A commentary or exposition upon the four Evangelists, and the Acts of the Apostles: wherein the text is explained, some controversies are discussed, divers common places are handled, and many remarkable matters hinted, that had by former interpreters been pretermitted. Besides, divers other texts of Scripture which occasionally occur are fully opened, and the whole so intermixed with pertinent histories, as will yeeld both pleasure and profit to the judicious reader. / By John Trapp M. A. Pastour of Weston upon Avon in Gloucestershire.

Verse 43. When the unclean spirit]

Unclean the devil is cal∣len, 1. Affectione (saith Iacobus de Voragine) because he loveth uncleannesse. 2. Persuasione, because he perswades men to it. 3. Habitatione, because he inhabits unclean hearts: he findes them soul, he makes them worse. Wheresoever the great Turk sets his foot once, no grasse grows, they say, ever after. Sure it is, no grace grows where the devil dwells. Pura Deus mens est, saith one: And Religion loves to lye clean, saith another. The holy Spirit

will be content to dwell in a poor, but it must be a pure house. The devil, on the contrary, delights in spirituall sluttishnesse: Harpy∣like, he defileth all he toucheth: and Camell-like, drinks not of that water, that he hath not first fouled with his feet.

Is gone out of a man]

In regard of inward illumination, and* 1.1 outward reformation; such as was 〈◊〉〈◊〉 in B. Bonner, that brea∣thing-devil, who at first seemed to be a good man, a favourer of Luthers doctrincs, a hater of Popery, and was therefore advanced by the Lord Cromwell; to whom he thus wrote in a certain letter:* 1.2 Steven Gardiner for malice and disdain may be compared to the devil in hell, not giving place to him in pride at all—I mislike in* 1.3 him, that there is so great familiarity and acquaintance, yea and such mutuall confidence between him an M. as naughty a fellow, and as very a Papist as any that I know, where he dare expresse it. Who can deny but that the devil was gone out of this man, for a time at least?

He walketh thorow dry places]

Here the Proverb holds true, Anima sicca sapientissima. Sensuall hearts are the fennish grounds that breed filthy venemous creatures, Iob 40. 21. Bohemia lieth in* 1.4 the fennes. This, Gulielmus Parisiensis applieth to the devil in sensuall hearts. Contrariwise, the spirits of Gods Saints, which burn with faith, hope and charity, and have all evil humours dried up in them by that spirit of judgement and of burning, these the devil likes not. The tempter findeth nothing in them, though he seek it diligently. He striketh fire, but this tinder takes not. Cupid complained he could never fasten upon the Muses, because he could never finde them idle. So here.

Notes

• * 1.1

  2 Pet. 2. 20.
• * 1.2

  Act and Mon. fol. 993.
• * 1.3

  Ibid. 997.
• * 1.4

  In locis dormit humer tibus, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 est, in omnibus 〈◊〉〈◊〉 maden∣tibus.