To shun evils as sins is to shun the infernal societies that are in them, and man cannot shun these unless he repels them and turns away from them; and a man cannot turn away from them with repulsion unless he loves good and from that love does not will evil. For a man must either will evil or will good; and so far as he wills good he does not will evil; and it is granted him to will good when he makes the commandments of the Decalogue to be of his religion, and lives according to them. Since man must refrain from evils as sins as if of himself, these ten commandments were inscribed by the Lord on two tables, and these were called a covenant; and this covenant was entered into in the same way as it is usual to enter into covenants between two, that is, one proposes and the other accepts, and the one who accepts consents. If he does not consent the covenant is not established. To consent to this covenant is to think, will, and do as if of oneself. Man's thinking to shun evil and to do good as if of himself is done not by man, but by the Lord. This is done by the Lord for the sake of reciprocation and consequent conjunction; for the Lord's Divine love is such that it wills that what is its own shall be man's, and as these things cannot be man's, because they are Divine, it makes them to be as if they were man's. In this way reciprocal conjunction is effected, that is, that man is in the Lord and the Lord in man, according to the words of the Lord Himself in John (xiv. 20); for this would not be possible if there were not in the conjunction something belonging as it were to man. What man does as if of himself he does as if of his will, of his affection, of his freedom, consequently of his life. Unless these were present on man's part as if they were his there could be no receptivity, because nothing reactive, thus no covenant and no conjunction; in fact, no ground whatever for the imputation that man had done evil or good or had believed truth or falsity, thus that there is from merit a hell for anyone because of evil works, or from grace a heaven for anyone because of good works. (A.E., n. 971.)