A commentary or, exposition upon the divine second epistle general, writtenA commentary or, exposition vpon the diuine second epistle generall, written

But do not the devils keep in the air? Some do by Gods permission; but •ot as in their proper place and first habitation: for that was in the comfortable pre•ence of God in heaven. But wheresoever they are, they carry a hell about them: if •hey be not in hell, yet hell is in them. As the militant Saints have in them the kingdom of heaven, though the kingdom of heaven do not yet contain them. •nd the blessed Angels protecting us on earth, are still in a heaven; by reason of •e gracious and glorious presence of the infinite God that is with them. So the devils are never remote from their hell. Joh. 8.44. He was a murderer from the beginning: whereupon Manichee grounds; Diaboli malitia non habuit initium: the wickedness of the devil had no beginning: hence came that conceit of two beginnings. Ans. 1. He was not so from the beginning, as Christ who had no beginning. •he latter confutes it; It is not said, In the beginning; but From the beginning. […] Neither was he made so in his own beginning of being: as some sottishly draw •hat literal Leviathan into an allegory. Psal. 104.26. There is that Leviathan whom •ou hast made to play therein: as if God had made him a devil. 3. Nor yet so from •e beginning; that in eodem instanti caepit esse a Deo, & malus esse a se; in the same •stant, he took of God a being, and of himself an evil being. As it is said of our •ule, Cum infunditur, inficitur; the infusion and infection meet together. For he as first made good, and therefore must by intervention of space become bad. […] but Because there was a little time between his creation and Apostasy; He a•de not in the truth, Esa 14.12. How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer, Son of the •ormng! He was a son of the morning, not a son of the day; he stood not so long. […] Especially, Homicida ab initio, non suo, sed generis humani. He was a murderer om the beginning, not of himself, but of mankind. And Saint Austens reason is od; Non posset occidi, nisi factus fuisset homo: man could not be murdered before […] was made: the devil could not be a murderer before he had something to kill: lesse we say, he was Homicida in se, his own murderer. But from the beginning […] murdered us; and we should never have recovered that wound, unless it had ene by a second murder, the killing of Jesus Christ.