CIUDAD to - the Catholic Kingdom!

266 CITY OF GOD
drance of the demons. For this is the limit set to their
power. Otherwise, if God would give free scope to their
implacable malice, they would overturn the whole world.
The goodness of the Creator will not allow this, nor does
He wish to deliver over his works or the government of
inferior matters, much less that of men, to his sworn
and mortal enemies. For the demons, in his scheme of
the universe, hold the places merely of vile executioners;
and even in this office they do no more than what is com
If depraved men would not
manded or permitted them.
join hands with these enemies, entertaining their deceits
and by their sins meriting punishment, all nature would
preserve
the common order of cause and effect both in
and there would be no occasion
general and in particular ;
for such great misfortunes and losses among the
faith
ful, in the diminution of crops, in contagious diseases, in
sudden deaths, and in other devastations invented by the
devil. All these and many other evils, happening even
at the birth of children through vices and disorders, we
merit ourselves by uniting with the demons for our own
chastisement and by delivering ourselves over to their
malice.
283. Besides this general providence
of God for the
protection of his creatures must be mentioned the par
ticular protection of the angels, whom, according to
David, the Most High has commanded to bear us up in
their hands, lest we stumble into the slings of satan (Ps.
40, 12) ;
and in another place of holy Scripture,
it is
said, that He sends his angels to surround us with his
defense and free us from evils (Ps. 33, 8). This de
fense, like the persecution of the devil, commences from
the womb in which we receive being, and continues until
our souls are presented at the tribunal of God to be
adjudged to the state merited by each one. At the moment
More Free Items at www.catholickingdom.com