8993. 'And when a man sells his daughter to be a female slave' means an affection for truth springing from natural delight. This is clear from the meaning of 'a man's daughter' as an affection for truth, for an affection is meant by 'daughter', dealt with in 2362, 3963, while truth is meant by 'a man', 3134, as it also is by an Israelite, whom 'a man' refers to here, 5414, 5879, 5951, 7957, 8234; and from the meaning of 'a female slave' as an external or natural affection, dealt with in 2567, 3835, 3849. Consequently 'a man's daughter sold as a female slave' means an affection for truth springing from natural affection and delight.

[2] By natural delight one should understand delight emanating from self-love and love of the world. The people with an affection for truth emanating from these kinds of love are those who learn the teachings of the Church, called the truths of faith, either for the sake of gain or for the sake of important positions, and not for the sake of the life they should lead. Since affections such as this do not emanate from spiritual good but from natural delight they are represented by the daughter of an Israelite man sold as a female slave or servant-girl. For whatever owes its origin to self-love or love of the world is not freedom but slavery. What freedom and slavery are, see 892, 905, 1947, 2870-2893, 6205. The nature of affection for truth arising from those kinds of love is described in the internal sense of what follows next.

[3] It should be borne in mind that a genuine affection for truth consists in willing and desiring to know the real truths of faith with a view to putting them to good use and for the sake of the life one should lead. But an affection for truth which is not genuine consists in willing and desiring truths for selfish reasons, that is, in order to acquire important positions and make monetary gain. Those with an affection for truth that has this origin do not care whether the truths they learn are genuine or not, provided that they are such as can be palmed off as truths. This being so, they confine themselves to endorsing the teachings of the Church in which they were born, regardless of whether those teachings are true or not. They are also in the dark so far as real truths are concerned; for worldly ends or gains, and selfish ¹ ends or important positions make people completely blind.

[4] But those with a genuine affection for truth, that is, those who desire to know truths to put them to good use and for the sake of the life they ought to lead, they too keep to the teachings of the Church, until they reach the age when they begin to think for themselves. Then they examine the Scriptures and pray to the Lord for enlightenment; and when they receive it, their hearts rejoice. For they know that if they had been born where the teachings of the Church are different, indeed where the greatest heresy exists, then - if they had not examined Scripture from a genuine affection for truth - they would have remained in it, as for example they would have done if they had been born Jews, or they had been born Socinians. All this shows who exactly those people are, and what they are like, who have a genuine affection for truth, and who they are, and what they are like, who have an affection for truth that is not genuine. Those with a genuine affection for truth are meant in the representative sense by the daughters of Israelite men; but those with an affection for truth that is not genuine are meant in the representative sense by female slaves from among the daughters of Israel, who are the subject at present.

脚注:

892. Once someone has been regenerated he enters for the first time into a state of freedom. Previously he has been in a state of slavery. It is slavery when evil desires and falsities predominate, freedom when affections for good and truth do so. As long as he is in a state of slavery, a person never perceives what his situation is. Only when he enters a state of freedom does he start to do so. When he is in a state of slavery, that is, when evil desires and falsities predominate, the person who has become subject to them imagines that he is in a state of freedom. That however is sheer falsity, for he is at that time being carried away by the delight that accompanies desires and resulting pleasures, that is, by the delight accompanying the loves that are his own. And because he is being carried away by such delight it seems to him as though he were a free man. While anyone is being led on by any kind of love, and following wherever it leads, he imagines that he is free. It is however the devilish spirits, in whose company and so to speak fast moving stream he is caught, who carry him away. This person imagines that this is absolute freedom, indeed he goes so far as to believe that if he were robbed of this state he would be entering upon a very miserable existence, in fact into no existence at all. This he believes not only because he is unaware of the existence of any other kind of life but also because he has gained the impression that nobody can enter heaven without suffering hardships, poverty, and deprivation of pleasures. That this is false however I have been given to know from considerable experience. That experience will in the Lord's Divine mercy be described later on.

[2] No one ever enters into a state of freedom until he has been regenerated and is being led by the Lord by means of the love of good and truth. When he has entered that state he is enabled to know and perceive for the first time what freedom really is, because he can at that point know and perceive what life is, what the true delight in life is, and what happiness is. Prior to this he does not even know what good is, and sometimes that which is supremely good he calls supremely evil. When persons who are in a state of freedom from the Lord see the life that goes with evil desires and falsities, and even more when they experience it, they are as appalled by it as people who see hell opened before their eyes. But because the majority of people have no knowledge at all of what a life of freedom is, let a brief mention of it be made here: A life of freedom, or freedom itself, means being led exclusively by the Lord. Quite a number of obstacles stand in the way of a person's being able to believe that that kind of life is a life of freedom. One obstacle is that people undergo temptations, which take place for the purpose of freeing them from the dominion of devilish spirits. Another is that they know of no other delight and good apart from those belonging to the desires that result from self-love and love of the world. A further obstacle is that they have formed a false impression of all the things that belong to heavenly life. Consequently they are less able to learn from descriptions than from actual experiences, which in the Lord's Divine mercy will be introduced later on.