lvation of men, as that Jehovah gave the Word, taught men by
it about God and about heaven and hell 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 asserts 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 illustrate 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 fo