Chapter XIII: Laws on Permission Are Also Laws of Divine Providence (2)

It is well known that the same persons invoke the dead and pray to them for help. We make the assertion because such invocation was established by a papal bull, confirming the decree of the Council of Trent, in which it is openly said that the dead are to be invoked. Yet who does not know that only God is to be invoked, and not any dead person?

[3] It shall be told now why the Lord has permitted such things. Can one deny that He has done so for the sake of the end in view, namely salvation? For men know that there is no salvation without the Lord. Therefore it was necessary that the Lord should be preached from the Word and that the Christian Church should be established by this means. This could be done, however, only by leaders who would act with zeal and no others offered than those who burned with zeal out of self-love. At first this fire aroused them to preach the Lord and teach the Word. From this their first state Lucifer is called "the son of the morning" (14:12). But as they saw that they could dominate by means of the sanctities of the Word and the church, the self-love by which they were first aroused to preach the Lord broke out from within and finally exalted itself to such a height that they transferred all the Lord's divine power to themselves, leaving Him none.

[4] This could not be prevented by the Lord's divine providence, for if it had been they would have declared that the Lord is not God and that the Word is not sacred and would have made themselves Socinians and Arians, so would have destroyed the whole church. But, whatever its rulers are, the church continues among the people submissive to them. For all in this religion who approach the Lord and shun evils as sins are saved; therefore many heavenly societies are formed from them in the spiritual world. It has also been provided that there should be a nation among them that has not bowed to the yoke of such domination and that regards the Word as holy; this noble nation is the French nation.

[5] But what was done? When self-love exalted its dominion even to the Lord's throne, removing Him and setting itself on it, that love, which is Lucifer, could not but have profaned all things of the Word and the church. Lest this should happen, the Lord in His divine providence took care that they should recede from worship of Him, invoke the dead, pray to graven images of the dead, kiss their bones and kneel at their tombs, should ban the reading of the Word, appoint holy worship in masses not understood by the common people, and sell salvation for money. For if they had not done this, they would have profaned the sanctities of the Word and the church. For, as was shown in the preceding section, only those profane holy things who know them.

[6] Lest, too, they should profane the most Holy Supper it is of the Lord's divine providence that they divide it, giving the bread to the people and drinking the wine themselves. For the wine of the Supper signifies holy truth and the bread holy good; but divided the wine signifies truth profaned and the bread good adulterated. It is also of the Lord's divine providence that they should render the Holy Supper corporeal and material and give it the prime place in religion. Anyone who gives these particulars his attention and reflects on them in some enlightenment of his mind can see the amazing action of divine providence for the protection of the sanctities of the church and for the salvation of all who can be saved and are ready to be snatched from the fire, so to speak, from which they must be snatched.

258. _The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence because some among those who profess the Christian religion place salvation in certain phrases which they are to think and speak and not at all in good works which they are to do._ We showed in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Faith_ that these are such as make faith alone saving and not the life of charity, thus such as separate faith from charity. It was also shown that these are meant in the Word by "Philistines," "dragon" and "goats."

[2] That such doctrine has been permitted is also of divine providence lest the divine of the Lord and the sanctity of the Word should be profaned. The divine of the Lord is not profaned when salvation is placed in these words: That God the Father may have mercy for the sake of the Son, who suffered the Cross and made satisfaction for us. For men do not then address the divine of the Lord but have in mind His human nature, which they do not acknowledge to be divine. Nor do they profane the Word, for they do not attend to the passages in which love, charity, deeds and works are mentioned. All this, they say, is involved in the faith expressed in the saying quoted. Those who confirm this tell themselves, "The law does not condemn me, neither then does evil, and good does not save because good done by me is not good." They are therefore like those who do not know any truth from the Word and consequently cannot profane it. Only those confirm the faith expressed in that saying who from self-love are in the pride of their own intelligence. Nor are these Christians at heart; they only desire to be looked on as such.

[3] It shall now be shown that the Lord's divine providence is nevertheless acting constantly to save those with whom faith separated from charity has become an article of religion. Although this faith has become an article of their religion, by the Lord's divine providence each knows that it is not faith that saves, but a life of charity with which faith makes one. For all churches in which that religion is accepted also teach that there is no salvation unless man examines himself, sees and acknowledges his sins, repents, desists from them, and begins a new life. This is read out with much zeal in the presence of all who come to the Holy Supper. In addition they are told that unless they do so, they mingle the holy with the profane and cast themselves into eternal condemnation. Indeed, in England they are told that unless they do so the devil will enter them as he did Judas and destroy them soul and body. It is plain, then, that everyone in the churches in which faith alone is accepted is nevertheless taught that evils are to be shunned as sins.

[4] Furthermore, everyone who is born a Christian is aware that evils are to be shunned as sins because the Decalog is put into the hands of every boy and girl and is taught by parents and teachers. The citizens of a kingdom and especially the common people are examined by the priest on the Decalog alone, which is recited from memory, for what they know of the Christian religion, and are also admonished to do what is commanded in it. At such times they are not told by the priest that they are not under the yoke of that law, or that they cannot do what is commanded because they cannot do anything good of themselves. Again, the Athanasian Creed has been accepted throughout the Christian world and what is said at its close is also acknowledged, namely, that the Lord will come to judge the living and the dead, and then those who have done good will enter everlasting life and those who have done evil will enter everlasting fire.

[5] In Sweden, where the religion of faith alone has been received, it is also plainly taught that faith is impossible apart from charity or good works. This is pointed out in an Appendix on things to be remembered, inserted in all copies of the Psalms, and called "Impediments or Stumbling Blocks of the Impenitent" (Obotferdigas Foerhinder), where are these words,

Those who are rich in good works thereby show that they are rich in faith, because when faith is saving it acts through charity. For justifying faith is never found alone and separate from good works, quite as no good tree is without fruit, nor the sun without light and heat, nor water without moisture.

[6] These items have been adduced to make known that although a religious formula about faith alone has been accepted, nevertheless goods of charity, which are good works, are taught everywhere and that this is by the Lord's divine providence, lest the common people be led astray by the formula. I have heard Luther, with whom I have spoken at times in the spiritual world, execrate faith alone and heard him say that when he established it he was warned by an angel of the Lord not to do it; but that he thought to himself that if he did not reject works, separation from Catholicism would not be accomplished. Therefore, contrary to the warning, he established that faith.

259. _The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence in that there have been so many heresies in Christendom and still are, such as Quakerism, Moravianism, Anabaptism, and more._ For he may think to himself, If divine providence is universal in the least things and has the salvation of all for its object, it would have seen to it that one true religion should exist on the globe, not one divided and, still less, one torn by heresies. But use reason and think more deeply if you can. Can man be saved without being reformed first? For he is born into love of self and the world, and as these loves do not have any love of God and the neighbor in them except for the sake of self, he is also born into evils of every kind. Is there love or mercy in those loves? Does the man make anything of defrauding or defaming or hating another even to death, or of committing adultery with his wife, or of being cruel to him out of revenge, the while having the desire in mind to get the upper hand of all and to possess the goods of all others, thus regarding others in comparison with himself as insignificant and of little worth? To be saved, must he not first be led away from these evils and thus be reformed? As has been shown above in many places, this can be accomplished only in accordance with many laws of divine providence. For the most part these laws are unknown and yet they come of divine wisdom and at the same time of divine love, and the Lord cannot act contrary to them, for to do so would result in destroying man, not in saving him.

[2] Look over the laws which have been set forth, bring them together, and you will see. According to those laws there is no direct influx from heaven but one mediated by the Word, doctrine and preaching; and since the Word, to be divine, had to be composed wholly in correspondences, inevitably there are dissensions and heresies. The tolerance of them is also in accord with the laws of divine providence. Furthermore, when the church itself has taken for essentials what pertains only to the understanding, that is, to doctrine, and not what pertains to the will, that is, to life, and what pertains to life is not made the essentials of a church, then man is in complete darkness for understanding and wanders like one blind, striking against things constantly and falling into pits. For the will must see in the understanding and not the understanding in the will, or what is the same, the life and its love must lead the understanding to think, speak and act, and not the reverse. Were the reverse true, the understanding might out of an evil and even diabolical love seize on what comes by the senses and demand that the will do it. What has been said may show whence dissensions and heresies come.

[3] Yet it has been provided that everyone, in whatever heresy he may be intellectually, may still be reformed and saved if he shuns evils as sins and does not confirm heretical falsities in himself. For by shunning evils as sins the will is reformed and through it the understanding is, which emerges for the first time then out of obscurity into light. There are three essentials of the church: acknowledgment of the divine of the Lord, acknowledgment of the holiness of the Word, and the life which is called charity. Everyone's faith is according to the life which is charity; from the Word he has a rational perception of what life should be; and from the Lord he has reformation and salvation. Had these three been regarded as the church's essentials, intellectual differences would not have divided it but only varied it as light varies colors in beautiful objects and as various insignia of royalty give beauty to a king's crown.

260. _The merely natural man confirms himself against divine providence in that Judaism still continues._ That is, after all these centuries the Jews have not been converted although they live among Christians and do not, in keeping with prophecies in the Word, confess the Lord and acknowledge Him to be the Messiah, who, as they think, was to lead them back to the land of Canaan; but they steadfastly persist in denying Him and yet it is well with them. Those who take this view, however, and thus call divine providence in question, do not know that by Jews in the Word all who are of the church and acknowledge the Lord are meant, and by the land of Canaan, into which it is said that they are to be led, the Lord's church is meant.

[2] But the Jews persist in denying the Lord because they are such that, if they received and acknowledged the divine of the Lord and the holy things of His church, they would profane them. Therefore the Lord said of them:

He has blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them (Jn 12:40; Mt 13:14; Mk 4:12; Lu 8:10; Isa 6:9, 10).

It is said, "lest they should be converted, and I should heal them" because if they had been converted and healed they would have committed profanation, and according to the law of divine providence treated above (nn. 221-233) no one is admitted interiorly into truths of faith and goods of charity by the Lord except so far as he can be kept in them to the close of life; were he admitted, he would profane what is holy.

[3] This nation has been preserved and dispersed over much of the earth for the sake of the Word in its original language, which they hold more sacred than Christians do. The Lord's divine is in every particular of the Word, for it is divine truth joined with divine good coming from the Lord. By it the Lord is united with the church, and heaven is present, as was shown in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Sacred Scripture_ (nn. 62-69). The Lord and heaven are present wherever the Word is read as sacred. This is the end which divine providence has pursued in the preservation and in the dispersal of the Jews over much of the world. On the nature of their lot after death see _Continuation about the Last Judgment and the Spiritual World_ (nn. 79-82).

261. These then are the objections listed above at n. 238 by which the natural man confirms himself against divine providence, or may do so. Still other objections, listed at n. 239, may serve the natural man for arguments against divine providence; they may occur to the minds of others, too, and excite doubts. They are the following.

262. _Doubt may be raised against divine providence in that the whole of Christendom worships one God under three persons, that is, three Gods, and has not known hitherto that God is one in person and in essence, in whom is the Trinity, and that this God is the Lord._ One who reasons about divine providence may ask, Are not three persons three Gods if each person by himself is God? Who can think of it otherwise? In fact, who does? Athanasius himself could not; therefore it is said in the Creed which bears his name:

Although in Christian verity we ought to acknowledge each Person as God and Lord, yet by Christian faith it is not allowable to affirm or to name three Gods or three Lords.

This can only mean that we ought to acknowledge three Gods and Lords, but it is not allowable to affirm or name three Gods and three Lords.

[2] Who can possibly have a perception of one God unless He is one in person? If it is said that such a concept is possible if one thinks of the three as having one essence, does one, indeed can one, have any other idea than that they are thus of one mind and agree, and yet are three Gods? Thinking more deeply, one asks oneself, How can the divine essence, which is infinite, be divided? Further, how can divine essence from eternity beget another and produce still another who proceeds from them both? It may be said that it is to be believed and not thought about; but who does not think about what he is told must be believed? How else can there be any acknowledgment which in its essence is faith? Was it not because of the concept of God as three persons that Socinianism and Arianism arose, which prevail in the hearts of more persons than you suppose? Belief in one God and that this God is the Lord makes the church, for in Him is the divine trinity. The truth of this may be seen in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Lord,_ from beginning to end.

[3] But what is thought of the Lord today? Is it not thought that He is God and Man, God from Jehovah the Father of whom He was conceived and Man from the Virgin Mary from whom He was born? Who thinks that God and Man in Him, or His Divine and His Human, are one person, and are one as soul and body are? Does anyone know this? Ask the learned in the church and they will say that they have not known it. Yet it is part of the doctrine of the church received throughout Christendom, as follows:

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; and although He is God and Man yet there are not two, but there is one Christ. He is one because the divine took to itself the human; indeed He is altogether one, for He is one Person, since as soul and body make one man, so God and Man is one Christ.

This comes from the Faith or Creed of Athanasius. The learned have not known it because on reading this they have thought of the Lord not as God but only as Man.

[4] When they are asked if they know from whom the Lord was conceived, whether from God the Father or from His own Divine, they reply that He was conceived from God the Father, for this is according to Scripture. Are the Father and He not one then, like soul and body? Who can think that He was conceived from two Divines, and if from His own that this was His Father? If you ask them further what their idea of the Lord's Divine and of His Human is, they will say that His Divine is from the essence of the Father and His Human from the essence of His mother, and that His Divine is with the Father. Then, when they are asked where His Human is, they have no answer, for they separate His Divine and His Human in their thinking and make His Divine equal to the Divine of the Father and His Human like the human of another man, unaware that in doing this they separate soul and body; nor do they see the flaw in this, that then a rational man would have been born from a mother alone.

[5] As a result of the fixed idea that the Lord's humanity was like that of another man, it has come about that a Christian can with difficulty be led to think of a Divine Human, even when it is said that the Lord's soul or life from conception was and is Jehovah Himself. Now sum up the reasons and consider whether there is any other God of the universe than the Lord alone, in whom is the Divine itself, Source of all, called the Father; the Divine Human, called the Son; and the proceeding Divine, called the Holy Spirit; and thus that God is one in person and essence, and that this God is the Lord.

[6] You may persist and remark that the Lord Himself spoke of three in Matthew:

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (28:19).

But it is plain from the preceding verse and the one following that the Lord said this in order to make it known that the Divine Trinity was in Him, now glorified. For in the preceding verse He said that all power in heaven and on earth was given Him, and in the following verse that He would be with men to the end of the age, speaking of Himself alone and not of three.

[7] Now, why did divine providence permit Christians to worship the one God under three persons, that is, worship three Gods, and not know until now that God is one in essence and person, in whom is the Trinity and that this God is the Lord? Man and not the Lord was the cause. The Lord had taught it plainly in His Word, as is clear from all the passages cited in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Lord,_ and has also taught it in the doctrine of all the churches, in which it is said that His Divine and His Human are not two but one Person united like soul and body.

[8] The first reason why men divided the Divine and the Human and made the Divine equal to the Divine of Jehovah the Father and the Human equal to the human of another man, was that the church after its rise fell away into Babylonianism. This took to itself the Lord's divine power, and in order that it should be called human and not divine power made the Lord's human like that of another man. When later the church was reformed and faith alone was received as the one means of salvation--faith that God the Father has mercy for the sake of the Son--the Lord's Human could be viewed in no other way. For no one can approach the Lord and acknowledge Him at heart as God of heaven and earth unless he lives by His precepts. In the spiritual world, where everyone is bound to speak as he thinks, no one can so much as mention the name Jesus if he has not lived as a Christian in the world; this is by divine providence lest His name be profaned.

263. To make what has just been said clearer I will add what was set forth in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Lord_ (towards the end, nn. 60, 61), which is as follows:

"That God and Man in the Lord, according to the Creed, are not two but one Person, altogether one as soul and body are, appears clearly in many sayings of the Lord, as that the Father and He are one; that all things of the Father are His and all His the Father's; that He is in the Father and the Father in Him; that all things are given into His hand; that He has all power; that He is God of heaven and earth; that one who believes on Him has eternal life; and that the wrath of God abides on one who does not believe on Him; and further, that both the Divine and the Human were taken up into heaven; and that as to both He sits at the right hand of God, that is, is almighty; besides the numerous passages in the Word about His Divine Human which were quoted abundantly above. They all testify that God is one both in person and in essence, and in Him is the Trinity, and that this God is the Lord.

[2] "These things about the Lord are published now for the first time because it is foretold in the Apocalypse, chapters 21 and 22, that at the end of the former church a new church is to be established in which this will be the chief doctrine. This church is meant in those chapters by the New Jerusalem into which only one who acknowledges the Lord alone as God of heaven and earth can enter; this church is therefore called `the Lamb's wife'. I can also report that all heaven acknowledges the Lord alone and that one who does not is not admitted to heaven, for heaven is heaven from the Lord. This very acknowledgment made in love and faith causes men to be in the Lord and Lord in them, as He teaches in John:

In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me and I in you (14:20);

again in the same:

Abide in me, and I in you; ... I am the vine, and you are branches; he who abides in me and I in him, bears much fruit; for without me you can do nothing; unless a man abides in me, he is cast out (15:4-6, also 17:22, 23).

[3] "This has not been seen from the Word before, because if it had been, it would not have been received. For the last judgment had not been accomplished yet, and prior to it the power of hell prevailed over the power of heaven. Man is in the midst between heaven and hell; had this been seen before, therefore, the devil, that is, hell, would have plucked it from men's hearts and furthermore would have profaned it. The predominance of hell was completely broken by the last judgment which has been accomplished now; since that judgment, thus today, every man who wishes enlightenment and wisdom is able to have it."

264. _A doubt may be raised against divine providence in that it has been unknown hitherto that in each particular of the Word there is a spiritual meaning from which it has its holiness._ One may raise this doubt about divine providence, asking, "why has this been revealed for the first time now, and why has it been revealed through any one at all and not through a church leader?" But it is at the Lord's good pleasure whether it should be a leader or a leader's servant; He knows the one and the other. However, that sense of the Word has not been disclosed before because 1. If it had been, the church would have profaned it and thereby profaned the holiness itself of the Word. 2. Neither were the genuine truths, in which the spiritual sense of the Word resides, revealed by the Lord until the last judgment was accomplished, and a new church, meant by the Holy Jerusalem, was about to be established by the Lord. These reasons will be examined separately.

[2] 1. _The spiritual sense of the Word was not disclosed earlier because if it had been, the church would have profaned it and thereby would have profaned the holiness itself of the Word._ Not long after it was established, the church was turned into Babylon, and later into Philistia. Babylon acknowledges the Word, to be sure, and yet esteems it lightly, asserting that the Holy Spirit inspires its own highest judgment just as much as it did the prophets. They acknowledge the Word for the vicarship founded on the Lord's words to Peter, but esteem it lightly because it does not accord with their teaching. It is therefore taken from the people also and hidden in monasteries where few read it. If, therefore, the spiritual sense of the Word had been revealed, in which the Lord is present together with all angelic wisdom, the Word would have been profaned not only, as it is now, in its lowermost expression in the sense of the letter, but in its inmosts, too.

[3] Philistia, by which faith separated from charity is meant, would have profaned the spiritual sense of the Word also, because, as we have shown before, it puts salvation in certain formulas which are to be thought and spoken, and not in good works which are to be done. It thus makes saving what is not saving and also removes the understanding from what is to be believed. What would they do with the light in which the spiritual sense of the Word is? Would that not be turned into darkness? When the natural sense is, why not the spiritual sense? Does any one of them who has confirmed himself in faith separate from charity and in justification by this faith alone, want to know what good of life is, what love to the Lord and towards the neighbor is, what charity is and what the goods of charity are, what good works are and what it is to do them, or in fact what faith is essentially and what genuine truth is, constituting it? They compose volumes, establish in them only what they call faith, and declare that all the things just mentioned are present in that faith. It is clear from this that if the spiritual sense of the Word had been revealed earlier, it would come to pass according to the Lord's words in Matthew:

If your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness ( 6:23).

In the spiritual sense of the Word by "eye" the understanding is meant.

[4] 2. _Neither were the genuine truths in which the spiritual sense of the Word resides, revealed by the Lord until after the last judgment was accomplished, and a new church, meant by the Holy Jerusalem, was about to be established by the Lord._ The Lord foretold in the Apocalypse that after the last judgment was effected genuine truths were to be revealed, a new church was to be established, and the spiritual sense of the Word would be disclosed. In the small work, _The Last Judgment,_ and later in the _Continuation_ of that work, it was shown that the last judgment has been accomplished and that this is meant by the heaven and earth which would pass away (Apoc 21:1). That genuine truths are then to be revealed is foretold in these words in the Apocalypse:

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new (11:5; also 19:17, 18; 21:18-21; 22:1, 2).

At 19:11-16 it was predicted that the spiritual sense of the Word was to be revealed; it is meant by "the white horse" on which He who sat was called the Word of God and was Lord of lords and King of kings (on this see the little work _The White Horse)._ That by the Holy Jerusalem a new church is meant which was to be established then by the Lord may be seen in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Lord_ (nn. 62-65).

[5] It is clear, then, that the spiritual sense of the Word was to be revealed for a new church which should acknowledge and worship the Lord alone, hold His Word sacred, love divine truths and reject faith separated from charity. More about this sense of the Word may be seen in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Sacred Scripture_ (nn. 5-26 and following numbers); what the spiritual sense of the Word is (nn. 5-26); that a spiritual sense exists in all of the Word in general and in detail (nn. 9-17); that by virtue of the spiritual sense the Word is divinely inspired and holy in every expression (nn. 18, 19); that until now the spiritual sense has been unknown, and why it was not revealed before (nn. 20-25); and that henceforth that sense will be open only to one who is in genuine truths from the Lord (n. 26).

[6] It may be evident from these propositions that it is by the Lord's divine providence that the spiritual sense has lain concealed from the world until the present day and been kept meanwhile in heaven with the angels, who draw their wisdom from it. This sense was known and treasured among ancient peoples who lived before Moses, but when their descendants converted the correspondences, of which their Word and hence their religion solely consisted, into various idolatries, and the Egyptians converted them into magic, by the Lord's divine providence this sense was closed up, first with the Israelites and then with Christians for the reasons given above, and is now opened for the first time for the Lord's new church.

265. _Doubt may arise against divine providence in that it has been unknown hitherto that to shun evils as sins is the Christian religion itself._ That this is the Christian religion itself was shown in _Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem,_ from beginning to end; and as faith separated from charity is the one obstacle to its being received, that also was treated of. We say that it has not been known that to shun evils as sins is the Christian religion itself, for it is unknown to nearly everyone; yet everyone does know it, as may be seen above (n. 258). Nearly all are ignorant of it because faith separate has obliterated knowledge of it. For this faith declares that it alone saves and not any good work, that is, any good of charity; also that men are no longer under the yoke of the law, but are free. Those who have frequently heard such teaching no longer give thought to any evil of life or any good of life. Everyone, moreover, is inclined by nature to embrace such teaching, and once he has done so he no longer thinks about the state of his life. This is why it is not known that shunning evils as sins is the Christian religion itself.

[2] That this is unknown was disclosed to me in the spiritual world. I have asked more than a thousand newcomers from the world whether they knew that to shun evils as sins is religion itself. They said that they did not and that it was a new idea which they had not heard before, but had heard that they cannot of themselves do good and that they are not under the yoke of the law. When I inquired whether they knew that a man must examine himself, see his sins, repent and begin a new life and that otherwise sins are not remitted, and if sins are not remitted, men are not saved; and when I reminded them that this was read out in a deep voice to them each time they observed the Holy Supper, they replied that they paid no attention to that but only to this, that they have remission of sins by the sacrament of the Supper and that faith effects the rest without their knowing it.

[3] I asked again, Why have you taught your children the Decalog? Was it not that they might know what evils are sins to be shunned? Was it only that they might know and believe, but do nothing? Why is it said that this is new? To this they could only reply that they know and yet do not know, and that they never think of the sixth* commandment when they commit adultery, or about the seventh when they steal or defraud secretly, and so on, and still less that such acts are contrary to divine law, thus contrary to God.

* Swedenborg follows the numbering of the Commandments customary with Lutherans, as with Roman Catholics.

[4] When I recalled to them many things from the teachings of the churches and from the Word confirming the fact that to avoid and be averse to evils as sins is the Christian religion's very self and that one who does so has faith, they fell silent. They were convinced of it, however, when they saw that all were examined as to their life and judged according to their deeds, and no one was judged according to faith apart from life, for everyone has faith according to his life.

[5] Christendom in large part has not known this because by a law of divine providence everyone is left to act in freedom according to reason (on this, above, nn. 71-91 and nn. 101-128); and by another law no one is taught directly from heaven but by means of the Word and by doctrine and preaching from it; there are besides all the laws on permission which are also laws of divine providence. On these see above, n. 258.

274.* _A doubt may be raised against divine providence in that it has not been known before that a man lives as a human being after death and that this has not been disclosed before._ It has been unknown because with those who do not shun evils as sins the belief lies hidden that man does not live after death. It is of no moment therefore to them whether one says that man lives after death or will rise again on the day of the last judgment. If belief in resurrection happens to visit one, he tells himself, "I shall fare no worse than others; if I go to hell I shall have the company of many and also if I pass to heaven." Yet all in whom there is any religion have an implanted recognition that they will live as human beings after death. Only those infatuated with their own intelligence think that they survive as souls but not as human beings.

* So numbered in the Latin original.

It may be seen from the following that anyone in whom is any religion has an implanted recognition that he lives after death as a human being:

1. Who thinks otherwise when he is dying? 2. What eulogizer, mourning the dead, does not exalt them to heaven and place them among the angels conversing with them and sharing their joy? Some men are deified. 3. Who among the common people does not believe that when he dies, if he has lived well he will enter a heavenly paradise, be arrayed in white, and enjoy eternal life? 4. What priest does not speak so to the dying? And when he speaks so he believes it, provided he does not think of the last judgment at the time. 5. Who does not believe that his little ones are in heaven and that after death he will see his wife, whom he has loved? Who thinks that they are spectres, still less souls or minds hovering in the universe? 6. Who contradicts when something is said about the lot or state of those who have passed from time into eternal life? I have told many what the state or lot of various persons is and have never heard anyone protest that their lot is not yet determined but will be at the time of the judgment. 7. When one sees angels in paintings or statuary does he not recognize them as such? Who thinks then that they are bodiless spirits or airy entities or clouds, as do some of the erudite? 8. Papists believe that their saints are human beings in heaven and others elsewhere are; so do Mohammedans of their dead; more than others Africans do, and many other peoples do. Why then do not Reformed Christians believe it, who know it from the Word? 9. Moreover, as a result of the recognition implanted in everyone, some men aspire to the immortality of renown. The recognition is given that turn in them and makes heroes and brave men of them in war. 10. Inquiry was made in the spiritual world whether this knowledge is implanted in all men; it was found that it is in a spiritual idea attached to their internal thought, not in a natural idea attached to their external thought.

It is plain from all this that doubt should not be thrown on the Lord's divine providence on the supposition that only now has it been disclosed that the human being continues such after death. It is only the sensuous in man that wants to see and touch what is to be credited. One who does not raise his thinking above it is in the dark of night about the state of his own life.