2400. CONCERNING THE STATE OF FEAR. All evil spirits whoever they are, can be reduced to humiliation, self-annihilation, supplication, self-acknowledgment that they are filthy, and to everything that belongs to true faith, by means of fear; and the more anyone loves himself and the world, the more [easily can he be reduced] to acknowledgment and confession; because he fears for himself, and the loss of those things which he so greatly loves. But that state is not the state of his reformation, for as soon as they relapse they are like what they were before. Wherefore other states will transpire [erunt] which are numerous [plures], in order that man, when without fear and pain, or melancholy, may acknowledge those things that belong to true faith. Wherefore the Lord rarely admits fears and their species. - 1748, June 24.