is true of any external which is from an internal, and of anything
subsequent from what is prior, and of every effect from a cause.

[2] As lusts together with slynesses make the internal of thought with
evil persons, and the enjoyments of the lusts together with scheming make
the external of thought in them, and the two are joined into one, it
follows that the internal cannot be purified from the lusts as long as
the evils in the external man are not removed. It should be known that
man's internal will is in the lusts; his internal understanding in the
slynesses; his external will in the enjoyments of the lusts; and his
external understanding in the sly scheming. Anyone can see that lusts and
their enjoyments make one, that slynesses and scheming also do, and that
the four are one series and as it were make a single bundle. From this
again it is evident that the internal, consisting of lusts, cannot be
cast out except on the removal of the external, consisting of evils.
Lusts produce evils by their enjoyments, and when evils are deemed
allowable, as they are when will and understanding agree on it, the
enjoyments and the evils make one. It is well known that assent is deed;
this is also what the Lord said:

If anyone looks on the woman of another to lust after her, he has already
committed adultery with her in his heart (Mt 5:28).*

The same is true of all other evils.

* The Greek is simply "on a woman" and does not have the word here
rendered "of another." Though Swedenborg quotes the verse several times
in his works he seems not to have checked as he usually did beyond the
rendering of the Schmidius Latin Bible which he used.