[Sidenote: _Vid. Dialog._ Discourses of Spirits and Devils. _Dialog._ 4. _p._ 110.] 2. “There can no blame of the action be imputed to Satan himself, if neither absolutely, nor properly, nor Historically, nor Allegorically, nor Metaphorically, nor no ways else he be named in that very History of _Evahs_ tentation, wherein the action it self with the several circumstances is fully and plainly expressed. For the action especially being so weighty a matter, was necessary to be known in every point: And therefore it is not to be doubted, but that the History concerning the same is so exactly set forth, with every circumstance, as that any Man may be able to judge of the principal Actors therein at the least. So then, although the Devil in that History, be neither absolutely, nor Historically, nor properly expressed by name; yet must we acknowledge him to be therein Allegorically and Metaphorically set forth at the least, or otherways impose no blame upon him at all concerning the action.” And therefore must _Pererius_ needs confess a Metaphor in the place, or else the Devil cannot be made an actor in the business. 3. It was no natural Serpent but the Devil himself Metaphorically set forth by the name of a Serpent, who gave the onset upon _Evah_ in that tentation. For by Allegories and Metaphors there is evermore some other thing meant than that which is literally expressed. And that this is so, is thus proved. If in that action the Devil himself be not Historically and properly, but Allegorically and Metaphorically, called a Serpent, because he is most crafty and subtile; then undoubtedly the objection of a natural Serpent to be used in that action is very inconvenient: But the antecedent is true, and therefore also the consequent. [Sidenote: Apoc. 12. 3, 4, 5.] [Sidenote: _Id._ 20. 2.] 4. The antecedent to that Hypothetical Argument foregoing is easily thus proved: It is an accustomed thing in the Sacred Scriptures to use the names of other creatures in setting forth to our sense the Intellectual Creatures themselves. Hereupon it is that in the _Apocalypse_ the Devil (by a perpetual Allegory) is called a Dragon or Serpent: And therefore in this History of _Evahs_ tentation, by the like perpetual Allegory he is also called a Serpent. For no Man can be so absurd and foolish to think that the Devil literally and properly (in that of the Revelation) can be called a Dragon or Serpent; but only in a Metaphorical and Mystical sense, and therefore must in right reason be taken so in that place of _Genesis_; for one part of Scripture is alwaies best interpreted by another. [Sidenote: Gen. 49. 9.] [Sidenote: Revel. 5. 5.] [Sidenote: Matth. 3. 7.]