): "Hast
thou considered my servant Job? for there is none like him in the
earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God." And Satan
answers on this wise: "Yea, thou hast surrounded him with thy
protection and kept me at bay; but only withdraw thy hand and I
venture I will soon bring him around to curse thee to thy face"; as
he afterward did when he afflicted Job with ugly boils and in
addition filled him with his fiery arrows--terrifying thoughts of
God. Further, Christ said to Peter and the other apostles: "Satan
asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I made
supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not." Lk 22, 31-32. In
short, if God hinders him not, Satan dares to overthrow even the
greatest and strongest saints.

13. Therefore, although we have become Christians and have made a
beginning in the knowledge of God's will, we ought nevertheless to
walk in fear and humility, and not to be presumptuous like the
soon-wearied, secure spirits, who imagine they exhausted that
knowledge in an instant, and know not the measure and limit of their
skill. Such people are particularly pleasing to the devil, for he has
them completely in his power and makes use of their teaching and
example to harm others and make them likewise secure, and unmindful
of his presence and of the fact that God may suffer them to be
overwhelmed. Verily, there is need of earnest and diligent use of the
Word of God and prayer, that Christians may not only learn to know
the will of God, but also to be filled with it. Only so can the
individual walk always according to God's will and make constant
progress, straining toward the goal of an ever-increasing comfort and
strength that shall enable him to face fears and terrors and not
allow the devil, the world, and flesh and blood to hinder him.

SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE BRINGS INCREASING JOY.

14. Such is the nature of this fullness of knowledge that the
possessor never becomes satiated with it or tired of it, but it
yields him ever-increasing pleasure and joy, and he is ever more
eager, more thirsty, for it. As the Scriptures declare, "They that
drink me shall yet be thirsty." Ecclus 24, 21. For even the dear
angels in heaven never become sated with fullness of knowledge, but
as Peter says, they find an everlasting joy and pleasure in the
ability to behold what is revealed and preached to us. 1 Peter 1, 12.
Therefore, if we have not a constant hunger and thirst after the full
and