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From all this, it will readily occur to any one that the blessedness
which an intelligent being desires as its legitimate object results from
a combination of these two things, namely, that it uninterruptedly
enjoy the unchangeable good, which is God; and that it be delivered
from all dubiety, and know certainly that it shall eternally abide in
the same enjoyment. That it is so with the angels of light we piously
believe; but that the fallen angels, who by their own default lost
that light, did not enjoy this blessedness even before they sinned,
reason bids us conclude. Yet if their life was of any duration before
they fell, we must allow them a blessedness of some kind, though not
that which is accompanied with foresight. Or, if it seems hard to
believe that, when the angels were created, some were created in
ignorance either of their perseverance or their fail, while others were
most certainly assured of the eternity of their felicity, if it is hard
to believe that they were not all from the beginning on an equal
footing, until these who are now evil did of their own will fall away
from the light of goodness, certainly it is much harder to believe that
the holy angels are now uncertain of their eternal blessedness, and do
not know regarding themselves as much as we have been able to gather
regarding them from the Holy Scriptures. For what catholic
Christian does not know that no new devil will ever arise among the
good angels, as he knows that this present devil will never again
return into the fellowship of the good? For the truth in the gospel
promises to the saints and the faithful that they will be equal to the
angels of God; and it is also promised them that they will "go away
into life eternal." But if we are certain that we shall never lapse
from eternal felicity, while they are not certain, then we shall not
be their equals, but their superiors. But as the truth never
deceives, and as we shall be their equals, they must be certain of
their blessedness. And because the evil angels could not be certain of
that, since their blessedness was destined to come to an end, it
follows either that the angels were unequal, or that, if equal, the
good angels were assured of the eternity of their blessedness after the
perdition of the others; unless, possibly, some one may say that the
words of the Lord about the devil "He was a murderer from the
beginning, and abode not in the truth," are to be understood as if he
was not only a murderer from the beginning of the human race, when
man, whom he could kill by his deceit, was made, but also that he did
not abide in the truth from the time of his own creation, and was
accordingly never blessed with the holy angels, but refused to submit
to his Creator, and proudly exulted as if in a private lordship of his
own, and was thus deceived and deceiving. For the dominion of the
Almighty cannot be eluded; and he who will not piously submit himself
to things as they are, proudly feigns, and mocks himself with a state
of things that does not exist; so that what the blessed Apostle John
says thus becomes intelligible: "The devil sinneth from the
beginning,", that is, from the time he was created he refused
righteousness, which none but a will piously subject to God can
enjoy. Whoever adopts this opinion at least disagrees with those
heretics the Manichees, and with any other pestilential sect that may
suppose that the devil has derived from some adverse evil principle a
nature proper to himself.
These persons are so befooled by error, that, although they
acknowledge with ourselves the authority of the gospels, they do not
notice that the Lord did not say, "The devil was naturally a
stranger to the truth," but "The devil abode not in the truth," by
which He meant us to understand that he had fallen from the truth, in
which, if he had abode, he would have become a partaker of it, and
have remained in blessedness along with the holy angels.
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