580. The reason why everyone can be regenerated depending on his state, is that the process is different with the simple and the learned, with those who have different pursuits, and undertake different duties; with those who research into the externals of the Word and those who research into its internals; with those whose parentage has brought them into natural good and those who have been brought into evil; with those who from childhood have plunged into the world's vanities, and those who have sooner or later distanced themselves from them. In short, there is a difference between those who make up the Lord's external church and those who make up the internal one. In this there is infinite variety, just as there is in faces and characters. But still each can be regenerated and saved depending on his state.
[2] The truth of this can be established from the heavens, to which all who are regenerated come, being three, highest, middle and lowest. Those come to the highest who through regeneration have acquired love to the Lord; to the middle one those who have acquired love towards the neighbour; to the lowest those who only exhibit external charity, and at the same time acknowledge the Lord as God the Redeemer and Saviour. All of these are saved, but in different ways.
[3] The reason why all can be regenerated and so saved is that the Lord is present with His Divine good and truth with every person. This is the source of his life, and of his ability to understand and will, and of the free will he has in spiritual matters; no one is without these. Moreover the means are given. Christians have the means in the Word, non-Christians in any religion at all, if it teaches the existence of God and commandments about good and evil. From this it follows that everyone can be saved. Consequently, if a person is not saved, it is not the Lord who is to blame but the person; and he is to blame for failing to co-operate.
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