There was a certain one (Abram) who fled up to me at my back, and there hid himself, and was quite upright. Then I spoke with him about uprightness, saying that there is an uprightness that comes from fear, as when people fear for the loss of their life or respectability. They lapse into a kind of uprightness out of fear, and since he was of this kind, he imagined that he too was upright, but I do not perceive that he wants goodness; true uprightness and goodness is of the Lord, which reveals itself by the fact that one wills well toward all. People can possess an uprightness due to fear-indeed, that uprightness can increase even to an adoration of the Lord-but as soon as they are outside of the fear, they return to their malice. This was written in his presence, and confirmed; for true uprightness or goodness must be in a state of no fear. 1748, 25 Aug.