4396. THAT THE VERY EVIL IN LIFE, WHO THOUGHT JUSTLY CONCERNING ORDINARY THINGS, RECEIVE THE TRUTHS OF FAITH MORE EASILY THAN THOSE WHO WERE EXTERNALLY MORAL, BUT WHO THOUGHT EVIL. There were three (:Ofwerste i Swerige, Gustaf Rudbeck, Prince von Dessau:) who led an atheistical life, and believed nothing concerning another life, and were exceedingly wicked. These, in the other life, received the truths of faith, because they are endowed with the faculty of receiving, by reason of their having thought justly and uprightly concerning obvious matters, to wit, concerning worldly things; thus they had a plane, namely, natural justice and uprightness, in which the truth of faith could be implanted. But, on the contrary, others who thought evil of sacred things, and had no regard for what was just and true, provided only they might appear externally moral and civil, and appear good before men, such as Alderheim, who was among the most evil, and Bergenstierna, who was a hypocrite - these, because they thought what was just and true, and denied faith and eternal life, and believed nothing of heaven or hell, were withheld from the profanation of truth, which they blasphemed [indeed], but were not able to profane. [The first-mentioned] can receive truth, but whether good I do not yet know. Natural, moral, and civil good is the recipient vessel of the truth of faith, and in it there is a kind of conscience.