Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence Part 12

[2] It is clear then that the same can be said of the spiritual forms of the mind as was said of the natural forms of the body, and the same can be said of the spiritual activities of the mind as was said of the natural activities of the body. Consequently the Lord orders the internals as a man does the externals, in one way if the man orders the externals of himself and in another if he orders them under the Lord and at the same time as of himself. The mind of man is also in its total organization a man, for it is his spirit which appears after death altogether as a human being as in the world; hence there are similar things in mind and body. Thus what has been said about the conjunction of externals with internals in the body is to be understood of the conjunction of externals with internals in the mind, with the sole difference that the latter is spiritual and the former is natural.

182. ( iii) _If man beheld divine providence plainly he would either deny G.o.d or make himself G.o.d._ The merely natural man says to himself, "What is divine providence? Is it anything else or more than an expression which people get from a priest? Who sees anything of it? Is it not by prudence, wisdom, cunning and malice that all things are done in the world? Is not all else necessity or consequence? And does not much happen by chance? Does divine providence lie concealed in this? How can it do so in deceptions and schemes? Yet it is said that divine providence effects all things. Then let me see it and I will believe in it. Can one believe in it until he sees it?"

[2] So speaks the merely natural man, but the spiritual man speaks differently. Acknowledging G.o.d he also acknowledges divine providence and sees it, too. He cannot make it manifest, however, to anyone whose thought is on nature only and from nature, for such a person cannot raise his mind above nature, see anything of divine providence in its phenomena, or come to conclusions about providence from nature's laws, which are also laws of divine wisdom. If, therefore, he beheld divine providence plainly, he would sink it in nature and thus not only enshroud it in fallacies but profane it. Instead of acknowledging it he would deny it, and one who denies divine providence in his heart denies G.o.d also.

[3] Either one thinks that G.o.d governs all things or that nature does. He who thinks that G.o.d does thinks that they are ruled by love itself and wisdom itself, thus by life itself; but he who thinks that nature governs all, thinks that all things are ruled by nature's heat and light, although these in themselves are dead, coming as they do from a dead sun.

Does not what is itself alive govern what is lifeless? Can what is dead govern anything? If you think that what is lifeless can give life to itself, you are mad; life must come from life.

183. It does not seem likely that if a man saw divine providence and its activity plainly he would deny G.o.d; it would seem that he could not but acknowledge it and thus acknowledge G.o.d. Yet the contrary is true. Divine providence never acts in keeping with the love of man's will, but constantly against it. For the human being by force of his hereditary evil is ever panting for the lowest h.e.l.l, but the Lord in His providence is constantly leading him away and withdrawing him from it, first to a milder h.e.l.l, then away from h.e.l.l, and finally to Himself in heaven. This activity of divine providence is perpetual. If, then, man saw or felt this withdrawing and leading away, he would be angered, consider G.o.d his enemy, and deny Him on account of the evil of his selfhood. In order that man may not know of it, therefore, he is held in freedom and thereby does not know but that he leads himself.

[2] But let examples serve for ill.u.s.tration. By heredity man wants to become great and also rich. In the measure in which these loves are not checked he wants to become still greater and richer and finally the greatest and richest; even so he would not rest, but would want to become greater than G.o.d Himself and possess heaven itself. This l.u.s.t is hidden deep in hereditary evil and consequently in man's life and in the nature of his life. Divine providence does not remove this evil in a moment; if it were removed in a moment man would cease to live; but divine providence removes it quietly and gradually without man's knowing of it.

It does this by letting man act according to the thinking which he deems rational; then by various means, rational and also civil and moral, it leads him away and withdraws him so far as he can be withdrawn in freedom. Nor can evil be removed from anyone unless it comes out and is seen and acknowledged; it is like a wound which heals only when opened.

[3] If, therefore, man knew and saw that the Lord in His divine providence works in this way against his life's love, the source of his highest enjoyment, he could not but go in the opposite direction, be enraged, rebel, say harsh things, and finally, on account of his evil, brush aside the activity of divine providence, denying it and so denying G.o.d. He would do this especially if he saw success thwarted or saw himself lowered in standing or deprived of wealth.

[4] But it is to be known that the Lord in no wise leads man away from seeking position and acquiring wealth, but leads him away from the l.u.s.t of seeking position solely for the sake of eminence or for his own sake, and also from acquiring wealth for its own sake or just to have it.

Leading the man away, He introduces him into the love of uses so that he may regard eminence not for his own sake but for the sake of uses, thus as attached to uses and only so to himself, and not as attached to him and then to the uses; the same applies to wealth. At many places in the Word the Lord Himself teaches that He continually humbles the proud and exalts the humble; what He teaches in it is also of His divine providence.

184. Any other evil in which man is by heredity is dealt with in like manner, such as adultery, fraud, vengeance, blasphemy and other similar evils, none of which can be removed except as freedom to think and will them is left to man for him to remove them as if of himself. Nevertheless he can do this only as he acknowledges divine providence and prays that it may be done by it. Apart from this freedom and from divine providence at the same time, the evils would be like poison shut in and not driven out, which would spread quickly and consign all parts to death, or would be like disease of the heart itself, from which the whole body soon dies.

185. The truth of what has been said cannot be better known than from human lives after death in the spiritual world. Very many who had become great or wealthy in the natural world and in their eminence or riches had regarded themselves alone, at first speak of G.o.d and divine providence as though they had acknowledged them at heart, but seeing divine providence clearly then and their final lot under it, namely, for them to enter h.e.l.l, they unite with devils there and not only deny G.o.d then but also blaspheme Him. Finally they reach such madness that they acknowledge the more powerful among devils as their G.o.ds and desire nothing more ardently than to become G.o.ds themselves.

186. Man would go contrary to G.o.d and also deny Him if he saw the activities of G.o.d's divine providence plainly, for the reason that man is in the enjoyment of self-love and this enjoyment const.i.tutes his very life. Therefore when man is held in the enjoyment of his life he is in his freedom, for freedom and the enjoyment make one. If, then, he should perceive that he is continually being led away from his enjoyment, he would be enraged as against one who wanted to destroy his life and would hold him to be an enemy. Lest it happen, the Lord in His divine providence does not appear manifestly, but leads man by it as silently as a hidden stream or favorable current does a vessel. Consequently man does not know but that he is steadily in his own, for his freedom and his proprium make one. Hence it is plain that freedom appropriates to him what divine providence introduces, which would not take place if providence were manifest. To be appropriated means to become of one's life.

187. (iv) _Man can see divine providence on the back and not in the face; also in a spiritual state but not in a natural._ To see divine providence on the back but not in the face means after it acts and not before. To see it in a spiritual state and not in a natural is to see it from heaven and not from the world. All who receive influx from heaven and acknowledge divine providence, especially those who have become spiritual through reformation, on beholding events taking a wonderful course see providence as it were from an interior acknowledgment and confess it.

These do not wish to see it in the face, that is, before it eventuates, fearing that their volition may intrude on something of its order and tenor.

[2] It is otherwise with those who do not admit any influx from heaven but only from the world, especially with those who have become natural by confirming appearances in themselves. They do not see anything of divine providence on the back, that is, after it eventuates, but wish to behold it in the face or before it eventuates; and as divine providence works by means, and these are provided through man or the world, they attribute providence, whether they look it in the face or on the back, to man or to nature, and so confirm themselves in the denial of it. They make this ascription of it because their understanding is closed above, that is, to heaven, and open only below, that is, to the world; one cannot see divine providence in a worldly outlook, only in a heavenly. I have wondered sometimes whether they would acknowledge divine providence if their understanding was opened above and they were to see as in the light of day that nature in itself is dead, and human intelligence in itself nothing, and that it is by influx that either appears to have being. I perceived that those who have confirmed themselves in favor of nature and of human prudence would not make the acknowledgment because the natural light flowing in from below would immediately extinguish the spiritual light flowing in from above.

189.* The man who has become spiritual by acknowledgment of G.o.d, and wise by rejection of the proprium, sees divine providence in the world as a whole and in each and all things in it. Looking at natural things, he sees it; at civil things, he sees it; at spiritual things, he sees it; and in things simultaneous as well as successive. He sees it in ends, causes, effects, uses, forms, things great and small. Above all he sees it in the salvation of men, as that Jehovah gave the Word, taught men by it about G.o.d and about heaven and h.e.l.l and eternal life, and Himself came into the world to redeem men and save them. Man sees these and many other things and divine providence in them from spiritual light in natural light.

* The Latin original has no number 188.

[2] The merely natural man, however, sees none of these things. He is like a man who sees a magnificent temple and hears a preacher enlightened in divine things, but once home a.s.serts that he saw only a stone building and heard nothing but sounds made. Again, he is like a near-sighted man who steps into a garden remarkable for fruits of every sort and who reports on getting home that he saw only woods and trees. Moreover, when such persons, having become spirits after death, are taken up into the angelic heaven where all objects are in forms representative of love and wisdom, they see none of them, not even that they exist. I have seen this happen with a number who denied the Lord's divine providence.

190. Many constant things exist, created that inconstant things may exist. Such constants are the ordained changes in the rising and setting of sun, moon and stars; their obscurations by interpositions called eclipses; the heat and light from them; the seasons of the year, called spring, summer, autumn and winter; the times of the day, morning, noon, evening and night; also atmospheres, waters and lands, viewed in themselves; the vegetative force in the plant kingdom, that and the reproductive in the animal kingdom; likewise what is constantly produced when these forces are set in action in accord with the laws of order.

These and many more things existing from the creation are provided so that infinitely varying things may exist, for what varies can exist only in what is constant, fixed and certain.

[2] Examples will ill.u.s.trate this. The varieties of vegetation would not be possible unless sunrise and sunset and the resulting heat and light were constant. Harmonies are infinitely varied, and would not exist unless the atmospheres were constant in their laws and the ear in its form. Varieties of vision, which are also infinite, would not exist unless the ether in its laws and the eye in its organization were constant; equally so, colors, unless light was constant. The same is true of thoughts, words and actions, which are of infinite variety too; they could not exist, either, unless the organic forms of the body were constant. Must not a house be steady for a variety of things to be done in it by a person? So must a temple be for the various acts of wors.h.i.+p, preaching, instruction and devout meditation to be possible in it. So in much else.

[3] As for the varieties found in the constant, fixed and certain, they go on to infinity and have no end; no one thing in the whole universe or in any part of it is ever precisely the same as another, nor can be in the progress of things to eternity. Who disposes these varieties which proceed to infinity and eternity so that they have order unless it is He who created what is constant to the end that they may exist in it? And who can dispose the infinite varieties of life among men but He who is life itself, that is, love itself and wisdom itself? Except by His divine providence, which is like a continual creation, can the infinite affections of men and their thoughts thence and thus the men themselves be disposed so as to make one? Evil affections and the thoughts from them to make one devil which is h.e.l.l, and good affections and the thoughts from them one Lord in heaven? We have said and shown several times before that the whole angelic heaven is like one man in the Lord's sight, an image and likeness of Him, and all h.e.l.l over against it like one monstrous man. This has been said because some natural men seize on arguments for their madness in favor of nature and of one's own prudence from even the constant and fixed which must exist for the variable to exist in it.

X. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ONE'S OWN PRUDENCE; THERE ONLY APPEARS TO BE AND IT SHOULD SO APPEAR; BUT DIVINE PROVIDENCE IS UNIVERSAL BY BEING IN THE LEAST THINGS

191. That there is no such thing as one's own prudence is contrary to appearances and therefore to the belief of many. Because it is, one who believes, on the strength of the appearance, that human prudence does all things, cannot be convinced except by reasons to be had from a more profound investigation and to be gathered from causes. The appearance is an effect, and causes disclose how it arises. By way of introduction something will be said about the common faith on the subject. Contrary to the appearance the church teaches that love and faith are not from man but from G.o.d, so also wisdom and intelligence, therefore prudence also, and in general all good and truth. When this teaching is accepted, one must also agree that there is no such thing as one's own prudence, but there only appears to be. Prudence comes only from intelligence and wisdom and both of these only from the understanding and its grasp of truth and good. All this is accepted and believed by those who acknowledge divine providence, but not by those who only acknowledge human prudence.

[2] Now, either what the church teaches is true, that all wisdom and prudence are from G.o.d, or what the world teaches, that they are from man.

Can these views be reconciled in any other way than this, that what the church teaches is the truth, and what the world teaches is the appearance? For the church establishes its teaching from the Word, but the world its teaching from the proprium; and the Word is G.o.d's, and the proprium is man's. Because prudence is from G.o.d and not from man a Christian in his devotions, prays G.o.d to lead his thoughts, purposes and actions, and also adds that by himself he cannot. Again, seeing someone doing good, he says the person has been led to it by G.o.d; and so about much else. Can anyone speak so unless he inwardly believes it? To believe it inwardly comes from heaven. But when a man deliberates and gathers arguments in favor of human prudence he can believe the contrary, and this is from the world. The internal faith prevails with those who acknowledge G.o.d in their hearts; the external faith with those who do not acknowledge Him at heart, however much they may with the lips.

192. We said that a person who believes, on the strength of the appearance, that human prudence does all things, can be convinced only by reasons to be had from a more profound investigation and gathered from causes. In order, then, that the reasons gathered from causes may be plain to the understanding, let them be put forward in due order as follows:

i. All man's thoughts are from affections of his life's love; there are and can he no thoughts apart from them.

ii. The affections of the life's love are known to the Lord alone.

iii. Through His divine providence the Lord leads the affections of the life's love of man and at the same time the thoughts, too, from which human prudence comes.

iv. By His divine providence the Lord a.s.sembles the affections of all mankind into one form--the human form.

v. Heaven and h.e.l.l, which are from mankind, are therefore in such a form.

vi. Those who have acknowledged nature alone and human prudence alone make up h.e.l.l, and those who have acknowledged G.o.d and His divine providence make up heaven.

vii. All this can be effected only as it appears to man that he thinks from himself and disposes by himself.

193. ( i ) _All man's thoughts are from affections of his life's love; there are and can be no thoughts apart from them._ It has been shown above in this treatise and also in the one ent.i.tled _Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom,_ Parts I and V particularly, what the life's love and the affections and the thoughts from them are essentially, and what the sensations and actions arising from them in the body are. Inasmuch as these are the causes from which human prudence issues as an effect, something needs to be said about them here also. For what has been written earlier elsewhere cannot be as closely connected with what is written later as it will be if the same things are recalled and placed with both in view.

[2] Earlier in this treatise, and in that just mentioned about _Divine Love and Wisdom,_ it was shown that in the Lord are divine love and wisdom; that these two are life itself; that from the two man has will and understanding, will from the divine love and understanding from the divine wisdom; that heart and lungs in the body correspond to these two; that this may make plain that as the pulsation of the heart along with the respiration of the lungs rules the whole man as to the body, so the will together with the understanding rules him as to his mind; that thus there are two principles of life in everyone, one natural and the other spiritual, and that the natural principle of life is the heartbeat, and the spiritual is the will of the mind; that each adjoins a consort to itself with which it cohabits and performs the functions of life; and that the heart joins the lungs to itself, and the will the understanding to itself.

[3] Now, as the soul of the will is love, and the soul of the understanding is wisdom, both of them from the Lord, love is the life of everyone and is such life as it has in union with wisdom; or what is the same, the will is the life of everyone and is such life as it has in conjunction with the understanding. More on the subject may be seen above in this treatise and especially in _Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom,_ Parts I and V.

194. It was also demonstrated in the treatises mentioned that the life's love produces subordinate loves from itself, called affections; that these are exterior and interior; and that taken together they make one dominion or kingdom as it were, in which the life's love is lord or king.

It was also shown that these subordinate loves or affections adjoin consorts to themselves, each its own, the interior affections consorts called perceptions, and the exterior consorts called knowledges, and each cohabits with its consort and performs the functions of its life. In each instance, it was shown, the union is like that of life's very being with life's coming forth, which is such that the one is nothing without the other; for what is life's being unless it is active and what is life's activity if it is not from life's very being? The conjunction in life, it was likewise shown, is like that of sound and harmony, of sound and utterance, too, in general like that of the heart's pulsation and the respiration of the lungs, a union, again, such that one without the other is nothing and each becomes something in union with the other. Union must either be in them or come about by them.

[2] Consider, for example, sound. One who thinks that sound is something if there is nothing distinctive in it is much mistaken. It also corresponds to affection in man, and as something distinctive is always in it the affection of a person's love is known from the sound of his voice in speaking, and his thought is known from the varied sounds which speech is. Hence the wiser angels perceive just from the sound of his voice a man's life's love together with some of the affections which are its derivatives. This has been remarked that it may be known that no affection is possible without its thought, and no thought without its affection. More on the subject can be seen above in this treatise and in _Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom._

195. Inasmuch as the life's love has its enjoyment, and its wisdom its pleasure, and likewise every affection, which is essentially a lesser love derived from the life's love like a stream from its source or a branch from a tree or an artery from the heart, therefore every affection has its enjoyment and the perception or thought from it its pleasure.

Consequently these enjoyments and pleasures make man's life. What is life without joy and pleasure? It is not animated at all, but inanimate.

Reduce enjoyment and pleasure and you grow cold and torpid; take them away and you expire and die. Vital heat comes from the enjoyments of the affections and the pleasures of the perceptions and thoughts.

[2] As every affection has its enjoyment and the thought thence its pleasure, it may be plain whence good and truth are and what they are essentially. Whatever is the enjoyment of one's affection is one's good, and one's truth is what is pleasant to the thought from that affection.

For everyone calls that good which he feels in the love of his will to be enjoyable, and calls that truth which he then perceives in the wisdom of his understanding to be pleasant. The enjoyable and the pleasant both flow out from the life's love as water does from a spring or blood from the heart; together they are like an element or the atmosphere in which man's whole mind is.

[3] The two, enjoyment and pleasure, are spiritual in the mind and natural in the body, and in each make man's life. From this it is plain what it is in man that is called good, and what it is that is called truth; likewise what it is in man that is called evil and false; whatever destroys the enjoyment of his affection is evil to him, and what destroys the pleasure of his thought thence is false to him. It is plain, moreover, that evil on account of the enjoyment in it and falsity on account of the pleasure in it may be called good and truth and believed to be good and truth. Goods and truths are indeed changes and variations of state in the forms of the mind, but they are perceived and have life only through the enjoyments and pleasures they have to give. This is noted to make known what affection and thought are in their life.

196. Inasmuch as it is not the body but man's mind that thinks and that does so from the enjoyment of one's affection, and inasmuch as man's mind is his spirit which lives after death, man's spirit is nothing else than affection and thought therefrom. It is altogether plain from spirits and angels in the spiritual world that thought cannot exist apart from affection, for they all think from the affections of their life's love; the enjoyments of these affections attend each as his atmosphere, and all are united by these spheres exhaled from the affections by their thoughts. The character of each one is known also by the sphere of his life. It may be seen from this that all thought is from an affection and is the form of that affection. The same applies to the relations.h.i.+p between will and understanding, good and truth, and charity and faith.

197. (ii) _The affections of the life's love of man are known to the Lord alone._ Man knows his thoughts and his intentions in them because he sees them in himself, and as all prudence is from them, he sees this, too, within him. Then if his life's love is self-love, he comes to take pride in his own intelligence, ascribes prudence to himself, gathers arguments in support of it, and thus recedes from acknowledging divine providence.

Much the same happens if love of the world is his life's love, but he does not then recede to the same extent. It is plain from this that these two loves ascribe all things to man and to his prudence and when interiorly examined ascribe nothing to G.o.d and to His providence. When persons who do this happen to hear that the reality is that there is no such thing as human prudence, but that divine providence alone governs all things, they laugh at this if they are outright atheists; if they hold something of religion in remembrance and are told that all wisdom is from G.o.d, they a.s.sent on first hearing it, but inwardly in their spirit deny it. Such especially are priests who love themselves more than G.o.d, and the world more than heaven, or what is the same, wors.h.i.+p G.o.d for position's or riches' sake, and yet have been preaching that charity and faith, all good and truth, all wisdom, too, and in fact prudence are from G.o.d and none of them from man.

[2] In the spiritual world I once heard two priests debating with a certain royal amba.s.sador about human prudence whether it is from G.o.d or from man, and the debate was heated. The three believed alike at heart, namely, that human prudence does all and divine providence nothing, but the priests in their theological zeal at the moment a.s.serted that there was nothing of wisdom and prudence from man. When the amba.s.sador retorted that there was nothing of thought then, either, they said "yes, nothing of thought." But as angels perceived that the three believed alike, they bade the amba.s.sador, "Put on priestly robes, believe yourself to be a priest, and then speak." He robed himself, believed he was a priest, and thereupon declared in a deep voice that never could there be wisdom or prudence in man save from G.o.d. He defended this with the customary eloquence filled with rational arguments. Then the two priests were told, "Put off your robes, put on those of political ministers, and believe that that is what you are." They did so, thought then from their interior selves, and gave voice to the arguments they had entertained inwardly before in favor of human prudence and against divine providence. Upon this the three, believing alike, became warm friends and set out together on the path of one's own prudence, which leads to h.e.l.l.

198. It was shown above that man can have no thought except from some affection of his life's love and that the thought is nothing other than the form of the affection. Now, man sees his thought but cannot see his affection, which he feels; it is therefore from sight which dwells on the appearance, and not from affection which does not come into sight but into feeling, that he concludes that one's own prudence does all things.

For affection shows itself only in a certain enjoyment of thought and in pleasure ever reasoning about it. This pleasure and enjoyment make one with the thought in those who, from self-love or love of the world, believe in one's own prudence. The thought glides along in its enjoyment like a s.h.i.+p in a river current to which the skipper does not attend, attending only to the sails he spreads.

199. Man can indeed reflect on what his external affection finds enjoyable when it is also an enjoyment of a bodily sense, but he still does not reflect that that enjoyment comes from the enjoyment of his affection in thought. For example, when a lecher sees a lewd woman his eyes light with a lascivious fire and from this he feels a physical pleasure; he does not, however, feel his affection's enjoyment or that of the l.u.s.t in his thought, only a strong desire more nearly physical. The same is true of the robber in a forest at sight of travelers and of the pirate at sea on sighting vessels, and so on. Obviously a man's enjoyments govern his thoughts, and the thoughts are nothing apart from them; but he thinks he has only the thoughts, when nevertheless these are affections put into forms by his life's love so that they appear in the light; for all affection has heat for its element and thought has light.

[2] The external affections of thought manifest themselves in bodily sensation, and sometimes in the thought of the mind, but the internal affections of the thought from which the external exist never make themselves manifest to man. Of these he knows no more than a rider asleep in a carriage does of the road or than one feels the rotation of the earth. Now, when man knows nothing of the things beyond number that take place in the interiors of his mind, and the few external things which come to the sight of his thought are produced from the interiors, and the interiors are governed by the Lord alone through His divine providence and the few external by the Lord also together with man, how can anyone a.s.sert that one's own prudence does all things? Were you to see just one idea laid open, you would see astounding things, more than tongue can tell.

[3] It is clear from the endless things in the body that there are so many things in the mind's interiors that the number cannot be given, and nothing of them comes to sight or sense except only a much simplified action. Yet to the action thousands of motor or muscular fibres contribute, and thousands of nerve fibres, thousands of blood-vessels, thousands of cells in the lungs which must cooperate in every action, thousands in the brains and in the spinal cord, and many more things still in the spiritual man which is the human mind, in which all things are forms of affections and of perceptions and thoughts from the affections. Does not the soul, which disposes the interiors, dispose the actions also which spring from them? Man's soul is nothing else than the love of his will and the resulting love of his understanding; such as this love is the whole man is, becoming so according to the disposition he makes of his externals in which he and the Lord are together.

Therefore, if he attributes all things to himself and to nature, self-love becomes the soul; but if he attributes all things to the Lord, love to the Lord becomes the soul; this love is heavenly, the other infernal.

200. Inasmuch as the enjoyments of his affections, from inmosts down through interiors to exteriors and finally to outermost things in the body, bear man along as wave and wind bear a s.h.i.+p; and inasmuch as nothing of this is apparent to man except what takes place in the outermost things of the mind and the body, how can he claim for himself what is divine on the strength merely of the fact that those few outermost things seem to be his own? Even less should he claim what is divine for himself, knowing from the Word that a man can receive nothing of himself unless it is given by heaven; and knowing from reason that this appearance has been granted him in order to live as a human being, see what is good and evil, choose between them, and appropriate his choice to himself that he may be united reciprocally with the Lord, be reformed, regenerated and saved, and live forever. It has been stated and shown above that this appearance has been granted to man in order that he may act in freedom according to reason, thus as of himself, and not drop his hands and await influx. From all this it follows that proposition iii to be demonstrated has been confirmed: _Through His divine providence the Lord leads the affections of the life's love of man and at the same time the thoughts, too, from which human prudence comes._

201. (iv) _By His divine providence the Lord a.s.sembles the affections of all mankind into one form--the human form._ In a subsequent paragraph it will be seen that this is the universal effort of divine providence.