evil's lies and murderous intent, have been made alive and
have been transplanted into the heavenly life, like your beloved
fathers, Adam, Abel, and others. They are no longer under bondage to
Satan, but live in Christ, though the body lie for a time in the
earth and truth and life must be supplied to their body and soul. But
because ye still dwell in the world, ye are exposed to all danger.
Physically, ye are yet in the murderer's house; therefore ye must
take good heed, that he may not kill you again, and murder your souls
dwelling in these mortal bodies. It shall harm you none that the soul
was ruined and the body is yet subject to death. "Because I live,"
says Christ (Jn 14, 19), "ye shall live also." However, ye must
struggle if ye are to abide in the truth and life. To this ye are
appointed whilst ye live here on earth; otherwise ye would already be
in Paradise. But the devil has not yet been consigned wholly to the
punishment of his damnation, which will be at the last day, when he
will finally be cast down from his airy height, and from the earth,
into the abyss of hell. Then he will no more be able to attack us,
and there will no longer be cloud or veil between us and God and the
angels.

SOBERNESS ESSENTIAL.

46. In order, now, he continues, that ye may be saved from his
murderous designs, and may preserve the life you have begun, ye must
be sober and watchful; not only mindful of the body, but much rather
of the mind and soul. It is true that a Christian who is to resist
the devil must be physically sober, for a full hog and drunkard
cannot be watchful nor can he plan defense against the devil. Yet
must a Christian much more guard himself, lest the soul become sleepy
or drunken. As the soul is burdened by the body when the latter is
overwhelmed by drunkenness, so, when the soul is watchful and sober,
the body also is temperate and prepared to hear God's Word. But where
the body is oppressed by drunkenness, there the soul must first have
been a drunkard, not heeding God's Word nor giving attention to
prayer. Where the soul is drunken and drowned in such security, it
will not avail that the body suffer hurt by strict fasting and
self-mortification, after the fashion of the Carthusians and hermits.

47. Saint Peter, then, forbids not only bodily drunkenness, but also
drunkenness of the soul. One's soul is drunk when he lives in carnal
security, without thought and anxiety as to whether he have and hold
God