De betoverde weereld ... in vier boeken

(16.)

it both as firm. This I explain in the eighth and ninth chapters.

I then seek further from the Properties and Operations ascribed to them in the Scripture to learn what their actual nature and power concerning other Creatures, whether spirits or bodies, might be. But therein the scriptural passages that make mention of it appear to me no different than those ascribed to some men, such as Prophets and Apostles, describing the work they have done in the administration of God's Miracles: from which, as exceeding their own powers, one does not wish to make a conclusion about their actual nature. So too, in my opinion, from those others concerning the Angels. This is in the tenth and eleventh chapters.

That which cannot be learned from the Name or Origin, nor from the Properties and Operations, I seek further in the Oirdeningen Orders/Hierarchies, of which many are mentioned in the 12th, 15th, and 19th chapters of the First Book. But I find there nothing else than that good and evil Angels each have their head: and that the Prince of the good Angels is named Michael Who is like God, and of the evil Diabolos The Slanderer/The Devil. This is in the 12th chapter.

But I do not give it up there: but since the Scripture in various places ascribes some special Governance to the Angels, I examine them all, how it relates to those. And that first of the good Angels in general, in the thirteenth chapter, whom the Scripture several times presents to his faithful people, either in the delivery of divine revelations to his faithful people, or in the execution of unusual miracles and God's judgments upon men, to punish or to deliver them. But all those, after investigation is done, appear to me no differently than the holy men in God's service and miracles, which they did by no power of their own; and accordingly I also find nothing therein from which one can be assuredly instructed of the own power and operation of the Angels.

Subsequently I go to examine the most important passages somewhat more particularly; and so speak of those men, of whom three appeared to Abraham and two thereafter to Lot; Genesis 18 and 19 and considering that history accurately, and comparing it with other texts from the Holy Scriptures, I find that those Angels, that is Messengers, were men, as they are called. Establishing nothing fixed, however, regarding what is to be understood by the Angel of God's presence,

(17.)

who led Israel through the wilderness, Exodus 23 and the Angels through whom God ordained the Law on Sinai: so I offer some reflections, from comparison of the passages of Scripture which report the manner of that divine leading of the people in the wilderness, in the fifteenth chapter.

I then go further in the sixteenth; examining that which is spoken in Scripture of Angels as having oversight over certain Persons, Peoples and Lands: and having examined everything, I conclude that what many people have ever written about it is not grounded in the Scriptures, because in those places from which one wishes to assert such an opinion, it speaks in no other way than figuratively.

Passing from the good Angels to the Devil, and the other evil Angels: since that name is given to evil men as well as to that evil Spirit, indeed was given to men first of all, as being nothing else to say than a slanderer: so I investigate in what places one can properly understand that head of the evil spirits, or rather evil men, in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth chapters. But in examining the passages which people generally apply to the Devil, I find that in some of those the word Satan Adversary or Diabolos Slanderer stands, in others the aforementioned Daimoon Demon/Spirit or Daimonion Lesser Spirit stands: and then yet various names occur in various places of Scripture which one is accustomed to apply to the Devil. I then investigate with all diligence what the reality of that may be. Particularly the Fall of the first, and the Temptation of the second Adam referring to Christ; of both of which I speak in the twentieth and twenty-first chapters. Other passages in which that Satan is mentioned appear to me somewhat differently; of which I treat in the 23rd, 24th, 25th chapters. Thereafter also of Demonia Demons, and those called Possessed, in the 26th through 30th chapters: and finally the passages where neither Devil nor Daimonion stand, but entirely different names, in the thirty-first chapter.

Since then the most important work ascribed to the Devil in the Scripture is placed in the Fall of the first humans, and the struggle of the Savior in the Wilderness: so I make that my work somewhat more closely; to see whether from there the power and manner of the Devil's operation regarding Man can be traced. But I find the account of man's fall by Moses, both by