Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Ver. 2. Wherein ye walked] Hence, Acts 14:16; sin is called a way, but it leads to the chambers of death.
According to the course of this world] The mundaneity or worldliness of the world (as the Syriac rendereth it), which is wholly set upon wickedness (as Aaron saith of his worldlings, Exo 32:22), and takes no care for the world to come.
According to the prince, &c.] The devil, by whom wicked men are acted and agitated. Gratian was out in saying that Satan is called prince of the world, as a king of chess, or as the cardinal Ravenna, only by derision. Evil men set him up for their sovereign, and are wholly at his beck and obedience.
The spirit that now worketh] As a smith worketh in his forge, an craftsman in his shop. A natural man as he is the heir of original and father of actual sin, so his soul and all the powers thereof are but Satan's shop of sins; his body and all the parts thereof, tools of sin; his life, and all his actions of both soul and body, a trade of sin, by the same reason.