23. How Free Will Resembles Fire in Four Ways. Now Whosoever Has Obtained This Gift in That Manner Has Adorned the Fourth Element of Fire, That Is, Liberty of Choice or Will, Which in Four Ways Presents a Certain Similitude of Fire. for Fire from the Inward Nobility of Its Own Nature Always Aspires on High, But Is Kept Down and Driven Below by the Great Force of the Starry Heaven and the Firmament. and There Is in It the Subtile, — and That the Invisible, Spiritual and Effectual Force Which Acts Upon All Inferior Creatures. and by It All Created Things in the Earth, in the Waters, and in the Air, Live, Grow and Are Preserved in Life. Finally in Its Own Place It Persists Above All the Other Elements, Enlightening, Warming and Rendering Fertile Whatever Things Are in the Earth. and These Four Qualities Are Found Also in Free Will 108 Adorned with Divine Fortitude. for Such a Will Has Ca&t Off, Driven Away and Renounced the Yoke of Demoniacal Bondage and of All Creatures, as Far as Concerns the Vices and Their Fruition. and It Has Drawn Up the Mind and All the Powers of the Soul to Praise Its God and Lord Through All Eternity ; and It Obtains or Possesses Unity with a Perpetual Stability. and Turning Itself Downwards It Beholds the Necessities of All Mortals with True4 Pity; and It Strives and Desires to Render All Creatures Productive of the Virtues. and If Anywhere It Is Not Able to Ensure This, It Grieves and Mourns. Finally It Aspires Again Toward Celestial Things with Immense Devotion and Fervour, in the Manner of a Fire Burning and Absorbing All Things, and Drawing Them Into Unity. But Thus Far Let What Is Said Suffice Concerning Fire