Spiritual Experiences (Buss) n. 3849

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3849. THAT NATURES ARE INDUCED THROUGH EXTERNALS. From those above the head, who would fain have opposed my writing this, I was instructed that by means of external bonds man contracts a nature, so that he should appear good, as for example through fear for his life, his honor, his fame, his gain, and other things which he loves; and that these fears, which are external bonds, induce such a nature, that they not only consult their interest, and work secretly for it, but also that they appear as it were, upright, when yet they are wolves at heart, like those that are above the head. Hence it appears what punishments are in the other life, which at length induce a kind of nature, that one should be able to be restrained from evils. The spirit then is not wholly ignorant of external bonds, but they are so abhorred that in the least things it is led away by its evils, for they have, as it were, infected the nature.


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