him.
[2] Second: _The human being is in himself temporal and the Lord in Himself eternal, and only the temporal can proceed from man, and from the Lord only the eternal._ Man, we said, is in himself temporal and the Lord in Himself eternal. Since only what is in a person can proceed from him, nothing can proceed from man except what is temporal, and nothing from the Lord except what is eternal. For the infinite cannot proceed from the finite; that it can is a contradiction. The infinite, however, can proceed from the finite, still not from the finite but from the infinite by the finite. In turn, what is finite cannot proceed from the infinite; this is also a contradiction; it can be produced from the infinite and this is creation and not proceeding. On this subject see _Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom,_ from beginning to end. If then the finite proceeds from the Lord, as it does in many ways with man, it proceeds not from the Lord but from man, and can be said to do so from the Lord by man, because it so appears.
[3] This may be clarified by these words of the Lord:
Let your communication be, Yea, yea, Nay, nay, what is more than these comes of evil (Mt 5:37).
Such is the speech of all in the third heaven. For they never reason about divine things whether a thing is so or not, but see in themselves from the Lord whether or not it is. To reason about divine things whether they are so or not comes from the reasoner's not seeing them from the Lord, but wanting to see them from himself, and what one sees from oneself is evil. But still the Lord desires man to think and speak about things divine, also to reason about them, in order that he may see whether or not they are so. Such thought, speech and reasoning may be said to be from the Lord in man provided the end is to see the truth, although they are from the man until he sees and acknowledges the truth. Meanwhile it is from the Lord alone that he can think, speak and reason; for he does so from the two faculties, called liberty and rationality, which are his from the Lord alone.
[4] Third: _Temporal things separate eternal things from themselves, while eternal things join temporal things to themselves._ That temporal things separate eternal things from themselves means that man, who is temporal, does so from the temporal in himself; and that eternal things join temporal things to themselves means that the Lord, who is eternal, does so from what is eternal in Himself, as was said above. In what precedes we showed that there is a conjunction of the Lord with man and a conjunction in turn of man with the Lord, but the reciprocal conjunction of man with the Lord is not man's doing but the Lord's; also that man's will goes counter to the Lord's will or, what is the same, man's own prudence goes counter to divine providence. From these circumstances it follows that man puts the eternal things of the Lord aside by force of the temporal things in him, but the Lord joins His eternal things to man's temporal, that is, Himself to man and man to Him. As these points have been treated many times in what precedes, there is no need to confirm them further.
[5] Fourth: _The Lord joins man to Himself by means of appearances._ For it is an appearance that of himself man loves the neighbor, does good, and speaks truth. Unless this appeared to man to be so, he would not love the neighbor, do good, or speak truth, and therefore would not be conjoined with the Lord. Since love, good and truth are from the Lord, plainly the Lord joins man to Himself by means of the appearance. This appearance, and the Lord's conjunction with man and man's with the Lord, have been treated above at length.
[6] Fifth: _The Lord unites man to Himself by means of correspondences._ He does this by means of the Word, the sense of the letter of which consists wholly of correspondences. In _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Sacred Scripture,_ from beginning to end, it was shown that by means of that sense there is a conjunction of the Lord with man and a reciprocal conjunction of man with the Lord.
220. (iv) _The conjunction of the temporal and the eternal in man is the Lord's divine providence._ As this cannot come at once to the perception of the understanding or before being reduced to order and then unfolded and demonstrated according to that order, let this be the order in considering it:
1. It is by divine providence that man puts off the natural and temporal through death and puts on the spiritual and eternal. 2. Through His divine providence the Lord joins Himself with natural things by means of spiritual and to temporal by means of eternal in accordance with uses. 3. The Lord joins Himself to uses by means of correspondences, and so by means of appearances according as man confirms these. 4. This conjunction of temporal and eternal is divine providence.
All this will be placed in clearer light by explanation.
[2] First: _It is of divine providence that man puts off the natural and temporal through death and puts on the spiritual and eternal._ Natural and temporal things are the outermost and lowest things which man first enters, as he does on being born, to the end that he may be introduced then into interior and higher things; for the outmost and lowest things are containants, and these are in the natural world. For this reason no angel or spirit was created such at once, but all were born as men first and then were introduced into interior and higher things. Thus they have an outmost and lowest which in itself is fixed and stable, within and by which the interiors can be held in connection.
[3] Man first puts on the grosser substances of nature; his body consists of them; but he puts these off by death, retaining the purer substances of nature nearest to the spiritual, which then are his containants. Moreover, all interior or higher things are together in the outmost and lowermost, as was shown earlier in passages on the subject. Every activity of the Lord is therefore from topmost and outmost simultaneously and so is in fullness. But as the farthest and outmost things of nature as they are in themselves cannot receive the spiritual and eternal things for which the human mind was formed, and yet man was born to become spiritual and live forever, man puts them off and retains only those interior natural things which suit and harmonize with the spiritual and celestial and serve to contain them. This is effected by the rejection of the temporal and natural outmosts, which is the death of the body.
[4] Second: _Through His divine providence the Lord joins Himself with natural things by means of spiritual things and to temporal by means of eternal in accordance with uses._ Natural and temporal things are not only those proper to nature, but also those proper to men in the natural world. At death man puts off both of these and puts on the spiritual and eternal things corresponding to them. That he puts these on according to uses has been shown in much that precedes. The natural things proper to nature relate in general to time and space and in particular to things visible on earth. These man leaves behind at death and instead receives spiritual things which are similar in outward aspect or appearance but not in their inward aspect and actual essence. This also was considered above.
[5] Temporal things proper to men in the natural world in general are related to distinction and wealth and in particular to human needs such as food, clothing and habitation. These are also put off at death and left behind; things are put on and received that are similar in outward aspect or appearance but not in their internal aspect and essence. All these get their inward aspect and essence from the uses made of temporal things in the world. Uses are the goods which are called goods of charity. It is evident, then, that the Lord through His divine providence unites spiritual and eternal things to natural and temporal things according to uses.
[6] Third: _The Lord joins Himself to uses by means of correspondences, and thus by means of appearances according as man confirms these._ As this must seem obscure to those who have not yet acquired a clear idea of correspondence and appearance, what these are must be illustrated by examples and explained. All the sayings of the Word are outright correspondences of spiritual and celestial things, and being correspondences are also appearances, that is, are all divine goods of divine love and divine truths of divine wisdom which in themselves are naked, but are clothed upon by the Word's literal meaning. They therefore appear as a man would clothed, if his clothing corresponded to the state of his love and wisdom. Obviously, then, if one confirms appearances in himself, he mistakes the clothing for the man, whereupon appearance becomes fallacy. It is otherwise if he seeks truths and sees them in the appearances.
[7] Inasmuch as all uses or truths and goods of charity, which a man renders to the neighbor may be rendered either according to the appearance or according to the verities of the Word, he is in fallacies if he renders them according to the appearances he has confirmed, but renders them as he should if he does so in accord with the verities. This may make plain what is meant when the Lord is said to join Himself to uses through correspondences and thus through appearances according to the confirmation of these by man.
[8] Fourth: _This conjunction of temporal and eternal is divine providence._ This is to be illustrated by two instances in order to bring it before the understanding in some light. The one instance is that of eminence and standing, and the other that of riches and wealth. These are all natural and temporal in outward form but spiritual and eternal in inward form. Distinction with its standing is natural and temporal when a man has regard in them only to himself personally and not to the common welfare and to the uses. For he is bound then to think inwardly that the community exists for his sake and not he for its sake. It is like a king's thinking that the kingdom and all its members exist for his sake, and not he for the sake of kingdom and people.
[9] The identical distinction, however, along with the standing it brings, is spiritual and eternal when man considers that he exists for the sake of the common well-being and for uses, and not these for his sake. Doing this, he is in the truth and essence of the distinction and of the standing it brings. But doing as described above, he is in the correspondence and appearance; if then he confirms these, he is in fallacies and has conjunction with the Lord only as those have who are in falsities and evils therefrom, for fallacies are falsities with which evils unite themselves. Such men have indeed done uses and good but from themselves and not from the Lord, thus have put themselves in the Lord's place.
[10] The same is true of riches and wealth; for these also are natural and temporal, and spiritual and eternal. They are natural and temporal with those who have regard only to them and to themselves in them and who find all their pleasure and enjoyment in them. But they are spiritual and eternal with those who regard good uses in them and take an interior pleasure and enjoyment in uses. The outward pleasure and enjoyment in such men also becomes spiritual, and the temporal becomes eternal. They are therefore in heaven after death and in palaces there, the useful designs of which are resplendent with gold and precious stones. They look on these things, however, as the shining and translucent external of inward things, namely, of uses, in which they take a pleasure and enjoyment which are the happiness and joy of heaven. The opposite is the lot of those who have looked on riches and wealth just for the sake of riches and wealth and for their own sake, thus on the externalities and on nothing inward; thus on appearance and not on the essential reality. When they put off the externalities, as they do on dying, they come into their internals, and as these are not spiritual, they cannot but be infernal; they must be one or the other and cannot be spiritual and infernal at the same time. The lot of these men then is poverty instead of riches and wretchedness instead of wealth.
[11] By uses not only the necessities of life are meant, such as food, raiment and habitation for oneself and one's own, but also the good of one's country, community and fellow-citizens. Business is such a good when it is the end-love and money is a mediate, subservient love, as it is only when the businessman shuns and is averse to fraud and bad practices as sin. It is otherwise when money is the end-love and business the mediate, subservient love. For this is avarice, which is a root of evils (on this see Lu 12:15 and the parable on it, verses 16-21).
XII. MAN IS NOT ADMITTED INWARDLY INTO TRUTHS OF FAITH AND GOODS OF CHARITY EXCEPT AS HE CAN BE KEPT IN THEM TO THE CLOSE OF LIFE
221. It is well known in Christendom that the Lord wills the salvation of all, and also is almighty. From this many conclude that He can save everyone and saves those who implore His mercy, especially those who implore it by the formula of the received faith that God the Father may be merciful for the sake of the Son, particularly if they pray at the same time that they may receive this faith. That it is quite otherwise, however, will be seen in the last chapter of this treatise where it will be explained that the Lord cannot act contrary to the laws of His divine providence because that would be acting against His divine love and wisdom, thus against Himself. There, too, it will be seen that such immediate mercy is impossible, for man's salvation is effected by means, and he can be led in accordance with these means only by Him who wills the salvation of all and is at the same time almighty, thus by the Lord. These means are what are called laws of divine providence. Among them is this, that man is not admitted inwardly into truths of wisdom and goods of love except as he can be kept in them to the close of life. To make this plain to the reason, it is to be explained in this order: