The xxix. Chapter.
A confutation of assuming of bodies, and of the serpent that seduced Eve.
HEY that contend so earnestlie for the divels assuming of bodies and visible shapes, doo thinke they have a great advantage by the words uttered in the third of Genesis,Gen 3. 14. 15. where they saie, the divell entered into a serpent or snake: and that by the cursse it appeareth, that the whole displeasure of God lighted upon the poore snake onlie. How those words are to be considered may appeare, in that it is of purpose so spoken, as our weake capacities may thereby best conceive the substance, tenor, and true meaning of the word, which is there set downe in the manner of a tragedie, in such humane and sensible forme, as woonderfullie informeth our understanding; though it seeme contrarie to the spirituall course of spirits and divels, and also to the nature and divinitie of God himselfe; who is infinite, and whome no man ever sawe with corporall eies, and lived. And doubtles, if the serpent there had not beene taken absolutelie, nor metaphoricallie for the divell, the Holie-ghost would have informed us thereof in some part of that storie. But to affirme it sometimes to be a divell, and sometimes a snake; whereas there is no such distinction to be found or seene in the text, is an invention and a fetch (me thinks) beyond the compasse of all divinitie. Gen. 3. 1.
1. Cor. 11. 3. Certeinlie the serpent was he that seduced Eve: now whether it were the divell, or a snake; let anie wise man (or rather let the word of God) judge. Doubtles the scripture in manie places expoundeth it to be the divell. And I have (I am sure) one wiseman on my side/537. for the interpretation hereof, namelie Salomon;Sap. 2, 24. who saith, Through envie*[* = hatred] of the divell came death into the world: referring that to the divell, which Moses in the letter did to the serpent. But a better expositor hereof needeth not, than the text it selfe, even in the same place, where it is written; I will put enmitie betweene thee and the woman, and betweene thy seed and hir seed: he shall breake thy head, and thou shalt bruse his heele. What christian knoweth not, that in these words the mysterie of/385. our redemption is comprised and promised? Wherein is not meant (as manie suppose) that the common seed of woman shall tread upon a snakes head, and so breake it in peeces, &c: but that speciall seed, which is Christ, should be borne of a woman, to the utter overthrow of sathan, and to the redemption of mankind, whose heele or flesh in his members the divell should bruse and assault, with continuall attempts, and carnall provocations, &c.