ng 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 God, 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 God's, and the
proprium is man's. Because prudence is from God and not from man a
Christian in his devotions, prays God 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 God; 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 God 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 assembles the affections of all
mankind into one form--the human form.
v. Heaven and hell, which are from mankind, are therefore in such a form.
vi. Those who have acknowledged nature alone and human prudence alone
make up hell, and those who have acknowledged God and His divine