Interior-Speech Diagnostic
The doctrine that divine and diabolic interior speech are distinguished by their interior effects: when Christ speaks, his word is fecund and life-bearing because he is the Truth (John 14:6), infusing love for virtue while producing the very virtue it names (Isaiah 55:10-11: the word accomplishes what it names); when the devil speaks, his characterological falsehood (John 8:44) produces repugnance and contradiction for the virtue named, even in the most virtuous vocabulary — the fruit-test (Matthew 7:16-18) and the Johannine testing-of-spirits principle (1 John 4:1-3) applied to private interior locutions. (E)
Anchors: John 14:6; John 8:44; Isaiah 55:10-11; Matthew 7:16-18; 1 John 4:1-3 — Appearances: 5. Full Registry entry.