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462 CITY OF GOD
their King, their Chief, and their model ;
and how numer
ous are those that band with Lucifer, who gives them no
existence, no life, who affords them no nourishment, nor
any return who deserves ;
nothing nor in any way obliges
them, as was and is the case with the Author of life and
grace, my divine Son? So great is the ingratitude of
men, so foolish their infidelity, so unhappy their blind
ness. Merely because God has given men freedom of
will, either to follow their Master or not, to show them
selves thankful or not, they side with Lucifer and serve
him freely, permit him to enter the house of God and his
temple, that he may tyrannically confuse and profane it
and draw after him the greater part of the world to his
eternal torments.
531. This conflict will last to the end, because the
Prince of eternity, on account of his infinite goodness,
will not cease to defend the souls He created and re
deemed by his blood. But not only He himself battles
with the dragon, nor only through his angels; for it
redounds to the greater glory and exaltation of his name,
if He overcomes the enemies and confounds their pride
through the human creatures, in whom they seek to
avenge themselves upon the Lord. I, being a mere
creature, next to my Son, the true God, was the Leader
and Sovereign in these battles. Although through his
Passion and Death, He vanquished the demons, who had
become very haughty by the dominion of sin inaugurated
among men by Adam
; yet, after He, and I in his name,
had triumphed over the enemies and through our victories
established the Church in such high perfection and holi
ness, the Church would have persevered and Lucifer
would have remained crushed (as I said before), if the
ingratitude and the forget fulness of men had not im
pelled him anew toward the perdition and ruin of the
whole globe.
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