When a man shuns evils as sins, he flees them because they are
contrary to the Lord and to His Divine laws; and then he prays to the
Lord for help and for power to resist them--a power which is never
denied when it is asked. By these two means a man is cleansed of
evils. He cannot be cleansed of evils if he only looks to the Lord and
prays; for then, after he has prayed, he believes that he is quite
without sins, or that they have been forgiven, by which he understands
that they are taken away. But then he still remains in them; and to
remain in them is to increase them. Nor are evils removed only by
shunning them; for then the man looks to himself, and thereby
strengthens the origin of evil, which was that he turned himself back
from the Lord and turned to himself.
--_The Doctrine Concerning Charity, n._ 146