against goodness--hence a contagion of
evil. When the contagion reaches leaders, rulers and the prominent in the
church, religion has become perverted, and the means of restoring it to
health, namely truths, become corrupted by falsifications. As a result
there is a gradual devastation of good and desolation of truth in the
church on to its end.

[8] Fourth: _Nevertheless the Lord provides that everyone may be saved._
He provides that there shall be religion everywhere and in it the two
essentials for salvation, acknowledgment of God and ceasing from evil
because it is contrary to God. Other things, which pertain to the
understanding and hence to the thinking, called matters of faith, are
provided everyone in accord with his life, for they are accessory to life
and if they have been given precedence, do not become living until they
are subsidiary. It is also provided that those who have lived rightly and
acknowledged God are instructed by angels after death. Then those who
were in the two essentials of religion while in the world accept such
truths of the church as are in the Word, and acknowledge the Lord as God
of heaven and of the church. This last they receive more readily than do
Christians who have brought with them from the world an idea of the
Lord's human nature parted from His divine. It is also provided by the
Lord that all are saved who die as infants, no matter where they have
been born.

[9] Furthermore, every person is given the opportunity after death of
amending his life if possible. All are instructed and led by the Lord by
means of angels. Knowing now that they live after death and that heaven
and hell exist, they at first receive truths. But those who did not
acknowledge God and shun evils as sins when in the world soon show a
distaste for truths and draw back, and those who acknowledged truths with
the lips but not with the heart are like the foolish virgins who had
lamps but no oil and begged oil of others, also went off and bought some,
but still were not admitted to the wedding. "Lamps" signify truths of
faith and "oil" signifies the good of charity. It may be evident then
that divine providence sees to it that everyone can be saved and that man
is himself in fault if he is not saved.

[10] Fifth: _It is also provided that a new church shall succeed in place
of a former devastated church._ It has been so from the most ancient days
that on the devastation of a church a new one followed. The Anci