13. Not all people who are being regenerated reach this state. Some, indeed the majority nowadays, reach only the first. Some reach merely the second, others the third, fourth, or fifth. Seldom do any reach the sixth, and hardly anybody at all reaches the seventh.

2011. 'For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations' means here, as previously, that from Him comes all truth and resulting good. This is clear from the meaning of 'father' as that which comes from Him, from the meaning of 'multitude' as truth, and also from the meaning of 'nations' as resulting good, all dealt with above in 2005-2007. The fact that these same words mean in the more universal or more remote sense the union of the Human Essence with the Divine Essence, see above, in 2004. For the union of the Lord's Human Essence with the Divine Essence is as the union of truth with good, and the union of His Divine Essence with the Human Essence that of good with truth - which is reciprocal union. Indeed within the Lord it was truth itself that united itself to good, and good that united itself to truth, for the Infinite Divine cannot be called anything else than Good and Truth themselves. Consequently the human mind is not at all mistaken when it thinks of the Lord as Good itself and Truth itself.