3. Further concerning Satans afflicting of _Job_ in his Goods, Cattels, Children, Servants, and in his own Body, is a real truth literally so taken as to the matter of fact; but the manner of Satans appearing before God, with the Sons of God, cannot without manifest absurdity be understood in a literal sense but in a Metaphorical, that God who is Omnipotent, did command, order, send and limit him, what and how far he was to act. For otherwise _God is light in whom there is no darkness at all, dwelling in the light which no Man can approach unto_; but Satan is bound _in chains of everlasting darkness_, and therefore cannot be said literally to appear in person before God, but by way of a Metaphor. So when the Angel telleth the Virgin _Mary_, that the should conceive in her womb, and she not understanding how that should come to pass, because she had not known Man, the Angel answered, _the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee_. Though the matter of fact be an undoubted truth, and an Article of faith, literally so taken; yet the manner of the Holy Ghosts coming upon her, and the power of the highest overshadowing her, cannot be understood in a literal sense, as though it were by that natural and humane way that Men and Women do beget and conceive Children by, for that were horrid and absurd (as some late prophane, wretched and debauched Atheists have spattered forth) but after a Metaphorical sense, and a most mystical meaning. So that it is plain that where a matter of fact may be literally and Historically true, yet the manner how that matter of fact is brought to pass may be, nay must be Metaphorical, or else an absurdity will follow, which was the thing undertaken to be proved. 4. There is nothing more common and usual in Scripture than Metaphors, as when Christ saith, _I am a vine, I am the door of the sheep, I am the living bread that came down from heaven_: Though they be Metaphors, yet the things signified and intended by them are as really and certainly true, as are the Metaphors themselves, and sometimes more true; because sometime the Metaphor is not used for the verity of its existence, but according to the common use and opinion, as _O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you?_ doth intend no more but an allusion to vulgar opinion, that held that men might be bewitched and inchanted. And so Christ in the true mystical and spiritual meaning is as really a spiritual vine, door and bread, as there are any of such things in nature, or being. But as that which is Literally and Historically true in matter of fact, or meaning, is not to be deceeded from; so that which is a Metaphor ought not to be turned into a literal thing, nor on the contrary, the literal sense ought not to be made Metaphorical. [Sidenote: Matth. 7. 24, 25, 26, 27.]