Think about this also with some degree of understanding; if you have religion, you will see that repentance of one's sins is the way to heaven, that faith apart from repentance is not faith, and that those in no faith for lack of repenting are in the way to hell.
115. Those in faith severed from charity who have confirmed themselves in it by Paul's saying to the Romans that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law (3:28) worship that saying quite like men who worship the sun. They become like those who fix their gaze steadily on the sun with the result that the blurred vision sees nothing in normal light. For they fail to see what is meant in the passage by "works of the law," namely, the rituals described by Moses in his books, called "law" in them everywhere, and not the precepts of the Decalog. Lest it be thought these are meant, Paul explains, saying at that point,
Do we not then make the law void through faith? Far from it, rather we establish the law (verse 31 of the same chapter).
Those who have confirmed themselves by that saying in faith severed from charity, looking on it as on the sun, do not see the passages in which Paul lists the laws of faith and that these are the very works of charity. What indeed is faith without its laws? Nor do they see the passages in which he lists evil works, declaring that those who do them cannot enter heaven. What blindness has been brought about by this one passage badly understood!
116. Evils in the external man cannot be removed without man's cooperation for the reason that it is by divine providence that whatever a man hears, sees, thinks, wills, speaks and does shall seem to him to be his own doing. Apart from that appearance (as was shown above, nn. 71-95 ff.) there would be no reception of divine truth on man's part, nor determination to do what is good, nor any appropriation of love and wisdom or of charity and faith, hence no conjunction with the Lord, no reformation therefore or regeneration, and thus no salvation. Without that appearance, repentance for sins would clearly be impossible and in fact faith would; without that appearance, likewise, man is not man but is devoid of rational life like the beasts. Let him who will, consult his reason whether it appears otherwise than that man thinks from himself about good and truth, spiritual as well as moral and civil; then accept the doctrine that all good and truth are from the Lord and none from man. Must he not then acknowledge as a consequence that man is to do good and think truth of himself, yet always acknowledge that these are from the Lord? And acknowledge further that man is to remove evils of himself, but still acknowledge that he does so from the Lord?
117. Many are unaware that they are in evils since they do not do them outwardly, fearing the civil law and the loss of reputation. Thus by custom and habit they practice to avoid evils as detrimental to their standing and interests. But if they do not shun evils on religious principle, because they are sins and against God, the lusts of evil with their enjoyments remain in them like impure waters stopped up or stagnant. Let them probe their thoughts and intentions and they will come on the lusts provided they know what sins are.
[2] Many such, who have confirmed themselves in faith separated from charity and who believe that the law does not condemn, pay no attention to sins. Some doubt there are sins, or if so, that they exist in God's sight, having been pardoned. Such also are natural moralists, who believe that civil and moral life with its prudence accomplishes all things and divine providence nothing. Such are those, also, who strive with great care after a reputation and a name for honesty and sincerity for the sake of standing and preferment. But those who are such and who at the same time have spurned religion become lustful spirits after death, appearing to themselves like men indeed, but to others at a distance like priapi; and they see in the dark and not at all in the light, like night-owls.
118. Proposition v, that a man ought to remove evils from the external man of himself, is substantiated then. Further explanation may be seen in Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem under three propositions: 1. No one can flee evils as sins so as to be averse to them inwardly except by combats against them (nn. 92-100); 2. A man ought to shun evils as sins and fight against them as of himself (nn. 101-107); and 3. If he shuns evils for any other reason than that they are sins, he does not shun them, but only keeps them from appearing to the world.
119. (vi) The Lord then purifies man from the lusts of evil in the internal man and from the evils themselves in the external. The Lord purifies man from the lusts of evil only when man as of himself removes the evils because He cannot do so before. For the evils are in the external man and the lusts in the internal man, and they cling together like roots and a trunk. Unless the evils are removed, therefore, no outlet offers; they block the way and shut the door, which the Lord can open only with a man's participation, as was shown just above. When the man as of himself opens the door, the Lord then roots out the lusts.
[2] A second reason why the Lord cannot do so sooner is that He acts upon man's inmost and by that on all that follows even to outmosts where man himself is. While outmosts, therefore, are kept closed by man, no purification can take place, but only that activity of the Lord in interiors which is His activity in hell, of which the man who is in lusts and at the same time in evils is a form—an activity which is solely provision lest one thing destroy another and lest good and truth be violated. It is plain from words of the Lord in the Apocalypse that He constantly urges and prompts man to open the door to Him: