U PON that, which hitherto hath beene said, you see that the assaults of sathan are spirituall, and not temporall: in which respect Paule wisheth us not to provide a corselet of Steele to defend us from his clawes; but biddeth us put on the whole armour of God,1> that we may be able to stand against the invasions of the divell. For we wrestle not against flesh and bloud; but against principalities, powers, and spirituall wickednesse.2 And therefore he adviseth us to be sober and watch: for the divell goeth about like a roring lion, seeking whome he may devoure. He meaneth not with carnall teeth:3 for it followeth thus, Whome resist ye stedfastlie in faith. And againe he saith, That which is spirituall onelie discerneth spirituall things:4 for no carnall man can discerne the things of the spirit. Why then should we thinke that a divell, which is a spirit, can be knowne, or made tame and familiar unto a naturall man; or contrarie to nature, can be by a witch made corporall, being by God ordeined to a spirituall proportion?
The cause of this grosse conceipt is, that we hearken more diligentlie to old wives, and rather give credit to their fables, than p. 509 to the word of God; imagining by the tales they tell us, that the divell is such a bulbegger, as I have before described. For whatsoever is proposed in scripture to us by parable, or spoken figurativelie or significativelie, or framed to our grosse capacities, &c: is by them so considered and expounded, as though the bare letter, or rather their grosse imaginations thereupon were to be preferred before the true sense and meaning of the word. For I dare saie, that when these blockheads read Jothans parable in the ninth of Judges to the men of Sichem;5 to wit, that the trees went out to annoint a king over them, saieng to the olive tree, Reigne thou over us: who answered and said, Should I leave my fatnesse, &c? They imagine that the woodden trees walked, & spake with a mans voice: or else, that some spirit entred into the trees, and answered as is imagined they did in the idols and oracles of Apollo, and such like; who indeed have eies, and see not; eares and heare not; mouthes, and speake not, &c.
- 5 Judg. 9. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. p. 509