2012. This is still better known among spirits, inasmuch as communications are made by spiritual methods, so that affections and their effects may be [more fully] understood. This is done by means of their intuitions, and at the same time of their perceptions; and of the same character are their spiritual ideas. Certain spirits were indignant when their anger was suddenly snatched from them in a spiritual way; still the indignation excited by the act remained, though they could not be enraged. There was then insinuated something that flattered their self-love, as of praise, administered in a spiritual way, when their resentment was bent into concord, so that the anger would recede. Hence conclusions may be drawn as to other things as, for instance, how it is that the Lord bends without breaking the cupidities of men; as also, that man is sometimes permitted to be led by his concupiscences, while yet they are bent in a wonderful manner to good.-1748, May 20.
2012 1/2. THAT EVIL IS ATTRIBUTED TO THE LORD. Nothing is more common in the Word than the ascribing of evil, wrath, vengeance, and the like to Jehovah, when yet nothing is farther from being the case. The reason is, that as man does not know more than that the Lord rules the universe, so he is of course ignorant how it is that He permits evils, and indefinite things of a like kind; wherefore, from this simple, most general, and most obscure idea, the obvious result is the idea that the Lord does evil, as is read in a multitude of places in the Word.
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