Swedenborg's part (in which he learned of the incorrectness of some of
his own beliefs, nn. 279(2), 290) the book, like others of his,
nevertheless has for an outstanding feature a steady address to the
reason. The profoundest truths of the spiritual life, among them the
nature of God and the laws and ways of providence, are not beyond grasp
by the reason. Sound reason Swedenborg credits with lofty insights.

_Divine Providence_ is a book to be studied, and not merely read, and
studied slowly. By its own way of proceeding, it extends an invitation to
read, not straight through, but something like a chapter at a time. In a
new chapter Swedenborg will recall for the reader what was said in the
preceding chapter, as though the reader had mean-while laid the book
down. The revelator proceeds at a measured pace, carries along the whole
body of his thought, and places each new point in this larger context,
where it receives its precise significance and its full force. It is an
accumulation of thought and not a repetition of statements merely that
one meets. "What has been written earlier cannot be as closely connected
with what is written later as it will be if the same things are recalled
and placed with both in view" (n. 193 (1)).

THE TRANSLATION

This volume has been translated afresh from the Latin; it is not a
revision of any earlier edition. Greater readableness has been striven
for. In the past, it is generally recognized, Latin sentence structure
and word order were clung to unnecessarily. "The defects in previous
translations of Swedenborg have arisen mainly from too close an adherence
to cognate words and to the Latin order of words and phrases." So wrote
the Rev. John C. Ager in 1899 in his translator's note in the Library
Edition of _Divine Providence_. Why, indeed, should English not be