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:

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if anyone hears my voice and
opens the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with Me
(3:20).

120. Man knows nothing at all of the interior state of his mind or
internal man, yet infinite things are there, not one of which comes to
his knowledge. His internal of thought or internal man is his very
spirit, and in it are things as infinite and innumerable as there are in
his body, in fact, more numerous. For his spirit is man in its form, and
all things in it correspond to all things of his body. Now, just as man
knows nothing by any sensation about how his mind or soul operates on all
things of the body as a whole or severally, so he does not know, either,
how the Lord works on all things of his mind or soul, that is, of his
spirit. The divine activity is unceasing; man has no part in it; still
the Lord cannot purify a man from any lust of evil in his spirit or
internal man as long as the man keeps the external closed. Man keeps his
external closed by evils, each of which seems to him to be a single
entity, although in each are infinite things. When a man removes what
seems a single thing, the Lord removes infinite things in it. So much is
implied in the Lord's purifying man from the lusts of evil in the
internal man and from the evils themselves in the external.

121. Many believe that a person is purified from evils merely by
believing what the church teaches; some, by doing good; others by
knowing, speaking and teaching what is of the church; others by reading
the Word and books of devotion; others by going to church, hearing
sermons and especially by observing the Holy Supper; still others, by
renouncing the world and devoting oneself to piety; others still by
confessing oneself gu