5461. 'One brother among you is to be in bonds in the house of your custody' means that faith in the will must be separated. This is clear from the representation of Simeon - who is the 'one brother who is to be in bonds', named in verse 24 - as faith in the will, dealt with in 3869-3872, 4497, 4502, 4503; and from the meaning of 'being in bonds in the house of custody' as being separated, dealt with in 5083, 5101, 5452, 5456. The implications of this are that when faith in the will - that is, when the will which desires to put the truth of faith into practice - is separated from people with whom the truths known to the Church are present, the link with the Divine is in that case so slender that it is little more than an awareness.

[2] In the case of someone who has been regenerated the Divine flows from the Lord into good, and from this into truth; or what amounts to the same, it flows into his will, and from there into his understanding. To the extent therefore that someone with whom the truths of faith are present receives good from the Lord, the Lord forms for him a new will within the understanding part of his mind (why in the understanding part, see 927, 1023, 1043, 1044, 2256, 4328, 4493, 5113), and the Lord enters in there and creates an affection to do good, that is, to exercise charity towards the neighbour. From this one may see what is meant by the explanation that faith in the will must be separated, which faith is represented by 'Simeon', before the intermediary, which is 'Benjamin', comes to be present.

561. But what are remnants? Not only the goods and truths which one has learned from the Word of the Lord from early childhood onwards and so had imprinted in his memory, but also all resulting states, such as states of innocence from early childhood; states of love towards parents, brothers and sisters, teachers, and friends; states of charity towards the neighbour, and also of compassion on the poor and needy; in short, all states involving good and truth. These states, together with the goods and truths that have been imprinted in the memory, are called remnants, which the Lord preserves with a person and stores away in his internal man, though the person himself is not at all directly conscious of this. Here they are separated completely from the things that are the person's own, that is, evils and falsities. The Lord so preserves all of those states with the individual that not even the least of them perishes. I have been given to know this from the fact that every one of man's states from his infancy right through to extreme old age not only carries over into the next life but also reappears. Indeed those states are exactly the same as when he lived in the world. Thus not only are goods and truths in the memory carried over, but also all states of innocence and charity. And when states of evil and falsity, or wickedness and false notions, recur - for every single one of these as well, down to the smallest detail, is carried over and reappears - they are at that time moderated by the Lord through those states of innocence and charity. From all this it becomes clear that if a person possessed no remnants, he would inevitably be subject to eternal condemnation. See what has appeared already in 468.