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: