tree, but is
colored wax with dust or pitch in it; the other is like noble fruit,
flavorsome and fragrant, with seeds in it.

216. (ii) _The eternal has to do with spiritual standing and wealth, of
love and wisdom, in heaven._ As the natural man calls the enjoyments of
self-love, which are also the enjoyments of the lusts of evil, good, and
confirms that they are goods, he calls distinction and wealth divine
blessings. But when the natural man sees the wicked as well as the good
raised to distinction and prospered, and still more when he beholds the
good despised and poorly off and the wicked honored and affluent, he
thinks to himself, "Why is this? It cannot be by divine providence. For
if providence governed everything, it would lavish distinction and wealth
on the good and inflict contempt and poverty on the wicked, and thus
drive the wicked to acknowledge there is a God and divine providence."

[2] But unless he is enlightened by the spiritual man, that is, is at the
same time spiritual, the natural man does not see that distinction and
wealth can be blessings but also curses, and that when they are from God
they are blessings, and when they are from the devil they are curses. It
is well known, moreover, that the devil bestows distinction and wealth;
it is on this account that he is called the prince of the world. As it is
not known when distinction and wealth are blessings and when they are
curses, let it be told in this order: 1. Distinction and wealth are
blessings and are curses. 2. When they are blessings they are spiritual
and eternal; when they are curses they are temporal and ephemeral. 3.
Distinction and wealth which are curses, compared with those which are
blessings, are as nothing compared with everything or as that which has
no existence in itself compared with that which has.

217. The three points are now each to be clarified. 1. _Distinction and
wealth are blessings and are curses._ Common experience attests that both
the pious and the impious, or the just and the unjust, that is, the
wicked and the good, gain distinction and wealth, and yet it is
undeniable that the impious and unjust, that is, the wicked, enter hell,
and the pious and just, that is, the good, enter heaven. As this is true,
distinction and wealth or standing and means are either blessings or
curses, blessings with the good and curses with the evil. It was shown in
the work _Heaven and Hell,_ published in London in the year 1758, t