329. 4. This means that everyone is predestined to heaven and no one to hell. I have explained in Heaven and Hell 545-550 (published in London in 1758) that the Lord does not throw anyone into hell, but that spirits throw themselves in. That is how it is with everyone who is evil and cynical after death. It is much the same with people who are evil and irreligious in this world, except that in this world they can be reformed; they can embrace and absorb the means of salvation, which they cannot do after they leave this world.

The means of salvation boil down to these two, that we are to abstain from evils because they are against the divine laws in the Ten Commandments, and that we are to acknowledge that God exists. We can all do this, provided we do not love what is evil. The Lord is constantly flowing into our volition with the power to abstain from evils and into our discernment with the power to think that God is real. However, no one can do one of these things without doing the other as well. They are united the way the two tablets of the Ten Commandments are united, the one being for the Lord and the other for us. From his tablet, the Lord is enlightening and empowering everyone, but we accept that power and enlightenment only as we do what is on our tablet. Until we do that, it is as though the two tablets were lying face to face and closed with a seal; but as we do what is on our tablet, they are unsealed and opened.

[2] What are the Ten Commandments nowadays but a closed booklet or leaflet opened only by the hands of children and youths? Try telling people of mature years that they should not do something because it is against the Ten Commandments--who actually cares? Of course, if you say that they should not do something because it is against divine laws they may listen. But the Ten Commandments are divine laws. I have checked this out with any number of people in the spiritual world, people who sneered when I talked about the Ten Commandments or the catechism. This is because the second tablet of the Ten Commandments, our tablet, tells us that we are to abstain from evils; and if people do not abstain from them, whether because they are irreligious or because their religion says that works do nothing for our salvation, only faith, they feel smug on hearing talk of the Ten Commandments or the catechism. It is like hearing about some children's book that is no longer of any use to them.

[3] I mention this to show that none of us is unfamiliar with the means by which we can be saved, or the power, if we want to be saved. It follows from this that everyone is predestined to heaven, and no one to hell.

However, since for some people a belief in predestination to nonsalvation, which is damnation, has taken over, and this belief is vicious, and since it cannot be dispelled unless reason sees its insanity and cruelty, I need to deal with the matter in the following sequence. (a) Any predestination but predestination to heaven is contrary to divine love and its infinity. (b) Any predestination but predestination to heaven is contrary to divine wisdom and its infinity. (c) It is an insane heresy to believe that only those born in the church are saved. (d) It is a cruel heresy to believe that any member of the human race is damned by predestination.

5265. 'The seven good cows are seven years' means a state when truth within the interior natural is multiplied. This is clear from the meaning of 'the cows' in the good sense as the truths belonging to the interior natural, dealt with in 5198; and from the meaning of 'years' as states, dealt with in 482, 487, 488, 493, 893. There were seven because 'seven' means that which is holy and therefore adds the idea of holiness to the matter under discussion, dealt with in 395, 433, 716, 881, as well as implying a whole period from start to finish, 728. This explains why in the dream seven cows and seven heads of grain were seen, and after that why there were seven years of abundance of corn and seven years of famine. It also explains why the seventh day was made holy, why in the representative Church the seventh year was a sabbatical year, and why after seven times seven years there was a Jubilee.

[2] 'Seven' means things that are holy because of the meanings that numbers have in the world of spirits. Each number there holds some spiritual reality within it. Visual indications of numbers have appeared to me frequently, simple and compound ones, and also on one occasion a long sequence of them, when I have wondered what meanings they possessed. I have been told that they have their origin in conversations held by angels, and that it is customary from time to time to use numbers to express spiritual realities too. These numbers are not seen in heaven but in the world of spirits, where the visual presentation of such things takes place. The most ancients, who were celestial people and who talked to angels, knew all about this, which was why they used numbers to express an evaluation of the Church. The numbers used by them conveyed a general overall idea of matters for which words served to provide a detailed description. The meaning contained within every number did not however continue to be known among the descendants of these people; only the meanings of the simple numbers survived, that is to say, the meanings of two, three, six, seven, eight, twelve, and from these the meanings of twenty-four, seventy-two, and seventy-seven. In particular their descendants knew that 'seven' meant that which was most holy - that is to say, that in the highest sense 'seven' meant the Divine Himself, and in the representative sense the celestial element of love - and that the state of the celestial man was therefore meant by 'the seventh day', 84-87.

[3] It is quite evident from the numbers used plentifully in the Word that numbers mean spiritual realities, such as the following ones in John,

Let him who has intelligence reckon the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, that is, its number is six hundred and sixty-six. Revelation 13:18.

And elsewhere in the same book,

The angel measured the wall of the holy Jerusalem, a hundred and forty-four cubits, which is the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. Revelation 11:17.

The number one hundred and forty-four is twelve squared and twice seventy-two.