2457. WHATSOEVER IS ACQUIRED BY ACTUALITY CANNOT BE ERADICATED, BUT MAN MAY BECOME BETTER THROUGH THE LORD. Whatsoever evil is acquired or contracted [through] actuality by man, appears sometimes as if it can be eradicated, to wit, that man may become better, but the case is different; what is once acquired remains, and that man seems to grow better, and thus as it were to forget evil, so that the man is no longer prone to evil, this does not come from man, nor [is it true] that evil is obliterated, but the Lord covers over evil, or gives the faculty of good, whereby evil is as it were covered over, so that the man seems to himself [to be] better; for everything belonging to the good man, everything of the reformed man, and everything of the regenerated man is of the Lord. - 1748, June 30.