Pyrobolia, seu de ignitis Sathanae telis, commonefactio theologica

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calumnies, the loss of family property, unforeseen ill-health: the weight of cares: a recent fall, and six hundred other things, cause the spike fixed by Satan to cling to the viscera.

But who could recount the variety of these things by speaking? And how many a sound man will deny that a dart is fixed in him, if not without bloody tears, yet at least without a wound of conscience? For truly the holy man Philipp Melanchthon pronounced somewhere, There is no one who does not feel some notable bite of Satan. Unless perhaps there are now those who do not have need to say with the Apostle Paul: Miserable man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Rom. 7:24.

These procatarctic causes, however, sometimes flashing suddenly like lightning, illuminate a man, so that he may behold his baseness all around, unexpectedly: at other times they terrify him like thunder, so that he may feel the growing pains of conscience with horror: at other times, in the manner of a thunderbolt, they prostrate a man, for whom, unless God then places a benign hand under him, it is all over: as is to be seen in the tragic examples of those despairing and deserted by God.

XII. Matter.

Satan attacks most with his fiery spikes those things by which he knows we are chiefly restored to life.

He knows that we are restored chiefly by Faith, Charity, and Hope. He knows that in Christ Jesus nothing avails more than faith which works through charity. Gal. 5:6. He knows that we are saved by hope. Rom. 8:24.

Wherefore he attacks our faith, charity, and hope with every kind of Dart, and with every contention: and he strives to make us, having abandoned our trust toward the Creator and Redeemer God, cease to love Him, to obey His mandates, and to cherish the hope of immortality, the resurrection of the flesh, and eternal life.

But lest he might seem to despoil a man hostiley of all defenses, recalling men to trust in the passing goods of this life, he says: All these things I will give to you, if falling down you will adore me. As if, indeed, all things were placed in his power!