Satan’s Hostility to the Church
Satan has tried many ways to be at amity with the church—not because he loves her holiness, but because he hates her welfare. And that he might bring about his enterprise, he sometimes has allured her with the dainty delicacies of this world, the lusts of the flesh and of the eyes, and the pride of life. This being fruitless, he has attempted to entangle and bewitch her with his glorious appearance as an angel of light; and to that end he has made his ministers of righteousness, preaching up righteousness, and contending for a divine and holy worship. But this failing also, he has taken in hand at length to fright her into friendship with him, by stirring up the hellish rage of tyrants to frighten and molest her; by finding out strange inventions to torment and afflict her children; by making many bloody examples of her own bowels before her eyes, if by that means he might at last obtain his purpose. But behold, all has been in vain; there can be no reconciliation. And why, but because God himself maintains the enmity? God hath put enmity between the devil and the woman; between that old serpent called the devil and Satan, and the holy and beloved and espoused wife of Christ.