r to be led by good is to be led by the
Lord, but to be led by evil is to be led by the devil.

[2] Inasmuch as all he does in freedom appears to a man to be his own,
coming as it does from what he loves, and to act from one's love, as was
said, is to act freely, it follows that conjunction with the Lord causes
a man to seem free and also his own, and the more closely he is conjoined
to the Lord, to seem so much freer and so much more his own. He seems the
more distinctly his own because it is the nature of the divine love to
want its own to be another's, that is, to be the angel's or the man's.
All spiritual love is such, preeminently the Lord's. The Lord, moreover,
never coerces anyone. For nothing to which one is coerced seems one's
own, and what seems not one's own cannot be done from one's love or be
appropriated to one as one's own. Man is always led in freedom by the
Lord, therefore, and reformed and regenerated in freedom. On this much
more will be said in what follows; also see some things above, n. 4.

44. The reason why the more distinctly a man seems to be his own the more
plainly he sees that he is the Lord's, is that the more closely he is
conjoined to the Lord the wiser he becomes (as was shown, nn. 34-36), and
wisdom teaches and recognizes this. The angels of the third heaven, as
the wisest angels, perceive this and call it freedom itself; but to be
led by themselves they call bondage. They give as the reason for this
that the Lord does not flow immediately into the perceptions and thoughts
of wisdom, but into the affections of the love of good and by these into
the former, and this influx they perceive in the affection by which they
have wisdom. Hence, they say, all that they think from wisdom seems to be
from themselves, thus seemingly their own, and this gives reciprocal
conjunction.

45. As the Lord's divine providence has for its object a heaven from
mankind, it has for its object the conjunction of the human race with Him
(see nn. 28-31). It also has for its object that man should be more and
more closely conjoined to Him (nn. 32, 33); for thus man possesses a more
interior heaven. Further, it has for its object that by the conjunction
man should become wiser (nn. 34-36) and happier (nn. 37-41), for he has
heaven by and according to wisdom, and happiness by wisdom, too. Finally,
providence has for its object that man shall seem more distinctly his
own, yet recognize the more clearly that he is the