Spiritual Experiences (Odhner) n. 802

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802. That our purposes determine our place is also clear from the fact that whenever people are looking to a personal goal, such as themselves, or something connected with themselves, even if they are benefiting the community, so that the common good is thus served, they are still not at all rewarded for that, because their motive was not the common good, but a personal goal. It is same as when devils are striving for the harm and destruction of a person, of society, and of the human race, and the Lord turns it into something good and salutory: yet that devil who had had an evil, a most evil, intention, remains nevertheless a devil, and becomes worse.


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