unforeseen mischances that befall them in their ways. The darkest part of the kingdom of Satan is that which is without the Church of God; that is to say, amongst them that believe not in Jesus Christ. But we cannot say that therefore the Church enjoyeth, as the land of Goshen, all the light which to the performance of the work enjoined us by God is necessary. Whence comes it that in Christendom there has been, almost from the time of the apostles, such justling of one another out of their places, both by foreign and civil war; such stumbling at every little asperity of their own fortune, and every little eminence of that of other men, and such diversity of ways in running to the same mark, “felicity,” if it be not night amongst us, or at least a mist? We are therefore yet in the dark.
The enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown the tares of spiritual errors; and that, first, by abusing and putting out the light of the Scriptures: for we err, not knowing the Scriptures. Secondly, by introducing the demonology of the heathen poets, that is to say, their fabulous doctrine concerning demons, which are but idols, or phantasms of the brain, without any real nature of their own, distinct from human fancy; such as are dead men’s ghosts, and fairies, and other matter of old wives’ tales. Thirdly, by mixing with the Scripture divers relics of the religion, and much of the vain and erroneous philosophy of the Greeks, especially of Aristotle. Fourthly, by mingling with both these, false or uncertain traditions, and feigned or uncertain history. And so we come to err, “by giving heed to seducing spirits,” and the demonology of such “as speak lies in hypocrisy”; or as it is in the original (1 Tim. 4:1–2), “of those that play the part of liars, with a seared conscience,” that is, contrary to their own knowledge. Concerning the first of these, which is the seducing of men, by abuse of Scripture, I intend to speak briefly in this chapter.
The greatest and main abuse of Scripture, and to which almost all the rest are either consequent or subservient, is the wresting of it, to prove