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44
ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES
This is the sinner's supplication to the Divinity within. The condition of the Saved One is described later in the book of Revelations ! when it is said :
"And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie..."-Rev. XXI 27.
As for the result of action in overwhelming one's own self, it is clearly said in the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament:
“His own inequities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his own sins.” -- Proverbs V. 22.
We may compare the above with what Clement of Alexandria says on the subject (see Vol. II. p. 214) :—"The individual man is stamped according to the impression produced in the soul by the objects of his choice."
The truth is that it was distinctly recognized on the esoteric side, which is the only true side of the Biblical and of all other forms of mystical teaching, that embodiment was the result of sinning on the part of the soul itself, and that Divine Perfection was to be obtained by following the special course of instruction which aimed at the emancipation of spirit from the crippling companionship of matter. ! Clement, therefore, said:
"... flesh., separates and limits the knowledge of those that are spiritual ... for souls themselves by themselves are equal." --- Vol. II, p. 362.
St. Paul, too, refers to the antagonism between spirit and flesh, they being contrary, the one to the other, and winds up by uttering the most impassioned longing to be rid of the body, when he says :
“But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? "--Romans vii. 18-24.
The injunction to get rid of the condition of embodiment is distinct in the Pauline Epistlos :
"I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." -- Romans xii. 1.
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