1592. Furthermore, the evil spirits regard those led by the Lord as nothing, and even call them that, not knowing any differently. They consider them more or less as dead instruments, deducing this from their imagination that they are the person [they are with]. More than that they do not know, because they have no true belief.
For they do not believe otherwise than that life is a spirit's own; and when this is claimed, they think that the Lord is the cause of evil, when yet this comes from their form, which is their own. But form is only instrumental, and by itself devoid of all life, only so fashioned that life can impel it. And because they are in the form they are, even if they wanted to they cannot think differently. For belief, and consequently the inner sight that goes with it, is a gift of the Lord Alone.
1592. Evil spirits make no account whatever of such a man, and so speak of him, nor do they know otherwise; they hold him as a kind of dead instrument [for effecting their purposes], which they deduce from the fact that they suppose themselves to be the man; on other related points they are ignorant because they are not in true faith, for they believe no otherwise than that life is the special prerogative [proprium] of a spirit; and when this is affirmed, they suppose that the Lord is the cause of evil, when yet this comes from their form, which is properly theirs; but the form is merely organic, being in itself destitute of all life, and merely fashioned that life might actuate it, - and because forms are such, they cannot, although they would, think otherwise, for faith is the gift of the Lord alone, consequently the perception which is of faith.)
1592. Spiritus mali etiam talem hominem pro nihilo aestimant, sic quoque eum vocant, nec sciunt aliter, habent eum pro instrumento quasi mortuo, quod deducunt ab eo, quia putant se esse hominem, caetera nesciunt, quia in vera fide non sunt; nam non credunt aliter, quam quod vita sit proprium spiritus; cumque hoc dicitur, putant, quod Dominus sit causa mali, cum tamen hoc ex forma eorum veniat, quae eorum est, sed forma est modo organica, in se omnis vitae expers, formata solum, ut vita eam agere possit; et quia tales formae sunt, etsi vellent, usque non possunt aliter cogitare, nam fides est donum Solius Domini, proinde perceptio quae est fidei.