13. Let us now inquire what the fate of these beings is and what they are doing.
“Scarcely had their revolt broken out in the language of spirits, that is to say, in the outgoings of their thoughts, than they were banished irrevocably from the Celestial City and hurled down into the abyss.
“By these words, we mean that they were driven into a place of torment, in which they undergo the punishment of fire, according to these words which are given in the Gospel as having been spoken by Christ Himself: – ‘Go away, ye accursed, into the everlasting fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.’ Saint Peter says expressly that ‘God has given them up to the chains and tortures of hell,’ but all of them will not remain in it forever; it is only at the end of the world that they will be shut up in it forever, with the reprobate. At the present time, they are still permitted by God to occupy a place in the creation to which they belong, in the order of things to which their existence is attached, and in the relations with men, of which they make a most pernicious misuse. While some of them are in their dark abode, where they serve as instruments of the Divine justice against the unhappy souls that have been seduced by them, there is a multitude of others forming invisible legions under the command of their chiefs, which reside in the lower strata of our atmosphere and move about in every direction throughout the globe. They busy themselves with everything that goes on down here, and take a very active part in almost all the concerns of men.”
Of the words of Christ concerning “everlasting fire,” we have already treated in the Fourth Chapter of the present work, in connection with the question of “Hell.”
