and not from religion; but the interiors of such are full
of thefts and robberies, and these burst forth when external constraints
are removed from them, as takes place with everyone after death. Their
sincerity and rectitude is nothing but a mask, a disguise, and a deceit.
(A.E., n. 972.)

So far then as the various kinds and species of theft are removed, and
the more they are removed, the kinds and species of goods to which they
by opposition correspond enter and occupy their place; and these have
reference in general to what is sincere, right and just. For when a man
shuns and turns away from unlawful gains through fraud and craft he so
far wills what is sincere, right, and just, and at length begins to love
what is sincere because it is sincere, what is right because it is
right, and what is just because it is just. He begins to love these
things because they are from the Lord, and the love of the Lord is in
them. For to love the Lord is not to love the person, but to love the
things that go forth from the Lord, for these are the Lord in man; thus
it is to love sincerity itself, right itself, and justice itself. And
as these are the Lord, so far as a man loves these, and thus acts from
them, so far he acts from the Lord and so far the Lord removes
insincerity and injustice in respect to the very intentions and
volitions in which they have their roots, and always with less
resistance and struggle, and therefore with less effort than in the
first attempts. Thus it is that man thinks from conscience and acts
from integrity,--not the man of himself but as if of himself; for he
then acknowledges from faith and also from perception that it seems as
if he thought and did these things from himself, and yet he does them
not from himself but from the Lord. (A.E., n. 973.)

When a man begins to shun and turn away from evils because they are sins
all things that he does are good, and may be called good works; with a
difference according to the excellence of the use. For what a man does
before he shuns and turns away from evils as sins are works done by the
man himself; and as the man's own (proprium), which is nothing but evil,
is in these, and they are done for the sake of the world, so they are
evil works. But the works that a man does after he shuns and turns away
from evils as sins are works from the Lord, and because the Lord is in
these and heaven with Him they are good works.

The difference between works done