wer. The
tension between the divine will and human self-will is a subject that
pervades the book; to that subject the profoundest insights into the
hidden activity of providence and into human nature are brought. On the
question, "Is providence only general or also detailed?" the emphatic
answer is that it cannot be general unless it takes note of the least
things. On miracle and on chance conclusions unusual in religious thought
meet the reader. The inequalities, injustices and tragedies in life which
raise doubts of the divine care are faced in a long chapter after the
concept of providence has been spread before the reader. What would be
the point in considering them before what providence is has been
considered? Against what manner of providence are the arguments valid? A
chapter such as this, on doubts of providence and on the mentality which
cherishes them, becomes a monograph on the subject, as the chapter on
premature spiritual experience, with the risk of relapse and profanation,
becomes a monograph on kinds of profanation.

Coming by revelation and by a lengthy other-world experience on
Swedenborg's part (in which he learned of the incorrectness of some of
his own beliefs, nn. 279(2), 290) the book, like others of his,
nevertheless has for an outstanding feature a steady address to the
reason. The profoundest truths of the spiritual life, among them the
nature of God and the laws and ways of providence, are not beyond grasp
by the reason. Sound reason Swedenborg credits with lofty insights.

_Divine Providence_ is a book to be studied, and not merely read, and
studied slowly. By its own way of proceeding, it extends an invitation to
read, not straight through, but something like a chapter at a time. In a
new chapter Swedenborg will recall for the reader what was said in the
preceding chapter, as though the reader had mean-while laid the book
down. The revelator proceeds at a measured pace, carries along the whole
body of his thought, and places each new point in this larger context,
where it receives its precise significance and its full force. It is an
accumulation of thought and not a repetition of statements merely that
one meets. "What has been written earlier 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" (n. 193 (1)).

THE TRANSLATION

This volume has been translated afresh from the Latin; it is not a
revision of a