[4] Second: _It is an error of the age to believe that the state of man's life can be changed in a moment, so that from wicked he can become good, and consequently can be led from hell and transported at once to heaven, and this by the Lord's direct mercy._ Those who separate charity and faith and place salvation in faith alone, commit this error. For they suppose that merely to think and speak formulas of that faith, if it is done with trust and confidence, justifies and saves one. Many think it is done instantly, too, and if not previously, can be done in the last hour of one's life. These are bound to believe that the state of man's life can be changed in a moment and that he can be saved by direct mercy. But in the last chapter of this treatise it will be seen that the Lord's mercy is mediated, that man cannot become good in a moment from being wicked, and can be led from hell and transported to heaven only by the continual activity of divine providence from infancy to the very close of life. Here it need only be said that all the laws of divine providence have the salvation and reformation of the human being for their object, in other words, the inversion of his state, which by nativity is infernal, into the opposite, which is heavenly. This can only be done progressively as man recedes from evil and its enjoyment and comes into good and its enjoyment. [5] Third: _Those who believe in an instantaneous change do not know at all what evil and good are._ For they do not know that evil is the enjoyment of the lust of acting and thinking contrary to divine order, and good is the enjoyment of the affection for acting and thinking in accord with divine order. They do not know, either, that myriads of lusts enter into and compose each individual evil and myriads of affections enter into and compose each individual good, and that these myriads are in such order and connection in man's interiors that it is impossible to change one without changing all at the same time. Those who are ignorant of this may believe or suppose that evil, which seems to them to be a single entity, can be easily removed, and that good, which also seems to be a single entity, can be introduced in its place. Not knowing what evil and good are, they cannot but suppose that there is such a thing as instantaneous salvation and such a thing as direct mercy. That these are not possible will be seen in the last chapter of this treatise.