4091. CONCERNING BONDS. It was said by the adulterer before spoken of, that he could not possibly be in the sphere of spirits who were in conjugial love, because he was thereby pained and, as it were, constricted. He said also that he could by no means desist [from his adulterous actings]: whence I perceived that those who become such as he was or otherwise evil, by once giving way to actual evil, as thieves for instance, cannot afterwards desist, as there is henceforward a certain continual actuality in thought, by which he is excited to the commission, and as often as the act recurs, something is added [to the power of the propensity] till at last it becomes a nature, and then no external bond is scarcely at all regarded. This is the effect of the frequent repetition of the act of evil, that afterwards no external restraining bond is of any avail. It was perceived that such consequences are never removed except through the bond of conscience, and thus by a thorough repentance in order to the receiving of faith from the Lord. - 1748, November 27.