99. * [....] He called them the children of Israel so that in them He might remember the gentiles [cf. WE 3337-38, 4070]. How the life of all who live on earth, as well as the life of the human body itself, is guided by God the Messiah Alone, is evident not only from what has been said above [cf. WE 644-50]. It was told how the human Soul lives, and therefore is ruled, by God the Messiah Alone, and the life of the subsequent faculties by spirits in a proper arrangement, who are only instruments of life, but not lives in themselves. But it can also be seen clearly, by comparison, from man-made instruments in which there is only one single acting force, as in pendulums, and in other mechanisms that are set in motion by the single force of a wheel, a spring, etc. Other powers that follow one upon the other, in whatever order they succeed and are consequently increased, are still activated by that single force. But this is only by way of comparison, to aid the understanding. This also shows that in the last power, all the prior powers and forces reside, dependent and focussed upon the one force, and are thus together. The same applies in every action, to all the lives of a person, from his very first - for there are as many distinct lives as there are faculties. But when these are in a corrupted order, they are not guided in the same way as when they are in a reformed order. When in corrupted order, they are guided, upon permission, by evil spirits, who nevertheless have no power in them, but power is given to them as instruments, for various reasons that have been spoken of here and there [5, 7, 10-11, 39, 53, WE 1852, 1855, 2119]; namely, depending upon the state of the person on earth, both present and foreseen. Evil spirits, like men, think they are under their own control, but how miserably mistaken they are, I have very often observed, and it has been * The portion 99-100 is the content of a fragment of manuscript glued to the inside back cover of Explicationes in Verbum Verteris Testamenti, Tome II. See A. Acton, The Word Explained, Vol. III, p. 341, footnote 6, and Vol. IV, p. 320, footnote 1.