[2] Divine order knows no other way than this, and therefore the law of God too knows no other way, for every law of God is a law of order, so entirely so that whether you say a law of God or a law of Divine order it amounts to the same thing. Those who belong to the spiritual Church now receive instruction regarding this law; from it they learn that they will certainly be delivered when, in keeping with order, the time and state for deliverance has come. The fact that Moses - who represents here the law of God as it exists among those belonging to the spiritual Church when they pass through a state involving molestations - believed from the law of God that they would be delivered from molestations straightaway is evident from the things said by him at the end of the previous chapter. There he says, 'Why have You done ill to this people? Why is this, that You have sent me, and have not delivered Your people at all?' the meaning of which is that they are suffering from excessive molestation by falsities when yet the law emanating from God seems to promise something different, thus that they have not been released from the state of molestations, see 7165, 7166, 7169.

[3] The reason why those who belong to the spiritual Church and are on the lower earth are delivered from molestations gradually, in successive stages and not straightaway, is that there is no other way in which the evils and falsities clinging to them can be removed and forms of good and truth instilled instead. This is effected by very many changes of state, thus gradually, in successive stages. Those who believe that a person can be introduced straightaway into heaven, and that nothing more than the Lord's mercy is necessary for this to be done, are very much mistaken. If that belief were true, then all in hell, however many they may be, would be raised to heaven; for the Lord's mercy reaches out to all. However, the orderly way is for each person to take with him the life he was leading in the world and for that life of his to determine his state in the next life. At the same time the Lord's mercy flows into everyone and is present with all; but it is received in varying ways, and is rejected by those who are governed by evil. And because they have steeped themselves in evil when in the world they also retain it in the next life. Nor is any correction possible in the next life; for where the tree has fallen, there it lies. All this shows how orderly it is that those who have led a good life, yet whose characters also have uncouth and impure elements of self-love and love of the world in them, should be unable to enter into fellowship with those in heaven until such elements have been removed. From these considerations it is evident that deliverance from molestations takes place gradually, in successive stages.