ratio obtains. Man's state and the
state of his elevation and nearness to the Lord cannot be understood
without a knowledge of these degrees; they have been specifically treated
of, therefore, in the treatise Divine _Love and Wisdom,_ nn. 173-281,
which see.

33. We shall say briefly how man can be more and more closely conjoined
to the Lord, and then how the conjunction seems closer and closer. _How
man is more and more closely conjoined to the Lord:_ this is effected not
by knowledge alone, nor by intelligence alone, nor even by wisdom alone,
but by a life conjoined to them. A man's life is his love, and love is
manifold. In general there are love of good and love of evil. Love of
evil is love of committing adultery, taking revenge, defrauding,
blaspheming, depriving others of their possessions. In thinking and doing
such things the love of evil finds its pleasure and joy. Of this love
there are as many derivatives, which are affections, as there are evils
in which it can find expression. And there are as many perceptions and
thoughts of this love as there are falsities favoring and confirming such
evils. The falsities make one with the evils as understanding makes one
with will; they are mutually inseparable; the one is of the other.

[2] Inasmuch as the Lord flows into one's life's love and by its
affections into the perceptions and thoughts, and not the other way
about, as we said above, it follows that the Lord can conjoin Himself
more closely to a man only as the love of evil is removed along with its
affections, which are lusts. These lusts reside in the natural man. What
a man does from the natural man he feels that he does of himself. For his
part, therefore, a man should remove the evils of that love; so far as he
does, the Lord comes nearer and conjoins Himself to him. Anyone can see
from reason that lusts with their pleasures block and close the door to
the Lord and cannot be cast out by the Lord as long as the man himself
keeps the door shut and presses and pushes from outside to keep it from
being opened. It is plain from the Lord's words in the Apocalypse that a
man must himself open the door:

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).

[3] Plainly, then, so far as one shuns evils as diabolical and as
obstacles to the Lord's entrance, he is more and more closely conjoined
to the Lord, and he the