That the devil can thus ‘transform himself into an angel of light,’ we are assured from Scripture, which hath particularly cautioned us against this cheat. The apostasy of the later times, 1 Tim. iv. 1, the apostle foretells should be carried on by the prevalency of this pretence: ‘Some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits.’ That by ‘spirits’ there, doctrines are intended rather than doctors, is Mr Mede’s interpretation;[254] but it will come all to one if we consider that the word ‘spirit’ carries more in it than either doctrine or doctor; for to call either the one or the other ‘a spirit’ would be intolerably harsh, if it were not for this, that that ‘doctor’ is hereby supposed to pretend an infallibility from the Spirit of God, or, which is all one, that he received his doctrine by some immediate revelation of the Spirit; so that by ‘seducing spirits’ must be men or doctrines that seduce others to believe them, by the pretence of the Spirit or inspiration; and that text of 1 John iv. 1 doth thus explain it: ‘Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God,’ which is as much as if he had said, Believe not every man or doctrine that shall pretend he is sent of God and hath his Spirit; and the reason there given makes it yet more plain, because many ‘false prophets are gone out into the world;’ so that these ‘spirits’ are ‘false prophets,’ men that pretend inspiration. And the warning, ‘Believe not every spirit,’ tells us that Satan doth with such a dexterity counterfeit the Spirit’s inspirations, that holy and good men are in no small hazard to be deceived thereby. Most full to this purpose is that of 2 Thes. ii. 2, ‘That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand;’ where the several means of seduction are particularly reckoned as distinct from the doctrine and doctors, and by ‘spirit’ can be meant no other than a pretence of inspiration or revelation.[255]