as
the cause of this toleration; and what is done for some cause is done
under divine providence according to one of its laws.

247. _That nation was permitted to crucify the Lord._ This was because
the church with that nation was entirely devastated and had become such
that they not only did not know or acknowledge the Lord, but hated Him.
Still, all that they did to Him was according to laws of His divine
providence. See in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about the Lord_ (nn.
12-14) and in _Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Faith_ (nn. 34, 35)
that the passion of the cross was the last temptation or battle by which
the Lord fully conquered the hells and fully glorified His Humanity.

248. So far the points listed at n. 236 have been explained, involving
passages in the Word by which the naturally minded reasoner may confirm
himself against divine providence. For, as was said, whatever such a man
sees, hears or reads he can make into an argument against providence. Few
persons, however, confirm themselves against divine providence from
incidents in the Word, but many do so from things before their eyes,
listed at n. 237. These are to be explained now in like manner.

249. _Every worshiper of self and of nature confirms himself against
divine providence when he sees so many impious in the world and so many
of their impieties and how some glory in them, yet sees the impious go
unpunished by God._ All impieties and all gloryings in them are
permissions, of which the causes are laws of divine providence. Each
human being can freely, indeed very freely, think what he wills, against
God as well as in favor of God. One who thinks against God is rarely
punished in the natural world, for he is always in a state to be reformed
then, but is punished in the spiritual world, which is done after death,
for then he can no longer be reformed.

[2] That laws of divine providence are the causes of tolerance is clear
from the laws set forth above, if you will recall and examine them. They
are: that man shall act in freedom according to reason (of this law
above, nn. 71-79); that he shall not be forced by external means to think
and will, thus to believe and love what is of religion, but bring himself
and sometimes compel himself to do so (nn. 129-153); that there is no
such thing as one's own prudence, but there only appears to be and it
should so appear, but divine providence is universal from being in the
least things (nn. 191-213)