Chapter 8.—Turning Aside
from the Image of God.
13. A common nature, therefore, is
recognized in their minds, but in their bodies a division of that
one mind itself is figured. As we ascend, then, by certain steps of
thought within, along the succession of the parts of the mind,
there where something first meets us which is not common to
ourselves with the beasts reason begins, so that here the inner man
can now be recognized. And if this inner man himself, through that
reason to which the administering of things temporal has been
delegated, slips on too far by over-much progress into outward
things, that which is his head moreover consenting, that is, the
(so to call it) masculine part which presides in the watch-tower of
counsel not restraining or bridling it: then he waxeth old because
of all his enemies,
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viz
. the demons with their
prince the devil, who are envious of virtue; and that vision of
eternal things is withdrawn also from the head himself, eating with
his spouse that which was forbidden, so that the light of his eyes
is gone from him;
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and so both
being naked from that enlightenment of truth, and with the eyes of
their conscience opened to behold how they were left shameful and
unseemly, like the leaves of sweet fruits, but without the fruits
themselves, they so weave together good words without the fruit of
good works, as while living wickedly to cover over their disgrace
as it were by speaking well.
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Ps. vi. 7
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Ps. xxxviii. 10
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Gen. iii. 4