devil is not only taken for father, but also for prince of the world,
that is, of worldly folk. It is either all one thing, or else not much
different, to say, children of the world, and children of the devil;
according to that that Christ said to the Jews, "Ye are of your father
the devil:" where as undoubtedly he spake to children of this world. Now
seeing the devil is both author and ruler of the darkness, in the which
the children of this world walk, or, to say better, wander; they mortally
hate both the light, and also the children of light. And hereof it
cometh, that the children of light never, or very seldom, lack
persecution in this world, unto which the children of the world, that is,
of the devil, bringeth them. And there is no man but he seeth, that
these use much more policy in procuring the hurt and damage of the good,
than those in defending themselves. Therefore, brethren, gather you the
disposition and study of the children by the disposition and study of the
fathers. Ye know this is a proverb much used: "An evil crow, an evil
egg." Then the children of this world that are known to have so evil a
father, the world, so evil a grandfather, the devil, cannot choose but be
evil. Surely the first head of their ancestry was the deceitful serpent
the devil, a monster monstrous above all monsters. I cannot wholly
express him, I wot not what to call him, but a certain thing altogether
made of the hatred of God, of mistrust in God, of lyings, deceits,
perjuries, discords, manslaughters; and, to say at one word, a thing
concrete, heaped up and made of all kind of mischief. But what the devil
mean I to go about to describe particularly the devil's nature, when no
reason, no power of man's mind can comprehend it? This alonely I can say
grossly, and as in a sum, of the which all we (our hurt is the more) have
experience, the devil to be a stinking sentine of all vices; a foul
filthy channel of all mischiefs; and that this world, his son, even a
child meet to have such a parent, is not much unlike his father.