ppearance is
granted to man by the Lord for the sake of all these uses and
particularly that he may have the power to receive and reciprocate so
that the Lord may be united to him and he to the Lord, and that through
this conjunction the human being may live forever. This is "appearance"
as it is meant here.

IX. IT IS A LAW OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE THAT MAN SHALL NOT PERCEIVE OR FEEL
ANY OF THE ACTIVITY OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE, AND YET SHOULD KNOW AND
ACKNOWLEDGE PROVIDENCE

175. The natural man who does not believe in divine providence thinks to
himself, "What can divine providence be when the wicked are promoted to
honors and gain wealth more than the good, and many such things go better
with those who do not believe in divine providence than with the good who
believe in it? Indeed, infidels and the impious can inflict injuries,
loss, misfortune and sometimes death on the believing and pious, doing
so, too, by cunning and malice." He thinks therefore, "Do I not see in
full daylight, as it were, in actual experience that crafty schemes
prevail over fidelity and justice if only a man can make them seem
trustworthy and just by a clever artfulness? What is left except
necessities, consequences and the fortuitous in which there is no
semblance of divine providence? Does not nature have its necessities, and
are not consequences causes arising from natural or civil order, while
the fortuitous comes, does it not, from unknown causes or from none?" So
the natural man thinks to himself who attributes all things to nature and
nothing to God, for one who ascribes nothing to God ascribes nothing to
divine providence either; God and divine providence make one.

[2] But the spiritual man speaks and thinks within himself quite
otherwise. Although he does not perceive the course of divine providence
by any thought or feel it from any sight of it, he still knows and
acknowledges providence. Inasmuch as the appearances and resulting
fallacies just mentioned have blinded the understanding, and this can
receive sight only when the fallacies which have induced the blindness
and the falsities which have induced the darkness are dispelled, and
since this can be done only by truths which have the power to dispel
falsities, these truths are to be disclosed, and for distinctness let it
be in this order:

i. If man perceived or felt the activity of divine providence he would
not act in freedom according to reason, nor would anything appear to be