[3] Something shall be said now why divine providence permits the impious at heart to be promoted to standing and to acquire wealth. The impious or the evil can render services as well as the pious or good, indeed with more fire, for they regard themselves in the use and their standing as the use. As self-love mounts, therefore, the lust of doing service for one's glory is fired. There is no such fire with the devout or good unless it is kindled incidentally to their standing. Therefore the Lord governs the impious at heart who have standing by their desire for a name and arouses them to perform uses to the community or their country, their society or city, and their fellow citizen or neighbor. With such persons this is the Lord's government which is called divine providence, for the Lord's kingdom is one of uses, and where only a few perform uses for uses' sake providence brings it about that worshipers of self are raised to higher offices, in which each is incited by his love to do good. [4] Suppose an infernal kingdom in the world (though there is none) where self-love alone rules, which is itself the devil, would not everyone perform uses with the zeal of self-love and for the enhancement of his glory more than in another kingdom? The public good is borne on the lips of them all, but their own benefit in the heart. And as each relies on what rules him in order to become greater, and aspires to be greatest, how can he see that God exists? A smoke like that of a conflagration envelops him through which no spiritual truth can pass with its light. I have seen that smoke around the hells of such men. Light a lamp and inquire how many in present-day kingdoms aspire to eminence who are not loves of self and the world. Will you find fifty in a thousand who are loves of God, among whom, moreover, only a few aspire to eminence? Since so few are loves of God and so many are loves of self and the world and since the latter perform more uses by their ardor, how can one confirm himself against divine providence because the evil surpass the good in eminence and opulence? [5] This is borne out also by these words of the Lord: The lord praised the unjust steward because he had acted prudently; for the sons of this age are more prudent in their generation than the sons of light in their generation. So I say to you, Make friends for yourselves of the unjust mammon that when you fail they may receive you into eternal habitations (Lu 16:8, 9). The meaning in the sense of the letter is plain. But in the spiritual sense by the "mammon of injustice" are meant knowledges of good and truth which the evil possess and employ solely to acquire standing and wealth for themselves. It is of these knowledges that the good or the children of light are to make friends for themselves and it is these knowledges that will conduct them into eternal homes. The Lord also teaches that many are loves of self and the world, and few are loves of God, in these words: