self-love wants all to serve it; love of the neighbor regards everyone as
brother and friend, while love of self regards everyone as its servant,
and if one does not serve it, as its enemy; in short, it regards only
itself and others scarcely as human beings, esteeming them at heart less
than one's horses and dogs. Thinking so meanly of others, it thinks
nothing of doing evil to them; hence come hatred and vengeance, adultery
and whoredom, theft and fraud, lying and defamation, violence and
cruelty, and similar evils. Such are the evils in which man is by birth.
That they are tolerated in view of the end, which is salvation, is to be
shown in this order:

i. Everyone is in evil and must be led away from it to be reformed.
ii. Evils cannot be removed unless they appear.
iii. So far as they are removed they are remitted.
iv. The toleration of evil is therefore for the sake of the end in view,
namely, salvation.

277. (i) _Everyone is in evil and must be led away from it to be
reformed._ The church knows that there is hereditary evil in man and that
as a result he is in the lust of many evils. Thence it is that he cannot
do good of himself, for evil does only such good as has evil in it; the
evil inwardly in it is that one does good for one's own sake and thus
only for the sake of appearances. It is known that hereditary evil comes
from one's parents. It is said to come from Adam and his wife, but this
is an error; for everyone is born into hereditary evil from his parent,
and the parent from his parent, and so on; thus it is transmitted from
one to another, is augmented and becomes an accumulation, and is passed
to one's progeny. There is therefore nothing sound in man but all is
evil. Who feels that it is evil to love himself above others? Who, then,
knows that this is an evil, though it is the head of evils?