4992. 'Behold, my lord does not concern himself with anything in the house' means that natural good did not have even the desire to make anything its own. This is clear from the meaning of 'his lord' as natural good, dealt with in 4973, and from the meaning of 'not concerning himself with anything in the house' as having no desire to make anything its own. This meaning of these words cannot be seen except from the train of thought in the internal sense, for now the subject is a third state, in which the celestial of the spiritual was present in the natural. In this state natural good and truth which are spiritual are separated from natural good and truth which are not spiritual. Consequently 'not concerning himself with anything in the house' means that no desire existed to make anything its own. But being arcana, these matters cannot be seen clearly without the help of examples.
[2] Let the following serve to shed light on the matter. If mere lust leads a man to be joined to his wife, this is something natural which is unspiritual; but if conjugial love leads him to be joined to her this is something natural which is spiritual. And if after that - when he is her husband - it is mere lust that joins him to her, he considers himself to be a sinner who is no different from someone behaving in a sexually immoral way; which being so he has no further wish to make such lust his own. Or let another example be given. To do good to a friend, regardless of his character and simply because he is one's friend, is a natural action that is unspiritual; but to do good to a friend on account of the good residing with him, all the more so when one regards good itself as the friend to whom one is to do good, is a natural action that is spiritual. When this attitude exists with a person, he realizes that he himself is a sinner if he does good to a friend who is evil; for in that case he does evil to others through that friend. When this is his state he turns away from making his own that unspiritual natural good which had existed with him previously. The same is so with everything else.
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