Still living in Amsterdam, Swedenborg published, in 1764, his work entitled “Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Providence.” Its purpose is to “assert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to man.” In the first place, it is shown that the Divine Providence is the government of the Love and the Wisdom of the Lord. This Providence has for its sole end the formation of a heaven from the human race, and thus has respect only to what is infinite and eternal. In the Divine sight, things temporal and natural are of no importance except so far as they contribute to man’s salvation. Although the Lord thus wills and works for man’s eternal happiness, yet, after all, heaven can only be attained through man’s coöperation. The Lord ever performs his share of the work, but man too often fails to do his. Weeping over Jerusalem, the Lord exclaimed: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, _and ye would not_!” Matthew xxiii. 37. How powerfully and tenderly is here expressed the Divine willingness to save, and how pointedly and decisively is man’s misery attributed to his own obstinacy. As the Lord Jesus is another place says: “Ye _will not_ come to me that ye might have life.” John v. 40. In all the operations of the Divine Providence, human freedom is respected. The Lord forces no man to do what is good, or believe what is true. He drives none to heaven. It is of the Divine Providence that whatsoever a man hears, sees, thinks, speaks, and does, should appear altogether as his own. Without this appearance, men would have no reception of Divine Truth, no determination to do good, no appropriation of love and wisdom or of charity and faith, and thence no conjunction with the Lord; consequently no reformation and regeneration, and thereby salvation. Without this appearance, it is evident there could be no repentance and no faith; and man would not be man, but void of rational life like a beast. It is plain, then, that in order that man may be saved, he must be induced to live a good life by means which in nowise trench upon this appearance of free and independent life. Regeneration is effected by man’s removing evils from his external life, _as of himself_; yet, knowing that all good and truth is from the Lord, he acknowledges, as a consequence, that all power to remove these evils is derived from the Lord alone.