108. If Someone Refrains from Evils for Any Other Reason Than That They Are Sins, He Does Not Really Refrain from Them, but Only Keeps Them from Being Seen by the World

There are moral people who keep the precepts of the second table of the Ten Commandments, who do not defraud, do not blaspheme, do not take revenge, and do not commit adultery, and among them some who are personally convinced that such conduct is evil, being harmful to the country and so contrary to laws of humanity, and who also practice charity, honesty, justice, and chastity.

However, if they do these goods and refrain from the aforesaid evils only because they are evil, and not at the same time because they are sins, they are still merely natural people, and in merely natural people the root of evil remains deeply seated and is not removed. As a result, the good they do is not good, because it springs from themselves.

24. 1. If a person wills and does good before he refrains from evils as being sins, the good that he does is not good. That is because he is, prior to that, not in the Lord, as we said above. So for example, if someone gives to the poor, aids the needy, contributes to churches and shelters, is of service to the church, the country, and his fellow citizens, teaches the gospel and makes converts, is just in his judgments, honest in his business dealings, and upright in what he does, and yet regards evils as being hardly sins, such as instances of fraud, adultery, hatred, blasphemy, and the like, then he cannot help but do good that has evil within it; for he does those things of himself and not from the Lord. Thus he himself is in the deed, and not the Lord, and every good that has the person himself in it is defiled with his evils and has regard to himself and the world.

On the other hand, those same deeds recounted above are inwardly good if a person refrains from evils as being sins, such as instances of fraud, adultery, hatred, blasphemy, and the like; for he does those deeds from the Lord, and they are called deeds “done in God” (John 3:19-21).