The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 295

SIN

NOT MATERIAL

Satan, a being without a body.

man's

soul,

then manifested

Coming from him itself in

255 it

crept

into

first

Hence it is un"body" and "soul."

the body.

" flesh " and "spirit" as This Manes did; and this is the object of his system in all its feaHe taught that sin is inherent in matter, in the flesh, in all tures. that is tangible and visible. " The soul," he says, " is your friend,

scriptural to oppose

but the body your enemy. The successful resistance of the excitement of the blood and the palate would free you from sin." In his

own Eastern environment he saw much more itual;

and deceived by

accounted for

And

it

carnal sin than spir-

he closed his eyes for the latter, or as caused by the excitement from evil matter. this

yet Manes was quite consistent, which, giant-thinker that

he was, could not be otherwise. He arrived at this singular conclusion, essential to his system of inventions, that Satan was not a fallen angel, not a

Hid

spiritual, incorporeal being,

was a power tempting the This explains how Manes could Satan. singular and anti-scriptural doctrine. in matter

soul, offer

but matter

itself.

and that power was the Church such a

Manes's system bordered on materialism. The materialist says and is the burning of phosphorus in the brain

that our thinking

;

that lust, envy, and hatred are the result of a discharge of certain

glands in the body.

Virtue and vice are only the result of chemi-

make a man better, freer, and nobler, we should send him to the laboratory of a chemist, rather than to school or church. And if it were possible for the chemist to lift cal processes.

In order to

the man's skull, and subject his cells and nerves to the necessary

chemical process, then vice would be conquered, and virtue and higher wisdom would effectually sway him.

way Manes taught that as an inherent and inseppower sin dwells in the blood and muscles, and is transmitted by them. He exhorted to eat certain herbs, as a means to overcome sin. There were, so he taught, animals, but chiefly plants, into which had penetrated a few redeeming and liberating particles of light from the kingdom of light which opposed evil; by eating these herbs the blood would absorb these saving particles of light, and thus the power of sin would be broken. In fact, the church of Manes was a chemical laboratory, in which sin was opposed by In a similar

arable

material agencies.

This shows the logical consistency of the system, and the weakmen who, having adopted the false notion of material

ness of the

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