over the human race, are, first, the revelation of His divine word, and secondly, the effect of the reception of that word, in separating between goods and evils, so that goods may be elevated into heaven, and evils cast down into hell.
168. As on the sixth day of creation God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, (Gen. i. 26,) so He has been saying and doing every day since, and in every moment of every day. For what is it to make man, but to create a corporeal, sensual, natural, and rational being, capable of becoming spiritual and celestial, by the reception of the divine wisdom and love? And is not God perpetually in this act, by giving life and growth, first to the fœtus in the womb, and afterwards to the corporeal man, when produced from the womb, then to the sensual, the natural, and rational man, and lastly to the spiritual and celestial man?
169. Jesus Christ saith to His disciples, at the time when He was about to be taken away from them, as to His external presence, Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you; (John xiv. 27;) thus instructing us, that there are two kinds and degrees of peace, the first resulting from the knowledge of the truth, as manifested in the understanding, and the second resulting from the conjunction of that knowledge with the heavenly good from which it is derived, thus, its conjunction with the Lord Himself, when it becomes operative in the will and life. The first, therefore, is comparatively external peace, as coming more from
