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The good angels, therefore, hold cheap all that knowledge of material
and transitory things which the demons are so proud of possessing, not
that they are ignorant of these things, but because the love of God,
whereby they are sanctified, is very dear to them, and because, in
comparison of that not merely immaterial but also unchangeable and
ineffable beauty, with the holy love of which they are inflamed, they
despise all things which are beneath it, and all that is not it, that
they may with every good thing that is in them enjoy that good which is
the source of their goodness. And therefore they have a more certain
knowledge even of those temporal and mutable things, because they
contemplate their principles and causes in the word of God, by which
the world was made, those causes by which one thing is, approved,
another rejected, and all arranged. But the demons do not behold in
the wisdom of God these eternal, and, as it were, cardinal causes of
things temporal, but only foresee a larger part of the future than men
do, by reason of their greater acquaintance with the signs which are
hidden from us. Sometimes, too, it is their own intentions they
predict. And, finally, the demons are frequently, the angels
never, deceived. For it is one thing, by the aid of things temporal
and changeable, to conjecture the changes that may occur in time, and
to modify such things by one's own will and faculty, and this is to a
certain extent permitted to the demons, it is another thing to foresee
the changes of times in the eternal and immutable laws of God, which
live in His wisdom, and to know the will of God, the most infallible
and powerful of all causes, by participating in His spirit; and this
is granted to the holy angels by a just discretion. And thus they are
not only eternal, but blessed. And the good wherein they are blessed
is God, by whom they were created. For without end they enjoy the
contemplation and participation of Him.
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