274 THE KING'S MIRROR 



wish to ask whether this speech included anything that 

 you already knew. 



Son. There were a few things but not many. I have 

 heard it quoted from Lucifer's words that he intended 

 to set his throne as high as that of God; but the answer 

 that God gave to this I had never heard interpreted be- 

 fore, but now you have explained it. 



Father. Let me ask again : who do you suppose it was 

 that, standing by, heard Lucifer's boastful and treacher- 

 ous words and quoted them afterwards ? 



Son. I have never heard his name spoken and I am 

 not sure that they were told by any one who heard them 

 at the beginning. 



Father. But this you shall know of a surety, that if 

 Lucifer's words have been quoted by one who heard 

 them in the beginning, he surely must have heard those 

 replies of God also, which I have just given; and he 

 could have reported both speeches, had he wished, since 

 he heard either both or neither. But if he reported Luci- 

 fer's treacherous boasting as he divined it, he surely 

 could have thought out God's truthful statement of his 

 vengeance in the same way; for either both or neither 

 would be true. For at the very moment when Lucifer 

 /* transgressed, whether in thought or in words, God had 

 [ already purposed all the vengeance that was to befall 

 O him from the first hour to the last. So great and all- 

 ) sufficient are God's thoughts and wisdom, that the vision 

 / of the divine foresight sees in the twinkling of an eye all 

 I the events that shall come to pass from the first hour 

 to the very last. But He withholds in divine patience 

 all the things that He intends shall come to pass, until 



