ection
corresponding to sound and thought to speech.

[7] Third: _Divine providence with the evil is a continual tolerance of
evil, to the end that there may be a continual withdrawal from it._
Divine providence with evil men is continual permission because only evil
can issue from their life. For whether he is in good or in evil, man
cannot be in both at once, nor by turns in one and the other unless he is
lukewarm. Evil of life is not introduced into the will and through this
into the thought by the Lord but by man, and this is named permission.

[8] Inasmuch as everything which an evil man wills and thinks is by
permission, the question arises, what in this case divine providence is,
which is said to be in the least things with every person, evil or good.
It consists in this, that it exercises tolerance continually for the sake
of its objective, and permits what helps to the end and nothing more. It
constantly observes the evils that issue by permission, separates and
purifies them, and rejects what is unsuitable and discharges it by
unknown ways. This is done principally in man's interior will and through
it in his interior thought. Divine providence also sees to it constantly
that what must be rejected and discharged is not received again by the
will, since all that is received by the will is appropriated to the man;
what is received by the thought, but not by the will, is set aside and
banished. Such is the constant divine providence with the evil; as was
said, it is a continual tolerance of evil to the end that there may be
continual withdrawal from it.

[9] Of these activities man knows scarcely anything, for he does not
perceive them. The chief reason why he does not, is that the evils come
from the lusts of his life's love, and are not felt to be evils but
enjoyments, to which one does not give thought. Who gives thought to the
enjoyments of his love? His thought floats along in them like a skiff
carried along by the current of a stream; and he perceives a fragrant air
which he inhales with a deep breath. Only in one's external thought does
one have a sense of the enjoyments, but even in it he pays no attention
to them unless he knows well that they are evil. More will be said on
this in what follows.

[10] Fourth: _Withdrawal from evil is effected by the Lord in a thousand
most secret ways._ Only some of these have been disclosed to me, and only
the most general ones. For instance, the enjoyments of lusts,