I have endeavoured to avoid such Texts as are of obscure, or controverted Interpretation; and to alledge none, but is such sense as is most plain, and agreeable to the harmony and scope of the whole Bible; which was written for the re-establishment of the Kingdome of God in Christ.  For it is not the bare Words, but the Scope of the writer that giveth the true light, by which any writing is to bee interpreted; and they that insist upon single Texts, without considering the main Designe, can derive no thing from them cleerly; but rather by casting atomes of Scripture, as dust before mens eyes, make every thing more obscure than it is; an ordinary artifice of those that seek not the truth, but their own advantage.

CHAPTER XLIV

OF SPIRITUALL DARKNESSE FROM MISINTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE

The Kingdome Of Darknesse What Besides these Soveraign Powers, Divine, and Humane, of which I have hitherto discoursed, there is mention in Scripture of another Power, namely, (Eph. 6. 12.), that of “the Rulers of the Darknesse of this world, (Mat. 12. 26.), “the Kingdome of Satan,” and, (Mat. 9. 34.), “the Principality of Beelzebub over Daemons,” that is to say, over Phantasmes that appear in the Air:  For which cause Satan is also called (Eph. 2. 2.) “the Prince of the Power of the Air;” and (because he ruleth in the darknesse of this world) (Joh. 16. 11.) “The Prince of this world;” And in consequence hereunto, they who are under his Dominion, in opposition to the faithfull (who are the Children Of The Light) are called the Children Of Darknesse.  For seeing Beelzebub is Prince of Phantasmes, Inhabitants of his Dominion of Air and Darknesse, the Children of Darknesse, and these Daemons, Phantasmes, or Spirits of Illusion, signifie allegorically the same thing.  This considered, the Kingdome of Darknesse, 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 Gospell; and so to dis-prepare them for the Kingdome of God to come.”

The Church Not Yet Fully Freed Of Darknesse 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 passe, that men have no other means to acknowledge their owne Darknesse, but onely by reasoning from the un-forseen mischances, that befall them in their ways; The Darkest part of the Kingdome of Satan, is that which is without