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correspondences; it follows that dissensions and heresies are inevitable, and that the permission of these is also according to the laws of the Divine Providence; especially, when the church itself had assumed for its essentials such things as belong to the understanding only, that is, to doctrine; and not to the will, that is, to the conduct of life.

When the things which have relation to life are not made essentials of the church, then a man with respect to his understanding is in mere darkness, and gropes about like a blind man who is ever stumbling and falling into ditches; for the will must see in the understanding, and not the understanding in the will; or, what amounts to the same, the life and its love must lead the understanding to think, speak and act, and not the contrary; for were the contrary the case, the understanding might from an evil, and even from a diabolical love, catch at whatever might impress the senses, and enjoin the will to do it.

From these considerations it may be seen whence dissensions and heresies exist.

It is however provided, that every one, in whatever heresy he may be with respect to his understanding, may still be reformed and saved, provided he shuns evils as sins, and does not confirm heretical falsities in himself. For by shunning evils as sins the will is reformed, and by the will the understanding, which then first emerges out of darkness into light.