2. Secondly, Lusts also pervert our reason and knowledge indirectly; and this is, when we are not so far blinded as to believe the thing unto which we are tempted, to be good absolutely; yet notwithstanding, we are persuaded of some considerable goodness in it, and such as may for the present be embraced. For this purpose Satan hath ready these two engines:—
(1.) First, He sets before us the pleasures, profits, and other delights of sin. These he heightens with all his art and skill, that he may fix in our minds this conclusion, that however it be forbidden, yet it would conduce much to our satisfaction or advantage if it were practised; and here he promiseth such golden ends and fruits of sin as indeed it can never lead unto, inviting us in the words of the harlot, ‘I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt. I have perfumed it with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of these delights,’ Prov. vii. 16. Thus he set upon Eve, ‘Take this fruit, and ye shall be as gods.’ Thus he attempted Christ himself, ‘All these will I give thee,’ [Mat. iv. 9,] proffering the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. The pleasures of sin are Satan’s great bait, and these strongly invite and stir up our lusts; yet because the fear of the danger may stick in the heart, ‘It is pleasant, but oh I dare not,’ saith the sinner, ‘I fear the hazard or the evil that may follow:’ therefore Satan hath his other engine at hand to blind us, and to carry our minds from such considerations; and that is,
(2.) Secondly, His sophistical arguments, by which the danger may be lessened. Of these his quiver is full: as,
[1.] First, He urgeth that the sin tempted to is little. ‘But a little one;’ it is not, saith he, so great a matter as you make it; there are other sins far greater, and these also practised by men that profess as much as you. Thus he would shame us, as it were, out of our fear, by calling it severity, niceness, or an unnecessary preciseness. If this prevail not,
[2.] Secondly, He hath then another argument: Oh, saith he, be it so, that it is a little more than ordinary, yet it is but once; taste or try it; you need not engage yourselves to frequent practice, you may retreat at pleasure. But if the fear of the danger prevail against this, then,
[3.] Thirdly, He labours to put us under a kind of necessity of sinning, and this he pleads as a justification of the evil. It is not altogether right, but you cannot well avoid it. This plea of necessity is large; occasion, example, command of others, strength of inclination, custom, and what not, are pleaded by him in this case. Some particularly reckon them up;191 and rather than some men will acknowledge the evil, they will blame God’s decree, as if they were necessitated by it, or his providence, as Adam, ‘The woman that thou gavest me, she gave me of the tree.’ David’s bloody resolve against the house of Nabal seems to be justified by him, from Nabal’s great ingratitude, ‘In vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the wilderness,’ &c., 1 Sam. xxv. 21; and as one engaged by a necessity of repaying such wrongs and affronts, doth he determine to cut them off. Aaron, when he was taxed by Moses about the golden calf, excuseth the matter by a pretended necessity of doing what he did upon the violent importunity of such a heady people, Exod. xxxii. 22; and that when Moses was not to be found, ‘Thou knewest the people, that they are set on mischief.’ This that he urged to Moses Satan no doubt had urged to him, and he had acquiesced in it as something that he thought would excuse, or at least mitigate the offence. Yet if the sinner break through this snare,
[4.] Fourthly, He comes on with a softer plea of infirmity, and endeavours to persuade men that they may yield under pretence of being forced, and that their strivings and reluctances will lessen the evil to an apparent sin of infirmity; and thus he bespeaks them, Have not God’s children infirmities? They sin, though with reluctancy, and dost not thou resist?—doth not the fear that is in thy heart shew an unwillingness? Mayest thou not plead, the evil that I would not do, that do I? If thou yield, will not God account it a rape upon thine integrity? If this arrow stick not,
[5.] Fifthly, Then he extenuates the offence by propounding some smaller good or convenience that may follow that evil. And this, though it be a way of arguing directly contrary to that rule, ‘Do not evil that good may come,’ yet it oft proves too successful; and it is like that common stratagem of war, when, by the proposal of a small booty in view, the enemies are drawn out of their hold into a fore-contrived danger. Thus Satan pleads, This one act of sin may put you into a capacity of honouring God the more. Some have admitted advancements and dignities against conscience, upon no better ground but that they might keep out knaves, and that they might be in a condition to be helpful to good men. Surely the devil prevailed with Lot by this weapon, when he offered the prostitution of his daughters to the lusts of the Sodomites, that the strangers, as he thought them, might be preserved; by this evil, thinks he, a greater may be avoided. Herod’s conscience could not at first consent to the cutting off the head of John Baptist, but when Satan suggests the obligation of his oath, he concludes that in the killing of John he should escape the violation of the oath. Thus a pretended good to come becomes a pander to a present certain iniquity. Now if after all these arguings the conscience carrieth an apprehension of danger, then,
[6.] Sixthly, He plainly disputeth the possibility of the escape of danger, though the sin be committed. All the insinuations of pleasure and advantage by which Eve was tempted could not at first blot out her fears of the consequence of that transgression; it did stick in her mind still, ‘lest we die;’ then Satan plainly denieth the danger she feared: ‘Ye shall not surely die.’ ‘The threatening,’ saith he, ‘it may be, was but for trial, or without a strict and positive purpose in God to execute it; there is no certainty that God was in good earnest when he spake so.’ The devil usually urgeth the mercy of God, the merits of Christ, his promises of pardon, the infirmities of the saints, their sins and repentances, &c.; from all these drawing this conclusion, that we may venture upon the temptation without any apparent hazard. It is but repenting, saith he, and that is an easy work to a gracious soul. God is ready to be reconciled, even to a prodigal son; he is not so cruel as to cast away any for a small matter; he that waits to be gracious will not lie at catch for opportunities and occasions to destroy us; he that delights not in the death of a sinner will not delight to take strict exceptions against every failing.
If Satan can prevail with us to extenuate the sin, to slight the hazard, or any way to lessen it upon any of the forementioned accounts; then having possessed us before with high apprehensions of delights and satisfactions in the sin, he quickly persuades to accept the motion, as having a conveniency and advantage in it not to be despised: and thus doth he indirectly pervert our reason; which is the second way by which he blinds us through the working of our lust.
CHAPTER XIII.
Of Satan’s diverting our reason, being the third way of blinding men.—His policies for diverting our thoughts.—His attempts to that purpose in a more direct manner; with the degrees of that procedure.—Of disturbing or distracting our reason, which is Satan’s fourth way of blinding men.—His deceits therein.—Of precipitancy, Satan’s fifth way of blinding men.—Several deceits to bring men to that.
III. Thirdly, Satan blinds the sons of men by diverting and withdrawing their reason, and taking it off from the pursuit of its discovery or apprehensions. For sometime it cannot be induced to go so contrary to its light as to call evil good, either directly or indirectly. Then is Satan put to a new piece of policy, and if the frame of the heart and the matter of the temptation suit his design, he endeavours to turn the stream of our thoughts either wholly another way, or to still them by turning them into a dead sea, or by some trick to beguile the understanding with some new dress of the temptation. So that we may observe in Satan a threefold policy in a subserviency to this design. For,
1. First, Satan sometimes ceaseth his pursuit and lets the matter fall, and thinks it better to change the temptation than to continue a solicitation at so great a disadvantage. When he tempted Christ and could not prevail, he ‘departed for a season,’ Luke iv. 13, with a purpose to return at some fitter time, which Christ himself was in expectation of, knowing it to be his manner to lie in wait for advantages; and accordingly when his suffering drew nigh, which, as he speaks to the Jews, was ‘their hour and power of darkness,’ Luke xxii. 53, he foretold his return upon him, ‘Now the prince of this world cometh.’ However this attempt of his against the Lord Jesus prevailed not, yet he shewed his art and skill in the suspending of his temptation to a more suitable time. And the success of this against us is sadly remarkable, for however we resist and at present stand out, yet his solicitations are often like leaven, which while it is hid in our thoughts, doth not a little ferment and change them, so that at his return he often finds our lusts prepared to raise greater clouds upon our mind. Many there are that resist strongly at present that which they easily slide into when Satan hath given them time to breathe; that say, ‘I will not,’ and yet ‘do it afterwards,’ [Mat. xxi. 29.]
2. Secondly, He sometimes withdraws their considerations, by huffing them up with a confidence that they are above the temptation; as a conquest in a small skirmish, begetting an opinion of victory, makes way for a total overthrow over a careless and secure army. We are too apt to triumph over temptations because we give the first onset with courage and resolution. Christ forewarned Peter of his denial; he stoutly defies it, and not improving this advertisement to fear and watchfulness, Satan, who then was upon a design to sift him, took him at that advantage of security, and by a contemptible instrument overthrew him. Thus while we grow strong in our apprehensions by a denial of a sin, and undervalue it as below us, our confidence makes us careless, and this lets in our ruin.
3. Thirdly, If these ways of policy fail him, he seemingly complies with us, and is content we judge the matter sinful, but then he proffers his service to bring us off by distinctions; and here the sophister useth his skill to further our understanding in framing excuses, coining evasions, and so doth out-shoot us in our own bow. The Corinthians had learnt to distinguish betwixt eating of meat in an idol’s temple in honour to the idol, and as a common feast in civility and respect to their friends that invited them. This presently withdrew their consideration, and so quieted them in that course, that the apostle was forced to discover the fallacy of it. The Israelites cursed him that gave a wife to any of the tribe of Benjamin; but when they turned to them in compassion, they satisfied themselves with this poor distinction, that they would not give them wives, but were willing to suffer them to take them, Judges xxi. 18, 20. It is a common snare in matters of promise or oath, where conscience is startled at a direct violation thereof, by some pitiful salvo or silly evasion to blind the eyes, and when they dare not break the hedge, to leap over it by the help of a broken reed.
But I must here further observe, that Satan doth sometimes set aside these deceits aforementioned, and tries his strength for the withdrawing of our consideration from the danger of sin in a more plain and direct manner—that is, by continuing the prospect of the sweets and pleasures of sin under our eye, and withal urging us by repeated solicitations to cast the thoughts of the danger behind our back: in which he so far prevails sometimes, that men are charged with a deep forgetfulness of God, his law, and of themselves; yet usually it ariseth to this by degrees. As,
(1.) First, When a temptation is before us, and our conscience relucts it. If there be any inclination to recede from a conviction, the motion is resisted with a secret regret and sorrow. As the young man was said to ‘go away sorrowful,’ [Mat. xix. 22,] when Christ propounded such terms for eternal life as he was not willing to hear of: so do we; our heart is divided betwixt judgment and affection, and we begin to wish that it might be lawful to commit such a sin, or that there were no danger in it; nay, often our wishes contradict our prayers, and while we desire to be delivered from the temptation, our private wishes beg a denial to those supplications.
(2.) Secondly, If we come thus far, we usually proceed to the next step, which is, to give a dismission to those thoughts that oppose the sin. We say to them, as Felix to Paul, ‘Go thy way for this time, and when I have a convenient opportunity I will send for thee,’ [Acts xxiv. 25.]
(3.) Thirdly, If a plain dismission serve not to repel these thoughts, we begin to imprison the truth in unrighteousness, Rom. i. 18; 2 Peter iii. 5, and by a more peremptory refusal to stifle it and to keep it under, and become at last willingly ignorant.
(4.) Fourthly, By this means at last the heart grows sottish and forgetful. The heart is ‘taken away,’ as the prophet speaks, and then do these thoughts of conviction and warning at present perish together. This withdrawing of our consideration is Satan’s third way of blinding us. Follows next,
IV. The fourth way by which our lust prevails in Satan’s hand to blind knowledge, and that is by distracting and disturbing it in its work. This piece of subtlety Satan the rather useth, because it is attended with a double advantage, and, like a two-edged sword, will cut either way. For (1.) A confusion and distraction in the understanding will hinder the even and clear apprehensions of things, so that those principles of knowledge cannot reach so deep nor be so firm and full in their application. For as the senses, if any way distracted or hindered, though never so intent, must needs suffer prejudice in their operations, a thick air or mist not only hinders the sight of the eye, but also conduceth to a misrepresentation of objects. Thus is the understanding hindered by confusion. But (2.) If this succeed not, yet by this he hinders the peace and comfort of God’s children. It is a trouble to be haunted with evil thoughts. To work this distraction,
1. First, Satan useth a clamorous importunity, and doth so follow us with suggestions, that what way soever we turn they follow us. We can think nothing else, or hear nothing else, they are ever before us.
2. Secondly, He worketh this disturbance in our thoughts by levying a legion of temptations against us—many at once, and of several kinds, from within, from without, on every side. He gathers all, from the Dan to the Beersheba of his empire, to oppress us with a multitude; so that while our thoughts are divided about many things, they are less fixed and observant in any particular.
3. Thirdly, He sometimes endeavours to weary us out with long solicitations: as those that besiege a city, when they cannot storm, endeavour to waste their strength and provisions by a long siege. His design in this is to come upon us, as Ahithophel counselled Absalom, when we are ‘weary and weak-handed’ by watching and long resistance.
4. Fourthly, But his chief design is to take the advantage of any trouble, inward or outward, and by the help of this he dangerously discomposeth and distracts our counsels and resolves. If any have a spirit distempered, or lie under the apprehensions of wrath, it is easy for him to confound and amaze such, that they shall scarce know what they do or what they think. The like advantage he hath from outward afflictions, and these opportunities he the rather takes, for these reasons:—
(1.) First, Usually inward or outward troubles leaves some stamp of murmuring and sullenness upon our hearts, and of themselves distemper our spirits with a sad inclination to speak ‘in our haste,’ or to act unadvisedly. Job’s affliction imbittered his spirit, and Satan misseth not the advantage. Then he comes upon him with temptations, and prevailed so far that he spake many things in his anguish of which he was ashamed afterward, and hides his face for it. ‘Once have I spoken, but I will not answer: yea, twice, but I will proceed no further,’ Job xl. 5.
(2.) Secondly, By reason of our burden we are less wieldy and more unapt to make any resistance. God himself expresseth the condition of such, under the similitude of those that are ‘great with young,’ who, because they cannot be driven fast, he ‘gently leads’ them. But Satan knows a small matter will discompose them, and herein he deals with us, as Simeon and Levi dealt with the Shechemites, who set upon them when they were sore by circumcision.
(3.) Thirdly, Troubles of themselves occasion confusion, multitudes of thought, distractions, and inadvertencies. If men see a hazard before them they are presently at their wits’ end, they are puzzled, they know not what to do—thoughts are divided, now resolving this, then presently changing to a contrary purpose. It is seldom but ‘as in a multitude of words there is much folly,’ Prov. x. 19, so in a distraction of thoughts there are many miscarriages, and Satan with a little labour can improve them to more. Here he works unseen; in these troubled waters he loves to angle, because his baits are not discerned.
V. Fifthly, Our considerations and reasonings against sin are hindered by a bold forward precipitancy. When men are hasted and pressed to the committing of sin, and like the ‘deaf adder stop their ears against the voice of the charmer,’ [Ps. lviii. 4;] in this case, the rebellious will is like a furious horse, that takes the bridle in his teeth, and instead of submitting to the government of his rider, he carries him violently whither he would not. Thus do men rush into sin, as the horse into the battle. The devices by which Satan doth forward this, we may observe to be these, among others:—
1. First, He endeavours to affright men into a hopelessness of prevailing against him, and so intimidates men that they throw down their weapons, and yield up themselves to the temptation; they conclude there is no hope by all their resistance to stand it out against him, and then they are easily persuaded to comply with him. To help this forward, Satan useth the policy of soldiers, who usually boast high of their strength and resolutions, that, the hearts and courage of their adversaries failing, the victory may fall to them without stroke. The devil expresseth a disdain and scorn of our weak opposition, as Goliath did of David, ‘Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? Dost thou think to stand it out against me? It is in vain to buckle on thine armour, and therefore better were it to save the trouble of striving than to fight to no purpose.’ With such like arguings as these are men sometimes prevailed with to throw down their weapons, and to overrun their reason through fear and hopelessness.
2. Secondly, Sometimes he is more subtle, and by threaping192 men down, that they have consented already, he puts them upon desperate adventures of going forward. This is usually where Satan hath used many solicitations before, after our hearts have been urged strongly with a temptation. When he sees he cannot win us over to him, then he triumphs and boasts we are conquered already, and that our thoughts could not have dwelt so long upon such a subject but that we had a liking to it, and thence would persuade us to go on and enjoy the fulness of that delight which we have already stolen privately: over shoes, over boots. Now though his arguings here be very weak—for though it be granted that by the stay of the temptation on our thoughts he hath a little entangled us, it cannot hence be inferred that it is our wisdom to entangle ourselves further—yet are many overcome herewith, and give up themselves as already conquered, and so give a stop to any further consideration.
3. Thirdly, When men will not be trepanned into the snare by the former delusions, he attempts to work them up to a sudden and hasty resolve of sinning; he prepares all the materials of the sin, puts everything in order, and then carries us, as he did Christ, into the mountain, to give us a prospect of their beauty and glory: ‘All these,’ saith he, ‘will I give thee,’ [Mat. iv. 9;] do but consent, and all are thine. Now albeit there are arguments at hand, and serious considerations to deter us from practice, yet how are all laid aside by a quick resolve! Satan urgeth us by violent hurry, as Christ said to Judas, ‘What thou hast to do, do it quickly,’ [John xiii. 27.] The soul, persuaded with this, puts on a sudden boldness and resolution, and when reason doth offer to interpose, it holds fast the door, because the ‘sound of its master’s feet is behind it,’ [2 Kings vi. 32.] Doth it not say to itself, ‘Come, we will not consider, let us do it quickly, before these lively considerations come in to hinder us’? It is loath to be restrained, and conceiteth that if it can be done before conscience awaken and make a noise, all is well; as if sin ceased to be sinful because we by a violent haste endeavoured to prevent the admonition of conscience. Thus they enjoy their sin, as the Israelites ate their passover, ‘in haste, and with their staves in their hands,’ [Exod. xii. 11.]
4. Fourthly, When opportunities and occasions will well suit it. He takes the advantage of a passionate and sullen humour, and by this means he turns us clearly out of our bias; reason is trampled under foot, and passion quite overruns it. At this disadvantage the devil takes Jonah, and hardens him to a strange resolve of quarrelling God, and justifying himself in that insolency. The humour that Satan wrought upon was his fretful sullenness, raised up to a great height by the disappointment of his expectation; and this makes him break out into a choleric resolution, ‘I do well to be angry,’ [Jonah iv. 9.] Had he been composed in his spirit, had his mind been calm and sedate, the devil surely could not by any arguments have drawn him up to it; but when the spirit is in a rage, a little matter will bind reason in chains, and push a man upon a desperate carelessness of any danger that may follow; suitable to that expression of Job, chap xiii. 13, ‘Let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will.’
5. Fifthly, All these are but small in comparison of those deliberate determinations which are to be found with most sinners, who are therefore said to sin with a high hand, presumptuously, wilfuly, against conscience, against knowledge; and this ordinarily to be found only among those whom a custom of sin hath hardened and confirmed into a boldness of a wicked way and course. When the spirits of men are thus harnessed and prepared, Satan can, at pleasure almost, form them into a deliberate resolve to cast the commandment behind their back, and to refuse to hearken. When any temptation is offered them, if God say, ‘Ask for the old paths, and walk therein,’ as Jer. vi. 16, they will readily answer, ‘We will not walk therein.’ If God say, ‘Hearken to the sound of the trumpet,’ they will reply, ‘We will not hearken.’ When the people by a course of sinning had made themselves like the wild ass used to the wilderness, then did they peremptorily set up their will against all the reason and consideration that could come in to deter them, though they were told the inconveniences, Jer. ii. 25; that this did unshoe their foot, and afflicted them with thirst and want, yet was the advice slighted. ‘There is no hope,’ said they; there is no expectation that we will take any notice of these pleadings, for we have fixed our resolve, ‘We have loved strangers, and after them will we go.’ So Jer. xliv. 16, ‘As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee, but we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth out of our own mouth.’ A plain and full resolve of will dischargeth all the powers of reason, and commands it silence. And that this is most ordinary among men, may appear by these frequent expressions of Scripture, wherein God lays the blame of all that madness which their lives bring forth upon their will, ‘Ye would not obey,’ ‘ye will not come to me’; ‘their heart is set to do evil,’ &c. It may indeed seem strange that Satan should proceed so far with the generality of men, and that they should do that that should seem so inconsistent with those principles which they retain, and the light which must result from thence; but we must remember that these wills and shalls of wicked men are for the most part God’s interpretation of their acts and carriage, which speaks as much, though it may be their minds and hearts do not so formally mould up their thoughts into such open and brazen-faced assertions. And yet we ought also further to consider, that when the Spirit of God chargeth man with wilfulness, there is surely more of a formal wilfulness in the heart of man than lieth open to our view. And this will be less strange to us when we call to mind,
6. Sixthly, That through the working of Satan the minds of men are darkened, and the light thereof put out by the prevalency of atheistical principles.193 Something of atheism is by most divines concluded to be in every sin, and according to the height of it in its various degrees, is reason and consideration overturned. There are, it may be, few that are professed atheists in opinion, and dogmatically so, but all wicked men are so in practice. Though they profess God, yet ‘the fool saith in his heart, There is no God,’ [Ps. liii. 1,] and in ‘their works they deny him,’ [Titus i. 16.] This is a principle that directly strikes at the root: for if there be no God, no hell or punishment, who will be scared from taking his delight in sin by any such consideration? The devil, therefore, strives to instil this poison with his temptation. When he enticed Eve by secret insinuations, he first questions the truth of the threatening, and then proceeds to an open denial of it, ‘ye shall not surely die;’ and it is plain she was induced to the sin upon a secret disbelief of the danger. She reckons up the advantages, ‘good for food, pleasant to the eye, to be desired to make one wise;’ wherein it is evident she believed what Satan had affirmed, ‘that they should be as God,’ and then it was not to be feared that they should die. This kind of atheism is common. Men may not disbelieve a Godhead; nay, they may believe there is a God, and yet question the truth of his threatenings. Those conceits that men have of God, whereby they mould and frame him in their fancies, suitable to their humours—which is a ‘thinking that he is such a one as ourselves,’ Ps. 1.—are streams194 and vapours from this pit, and ‘the hearts of the sons of men are desperately set within them to do evil,’ upon these grounds; much more when they arise so high as in some who say, ‘Doth God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?’ [Ps. lxxiii. 11.] If men give way to this, what reason can be imagined to stand before them? All the comminations of Scripture are derided as so many theological scarecrows, and undervalued as so many pitiful contrivances to keep men in awe.
CHAPTER XIV.
Of Satan’s maintaining his possession.—His first engine for that purpose is his finishing of sin, in its reiteration and aggravation.—His policies herein.
Having explained the five ways by which Satan through the power of lust causeth blindness of mind in tempting to sin, I shall next lay open Satan’s devices for the keeping and maintaining his possession, which are these:—
1. First, He endeavours, after he hath prevailed with any man to commit an iniquity, to finish sin: James i. 15, ‘After if is conceived and brought forth, then it is finished;’ which notes its growth and increase. This compriseth these two things, its reiteration and its aggravation.
(1.) First, Its reiteration is, when by frequent acts it is strengthened and confirmed into a habit. There are various steps, by which men ascend into the seat of the scornful. Nemo repentè turpissimus, It is not one act that doth denominate men ‘wise to do evil.’ In Ps. i. 1 seq., David shews there are gradations and degrees of sin: some walk in the counsel of the ungodly; some by progress and continuance of sin ‘stand in the way of sinners;’ some, by a hardness of heart and fixedness in wicked purposes, ‘sit in the seat of the scornful.’ To this height doth he labour to bring his proselytes; yet he further designs,
(2.) Secondly, That sin may have its utmost accomplishments in all the aggravations whereof it may be capable. He strives to put men upon such a course of sinning as may be most scandalous to the gospel, most ensnaring and offensive to others, most hardening and desperate to ourselves, most offensive and provoking to God. In this he imitates the counsel of Ahithophel to Absalom, when he advised him to go in unto his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel, that so the breach betwixt him and his father might be widened to an impossibility of reconciliation. Thus he labours that sinners should act at such a rate of open defiance against heaven, as if they resolved to lie down in their iniquity, and were purposed never to think of returning and making up their peace with God. That sin may be finished in both these respects, he useth these policies:—
[1.] First, After sin is once committed, he renews his motions and solicitations to act it again, and then again, and so onward till they be perfect and habituated to it. In this case he acts over again the former method by which he first ensnared them, only with such alterations as the present case doth necessitate him unto. Before, he urged for the committing of it but once. How little is he to be trusted in these promises! Now, he urgeth them by the very act they have already done, Is it not a pleasant or profitable sin, to thy very experience? hast thou not tasted and seen? hast thou not already consented? Taste and try again, and yet further; withdraw not thy hand. A little temptation served before, but a less serves now; for by yielding to the first temptation our hearts are secretly inclined to the sin, and we carry a greater affection to it than before; for this is the stain and defilement of sin, that when once committed it leaves impressions of delight and love behind, which are still the more augmented by a further progress and frequent commission, till at last by a strong power of fascination it bewitches men that they cannot forbear; all the entreaties of friends, all their own promises, all their resolves and purposes, though never so strong and serious, except God strike in to rescue by an omnipotent hand, can no more restrain them than fetters of straw can hold a giant. God himself owns it as a natural impossibility, ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin? no more can ye do good,’ [Jer. xiii. 23;] and the reason of that impossibility is from hence, that they are ‘accustomed to do evil.’ Such strong and powerful inclinations to the same sin again are begot in us by a sin already committed, that sometime one act of sin fills some men with as vehement and passionate desires for a further enjoyment, as custom and continuance doth others. Austin reports that Alypius, when once he gave way to the temptation of beholding the gladiators, was bewitched with such a delight, that he not only desired to come again with others, but also before others. Neither is it any great wonder it should be so, when, besides the inclinations that are begot in us by any act of sin to recommit it, sin puts us out of God’s protection, debilitates and weakens our graces, strengthens Satan’s arm, and often procures him further power and commission against us.
[2.] Secondly, Satan endeavours to make one sin an engagement to another, and to force men to draw iniquity with cords of vanity. Agur notes a concatenation in sins, ‘Lest I steal, and take the name of God in vain,’ Prov. xxx. 9. Adam sinning in the forbidden fruit, and proclaimed guilty by his conscience, runs into another sin for the excuse of the former, ‘the woman that thou gavest me,’ &c. David affords a sad instance of this, the sin with Bathsheba being committed, and she with child upon it, David to hide the shame of his offence, (1.) Hypocritically pretends great kindness to Uriah. (2.) When that served not, next he makes him drunk, and, it may be, he involved many others in that sin as accessories. (3.) When this course failed, his heart conceives a purpose and resolution to murder him. (4.) He cruelly makes him the messenger of his own destruction. (5.) He engageth Joab in it. (6.) And the death of many of his soldiers. (7.) By this puts the whole army upon a hazard. (8.) Excuseth the bloody contrivance by providence. (9.) In all using still the height of dissimulation. Satan knows how natural it is for men to hide the shame of their iniquity, and accordingly provides occasions and provocations to drive them on to a kind of necessity.
[3.] Thirdly, By a perverse representation of the state of godly and wicked men, he draws on sin to a higher completement. How often doth he set before us the misery, affliction, contempt, crosses, and sadnesses of the one, and the jollity, delights, plenty, peace, honours, and power of the other! It was a temptation that had almost brought David to an atheistical resolve against all religious duty, and that which he observed had prevailed altogether with many professors, Ps. lxxiii. When they observed ‘they were not in trouble like other men,’ and that their mouth and tongue had been insolent against God, without any rebuke or check from him; when in the meantime the godly were ‘plagued all the day, and chastened every morning:’ some that were, in profession or estimation at least, God’s people, returned to take up these thoughts, and to resolve upon such practices, ver. 10; as if God, who sees all these with so much silence, must be supposed knowingly to give some countenance to such actions. This, indeed, when it is prosecuted upon our hearts in its full strength with those ugly surmises, jealousies, and misapprehensions that are wont to accompany it, is a sad step to a desperate neglect of duty and a carelessness in sinning, in that it insensibly introduceth atheistical impressions upon the hearts of men, and such are apt to catch hold even upon good men, who are but too ready to say as David, ‘I have cleansed my hands in vain,’ [ver. 13.]
[4.] Fourthly, Satan hath yet another piece of policy for the multiplication and aggravation of sin, which is the enmity and opposition of the law. Of this the apostle Paul sadly complains from his own experience: Rom. vii. 8, ‘Sin taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence.’ What he laments is this, that such is the perverseness of our natures, that the law, instead of restraining us, doth the more enrage us, so that accidentally the law doth multiply sin; for when the restraint of the law is before us, lust burns not only more inwardly, but when it cannot be kept in and smothered, then it breaks out with greater violence, ‘Let us break their bonds asunder,’ &c., [Ps. ii. 3.] When the law condemns our lusts, they grow surly and desperate: ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,’ &c., [Isa. xxii. 13.] If any wonder that the law, which was given of purpose to repress sin, and which is of so great use in its authority to kill it in us, and to hinder temptations, should thus be used by Satan to increase and enrage it, they may consider that it is but still an accidental occasion, and not a cause, and sin takes this occasion without any fault of the law. Satan to this end watcheth the time195 when our hearts are most earnestly set upon our lusts, when our desires are most highly engaged, and then by a subtle art so opposeth the law, letting in its contradictions in way and measure suitable, that our hearts conceive a grudge at restraint, which together with its earnestness to satisfy the flesh, ariseth up to a furious madness, and violent striving to maintain a liberty and freedom to do according to the desires of their heart; whereas this same law, if it be applied to the heart when it is more cooled and not so highly engaged upon a design of lust, will break, terrify, and restrain the heart, and put such a damp upon temptations that they shall not be able to stand before it. So great a difference is there in the various seasons of the application of this law; in which art for the enflaming of the heart to iniquity, Satan shews a wonderful dexterity.
CHAPTER XV.
Of Satan’s keeping all in quiet, which is his second engine for keeping his possession, and for that purpose his keeping us from going to the light by several subtleties; also of making us rise up against the light, and by what ways he doth that.
Satan’s next engine for the maintaining his possession, is to keep all in quiet; which our Saviour notes: Luke xi. 21, ‘When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace.’ He urgeth this against those that objected to him, that he cast out devils by Beelzebub, which calumny he confuteth, by shewing the inconsistency of that with Satan’s principles and design—it being a thing sufficiently known and universally practised, that no man will disturb or dispute against his own peaceable possession; neither can it be supposed Satan will do it, because he acts by this common rule of keeping down and hindering anything that may disquiet. Breach of peace is hazardous to a possession. An uneasy government occasions mutinies and revolts of subjects; yet we might think that, the wages of sin, the light and power of conscience considered, it were no easy task for the devil to rule his slaves with so much quiet as it is observed he doth. His skill in this particular, and the way of managing his interest for such an end, we may clearly see in John iii. 20, ‘Every one that doth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.’ From which place we may observe—(1.) The great thing that doth disquiet Satan’s possession is light. (2.) The reason of that disquietment is the discovery that light makes, and the shame that follows that discovery. (3.) The way to prevent that light, and the reproof of it, is to avoid coming to it; and where it cannot be avoided, to hate it. It is Satan’s business then for keeping all in peace—(1.) To keep us from the light; or if that cannot be, then (2.) To make us rise up against it. I shall make inquiry after both these projects of the devil.
To keep us from coming to the light, he useth a great many subtleties. As,
1. First, For his own part he forbears to do anything that might discompose or affright entangled souls. At other times, and in other cases, he loves to torment and affright them, to cause their wounds to stink and corrupt; but in this case he takes a contrary course, he keeps off, as much as may be, all reflections of conscience; he conceals the evil and danger of sin, he sings them asleep in their folly, ‘till a dart strike through their liver,’ and hastens them to the snare, ‘as a bird that knoweth not that it is for his life,’ Prov. vii. 23. They that shall consider that the heart of a sinner is hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and that the greatest part of the affrightment that molests the consciences of such is from Satan’s fury and malice, they will easily conceive how much his single forbearance to molest may contribute to the peace and ease of those that are ‘settled upon their lees;’ but besides his forbearance, we may expect that whatever clouds or darkness he can raise to exclude the light, or to muffle the eyes, he will not be negligent in the use of that power. Whatever he can positively do, in the raising up the confidence of presumption or security in the minds of men, whatever he can do to make them sottish or careless, that shall not be wanting.
2. Secondly, He shews no less skill and diligence by secret contrivances to hinder occasions of reproof and discovery. How much he can practise upon others, that out of pity and compassion to the souls of men, are ready to draw a sinner ‘from the error of his way, and to save a soul from death!’ [James v. 20.] We can scarce imagine what ways he hath to divert and hinder them. By what private discouragements he doth defer them, who can tell? He that could dispute with the angel about the body of Moses to prevent the secret interment of it, Jude 9; he that could give a stop of one and twenty days to the angel that was to bring the comfortable message to Daniel, chap. x. 13, of the hearing of his prayers, may more easily obstruct and oppose the designs of a faithful reprover. Sometime he doth this by visible means and instruments, stirring up the spirits of wicked men to give opposition to such as seek to deliver their souls from the blood of men, by faithful warnings or exhortations. The devil was so careful to keep Jeroboam quiet in his sinful course of idolatry, that he stirs up Amaziah to banish Amos from the court, lest his plain dealing should startle or awaken the conscience of the king: Amos vii. 12, 13, ‘Go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, &c.; but prophesy not any more at Bethel, for it is the king’s chapel, it is the king’s court.’
3. Thirdly, In order to the keeping out the light from the consciences of men, he insinuates himself as a lying spirit into the mouths of some of his mercenaries; and they speak ‘smooth things’ and deceit to Satan’s captives, telling them that they are in a good condition, Christians good enough, and may go to heaven as well as the precisest. It is a fault in unfaithful ministers, they do the devil this service. God highly complains of it: Jer. vi. 14, ‘They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace;’ Ezek. xiii. 10, ‘They have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and others daubed it with untempered mortar.’ Besides, this stratagem is the more likely to prevail, because it takes the advantage of the humours and inclinations of men, who naturally think the best of themselves, and delight that others should speak what they would have them; so that when men by the devil’s instigation prophesy deceit to sinful men, it is most likely they should be heard, seeing they desire such prophets, ‘and love to have it so.’
4. Fourthly, Satan keeps off the light, by catching away the word after it is sown. This policy of his, Christ expressly discovers: Mat. xiii. 19, ‘When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart.’ Such opportunities the devil doth narrowly watch. To be sure, he will be present at a sermon or good discourse, and if he perceive anything spoken that may endanger his peaceable possession, how busy is he to withdraw the heart, sometime by the sight of the eyes, sometimes by vain thoughts of business, occasions, delights, and what not; and if this come not up to his end, then he endeavours, after men have heard, to justle all out by impertinent discourses, urgencies of employment, and a thousand such divertisements, that so men may not lay the warning to heart, nor by serious meditation to apply it to their consciences.
5. Fifthly, He sometimes snuffs out the light by persecution. Those hearers, Mat. xiii. 20, 21, that had received the word with some workings of affections and joy, are ‘presently offended when persecution, because of the word, ariseth.’ By this he threatens men into an acquiescency in their present condition, that if they ‘depart from iniquity, they shall make themselves a prey,’ [Isa. lix. 15.] Bonds, imprisonments, and hatreds, he suggests, shall abide them, and by this means he scares men from the light.
6. Sixthly, He sometimes smothers and chokes it with the cares of the world, as those that received seed among thorns. By earnest engagements in business, all that time, strength, and affection which should have been laid out in the prosecution of heavenly things, are wholly taken up and spent on outward things. By this means that light that shines into the hearts of men is neglected and put by.
7. Seventhly, He staves off men from coming to the light, by putting them upon misapprehensions of their estate in judging themselves by the common opinion. Satan hath so far prevailed with men, that they are become confident of this conceit, that men may take a moderate liberty in sinning, and yet nevertheless be in a good condition; that sin is not so great a matter in God’s esteem, as in the judgment of some rigorous precisian; that he will not be so extreme to mark what we do amiss, as some strict professors are. What can be of greater hindrance to that ingenuous search, strict examination, and impartial judging or shaming ourselves for our iniquities, which the light of Scripture would engage us unto, than such a conceit as this! And yet that this opinion is not only common, but ancient, is manifest by those warnings and cautions given by the apostle to the contrary: Gal. vi. 7, ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked: whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;’ Eph. v. 6, ‘Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.’ If it had not been usual for men to live in uncleanness, covetousness, and such like offences, which he calls ‘sowing to the flesh,’ and yet in the midst of these to think they were not under the hazard of wrath, or if men had not professedly and avowedly maintained such an opinion, it had been superfluous for the apostle to have warned us with so much earnestness, ‘Be not deceived; let no man deceive you with such vain words,’ [1 Cor. vi. 9.]
8. Eighthly, It is usual for Satan to still and quiet the stirring thoughts of sinners with hopes and assurances of secrecy. As children are quieted and pleased with toys and rattles, so are sinners put off and diverted from prosecuting the discoveries that the light would make in them, by this confidence, that though they have done amiss, yet their miscarriages shall not be laid open or manifested before men. It is incredible how much the hopes of concealment doth satisfy and delight those that have some sense of guilt. Sometime men are impudent, that ‘they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not,’ Isa. iii. 9. But before they arrive at so great an impudency, they usually ‘seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark; and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?’ Isa. xxix. 15. Like those foolish creatures that think themselves sufficiently concealed by hiding their heads in a bush, though all their bodies be exposed to open view, Isa. xxviii. 15, those that made ‘lies their refuge, and under falsehood hid themselves,’ became as confident of their security as if they had ‘made a covenant with death, and were at an agreement with hell;’ and when they have continued in this course for some time with impunity, the light is so banished that they carry it so as if God observed their actions done in the dark as little as men do. ‘How doth God know?’ say they; ‘can he judge through the dark clouds? thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not,’ Job xxii. 13. And hence proceed they to promise themselves a safety from judgments: ‘When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come nigh unto us, for we have made lies our refuge,’ &c.
9. Ninthly, Satan keeps them from going to the light by demurs and delays. If the light begin to break in upon their consciences, then he tells them that there is time enough afterward. Oh, saith he, thou art young, and hast many days before thee; it is time enough to repent when you begin to be old. Or thou art a servant, an apprentice under command, thou wantest fit opportunities and conveniences for serious consideration, defer till thou becomest free, and at thine own disposal. That this is one of Satan’s deceits to hinder us from making use of the light, besides what common experience may teach every man, may be clearly gathered from the exhortations of Scripture, which do not only shew us ‘the way wherein we ought to walk,’ but also press us to a present embracement of that counsel: ‘To-day, to-day, while it is called to-day, harden not your hearts;’ ‘Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation;’ ‘Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil day comes;’ ‘If ye will enquire, enquire: yea, return, come,’ Heb. iii. 7; 2 Cor. vi. 2; Eccles. xii. 1; Isa. xxi. 12. This hasty urgency to close with the offered occasions, plainly accuse us of delays, and that it is usual with us to adjourn those thoughts to a fitter opportunity, which we are not willing to comply with for the present.
By these nine devices he keeps the light from ensnared sinners, or them from coming to the light. But if all this cannot draw a curtain before the sun, if its bright beams breaks through all, so that it cannot be avoided, but there will be a manifestation and discovery of ‘the hidden things of darkness,’ then Satan useth all his art and cunning to stir up in the hearts of men their hatred against the light.
This is his second grand piece of policy to keep all in quiet under his command, to which purpose,
1. First, He endeavours to draw on a hatred against the light, by raising in the minds of men a prejudice against the person that brings or offers it. If he that warns or reproves express himself anything warmly or cuttingly against his brother’s sins, this the devil presently makes use of; and those that are concerned think they have a just cause to ‘stop their ears and harden their necks,’ because they conceive that anger, or ill-will, or some such base thing did dictate those, though just, rebukes. The devil turned the heart of Ahab against the faithful warnings of Micaiah upon a deep prejudice that he had taken up against him; for so he expresseth himself to Jehoshaphat, ‘I hate him, for he never prophesieth good unto me,’ 1 Kings xxii. 8. In this case men consider not how justly, how truly, how profitably anything is spoken; but, as some insects that feed upon sores, they pass by what is sound and good, and fix upon that which is corrupt and putrid, either through the weakness and inobservancy of the reprover, or pretended to be such, by the prejudice of the party which doth altogether disable him to put a right construction upon anything.
2. Secondly, If this help not, then he seeks to get the advantage of a provoked, passionate, or otherwise distempered fit; and then hatred is easily procured against anything that comes in its way.
3. Thirdly, Satan endeavours to engage our hatred against the light, by presenting our interest as shaken or endangered by it. If interest can be drawn in and made a party, it is not difficult to put all the passions of a man in arms, to give open defiance to any discovery it can make. That great rage and tumult of kings and people mentioned in Psalm ii., combining and taking counsel against the Lord and his laws, is upon the quarrel of interest. Their suspicions and jealousies that the setting up of Christ upon his throne would eclipse their power and greatness, makes them, out of a desperate hatred against the light, fall into resolves of open rebellion against his laws: ‘Let us break his bands asunder, and cast away his cords from us.’ This pretence of interest strengthened the accusation of Amaziah against Amos: chap. vii. 10, ‘Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words.’ No wonder, then, if Jeroboam, instead of hearkening to the threatening, banish him out of the land. We find the like in Asa, a good man; the devil stirs up his hatred against the seer: ‘He was wroth with him, and put him in the prison-house; for he was in a rage against him,’ 2 Chron. xvi. 10. The ground of that rage was this: the king’s interest, in his apprehension, was wrapped up in that league with the king of Syria, ver. 2, 3, so that he could not bear so plain a reproof, which directly laid the axe to the root of so great an interest as the safety of the king and kingdom, which seemed to depend so much upon that league.
4. Fourthly, Satan stirs up hatred against the light from the unavoidable effects of light, which are discovery and manifestation: Eph. v. 13, ‘All things that are reproved are made manifest; for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.’ Now the issue of this manifestation is shame, which however it be the daughter of sin and light, yet would it naturally destroy the sin that bred it; and therefore repentance is usually expressed by being ‘ashamed and confounded:’ but that Satan might avoid this, he turns the edge of shame against the light, which should have been employed against sin. When men therefore have sinned, and are as ‘a thief when he is taken,’ Jer. ii. 26, ready to fall into the hands of shame; for the avoiding of that, they ‘rebel against the light,’ Job xxiv. 13. The ground of this hatred, Christ, in John iii. 20, tells us, is ‘lest their deeds should be reproved,’ and they forced to bear their shame. To this end they are put upon it to hide themselves from shame by lies, pretences, excuses, extenuations, or by any fig-leaf that comes first to hand. And as those that live in hotter regions curse the sun because it scorcheth them, so do these curse the light: and instead of taking its help, raise up an irreconcilable enmity against it; and so run from it.
CHAPTER XVI.
Of Satan’s third grand policy for maintaining his possession; which is his feigned departure: (1.) By ceasing the prosecution of his design; and the cases in which he doth it. (2.) By abating the eagerness of pursuit; and how he doth that. (3.) By exchanging temptations; and his policy therein.—The advantage he seeks by seeming to fly.—Of his fourth stratagem for keeping his possession, which is his stopping all ways of retreat; and how he doth that.
Besides the two former designs, of finishing sin, and keeping all in quiet, by which the devil endeavours to maintain his possession, he hath a third grand subtlety, which is this: he keeps his hold by feigning himself dispossessed and cast out. Of this we have a full account: Luke xi. 24, ‘When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.’ Christ had there noted that it is Satan’s great principle to do nothing by which his kingdom may be divided or undermined. Satan will not be divided against himself, and yet very seasonably he tells us, that for an advantage he will seem to quit his interest, and upon design he will sometimes so carry himself that he may be deemed and supposed to be ‘gone out of a man;’ as those that besiege forts or walled towns do sometimes raise the siege and feign a departure, intending thereby to take a sudden advantage of the carelessness of the besieged. In the explanation of this policy, I shall, (1.) Shew how many ways he feigns a departure. (2.) Upon what designs he doth it.
There are three ways whereby Satan seems to forsake his interest:—
1. First, He frequently ceaseth the prosecution of a design, which yet he hath in his eye and desire, when he perceives that there are some things in his way that render it not feasible; nay, he forbears to urge men to their darling sins, upon the same score: and who would not think Satan cast out in such a case? When a man spits out the sweet morsel which heretofore he kept under his tongue, and sucked a sweetness from it; when men of noted iniquities abstain from them, and become smooth and civil, who would not think but that the unclean spirit were gone? This way and course he puts in practice in several cases.
[1.] First, When he perceives some extraordinary occasion puts any of his subjects into a good mood or humour of religion. Wicked men are not ordinarily so highly bent upon evil ways, but that they may be at some times softened and relaxed. Pharaoh, who is most eminently noted for a heart judicially hardened, at the appearance of the plagues upon himself and Egypt, usually relented somewhat, and would confess he had sinned, and that fit would continue upon him for some little time. But very frequently it is thus with others; an extraordinary occasion melts and thaws down the natural affections of men, as a warm day melts the snow upon the mountains, and then the stream will for a time run high and strong, at which time Satan sees it is in vain to urge them. Thus men that receive an eminent kindness and deliverance from God, what is more common than for such men to say, Oh, we will never be so wicked as we have been, we will never be drunk more, the world shall see us reformed and new men! These are indeed good words, and yet though Satan knows that such expressions are not from a good heart,—as that of Deut. v. 29 implies, ‘They have well said, Oh that there were such an heart in them!’—he nevertheless thinks it not fit then to press them to their usual wickedness at that time; for natural affections raised high in a profession of religion will withstand temptations for a fit, and therefore he forbears till the stream run lower. What a fit of affection had the Israelites when their eyes had seen that miraculous deliverance at the Red Sea! What songs of rejoicing had they! what resolves never to distrust him again! Ps. cvi. 12, ‘Then believed they his words, they sang his praise.’ Satan doth not presently urge them to murmuring and unbelief, though that was his design, but he stays till the fit was over, and then he could soon tempt them to ‘forget his works.’ How like a convert did Saul look, after David had convinced him of his integrity, and had spared his life in the cave! 1 Sam. xxiv. 16, and xxvi. 21. He weeps, and acknowledgeth his iniquity, justifies David, owns his kindness, and seems to acquiesce in his succession to the kingdom. The devil had, no question, a great spite at David, and it was his great design to stir up Saul against him, and yet at that time he could not prevail with him to destroy David, though he might easily have done it; he was then in a good mood, and Satan was forced to give way to necessity, and to seem to go out of Saul for the present.
[2.] Secondly, He also ceaseth from his design when he sees he cannot fit his temptation with a suitable opportunity. What could be more the devil’s design, and Esau’s satisfaction, than to have had Jacob slain? Esau professeth it was the design of his heart, and yet he resolves to forbear so long as his father Isaac lived: Gen. xxvii. 41, ‘The days of my father’s mourning are at hand; then, but not till then, will I slay my brother Jacob.’ The devil often sows his seed, and yet waiteth and hath long patience, not only in watering and fitting the hearts of men for it, but also in expectancy of fit opportunities; and in the meantime, he forbears to put men upon that which time and occasion cannot fitly bring forth to practice. The prophet, Hosea vii. 4, speaks of that people as notoriously wicked, ‘they are all adulterers;’ but withal, he observes that they forbare these enormous abominations for want of fit seasons, ‘their heart was as an oven heated by the baker,’ sufficiently enflamed after their wickedness, and yet the baker, after he had kneaded the dough, prepared all the groundwork of the temptation, ceased from raising, sleeping all the night till all was leavened; that is, though their hearts were enraged for sin, yet the devil doth wait till occasions present themselves, and becomes in the meantime like one asleep. Now while the devil thus sleeps, the fire that is secretly in the heart, being not seen, men gain the good opinion of converts with others, and often with themselves, not knowing what spirit they are of, because Satan ceaseth, upon the want of occasions, to tempt and provoke them.
[3.] Thirdly, Our adversary is content to forbear, when he perceives that a restraining grace doth lock up the hearts and hands of men. When ‘a stronger than he cometh,’ who can expect less but that he should be more quiet? That God doth restrain men sometime when he doth not change them, needs no proof; that Satan knows of these restraints, cannot be denied. Who can give an account of these communings and discourses that are betwixt God and Satan concerning us? His pleadings in reference to Job were as unknown to Job, till God discovered them, as his pleadings concerning ourselves are to us. Besides, who can tell how much of God’s restraining grace may lie in this, of God’s limiting and straitening Satan’s commission? Now the devil hath not so badly improved his observations, but that he knows it is in vain to tempt where God doth stop his way and tie up men’s hands. Abimelech was certainly resolved upon wickedness when he took Sarah from Abraham, Gen. xx. 2, and yet the matter is so carried for some time, how long we know not, as if the devil had been asleep, or forgot to hasten Abimelech to his intended wickedness; for when God cautions him, ‘he had not come near her,’ ver. 4. The ground of all this was neither in the devil’s backwardness nor Abimelech’s modesty, but Satan lets the matter rest, because he knew that ‘God withheld him, and suffered him not to touch her.’
[4.] Fourthly, When men are under the awe and fear of such as carry an authority in their countenances and employments for the discouraging of sin, Satan, as hopeless to prevail, doth not solicit to scandalous iniquities. Much of external sanctity and saintlike behaviour ariseth from hence. The faces and presence of some men have such a shining splendour, that iniquity blusheth and hideth its head before them. Sin dare not do what it would; so great a reverence and esteem of such persons is kept up in the consciences of some, and so great an awe and fear is thence derived to others, that they will not or dare not give way to an insolency in evil. The Israelites were generally a wicked people, yet such an awe they had of ‘Joshua, and the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord,’ Josh. ii. 7, that Satan seemed to be cast out all their days. Who could have thought Joash had been so much under Satan’s power, that had observed his ways all the time of Jehoiada the priest? 2 Chron. xxiv. 2, ‘Then he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord.’ Satan was content to let him alone, because Jehoiada’s life and authority did overawe him; but after his death Satan returned to his possession, ‘and the king hearkened to the princes of Judah, and served groves and idols,’ ver. 17. The like is observed of Uzziah, 2 Chron. xxvi. 5. The reverence that he had for Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God, discouraged the tempter from soliciting him to those evils which afterward he engaged him in, ver. 16. Satan is willing, when he perceives the awe and authority of good men stands in his way, rather to suspend the prosecution of his design, than, by forcing it against so strong a current, to hazard the shipwreck of it.
[5.] Fifthly, He also makes as if he were cast out when he perceives the consciences of men are scared by threatened or felt judgments. He forbears to urge them against the pricks when God draws his sword and brings forth the glittering spear. Balaam’s ass would not run against the angel that appeared terribly against him in his way. The devil knows the power of an awakened conscience, and sees it in vain to strive against such a stream; and when it will be no better he withdraws. As great a power as the devil had in Ahab, when he was affrighted and humbled he gave way, and for that season drave him not on to his wonted practice of wickedness. He also carried thus to the Ninevites, when they were awakened by the preaching of Jonah. Then we see them a reforming people, the devil surceased to carry them into their former provocations. How frequently is this seen among professors, where the word hath a searching power and force upon them! Sin is so curbed and kept under, that it is like a root of bitterness in winter, lying hid under ground, Satan forbearing to act upon it or to improve it, till the storms and noise of judgments cease, and then usually it will ‘spring up and trouble them,’ Heb. xii. 15. If Satan hath really lost his hold, he ceaseth not to molest and vex even awakened consciences with urgent solicitations to sin; but if he perceive that his interest in the hearts of men remains sure to him and unshaken, then, in case of affrightment and fear of wrath, it is his policy to conceal himself, and to dissemble a departure.
[6.] Sixthly, Satan is also forced to this by the prevailing power of knowledge and principles of light. Where the gospel in profession and preaching displays abroad his bright beams, then whatever shift men make to be wicked in secret, yet ‘the light is as the shadow of death to them,’ and it is even ‘a shame to speak of these things in public,’ Eph. v. 12. Here Satan cannot rage so freely, but is put to his shifts, and is forced to be silent, whilst the power of the gospel cuts off half his garments. Men begin to reform; some are clean escaped from error, 2 Pet. ii. 18; others abandon their filthy lusts and scandalous sins, and so ‘escape the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,’ ver. 20. Yet under all these great alterations and appearances of amendment, the devil is but seemingly ejected; for in the place mentioned, when the light declines, those that were escaped from error, and those that had fled from sinful pollutions, were both entangled again and carried to the same pitch, and a great deal further, of that sin and error in which they had been formerly engaged.
These are the six cases in which Satan ceaseth the prosecution of his design, which was his first policy in feigning himself to be cast out; but he further dissembles a flight when he thinks it not fit to cease wholly,
By abating his pursuit, by slacking his course; and this he doth,
[1.] First, When he tempts still, but yet less than formerly. So great is his cunning and patience, that when he cannot get what he would have, he contents himself with what he can get, rather than lose all. He desires that men would give up themselves fully and freely to his service; but if they like not this, he is willing to take them, as one speaks, as retainers, and to suffer them to take a liberty to come and go at pleasure.196 He hath two main ends in tempting men to sin: one is to avenge himself upon God, in open defiance and dishonour of his name; the other is the ruin and perdition of souls. If he could, he would have these two ends meet in every temptation; yet he pleaseth himself with the latter when he cannot help it, and in that too he satisfies himself sometimes with as small an interest as may be, so that his possession and interest be but preserved. He knows that one sin loved and embraced brings death for its wages. A leak unstopped and neglected may sink the ship as well as a great storm; and therefore when he perceives the consciences of men shy and nice, he is willing they come to him, as Nicodemus came to Christ, by night in private, and that by stealth they do him service.
[2.] Secondly, He sometimes offers men a composition, and so keeps his hold privately, by giving them an indulgence and toleration to comply with religious duties and observations. Pharaoh condescended that Israel should go and serve the Lord in the wilderness, upon condition that their wives, children, and substance were left behind. So Satan saith to some, ‘Go and serve the Lord,’ only let your heart be with me; leave your affections behind upon the world. That serious warning of Christ, ‘Ye cannot serve two masters; ye cannot serve God and mammon,’ evidently shews that the devil useth to conceal his interest in the hearts of sinners by offering such terms; and that men are so apt to think that Satan is gone out when they have shared the heart betwixt God and him, that they stand in need of a full discovery of that cheat, and earnest caution against it. The devil was forced to yield, that Herod should do many things at the preaching of John; yet he maintained his possession of his heart, by fixing him in his resolved lust in the matter of Herodias: and this gives just ground of complaint against the generality of sinners, ‘Ye return, but not to me, not with your whole hearts: have ye fasted to me? have ye mourned to me? they come and sit as my people, but their hearts are after their covetousness,’ [Ezek. xxxiii. 31.]
[3.] Thirdly, Satan hath yet another wile by which he would cheat men into a belief that he is cast out of the heart; and this is a subtle way that he hath to exchange temptations. How weak and childish are sinners that suffer themselves thus to be abused! When they grow sick and weary of a sin, if the devil take that from them, and lay in the room of it another as bad, or the same again, only a little changed and altered, they please themselves that they have vomited up the first, but consider not that they have received into their embracement another as bad or worse. Concerning this exchange, we may note two things:—
First, That sometimes he attains his end by exchanging one heinous sin for another as heinous, only not so much out of fashion: as the customs and times and places give laws and rules for fashions, according to which the decencies or indecencies of garbs and garments are determined, so is it sometimes with sin. Men and countries have their darling sins; times and ages also have their peculiar iniquities, which, in the judgment of sinners, do clothe them with a fitness and suitableness. Sometimes men grow weary of sins, because they are everywhere spoken against; because men point at them with the finger. The devil in this case is ready to change with them. Drunkenness hath in some ages and places carried a brand of infamy in its forehead; so hath uncleanness and other sins. When sinners cannot practise these with credit and reputation, then they please themselves with an alteration. He that was a drunkard is now, it may be, grown ambitious and boasting; he that was covetous is become a prodigal or profuse waster; the heart is as vain and sottish as before, only their lusts are let out another way, and run in another channel. Sometimes lusts are changed also with the change of men’s condition in the world. Poverty and plenty, a private and a public station, have their peculiar sins. He that of poor is made rich leaves his sins of distrust, envy, or deceitful dealing, and follows the bias of his present state to other wickednesses equally remarkable, and yet may be so blinded as to apprehend that Satan is departed from him.
Secondly, We may observe that Satan exchangeth sins with men in such a secret private manner, that the change is not easily discovered; and by this shift he casts a greater mist before the eyes of men. Thus he exchangeth open profaneness into secret sins: filthiness of the flesh into filthiness of the spirit. Men seem to reform their gross impieties, abstaining from drunkenness, swearing, adulteries; and then, it may be, they are taken up with spiritual pride, and their hearts are puffed up with high conceits of themselves, their gifts and attainments; or they are entangled with error, and spend their time in ‘doting about questions that engender strife rather than edifying,’ [1 Tim. vi. 4;] or they are taken up with hypocrisies. Thus the Pharisees left their open iniquities, washing the outside of the cup and platter, Mat. xxiii. 26; and instead of these, endeavoured to varnish and paint themselves over, so that in all this change they were but as graves that appeared not, Luke xi. 44. Or they acquiesce in formality and the outwards of religion; like that proud boaster, ‘Lord, I thank thee I am not as other men are,’ &c., [Luke xviii. 11.] In all these things the devil seems cast out and men reformed, when indeed he may continue his possession; only he lurks and hides himself under ‘the stuff,’ [1 Sam. x. 22.] These ways of sinning are but finer poisons, which, though not so nauseous to the stomach, nor so quick in their despatch, yet may be as surely and certainly deadly; such fly from the iron weapon, and a bow of steel strikes them through.
Having thus explained the three ways by which Satan pretends to depart from men, I must next shew his design in making such a pretence of forsaking his habitation.
[1.] First, That all this is done by him only upon design, may be easily concluded from several things hinted to us in the fore-cited place of Luke xi. As (1.) He doth not say that the devil is ‘cast out,’ as if there were a force upon him, but that he ‘goeth out;’ it is of choice, a voluntary departure. (2.) That his going out in this sense is notwithstanding irksome and troublesome to him. The heart of man, as one observes,197 is a palace in his estimation, and dispossession, though upon design, is as a ‘desert’ to him, that affords him little ease or rest. (3.) That his going out is not a quitting of his interest; he calls it ‘his house’ still: ‘I will return to my house,’ saith he. (4.) He takes care in going out to lock the door, that it may not be taken up with better guests; he keeps it ‘empty’ and tenantable for himself: he tempts still, though not so visibly, and strives to suppress such good thoughts and motions as he fears may quite out him of his possession. (5.) He goes out, cum animo revertendi, with a purpose of returning. (6.) His secession is so dexterously and advantageously managed, that he finds an easy admittance at his return, and his possession confirmed and enlarged: ‘they enter in and dwell there.’