regenerated by means of them.

[7] _Without those two faculties man would not have immortality or
eternal life._ This follows from what has been said: that by the two
faculties there is conjunction with the Lord and also reformation and
regeneration. By conjunction man has immortality, and through reformation
and regeneration he has eternal life. As every man, evil as well as good,
is conjoined to the Lord by the two faculties every man has immortality.
Eternal life, or the life of heaven, however, only that man has with whom
there is reciprocal conjunction from inmosts to outmosts.

The reasons may now be clear why the Lord, in all the procedure of His
divine providence, safeguards the two faculties in man unimpaired and as
sacred.

97. ( viii) _It is therefore [a law] of divine providence that man shall
act in freedom from reason._ To act in freedom according to reason, to
act from liberty and rationality, and to act from will and understanding,
are the same. But it is one thing to act in freedom according to reason,
or from liberty and rationality, and another thing to act from freedom
itself according to reason itself or from liberty and rationality
themselves. The man who does evil from love of evil and confirms it in
himself acts indeed from freedom according to reason, but his freedom is
not in itself freedom or very freedom, but an infernal freedom which in
itself is bondage, and his reason is not in itself reason, but is either
spurious or false or plausible through confirmations. Still, either is of
divine providence. For if freedom to will evil and do it as of the reason
through confirmation of it were taken from the natural man, liberty and
rationality and at the same time will and understanding would perish, and
he could not be withdrawn any longer from evils, be reformed or united