21. But if it be goaded on
and inflamed with deceitful visions and unclean incentives by the
devilish spirit, associated and conspiring therewith in malignant
agreement, this spirit makes the will of the man either frantic
with error, or burning with appetite of some worldly delight; and
hence, it seems to show a marvellous endurance of intolerable
evils: but yet it does not follow from this that an evil will
without instigation of another and unclean spirit, like as a good
will without aid of the Holy Spirit, cannot exist. For that there
may be an evil will even without any spirit either seducing or
inciting, is sufficiently clear in the instance of the devil
himself, who is found to have become a devil, not through some
other devil, but of his own proper will. An evil will therefore,
whether it be hurried on by lust, whether called back by fear,
whether expanded by gladness, whether contracted by sadness, and in
all these perturbations of mind enduring and making light of
whatever are to others, or at another time, more grievous, this
evil will may, without another spirit to goad it on, seduce itself,
and in lapsing by defection from the higher to the lower, the more
pleasant it shall account that thing to be which it seeks to get or
fears to lose, or rejoices to have gotten, or grieves to have lost,
the more tolerably for its sake bear what is less for it to suffer
than that is to be enjoyed. For whatever that thing be, it is of
the creature, of which one knows the pleasure. Because in some
sort, the creature loved approaches itself to the creature loving
in fond contact and connection, to the giving experience of its
sweetness.