The unclean spirit is man's spirit of moral impurity, which, weak for good, is powerful for evil. And that impure spirit breeds moral disorder, and moral disorder occasions impotence; and when man has lost his moral power, he is held and scourged by his own wickedness. For wickedness, substitute "the wicked one" by an act of impersonation, and you have before you the birth
The unclean spirit is man's spirit of moral impurity, which, weak for good, is powerful for evil. And that impure spirit breeds moral disorder, and moral disorder occasions impotence; and when man has lost his moral power, he is held and scourged by his own wickedness. For wickedness, substitute "the wicked one" by an act of impersonation, and you have before you the birth, growth and prevalence of the New Testament possession, so far as man's constitution is concerned. Owing to the strong tendencies which sprang up under these circumstances, the notion and the recognition of a second self arose more or less in all nations, and emphatically in tribes and individuals with whom imagination was vivid and active. And this natural and inevitable dualism has a bad being for one of its constituents. I am, then, the natural offspring of humanity. I am an image of the human mind. But then what at the bottom am 11 When all personification is removed, and figures of speech laid aside, I sink into man; I am a human being, who, as such, has two-fold moral tendencies, the one which lift him up, and the other which drag him down. Yet in this description imagery intrudes itself. To avoid imagery is very difficult. I will, however, say that one direction within you injures you, and the other benefits you: but even here the inevitable dualism recurs, and makes you two somewhats--a "direction" and a "you," whereas in fact that direction is nothing but a form or state of the you, that is yourself. With those facts before them, how is it that men have ceased to use the language of possession, and to disbelieve in 190 THE POST-APOSTOLIC AGE KNOW LITTLE OF SATAN. BOOK IV. PERIOD OF COMPOSITION: ELEVATION. CHAPTER I. MY ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. SECTION I. THE...
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Paperback
,
428 pages
Published
March 30th 2010
by Reitell Press
(first published January 7th 2010)