Besides these sovereign powers,divine and human,of which I have hitherto discoursed,there is mention in Scripture of another power,namely,that of "the rulers of the darkness of this world,""the kingdom of Satan,"and "the principality of Beelzebub over demons,"that is to say,over phantasms that appear in the air:for which cause Satan is also called "the prince of the power of the air";and,because he ruleth in the darkness of this world,"the prince of this world":and in consequence hereunto,they who are under his dominion,in opposition to the faithful,who are the "children of the light,"are called the "children of darkness."For seeing Beelzebub is prince of phantasms,inhabitants of his dominion of air and darkness,the children of darkness,and these demons,phantasms,or spirits of illusion,signify allegorically the same thing.This considered,the kingdom of darkness,as it is set forth in these and other places of the Scripture,is nothing else but a confederacy of deceivers that,to obtain dominion over men in this present world,endeavour,by dark and erroneous doctrines,to extinguish in them the light,both of nature and of the gospel;and so to disprepare them for the kingdom of God to come.
As men that are utterly deprived from their nativity of the light of the bodily eye have no idea at all of any such light;and no man conceives in his imagination any greater light than he hath at some time or other perceived by his outward senses:so also is it of the light of the gospel,and of the light of the understanding,that no man can conceive there is any greater degree of it than that which he hath already attained unto.And from hence it comes to pass that men have no other means to acknowledge their own darkness but only by reasoning from the 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 jostling 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 diverse 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,"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 that the kingdom of God,mentioned so often in the Scripture,is the present Church,or multitude of Christian men now living,or that,being dead,are to rise again at the last day:whereas the kingdom of God was first instituted by the ministry of Moses,over the Jews only;who were therefore called his peculiar people;and ceased afterward,in the election of Saul,when they refused to be governed by God any more,and demanded a king after the manner of the nations;which God Himself consented unto,as I have more at large proved before,in the thirty-fifth Chapter.After that time,there was no other kingdom of God in the world,by any pact or otherwise,than He ever was,is,and shall be king of all men and of all creatures,as governing according to His will,by His infinite power.
Nevertheless,He promised by His prophets to restore this His government to them again,when the time He hath in His secret counsel appointed for it shall be fully come,and when they shall turn unto Him by repentance and amendment of life.And not only so,but He invited also the Gentiles to come in,and enjoy the happiness of His reign,on the same conditions of conversion and repentance.And He promised also to send His Son into the world,to expiate the sins of them all by his death,and to prepare them by his doctrine to receive him at his second coming:which second coming not yet being,the kingdom of God is not yet come,and we are not now under any other kings by pact but our civil sovereigns;saving only that Christian men are already in the kingdom of grace,inasmuch as they have already the promise of being received at his coming again.
Consequent to this error,that the present Church is Christ's kingdom,there ought to be some one man,or assembly,by whose mouth our Saviour,now in heaven,speaketh,giveth law,and which representeth his person to all Christians;or diverse men,or diverse assemblies that do the same to diverse parts of Christendom.