2883. Opdat daarom de mens het hemels eigene zal ontvangen, moet hij het goede uit zichzelf doen en het ware uit zichzelf denken, maar toch moet hij weten, en wanneer hij hervormd is, denken en geloven, dat al het goede en al het ware van de Heer is, ook ten aanzien van het allergeringste en dit, omdat het zo is; maar dat het de mens gegeven wordt te menen, dat het uit hemzelf is, gebeurt, opdat het goede en ware als zijn eigene wordt.

5763. 'He with whom it is found will be my slave' means that the one with whom that thing is present will forever be without his freedom. This is clear from the meaning of 'slave' as being without one's freedom, as above in 5760. The implications of this are as follows: Joseph's cup made of silver, placed on Joseph's orders with Benjamin, means interior truth, 5736, 5747. Anyone in possession of interior truth knows that everything true and good comes from the Lord, also that all freedom of one's own or originating in a person himself is hellish freedom. For when a person is motivated by his own freedom to do or think something, he does and thinks nothing but evil. He is consequently the devil's slave, hell being the origin of all evil that flows in. He also has a feeling of delight in that freedom, because it fits in with the evil in which he is steeped and into which he was born. Consequently he needs to rid himself of the freedom which is his own and take on heavenly freedom instead, which consists in willing what is good and therefore doing what is good, and in desiring what is true and therefore thinking what is true. When a person receives this freedom he is the Lord's slave or servant, in which case he enjoys true freedom and is not in the slavery in which he had been previously and which seemed like freedom. This is what is meant by being forever without his own freedom. What the essence and origin of freedom are, see 2870, 2893; true freedom consists in being led by the Lord, 2890.