Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.
Ver. 15. For he is lunatic] Or, he hath the falling sickness, as the symptoms show. A common disease, but (besides that) the devil was in it. a The old manslayer makes advantage of our natural diseases (which are therefore the bath of the devil, and the bed of diseases) to exercise his cruelty upon the poor creature by Divine permission; seeking by the infirmities of the body to bring sin upon the soul.
For ofttimes he falls into the fire, &c.] The devil pushing him in, as it were, to destroy him, but could not. He is limited, and cannot do as he would, else he would soon end us. If God chastise us with his own bare hand, or by men like ourselves, whip us, as it were, privately and at home, let us thank him, and think ourselves far better dealt with than if he should deliver us up to the public officer, to his tormentor, to be scourged with scorpions at his pleasure. The wicked he often casts into the fire of lust and water of drunkenness, and they complain not: like a sleepy man (fire burning in his bed straw), he cries not out, when others haply lament his case that see afar off, but cannot help him. It hath "set him on fire round about, yet he knew it not: and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart," Isaiah 42:25. See Proverbs 23:34,35 .
And oft into the water] Urbanus Regius, in a sermon of his at Wittenberg, made mention of a certain maid possessed by the devil; and when she should have been prayed for in the congregation, the devil made as if he had been departed out of her. But before the next public meeting, Satan returned, and drove the maid into a deep water, where she presently perished.
a Lunaticus speculum miseriae humanae, et malitiae Satanae. Pareus.