everything of life must come from above. [3] This being the belief of
the angels they refuse all thanks for the good they do, and are
displeased and withdraw if any one attributes good to them. They
wonder how any one can believe that he is wise from himself or does
anything good from himself. Doing good for one's own sake they do not
call good, because it is done from self. But doing good for the sake
of good they call good from the Divine; and this they say is the good
that makes heaven, because this good is the Lord.{1}

{Footnote 1} Good from the Lord has the Lord inwardly in it,
but good from one's own has not (n. 1802, 3951, 8480).


10. Such spirits as have confirmed themselves during their life in
the world in the belief that the good they do and the truth they
believe is from themselves, or is appropriated to them as their own
(which is the belief of all who place merit in good actions and claim
righteousness to themselves) are not received into heaven. Angels
avoid them. They look upon them as stupid and as thieves; as stupid
because they continually have themselves in view and not the Divine;
and as thieves because they steal from the Lord what is His. These
are averse to the belief of heaven, that it is the Divine of the Lord
in the angels that makes heaven.


11. The Lord teaches that those that are in heaven and in the church
are in the Lord and the Lord is in them, when He says:

Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself except it abide in the vine, so neither can ye,