and the rest received in their creation. [1] For Almighty God made them; i. pure spirits without admixture of body; ii. immortal, without fear of corruption; iii. intellectual with great delicacy of wit; iv. free, that nothing could force their will; v. wise, with fulness of all natural sciences; vi. powerful, above all inferior creatures; vii. holy, with the gifts of grace, charity, and the rest of the virtues; viii. inhabitants of the paradise of delights, which is the empyreal heaven; ix. and, finally, capable of seeing Almighty God clearly, with promise of this glory, if they persevere in His service, which they might easily do, and were obliged thereunto by the law of gratitude for these nine titles.
2. Secondly, I will consider how ungrateful some of them were against Almighty God, growing arrogant with these gifts, and arming themselves with them against Him of whom they had received them, not giving Him that reverence and obedience which they ought with humility to have given Him, but employing their liberty and powers to offend Him whom, on so many accounts, they ought to have served.
3. Thirdly, I will consider how terrible Almighty God showed Himself in chastising them instantly, without giving them respite or time of repentance, depriving them, for that only sin, of those gifts of grace which He had given them, and throwing them, like lightning from heaven, [2] into the everlasting flames and fires of hell, without respect either to the beauty of their nature or to the greatness of their state, or that they were His creatures made according to His image and likeness, or that they were exceeding wise, or that they had been once His friends; for one mortal sin is alone sufficient to obscure all this, and is Worthy of so terrible punishment which (as St. Peter says) God's justice
