has reference to their exploration in the understanding, for as good, or good spirits, cannot be admitted into the life, until they are well examined by truth in the understanding, so that their nature and quality may be known; in like manner evil, or evil spirits, cannot be expelled, until they also are explored as to their nature and quality. As the dust denotes that they were accounted infernal, since evils can never be separated from man until they are so accounted, and thus man becomes acquainted with their defiled and condemning properties. Before the wind, denotes under the blessed influences of the Divine Spirit of Good and Truth, inasmuch as the dispersion of evils, or of evil spirits, is not of man, but of the Lord in man.
124. The apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith, (Luke xvii. 5,) from which words it would appear, that faith is a principle capable of increase, and that it can never be so full and perfect, as to be incapable of receiving greater fulness and perfection. The same, of course, must be true of every other Christian grace and virtue, and consequently, the Christian life is to be regarded as a continually progressive life, and this in such a manner, that the point of purification, of growth, and of perfection, at any time attained, is to be considered only as a point to set out from, for the attainment of a higher state, not as a point to rest in, as if no higher state were attainable.
125. Jesus Christ calls Himself the True Vine, and His Father the Husbandman, and adds, that every branch in Him which beareth fruit, His Father purgeth it,
