The truly human is what is from order and according to order, and what is from sound reason; and God is order, and sound reason is from God.  In a word, he who does not shun evils as sins is not a man.  Everyone who makes these commandments to belong to his religion becomes a citizen and an inhabitant of heaven; but he who does not make them to belong to his religion, although in externals he may live according to them from natural, moral, and civil law, becomes a citizen and an inhabitant of the world, but not of heaven.

Most nations possess a knowledge of these commandments, and make them the commandments of their religion, and live according to them because God so wills and has commanded; and through this they have communication with heaven and conjunction with God, consequently they are saved.  But most in the Christian world at this day do not make them the commandments of their religion, but only of their civil and moral life; and they do this that they may not appear in external form to act fraudulently and make unlawful gains, commit adulteries, manifestly pursue others from deadly hatred and revenge, and bear false witness, and do not refrain from these things because they are sins and against God, but because they have fears for their life, their reputation, their office, their business, their possessions, their honor and gain, and their pleasure; consequently if they were not restrained by these bonds they would do these things.  Because, therefore, such form for themselves no communication with heaven or conjunction with the Lord, but only with the world and with self, they cannot be saved.

Consider is respect to yourself, when these external bonds have been taken away, as is done with every man after death, if there are no internal bonds, which are from fear and love of God, thus from religion, to restrain and hold you back, whether you would not rush like a devil into thefts, adulteries, murders, false witnesses, and lusts of every kind, from a love of these and a delight in them.  That this is the case I have both seen and heard. (A.E., n. 948.)

So far as evils are set aside as sins so far goods flow in, and so far does man afterward do goods, not from self, but from the Lord.

As, first, so far as one does not worship other gods, and thus does not love self and the world above all things, so far acknowledgment of God flows in from the Lord, and then he worships God, not from self but from the Lord.

Secondly, so far as one does not profane the name of God, that is, so far as he shuns the lusts arising from the loves of self and of the world, so far he loves the holy things of the Word and of the church; for these are the name of God, and are profaned by the lusts arising from the loves of self and of the world.

Thirdly, so far as one shuns thefts, and thus shuns frauds and unlawful gains, so far sincerity and justice enter, and he loves what is sincere and just from sincerity and justice, and thus does what is sincere and just not from self but from the Lord.