Do Not Despise Those Handed Over to Unclean Spirits

From this it plainly follows that we ought not to hate or despise those whom we see handed over to various trials or to those spirits of evil. For we ought firmly to hold these two points. First, none of them can be tempted by those spirits at all without God’s permission. Second, all things that God brings upon us, whether at the present moment they seem to us sad or joyful, are laid on us for our good, as by a most kind father and a most compassionate physician. So people are, as it were, put in the charge of tutors and humbled, so that when they depart from this world they may be taken to the other life in a purer state, or have a lighter punishment laid on them. For, as the apostle says, they have been handed over for the present “to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” [a]