Whatever of evil a person acquires or contracts appears sometimes as if it can cease as a habit, that is, as if the person can become better. But the truth of the matter is that what has once been acquired remains, and the fact that the person seems to become better and the evil thus to be wiped away so that one is no longer prone to that evil, is not due to the person, nor does it mean that the evil has been wiped away, but that the Lord is working goodness or giving the ability for goodness, whereby the evil is as if covered over, so that one seems to oneself better. For whatever there is of goodness, whatever of improvement, whatever of regeneration, is of the Lord. 1748, 30 June.