110 That ye may be able tofiand +WitcH44+111'.14+ :01'14+0:14+04914 CHAP, IV. Wherein this Point ofSatansfubtilty, a a Tempter tofin, is briefly applied. * F") affect not finful policy and fubtilty, it makes you but like the devil. There is the wifdom of the Serpent, which is commended, and that is his perfection as a creature, in which both the literal and the myftical excel,the one in an ingenious ob- ferving nature above the beafts of the field, and the other in knowledge as an Angel above men ; but as the fubtilty of the one, and.knowledge of theother is degenerate, and makes them more 61', to do miichief, the one to the bodies, the other to the foules of men, this kinde of wifdom and fubtilty is tobe abhor- red by us : The Serpent; eye (as one faith) does well only in the Doves bead. 1. Fiat, affed not fubtilty in contriving any fin. Some are wi/i to do evil, Ter. 4.22. Mafters of this craft, who can as they lie on their beds, call their wicked defignes into an artificial method, (hewing a kinde of clevillifb wit therein, as the Egyptians who dealt wifely (as they thought) with the Ifraelites,and lezabel, who had printed her bloody defign in fo faire a letter, that fome might reade her Saint while fhe was playing the devil. This is the black Art indeed, and will make the foul black as hell that praftireth ir., it is not hard for any (though a fool) to learn. Be but wicke4and the devil will help thee to be witty ; Come but a while to his school, and thou mayea loon be a canning man. No fins fpeak a ,higher attainment in wickedneffe then thole Whieh are the refult ordeliberate counfel and deep plot. rings. Creatures, as they go longer with their young, fo their birth is more flrong and perfeft, as the Elephant above all others. The longer a fin is a forming and forging within; and the oftner the
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