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divert thought and drive off reflection. Unless he learned from elsewhere
that they are evils he would call them goods and give them expression
freely according to his thought's reasoning; doing so, he appropriates
them to himself. So far as he confirms them as allowable he enlarges the
court of his ruling love, which is his life's love. Lusts constitute its
court, being its ministers and retinue, as it were, by which it governs
the exteriors of its realm. But such as is the king, such are the
ministers and retinue, and such is the kingdom. If the king is diabolic,
his ministers and the retinue are insanities, and the people of his realm
are falsities of every kind. The ministers (who are called wise although
they are insane) cause these falsities to appear as truths by reasonings
from fallacies and by fantasies and cause them to be acknowledged as
truths. Can such a state in a man be changed except by the evils being
removed in the external man? Then the lusts which cling to the evils are
also removed. Otherwise no outlet offers for the lusts; they are shut in
like a besieged city or like an indurated ulcer.

114. (iv) _Only with man's participation can evils in the external man be
removed by the Lord._ In all Christian churches it is an accepted point
of doctrine that before coming to the Holy Communion a person should
examine himself, see and confess his sins, and do penitence, desisting
from his sins and rejecting them because they are from the devil; and
that otherwise the sins are not forgiven him and he is damned. The
English, despite the fact that they are in the doctrine of faith alone,
nevertheless in the exhortation to the Holy Communion openly teach
self-examination, acknowledgment, confession of sins, penitence and
renewal of life, and warn those who do not do these things with the words
that otherwise the devil will enter into them as he did into Judas, fill
them with all iniquity, and destroy both body and soul. Germans, Swedes
and Danes, who are also in the doctrine of faith alone, teach the same in
the exhortation to the Holy Communion, also warning that otherwise the
communicants will make themselves liable to infernal punishments and
eternal damnation for mixing sacred and profane together. These words are
read out by the priest in a deep voice to all who are about to observe
the Holy Supper, and are listened to by them in full acknowledgment that
they are true.

[2] Nevertheless, after hearing a