to the letter of the law. They make use of both according to their purposes to lift something spiritual out of scripture, to invent something new by it, to taint and destroy truths of the faith, or to make an understanding of something without scripture. That is Satan’s great awfulness, and he prospers by it. Those who he could not deceive with debauchery, he deceives with heresy.
The devil has yet another temptation for such people, being hypocrisy, which has its roots in evil insincerity–in other words, straying according to the freedom of God in the license of the flesh, acquiescing to one’s will, slackening in good things, and losing the heart’s integrity. Because a person does not easily speak about the ends of hypocrisy, I say here that the devil is diligent to approach and corrupt with it gradually and imperceptibly, as with evil leaven, so that ardent love and endeavoring for good works with a whole heart for God fade away. Hypocrisy is strengthened from such beginnings because the entire person sours in goodness with the passing of time. Then only superficial observances remain, while all love for people dies. Then the flesh is according to the old man in its works, decency departs from a person, and a person begins to have fleshly and profane pleasures and other unrest in the flesh. The devil is able to introduce all of this to these kinds of people bit by bit.
Love of women is also a grave snare with which the devil trips such people up. Although it is difficult for all people, it is not so perceptible or well known in some because they widely permit themselves in it. Because a dear woman is a very attractive thing, the devil brings many prominent people down through women. And women through men too, because people are not careful from the beginning, but instead trust themselves that they have good intentions, meeting and speaking about good things and, in the meantime, not watching themselves. The devil, the craftsman of a thousand handicrafts a day, does not fail to harass them in their hearts and flesh and to continually bind their hearts in their affections further until he accomplishes his long stored-up intentions.
The devil corrupts and destroys people of enlightened and good lives the most through the temptation of pride. Therefore the Lord God says here, “He sees all haughtiness and he is the king over all proud sons.” He looks down on all that are haughty, that is, he knows all the ways of pride in each person. The devil knows the sort of person each one is and how he would set them up in pride according to a man’s abilities or makeup–what he is able to do and what he is and does. He sees and knows to establish everything in pride a thousand times beyond what he is able to do, is, and does according to those aforementioned things.
Just as I said earlier, the Lord God likewise testifies about how the heart in man is crooked and muddied, saying, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17: 9) For that reason only God knows its deep secrets and wickedness and how everything except Him is corrupted. The devil sees that in both good and evil people; he sees that the adulterous heart is not any more pure in good people. Although spiritual people have an adulterous and corrupted heart of flesh, it is not purified by the goodness of a saint-like person. The devil also knows the spiritual riches in such people according to that adulterous heart that the Lord God spoke about, because some are wise and aim to do everything that is good deliberately, like marksmen. Then there are others of firm resolutions and unwavering in difficult things like a sling stone in its blow. Others are valiant, of a stout heart for goodness without idleness and aware of the devil’s malevolence from afar off. These are against him like with a lance. Others shine with God’s wisdom like rays of sunshine. Others are like tried gold in purity and other virtues. Therefore, we can understand that the cruel and cunning devil, looking down on all that are haughty, is able to corrupt such aforementioned goodness in those people with pride and
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