When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
Ver. 43. When the unclean spirit] Unclean the devil is called: 1. Affectione (saith Jacobus de Voragine), because he loveth uncleanness. 2. Persuasione, because he persuades men to it. 3. Habitatione, because he inhabits unclean hearts; he finds them foul, he makes them worse. Wheresoever the Great Turk sets his foot once, no grass grows, they say, ever after. Sure it is no grace grows where the devil dwells. Pura Deus mens est, saith one. And religion loves to lie clean, saith another. The Holy Spirit will be content to dwell in a poor but it must be a pure house. The devil, on the contrary, delights in spiritual sluttishness. Harpy-like, a he defileth all he toucheth; and camel-like, drinks not of that water that he hath not first fouled with his feet.
Is gone out of a man] In regard to inward illumination and outward reformation, 2 Peter 2:20; such as was found in Bishop Bonner, that breathing devil, who at first seemed to be a good man, a favourer of Luther's doctrines, a hater of Popery, and was therefore advanced by the Lord Cromwell; to whom he thus wrote in a certain letter: "Stephen Gardiner, for malice and disdain, may be compared to the devil in hell, not giving place to him in pride at all. I mislike in him, that there is so great familiarity aud acquaintance, yea, and such mutual confidence, between him and M., as naughty a fellow, and as very a Papist, as any that I know, where he dare express it." Who can deny but that the devil was gone out of this man, for a time at least?
He walketh through dry places] Here the proverb holds true, Anima sicca sapientissima, sensual hearts are the fennish grounds that breed filthy venomous creatures. Job 40:21, Behemoth lieth in the fens. This, Gulielmus Parisiensis applieth to the devil in sensual hearts. b Contrariwise, the spirits of God's saints, which burn with faith, hope, and charity, and have all evil humours dried up in them by that spirit of judgment and of burning, these the devil likes not. The tempter findeth nothing in them, though he seek it diligently. He striketh fire, but this tinder takes not. Cupid complained he could never fasten upon the Muses, because he could never find them idle. So here. Or thus, "he walketh through dry places;" i.e. he is discontented and restless (see the like, Jer 17:5-6), for otherwise dry and wet is all one with him.
a A fabulous monster, rapacious and filthy, having a woman's face and body and a bird's wings and claws, and supposed to act as a minister of divine vengeance. ŒD
b In locis dormit humentibus, hoc est, in omnibus deliciis madentibus.