ils? Therefore a priest who
believes that he preaches out of a holy zeal, prays that the Holy Spirit
may teach him, and guide his thoughts and utterances. Some say that they
have sensibly perceived being acted upon, and when a sermon is praised,
reply piously that they have spoken not from themselves but from God.
Therefore when they see someone speak and act well, they remark he was
led to do so by God; on the other hand, seeing someone speak and act
wickedly, they remark he was led to do so by the devil. That there is
talk of the kind in the church is known, but who believes that it is so?

292. Everything that a man thinks and wills, and consequently speaks and
does, flows in from the one Fountain of life, and yet that one Fountain
of life, namely, the Lord, is not the cause of man's thinking what is
evil and false. This may be clarified by these facts in the world of
nature. Heat and light proceed from the sun of the world. They flow into
all visible subjects and objects, not only into subjects that are good
and objects that are beautiful, but also into subjects that are evil and
objects that are ugly, producing varying effects in them. They flow not
only into trees that bear good fruit but into trees that bear bad fruit,
and into the fruits themselves, quickening their growth. They flow into
good seed and into weeds, into shrubs which have a good use and are
wholesome, and into shrubs that have an evil use and are poisonous. Yet
it is the same heat and the same light; there is no cause of evil in
them; the cause is in the recipient subjects and objects.

[2] The same warmth that hatches eggs in which a screech-owl, a horned
owl, and a viper lie acts as it does when it hatches those in which a
dove, a bird of paradise and a swan lie. Put eggs of both sorts under the
hen and they will be hatched by her warmth, which in itself is innocent
of harm. What has the heat in common then with what is evil and noxious?
The heat flowing into a marsh or a dung-hill or into decaying or dead
matter acts in the same way as it does when it flows into things
flavorsome and fragrant, lush and living. Who does not see that the cause
is not in the heat but in the recipient subject? The same light gives
pleasing colors in one object and displeasing colors in another; indeed,
it grows brighter in white objects and becomes dazzling, and dims in
those verging on black and becomes dusky.

[3] There is what is similar in the spiritual world.