Quotes

 

"Such as though rich, yet burns in a desperate desire of revenge, he allures them by promises, to get their turn satisfied to their hearts contentment. It is to be noted now, that that olde and crafty enemy of ours, assails none, though touched with any of these two extremities, except he first find an entrance ready for him, either by the great ignorance of the person he deals with, joined with an evil life, or else by their carelessness and contempt of God: And finding them in an utter despair, for one of these two former causes that I have spoken of; he prepares the way by feeding them craftily in their humor, and filling them further and further with despair, while he find the time proper to discover himself unto them. At which time, either upon their walking solitary in the fields, or else lying pansying in their bed; but always without the company of any other, he either by a voice, or in likeness of a man inquires of them, what troubles them: and promiseth them, a sudden and certain way of remedy, upon condition on the other part, that they follow his advise; and do such things as he will require of them: Their minds being prepared before hand, as I have already spoken, they easily agreed unto that demand of his: And sin sets an other tryst, where they may meet again. At which time, before he proceed any further with them, he first persuades them to addict themselves to his service: which being easily obtained, he then discourse what he is unto them: makes them to renounce their God and Baptism directly, and gives them his mark upon some secret place of their body, which remains sore unhealed, while his next meeting with them, and thereafter ever insensible, howsoever it be nipped or pricked by any, as is daily proved, to give them a proof thereby, that as in that doing, he could hurt and heal them; so all their ill and well doing thereafter, must depend upon him."

 

"where by the contrary, the Melancholies never spares to bewray themselves, by their continual discourses, feeding thereby their humor in that which they think no crime."

 

"For they fell not be weight, as a solid substance, to stick in any one part: But the principal part of their fall, consisting in quality, by the falling from the grace of God wherein they were created, they continued still thereafter, and shall do while the latter day, in wandering through the world, as Gods hang-men, to execute such turns as he employes them in. And when any of them are not occupied in that, return they must to their prison in hell(as it is plain in the miracle that Christ wrought at Gennesaret) therein at the latter day to be all enclosed for ever: and as they deceive their scholars in this, so do they, in imprinting in them the opinion that there are so many Princes, Dukes, and Kings amongst them, every one commanding fewer or more Legions, and impyring in divers arts, and quarters of the earth."

 

"Even so ought we boldly to go forward in fighting against the Devil without any greater terror, for these his rarest weapons,"

 

"since it is most certain, that God will not permit him so to deceive his own: but only such, as first willfully deceives themselves, by running unto him, whom God then suffers to fall in their own snares, and justly permits them to be illuded with great efficacy of deceit, because they would not believe the truth (as Paul saith)."

 

"Where, in the mean time (miserable wretches) they are become in very deed, bond-slaves to their mortal enemy: and their knowledge, for all that they presume thereof, is nothing increased, except in knowing evil, and the horrors of Hell for punishment thereof, as Adams was by the eating of the forbidden tree"

 

"For in my opinion our enemy is over crafty, and we over weak (except the greater grace of God) to assay such hazards, wherein he presses to trap us."

 

"So all the rest falling away from God, are given over in the hands of the Devil that enemy, to bear his Image: and being once so given over, the greatest and the grossest impiety, is the pleasantest, and most delightful unto them."

 

"For he being the enemy of mans Salvation, uses all the means he can to entrap them so far in his snares, as it may be unable to them thereafter (suppose they would) to rid themselves out of the same."

 

"they blindly glory of themselves"

 

"For if the devil may form what kind of impressions he pleases in the air, as I have said before, speaking of Magie, why may he not far easier thicken & obscure so the air, that is next about them by contracting it strait together, that the beams of any other mans eyes, cannot pierce through the same, to see them?"