149. One reason why man does not in like manner desire to come out of spiritual servitude into spiritual liberty is, that he does not know what spiritual slavery is and what spiritual freedom is; he does not possess the truths that teach this; and without truths spiritual slavery is believed to be freedom, and spiritual freedom to be slavery. Another reason is that the religion of the Christian world has closed up the understanding, and faith alone has sealed it; for both of these have placed around themselves like an iron curtain the dogma that theological matters are transcendent and cannot therefore be reached by any exercise of rationality, and that they are for the blind, not for those that see. In this way the truths have been hidden that teach what spiritual liberty is. A third reason is that few examine themselves and see their sins; and he who does not see his sins and desist from them is in the freedom of sin, which is infernal freedom, in itself slavery; and from this viewpoint to see heavenly freedom, which is freedom itself is like seeing day in a fog, or like seeing what comes from the sun above when under a black cloud. Hence it is that it is not known what heavenly freedom is, and that the difference between it and infernal freedom is like the difference between the living and the dead.