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| Chapter XXV. Different passages of Scripture on the meaning of the eight faults.
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Chapter XXV.
Different passages of Scripture on the meaning of the
eight faults.
And in reference to these
eight faults we also have the following in the gospel: “But when
the unclean spirit is gone out from a man, he walketh through dry
places seeking rest and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return to
my house from whence I came out: and coming he findeth it empty, swept,
and garnished: then he goeth and taketh seven other spirits worse than
himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that
man is made worse than the first.”1360
Lo, just as in the former passages we read of seven nations besides
that of the Egyptians from which the children of Israel had gone forth,
so here too seven unclean spirits are said to return beside that one
which we first hear of as going forth from the man. And of this
sevenfold incentive of sins Solomon gives the following account in
Proverbs: “If thine enemy speak loud to thee, do not agree to him
because there are seven mischiefs in his heart;”1361
i.e., if the spirit of gluttony is
overcome and begins to flatter you with having humiliated it, asking in
a sort of way that you would relax something of the fervour with which
you began, and yield to it something beyond what the due limits of
abstinence, and measure of strict severity would allow, do not you be
overcome by its submission, nor return in fancied security from its
assaults, as you seem to have become for a time freed from carnal
desires, to your previous state of carelessness or former liking for
good things. For through this the spirit whom you have vanquished is
saying “I will return to my house from whence I came out,”
and forthwith the seven spirits of sins which proceed from it will
prove to you more injurious than that passion which in the first
instance you overcame, and will presently drag you down to worse kinds
of sins.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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