[2] Persons who give no thought to the evils in them, and who do not examine themselves and then desist from the evils, cannot but be ignorant what evil is, and cannot but love it then from delighting in it. For one who is ignorant of it loves it, and one who fails to give it thought, goes on in it, blind to it. Thought sees good and evil as the eye sees beauty and ugliness. One who thinks and wills evil is in evil, and so is a person who thinks that it does not come to God's sight, or if it does is forgiven by Him; he supposes then that he is without evil. If such persons refrain from doing evil, they do so not because it is a sin against God, but for fear of the law and for their reputation's sake. In spirit they still do evil, for it is man's spirit that thinks and wills. As a result, what a man thinks in his spirit in the world, he commits when he becomes a spirit on his departure from the world. [3] In the spiritual world, into which everyone comes after death, the question is not asked what your belief has been or your doctrine, but what your life has been. Was it such or such? For, as is known, such as one's life is, such is one's belief, yes, one's doctrine. For life fashions a doctrine and a belief for itself. 102. From all this it is plain that it is a law of divine providence that evils be removed by man, for without the removal of them the Lord cannot be conjoined to man and from Himself lead man to heaven. But it is not known that man ought to remove evils in the external man as of himself and that unless he does so the Lord cannot remove the evils in his internal man. This is to be presented, therefore, to the reason in light of its own in this order: i. Every man has an external and an internal of thought. ii. His external of thought is in itself such as his internal is. iii. The internal cannot be purified from the lusts of evil as long as the evils in the external man have not been removed, for these impede. iv. Only with the man's participation can evils in the external man be removed by the Lord. v. Therefore a man ought to remove evils from the external man as of himself. vi. The Lord then purifies him from the lusts of evil in the internal man and from the evils themselves in the external. vii. The continuous effort of the Lord in His divine providence is to unite man to Himself and Himself to man, in order to be able to bestow the felicities of eternal life on him, which can be done only so far as evils, along with their lusts, are removed.