Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter XXXII
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter
XXXII.
The Psalmist bears witness that divine justice
employs certain evil angels to inflict calamities upon men:
“He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger, wrath, and
indignation, and trouble, sent by evil angels.”4903
Whether demons ever go beyond this
when they are suffered to do what they are ever ready, though through
the restraint put upon them they are not always able to do, is a
question to be solved by that man who can conceive, in so far as human
nature will allow, how it accords with the divine justice, that such
multitudes of human souls are separated from the body while walking in
the paths which lead to certain death. “For the judgments
of God are so great,” that a soul which is still clothed with a
mortal body cannot comprehend them; “and they cannot be
expressed: therefore by unnurtured souls”4904
| 4904 Wisdom of Sol. xvii. 1" id="vi.ix.viii.xxxii-p4.1">Wisdom of Sol. xvii. 1. | they are not in any measure to be
understood. And hence, too, rash spirits, by their ignorance in
these matters, and by recklessly setting themselves against the Divine
Being, multiply impious objections against providence. It is not
from demons, then, that men receive any of those things which meet the
necessities of life, and least of all ourselves, who have been taught
to make a proper use of these things. And they who partake of
corn and wine, and the fruits of trees, of water and of air, do not
feed with demons, but rather do they feast with divine angels, who are
appointed for this purpose, and who are as it were invited to the table
of the pious man, who hearkens to the precept of the word, which says,
“Whether ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory
of God.”4905
And again, in
another place it is written, “Do all things in the name of
God.”4906
When,
therefore, we eat and drink and breathe to the glory of God, and act in
all things according to what is right, we feast with no demons, but
with divine angels: “For every creature is good, and
nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: for
it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.”4907
But it could not be good, and it could
not be sanctified, if these things were, as Celsus supposes, entrusted
to the charge of demons.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
