To be near unto God - pagina 125

be confessed that he, too, is a spirit and that his are spirits. This does not make sin purely spiritual, neither does it exclude sin from the world of matter. But it means that all sin, including voluptuousness and drunkenness, originates in the spirit, and that the Psalmist was correct when he prayed Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression (19:13). Nothing offends more greatly therefore than that in the social world immorality is taken to consist exclusively of intemperance, debauch or voluptuousness, and that its attendants of scorn, bitterness, anger and revenge are seemingly no blots on the good name of celebrated people.

demons

:

;

this line the glorious confession that God Spirit is abandoned to pantheism, while presumptuous pride leads at length to such high esteem of self as to make one dream that he him-

Along is

God. This has given rise to the monstrous even among devout souls, that with the "new man in the spirit" all responsibility can be disowned for sins of sensuality which "the old man" has committed. And this in true is entirely the same error as that which is revived again in the school of Maeterlinck that the pure soul within is not stained by sensual misdeeds of the body. self is

idea,

Holy Scripture subverts upon the soul that God is

all this by impressing Spirit and that all the are the personal doings of One

workings of God who is everywhere present with

upon the

God

us.

God

is

a Spirit.

and that all the pervading the whole creation; not a vague working, elusive and inapprehensible. No, thrice no. soul that

is

117

Spirit,

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