169. After a man has explored himself, and acknowledged his sins, and has done the work of repentance, he must remain constant in good even to the end of life. For if he afterwards relapses into his former life of evil and embraces it, he then profanes, for he then conjoins evil with good; whence his latter state becomes worse than his former, according to the words of the Lord:

When the unclean spirit goes out from a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest, but doth not find; then he saith, I will return into my house whence I went out; and when he cometh and findeth it empty, and swept, and adorned for him, then he goeth away, and adjoineth to himself seven other spirits worse than himself, and, entering in, they dwell there, and the latter things of the man become worse than the first (Matt. 12:43-45).