CONVERTED 
 
MCHOL'S SERIES OF STANDARD DIVINES. 
 
 PURITAN PERIOD. 
 
 Wi'ith ^^iwral preface 
 
 BY JOHN C. MILLEE, D.D., 
 
 LINCOLN college; HONORARY CA2s'0N OF WORCESTER; RECTOR OF GREENWICH. 
 
 DJIMONOLOGIA SACRA; 
 
 A TEEATISE OF SATAN'S TEMPTATIONS. 
 
 EICHAED GILPIN, M.D. 
 
COUNCIL OF PUBLICATION. 
 
 W. LINDSAY ALEXAKDER, D.D., Professor of Theolog}-, Congregational 
 Union, Edinburgh. 
 
 JAMES BEGG, D.D., Minister of Newington Free Church, Edinburgh. 
 
 THOMAS J. CRAWFORD, D.D., S.T.P., Professor of Divinity, University, 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 D. T. K. DRUMMOND, M.A., Minister of St Thomas's Episcopal Church, 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 WILLIAM H. GOOLD, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature and Church 
 History, Reformed Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh. 
 
 ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., Minister of Broughton Place United Presby- 
 terian Church, Edinburgh. 
 
 iSentral 42bitor. 
 REV. THOMAS SMITH, D.D., Edinbubgd. 
 
tA- 
 
 ir9Ji 
 
 
 
 ^^^: f^^^ 
 
DiEMONOLOGU SACRA; 
 
 A TREATISE OF SATAN'S TEMPTATIONS. 
 
 IN THEEE PARTS 
 
 EICHAED GILPIN, M.D., 
 
 VICAR OF OBETSTOKE, CCMBEKLAND ; LATER OF NEWCASTLE-ON-TYSE. 
 
 EDITED, WITH MEMOIK, 
 BY THE REV. ALEXANDER BALLOCH GROSART, 
 
 LIVERPOOL. 
 
 EDINBURGH : JAMES NICHOL. 
 
 LONPON : JAl^IES NISBET AND CO. DUBLIN : G. HERBERT. 
 
 M.DCCC.LXVII. 
 
LOAN STACK 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Prefatory Note, ..... 
 
 II. Memoir of Dr Gilpin, ..... 
 III. D^MONOLOGiA Sacra. 
 
 To the Reader, ...... 
 
 Chapter I. — The introduction to the text, from a consideration 
 of the desperate ruin of the souls of men — The test opened, 
 expressing Satan's ^llc5> power, cruelty, and diligence, 
 
 Chapter II. — Of the ^aK^of Satan in particular — The grounds 
 and causes of that"malice— The greatness of it proved; and 
 instances of that greatness given, .... 
 
 Chapter III. — Of Satan's power — His power as an angel con- 
 sidered — That he lost not that power by^^^]^ly- His dwwg ^ 
 as a devil — Of his commission — The extent of his authority — 
 The efficacy of his power — The advantages which he hath for 
 the management of it, from the number, order, place, and 
 knowledge of devils, ..... 
 
 Chapter IV. — That Satan hath a great measure of tknowl^dg ^ 
 proved, by comparing him with the knowledge of Adam in 
 innocency, and by his titles — Of his knowledge, natural, ex- 
 perimental, and accessory — Of his knowledge of our thoughts — 
 How far he doth not know them, and how far he doth, and 
 by what means — Of Ms knowledge of things fiiture. and by 
 what ways he doth conjecture them — The advantages in point 
 of temptation that he hath by his knowledge. 
 
 Chapter V. — Instances of Satan's power — Of ^ntchcraft i what it 
 is — Satan's power argued from thence — Of pyoncTei^ r— Whether 
 Satan can do miracles — An account of what he can do that 
 way — His power argued from apparitions and possessions, . 
 
 Chapter VI. — Of Satan's ^^Selt^ -Instances thereof in his deal- 
 ing with wounded spirits in ordinary temptations of the 
 wicked and godly, in persecutions, cruelties in worship — His 
 cruel handling of his slaves, .... 
 
 Chapter VII. — Of Satan's i ^igmg ^ in several instances — The 
 question about the being of spirits and devils handled — The 
 Sadducees' opinion discovered — The reality of spirits proved, 
 
 /U7 
 
 o 
 
Chapter VIII. — Of Satan's cunning and craft in the gen eral — 
 Several demonstrations proving Satan to be< geceitf iJ ; and 
 of the reasons why he makes use of his cunning, 
 
 Chapter IX. — Of Satan's deceits in particular — WhalQemptatijjrf 
 is — Of tempting to sin — His first general rule— TEe"jcpn- 
 sideration of our con dition — His second rule — Of pryvidinf f 
 suitable temp tation s— In what cases he tempts us to things 
 unsuitable to our inclinations — His third rule — The cautious 
 pro posal of the temptation, and the several ways thereof — 
 His fourth rule is to entice — The way thereof in the general, 
 by bringing a darkness upon the mind through lust, . 58-G3 
 
 Chapter X. — That Satan enticeth by oun^^s^— The several ways 
 by which he doth it — Of the power and danger of the violence 
 of affections, ...... G3-68 
 
 Chapter XI. — Thaijiist)iarkeus the miud— Evidences thereof— 
 
 ™-^Kj| • The five ways by which it doth blind men : (1.) By^;^^^- 
 
 SLlS^ ■ 1 rtii^ the exercise of tfeits^ — The ways of that prevention : 
 
 (T) Secrecy in tempting ; Satan's subtlety therein ; (2.) Sur- 
 
 prisal ; (3.) Gradual entanglements, . . . G8-72 
 
 Chapter XII. — Of Satan's perverting our reason — His second 
 
 J[" way of hJJnSnj^ — The possibility of this, and the manner of 
 
 accomplishing it directly, several ways ; and indirectly, by 
 
 the delights of sin, and by sophistical arguments ; with an 
 
 account of them, ...... 72-76 
 
 Chapter XIII. — Of Satan's ^ diverting our rcasim being the third 
 3» way of blinding men — His policies for diverting our thoughts 
 
 — His attempts to that purpose in a more direct manner ; 
 
 with the j£grccs of that procedure — Of disturbing or ^^ 
 1» Exacting ou r '•piisrt^, which is Satuyls fourth way of blinoiiig 
 3r men — His deceits therein — Of g fecipitanc ^, Satan's fifth way 
 
 of blinding men — Several deceits to bring men to that, . 77-83 
 
 l^u^i^^^jm^i^CHAPTEii XIV. — Of Satan's maintaining his possession — His first 
 ne for that purpose is his finishing of sin, in its jeit^Rtj 
 md aggravation — His policies herein, . . "^ . 83-86 
 
 Chapter XV. — Of Satan's ^e£jiifl£^lHgjj3et, which is his secon^ 
 
 3L ejjginejor keeping his possession, and for that purpose~Eis 
 
 Tvceping 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, ....... 86-91 
 
 Chapter XVI. — Of Satan's tliird grnnd__p"1icy f"r maintaining his 
 ^ possession ; which is his fei fflied-T} spa5HZ& : ( 1 .) By ceasing 
 the prosecution of bis 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 
 ^ §tojagegi_fur keeping his possession, which is his ^t<ippTngi 
 
 ^^g^ ^e-e f u t rt glr; and how he doth that, 91-100 
 
Chapter XVII. — Satan's deceits ap;ainst religious services and 
 duties — The grounds of his displeasure against religious duties 
 
 I . — His first design against duties is to prevent them — His 
 several subtleties for that end, by external hindrances, by 
 indispositions bodily and spiritual, by discouragements ; the 
 ways thereof, by dislike ; the grounds thereof, by go]>]ii§lical 
 arguings — His various pleas therein, . . . 100-118 
 
 Chapter XVIII. — Satan's second gr and desipju a gain,st di|tifi s is 
 L to spoil them — (1.) In the manner of undertaking, and how 
 he effects this — (2.) In the act or performance, by distracting 
 outwardly and inwardly — His various ways therein, by vitiat- 
 ing the duty itself— How he doth that— (3.) After perform- 
 ance, the manner thereof, ..... 118-125 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Chapter I. — That it is Satan's grand design to cornipt tl^f; n;|jnHa 
 of men with €rro^ — The evidences that it is so — and the 
 reasons of his endeavours that way, . . . 127-140 
 
 Chapter II. — Of the advantages which Satan hath, and useth, for 
 the introduction of error — (1.) From his own power of 
 spiritual fascination — That there is such a power, proved from 
 Scripture, and from the effects of it — (2.) From our imper- 
 fection of knowledge ; the particulars thereof explained — (3.) 
 From the bias of the mind — What things do bias it, and the 
 power of them to sway the understanding — (4.) From curiosity 
 — (5.) From atheistical debauchery of conscience, . . 140-158 
 
 Chapter III. — Of Satan's improving these advantages for error — 
 I. ^- By deluding: the under standin g directly : which he doth, 
 (L) By countenancing error from Scripture — Of his cunning 
 therein— (2.) By specious pretences of mysteries ; and what 
 these are — Of personal flatteries — (3.) By affected expres- 
 sions — Reason of their prevalency — (4.) By bold assertions — 
 The reasons of that policy — (5.) By the excellency of the 
 persons appearing for it, either for gifts or holiness — His 
 method of managing that design — (6.) By pretended inspira- 
 tion — (7.) By pretended miracles — His cunning herein — (8.) 
 By peace and prosperity in ways of error — (9.) By lies against 
 truth, and the professors of it, . . . . 158-189 
 
 Chapter IV. — Of Satan's second way of improving his advan- 
 ■n- tages, which is by working upon the iinHprsLn.nding indirectly 
 -'^' bxJjie affprtiinns.— This he doth, (1.) By a silent, insensible 
 introduction of error — His method herein — (2.) By entangling 
 the affections with the external garb of error, a gorgeous 
 dress, or affected plainness — (3.) By fabulous imitations of 
 truth — The design thereof — (4.) By accomodating truth to a 
 compliance with parties that differ from it — Various instances 
 
Chapter X. — Of Satan's chief end in this temptation — His skill 
 in making the means to sin plausible — The reasons of that 
 policy, with his art therein — Men's ignorance his advantage 
 — Of the difl'erences of things propounded to our use, . 355-359 
 
 Chapter XI. — Of the temptation to distrust upon the failure of 
 ordmary means — Of the power of that temptation, and the 
 reasons of its prevalency — Of unwarrantable attempts for 
 relief, with the causes thereof — Of waiting on God, and 
 keeping his way — In what cases a particular mercy is to be 
 expected, ..... . 3G0-3G7 
 
 Chapter XII. — Of Satan's proceeding to infer distrust of son- 
 ship from distrust of providences — Instances of the proba- 
 bility of such a design — The reasons of this undertaking — 
 Of Satan's endeavour to weaken the assurance and hopes of 
 God's children — His general method to that purpose, 367-376 
 
 Chapter XIII. — The preparation to the second temptation — Of 
 liis nimbleness to catch advantages from our answers to 
 temptation — That Satan carried Christ in the air — Of his 
 power to molest the bodies of God's children — How little 
 the supposed hoUness of places privilegeth us from Satan — 
 Of Satan's policy in seeming to countenance imaginary 
 defences — Of his pretended flight in such cases, with the 
 reasons of that policy — Of his improving a temptation to 
 serve several ends, ..... 376-382 
 
 Chapter XIV. — That presumption was the chief design of this 
 temptation — Of tempting to extremes — AVhat presumption is 
 — The several ways of presuming — The frequency of this 
 temptation, in the generality of professors, in hyijocritcs, in 
 despairing persons, and in the children of God — The reasons 
 of Satan's industry in this design — His deceitful contrivance 
 in bringing about this sin — Preservatives against it, . 382-390 
 
 Chapter XV. — Self-murder, another of his designs in this 
 temptation — How he tempts to self-murder dii-ectly, and 
 upon what advantage he urgeth it — How he tempts to it 
 indirectly, and the ways thereof — Of necessary preservatives 
 against this temptation, ..... 390-306 
 
 Chapter XVI. — Of pride, Satan's chief engine to bring on pre- 
 sumption — What pride is, and how it prepares men for sin- 
 ning presumptuously — Considerations against pride — The 
 remedies for its cure — Pride kindled by a confidence of 
 privileges and popular applause, .... 397-401 
 
 Chapter XVII. — Of Satan's subtlety in urging that of Psalm xci. 
 11, 12, to Christ — Of his imitating the Spirit of God in 
 various ways of teaching — Of his pretending Scripture to 
 further temptation — The reasons of such pretendings, and 
 the ends to which he doth abuse it — Of Satan's unfaithful- 
 ness m managing of Scripture — Cautions against that deceit 
 — The ways by which it may be discovered, . . 402-il5 
 
CONTEXTS. XI 
 
 Chapter XVIII. — The manner of Satan's shewing the kingdoms 
 of the -world — Of Satan's preparations before the motion of 
 sin — Of his confronting the Almighty by presumptuous imi- 
 tation, and in what cases he doth so — Of his beautifying the 
 objects of a temptation, and how he doth it — His way of 
 engaging the affections by the senses— Of his seeming shyness, 4 1 5-423 
 
 Chapter XIX. — Satan's end in tempting Christ to fall down and 
 worship him — Of blasphemous injections — What blasphemy 
 is— The ways of Satan in that temptation, with the advan- 
 tages he takes therein, and the reason of urging blasphemies 
 upon men — Consolations to such as are concerned in such 
 temptations^Advice to such as are so afflicted, . . 424-430 
 
 Chapter XX. — The nature of idolatry — Satan's design to corrupt 
 the worship of God — The evidences thereof, with the reasons 
 of such endeavours — His general design of withdrawing the 
 hearts of men from God to his service — The proof that this 
 is his design — Upon whom he prevails — That professions and 
 confidences are no evidences to the contrary — His deceit of 
 propounding sin as a small matter — The evidences of that 
 method, and the reason thereof, .... 430-437 
 
 Chapter XXI. — Of worldly pleasure— Proofs that this is Satan's 
 great engine — What there is in worldly delights that make 
 them so — Counsels and cautions aga,inst that snare, . 438-444 
 
 Chapter XXII. — Of Christ's answer in the general— That these 
 temptations were upon design for our instruction — Of the 
 agreement betwixt Eph. vi. and Mat. iv. — The first direc- 
 tion, of courageous resolves in resisting temptations — Its 
 consistency with some kmd of fear — The necessity of this 
 courage — Wherein it consists ; and that there is a courage in 
 mourning spirits, ...... 445-430 
 
 Chapter XXIII. — The second direction, that temptations are not 
 to be disputed — The several ways of disputing a temptation - 
 — In what cases it is convenient and necessary to dispute 
 with Satan — In what cases inconvenient, and the reasons 
 of it, 451-458 
 
 Chapter XXIV. — The third direction, of repelling a temptation 
 without delay — The necessity of so doing— What a speedy 
 denial doth contain, ..... 459-462 
 
 Chapter XXV. — The fourth direction, of repelling a temptation 
 by Scripture arguments — Of several things implied in the 
 direction — The necessity of answering by Scripture argu- 
 ments—The excellency of the remedy- How Scripture argu- 
 ments arc to be managed, ..... 462-4G9 
 
 Chapter XXVI. — The fifth direction, of prayer, and of the serious- 
 ness required of those that expect the advantage of prayer — 
 Of God's hearing prayer while the temptation is continued — 
 Of some that are troubled more, while they pray more, . 470-471 
 
 Indices, (fee. 
 
 472-480 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 Few who know the fine old quarto ' Dcemonologia Sacra ' of Dr 
 Gilpin will disi^ute its right to a place of honour in the Series of later 
 Puritan Divines. To those who have not hitherto heard, — or only 
 heard of it, — we commend it with all confidence and urgency as in 
 various respects a remarkable book by a remarkable man. It will be 
 found — as an early writer says of another — ' mattcr-fuU,' and never- 
 theless suggestive rather than exhaustive — that is, you have many 
 rich lodes of the ore of thought opened, but many others incUcated, 
 not worked ; clear and keen of insight into the deepest places of the 
 deepest things discussed ; wide in its out-look, yet concentrated in its 
 in-look ; sagacious and wise in its general conclusions, and passionate 
 as compassionate in its warnings, remonstrances, and counsels ; fuU of 
 faith in all 'written' in The Word, and i^atheticaUy credulous in 
 accepting testimony when a given fact (alleged) is fitted to barb 
 an appeal ; curious and quaint in its lore ; intense and anxious in its 
 trackings of sin without and within; pre-Kaphaelite in the vivid 
 fidelity of its portrayals of satanic guiles, and guises that are always 
 disguises ; and above all, tenderly ex2oerimental in its consolation to 
 the tried and troubled. The third part is an exposition of the Tempta- 
 tion of our Lord, which may bear comparison for thoroughness and 
 power with any extant. 
 
 For our Memoir of Dr Gilpin we have had literally to do every- 
 thing, inasmuch as next to nothing has thus far been published con- 
 cerning him — not even his birthplace, or birth or death dates known. 
 If still we feel the result of our ' labour of love ' in prosecuting the 
 necessary researches, to be very inadequate, it is gratifjing that we 
 have secured so much as we have done. 
 
XIV FHEFATORY NOTE. 
 
 As iu the preparation of former ]\Iemoirs, our visits aud investiga- 
 tions have brought us much pleasant intercourse and correspondence 
 with descendants, representatives, and reverers of the old Worthy. 
 Family papers of the most private nature have been unreservedly 
 confided to us — as duly acknowledged in each place where referred to 
 or used ; and altogether the most imgrudging help has been rendered. 
 The various friends mentioned in the foot-notes of the Memoir will 
 be so good as accept this further general acknowledgment. 
 
 It only remains to state that the present volume has been edited 
 on the same principle with Sibbes and Brooks. The text is given 
 with scrupulous integrity ; references and quotations are traced, and 
 less known names and dates annotated ; every reference or quotation 
 of Scripture verified and filled in ; and copious indices are subjoined ; 
 the two last the more important, that Dr Gilpin liimself seems to 
 have quoted Scripture from memory, and furnished no ' table ' or 
 index beyond the heading of the several chapters as ' contents.' 
 
 May this revised treatise be used at this later day as in the past, to 
 help in the great warfare against the Adversary. 
 
 Alexander B. Grosart. 
 
 *,* It has not been deemed needful to give a list of such slight errata as have come 
 under our eye in preparing the indiecB ; but mark, with reference to the ' Note,' page 2, 
 that for ' Dr ' there is a misprint of ' Mr,' and that ' deficiency' is spelled with an 'i' for 
 
MEMOIR OF THE REY. RICHARD Qlh?lK M.D. 
 
 IN pursuing our investigations for oui- Memoir of Richard Sibbes, we 
 found and noted, that his name — in every one of its odd variations 
 of spelling, numerous as those of Shakespeare and Raleigh — had quite 
 died out at once of his native county and country, being traceable 
 nowhere for fully a centmy of years — the stream which rose at Cony- 
 Weston, Norfolk, in 1524, lapsing in a ' Richard Sibbes, clerk, rector 
 of Gedding, aged 93, February 2, 1737;' and the blood thencefor- 
 ward flowing in the female line.i 
 
 Very different is it with the name of Gilpin, now before us. From 
 family-mimiments and genealogies intrusted to us by various repre- 
 sentatives, of nearer and remoter kin, it were easy to go back many 
 generations before the earliest-noticed Sibbes ; while at the present 
 day, in nearly all gradations of circumstance, at home and abroad — 
 from the original Cumberland and Westmoreland, to ' the gray me- 
 tropohs of the North ;' from the Castle of Scaleby, to ' huts, where 
 poor men lie;' and from Wyoming of Pennsylvania to Acadie of 
 Evangeline and ' chstant Ind ' — Gilpins, descending from oiu- Worthy, 
 and proud of the descent — sustain the ancient renown of goodness and 
 brain-power. As I sit down to put my collections into shape, I am 
 called to place therein the statesman-like Speech on a great public 
 question of our age, of Charles Gilpin, in the House of Commons — 
 words destined to re-echo again and again, and determine legislation 
 — so grave, wise, patriotic. Christian are they ; and now the Libraries 
 are being besieged for the ' New America ' of William Hepworth 
 Dixon, wherein I was gladdened with a splendid, yet penetrative 
 and measured, eulogy of the Founder of Colorado, William Gilpin ;^ 
 both, as I am informed, as do nearly all of the name — in this re- 
 
 ^ Works of Sibbes, vol. i. pp. 25, 142. 
 
 ' New America. By W. H. Dixon. With Illustrations from Original Photographs. 
 2 vols 8vo. 1867. (Hurst and Blackett.) Vol. i., pp. 134-137. 
 
XVI MEMOIK OF RICHARD GILPIN. 
 
 sembliag the Eogerses of the United States, who all claim descent 
 from John Rogers, proto-martyr of England — counting from Bernard 
 Gilpin, the apostle of the North, the venerable and holy St Bernard 
 of Protestantism ; and so, as we shall see, from our Richard. 
 
 I place in an Appendix ^ such genealogical-antiquarian details as 
 some readers may look for in a Memoir of a Gilpin ; and summarise 
 here that the author of ' Dcemonohgia Sacra' was sprung of a race 
 such as old Dan Chaucer would have cited in teaching ' who is loorthy 
 to he called genfill ' as we may judge by a few of liis golden lines : — 
 
 ' The first stocke was full of riglitwisnes, 
 Trewc of his wordc, sober, pitoug, and free. 
 Clene of his goate ; and loved besinesse. 
 Against the vice of slouth, in honeste : 
 And but his heirc love vertue as did he, 
 He is not gentill, though he rich seme. 
 All wcarc he miter, crownc, or diademe.'- 
 
 Tuming now to Dr Richard Gilpin — whose remarkable book is in 
 the present volume faithfully reprinted ; he was grandson of Richard, 
 a younger brother of the illustrious Bernard, his father being an Isaac 
 Gilpin. We get a glimpse of both grandfather and father in the 
 county History as follows :— ' In a small manuscript by one Isaac 
 Gilpin, — whose father [Richard Gilpin, as be/ore] had been steward of 
 several manors within the barony of Kendal, and died about the .year 
 1630, at the age of 92 years,— he says he had heard of his father, and 
 observed the same himself, that by general custom within the said 
 barony, if a woman hath an estate, and married, hereby the estate is 
 so far vested in the husband, that he may sell it in his life-time ; but 
 if in his life-time he doth not alter the property, tlien it shall continue 
 to her and her heirs.' 3 This little record takes us to ' the barony of 
 Kendal,' the ' Land ' of Bernard Gilpin ; and thither accordingly, we 
 turned our search. There was a vague traditionary understanding 
 that our Richard Gilpin was born, as of the same family, so in the 
 same region of 'Kentmere;' but nothing definite had hitherto been 
 known. The Kentmere ' Registers ' do not commence until a.d. 
 1700; and thus we were baffled there. But Kentmere being a 
 chapelry in the old Parish of Kendal, a hope was indulged that in 
 the parent-parish the wished-for facts should be discovered ; nor were 
 we disappointed, for in the Baptism-Register, under date ' October 
 23, 1625,' there is this entry: — 
 
 ' Richard, son of Isaac Gilpin, of Strickland Kettle,' 
 
 1 Sec Appendix A., lii-lv. 
 
 ° From above, and other parallels, it will he seen that Burns only put more tersely 
 and memorably an old sentiment in his — 
 
 ' The rank is but the guinea stamp, 
 The man 's the gowd for a' that.' 
 3 Xicolson and Burns's Cumberland and Westmoreland, vol. i., p. 26. 
 
MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. XVll 
 
 which is our Worthy, as after-dates will shew.i He might be born a 
 week more or less previously, accordtag to the then ' use and wont ' 
 of infant baptism. The same Eegister furnishes another earlier entry, 
 which — if we are correct in surmising that the Isaac Gilpin of Strick- 
 land Kettle in 162.5, was the same with the Isaac of it — informs us 
 Richard was a younger son : — 
 
 ' 1623, May 3, Henry, y'' soun of Mr Isaacke Gilpin of Helsington.' 
 Elsewhere he is named ' of Gilthroton, co. Westmoreland ;' and seems 
 to have been the same who was clerk to the Standing Committee of 
 county Durham in 1645.2 That Isaac Gilpin was ' steward of several 
 manors ' probably covers the different local designations. There are 
 so many Gilpins, and so many of the same Christian name, that it is 
 hard to decide on given personalities ; but, after considerable com- 
 parison and sifting, such appears to us to be the parentage paternally 
 of Dr Gilpin. Maternally I have come on nothing ; for an Elizabeth 
 Gilpin, widow of Isaac Gilpin, merchant, Newcastle, though of the 
 same stock, was not his mother. This 'widow' was buried in AU 
 Saints, 7th November, 1694.3 Archdeacon Cooper, of Kendal, in 
 transmitting these data, remarks : ' The mode of writing, and the 
 insertion of 3Ir, indicates a person of some importance.' But with 
 reference to ' Mr,' I suspect it is rather accidental, as it is inserted in 
 the one, and left out in the other; and moreover, is frequently 
 omitted when, from other sources, we know the family was of im- 
 portance. Little Eichard must have been just beginning to toddle 
 about when his venerable giandfather's snow-white head [' aged 92'] 
 was laid in the old Church-yard. One delights to picture tlie aged 
 Simeon, before his serene departure, ' blessing ' by prayer his dear 
 little grandchild, after the manner of such ancient Puritans as were 
 the GOpins in every branch. 
 
 Strickland-Ketel, not Kettle, as in the Eegister and vulgarly,* — now 
 settled to have been the birth-place of Dr Gilpin, — was a most fitting 
 
 1 I owe hearty thanks to the Eev. Thomas Lees, M.A., Wreay, Carlisle, formerly 
 Curate of Grej'stoke, for much help in tracing out birtb-plaee, &c., and throughout ; 
 also to Archdeacon Cooper, Kendal, for his prompt and full answers to my queries. 
 
 ^ See Memoirs of Alderman Barnes, edited for Surteej Society by W. H. D. Long- 
 Etaffe, Esq., of Gateshead, p. 143. As I write this, these Memoirs are passing through 
 the press ; and I am indebted to Mr LongstafFe for early proof-sheets of the notices of 
 Gilpin contained in the Manuscript. No common service is being rendered by Mr L. 
 and the Surtees Society, to Ecclesiastical History, in so lovingly and competently pre- 
 paring these important memoirs, which shed light on innumerable events and names, 
 from sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. An abstract of the more interesting passages 
 was published in 1828 by Sir Charles Sharpe, 8to, pp. vii. and 35. I have to thank J. 
 Hodgson Hinde, Esq., of Stelling Hall, Stocksfield, for this scarce pamphlet. 
 
 3 See LongstafFe's Barnes, as before. The Manuscript now belongs to the Literary 
 and Philosophical Society, Newcastle-on-Tyne. 
 
 4 So called after Ketel, son of Eldred, son of Ivo de Tailbois, first Baron of Kendal, 
 who came over with William the Conqueror. 
 
 h 
 
XVlll MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. 
 
 nest for one destined to serve the master-Shepherd so well. It is an 
 English Bethlehem — a rich, kine-fragrant, pleasant, breezy tract of 
 pasture-land, sloping from the west down to the river Kent, its eastern 
 boundary, which river, issuing out of a fair ' mere,' or lake, gives its 
 name to Kent)He>-e Hall, the seat of the elder house of the Gilpins. 
 The hamlet of Ketel itself is on the road from Kendal to the Ferry 
 on Windermere ; and thus partakes of the glory of Wordsworth's 
 poetry, as of Scott's, who in Kokeby celebrates a local incident of the 
 CromweUian time.i It is somewhat noticeable that witliin the space 
 of an ordinarily-sized farm should have been born Bernard Gilpin 
 and Henry Airay,^ and later, Kichard Gilpin. 
 
 Of the childhood of om* Kichard, we can tell nothing directly. But 
 with the famous ' School' foimded by his honoured ancestor available, 
 we are safe in assuming that he entered it. It is of this School that the 
 later biogiapher of Bernard Gilpin, — himself a Gili)in, — thus wiites : 
 ' The effects of his endowment were very quickly seen. His school was 
 no sooner opened than it began to flourish, and to afford the agreeable 
 I^rospect of a succeeding generation rising above the ignorance and 
 errors of their forefathers.' . . . ' That such might be its effects, 
 no care on bis jiart was wanting. He not only i)laced able masters 
 in his school,. whom he procured from Oxford, but he likewise con- 
 stantly inspected it liimself . "■^ The saintly Apostle was long gone to his 
 rest before the advent of Master Ricliard ; but as bearing the name, 
 and being of the blood of the Founder, he could not fail to be welcomed 
 to all its privileges. The more 's the pity that no memorial seems to 
 have been kept of the scholars of this celebrated Institution. Before 
 proceeding to Houghton, he was probably initiated into learning at the 
 nearer Kendal, then all astir with the enterprise of the Flemings. So 
 I gather from family communications made to me ; and thus we have 
 to think of the ' little lad' trotting down the quiet rural roads among 
 the sunny hills, much as another Richard earlier, fi-om Packenham to 
 Thurston,* 
 
 . . . ' with his satchel 
 And shining morning face,' 
 
 ' Canto vi., stanza 33, ' Eobin the Devil ' and Col. Briggs. See also ' Annals of 
 Kendal,' (1861.) pp. 55, 56. 
 
 " The Commentator on Philippians ; cf . my Memoir of him, prefixed to the reprint 
 of his masterly book, p. vii. Since this Memoir was published, I have discovered that 
 Dr Airay was son of Bernard Gilpin's sister Helen. See the Apostle's ' Will,' in the 
 Surtees' volume of ' Wills and Inyentories, from the Registry at Durham,' (I860,) 
 Part II., pp. 83-94. So that the Gilpins and Airays were related. I have to thank 
 William Jackson, Esq., Fleatham House, St Bees, for calling my attention to this. It 
 explains obscurities In the life of Alray, and gives a key to Bernard Gilpin's special 
 interest in him. 
 
 " The Life of Bernard Gilpin. By William Gilpin, M.A., Prebendary of Salisbury. 
 With an Introductory Essay by Edward Irving. 1824. Page 123. 
 
 * That is, Richard Sibbes ; Memoir, as before ; Works, Vol. I. p. xxxi. 
 
MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIX. XIX 
 
 not, we may be sure, 
 
 . . . ' creeping like snail 
 Unwillingly to school.' ' 
 There is a tradition, — reported by variou.s descendants, — that our 
 Gilpin went from ' School' to Queen's College, Oxford. This, it will 
 be remembered, was Bernard Gilpin's own College, and whither he sent 
 his favourite scholars, as Airay, Carleton, Ironside, and others. So 
 that if Richard went to Oxford at all. Queen's would most naturally 
 be selected. No mention of him, however, occurs in any of the College 
 Registers. Therefore he cannot at any rate have graduated.2 I place 
 in Appendix incidental valuable data concerning other related Gilpins 
 gleaned in Oxford.^ 
 
 In lack of the facts of the case, it is impossible to explain why one 
 so weU-born and well-introduced did not, apparently, follow out a fuU 
 University career. That the circumstances of his own Family and 
 kindred were adequate thereto — apart from the Gilpin ' endowments,' 
 which were open to him specially — and that they were of the right 
 stamp to appreciate a sound, liberal education, is certain from mmierous 
 notices of the house that occur in old records.'* 
 
 Another floating tradition, — also brought before me by descendants, 
 is, that our Gilpin studied at the University of Glasgow ; which so far 
 receives confirmation from the statement of his bosom-friend Alderman 
 Barnes of Newcastle — of whose MS. ' Memoirs' I have already spoken 
 -^that ' he was educated in Scotland ;' but neither there does his name 
 occur. 5 
 
 Equally uncertain is it, — advancing further, — when or by whom 
 Dr Gilpin was ' licensed' or ' ordained' as a Preacher of the Gospel or 
 Clergyman. Barnes again says that he 'administered the Lord's 
 Supper to a small congregation in Durham;' 6 and Calamy, that 'he 
 had been [i.e., before Greystoke] a Preacher in Lambeth, at the Savoy 
 — where he was assistant to Dr Wilkins — and at Durham.' ^ Of all of 
 these, the memorial has perished. Neither under ' Lambeth,' nor 
 
 ' Shakespeare, As you Like it, ii. 7. 
 
 ' lu a large quarto manuscript volume of ' Memoirs' of the Gilpins, drawn up by the 
 Prebendary of Salisbury, (supra,) now before me by the kindness of its possessor, Charles 
 Bernard Gilpin, Esq., Juniper Green, Edinburgh, I find the following concerning the 
 above points : ' He was the son of a younger brother, and being born to no estate, 
 applied the first years of his life to the study of physic. But feeling a stronger inclination 
 to divinity, he laid aside all thoughts of practising as a physician, and changing entirely 
 the course of his studies, he took his degrees in divinity; but at what university, I find no 
 account; (page 1.) 
 
 * See Appendix B. I have here gratefully to acknowledge the painstaking of Mr 
 T. A. Eaglesim, M.A., of Worcester College, Oxford, by himself and the Bursar of 
 Queen's, in examining every likely source of information. 
 
 * See Appendix C, for some of these. 
 
 ° Barnes' Memoirs, page 141, as before. The Maitland Club ' Munimenta' of the 
 University of Glasgow, (4 vols. 4to,) gives a ' Kichardus Gilpin, Anglus, entered llth 
 January,' 1717, — none other. " As before, pp. 141 142. ' Account, vol. ii. 157. 
 
XX MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. 
 
 ' Savoy, nor ' Wiikins'— afterwards Bishop of Chester i— nor ' Gilpin,' 
 does Newcourt's Eepertormm'^ mention him ; nor, after considerable 
 investigation in each place, has any trace of him been found beyond 
 the above statements. So that his presentation to the Living of Grey- 
 stoke in Cumberland is really the first definite fact we have, after his 
 now ascertained birth-place, baptism-date, and family connexion. The 
 Eector of Greystoke had been ' sequestered' 3 by Sir Arthur Hasel- 
 rigge and the Parliamentary Commissioners for the Propagation of 
 the Gospel in the four northern coimtics ; which sentence having been 
 appealed against, was confirmed by the Committee for (as they were 
 caUed) Plundered Blinisters. The Eector was William Morcland, 
 M.A., ' bred,' according to Walker of the ' Sufierings,' folio, ' at Jesus 
 College, Cambridge.' ^ Tliis ' ejection' took place m 1G49-50. He 
 was succeeded by ' one West, who died in about two years' time.' 5 
 Such is all Walker says of AVcst; but from anotlier overlooked 
 authority, we learn a little more of him. In the ' Postscript' concern- 
 ing ' Mr John Noble,' added to Audland's funeral sermon on that 
 notable man, it is said, after mentioning the 'laying aside' of Mr 
 Moreland, ' certain Commissioners appointed others, in his room, to 
 supply the Parish, when John Noble was little turned of twenty years 
 of age;' and then, 'In the year 1G50, Jlr West was sent, a zealous 
 Preacher, and one mighty in prayer, but sickly ; and he soon died of 
 a consumption. His doctrine being exemplified in his own life, was 
 very effectual on many in that Parish, and particularly on John Noble, 
 who received lively convictions of Divine truth and the world to come, 
 and so began earnestly to inquire about the life and power of godli- 
 ness.' 6 Gilpin immediately succeeded Mr West, and thus must have 
 entered on his duties in 1G52 or 1653, wlien he was in his twenty-eighth 
 or twenty-ninth year. 
 
 'Wh.B.i influence procured om- Worthy the ' presentation' to this 
 (comparatively) rich benefice,— for it was then worth £300 per annum, 
 now nearly trebled, being from £700 to £800, we do not know ; but 
 among the neighbouring gentry there were intermarriages with the 
 Gilpins, €.g.,i\\e Laytons and Whartons — the former the ancient owners 
 of Dalemain in Dacre,the next parish to Greystoke. The Living was 
 
 ' The ' Life' of this singularly original and inventive Prelate is so scanty and unworthy 
 of his fame, that ive do not wonder at no notice of his Savoy ministry, or of Gilpin as 
 his assistant. Calamy is rarely wrong in his facts. ' 2 Vols, folio, 1708. 
 
 ' Walker, ' Sufferings,' page 306. * Ilkl. 
 
 ' Ibid. In various authorities the ground of lloreland's ejection is given as ' igno- 
 rance and insufficiency' — whatever the latter may mean ; but as Walker, who is usually 
 referred to for it, makes no such statement, I have not adduced it. It is sufficient that 
 the Commissioners were picked men for intellect and character ; and that wherever data 
 remain, their decisions are almost invariably warranted by the premises. 
 
 ' ' A Sermon preached at the Funeral of Mr John Noble of Penruddock, near Penrith, 
 in Cumberland, March 14, 1707-8. By Samuel Audland. To which is added a Post- 
 script concerning the Deceased, by another hand." London (reprinted) 1818, pp. 37, 38. 
 
MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. XXI 
 
 held by the family of Arundel — with a branch of whom it remains — 
 but was subject no doubt to the Commissioners of Parliament dming 
 the Commonwealth. 
 
 We have Kichard Gilpin, then in 1652-53 installed as the 'parish 
 priest' of Greystoke ; and save him of Bemerton, none ever brought a 
 finer spirit, or a more entire consecration, or a more ' ingenuous ' 
 activity, to the service of the one great Master. 
 
 Visiting Greystoke recently, I found it a quaint-visaged, gray, 
 long, low-roofed church, venerable and time-stained still, though 
 'restored'— tenderly— in 1848. It is dedicated to St Anckew. It 
 nestles in a ' bit' of woodland such as — flushed with autumnal tints of 
 green and gold equal to the glories of a New England Indian summer 
 among the maples and elms — would have burdened and kindled the 
 eyes of a Euysdael or Gainsborough, aye and until the ' studies' were 
 transferred to imperishable canvas ; and the whole surrounding district, 
 sweet, soft, and tranquil enough for the Valley of Kip Van Winkle's 
 long dreamless sleep — much more so indeed than Irving's own, behind 
 the shaggy bluffs of the Hudson. It is a genuinely English ' parish.' 
 When Gilpin came to it, the 'common jyeojjle' were intelligent and 
 godly after the antique type of the mid-Keformation period, having a 
 spice of sturdy originality of character and speech that is not altogether 
 gone even now. For ' leisure hours,' if the cultured Eector wished 
 it, there were in the country Seats — embracing ducal Castle and his- 
 toric family mansion — men and ' fahe ladyes' of rare force and worth. 
 There ai'e ' Sunny Memories' still — treasured in dim old manuscripts 
 — of the full ' gatherings' from far and near, from hall and hut, from 
 plain and fell, of the ' gentle and simple' over a wide area — to hang 
 on the lips of the ' good Parson,' — as everywhere he came to be named. 
 We have a fine ' testimony' to the integrity and devotedness of the 
 Eector in the ' Postscript' of John Noble's Funeral Sermon, previously 
 quoted : ' Graistock parish was large, had a fair glebe and liberal 
 revenue. It had four chapels : the nearest thi-ee miles distant from 
 the Church. Mr Gilpin provided worthy, preaching ministers for 
 those, and allowed generously for their support ; himself residing at 
 
 The little ' Chapel' wherein this Sermon was preached still remains, and has now as its 
 minister the Kev. David Y. Storrar, who occupies it as a mission-charge of the United 
 Presbyterian Church (of Scotland). This congregation originated, it is believed, from 
 those who could not remain in the Parish Church of Greystoke after Gilpin left and 
 Moreland returned ; and thus is of the oldest of the Presbyterian congregations in Eng- 
 land. See above tractate, whence we learn that on Dr Gilpin's ' motion,' the Noncon- 
 formists of Greystoke ' called ' another to fill his place for them. Then the Narrative 
 continues : ' Mr Anthony Sleigh, a native of the same parish, and bred in the College of 
 Durham, was obtained to become their minister, and so continued about forty years, 
 though he had only slender [pecuniary] encouragements there. Their meeting was held 
 mostly in the house of John Noble, and sometimes under covert of the night, as Christ's 
 disciples sometimes did,' (page 44.) 
 
Xxii MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. 
 
 Grraistock, where he had a society of communicants preijared by the 
 foregoing efficacy of the word on their minds and hearts, and mani- 
 fested in a new life,' (page 41.) 
 
 Altogether Greystoke coukl not be other than a most congenial 
 portion of the great ' Vineyard' for one like Richard Gilpin, who 
 breathed the very spirit of saintly George Herbert, and had little 
 taste for the controversies in which some of his contemporaries were 
 engaged. 
 
 Not very long after his settlement at Greystoke, viz., in 1G54-5, a 
 sad disaster befell the parent or ' Kentmere' house of the Gilpins, 
 springing out of the ' confusions' of the Commonwealth. I shall let 
 the good Prebendary tell it, — preliminary remarks and all, from the 
 manuscript already quoted,— reserving comment: ' In tlie year 1G55, 
 says he, ' Cromwell dissolved his refractory parliament, and the mem- 
 bers of the House retiring to then- several counties, spread everywhere 
 such new matter of discontent that measures were no longer observed. 
 Men were levied in many places against the usuriier, and a general 
 rising was expected. But Cromwell, who had his eyes in all places, 
 soon dispersed every insurrection as it made its appearance. It was 
 at that time he sent his major-generals throughout the kingdom to 
 punish with fines and proscriptions all delinquents. Among the 
 families ruined by the severity of these military magistrates was Mr 
 Gilpin of Kentmere Hall, near Kendal, in Westmoreland. He was 
 the head of the family, and lived respectably on an estate which had 
 been in the hands of his ancestors from the days of King John. It 
 seems probable he had taken an active part against Cromivell in the 
 king's life-time ; but his affairs being composed, lie lived quietly till 
 these new disturbances broke out on Cromwell's violent measures with 
 the parliament. Having joined an unsuccessful insurrection, he be- 
 came a marked man, and was obliged to provide for his safety as he 
 could. To avoid a sequestration he gave up his estate in a kind of 
 trust-mortgage to a friend, and went abroad. There he died ; but in 
 a time of quiet, his heir not being able to get hold of the proper deeds 
 to recover the estate, it was totally lost to the family. In the meanr 
 time Dr Gilpin lived quietly at Greystoke, concerning himself only with 
 his own parish, and lamenting those public evils, which he could not 
 remove.' i One can smile at this time of day at the name ' Usurper' 
 api^lied to England's mighty Protector ; can understand the inevitable 
 royalism of a dignitary of the Church, that holds for ' the king' as 
 against ' the kingdom,' can leave the admissions of former freedom to 
 ' live quietly,' and of an active part ' against Cromwell,' to justify any 
 enforced flight, without either refuting allegations or exposing jireju- 
 dices. But as matter of fact, while Dr Gilpin, in common with many 
 
 ' As before, pp. 3, i. 
 
MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. XXIU 
 
 of his Presbyterian brethren, condemned the execution of Charles, 
 and while the shadow that fell on Kentniere doubtless darkened the 
 rectory of Greystoke, he yet unreservedly accepted the government of 
 Cromwell, and in every way sought to carry out the measures devised by 
 the Parliament. Moreover, far from ' living quietly at Greystolce,' and 
 ' concerning himself only ivith his own jMrish,' it is the very opposite 
 of the facts. Instead of retiring in the timid, nerveless fashion sug- 
 gested, he took a foremost part in organising that modification of 
 Church government which the abolition of Episcopacy demanded. 
 The evidence of this, spite of the wreck and loss of contemporary 
 ' records,' is abundant ; and it is the next landmark in the Life we 
 are telling. 
 
 It needeth not that in a necessarily brief Memoir such as this we 
 should enter on the merits of the national change of Church ' Polity' 
 which gave supremacy for the time to Presbytery over Prelacy. The 
 materials for judgment lie in fulness in every worthy Ecclesiastical 
 History of England; and the whole story has just been re-wi-itten with 
 fine candour and attractiveness by Mr Stoughton.i Presbyterianism 
 in England during the Commonwealth can hold its own, — lustrous as 
 it is with the names of Edmund Calamy and Bates and Manton, 
 Eichard Baxter and William Jenkyn and Thomas Watson, Samuel 
 Clark and Thomas Wilson of Maidstone, and Thomas Hall of King's 
 Norton, — selecting a few, m'ban and rural, almost at random. 
 
 Suffice it to recall that, outside of the more ambitious organisation 
 of London, — whose unpublished ' Memorial' lies all but unknown in 
 Sion College Library,^ — there were various voluntary Asssociations 
 which took a semi-Presbyterian mould, in the counties of Chester, 
 Cumberland, Westmoreland, Dorset, Wilts, Worcestershire, and 
 others. These Associations embraced the ' clergymen,' and ' minis- 
 ters' or ' pastors,' and laymen belonging to the Episcopalians, the 
 Presbyterians, and the Independents, and sought to combine the pre- 
 sidency of the fir.st with the union and co-operation of the second, and 
 the freedom of the third ; in short, a federated rather than organic 
 oneness. Subordinating everything else, was an intense yearning after 
 nearness to all who loved the one Lord Jesus, and heroic as devout 
 endeavours for ' discipline,' so as to vitalise and Christianise ' the 
 masses.' It is pathetic to read of the days and nights of these good 
 men's Fasting and Prayer ' unto the breaking of the light,' for one 
 another's Parishes and Charges. Their ideal was lofty, their own 
 practice beautiful, their success marked in changing the face of ere- 
 while godless and heathen-dark communities. What Kichard Bax- 
 
 1 Ecclesiastical History of England, from the Opening of the Long Parliament to the 
 Death of Oliver Cromwell. 2 vols. 8vo. 1867. (Jackson, Walford, and Co.) See vol. 
 II., c. viii., et alibi. 
 
 ' Mr Stoughtou justly speaks of the strange neglect of these important MSS. 
 
XXIV MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. 
 
 TER was in Worcestershire, Kichaed Gilpin was in Cumberland and 
 Westmoreland ; and as the author of ' The Saint's Everlasting Kest' 
 was chosen to draw up the ' Agreement' for his county, so the author 
 of ' Dcenwnologia Sacra' was selected to execute the same office for 
 Cumberland and Westmoreland. The ' Agreement,' — of which the 
 title-page will be found in the list at the close of our Memoir, must be 
 studied by all who would master the problems of the period. It is 
 comprehensive, without being general or ^'ague ; decisive in dogma, 
 but not uncharitable ; high in aim, but most practical ; earnest, but 
 not fanatic ; stern to offences, but hopeful and tender toward offenders ; 
 richly scriptural, but also, and because of it, most human, all a-glow 
 with wide sympathies, and unutterably wistful in its appeals for obli- 
 vion on all lesser matters, so as to set a firm front to the evils and^ 
 passions, the divisions and heart-burnings, the rivalries and recrimina- 
 tions, of the time. The whole is perfumed, so to speak, with prayer. 
 If it was a Utopia, it was a grander and more celestial one than ever 
 More or Bacon imagined ; nor while it lasted was it a mere paper 
 Agreement. For years tlirough all the Counties enumerated the 
 ' good men and true' made their ' gatherings' so many centres of light 
 and love ; and their Parishes were as spuitual Goshens amid the 
 national formalism and barrenness. 
 
 Seeing that the extent to which ' Dwmonologia Sacra' has gone 
 l)revents our reprinting the minor writings of Gilpin, as we had 
 desired, we shall here give a few brief extracts from the ' Agreement,' 
 to illustrate its aims, tone, and style. Thus he struck the key-note : 
 ' When we compare the present miseries and distempers with our for- 
 mer confident expectations of unity and reformation, om- hearts bleed 
 and melt within us. We are become a byword to our adversaries ; 
 they clap their hands at us, saying, " Is this the city that men call the 
 perfection of beauty ?" Piety is generally decayed, most men placing 
 their religion in " doting about questions" which they understand not; 
 profaneness thrives through want of discipline ; error, blasphemy 
 domineers ; jealousies, di\asions, unmerciful revilings and censurings, 
 are fomented among brethren of the same household of faith ; the 
 weak ones are discom-aged and disti-acted by the multitude of opmions 
 and fierce opposition of each party, and that which is worst of all, 
 God's honour suffers deeply, and the credit of religion is brought very 
 low. "Is this nothing to you, all ye that pass by?"' But having 
 lamented, as with Jeremiah, he assumes a more hoi^eful and en- 
 couraging attitude, thus : ' Though these things can never be suffi- 
 ciently lamented, yet seeing it is not sufficient barely to lament them, 
 without endeavouring to heal them, and considering that it is a duty 
 incumbent upon aU Christians, accordmg to then- several places and abi- 
 lities, to promote the welfare of Zion, especially when we have tasted so 
 
MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. XXV 
 
 much of the bitterness of our divisions, and because a brotherly Union 
 hath so mvich of God in it, and consequently gives so much hope that 
 God will take that course in establishing his Chm-ch when he shall 
 arise to build Jerusalem, and seeing it is an imjustifiable pettishness 
 and peevishness of spirit to be averse from joining together in any- 
 thing because we cannot join in all things, therefore we resolve, [" the 
 associated ministers,"] setting aside all carnal interests, and casting 
 ourselves, ■with all our concernments, at the Lord's feet, to walk to- 
 gether as far as we can for the present, not resting here, nor tying 
 ourselves from further progress in union, as the Lord shall give light 
 and satisfaction, much less binding ourselves from a submission to 
 and compliance with a more general accommodation, if any such 
 thing shoidd hereafter be agreed on, which might be more suitable 
 and fitted for the composure of the difierent principles of brethren 
 throughout the nation.'— (Pp. 1-3.) Hereupon follows the ' Basis' of 
 the ' Agreement,' which was very much the same with Baxter's in 
 Worcestershire, and that of Essex, &c., &c. ' In order,' he proceeds, 
 ' to the carrying on of this great worli:, we lay down and assent 
 unto these general rules as the Basis and Foundation which must 
 support and bear up our following Agreement : — ■ 
 
 ' 1. That in the exei"cise of discipline it is not only the most safe 
 course, but also the most conducing to brotherly imion and satisfac- 
 tion, that particular churches carry on as much of their work with 
 joint and mutual assistance as they can with conveniency and echfica- 
 tion, and as little as may be, in their actings, to stand, distinctly by 
 themselves and apart from each other. 
 
 ' 2. That in matters of church cUscipline those things which belong 
 only ad melius esse, ought to be laid aside, both in respect of publica- 
 tion and practice, rather than that the Church's peace should be 
 hindered. 
 
 ' 3. That where different principles lead to the same practice, we 
 may join together in that practice, reserving to each of us our own 
 13rinciples. 
 
 ' 4. That where we can neither agi-ee in principle nor in practice, we 
 are to bear with one another's differences that are of a less and dis- 
 putable nature, without making them a ground of division amongst 
 us. Yet notwithstanding we do not hereby bind up ourselves from 
 endeavouring to inform one another in those things wherein we differ, 
 so that it be done with a spirit of love and meekness, and with resolu- 
 tions to continue our brotherly amity and association, though in those 
 particulars our differences shoidd remain uncomposed,' (pp. 3, 4.) 
 
 Further, all pledge themselves to be true and faitlifid ambassadors, 
 stewards, workmen, and overseers, and ' to this end we resolve in the 
 coiu'se of om- ministry to observe the temper, disposition, and capacity 
 
XXVI MEMOIR OF IlICHAKD GILPIN. 
 
 of tlie generality of the people, and to suit ourselves not only in our 
 matter to the people's condition, but also in our expressions to the 
 people's apprehension, that so our sermons may he plain, piercing, 
 seasonable, and profitable,' (p. 4.) Speaking next of ' catechising ' 
 from the Assembly's ' Larger and Shorter ' Catechisms, and of ' in- 
 spection,' there are these wise counsels, that there be tender dealing in 
 consideration of 'first, imacquaintedness with the terms and words of the 
 question; or, secondly, from bashfulness or shamefacedncss,' (p. 11.) 
 And in regard to ' supervision,' to be cautious ' lest brotherly insjiec- 
 tion degenerate into an unbrotherly prying,' (p. 15.) And there is 
 this pronouncement on a questio veomta of the period : ' We agree not 
 to press a declaration of the time and manner of the work of grace 
 upon the people as a necessary proof of their actual present right to 
 the Lord's Supper, nor to exclude persons merely for want of that ; yet 
 will we accept it if any will be pleased to ofl'er it freely,' (ji. IC) ; and 
 onwards there is encouraged a ' holy modesty and bashfulness ' in 
 speaking of tlie ' passage and transaction 'twixt God and our soul,' 
 (p. 39.) Finally, the Confession of Faith consists of the Creed para- 
 phrased, and confirmed by texts, (pp. 23-25.) 
 
 Another incident proved with equal unmistakableness that Richard 
 Gilpin regarded Uliver as no ' usurper,' but the rightful governor 
 of the nation. I must leave the reader to consult tiie authorities 
 on the history of the establislmient of the University of Durham. 
 Every one who knows anything of ' the times ' knows that the efforts 
 to found a University there — which the death of Cromwell delayed, 
 and the Restoration tpiashed — is one of the ' boasts ' of the Protector's 
 reign.i in honoured association with Sir Tiiomas Widdrington, 
 Lords Fairfax, Grey, Wharton, and Falconbridge, Sir Henry Vane, 
 and Sir- Arthur Haselrigge, and other well-known names, Gilpin was 
 appointed one of the ' Visitors.' 2 He had entered into the scheme 
 with enthusiasm and hope. It is difiicult to estimate what was lost 
 herein by the death of Cromwell. If we may conjecture from the 
 ' Model' of the learned and pious Matthew Pool — issued in 1657-58, 
 while the grand jury were addi-essing Richard to complete what his 
 father had begun— it is all but certain that a more strictly theological 
 training woidd liave been inaugurated than any of the gi'eat Universi- 
 ties even to this day suppUes.3 
 
 To shew that Dr Gilpin still adhered to his fonner action in Ciiurch 
 matters, it must here be stated that in 1658 he preached a ' Sermon' 
 
 ' Stoughton, as before, gnh nominibtLs. 
 
 ' Burton's ' Cromwellian Diary,' ii. 531, where the ' Ordinance ' is given in extenso, 
 with notes by the editor, [Rutt.] 
 
 ^ I suspect few know this rare and very valuable tractate. Its title page runs, ' A 
 Model for the maintaining of Students of choice abilities at the University, and princi- 
 pally in order to the Ministry. Together with a Preface before it, and after it a Eecom- 
 
MEMOIK OF EICHAED GILPIN. XXVll 
 
 before the ' associated ministers of Cumberland ' at Keswick. By the 
 request of the ' General Meeting ' he published it. The title-page will 
 be found in our list of his wi-itings at close of this Memoir. It was 
 with reluctance the good man consented to give his sermon ' to print/ 
 as he intimated in the 'Epistle Dedicatory.' ' What your commands,' 
 says he, ' have wrested from me — for of that force and prevalency 
 with me are your deshes — I now lay at your feet. If I could have 
 prevailed with you to have altered your vote, or after you had passed 
 it, durst have resisted — this had gone no further than your own hear- 
 ing. But when you would not be persuaded, I endeavoured to con- 
 form myself to those Christians in Acts xxi. 14, and took up with 
 that which put a stop to their entreaties. " The will of the Lord be 
 done,'" (pp. 1, 2.) The Text of this sermon — which is no common 
 one — is Zech. vi. 13, ' Even He shall build the Temple of the Lord,' 
 &c., and hence its title, ' The Temple Kebuilt.' I select a few of the 
 more easily detached sentences. First of all, concerning ' Contro- 
 versy,' he says admirably : ' Disputings, though they have their fruits, 
 yet are they like trees growing upon a rocky precipice, where the fruit 
 cannot be gathered by all, and not by any without difficulty and 
 hazard,' (p. 3.) Again, on the office of the ministry, he exclaims: 
 ' Dream not of ease in an employment of this nature. God, angels, 
 and men have their eyes upon you to see how you wiU bestir your- 
 selves : it is your duty, and not a matter of unnecessary courtesy which 
 you may give or hold back at your pleasure. He that hath com- 
 manded you eV tovtok; elvac, (1 Tim. iv. 15,) to " give yourselves up 
 whoUy to these things," will not take himself to be beholden to you 
 when you have done your best : neither is it any disparagement to you 
 to become even servants to any : so that you may but gain them and 
 forward Christ's work. They that think it below them to trouble 
 themselves so much with catechising, reproof, admonition, and are of 
 Ptolemasus his mind, who changed the title of Heraclides his book, 
 from irovov eyKcofioov to ovov ijKcofiiov : as if laboriousness were nothing 
 but an ass-like dulness, making a man crouch under every burden ; 
 but God having made the ox which treadeth out the corn to be the 
 hieroglyphic of your employment, he doth thereby teach you that 
 labour and patience are so far from being a disgrace to you, that they 
 are necessary qualifications for the calling of the ministry,' (pp. 3, 4.) 
 Lastly — for we may not linger — take a burning and fearless reproof of 
 the lukewarm : ' How cowardly and sinfully shamefaced,' he observes, 
 kindling as he advances, ' are many when they should jDlead for God 
 
 mendation from the University, [this bears the signatures of Worthington, Arrow- 
 smith, Tuckney, Whichcot, Ealph Cudworth, and William Dillingham ;] and two serious 
 Exhortations, recommended unto all the unfeigned lovers of Piety and Learning, and 
 more particularly to those rich men who desire to honour the Lord with their substance.' 
 [11558-60.] There is a characteristic letter in it from Baxter. 
 
XXVlll MEMOIR or RICHARD GILPIN. 
 
 and truth, as if their own hearts did secretly question the reality of 
 religion ! How strangely do many of the gentry spend their time ! 
 What irreligious, prayerless families do some of them keep, when 
 they should shew better example to the meaner sort ; and yet how 
 confidently can they censure others for hypocrites— sometime unjustly 
 concluding against the strictness of God's ways from the liberty of 
 some professors — not considering what their own carriage and vanity 
 do testify against themselves ! How do we needlessly multiply our 
 controversies and disputes ! and with what bitterness do we manage 
 them, even when the strife is merely about words and method ! and, 
 generally, how is the name of God and religion abused to serve the 
 designs of men ! What strange religious people have we ! Some 
 must needs be religious by taking up a singular conceit and opinion, 
 though a man may easily see their hearts through their lives : others 
 have all their religion on their tongue' s-end : they can have good dis- 
 com-ses, and yet be imconscionable in their callings, shops, and trathng,' 
 (pp. 33, 34.) 
 
 Thus taking a conspicuous part in all that belonged to the interests 
 of the Church of Christ, our Worthy behind these went out and in 
 before his flock a ' master-builder,' from Sabbath to Sabbath preaching 
 the very gospel of Jesus Christ, with unequalled power, pungency, and 
 pathos combined, while he drew all hearts to himself ; for he acted on 
 
 the maxim — 
 
 ■ All worldly joys go less 
 To the one joy of doing kindnesses.'' 
 
 He was a large-hearted and o|ien-handed man, as well as a faithful 
 ' preacher ' — his life an exemplification of his teaching. He was, says 
 the ' Noble ' memorial, ' a gentleman and a Christian indeed ; one of 
 singular gravity, temper, learning, and all valuable qualifications for 
 a minister ; of a good family too, and an eligible estate; a witness and 
 an honour to the good cause of a further Keformation,' (p. 38.) And 
 so he pm-sued the ' even tenor of liis way ' in his tranquil sphere. He 
 had married shortly after coming to Greystoke ; but, curiously enough, 
 the lady's name has not been preserved in any of the numerous family 
 papers put into my hands. The Greystoke ' Kegisters ' record the 
 baptism of two of his children, William and Susannah. The 'entries' 
 may be given here : — 
 
 ' 1657. September. Borne the 5th Day in ye aftemoune, and ye 
 
 23d day Baptized, William, the Sonne of Mr Eichard 
 
 Gilpin, p'son, [=parson], of Graistock. 
 ' 1659. Susanna, ye Daughter of Mr Gilpin, p'son, of Graistocke, 
 
 was borne ye 17th day of October, And Baptized ye 7th 
 
 of December, 1659.' 2 
 
 ' Herbert : The Temple ; Church-Porch. 
 
 ' Here again I owe thanks to Mr Lees of Wreay, as before , also to Rev. David Y. 
 
MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. XXIX 
 
 I have described the parish of Greystoke as tranquil ; but even into 
 it there swept — as the sea-swell sweeps into the smallest nook of shore 
 — the ruffle of that agitation which pervaded the nation in religious 
 matters ; and, inasmuch as it gives colour and tone to not a few pas- 
 sages of the 'Dcemoiiologia Sacra,' — his difficulty with the Quakers — 
 to which I have made reference — falls now to be chronicled. We 
 shall have an after-occasion to notice subsequent interviews with the 
 pre-eminently good, though provoking, Quaker missionary-preacher, 
 Thomas Story. Here I glean my information from the ' Memoir ' 
 of a ' Greystoke ' celebrity, Henry Winder, D.D.' The following, 
 then, is the narrative, omitting irrelevant portions : — 
 
 ' The Reverend Richard Gilpin, M. D. , was the parish minister of Gray- 
 stock before the Restoration Some time before the Restora- 
 tion Quakerism began to spread in Cumberland and Westmoreland. 
 Among other things remarkable in their behaviour, ihe Quakers would 
 go into the parish church of Graystock, and distiu'b Dr Gilpin in the 
 pulpit during divine worship. And such were their novel phrases 
 and cross questions and answers, that the Doctor seemed sometimes at 
 a loss what to say to them. Upon that, some of his parishioners 
 were stumbled, withdrew from their former communion, and defended 
 the cause of the Quakers. Among others Henry Winder was setluced, 
 to the no small grief of good Dr Gilpin and his friends. A day 
 of humihation and i^rayer was appointed, in which Dr Gilpin, and 
 some of the neighbouring ministers, as well as some of the laity of 
 that parish, took such jDroper methods as to recover some that had 
 fallen, and to confirm and establish those that were wavering, though, 
 before that, the infection had spread far and wide. Then was Henry 
 Winder secretly resolved to comply with the desire of Dr Gilpin and 
 his church, and make some public recantation. But these convictions 
 did not last long. For notwithstanding several conferences with liim, 
 Henry Winder openly joined with the Quakers, and continued among 
 
 them some years Henry Winder and his [second] wife 
 
 [finally] left the Quakers, returning to Dr Gilpin's church, in which 
 they afterwards continued.' 2 
 
 All this goes far to explain the unusual severity of the ' Dcemono- 
 hcjia Sacra' against Quakers and Quakerism— as also the 'Agree- 
 ment ' — and the grave classification of ' double meanings,' and ' light 
 
 Storrar, Penruddoek, and the present curate of Greystoke, (Mr Raby), for result of search- 
 ing through the ' llegisters,' which have some curious entries. 
 
 ' ' A Critical and Chronological History of the Rise, Progress, Declension and Re- 
 vival of Knowledge, chiefly Religious. In two Periods. 1. The Period of Tradition, 
 from Adam to Moses. 2. The Period of Letters, from Moses to Christ. Second edition. 
 By Henry Winder, D.D. To which are prefixed Memoirs of Dr Winder's Life. By 
 George Benson, D.D.' London : 1756. 2 vols. 4to. 
 
 - I have left unquoted the process by which Winder was (1.) seduced to, and (2.) 
 recovered from Quakerism, though the reader will do well to consult it. 
 
XXX MEMOIR OF RICHAUD GILPIN. 
 
 within,' &c., &c., among evident ' devices' of the Devil. At this later 
 day we \villingly forget the eccentricities and vulgarities and blunders 
 of the early followers of George Fox, and in the spirit of the 
 ' Quakers' Meeting ' of winsome Elia, reverence the service of this 
 once powerful and still honoured and altogether inoffensive section of 
 God's people. 
 
 With these minor 'troubles' now and again annoying him, — for 
 they ended in the setting up of Quaker ' tabernacles ' in the district, 
 remains of which sm-vive until now,— the Rector of Greystoke fulfilled 
 his 'labour of love,' as a good servant of Jesus Christ, until the 
 Restoration. That event found him with a mind made up and ' ready ' 
 for all loss and sacrifice. Unable to accept the notorious 'Act' of 
 Uniformity, he anticipated the memorable 'Ejection' of 1G62 by 
 withdrawing from Greystoke ; whereupon the former ' sequestered 
 Rector Morland re-entered on possession.' 
 
 We turn to the Familj'-Manuscript,^ formerly quoted, for the circum- 
 stances of the resignation. ' After the Restoration,' observes Preben- 
 dary Gilpin, ' when Episcopacy again took the lead, the Presbyterian 
 party made what stand they were able. But the Act of Uniformity 
 passed, and was executed with rigour. Dr Gilpin, notwithstanding liis 
 moderation, could not subscribe it in all its parts, and therefore 
 resigned his benefice, trusting God for the maintenance of himself and 
 family, whicli consisted of a wife and five children.' ^ 
 
 The good Rector was not without a home when he thus left his 
 beloved Greystoke — which was tm-ned into a Bocliim when his 
 ' parishioners ' looked their last upon him. Durmg his incumbency 
 he had invested what ' monies ' he had at his disposal in the purchase 
 from the Musgraves, of the Castle and small estate of Scaleby near 
 Carlisle— filling up the amount of the purchase-money by a mortgage.' 
 Thither accordingly he retired into privacy ; but holding with the old 
 Nonconformists the indefeasibility of his oflSce as a preacher of the 
 gospel by an ordination more sure than that from quasi-apostolic 
 hands, he was wont to assemble his emjiloyes and neighbours in a 
 ' great room ' of the old Castle— origmally a Border-fortalice erected 
 against the Scots — and there ' preach ' to them on the Sabbaths.^ 
 
 • The ' Noble ' Postscript says, ' Somewhat remarkable happened at his resuming the 
 pulpit, which some living (1703) can tell, but 1 omit it.' Moreover, Morland's return 
 was against the wishes of the parishioners : for the narrative continues, ' After this 
 some offered to put up one Mr Jackson in the pulpit ; which the contrary party did 
 80 violently oppose with threats to crush them into the earth, that Mr Jackson went with 
 them to the parsonage-house, and preached there,' (p. 43.) M. died in about a year. 
 
 ° As before, p. 6. 
 
 3 ' A good old aunt of mine — mother of the present Mr Fawcett of Scaleby Castle- 
 took particular pride in shewing a certain very large room in her Castle. Her theory 
 was that this was one of the great attractions of the place in Dr Gilpin's view : for here 
 he would have room enough to preach to as many people as were likely to attend, and 
 
MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. XXXI 
 
 Moreover, he resumed his previous medical studies and practice, to the 
 gi'eat advantage more especially of the poor. ' How acceptable,' 
 says our Manuscript, ' his services were among the poor people of those 
 parts, and how much they revered him for wisdom and sanctity, 
 appears from the superstitious respect they paid him. During many 
 years after his death, it was believed among them that he had " laid 
 the devil," as they jjhi-ased it, in a morass not far from his house.' l 
 Besides these semi-professional duties, he set about improving the 
 somewhat dilapidated castle, and the lands, more particularly planted 
 trees extensively ; the result of which was an entire change of the 
 appearance of the estate, and now the fine woodland within which 
 venerable Scaleby lifts its gray towers, stiU worthily held by a de- 
 scendant through the female Kne.^ 
 
 liberty also : Seal«by, as slae observed, being at just sucb a distance from Carlisle as 
 to place liim beyond the operation of the Conventicle Act.' — Charles Bernard Gilpin, 
 Esq., Juniper Green, Edinhurgli. ' Ibid., p. 9. 
 
 ' That is James Fawcett, Esq. I do not know how sufficiently to acknowledge the 
 courtesy and kindness of Mr and Mrs Fawcett in furthering my Gilpin inquiries. 
 Besides early drawings and recent photographs of the Castle and grounds, I have had an 
 ancient unpublished family-volume of rare interest confided to me. It is entitled ' An 
 Accompt of the most Considerable Estates and Families in the County of Cumberland, 
 from the Conquest unto the beginning of the Eeign of K. James the First.' The 
 original MS., an inscription informs us, is supposed to have been ' writ by an ancestor of 
 Mr Denton's of Cardow during ye time of his imprisont. (as 'tis said) in ye Tower upon 
 a Contest yt happ'ned to be betwixt him and Dr Eobinson, then Bp, of Carliell.' This 
 ' copy ' seems to have been taken about 16S7. I cull the following memoranda concern- 
 ing Scaleby from this precious little volume : ' Ye Castle . . . took name first of ye 
 buyldiugs there wch they call Scheales or Scales, more properlj- of ye Latin word 
 Scalinga, a caban or cottage. When King Henry Ist had established Carliell [Carlisle] 
 he gave yt lordship unto one Richard the Kyder, whose surname was Tylliolf, who first 
 planted there habitations. From him it descended by one or two degrees unto Symon 
 Tylliolf in ye later end of King Henry 2d's tyme. His son, Piers Tylliolf or Peter, 
 was ward to Geofl'rey de Lucy by the king's grant about ye tyme of K. John. This 
 Geoffi-ey de Lucy did bear ye cap of maintenance before K. Eichard 1st at his coronation. 
 Sr. Peter de Tilliol, kt., son of Sr. Eobt., dyed, a.d. 143i: 13 Henr. 6, having enjoyed 
 his estate 67 years. He had issue one son who dyed without issue in 1435, when the 
 estates were divided between two sisters and co-heirs, Isabella and Margaret. Isabella had 
 married one John Colville, and his son Wm. succeeded and died 1479, leaving two daugh- 
 ters, Phillis and Margaret. The eldest was married to Wm. Musgrave. Jlargaret, the 2d 
 daughter, married to Nicholas Musgrave, and transferred Scaleby, Haydon, and other 
 Lauds to his posterity. Sr. Edwd. Musgrave, Kt., son of ATm., married Katherine Pen- 
 ruddock : he built or repaired part of ye Castle at Scaleby a.d. 1606. . . . Sir Wm. 
 Edwd. Musgrave, Bart,, of Nova Scotia, who afterwards suffering great losses on ye 
 account of his faithful service to K. Charles 1 and K. Charles ye 2d, he was forced to 
 dismember a great part of his estate. He sold Kirklevington to Edmund Appelby, 
 Houghton to Arthur Forster, Eichardby to Cuthbert Studholm, and Scalcbij to Richard 
 Gilpin, who now [1687] enjoys ye same together wth Eichardby, wch he also purchased 
 of Michael Studholm, ^? Cuthberti,' [p. 432.] [On Scaleby, cf. pp. 429-435.] There are 
 similar interesting notices of Greystoke, or Graystock, or Graistock, which is explained 
 to mean 'a badger,' [cf. pp. 311-315,] going back with old lore to Syolf, and Phorne, 
 and Eanulph in the days of the 1st Henry, on to the Dacres, and Norfolks, and Arundel. 
 Scaleby Castle has been much enlarged, together with the Estates, and the visitor of the 
 
XXXU MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. 
 
 KiCHARD Gilpin was top eminent and potential a man to be allowed 
 to withdraw thus from the stage of public events. He had not been 
 long in his retreat when a ' tempting ' offer was made him of a 
 Bishopric, as Bernard Gilpin had been 'tempted' before bun. I 
 recur here again to our Jlanuscript. Following on the passage 
 already given we read, ' The king and council however seemed to have 
 been apprehensive lest this rigorous step against the Presbyterians 
 [' Act of Uniformity '] might have ill consequences. They were much 
 inclined therefore to compound the matter, at least, with some of the 
 leaders of the i^arty ; and, in this view, three or four bislioiirics and 
 many superior dignities in the Church were offered to them. Among 
 others, Dr Gilpin was represented to the king as a person highly 
 esteemed in the Northern parts of England, and as a man of great 
 moderation. According!}', in filling up the vacant bishoprics, his 
 name was inserted for the see of Carlisle : and it was not doubted by 
 his friends but he would get over the few scruples he had to the Act of 
 Uniformity, and accept tlie preferment : lor he had always spoken 
 favourably of the Cliurch of England, and considered the line between 
 the two parties with regard to their religious sentiments as almost an 
 invisible one. But, to the surprise of his nearest friends, he declined 
 the offer.' i The ' friends,' who so lightly estimated tlie ' scruples ' of 
 the ' retired ' Rector, little knew the stamp of man he was. Every- 
 thing before and subsequent goes to shew that Dr Gilpin remained a 
 Nonconformist, with, no doubt, the same reluctance as Baxter and 
 Calamy and the rest, — to whom bishoprics had similarly been offered, 
 and by whom they had similarly been piomptly declined, — but also 
 from the same deep conviction of necessity so long as that ' Act ' out- 
 raged the truth, and ignored conscience. And so, as his ancestor, 
 Bernard Gilpin to Elizabeth,2 did Eichard Gilpin to Charles II. 
 
 district will find it a delightful pilgrimage. The older trees are all the more venerable 
 that one knows Dr Gilpin himself ' planted ' them. 
 
 To shew the way Royalists sufTered themselves to speak of even so ' moderate' and so 
 inestimable a man as our Worthy, simply beeause he continued conscientiously a Non- 
 conformist at enormous sacrifices, I add here a quotation from the ' County' History : 
 N. and B.'s Westmoreland and Cumberland, as before, vol. ii. p. 459 : ' .Scaleby : Mr 
 Sandford— in the true spirit of those times — speaking of Scaleby, says, " It was some- 
 time the estate of Sir Edward Musgrave of Hayton, baronet ; but now sold to Mr 
 Gilpin, a quondam preacher of the fanatical parliament, and his wife, Mr Brisco's 
 daughter, of Crofton, brethren of confusion in their brains ; knew what they would not 
 have, but knew not what they would have, if they might chuse." ' This ' reviling' is 
 High Church charity; and it is wondered at that Nonconformists retort sharply when 
 occasion oft'ers. ' As before, pp. 6, 7. 
 
 "'Life' of Behnakd Gilpin, as before, p. 128, seq. The coincidence is certainly 
 striking of the double offer, at the distance of fully a century, of a bishopric, and the same 
 bishopric, to two Gilpins, and a double declinature and aetualisation of the ' nolo ejiisco- 
 pari.' This and even more remarkable, because more intricate and manifold, repeti- 
 tions, in the Lives of the elder and younger Edwards of America, [Cf. Memoir of tha 
 latter, prefixed to his Works, Vol. i. pp. xxxiii., xxxiv. Andover, U.S. 1842.] have 
 
MEMOIK OF RICHARD GILl'IN. XXXIU 
 
 refuse that mitre which he could not have worn unless at the sacrifice 
 of principles which were dearer to him then all civil or ecclesiastical 
 dignities, and life itself.i We have an incidental allusion — as I read 
 it — in ' Dmnonologia Sacra ' to the ' temptation,' and the casuistic 
 pleas of the ' friends ' alluded to. Speaking of the ' wiles ' of the 
 Tempter, and his many snares to induce to sin, he specially notices 
 this, that ' he extenuates the offence by propounding some smaller 
 good or convenience that may follow that evil,' and he continues, 
 evidently speaking from his own experience of the ' fiery dart :' ' 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, 
 hut they might keep out knaves, and that they might he in a condition 
 
 to he helpful to good men Thus a pretended good to come 
 
 becomes a pander to a present certain iniquity.' There are other like 
 intimations in the book, which give new significance and a strange 
 passion to the words ; but this one must suffice. 
 
 Kecurring to our Family-Manuscript — which though somewhat 
 stilted in its style, is generally accurate in its facts — we reach the next 
 point in our Worthy's ' Life.' ' The Dissenters,' remarks the Pre- 
 bendary, ' having now found they could get nothing from government 
 beyond a Toleration, began to sejDarate everywhere into assembUes, 
 and choose pastors of their own ;' and so eyes and hearts turned toward 
 the Doctor, secluded at Scaleby. ' Among other places,' the Narrative 
 proceeds, ' a large congregation united at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where 
 they built a handsome meeting-house, and sent an invitation toDrGilpin 
 to be their minister ; and though he had now taken his measures, and 
 laid liis plan for a life of quiet and repose, he accepted their invitation, 
 and as soon as he could settle his affairs at Scaleby, removed vnih. his 
 family to Newcastle.' ' Here,' continues the Manuscript, ' a new 
 scene of life opened before him. Hitherto he had lived in a country 
 retirement, both at Greystock and at Scaleby, where party prevailed 
 little. But here he was in the midst of a large town, divided by 
 various opinions, where his candour and moderation had an ample 
 field for exercise. In fact, I have heard it said that his meeting-house 
 was a kmd of centre of unity among them all. It was frequented 
 been turned to excellent account in refuting the so-called objections of scepticism and 
 rationalism to the repetition of the incidents and miracles and sayings of the Lord in the 
 Gospels. 
 
 ' Further on, and in his epitaph, we shall find allusions to the declined bishopric, as 
 having greatly added to the influence of Dr Gilpin, as the acceptance of one by Rey- 
 nolds neutralised even his worth, and stains his memory indelibly. 
 
XXXIV MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. 
 
 as much by Churchmen as Dissenters, and they all found here, what 
 was seldom found in the pulpits of those times, their common Chris- 
 tianity preached, unsulUed by the rehgious contests which everywhere 
 prevailed. His preaching was extremely pleasing and popular. His 
 subject-matter, liis language, his voice, his manner, were aU en- 
 gaging, and made such an impression on the people as was never 
 worn out, but \vith the lives of his contemporaries.' i 
 
 Gilpin arrived in Newcastle, as the successor of the admirable 
 Samuel Hammond, one of the ejected,2 and the sjiiritual father of 
 Oliver Heyw'ood, — about 1G68-69, that is, in the crisis uf the ' troubles' 
 to all who bore the ' mark ' of Nonconformity. High-Churchmen 
 were ' buQding-up,' as they deemed it, the Church, by persecuting 
 relentlessly those who dared not acquiesce in the ' Act of Uniformity ; ' 
 and accordingly 'Dissenters' had to preach fm-tively, even as 'of old,' — 
 and all was clamom- and confusion. One of themselves, who, if not of 
 kin, was, in vnt and wiseness, of kind, in more than name to Thomas 
 Fidler, — thus vividly describes the period during which the recluse of 
 Scaleby went to his new charge in Newcastle : ' I am ashamed,' says 
 Ignatius Fuller, 'that whilst the Jews' temple was building, there 
 was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house, — 
 now when we are raising an house to Him that dwells not in temples 
 made with hands, we should make so much use of iron and steel, 
 and should reckon guns and swords, flames and fagots amongst our 
 means of grace. I am sorry we should seem to have more of Nimrod 
 than Solomon in our building ; that we should partake of the curse 
 poured upon the workmen at Babel — 
 
 " Let's make the hrolher, 
 The sire and son, not understand each otUcr."'^ 
 
 Thus plunged into the midst of all manner of ' oppositions' and in- 
 tolerance, Richard Gilpin, for a goodly number of years — as William 
 Durant before him — confined his ' preaching' to his own private house 
 in Newcastle. Very sad is it to come on ' records' such as these from 
 the ' Depositions from the Castle of York, relating to offences committed 
 in the northern counties in the seventeenth century.''* They may be 
 well left to speak for themselves, without a word of comment : — 
 
 ' clxxvi. Richard Gilpin, Clerk, and others. For holding a Con- 
 venticle. 
 ' Aug. 4, 1669. — Before Ralph Jenison, Mayor of Newcastle, Cuth- 
 
 ' As before, pp. 9-11. 
 
 • For information on Hammond, consult Calamj', Palmer, Longstaffes' Barnes, as 
 before, and the different Newcastle ' Histories,' &c. 
 
 ^ ' Peace and Holiness ; in Three Sermons upon Several Occasions.' By Ignatius 
 Fuller, [of Sherrington, Bucks,] 1672, 12mo, pp. 3, 4, 6, 8. 
 
 * Surtees Society : edited by Eaine, 1861, pp. m-lli. 
 
MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. XXXV 
 
 bert Nicholson, cordyner, [= cordwainer,] saitli, that upon Sunday last, 
 about five or six of the clock in the morneng, he did see a great nom- 
 ber of people goe inn to the house of Mr Kichard Gilpyn, minister, in 
 the White Freers, and afterward, he went to parson Jo"- Shaw, and 
 acquainted him with the premisses. Whereupon the said Mr Shaw 
 togeither with the church-wardens, constables, and serjeants-at-mace, 
 by the comaund of Mr Maor, did repaii-e to the said Kichard Gilpin's 
 howse. And when they came there all the dores were shutt and made 
 fast. And after the dores were broken open, he did see these severall 
 persons come out, \iz., Kobert Johnson, merchant, Dr Timstall, Wm. 
 Cutter, James Hargraves, merchant, Wm. Hutchinson, George 
 Headlyn, fitter, Charles Newton, gent, Humphrey Gill, gent, Jno. 
 Bittleston, tanner, Matthew Soulsbey, roper, Michaell JobUng, pully- 
 maker, Robert Finley, chapman, and diverse other persons to the 
 nomber of fortie.' 
 
 ' The information of Cuthbert Nicholas, cordwainer, against the 
 persons hereinafter named, for being att meetings and con- 
 venticles :— Mr Richard Gilping, Mr William Deurant, Mr 
 John Pringle, Mr Henry Lever, preachers/ &c. &c. &c. &c. 
 So early as 1663— which would intimate that Gilpin had previ- 
 ously resided and 'preached' in Newcastle — Bishop Cosin wrote 
 to the Mayor of Newcastle, telling him to look sharply after ' the 
 caterpillars^ naming as the ringleaders, ' William Durant, Henry 
 Leaver, Ricliard Gilpin, and John Pringle.' i When we consider who 
 these men were— every one a ' pattern' of godliness and consuming 
 consecration to the Master, and more especially that one of them, 
 viz., Gilpin, had lately refused to elevate liim self to a level with Cosing 
 it is hard to repress indignation ; while the word of scorn, ' cater- 
 pillars,' reminds one of the Popish parallel of Pope Alexander, won- 
 dering how the Signory of Florence could so far have forgotten what 
 was due to him and to themselves as to aid and abet that ' contemptible 
 reptile,' [vermicciattolo] in offending the majesty of the Holy See- 
 the ' reptile' being Savonarola ; or the ' lieretici et hnperiti Iwmines' 
 of Salmeron, as applied to Augustine and Chrysostom, Jerome, et hoc 
 genus omne:^ Very different was the ' letter' of Cosin, Bishop of 
 Durham to the Mayor, from that of another ' in authority,' who had 
 also addressed to his Worship of Newcastle ' a letter,' wherein he had 
 counselled amity and forbearance ; so much so, that Mr Durant and 
 others of the preachers in Newcastle, returned him an answer of 
 thanks for his ' inculcated exhortations to love the whole flock of 
 
 ' Bourne's ' Newcastle,' s.n. 
 
 ^ Quoted by Villari, Vita di Savonarola, vol. ii., lib. iv. cap. C : cf. TroUopc's 
 Florence,' iv. 17S, 179. 
 
XXXVl MEMOIR OF RICHAKD GILPIN. 
 
 Christ, though not lualking in the same order of the gospel.' The 
 writer was Oliver Cromwell, i 
 
 Until the ' Indulgence' of 1672, Gilpin carried on his ' ministry' 
 in the half-public, half -hidden, manner which these deplorable acts 
 indicate. At one time he had to leave liis own house ; for in the 
 Barnes' ' Memoii-s,' we read, ' When the Five Mile Act came out, Dr 
 Gilpin lodged at Mr Barnes his house, for more security. When his 
 goods were destrained upon, Mr Barnes— to prevent their being 
 squandered away — replevyed them.' . . . . ' And wlien there was a 
 design to banish the Doctor from Newcastle, Mr Barnes, by persuading 
 the magistrates of his great usefulness in the town, by his skill in 
 physic, procured him quietness to the end of King Cliarles his reign.' ^ 
 Not however until 1G72 was there anything approaching ' religious 
 liberty' in England, and that only by connivance. Until that year, 
 practically, Nonconformity and Dissent from the Church of England 
 was politically treason, and ecclesiastically ' illegal.' 
 
 The Reader will have noticed that by Barnes and others, our Worthy 
 is designated ' Doctor,' and that this stood him in stead on one 
 occasion. But the title was not due technically until 1676. In that 
 year he proceeded to Leyden — like Sir Thomas Browne earlier— and 
 there 'took' the ' degree' of M.D. By the kindness of Professor J. 
 Van Hoeden of Leyden, I am enabled — for the first time — to give the 
 ' record' of it from the ' Inscriptions of the Students.' 3 It is as fol- 
 lows: — ' Richard Gilpin, [misspelled " Gulpin,"] Cumbridus,' obtained 
 his degrees July 6, 1676 — post dispidationem privatam de Hisioria 
 Hystericce Passionis medkina> doctor reminciatus est a cJarissimo 
 Kraame—KaA again, Richard Gilpin— Ifed. Candid., anno 50, apud 
 Prof. Sjnnoius, die xxix. Junii 16'76. This second inscription is only a 
 week before ' the promotion, die vi. Julii 1676.' Gilpin ' lodged' with 
 Professor Spinfeus during his brief visit. In the list at close of the 
 Memoir, along with his other Writings, is given the title-page of the 
 medical Dissertation or ' Disputation,' which he read on the occasion 
 and published. In passing, I may remark that the ' Disputation' is 
 entirely technical, so that there is nothing to interest an unscientific 
 reader. 4 
 
 ' Carlyle'a Cromwell, vol. iv. 151-153. 
 
 ' Barnes, as before, p. 142. Besides authorities already named, I am under obligation to 
 Dr Bruce (author of 'The lioman Wall') for Turner's 'Sketch' of his Church in Newcastle ; 
 also to Mr James Clephan, Newcastle, for his valuable Paper, ' Nonconformity in New- 
 castle Two Hundred Years Ago.' A new edition of the latter will doubtless correct 
 certain inadvertencies and misprints in an otherwise well-timed and vigorous tractate. 
 
 '■' I must cordially acknowledge my obligation to Sir James Y. Simpson, Bart., M.D., 
 for putting me in communication with the Leyden Professor. 
 
 * Copies of this ' Disputatio,' which Gilpin must have neglected to deposit in Leyden, 
 will be found in the Bodleian and in the British Museum ' Libraries, ' 
 
MEMOIK OF RICHARD GILPIN. XXXVU 
 
 Returned from Holland as Dr Richard Gilpin,— and by this time 
 married to his second wife, a daughter of a Cumberland squire, Brisco 
 or Briscoe of Crofton Hall, — he gave himself to his work with un- 
 flagging zeal, with ever-deepening power and influence, and with most 
 gratifying tokens that he was not labouring in vain, nor spending his 
 strength for nought. He was now in ' easy ' circumstances. ' The 
 purchase,' says Barnes, ' of the Lordship of Scaleby had put him into 
 debt, but he now cleared it off,' and Mr Barnes went with him to Sir 
 Richard Musgrave, and got the conveyances finished, and this because 
 ' by the encouragement his ministry met with from the liberality of 
 the people, and his emoluments by the practice of physic, he [had] 
 raised a considerable estate.' ^ He was vigilant as a ' watchman ' on 
 the walls of Zion ; and as he mellowed into a beautiful old age, sur- 
 rounded by a gifted and affectionate famUy, and having ' troops of 
 friends,' he came to be the representative man of Nonconformity, so 
 that the ' care ' of all their churches, in large measure, came upon 
 him. Very pleasant must have been those holiday ' escapes ' from 
 smoky Newcastle to the sylvan solitudes and brightness of Scaleby, 
 which he interposed between his toils. 
 
 His Congregation enormously increased — at a bound probably, for, 
 on the death of WilUam Durant in 1681, his ' flock' was received by 
 Gilpin. 2 Accordingly, in the course of years, he received several 
 ' helpers.' One was the excellent William Pell, M.A., who, ' ejected' 
 from Great Stainton in 1662, after being ' seven years minister of a 
 congregation at Boston,' removed to Newcastle, where, says Calamy, 
 ' he became assistant to Dr Gilpin, and died there, aged 63.' This 
 was in 1698. ^ Another was Timothy Manlove, M.D., who settled at 
 Pontefract in 1688, removed to Leeds in 1694, and became assistant 
 to Dr Gilpin in 1698. He died August 3, 1699, and Gilpin preached 
 two ' Sermons ' before his funeral, informed by a fine spirit. They 
 were published ; and the title-page will be found in our list of his 
 Writings at close. 
 
 As before with the 'Temple Rebuilt,' it was only by constraint 
 that Gilpin issued these Sermons — two in one. ' The following Dis- 
 course,' he says, ' was preached without the least thought of offering 
 it to public view ; and yet I was persuaded to yield to the publica- 
 tion of it to prevent the printing of more imperfect notes.' The 
 
 ' As before, p. 142. 
 
 ^ Raine's ' Depositions ' as before : foot-note by Mr LongstafFe, pp. 172,173. Theo- 
 logically, William Durant was unquestionably evaTigelically orthodox, and in no sense, 
 save that the Church-property is held by the Unitarians, can he be called the ' founder ' 
 of their Church in Newcastle. By the same plea Matthew Henry of Chester, and 
 scores of others, might be claimed as ' Founders ' of Unitarian congregations. I state 
 this simply as matter-of-fact, and not controversially. I may observe that Qilpin'a 
 'Letter' to Stratton (onwards) more probably indicates the commencement of the 
 Unitarian ' separation.' ' See Calamy, and authorities, as before. 
 
XXXVUl 1IE3I01U OF KICHAUD GILriX. 
 
 melancholy duty interrupted a series of Sermons on ' Striving to enter 
 in at the strait gate,' and from Galatians v. 16, 'This I say then, 
 Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fuliil the lust of the flesh ;' but, 
 he continues, ' having received an intimation that my dear brother 
 and fellow-labourer, now deceased, liad found such comfort in his 
 meditations of this scripture in his prospect of death, that he expressed 
 liis desires that his funeral sermon might be upon this text,' [Romans 
 viii. 35-39,] he had chosen it. I have space for only a very few sentences 
 from these ' Sermons' as follow : — " In all these things we are more than 
 conquerors.' It is a glorious victory to stand in an evil day when Satan 
 hath drawn up all his forces against us. It is a glorious victory not 
 only to escape without loss, but to gain by his opposition. Thus we 
 outshoot him in his own bow ; and all this, sine labore ef sudore, 
 easily through Divine assistance,' (page 17.) Again : " We are led by 
 the Spirit" vcr. 14. Whether we read the sense backward or forward 
 it holds ti-ue, " as many as are led by the Spirit are the sons of God," 
 and ' as many as are the sons of God have been and shall be led by 
 the Spirit," (page 30.) He pays affectionate tribute to his departed 
 ' assistants.' ' It hath pleased God Almighty and the all-wise Dis- 
 poser of all things to make another breach upon us. It is not long 
 since he took Mr Pell from us, and now he hath called home Mr 
 Manlove, both of them excellent men, worthy ministers of the Gospel, 
 singularly both of them fitted with abilities for their work. They 
 were successively my dear brethren and fellow-labourers in this part 
 of God's vineyard. It must be acknowledged that it is a stroke to be 
 lamented ; and if we look upon the present Pro\'idence we may have 
 some cause to fear that when God is chscharging His servants from 
 His work, and paying them their wages, that He may shortly break 
 up His house with us,' (page 21.) 
 
 From what must have been a large correspondence, only two letters 
 of Dr Gilpin have come down to us, in so far as known. The one is 
 an unimjiortant ' note ' given in Horsley's ' Life of Dr Harle,' (8vo, 
 1730,) — not worth reprinting; the other hitherto impublished, and of 
 much interest and value, as shewing how staunch and true he was to 
 the last in his Nonconformity, and how liis one fear in his ' old age ' 
 was lest the Church of England should absorb his large congregation 
 on his death. 
 
 This Letter is among the Ayscough MSS. 4275 in the British 
 Museum (Birchiana.) We have transcribed it verbatim. 
 
 ' Newcastle, Decemh. 13 '98. 
 ' Deare Sr, — Since I writ last to you concerning ye proposed corre- 
 spondence, I received a Ir from you, wherein you give answer to yr two 
 obiections wch I had mentioned to von. Your Ir I communicated to 
 
MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIX. XXXIX 
 
 ye brethren ; but then there arose new mutterings about ye designe of 
 yr late reflections on the circular Ire, [and they] have taken hold of ye 
 same advantages against it : so yt at present little is to be expected of 
 any procedure in yt matter till men see what will become of ye publick 
 outcry against it. 
 
 ' It hath pleased God to take from me my deare assistant, Mr Pell , 
 by a feaver ; we buryed him last weeke. It is a sad stroke upon us 
 all, but it falls at present most heavy upon me. Ever since his sick- 
 ness, it became necessary for me (such are our circumstances) to 
 preach twice every Lord's day, and I must continue to do so at least 
 every other Lord's day for some time, because there are a small party 
 (and but a very small one) M-ho have formed a designe, and are now 
 encouraged upon this sad occasion to open it. This pai-ty were ye 
 few remainders of Mr Durant's congregation, who have kept com- 
 munion wth ours in all ordinances, wthout making any exceptions, 
 about 15 years; but when old Mr Barnes (their politick engineer) 
 brought home his young son Thomas, fi'om London, they presently 
 shewed their intentions to choose him for their pastor ; but as intro- 
 ductory to that they (in my absence) thrust him into ye pulpit, 
 without so much as asking leave. I was silent, and suffered him to 
 preach in ye evenings; but they being weary of that — few people stay- 
 ing to heare him — they thought it more conduceable to theii- designe 
 to separate from us, and set up at ye Anabaptists' meeting-house ; but 
 no great party would foUow them, and now they have chosen him to 
 be their pastor, though before this he had in our pulpit vented some 
 unsound Crispian notions, and at last had ye confidence to contradict 
 what I had preached about preparation to conversion. For this, I 
 thought it necessary to give him a publick rebuke, and to answer his 
 exceptions. That theii-e designe is to worme us out of or meeting- 
 house, and to breake or congregation, is visible to all : they now 
 openly claime ye meeting-house for their pastor's use, (when he 
 pleaseth,) and pretend old Mr Hutchinson (upon whose ground ye 
 house is built) promised them so much when they contributed towards 
 ye charge of building ; but Mr Jonathan Hutchinson, his son, denyes 
 any such promise, and stands firmly to us, though Mr Barnes (his 
 father-in-law) surprised him wth solicitations ; but we offer to repay 
 them all ye money they contributed towards ye building. 
 
 ' You see, Sr, how much I need your prayers, and (if it could be) 
 ye nomination of a man of parts, prudence, piety, and authority to 
 assist me at present, and to succeed me when I am gone. Much of 
 ye dissenters' interest in ye North depends upon ye tvel/are of or con- 
 gregation. Tlie Episcopall p)arty have long since made their prognostic, 
 yt ivhen I die, ye congregatimi will he hroken, and then there luill he 
 an end of ye dissenters' interest in Newcastle. I pray give my deare 
 
xl MEMOIR OF RICHARD rilLriN. 
 
 love and respects to all ye brethren wth you, and pardon the trouble 
 given by, Kevd. sr, your afifectionate brother and servant, 
 
 EicH. Gilpin.' 
 
 On the 4th page, folio — For the Reverend Mr Richard Stratton, minister of ye gospel, 
 at the house, Hatton Garden, in Loudon. 
 
 We have little more to tell of the author of Vcemonologia Sacra. 
 He survived his estimable ' assistant' Manic ve but a short time. But 
 to the last he was ' in harness.' Looking over old Papers he came 
 upon a Sermon wliich he had preached so far back as ' 1660,' at the 
 ' Assize' in Carlisle, revised and published it; and it bears the same 
 date of ' 1700' as his own death: so that, like Sibbes, he must have 
 had proof-sheets passing through his hands very near ' the end.' The 
 ' Epistle' or ' Preface' prefixed is as terse and effective as ever; and 
 the ' Sermon' itself manly, outspoken, faithful, and truly characteristic 
 of the man. The title-page will be found in our list.i This ' Sermon' 
 having been preached before Judge Twisselton and Serjeant Bernard 
 and the ' gentry' present at the Assize, is specially searching on ' sins' 
 in ' high places,' for Gilpin acted on the sentiment of Edward Boteler, 
 who, in his own quaint way, says of Earl Mulgrave, ' He knew what 
 great evils evil great ones are ; that they have many followers, go they 
 whither they will, and seldom go to hell alone.' [As after, p. 48.] 
 I detach a single ' particular' from this weighty Sermon : — ' If magis- 
 trates advance not the throne of Christ, they commonly prove fmious 
 against it, and plagues of God's people. If this proceed from a care- 
 less blockish temper, then judgment of itself will degenerate into gall, 
 and the " fruit of righteousness into hemlock." Justice, like water, 
 l)urifies itself by motion, when it " runs down like a stream : " if it be 
 a standing water, it corrupts, and corruptio optimorum pessima. If 
 this neglect proceed from enmity to Christ, then, seeing they have the 
 greatest advantages in their hands to do evil, they may " establish 
 wickedness by a law : " they can " push with the horn, and tread down 
 the jiasture with their feet." [Ezek. xxxiv. 18.] " When the wicked 
 beareth rule, the people mourn." [Prov. xxix. 2.] Or if it proceed 
 from apostasy, then " the revolters are profound to make slaughter." 
 [Hosea v. 27.] And this happens not so much from the churlish and 
 cruel dis[)ositions of men, as from God's giving them up judicially to 
 rage against His ways, either as a scourge to liis people, or in order to 
 their own ruin. Hence it is noted that the cniellest persecutions were 
 set on foot by emperors, sometimes of the best parts, and most 
 civil dispositions, as Antoninus Philosophus, Trajan, Severus, 
 Decius, &c. Magistrates are for the most j^art like the prophet's figs, 
 either very good or very bad : they are the heads of the people, and all 
 
 ^ This Sermon, from some unexplained cause, is extremely rare and high-priced. I 
 was indebted to Mr Wilson, Tunbridge Wells, for a copy. 
 
MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. xH 
 
 diseases in the head are dangerous ; so when the leprosy appeared in the 
 head deeper than the skin, the party was pronounced utterly unclean,' 
 (pp. 13, 14.) 
 
 Calamy and Mr Thompson of Stockton thus record the ' good man's 
 end : ' — ' He went,' says the former, ' into the pulpit the last time he was 
 in it under a feverish indisposition, and preached from 2 Cor. v. 2, 
 " For ia this we groan, earnestly," &c. ; and to the surprise of all, he 
 rather ' groaned' than spake this sermon. The lungs being at that 
 time too tender for work, his disease seized that part, and he was 
 brought home in a peripneumonia, which in ten days put a period to 
 his life.'^ Mr Thompson, in his ' Diary,' 2 thus writes : — ' Dr Gilpin, 
 y' eminent servant of God, died much lamented by all, on (Tuesday) 
 
 Feb. 13, -|-,QQ about eight o'clock in ye morning. '3 He was interred 
 
 in the churchyard of All Saints, Newcastle. And the following is 
 the 'entry' in its Register of Burials:— '1699 [=1699-1700] 'Peh. 16. 
 Rich. Gilpin, doctor of physick.' ^ The 'scutcheon of the ' Kentmere' 
 Gilpins was placed on his coffin. He left a widow, who retired, as 
 her husband had asked, with her family, to Scaleby Castle. 
 
 From point to point of our Memoir, it has been our endeavour to 
 bring out the character of Dr Gilpin under his varying circumstances ; 
 so that, unless I have failed more than I can suppose, my Readers must 
 by this time — even out of the scanty material which has been left to us 
 — have formed an idea of him, such as will bear me out, I anticipate, in 
 characterising him summarily as a man of no ordinary type, large of 
 soul, — with the spaciousness of genius that has been hallowed, — strong 
 and inevitable in his convictions, quick and sensitive in conscience, 
 intense and full of momentum in whatever he undertook ; and, as his 
 ' Dcemonologia Sacra' proves, profound, sagacious, keen in his scrutiny 
 of human and celestial-demoniac problems, and one who must have 
 carried sunshine with him wherever he went. His portrait — pre- 
 served in Nova Scotia by a descendant, Dr Gilpin of Halifax — as en- 
 graved in the earlier edition of Pahner, shews the liquid eye of genius, 
 the mobile lip, the brow compact and packed of brain, a nose some- 
 what audacious, and a touch of sauciness in the chin, while the long 
 cavalier-like cm-led ' locks' of liis wig seem to proclaim the lord of the 
 manor of Scaleby as much as the Preacher; for as Edward Boteler puts 
 
 ' Account, p. 57. 
 
 2 Given in ' A Brief History of Protestant Nonconfoi-mists, and of the Society assem- 
 bling in the Old Meeting-house, High Street, Stockton, 1856,' [by Hev. J. Richmond,] 
 p. 16. Mr Clephan of Stockton was good enough to send me this careful little volume. 
 
 ^ Turner, in giving the above extract, misled by 1699, imagines it must refer to some 
 other Dr Gilpin. He forgot that the year did not begin then until March 25 ; so that, 
 while under our reckoning it was 1700, under the old it was 1699 ; and hence the mark- 
 ing until the change of the going and coming year, e.ff., 1699-1700. 
 
 ■* I have to thank Mr Clephan, as before, for getting me this. 
 
xlii MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. 
 
 it of another, with Fullerian alliteration, ' Though he was very humble, 
 yet he knew how to be a man and no worm, as well as when to be " a 
 worm and no man." He knew when to lay his honour in the dust, 
 and when to let no dust be upon his honour.' i 
 
 I would now bring together several ' estimates ' of our Worthy by 
 those who knew him well, and thus could form an accurate judgment 
 concerning him. First of all, I am fortunate enough to be able to 
 give, from an old, worn, and weather-stained hologi-aph preserved by 
 Prebendary Gilpin, a quaint 'Poem,' which probably represents in 
 portions of it the inscription placed on his ' monument'— long since 
 mouldered away. Here it is, rude and halting in rhyme and rhythm, 
 but biographicaUy interesting : — 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF YE EXCELLENT DR GILrlN. 
 
 * In moiirnfiill numbers I did weep of late, 
 
 Criton the wise,' and sweet Philander's fate,' 
 And Calvus,'' to yc learned world well known. 
 OpprcBs'd and wth repeated grief borne down, 
 Palajmon's' death succeeding struck me dumb. 
 My tears were all I offer'd at his tomb. 
 
 Thus th' Eastern sage" wth wondrous patience bore 
 Thrice dismal news, but he could bear no more, 
 Did weep, fall down, and silently adore. 
 My trouble now swells o'er, and artless .strays, 
 Where nature yields, and passion leads ye ways. 
 
 Thou man of peace ! born in our publick rage, 
 Designed to correct ye giddy age : 
 Thy solid judgment did resist yc flame, 
 In midst of civil fury still ye same. 
 When the grave world run madly uniform, 
 Serene within thou weather'd out ye storm. 
 The miter thou refused with a brow 
 Wch calmness shew'd, and resolution too. 
 Esteemed by ye good, by ill men fear'd. 
 By ye wise admired, and followed by yc herd. 
 Ev'n Satan did trembling on thy lectures wait, 
 When thou display'd his mysteries of state. 
 Uegg'd leave to plague thee, but he begg'd in vain, 
 Vowing revenge upon ye list'ning train. 
 
 Great prophet ! who could'st prudently dispense, 
 With a becoming warmth, substantial sense ; 
 In such a manner thou thy God addrest 
 ^Vs both thy rev'rence and thy wants cxprest. 
 Thy zeal was not confined to th' sacred chair. 
 But bright through all thy actions did appear. 
 Thy spotless life tliy doctrine best apply'd. 
 Truth recommending wch thou first had try'd. 
 
 The Worthy of Ephratah,' 1659, 12mo, pp. 46, 47. 
 Mr Pell, [as before.] ' Mr Manlove, [as before.] 
 
 Dr Gilpin. ' Job. 
 
MEMOin OF RICHARD GILRIK. xlui 
 
 Our honour and defence ' with thee depart. 
 The gift of preaching and ye healing art. 
 
 J. H. 
 Artes infemas Divin.l Gilpinus arte 
 Detexit, vicit, jam requiescit ovans. 
 
 Id. 
 Presbyterflm prjcses, proeco optimus, et medicinse 
 Doctor Gilpinus, conditur hoc tumulo. 
 
 T. P. 
 
 Fitly accompanying this ' elegy ' and — as verse little superior but — 
 similarly valuable as a 'testimony,' come the lines of Dr Harle, which 
 Horsley thus prefaces : — ' I have oft heard him mention the severe 
 shock the death of Dr Gilpin gave him.' His tribute to Gilpin occurs 
 in a ' copy of verses upon the death of the Eev. John TuriibuU of 
 North Shields.' It is as follows : — 
 
 ' How oft have we with admiration hung 
 On the angelic Gilpin's pow'rful tongue, 
 Who in perfection had the mighty art. 
 To form the soul and captivate the heart ; 
 Pour Gospel balm into the wounded soul, 
 And vengeance on the harden'd conscience rowl. 
 When he hell's gloomy stratagems did clear ^ 
 Man ceased, and Satan then began to fear 
 His empire's utter ruin drawing near. 
 Great man ! whom goodness did to greatness raise, 
 Nor forced applause, nor warmly courted praise. 
 The tempting dignity he did despise 
 Made him more glorious still in good men's eyes.'' 
 
 (As before, pp. 20, 21.) 
 
 I have next to set forth the famous ' story' of Thomas Story the 
 Quaker missionary - preacher — of his interviews with Dr Gilpin ; 
 wherein it will be seen he shews the deepest respect for him, albeit in 
 his self-opinionativeness unconvinced of the erroneous tendency of his 
 ' views ' and practice. These ' notes ' are found in a folio that has 
 now gone out of sight, and become among the rarest of rare Quaker 
 books.* The narrative is too tedious for reproduction in full ; but a 
 specimen will interest. Having told of his conversion to the prin- 
 
 ' Pruesidium et decus meum. 
 
 - ' Satan's Temptations.' ^ The Bishoprick of C le. 
 
 •' A Journal of the Life of Thomas Story : containing an Account of his remarkable 
 Convincement of and Embracing of the Principles of Truth as held by the people called 
 Quakers : and also of his Travels and Labours in the Service of the Gospel : with many 
 other Occurrences and Observations. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, printed by Isaac Thompson 
 and Company, at the New Printing OfKce on the Side, mdccxlvii. Apart from the 
 light under which everything is seen, this book is a perfect repertory of facts on the 
 moral and religious condition of our country at the period. There are innumerable 
 sketches of persons and places of mark all over North and South, given with a trans- 
 parent naivete and occasional raciness of wording that is very taking. Story continued 
 to be received on the most friendly terms by the Gilpins, and by sons and daughters 
 after Dr Gilpin himself was dead. Of, pp. 470-473. 
 
Xliv MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. 
 
 ciples of Quakerism, and more especially of tlie result of the' reading 
 of ' three small books,' he goes on : ' Some time after this, [1G91,] Dr 
 Gilpin, before mentioned, sent his son, a counsellor- [at-law], under 
 whom I had been initiated into the study of the law, and who was 
 one of those at the tavern aforesaid, and still retained a great affection 
 for me— to invite me to his house at Scaleby Castle, and desired to 
 see some of the Quakers' books, supposing I had been imposed upon 
 by reading them; and I sent him, as I remember, all that I had. 
 8oon after I had parted with these books, I observed a cloud come 
 over my miad and an unusual concern ; and therein the two sacra- 
 ments—commonly so termed— came afresh into my remembrance, 
 and divers scriptures and arguments pro and cm: and then I was 
 apprehensive the Doctor was preparing something of that sort to 
 discourse me upon; and I began to search out some scriptures in 
 defence of my own sentiments on those subjects: but as 1 proceeded 
 a little in that work I became more uneasy and clouded : upon which 
 I laid aside the Scripture and sat still, looking towards the Lord for 
 counsel. For I considered the Doctor as a man of great learning, 
 religious in his way, an ancient preacher and writer too, famous in 
 Oliver's time, and a " throne" among his brethren: and that he might 
 advance such subtilties as I could not readily confute nor would con- 
 cede to, as knowing them eiToneous, though I might not be suddenly 
 furnished with arguments to demonstrate their fallacy ; and so might 
 receive hurt. And then it was clear in my understanding that 
 as he was in his own will and strengtii, though with a good intent, in 
 his own sense, searching the letter [of the Scripture,] and depending 
 upon that and his own wisdom, acquirements, and subtilty, leaning to 
 his own spirit and understanding, I must decline that way and trust 
 in the Spirit of Christ, the divme Author of the Holy Scriptures. And 
 as this caution was presented in the life and virtue of truth, I rested 
 satisfied therein, and searched no further on that occasion. When I 
 went to liis house, he entered into a discourse on those subjects ; and 
 had such passages of Scripture folded down as he purposed to use. 
 And when I observed it, I was confirmed that my sight of him in my 
 own chamber at Carlisle, and of his work some days before, was right, 
 [as if, to intercalate a remark, it needed prescience to foretell that the 
 Doctor's appeal would be 'to the Law and to the Testimony'! !] and 
 ray mind was strengthened thereby. But before he began to move 
 upon the subject, he dismissed every other i)erson out of the room, so 
 that himself and I remained alone. The first thing he said was, in a 
 calm manner, to admonish me to be very dautious how I espoused the 
 errors of the Quakers ; for he had heard of late and with concern that 
 I had been among them, or seemed to incline that way. I answered 
 that I had not been much among them, nor seen any of their books 
 
MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. xlv 
 
 but those I had sent him, and knew not of any errors they held. 
 Yes, said he, they deny the ordinances of Christ, the two sacraments 
 — Baptism and the Lord's Supper ; and then opened his book [his !J 
 at one of his down-fokled leaves, where he read thus, 1 Cor. i. 2, 
 
 xi. 23, 26 ' Now follows the usual delusive appeals beyond 
 
 the ' letter,' as ' carnal,' and all the unconsciously-blaspheming, ' set- 
 ting-aside,' of plain words that reveal ' the mind of the Spii-it,' com- 
 mingled with a simple-minded self-superiority which need not be 
 illustrated. Very patient and wonderingly-silent must have been the 
 Doctor with his undoubtedly pious and acute, but most perverse, 
 visitor. He thus closes, ' The Doctor did not oppose this, [about 
 prayer,] but only said I had given him better satisfaction on that 
 point than he had found in the book ; and afterwards he was much 
 more free and familiar with me than before, or than I expected : and 
 so we parted in friendship, and I returned in peace and gladness,' l 
 (pp. 41-45.) 
 
 But by far the most important, as it is the most elaborate, ' esti- 
 mate' of our Worthy, is that of Calamy, who, usually marked by 
 judicial calm, and chary of praise, glows and burns in the fulness of 
 his admiration. The fervour of his eulogy of Gilpin contrasts with 
 his usual matter-of-fact statements, and surprises by its suddenness 
 and passion. With this I shall close those personal tributes by con- 
 temporaries. Thus the ' Account ' under ' Grastoke ' runs : — ■ 
 
 ' Kichard Gilpin, M.D. He was designed by God for great work 
 in his chm'ch, and was singularly qualified for it. He had a large 
 share of natural abilities, which he had wonderfully improved by an 
 unwearied industry and long and hard study, so that there was scarce 
 anything that accomplished a man, a scholar, a physician, or divine, 
 but he possessed it in great perfection. 
 
 ' His stature was of the middle sort, rather inclining to the lesser 
 size ; but his presence was far from being mean. There was a 
 pleasing mixture of majesty and sweetness, affableness and gravity in 
 his aspect. He could readily set his countenance to a severity or 
 
 1 It may be well to give in a foot-note Story's account of another and later visit to 
 Dr Gilpin :— ' The same evening I visited Dr Richard Gilpin, formerly mentioned, 
 having stiU a great respect for him and all his family. He was an eminent physician 
 and preacher among the Presbyterians at Newcastle ; to which place he had removed 
 from Cumberland after the Revolution. And with him also I had some discourse about 
 matters of religion ; in which he discovered more passion and prejudice than became 
 his high profession or years, and could not bear any contradiction. But I advised him 
 to beware of that spirit, for it wanted mortification : and this I did in a calm and 
 respectful mind, which reached the better part in him, and brought it over the evil ; 
 and then I left him in a loving temper. For though he was naturally high, and the 
 most eminent and celebrated preacher of that profession in the North, and from his 
 very early days deeply prejudiced, and almost envious, against Friends, yet he heard me 
 with more patience— though that was little— than he ever did any other.'— P. 100. 
 
Xlvi MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILPIN. 
 
 mildness as the business or persons he had to do with required ; and 
 he did it not by any artificial affectation, but naturally and with ease, 
 in such a way as kept up the dignity of his ijrofession, and to such an 
 end as made religion both more awful and more alluring. 
 
 ' He had a delicate, fine, and pohte fancy, expressing itself in a 
 plenty of words, which gave clear and lively images of things, and 
 kept up the life, strength, and elegancy of the English tongue. 
 
 ' His memory was strong and faitliful, and gave back with great 
 exactness what he committed to it, though it was a treasuiy of 
 very great residing, and filled with variety of matter in several 
 sciences. 
 
 ' To these was added a most penetrating, discerning judgment. 
 This enabled him in reading to choose well, and to form a just 
 opinion of the sentiments of others, wliich was always with that can- 
 dour as made another considerable addition to his many excellences. 
 
 ' He had so well digested all necessary parts of learning that he had 
 them in readiness when he needed them. He used such things in 
 their proper place, and adorned his discourses with them as there was 
 occasion ; and was able to make that which was little else but 
 pageantry appear with a due gracefulness and beautiful in its season. 
 
 ' As he had a rich fund of sense, learning, experience, and reading 
 to fit him for a divine, so he liad all the qualifications necessary for a 
 preacher in the highest degree tliat can well be thought attaind.ble. 
 The several endowments that make a man a true, divine, orator did 
 jointly meet in him. 
 
 ' He had a voice strong enough to command the most usual public 
 {)laces of di\ane worship. It was piercing and sweet, and naturally 
 well modelled. He had the true sldll of fixing an accent upon parti- 
 cular words where the matter needed it. There was a force attended 
 his way of speaking without an undue transport. He was vigorous 
 and vehement, but under great conduct. His expressions were con- 
 ceived and his sermons delivered without the use of notes : and he 
 was qualified for that way of preaching. His pregnant memory, his 
 ready invention, his great presence of mind, his natural fluency, that 
 made him able to speak well and gracefully, with ease and assurance, 
 entitled him to it. He could clothe any matter in apt words, wth all the 
 ornaments of a regular elocution. He fell neither into too swift an 
 utterance, nor was forced upon any imbecoming, imguarded expres- 
 sions. There was no restraint upon his delivery by being thus 
 managed. It made him only capable of sjieaking what he did \vith 
 much greater warmth and life and decency of gestiu-e. It liad all the 
 smoothness of style and i:)ropriety of words to make it acceptable. It 
 had all the graces of natural oratory, all the decencies of behaviour to 
 recommend it. And that which completed all, it came from a serious 
 
MEMOIR OF RICHARD CxILPIX. xlvil 
 
 mind, the concera of which was visibly to be read botb in his coun- 
 tenance and expressions. He spoke from his very heart, as appeared 
 sometimes in the force of his words, sometimes in his tears, and 
 usually in both. He spake with solemnity and seriousness, with 
 gravity and majesty, and yet with so much meekness mixed with all, as 
 declared him to be a man of God and ambassador of Christ. There 
 was a lively air of delivery, a sacred vehemence of affection in what 
 he spake, that were very much his peculiar talent. He knew how to 
 temper his discourses with due motion. His gestures were admirably 
 taking and graceful, and further expressive of what he was deUvering. 
 In prayer he was hkewise most solemn and fervent, and usually 
 expressed himself much in Scripture language, and with a flood of 
 affection. The very fountains of it seemed in the performance of that 
 duty to be broken up and the great deep of it opened. It often forced 
 him to silence for a little till it had flowed out at his eyes. In his 
 pulpit discourses he was a very great example, both as to the design 
 and method of them. His design was vast and noble in the ordinary 
 course of his preachings. He usually i^roposed some subject, and 
 pursued it on various texts. Every head with its enlargements was 
 closely studied, and his particulars under each general were admirably 
 chosen. If he had ever so many, none could be wanting ; if never 
 so few, there seemed to need no more. In the handling of any sub- 
 ject, after he had explained and proved what he had undertaken, with 
 a great deal of clearness and affection, he was most plain, familiar, and 
 moving in his applications. His way in these was another particular 
 talent that he had. In all his uses he was excellent, but mostly so 
 in his exhortations. He made them as so many set discourses of per- 
 suasion. They were delivered with most address and greatest warmth 
 and vigour. He entered upon them usually with some rousing, Kvely 
 preface to gain attention, and then offered his motives, which were 
 prosecuted with the most pungent expressions. Here his earnestness 
 increased, together with his voice, and the vehemeucy of it. He had 
 a feeling apprehension of the importance of what he was then urging 
 upon his hearers, and every word was big with concern of mind. 
 He affected an elaborate eloquence at no time, but least of aU 
 then. In easy but moving expressions, and with a distinguisliing 
 ■7rddo<;, he woidd plead with sinners sometimes for a whole sermon 
 together, without flagging in his affections or suffering his attentive 
 hearers to do it in theirs. He was a man of a distinguishing know- 
 ledge and experience in the mysteries of Christianity ; and of a dis- 
 cerning spirit in understanding a work of grace upon the hearts of 
 others. With a clear head and searching skill in divine things, he 
 had a sincere and warm heart. The fire of zeal and the light of 
 knowledge accompanied one another. He kept up a serious temper 
 
Xlviii MEMUIR OF RICHARD GIU'IN. 
 
 at all times and in all places and company, without much discernible 
 alteration or abatement ; but this did not in the least sour his dis- 
 position, which was cheerful, though thinking and solid. His skill in 
 government appeared in the managing a numerous congregation of 
 very different opinions and tempers. His integrity, modesty, and 
 contempt of the world, in refusing the bishopric of Carlisle, as another 
 of the family (Mr Bernard Gilpin) had done before him, consonant to 
 their motto, dictis factisque simplex. The care of the churches lay 
 upon him. His unblamable character had obtained amongst all hut 
 those whose ill-nature would suffer them to sjjcak well of none who 
 dijBfered from them. He was much respected by many for tlie good 
 he had done them as a physician. Among persons of rank and 
 quality in the parts where he lived, all necessary means were scarce 
 thought to have been used if he had not been consulted. He went 
 about doing good to the souls and bodies of men. Tiiis world was 
 not in his eye, none could charge him with anything like covetous- 
 ness.' 
 
 Be it remembered that these are the ' words ' in every case, of men 
 who knew not to flatter, and spake out of ' perfect knowledge.' 
 Above all, be it specially remembered that I have been quoting from 
 no ' Funeral Sermon,' with its almo.st inevitable exaggerations. 
 
 It only remains that I give a complete annotated list of tlie extant 
 writings of Dr Gilpin, arranged chronologically as published, also an 
 account of the manuscript of Dcvmonoloyia Sacra, and the destruction 
 of other MSS. 
 
 I. The Agreement of the Associated Ministers and Churches of the 
 
 Counties of Cumberland and Westmcrland \sic.\ With some- 
 thing for Explication and Exhortation annexed. London : 
 Printed by T. L., lor Simon Watcrson, and are sold at the sign 
 of the Globe, in Paul's Churchyard, and by Richard Scot, Book- 
 seller in Carlisle. 1656. Pp. 59. 4to. 
 
 %* In the copy of above in St Patrick's (Cathedral) Library, 
 (Marsh's,) at p. 52, there is a careful correction in Gilpin's 
 autograph of Carolostadius for Oecolompadius, which itself 
 confirms the authorship. There is no name on title- 
 page or elsewhere ; but Calamy gives it in his enumera- 
 tion. Account, vol. ii. p. 157. 
 
 II. The Temple Eebuilt : a Discourse on Zachery vi. 13. Preached 
 
 at a Generall Meeting of the Associated Ministers of the County 
 of Cumberland, at Keswick, May 19. By Richard Gilpin, Pastor 
 of the Church at Graistock, in Cumberland. London : Printed 
 by E. T., for Luke Fawne, at the Parrot, in Paul's Churchyard, 
 
MEMOIR OF KICHARD GILPIN. xlix 
 
 and are to be sold by Richard Scott, Bookseller in Carlisle. 1658. 
 4to. Ep. Dedy., pp. 6, and 40. On reverse of title-page is this 
 note : ' We, the Associate Ministers of the County of Cumber- 
 land, do earnestly desire our reverend brother, Mr Eichard Gil- 
 pin, to print his acceptable Sermon preached this day at om- 
 Generall Meeting. Tijiothy Tullie, 3Iodr. pro Temp. 
 
 John Jackson, Scribe.' 
 *^* My own copy has inscribed in Gilpin's autograph, 'Ex 
 dono AutJioris,' and again misprints are carefully corrected. 
 III. Disputatio Medica Inauguralis de Hysterica Passione, quam 
 PrfBside Deo Opt. Max. ex autoritate magnifici D. Eectoris D. 
 Johannis Coccii, in Inclyta Lugd. Batav. Academia Eloquentite 
 et Historiarum Professoris celeberrimi nee non amplissimi Senatus 
 Academici, Consensu et Almfe Facultatis Medicfe Decreto, Pro 
 Gradu Doctoratus, Summisque in Medicina Honoribus ac Privi- 
 legiis legitime obtinendis, Eruditorum examini subjicit Eichardus 
 Gilpin, Anglus Cumbriens. Die 6 Julii, loco horLsque solitis, 
 ante merid. Lugduni Batavorum, Apud Viduam et Haeredes 
 Johannis ElsevLrii Academife Typograph. 1676. 4to. Pp. 8. 
 \* The following is the dedication to his (second) father-in- 
 law : ' Celeberrimo et virtute maxime conspicuo viro 
 Gulielmo Brisco de Crofton, in Comitatu Cumbrife 
 Ai-migero, Socero suo venerando. Hanc Disputationem 
 Inauguralem observantije signum offert et inscribit Eich- 
 ardus Gilpin.' 
 lY. Dcemonologia Sacra. 1677. 4to. See our reprint, pp. 2,7, 126, 
 312, for general and special title-pages. 
 
 *^* In our ' Prefatory Note,' I have characterised this the 
 most important of Gilpin's works, and add here a 
 little from the Barnes' ' Memoh-s,' (as before,) and from 
 one well capable of pronouncing an opinion. 1. Barnes : 
 ' What had greatly raised Dr Gilpin's fame was his treatise 
 of " Satan's Temptations,' which, in imitation of a book of 
 King James I., he entitled " Dsemonologia Sacra," the 
 largest and completest of any extant upon that subject. 
 Being out of print, both it and an account of its author, 
 and others of his wi'itings, may be given the world when 
 his posterity think it convenient," (pp. 145, 146.) 2. John 
 Eyland, M.A. : ' If ever there was a man that was clearly 
 acquainted with the cabinet-councils of hell, this author is 
 the man,' [in his ' Cotton Mather.'] 
 V. The Comforts of Divine Love : Preached upon the Occasion of the 
 much Lamented Death of the Eeverend Mr Timothy Manlove. 
 
 d 
 
1 MEMOIK OF RICHARD GILPIK. 
 
 With his Character, done by another Hand. London. 1700. 
 ■ 12mo. Epistle, pp. 2. Character, pp. 4. Sermons, pp. 46. 
 *^* The Williams' copy is marked contemporaneously ' 16th 
 January 1699.' Prefixed is a portrait of Dr Manlove — 
 for, like Gilpin and Pringle, he too was an M.D.— by 
 Vander Gucht. 
 VI. An Assize Sermon, Preached before Judge Twisselton and Serg. 
 Bernard at Carlisle, September the 10th, Anno 1660. And Now 
 Pubhsh'd and Kecommended to the Magistrates of the Nation, 
 as a Means, by God's Blessing, to quicken them to a serious Pur- 
 suit of the Honourable and truly Eeligious Design, for the Re- 
 formation of Manners, which is now on foot, and Countenanced 
 by the Nobility, Bishops, and Judges, in the late Account of the 
 Societies for tlie Reformation of Manners, and applauded by the 
 Serious and Eeligious Men of all Persuasions. By R. Gilpin, 
 now Minister of the Go.spel in Newcastle-upon-TjTie. London : 
 Printed for Tho. Parkhurst, at tlie Bible and Three Crowns, near 
 Mercers Chappie ; and Sarah Burton, Bookseller at Newcastle. 
 1700. 4to. 
 
 I have now to notice the Manuscripts of Gilpin. By the courtesy 
 of the Rev. Bernard Gilpin, Bengeo, Hertford, I have had confided to 
 me the original holograph of ' Dcemonoloyia Sacra,' and in our re- 
 print I have found it clearing up occasional misprints and mis-point- 
 ings. The MS. is not complete ; the collation is as follows : General 
 title and three special titles, pp. 3. To the Reader, pp. 6, signed 
 ' Rich. Gilpin.' Treatise on to Part IL, page 255, (in our edition,) 
 ending in line 21st from top, ' disqui[eting].' The penmanship is 
 clear and legible, with few erasures, and having a margin on either 
 side. On the top of the page whereon Part I. begins, there is 
 the date, ' Newcastle, July 9, 1671.'^ Further : Calamy, in his ' Ac- 
 count,' thus mentions a manuscript treatise of which he had heard : 
 ' Among other things he hath left behind him in manuscript, a valu- 
 able Treatise concerning Tlie Pleasantness of the Ways of Religion ; 
 and in whatsoever hands it lies, it is pity but it should see the light,' 
 (vol. ii. p. 157.) It is to be lamented that this appeal was not re- 
 sponded to, as Prebendary Gilpin records sorrowfully its loss as fol- 
 lows : ' Among his other papers was found a treatise of considerable 
 length, prepared, as it seemed, for the press, " On the Pleasures of 
 Religion." This MS., and several other MSS. of Dr Gilpm's, consist- 
 ing chiefly of heads and divisions of sermons, from which he used com- 
 monly to preach, fell into the hands of the author of this memoir ; and 
 
 • By the favour of Mr Nichol I have had one hundred large-paper copies of this 
 edition of ' Dsemonologia Sacra ' thrown off— quarto : and prefixed is the portrait of 
 Gilpin, and a facsimile of a portion of this manuscript. 
 
JIEMOIK OF niCHARD GILPIX. li 
 
 being deposited in a box with other papers, and placed in the corner 
 of a closet, were attacked by what is commonly called dry damp, and 
 were almost entirely spoiled. If anjiihing had been interposed between 
 the bottom of the box and the floor so as to have suffered the air to 
 circulate, the mischief had been prevented ;' and what levity in the 
 custodier of so precious a legacy that tliis little care was neglected. 
 Mr Gilpin of Juniper Green writes me concerning these spoiled MSS. : 
 ' Nevertheless [i.e., notwithstanding their utter destruction by the 
 dry-rot] my mother kept the fragments all the days of her Ufe with 
 great veneration. But now these relics— they were little better than 
 ashes — of our ancestor have perished.' 
 
 I have thus done my best to revivify the story of Kichard Gilpin, 
 His highest ' record' is ' on high ;' but those who love the memory of 
 our Worthy, will, it is hoped, accept kindly our endeavours to keep 
 his grave green, and to import, so to speak, personahty to the name 
 in an old title-page— of one who did vaHant service for The Master : 
 
 ' Sword and spear he might not wield, 
 But with faith his heart to shield, 
 Marched he to the battle-field.'— [' Para&us Anim(e.'] 
 
 And so I close with like verses by leal-hearted Sir Egerton Brydges : 
 
 ' His tongue, the Spirit's two edged sword, 
 
 Had magic ia.it3 blade ; 
 For while it smote with every word. 
 
 It healed the wounds it made. 
 Yet, who 80 humbly walked as he, 
 
 A conqueror in the field ; 
 Wreathing the rose of victory 
 
 Around his radiant shield ! ' 
 
 Alexander B. Grosart. 
 
MEMOIR OF RICHARD GILI'IX. 
 
 APPENDIX TO ME.\[OIR. 
 
 A. — Page xvi. — Ancestry axd Descendants of the Gilpins. 
 
 The different ' County ' Historians, and Works on the old families 
 of England, give more or less full details concerning the Gilpins in all 
 their many branches. The ' Arms ' are Or, a boar passant sable, 
 armed and tusked Gules. A fine book-plate of this adorns Prebendary 
 Gilpin's Family Manuscript. Tiicse ' Arms ' are hereditarily under- 
 stood to have been derived from tiie fact that a Richard de Gylpyn or 
 Gilpin — who is regarded as the founder of the house — killed a wild 
 boar which had infested the neighbourhood of Kentmere, in the reign 
 of King John. [See Nicholson and Burns' 'Antiquities of West- 
 moreland and Cumberland,' (as before,) vol. i. pp. 135-137.] This 
 is confirmed by Sir Daniel Fleming's Collection of Pedigrees, in the 
 possession of Sir W. Fleming of Rydal, Co. Westm. Bart. a.d. 1713; 
 and is given by Bishop Carleton in his Life of Bernard Gilpin. From 
 these authorities, and various other Family documents, I construct 
 this genealogy of the elder House : — 
 
 1. Richard .... founder. He a son, 2. William, who married a 
 daughter of Thomas AjTay, bailiff of Kentmere. He a son, 3. Richard, 
 who married daughter of Fleming of Coningston, from whom many 
 descendants are found in and around Kendal. He a son, 4. William. 
 He a son, 5. Richard. He a son, 6. William, a captain at Bosworth 
 field, and there killed. He a brother, 7. Edwin, two of whose sons 
 were distinguished — viz., (1.) The ambassador of Queen Ehzabeth to 
 the States of Holland. (2.) Bernard, the 'Apostle of the North,' was 
 the fourth son. He, [i.e., Edwin,] a son, 8. William. He a son, 9. 
 George. He a son, 10. William. He a son, 11. George. He suc- 
 ceeded by, 12. Christopher Gilpin, a half brother of George, in whom 
 the (hrect male line ended. The 'Kentmere' estate sold to Sir Charles 
 Philiiison. — [N.ani.B.—ashefore.'] — William, son of Richard, [=the 
 4th of our list,] married a daughter of Thomas Lancaster of Sockbred, 
 who descended of the baron of Kendal. His son Richard, again 
 [ = 5th in our list,] married a daughter of Sir Rowland Thomborroux, 
 knight of Rampsell. This Richard married as his second wife Margaret 
 Layton = Enwine, second daughter of Thomas Layton of Dalemaine, 
 who had several sons — Anthony, Thomas, Sir William, Sir Bryan, 
 Sir Cuthbert, Sir Richard, all famous men, mostly soldiers, and some 
 Imights of Rhodes. His daughters also intermarried with Redman, 
 
MEMOIK OF RICHARD GILPIN. lui 
 
 Caielton, Olybomc, and Vaux. We may now tabulate the descent. 
 From Richard, and his second wife, Margaret Layton, comes— 
 
 Kanaall = Sykes. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Richard. John. 
 
 Fra 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 George. 
 
 BerJard 
 
 2 daiij 
 
 i'hters. 
 
 'iUiim = Eliz. Washington. G. 
 
 1 
 orge. 
 
 Randall. 
 
 1 
 Bernard 
 
 Ricli 
 
 1 IM 
 
 Caly. Mai 
 
 ler of Isaac, 
 Dr Gilpin. 
 
 1 1 1 
 i-y. Margaret. 
 
 father of our 
 
 George. 2dLon. 3d ion. 
 Wffliam = « • • < Sandtorth. 
 
 4th 
 
 Ln. 
 
 5th'son. at,lso 
 
 
 Vth'son. 
 
 sLghteral 
 
 [See Hutchinson's ' History of Diu-ham,' vol. ii. 703, account of the 
 Grilpins, from a paper in the hands of Mr Eob. Sober of Sherburn, 
 near Durham, without date. — Eandall MSS. The last George, at the 
 time of making out Sober's pedigree, is said to be living, and owner 
 of the ancient house of the Gilpins, Kentmere Hall.] 
 
 Turning to Dr Ricliard Gilpin, I have had two elaborate pedigrees 
 (of descent) entrusted to me, by the former of which, it appears om* 
 Worthy had a very large family by, (as I understand,) his two wives. 
 By this also I find that his second wife was born ' Oct. 15th, 1625,' 
 eldest daughter of William Brisco of Crofton — her name Susannah. 
 I have a suspicion that the first Mrs Gilpin died at Greystoke, and that 
 the Doctor re-married before leaving it ; but ovang to the time-worn 
 state of the Greystoke ' Registers,' all the entries that remain concern- 
 ing Dr Gilpin's family are the two children given in our Memoir. 
 Following William and Susannah were, 1. Isaac, born July 12, 1C58 ; 
 man-ied Ehzabeth, daughter of Thomas Clagget. Then, 2. Susanna, 
 born Nov. 27th, 1659 ; married Matthew Parlis, minister. [The 
 former Susannah must have died as a child.] Then, 3. Anne, who 
 married Sawrey of Broughton Tower, Esq. [On this mai-riage, see 
 Barnes' ' Memoii',' as before, i)p. 142, 143.] She was born December 
 5th, 1660. Then, 4. Elizabeth, born Aug. 3, 1662 ; died unmarried. 
 Then, 5. Richard: died of a blow of his schoolmaster. Then, 6. 
 Mary, born Dec. 28th, 1666 ; died unmarried. Then, 7. Dorothy, 
 born Aug. 13, 1668 ; married, (1.) Jabez Cay, M.D. ; (2.) Eli Fenton. 
 Then, 8. John, born Feb. 13, 1669. [More of liim immediately.] 
 Then, 9. Francis, born July 27, 1671 ; ob. infant. Then, 10. Bernard, 
 born Oct. 6, 1672, died in his youth at Jamaica, unmarried. Tlien, 11. 
 Francis, born Jan. 27, 1675, died in infancy. Then, 12. Thomas, 
 born July 27, 1677, cUed unmarried, June 20, 1700. Returning upon 
 John, [eighth of this list,] he married Hannah, daughter of Robert 
 Cay, Esq. of Newcastle, and left large issue, as follows: 1. Richard, 
 born April 9, 1700, (soon after his grandfather died,) died unmarried, 
 1723. 2. Robert, born 17th Aug. 1702, married Ruth, daughter of 
 Reynold Hall of Newbiggen, Esq. [More of this pair immediately.] 
 3. William, born Jan. 1, 1700 (?), married Mary, daughter of Thomas 
 Dickenson, clerk. 4. John, born 1st Sept. 1705. 5. Thomas, born 
 Jan. 8, 1711, ob. 12 March 1713. 6. Susanna. 7. A daughter. 8. 
 
liv APPENDIX TO MEMOIR. 
 
 Barbara, born 16th May 1710, wife of Braithwaite of Stockton. 9. 
 Susanna, born 28th April 1712, wife of Isaac Cookson of Newcastle. 
 10. Hannah, born 22d May 1715, wife of ... . Goldsmith. Ke- 
 turning again upon Eobert, [second of the list from John,] he had 
 issue — 1. John, who married daughter of John Cookson of London. 
 He took the name of Sawrey on succeecUng to the Broughton Tower 
 estate. 2. Kichard, died in East Indies. 3. Kuth. 4. 5. 
 
 Jer. (?). William, [tliird of list from John,] had issue— 1. Thomas, 
 ob. an infant. 2. John, dead 1809. 3. Robert, ih. 4. Hannah, 
 married. 5. William, died 18th September^ a3t. 67. So much for 
 the first paper. Now for the second, which gives the descendants of 
 the eldest son of Dr Gilpin, viz., William, born, as stated in Memoir, 
 at Greystoke, 5th Sept. 1657. He became a barrister-at-law, justice of 
 the peace, and deputy vice-athuiral for county Cumberland, and re- 
 corder of the city of Carlisle ; bought Highfield Moor and the tithes of 
 Crosby ; died at Scaleby Castle, Aug. 14, 1724, ait. G7. He married 
 Mary, eldest daughter and one of the co-heiresses of Henry Fletcher 
 of Talantyre. The issue were — 1. Susan Maria, born at Scaleby 
 Castle, 10th Nov. 1G89, wife of Joshua Dacre Appleby of Kirkleving- 
 ton by whom she had issue — [will be enumerated unmediately]. 2. 
 Anne, born April 14, 1691. 3. Richard, born 6th Feb. 1692, married 
 Mary, daughter of Enoch Hudson. 4. Dorothy, ob. an infant. 5. 
 Henry, ibid. 6. William, born at Whitehaven, married Margaret, 
 daughter of G. Langstaff. 7. Henry, born Oct. 1692, ob. at Jamaica. 
 8. Jolm Bernard, born at Scaleby, Jan. 24, 1701 , ob. circa 1776, 
 buried at Carlisle Cathedral. He married Matilda, eldest daugthcr 
 of George Langstaff, ob. circa 1773, biu-ied at Carlisle. 9. Dorothy, 
 born at Scaleby, wife of Eaglivfield Griffith, born 4th Nov. 1703. 
 10. George, born at Scaleby, 29th Aug. 1706, married Elizabeth, tliird 
 daughter°of George Langstaff. Returning on Susan Maria, [eldest 
 daughter,] she had a daughter, Elizabeth, born at Whitehaven, Feb. 
 12, 1708, ob. an infant, and a son, William, born June 1724, ob. at 
 Whitehaven, 4th Dec. 1779. He married Elizabeth Hodgson, daugh- 
 ter of Robert Hodgson of ^^^litehaven, died at Denbigh Castle, 25th 
 April 1792, aet. (JO. Thev had issue— 1. William Gilpin, born at 
 Whitehaven, 12th Nov. 1758, ob. 15th Oct. 1822, at East Sheen, Sur- 
 rey, having married Sarah, daughter of George Holland, Esq. of London, 
 in 1793. "Finally returning on John Bernard, [eighth, s«jor«,] he was 
 father of the Rev. William Gilpin, vicar of Boldre, prebendary of 
 Salisbury, died April 5, 18U4 at Boldre, ait 80. He will not soon be 
 forgotten,' as his delightful books, with their carefully finished ' Illus- 
 trations' on ' Picturesque Beauty,' are gathering increasing value as 
 they become older. He had issue by his first cousin. John Bernard 
 Gilpin, Esq., who went to Philadelphia, and afterwards became British 
 Consul at Rhode Island. His descendants are now partly in Nova 
 Scotia, [J. Bernard Gilpin, Esq., M.D., Halifax,] and in England and 
 Scotland ; and Rev. William Gilpin, born April 8, 1757, rector— an 
 excellent and venerable man, and clerg}Tnan— in county Salop ; and 
 Sawrey Gilpin, born Oct. 30. 1733, ob. 1808. For the two Papers 
 whence most of the preceding details have been collected, I owe 
 thanks to my friend Joshua Wilson, Esq., Nevil Park, Tunbridge 
 
APPENDIX TO MEMOIR. Iv 
 
 Wells. I may add that in Prebendary Gilpin's Family-Manuscript 
 there are ' Memoirs' of William Gilpin, Esq., the recorder of Carlisle, 
 containing valuable and interesting letters to and from the Lowther 
 family. The ' Eecorder' was a man of mark. His portrait is at 
 Scaleby Castle. Next, severally William ' merchant at Whitehaven.' 
 [See Story, as before.] Henry, of ' the Navy,' Thomas, John Bernard, 
 Anne, Dorothy, Susannah Maria, the eldest daughter, who must have 
 been a lady of imcommon origin aUty and force of character, and 
 largeness of heart. [As above. She was married to Dacre Appleby, 
 Esq. of Kirklinton, contiguous to Scaleby Castle. Curiously enough, 
 their eldest son married a daughter of the Bishop of Carlisle. Mrs 
 Appleby ' was followed by all the country, in tears, to her grave.'] 
 John Bernard, — a very capital ' Memoir' of a gallant soldier. Somer- 
 ville, in ' The Chase,' refers to the Windsor 'roads' constructed under 
 his military supervision. He was a familiar friend of the good Colonel 
 Gardiner. There are glimpses of the Kebellion of 1745 in this Me- 
 moir, throwing light on events at Carlisle. At ' leisure hours' he 
 cultivated painting, and when he lived at Carlisle, he had sometimes 
 half a dozen young people, or more, who used occasionally to attend 
 him for instruction.' Of these some became famous, e.g., John Smith, 
 whom Lord Warwick sent to Eome, Kobert Smirke, Esq., R.A., Mrs 
 Head, &c. The Prebendary, in his MS., here gives also an account 
 of literary society of the period, including Warburton, Dr Brown, and 
 others. There are Letters of this many-gifted man, reveaUng a very 
 beautiful and tender veneration for his departed wife, whose loss he 
 '. mourned unto the grave.' The correspondence between Blr and Mrs 
 Bernard Gilpin is striking and brilliant. Sawrey Gilpin, R.A., of 
 Knightsbridge, their son, became celebrated as an animal painter. 
 Sir J. D. A. Gilpin, another son, was knighted for his long services 
 in America, West Indies, and Gibraltar. He was a friend of Wash- 
 ington's. Catherine, sister of the two last, born at Scaleby Castle, 
 1738, was a woman of rare intellect, and a fr-iend of Miss Blamire, 
 the sweet Poetess of Cumberland. In a new edition of Miss Blamire's 
 ' Poems and Songs,' recently pubKshed, there are given some by Miss 
 Gilpin, equal to the others. She died at Carlisle in 1811. Even these 
 bare names and dates will suffice to reveal a Family distinguished in 
 well-nigh every department of human achievement, to be placed in 
 their hereditary talent with the Hunters, Gregorys, and Browns, and 
 equally remarkable in their hereditary piety and worth, as well where 
 they belonged to the Church of England as where they held true to 
 Nonconformity, and their descent from the great and good Dr 
 EiGHARD Gilpin. 
 
 B. — Page xix. — Gilpins at Oxford. 
 
 The following memoranda are taken from the three Lists of Queen's 
 College, as detailed : — 
 
 I. From the List of Fellows : 
 
 1555. Gilpin. [In another and later hand this note is appended : 
 
Ivi APPENDIX TO MEMOIR. 
 
 ' Bernaidus {ni fallor) R' de Houghton le Spring in Com. Duuelm. 
 V. Batesii Vitas' clar. viroram, p. 284.' The apostle.] 
 
 1569. Richard Gilpin. 
 
 1572. Joshua Giliiin, 
 
 II. From the List of Entries : 
 1594. Term. Mic. Gilpin. 
 1602. „ Pasch. „ 
 1610. „ 
 
 1614. „ „ „ i, [=' bateller,' or exhibitioner.] 
 
 1631. „ „ Samuel Gilpin, h, [ihkl'\ 
 
 III. From the List of Matriculations : 
 
 1602. ) Franciscus Gilpin, Tiancastrensis filius ministri verbi Dei. 
 Oct. 15. I Nat. An. 17. 
 
 C. — Page xix. — Notices of Gilpins. 
 
 Tlic following extract from N. and B. ' History,' (as before.) vol. i. 
 p. loO, shews the Gilpins were freeholders in Strickland as early as the 
 days of Queen Bess : ' And in the 14 Eliz. William Parr, marquis of 
 Northampton, died seised thereof \i.c., of the manor of Stiykeland 
 Rogers] and the same was assigned to his widow for dower, and the 
 particulars in the rental made thereof was as follows : manor of Strick- 
 land Roger : freeholders there, Edward Lancaster, Esquire, 268. 8d. : 
 John Master, Esquire, lis. 9d. : William Gilpin, 9s. 9d. Total of the 
 (customary) rent of this manor £15, 14s. 5d.: ten shillings paid yearly 
 by Mr Lancaster's tenants, to be free of their gift from the lord's will, 
 being part of the said sum.' Further, this notice occurs under Chapel 
 of Crosthwaite in parish of Heversham, ' The chancel and steeple of 
 this chapel were built by one WilUam Gilpin, who also contributed 
 largely towards the three bells, in 1626: on which beUs are the fol- 
 lowing inscriptions : on the first bell : " Jesus, be our speed :" on the 
 second bell: " Soli Deo gloria:" on the third bell : 
 
 ' A young man grave in godlinesa 
 William Gilpin by name 
 Gave forty pounds to make these sounds 
 To God's eternal fame." ' 
 
 (Vol. I. p. 216] 
 
D^MONOLOGIA SACRA. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 For account of the holograph MS. of ' Doemonologia Sacra' — still in the larger portion 
 preserved — see our Memoir in loco. The original edition of the book forms a handsome 
 quarto. The general title-page will be found below:* the special ones of Parts I., II., 
 and III. in their respective places. There have been at least two reprints, but none 
 comparable with the first. Our text is a careful reprint of the Author's own edition, col- 
 lated in all doubtful places with the MS. as above. Mr Gilpin very largely quotes 
 Scripture, without giving the book, chapter, and verse; we have made up the deficiency 
 by filling all in, within brackets. — G. 
 
 D.EAWNOLOOIA SACRA. 
 
 OK, A 
 
 TREATISE 
 
 Smtani^ (^em{itationif : 
 
 In Three Parts. 
 
 By Richard Gilpin. 
 
 2 Cor. 2. 11. We are not ignorant of his 
 
 LONDON, 
 
 Printed by /. D. for Richard Handel, and Peter Mapliaden, 
 
 Booksellers in Neic Castle u^on Tine. 1677. 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 The accurate searches into the secrets of nature which this age hath 
 produced, though they are in themselves sufficient evidences of a com- 
 mendable industry, yet, seeing they fall so exceedingly short of that 
 discovery which men aim at — giving us at best but probable conjec- 
 tures and uncertain guesses — they are become as little satisfactory to 
 men that look after the true causes of things, as those ' ships of desire' 
 whose great undertaking for gold had raised high expectations in their 
 attempts, but in the return brought nothing home for their ventures 
 but ' apes and peacocks,' i [1 Kings x. 22, and 2 Chron. ix. 21.] 
 While men reflect upon themselves under such disappointments, 
 they cannot but check themselves, for over-promising themselves 
 in their adventures, with that of Zophar, ' Vain man would be wise,' 
 [Job xi. 12.] 
 
 But how happy would it be for men if such failures of expectation 
 might better inform them ! If our attainments in these pursuits will 
 not bear our charges, nor recompense our pains and loss of time with 
 an answerable profit, though we may see cause sometimes, as a diver- 
 tisement or recreation, to use them, yet how shall we satisfy ourselves 
 to make them our chief and sole business ? 
 
 If we knew of nothing of higher concern to us than these, our neglect 
 of greater matters were more excusable ; but seeing we are sufficiently 
 instructed that we have more weighty things to look after, such as 
 relate to a certain future estate of happiness or misery, the very dis- 
 covery of this to a rational being must needs entitle such things to the 
 first and greatest part of his care. He that knows that there is ' one 
 thing necessary,' and yet sutlers himself to be diverted from the pur- 
 suit of that, by 'troubling himself about many things,' [Luke x. 41,] 
 is more justly chargeable with folly, than he that neglects his estate, 
 and finds himself no other employment but to pursue feathers in the 
 wind. 
 
 Among those things that religion offers to our study, God and our 
 own hearts are the chief. God is the first and last and whole of our 
 happiness ; the beginning, progress, and completement of it is from 
 him and in him — for in that centre do all the lines meet ; but our 
 heart is the stage upon which this felicity, as to the application of it. 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 is transacted : upon this little spot of earth cloth God and Satan draw 
 up their several armies ; here doth each of them shew their power and 
 wisdom ; this is treated hy both ; each of them challenge an interest 
 in it ; it is attacked on the one side and defended ou the other. So that 
 here are skirmishes, battles, and stratagems managed. That man, 
 then, that will not concern himself in his inqiurics, how the matter 
 goes in his own heart, what ground is got or lost, what forts are taken 
 or defended, what mines are sprung, what ambuscades laid, or how 
 the battle proceeds, must needs lie under a jtist imputation of the 
 greatest folly ; neither can he be excused in his neglect by the most 
 pressing solicitations of other things that seem to require his attend- 
 ance upon the highest imaginable pretences of necessity : ' For what 
 is he profited, that gains the whole world, if he loses his soul ? ' [Maxk 
 viii. 36.] . : 
 
 But the exact and faitliful management of such spiritual inquirieR, 
 with their necessary improvement to diligent watchfulness and care- 
 ful endeavours of resistance, is another manner of work than most men 
 tlream of. To discover the intrigues of Satan's policy, to espy his 
 haunts and lurking-places in our hearts, to note his subtle contrivances 
 in taking advantages against us, and to observe how the pulse of the 
 soul beats under his provocations and deceitful allurements, how far 
 we comply or dissent, requires so much attendance and laborious skil- 
 fulness, that it cannot be expected that such men who design no more 
 than to be Christians at the easiest rate, and content themselves with 
 a foiraal superficiality of religion; or such who, having given up 
 themselves to the deceitful sweets of woi'ldly carnal delights, are not 
 at leisure to engage themselves in so .serious a work ; or such whose 
 secret guilt of rebellious combination with the devil against God, 
 makes them fearful to consider fully the hazards of that wickedness, 
 which they had rather practise with forgetfulncss, lest the review of 
 their ways and sight of their danger should awaken their consciences 
 to give them an unwelcome disquiet ; it cannot, I say, be expected 
 that any of these sorts of men, whilst they are thus set, should give 
 themselves the trouble of so much pains and toil as this business doth 
 require. 
 
 Upon this consideration I might rationally fix my prognostic of the 
 entertainment of the following treatise. What acceptance soever it 
 may find with such as are cordially concerned for their souls and the 
 realities of religion— and of such 1 may say as the apostle Paul con- 
 cerning brotherly love, 1 Thes. iv. 9, as toucliing this matter, ' They 
 need not that I write unto them, for they themselves are taught of 
 God ' to be suspicious of Satan's devices ; and by experience they find 
 his deceits so secret, and withal so dangerous, that any help for further 
 discovery and caution must needs be welcome to them ; yet — to be sure 
 the prince of darkness, who is always jealous of the least attem]its that 
 may be made against his empire, will arm his forementioned subjects 
 against it, and whomsoever else he can prevail upon, by the power of 
 prejudice, to reject it, as urging us to a study more severe or harsh 
 than is consistent either with the lower degrees of knowledge of many, 
 or with that ease which most men desire to indulge to themselves ; or 
 as offering such tilings which they, to save themselves from further 
 
TO THE HEADER. 5 
 
 trouble, will be willing to call chimeras or idle speculations : and this 
 last I may rather expect, because in this latter age Satan hath advanced 
 so far in his general design against aU Christianity, and for the intro- 
 duction of paganism and atheism, that none now can express a serious 
 conscientious care for holiness and the avoidance of sin, but upon pain of 
 the imputation of silliness or whining preciseness ; and none can speak 
 or write of conversion, faith, or grace, but he shall be hazarded by the 
 scoffs of those that are im willing to judge the private workings of the 
 heart to God-ward, or spiritual exercises of grace, to be any better than 
 conceited whims and unintelligible nonsense : but seeing such men 
 make bold to jeer, not only that language and those forms of speech 
 which the Holy Ghost thought fit to make use of in the Scriptures, 
 but also the very things of ' Faith," ' Grace,' and ' Spirit,' which are 
 everywhere in the sacred oracles recommended to us with the most 
 weighty seriousness — which with them pass for no better than cheats 
 and fancies — we can easily sit under their contempt ; and shaU, as we 
 hope, be so far from being jeered out of our rehgion, that their scorns 
 shall have no more impression upon us than the ravings of a frenzical 
 person that knows not what he speaks. 
 
 Notwithstanding these, who are no way considerable for weight, 
 there are, I hope, a great many who seriously employ themselves in 
 the inwards as well as the outwards of religion — and who will not 
 suffer themselves to be persuaded that the apostle obtruded an empty 
 notion upon believers, when he recommended that ob.servable truth to 
 them, Kom. ii. 28, ' He is not a Jew which is one outwardly,' &c. ; 
 for their sakes have I undertaken this labom- of collecting and me- 
 thodising the grand stratagems and chief ways of delusion of the great 
 deceiver. To these I must particularly account for some few things 
 relating to this discourse. As, 
 
 1. That I have satisfied myself in the reasons of the publication of 
 these papers, and do not judge it requisite to trouble any so far as to 
 tell what these reasons are. They who desire to resist such an enemy, 
 and whose experience doth convince them that all helps are necessary, 
 will not need them ; and those that are men of scorn or of avowed care- 
 lessness will not regard them, though I should declare them. 
 
 2. To prevent the misapprehensions, which jiossibly some may 
 otherwise labom withal, of a monstrous product from one text, 
 because they may observe one text in the front, and no other 
 mentioned throughout the first and second parts; they may know 
 that I made use of several in the preaching of these discourses, as 
 suitable foundations for the several particulars herein mentioned ; 
 but in the moulding up of the whole into the method of a treatise, 
 for the ease of the reader, I thought fit to lay aside those intro- 
 ductions — as also many other occasional applications which were 
 proper for sermons, and a great many things which were neces- 
 sary to be spoken for expUcation and illustration of these points 
 to a popular auditory — and have only presented the substance m 
 a more close connexion ; because if there be any little obscurity 
 that may at first appear to any for want of variety of words, 
 the treatise being under their eye, will be at leisure to attend their 
 review in a second or third reading ; which, however, I would recom- 
 
b TO THE READER. 
 
 mend earnestly to those that in these concerns do really design to be 
 ' wise for themselves.' 
 
 3. Neither should it seem strange that I have frequently made use 
 of instances from history or other later relations. Whosoever shall 
 consider the nature of the matter treated on will not complain of this 
 as a needless trouble put upon them ; yet withal I have been so careful 
 of doing any persons an unkindness, by making too bold with them, 
 that I mentioned no names but such as upon such occasions have been 
 made public by others before. The rest 1 have only mentioned in the 
 general, discovering their case where it was useful, but concealing the 
 persons. 
 
 4 It may perhaps seem a defect, that the several directions, re- 
 medies, or counsels which are requisite to be observed in making 
 resistance against Satan arc not added, except some few hints in the 
 latter end of the third part, and some other things in that part, in the 
 applications of the several doctrines therein, which I thought fit, upon 
 good grounds, to leave in the order of a preaching method ; but such 
 may be pleased to consider that several have performed that part very 
 fully, to whose labours I had rather refer the reader than trouble him 
 with a repetition. It was only my design to endeavour a more full 
 discovery, though every way short of the thing itself, of Satan's craft, 
 because the knowledge of this is so neccs.sary, and withal others have 
 done it more sparingly. Such as it is, accept and improve for thy 
 spiritual advantage ; for that was the end of this undertaking, by him 
 who desires that thy soul may prosper, 
 
 Rich. Gilpin. 
 
D.EMONOLOOIA SACRA. 
 
 OR, A 
 
 TKEATISE 
 
 OF 
 
 featan^ aTemptatian^ 
 
 The First Part. 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 A Discourse of the Malice, Power, Cruelty and Dili- 
 gence of Satan. Of his cunning in Temptation in 
 the general. Of his Method of tempting to Sin. 
 Of his Policies for maintaining his Possession. Of his 
 Deceits for the preventing and spoiling Keligious 
 Services and Duties. 
 
 By R. G. 
 
 2 Cor. 2. 11. We are not ignorant of his Devices. 
 
 London, Printed by /. V. for Richard Eandel, and Peter MapliedeH 
 Booksellers in New-Castle upon Tine, 1677. 
 
A TREATISE OF SATAN'S TEMPTATIONS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 e sober, he vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring 
 lion, toalketh about, seeking w/iom he may devour. — 1 Peter V. 8. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The introduction to the text, from a consideration of the desperate i^in 
 of the souls of men. — The text opened, expressing Satan's malice, 
 power, cruelty, and diligence. 
 
 The souls of men are ' precious.' The whole world cannot repair 
 their loss. Hence by God are all men in particular charged with care 
 and watchfulness about them. He hath also set up watchmen and 
 overseers, whose business it is to watch over souls, and in the most 
 strict and careful manner, as those that must ' give an account,' [Heb. 
 xiii. 17.] 
 
 What can more stir up men to the discharge of this duty than the 
 frequent alarms which we have of the assaults of such an adversary, 
 whose business it is to destroy the soul ? ' The Philistines are upon 
 thee, Samson!' [Judges xvi. 9;] he fights continually, and useth all 
 the policy and slrill he hath for the management of his strength. 
 
 Besides, it is a consideration very aftecting, when we view the ' de- 
 solations that are made in the earth,' [Ps. xlvi. 8,] what wounds, what 
 overthrows, what cruelties, slaveries, and captivities these conquered 
 vassals are put to. It was, as some think, an inexcusable cruelty in 
 David against the Ammonites, when he ' put them under saws, and 
 harrows of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln,' 2 Sam. 
 xii. 31 ; but this spiritual Pharaoh hath a more grievous ' house of 
 bondage,' and iron furnace. Neither is this miserable destruction 
 ended, but will keep pace with time, and shall not cease till Christ 
 shall at his appearance finally conquer him and tread him down. If 
 Xorxes wept to look upon his army through the prospective of de- 
 vouring time, wliich, upon an easy foresight, shewed him the death of 
 
Chap. 1.] satan's temptations. 9 
 
 so great a company of gallant men, we may well weep, as David at 
 Ziklag, till we can weep no more ; or as Kachel for her cMdren, ' re- 
 fusing to be comforted,' [Jer. xxxi. 15;] while we consider what a 
 great number of succeeding generations, ' heaps upon heaps,' [Judges 
 XV. 16,] will be drawn with him to a consuming Tophet. And could 
 we follow him thither, to hear the cries of his prisoners, the roarings of 
 his wounded, where they ' curse the day' that brought them forth,_and 
 themselves for their folly and madness in hearkening to his delusions, 
 the di-eadful outcries of eternity, and then their ' rage against heaven' 
 in cursings and blasphemings, while they? have no mitigations or ease, 
 nor the refreshment of ' a drop of water to cool theu- tongues,' [Luke 
 xvi. 24,] we woidd sm-ely think we could never spend our time better 
 than in opposing such an enemy, and warning men to ' flee from the 
 wrath to come,' [Mat. iii. 7,] to take heed they come not into his snare. 
 With what earnestness would we endeavour to persuade men ! What 
 dQigence would we use to cast water upon these devoming flames, and 
 to pluck men as brands out of the fire ! It is true, if Satan had dealt 
 plainly with men, and told them what wages they were to expect, and 
 set a visible mark upon his slaves, or had managed a visibly destruc- 
 tive hostility, men have such natm-al principles of self-preservation, 
 and of hatred of what appears to be evil, that we might expect they 
 would have fled from him, and still have been upon their guard ; but 
 he useth such artifices, such sleights and cozenage, that men are cast 
 into a sleep or a golden ckeam ; while he binds them in chains of 
 darkness they see not their end, the snare, nor the pit ; nay, he intoxi- 
 cates them with a love of their misery, and a dehght in helping for- 
 ward their ruin, so that they are volunteers in his service, and pos- 
 sessed with a madness and rage against all that wiU not be as willing 
 as themselves to go to hell ; but especially if they put forth a compas- 
 sionate hand to help any out of that gulf of misery, they hate them, 
 they ' gnash upon them with theu- teeth,' and run upon them with 
 utmost violence, as if they had no enemies but these compassionate 
 Samaritans, [Luke x. 33.] 
 
 How great is this mystery of darkness ! Who shall be able to open 
 the depths of it? Who shall declare it fully to the sons of men, to 
 bring these ' hidden things to light' ? Especially seeing these liellish 
 secrets which are yet undiscovered, are double to those that have been 
 observed, by any that have escaped from his power. He only whose 
 prerogative it is ' to search the hearts of men ' [Rev. ii. 23] can know, 
 and make known, what is in the heart of Satan ; he views aU his 
 goings, even those paths which the ' vulture's eye hath not seen,' [Job 
 xxviii. 7,] and can trace those- footsteps of his, which leave no more 
 print or track behind them than ' a ship in the sea, or a bird in the 
 air, or a serpent on a stone,' [Prov. xxx. 19.] 
 
 Yet notwithstanding, we may observe much of his policies ; and 
 more would God discover if we did but humbly and faithfully improve 
 what we know already. It is my design to make some discovery of 
 those haunts I have observed, if by that means I may be useful to you, 
 to quicken and awaken you. And first I shall set before you the 
 strength and power of yom- enemy, before I open his cunning and 
 craft. 
 
10 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 There are found ui liim wliatsoever may render an adversary 
 dreadful. 
 
 1. As, first, 31alice and emnity. 6 AvtiBiko'; is a law term, and 
 signifies an adversary ' at law,' one that is against om- cause ; and the 
 text, as some think, heightens this malice, (1.) By the article 6, which 
 denotes an arch enemy.i (2.) The name Aiu/3oXo<;, which signifies a 
 slanderer or calumniator — for the word is twice in the New Testament 
 used for a slanderer — shewing his hatred to be so great that it will not 
 stick at lying and falsehood, either in accusing God to us or us to 
 God. Nay, it particularly hints that w hen he hath in malice tempted 
 a poor wretch to sin, he spares not to accuse him for it, and to load 
 him with all things that may aggravate his guUt or misery, accusing 
 him for more than he hath really done, and for a worse estate than he 
 is really in.'- 
 
 2. Secondly, His poicer. Under the metai">hor of a ' lion,' a beast of 
 prey, whose innate property is to destroy, and is accordingly fitted 
 with strength, with tearing paws, and a devouring mouth ; that as a 
 lion would rend a kid with ease and without resistance, so are men 
 swallowed up by him as with open mouth, so the word KUTairi^ signi- 
 fies, he can sup them up at a draught, d KaraTrivm. 
 
 3. Thirdly, His cruel fy: a ' roaring lion' implying not only his innate 
 property to destroy, which must be a strange fierceness, but also that 
 this innate principle is heightened and whetf ed on, as hunger in a lion 
 sharpens and enrages that di.sposition till he get his prey, so that he 
 becomes raving and roaring, putting an awfid majesty ujion cruelty, 
 and frighting them out of endeavours or hopes of resistance, and in- 
 creasing their misery with aflVightments and tremblings. Thus Satan 
 shews a fierce and truculent temper, whose power being put forth 
 from such an imiilacable malice, must needs become rage and fierce- 
 ness. 
 
 4. Fourthly, His diligence : which, together with his cruelty, are 
 consequences of Ms malice and power ; he ' goes about and seeks.' 
 He is restless in his pursuit, and diligent, as one that promiseth him- 
 self a satisfaction or joyful contentment in his conquests. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 0/ the malice of Satan in particular. — The grounds and causes of that 
 malice. — The greatness of it proved, and instances of that greatness 
 given. 
 
 I shall fust give some account of his malice, by which it shall appear 
 we do not wrong the devil in calling him malicious, the truth of which 
 charge will evidence itself in the following particulars : — 
 
 1. First, J7(e devil, though a ' spirit,' yet is a proper subject of sin. 
 We need no other evidence for this than what doth by daily experience 
 result from ourselves. We have sins which om- sijirits and hearts do 
 act, that relate not to the body, called ' a filthiness of the spirit,' in con- 
 
Chap. 2.] satan's temptations. 11 
 
 tradistinction to the ' filthiness of the flesh,' [2 Cor. vii. 1.] It is true, 
 it cannot be denied but that those iniquities which have a necessary 
 dependence upon the organs of the body, as drunkenness, fornication, 
 &c., cannot properly, as to the formality of the act, be laid at Satan's 
 door, though as a tempter and provoker of these men he may be called 
 the father of these sins ; yet the fore-mentioned iniquities, which are 
 of a spiritual nature, are properly and formally committed by laim, as 
 lying, pride, hatred, and malice. And this distinction Christ himself 
 doth hint : John viii. 44, ' When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of 
 his own,' where he asserts such spiritual sins to be properly and for- 
 mally acted by himself The certainty of all appears in the epithets 
 given him — ' the wicked one,' ' the unclean spirit ;' as also those places 
 that speak his fall, ' They kept not their first estate,' Jude 6 ; ' The 
 angels that sinned,' 2 Peter ii. 4. If sins spiritual are in a true and 
 proper sense attributed to the devil, then also may malice be attri- 
 buted to him. 
 
 2. Secondly, The ivickedness of Satan is capable of increase, a viagis 
 et mimis. Though he be a wicked spirit, and as to inclination full 
 of wickedness, though so strongly inclined that he cannot but sin, and 
 therefore as God is set forth to us as the foimtain of holiness, so is Satan 
 called the author and father of sin, yet seeing we cannot ascribe an 
 infiniteness to him, we must admit that, as to acts of sin at least, he 
 may be more or less sinful, and that the wickedness of his heart may 
 be drawn more out by occasions, motives, and provocations ; besides, 
 we are expressly taught thus much, Kev. xii. 12, ' The devil is come 
 down, having great wrath, because his time is short.' Where we note 
 (1.) That liis wi-ath is called ' great,' implpng gi-eater than at other 
 times ; (2.) That external motives and incentives, as the shortness of 
 his time, prevail with him to ckaw forth gi-eater acts of fury. 
 
 3. Thirdly, Whatsoever occasions do draiu out or kindle malice to 
 a rage, Satau hath met loith them in an eminent degree, in his own 
 fall and man s happiness.'^ Nothing is more proper to beget malice 
 than hurts or punishments, degradations fi'om happiness. Satan's 
 cm-se, though just, fills him with rage and fretting against God, when 
 he considers that from the state and dignity of a blessed angel he is 
 cast down to darkness and to the basest condition imaginable. For 
 the part of his curse, which concerned Satan as well as the serpent, 
 ' Upon thy l^elly shalt thou go, and dust shall be thy meat,' implies a 
 state most base, as the use of the phrase pi-oves : ' They shall lick the 
 dust of thy feet,' Isa. xlix. 23 ; ' Thine enemies shall lick the dust,' 
 Ps. Ixxii. 9 ; ' They shall lick tlie dust as a serpent,' Micah vii. 17. 
 Where the spirit is so wicked that it cannot accept the pimishment 
 of its iniquity, all punishment is as a poison, and envenoms the heart 
 with a rage against the hand that afflicted it. Thus doth Satan's fall 
 enrage him, and the more when he sees man enstated into a possibility 
 of enjoying what he hath lost. The envy and pride of his heart boils 
 up to a madness — for that is the only use that the wretchedly miser- 
 able can make of the sight of that happiness which they enjoy not, 
 
 ' Quia inordinatam excellentiain aflectaudo, ordinatam amiserunt, ideo de aliorum 
 excellentia dolebant, et ad earn oppuguandam maliciose ferebantur. — Am. Med. lib.i. 
 cap. 11. [Amcsius 'Medulla Theologica,' lt;27. 8vo.— G.] 
 
12 A TREATISE OF [PaUT I. 
 
 especially if, having once enjoyed it, they are now deprived. This begot 
 the rage and wrath in Cain against Abel, and afterward his murder. 
 The eye of the wicked is evil where God is good. Hence may it be 
 concluded that Satan, being a wicked spirit, and this wickedness being 
 capable of acting higher or lower according to occasions, and with a 
 suitableness thereto, cannot but shew an inconceivable malice against 
 us, our happiness and his misery being such proper occasions for the 
 wickedness of his heart to work upon. 
 
 4. Fourthly, This malice in Sakm must be great, 
 
 (1.) First, I/zoe consider the greatness of his loickedness in so great 
 and toted an apostasy. He is so filled with iniquity, that we can 
 expect no small matters from him as to the workings of such cursed 
 principles; not ouly is he wicked, but the spirit and extract of 
 wickedness, as the plu-ase signifies, Eph. vi. 12, [TrveviJMTiKa. ■ni<; 
 7rovr}pia<;.] 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Ilie Scripture lays to his charge all degrees, acts, and 
 brandies of malice; as [17] Anger, in tJie impetuous haste and violence 
 of it. Rev. xii. 12, ' Great wrath,' ^v/io?, there signifies excandcsccntia, 
 the inflammation of the heart and whole man, which is violent in 
 its motion, as when the blood with a violent stream rusheth through 
 the heart and sets all spirits on tire ; and therefore this wrath is not 
 only called great, but is also signified to be so, in its tiireatening ' a 
 woe to the inhabitants of the earth.' [2.] Indignation is more than 
 anger, as having more of a fixed fury; and this is applied to him, 
 Eph. iv. 27, in that those tiiat have this ■n-apofr/t.cT/j.o';, are said ' to 
 give place to the de\nl,' which is true not only in point of temptation, 
 but also in respect of the resemblance they carry to the frame and 
 temper of Satan's furious heart. [3.] Hatred is yet higher than 
 wrath or indignation, as having deeper roots, a more confirmed and 
 implacable resolution. Anger and indignation are but sliort furies, 
 ira brevis furor, which, like a land-flood, are soon down, though they 
 are apt to fill the banks on a sudden ; but hatred is lasting, and this 
 is so properly the devil's disposition, that Cain, in hating his brother, 
 is [inj 1 John iii. 12 said to be the proper offspring and lively picture of 
 that ' wicked one,' who is there so called rather than by the name of 
 the devil, because the apostle would also insinuate that hatred is the 
 masterpiece of Satan's wickedness, and that which gives the fullest 
 character of him. [4.] All effects of his cruelty arise from this root ; 
 this makes him accuse and calumniate, this puts him upon breathing 
 after those mm-ders and destructions which damned spirits are now 
 groaning under. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, This malice is the result of that curse laid upon Satan: 
 Gen. iii. 15, 'I will put enmity betwixt thee and the woman, betwixt 
 her seed and thy seed.' WMch implies, [1.] A great enmity; and 
 some render it inimiciiias implacahiles, implacable enmities. [2.] A 
 lasting enmity, such as should continue as long as the curse should 
 last. [3.] That this should be his tcork and exercise, to prosecute and 
 be prosecuted with this enmity ; so that it shews the devil's whole mind 
 and desire is iu this work, and that he is whetted on by the opposing 
 enmity which he meets withal. It is the work of his curse, of his 
 place, of his revenge, and that wherein all the delight he is capable of 
 
(Jhap. 2.] Satan's temptations. 13 
 
 is placed. In that part of the curse, ' Dust shall be thy meat," it is 
 implied, if some interpret right, i that if Satan can be said to have any 
 delight or ease in his condition, it is in the eating of this dust, the 
 exercise of this enmity. No wonder, then, if Christ speak of his 
 desires and solicitations with God to have a liberty and commission for 
 this work : ' Satan hath desired to have thee, that he may winnow 
 thee,' [Luke xxii. 31.] 
 
 That this curse relates not only to the serpent, who was the instru- 
 ment, but also to Satan, who was the agent, is agreed by all almost. 
 That it was not the serpent alone, but the devil speaking by it, is 
 evinced from its speaking and reasoning. And that the curse reached 
 further than a natural enmity betwixt a serpent and a man, is as 
 evident, in that Christ is expressly held forth as giving the firll accom- 
 plishment of this curse against Satan : 1 John iii. 8, ' The devil 
 sinneth from the beginning ; for tliis purpose was the Son of God 
 manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil,' which is a 
 clear exposition and paraplirasis of the ' woman's seed bruising the 
 serpent's head.' 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, / shall add to this some few instances of Satan's 
 malice, by which it ivill ajopear to he great. 
 
 [l.]_ First, That malice must needs be greaXivhich shews itself luhere 
 there is such a load of anguish and horror that lies vpon him. He is 
 now ' reserved in chains of darkness in hell,' 2 Peter ii. 4. He is in 
 hell, a place of torment; or_, which is all one, hell is in him. He carries 
 it about him in his conscience, which, by God's decree, binds him to 
 his horror like a chain. It is scarce imaginable that he should have 
 a thought free from the contemplation of his own misery, to spend in 
 a malicious pursuit of man. What can we tlrink less of it than a 
 desperate madness and revenge against God, wherein he shews his rage 
 against heaven, and hunts after our blood as for a little water to cool 
 his tongue; and when he finds his hand too short to pull the Almighty 
 out of his throne, he endeavours, panther-like, to tear his image in 
 man, and to put man, created after his image, upon blaspheming and 
 dishonouring his Maker. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, That malice must needs be great that seeks its oionfuel, 
 and provides or begs its oiun occasions, and those such as give no proper 
 provocation to his anger. Of this temper is his malice. He did thus 
 with Job : he begs the commission, caliunniates Job upon unjust sur- 
 mises, presseth still for a further power to hurt him, insomuch that 
 God expressly stints and bounds him — which shews how boundless he 
 would have been if left to his own will— and gives liim at last an 
 open check. Job ii. 3, wherein he lays open the malice of liis heart in 
 three things: [1.] His own pressing urgency: 'Thou movedst me;' 
 [2.] His destructive fury: no less would serve than Job's utter destruc- 
 tion ; [3.] Job's innocency : all this without cause : ' Thou movedst 
 me to destroy him without cause.' 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, That malice must needs be great that loill pursue 
 
 a small matter. Wliat small game will the devil play rather than 
 
 altogether sit out ! If he can but trouble, or puzzle, or affright, yet 
 
 that he will do, rather than nothing ; if he can, like an adder in the 
 
 ^ Vide Pool ' Synop.' in loe. 
 
14 A TREATISE OF [PaRT 1. 
 
 path, but bite the heel, [Gen. xlix. 17,] though his head be bruised 
 for it, he will notwithstanding busy himself in it. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, That malice must be great which will put itselj 
 forth ivliere it knoivs it can prevail nothing, but is certain of a dis- 
 appointment. Thus did Satan tempt Christ. Those speeches, ' if 
 thou be the Son of God,' do not imply any doubt in Satan ; he knew 
 what was prophesied of Christ, and what had been declared from 
 heaven in testification of him, so that he could not but be certain 
 he was God and man ; and yet what base unworthy temptations doth 
 he lay before him, as ' to fall down and worship him ' ! Was it that 
 Satan thought to prevail against him ? No surely ; but such was liis 
 malice, that he would put an affront upon him, though he knew he 
 could not prevail against him. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, The malice of tvicked men is an argument of Satan's 
 great malice. They have an antipatliy against the righteous, as the 
 wolf against the sheep, and upon that very ground, that they are 
 ' called out of the world.' How great this fury is, all ages have 
 testified. This hath brought forth discord, reviling.s, slanders, im- 
 l)risonments, spoiling of goods, banishments, ])ersecutions, tortures, 
 cruel deaths, as burning, racking, tearing, sawing asunder, and what- 
 ever the wit of man could devise for a satisfaction to those implacable, 
 furious, murderous minds ; and yet all this is done to men of the 
 same image and lineage with themselves, of the same religion with 
 themselves, as to the main ; nay, sometime to men of their own 
 kindred, theu- own flesh and blood, and all to those that would live 
 peaceably in the land. What shall we say to these things ? How 
 come men to put on a savage nature, to act the part of lions, leopards, 
 tigers, if not much worse ? The reason of all we have, John viii. 
 54, ' Ye are of your father the devil ; he was a murderer from the 
 beginning :' as also Gen. iii. 15, ' 1 will put enmity between her seed 
 and thy seed ;' so that all this shews wliat malice is in Satan's heart, 
 who urgeth and provokes his instruments to such bloody hatreds. 
 Hence whoever were the agents [Rev. ii. 10] in imprisoning the saints, 
 the malice of Satan in stirrmg them up to it, makes him become the 
 author of it ; ' Satan shall cast some of you into prison.' 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Of Satan's poiver. — His poioer as an angel considered. — Tliat he lost 
 not that poioer hy his fall. — His poioer as a devil. — Of his commis- 
 sion. — TJie extent of his authority. — Tlie efficacy of his poiver. — The 
 advantages lohich he hath for the management of it, from the num- 
 ber, order, place, and knowledge of devils. 
 
 That Satan's poiver is great, is our next inquiry ; where, 
 
 1. First, We wiU consider his power as an angel. In Ps. ciii. 20 
 
 angels are said 'to excel in strength;' and in ver. 21, as also Ps. cxlviii. 
 
 2, they are called 'God's host;' which is more fully expressed, 1 Kings 
 
 xxii. 19, ' I saw the Lord sitting upon his throne, and all the host of 
 
Chap. 3.] satan's temptations. 15 
 
 heaven standing by him on his riglit hand and on his left ; ' which 
 phrase, though it import their order and observance, yet undoubtedly 
 the main of its intendment is to set forth their power, as hosts are the 
 strength of kings and nations. God himself, in putting on that title, 
 ' The Lord of hosts,' makes it an evidence of his incomprehensible 
 power, that such armies of strong and mighty creatures are at his 
 command. But this only in the general. That which comes nearer 
 to a particidar account of their strength, is that notion of a spirit, 
 by which they are frequently described, ' He maketh his angels 
 spirits ; his ministers flaming fire,' Ps. civ. 4. The being of a spirit 
 is the highest our understanding is able to reach, and that it shews a 
 being very excellent, is manifest in this, that God is pleased to repre- 
 sent himself to us under the notion of a spirit ; not that he is truly 
 and properly such, but that this is the most excellent being that falls 
 under our apprehension. Besides that the term ' spirit' raiseth our 
 understanding to conceive a being of a high and extraordinary power, 
 it doth fm-ther tend to form our conceptions to some apprehen- 
 sions of their nature. [1.] From the knowledge that we have of our 
 own spirits. That our spirit is of a vast comprehension and activity, 
 our thoughts, desires, reasonmgs, and the particular undertakings 
 of some men of a raised spirit, do abundantly evidence. [2.] In that 
 it represents a spiritual being, freed from the clog and liindrance 
 of corporeity. Our own spu-its are limited and restrained by our 
 bodies, as fire, an active element, is retarded and made sluggish by 
 matter unapt to serve its proper force, as when it is in a heap of earth ; 
 which is also sufficiently pointed at in that opposition betwixt flesh 
 and blood, and principalities and powers, Eph. vi. ; shewing that flesh 
 and_ blood are a disadvantage and hindrance to the activity of a 
 spirit. _A spirit then, as incorporeal, may be conceived to move 
 easily without molestation, quickly, imperceptibly, and irresistibly. 
 [3.] This is yet further illustrated by the similitude of wind and fire, 
 which are, to the common experience of all, of very great force. And 
 it is yet fm-ther observable that the Scripture sometime speaks of the 
 power of angels in the abstract, choosing rather to call them ' powers ' 
 than powerful, i^ovaiai. Col. i. 16 ; clearly shewing that angels are 
 beings of vast strength, as indeed the actions done by them do abun- 
 dantly testify. _ Such was the destroying Sennacherib's hosts in a 
 night, the opening the prison doors for Peter, the carrying Philip 
 in the air, and such other acts, which tend to the protection of the 
 faithful, or punishing of the wicked. 
 
 Though this may fidly satisfy us that angels excel in strength, yet 
 the Scripture suggests another consideration relating to the office and 
 employment of angels, where their commission shews not only a liberty 
 for the exercise of this power, but also doth imply such a power as is 
 fit to be commissionated to such acts. These invisible beings are called 
 thi-ones, dominions, principalities, powers. Col. i. 16. It is indeed 
 a task beyond a sober undertaking to distinguish these words, and to 
 set their true boimds and marks of difference. This Augustine 
 acknowledged ; i yet may we hence conclude, [1.] That these words 
 
 ' Quid inter se distant quatuor ista vocabula, dicant qui possunt, si tamen possunt pro- 
 bare qu!e dicunt; ego me ista ignorare cojibUor.—Enchirid. ad Laurent., cap. 58. 
 
16 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 imply a very gi-eat authority in angels ; [2.] A power and strength 
 suitable to their employment, and that God furnished them with 
 power answerable to the work which he intended for them, in his 
 moving the heavens, and governing the world, &c. However, in 
 some cases, God works by instruments every way disproportionable to 
 the service, ' that the excellency of the power might be of God,' [2 
 Cor. iv. 7;] yet, in the ordinary way of Ms working, he puts an innate, 
 suitable force in creatures, for the acts to be done by them ; as there 
 is an innate power in the wind to blow, in the fire to bm-n, in herbs and 
 plants for medicinal uses. Thus may we conceive of angels, that God 
 using them as his host, his ' ministers to do his pleasure,' he hath 
 endowed them with an innate natural power for those great things 
 which he doth by them, which must not be supposed in the least dero- 
 gatory to the power of God, in his ways of mercies or judgments, 
 seeing all the strength of angels is origmally from God. Hence is it 
 that all the names of angels which we read of m Scripture carry this 
 acknowledgment in their signification ; Micliael thus unfolds itself, 
 'Who is like God ;' Gabriel thus, ' Tlie glory of God ;' and therefore 
 may we suppose them not so much the proper names of angels, 
 but, as CaWn noteth, Nomina ad cojjium nostrum indita, Names 
 implying God's great power in them.i 
 
 Such a powerful sjiirit is Satan by creation. But because it will be 
 doubted lest his fall hath bereaved him of liis excellency, and cast him 
 down from his strength, I shall evidence that he still retains the 
 same natural jiower. To wliich purpose it is not unfit to be observed, 
 [1.] That the same terms and names which were given to good 
 angels, to signify their strength and commission. Col. i. 16, and ii. 10, 
 are also given to Satan, Eph. vi. 12. Devils are called ' principalities,' 
 ' powers,' ' rulers ;' and Col. ii. 15, they have the same names wliich 
 in ver. 10 were given to good angels, ' lie spoiled principalities and 
 powers.' [2.] The Scripture gives particular instances of Satan's 
 power and working : as liis raising tempests in the air, commanding 
 fire from heaven — both which he did in prosecution of his malice 
 against Job ; his carrying the bodies of men in the air — as he did with 
 Christ, hurrying him from the wilderness to the moimtain, from 
 thence to the pinnacle of the temple ; his breaking chains and fetters 
 of iron, Mark v. 4 ; his bringing diseases — instances whereof were that 
 crooked woman whom Satan had bowed together, Luke xiii. 16, and 
 the lunatic person, Luke ix. 31, with a great many more. [3.] It is 
 also observable that, notwithstanding, Satan's fall bath made an 
 alteration as to the ends, uses, and office of his power ; yet, neverthe- 
 less, God makes use of this strength in him, not only as an executioner 
 of wrath against his enemies — as when he vexed Saul by this evil 
 spirit ; and through this lying spirit, gave up Ahab to be deluded into 
 his ruin, and inflicted plagues upon Egypt, by sending evil angels 
 among them, 1 Sam. xvi. 14 ; 1 Kings xxii. 21 ; Ps. lxx\iii. 49 — but 
 also for the trial of his own servants. Thus was Job afflicted by 
 Satan, and Paid bufi'eted by his messenger. 
 
 2. Secondly, This power of his, as a devil, falls next under our 
 consideration, wherein are divers particulars to be noted : as, 
 ' Instit, lib. i. cap. 14, sec. 8. 
 
Chap. 3. J satan's temptations. 17 
 
 (1.) First, His commission and autliority. If any put that ques- 
 tion to him which the Jews did to Christ, ' By what authority dost 
 thou these things ? ' or, ' "Who gave thee this authority ? ' we have the 
 answer in John xii. 24, and xvi. 11, where he is called, ' the prince 
 of this world ;' and accordingly the Scripture speaks of a twofold 
 kingdom, of light and of darkness ; and in this we hear of Satan's seat 
 or throne, of his servants and subjects. Yea, that which is more, the 
 Scripture speaks of a kind of deity in Satan ; he is called ' the god of 
 this world,' 2 Cor. iv. 4 ; which doth not only set forth the intolerable 
 pride and usurpation of Satan in propounding himself as such, so 
 drawing on poor blind creatures to worship him, but also discovers 
 his power, wliich by commission he hath obtained over the children 
 of disobedience, [Zanchius.] Hence doth he challenge it as a kind 
 of right and due from the poor Americans, and others, that they 
 should fall down and worship him ; and upon this supposition was he 
 so intolerably presumptuous in offering the kingdoms of the world 
 to Christ for such a service and worship. 
 
 If it be questioned what Satan's authority is, I shall answer it thus: — 
 [1.] First, His authority is not absolute or unlimited. He cannot 
 do what he pleaseth, and therefore we do find him begging leave of 
 God for the exerting of his power in particular cases, as when he was 
 ' a Ijing spirit' in the mouth of Ahab's prophets, and in every assault 
 he made upon Job ; nay, he could not enter into the swine of the 
 Gadarenes till he had Christ's commission for it. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Yet hath he a commission in general — a standing 
 commission, as petty kings and governors had under the Eoman 
 emperor, where they were authorised to exercise an authority and 
 power, according to the rules and du-ections given them. This is 
 clearly signified by those expressions, ' they are captives at liis will,' 
 [2 Tim. ii. 16,] and ' given up to Satan,' [1 Tim. i. 20,] as persons 
 excommunicated ; and when men are converted, they are said to be 
 ' translated from his power,' and put under another jurisdiction, in 
 the 'kingdom of Christ,' [Col. i. 13.] All which would have been 
 highly improper, if a commission for Satan, and an authority for 
 those works of darkness, had not been signified by them. 
 
 Next, let us view the extent of this authority, both as to persons 
 and things. In relation to persons, the boundary of his kingdom 
 reacheth as far as darkness. He rules in ' the dark places of the 
 earth,' or the darkness of this world ; and therefore his kingdom is 
 hence denominated ' a kingdom of darkness.' This extends, we may 
 well imagine, as far as heathenism reacheth, where he is worshipped 
 as God, as far as any darkness of Mohammedanism stretcheth itself, 
 as far as the darkness of infidelity and blindness upon the hearts of 
 unconverted men ; which, if summed up together, must needs take 
 up the greatest part of the world by far ; which is acknowledged, not 
 only by that large expression luorld, 'prince of the world,' &c., but 
 also by that prophetic speech of Eev. xi. 15, ' The kingdoms of this 
 world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ,' which 
 acknowledgeth they had not been so before, in the sense wherein we 
 now speak. 
 
 Neither is his kingdom so bounded but that he also can, when 
 
18 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 allowed, make excursions and inroads into the kingdom of Christ, so 
 far as to molest, disturb, and annoy his subjects ; as the kings of any 
 nation, besides the power which they exercise in their proper juris- 
 diction, may molest their neighbours. And Christ so far permits 
 this as is useful to his own designs, yet still with straiter reserves 
 and limitations to Satan, and a resolved rescue and conquest for his 
 own people. 
 
 If we inquire the extent of his power in relation to things, we find 
 the air in a peculiar manner permitted to him ; so that he is named 
 by it, as by one of his cliief royalties, ' the prince of the power of the 
 air.' We find also death, with the powers of it, given up to him ; 
 so that this is a jicriphrasis of him, ' He that hath the power of 
 death,' Heb. ii. 14. And if we take notice of his large proffer to 
 Clu-ist of the kingdoms of the world, 'AH this will I give thee,' 
 we may imagine that his commission reacheth far this way, as re- 
 wards and encouragements to his service ; which wc will the readiUer 
 entertain when we find that, by God's allowance, wicked men have 
 their ' portion in this Ufe,' and that these are called ' their good 
 things.' - 
 
 3. Tliirdly, Let us proceed a step further, to the efficacy of this 
 authority; which also, 
 
 (1.) First, Upon tvicked mat is no less rcttmrlcable than is his com- 
 mission. He is called ' the strong man,' [Luke xi. 21,] in reference 
 to their hearts, which lie fortifies, as so' many castles and garrisons, 
 against God. He also ' rules in them ' without control ; his sugges- 
 tions and temptations arc as laws to them ; he ' fills their hearts,' 
 Acts v. 3, with his designs, and raisctli their aflcctions to a high 
 and greedy ])ursuit of them ; he works in them, and by an inward 
 force doth hurry them on to achieve his enterprises, in all this en- 
 snaring and captivatmg them ' at his pleasure,' Eph. ii. 2 ; 2 Tim. 
 ii. 26. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Tlie saints, which are suhjeets of another kingdom, 
 are still fearing, complaining, watching, praying, and spreading out 
 their hands, with lifting vp their eyes to heaven for Jielp against him. 
 They complain of violence and restless assaults from him ; they are 
 sensible tliat he can suggest evil thoughts, and follow them with 
 incessant importunities; that he can draw a darkness upon their 
 understanding by bribing their wills and affections against them; 
 that he can distm'b their duties, and that because of him they cannot 
 do tiie good they would. Many a fear doth he beget in their hearts ; 
 many a disquiet hour have they from him ; their flesh hath no rest, 
 and happy are they if they escape from him without broken bones ; 
 many excellent ones have been cast down by him, and for a time have 
 been like dead men. It is sad to see so just a person as Lot under 
 his feet ; so choice a saint as David wounded almost to the death ; so 
 high an apostle as Peter, by force and fear from him, to open his 
 mouth with curses and imprecations in the denial of his Saviour ; to 
 say nothing of the buifetings of others, which was sufficiently weari- 
 some to Paul, and described by ' a thorn in the flesh,' 2 Cor. xii. 7; 
 which, if a learned man think right, is compared, by a metaphor, to 
 » Ps. xvii. 14; Luke XT. 12, and xvi. 25.— G. 
 
Chap. 3.j satan's temptations. 19 
 
 those sharp stakes u]»n which Christians were cruelly spitted and 
 burnt. 1 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, His quick and ready accomplishment is a further 
 proof of the efficacy of his power. No sooner had God given him a 
 commission in reference to Job, but he quickly raiseth the tempest, 
 brings down the house, slays his children, brings fire from heaven ; 
 and, which would seem strange, hath the troops of the Sabeans and 
 Chaldeans at his beck, as if they had been Usted under his known 
 command ; so that in a little time he puts his malice into act. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, If any would slight all this, as being the force of 
 principalities and powers against flesh and blood, we may see he hath 
 so much_ strength and confidence as to ejrapple ivith an angel of light, 
 as he did in the contesting for Moses his body, Jude 9. This was 
 a created angel, else he durst not sure have brought a ' railing 
 accusation ; ' but in tliat he strove, and railingly accused, it shews he 
 wanted not a daring boldness to second his commission and power. 
 
 4. Fourthly, It will be also requisite to lay open the advantages he 
 hath in the management of all this p)Ower, whicli are great ; as, 
 
 (1.) First, The midtitude of devils. That there are many is not 
 denied, upon the evidence of seven cast out of Mary Magdalene, and 
 the legion which were settled in one poor man at once. It may be 
 we may not credit the devil's own account of his strength so much as 
 to believe that their number was exactly answerable to a Roman 
 legion, which, if some speak right, was 6666 ; yet there being so 
 plain an allusion to a Eoman legion, and the Scripture in the recital 
 favom-ing it so far as to consent to a truth in that part of the story, 
 we can do no less than conclude that the number of devils in that 
 person was a very great number, and so great, that the similitude of 
 legion was proper to express it by. Besides, if the Scripture had been 
 silent in this particular, our reason would have clearly drawn that 
 conclusion from such premises as these, that he is the ' god ' of the 
 world, and rules in the 'children of disobedience;' for whatsoever we 
 conceive of his power, we cannot think him omnipotent or omni- 
 present, these being the incommimicable attributes of the great 
 Creator of all things, in which no creatiu'e can share with God. 
 Being then assured that he is the tempter of all men, and that he 
 cannot be in aU places at once, we must needs apprehend the devUs to 
 be many, as is signified by tliat expression, ' the devil and his angels.' 
 
 (2.) Secondly, He hath also an advantage for the exccutmg of his 
 designs, from that order, tvhich from the fore-mentioned grounds we 
 must be forced to conceive to be among devils. I know the bold 
 determination of the order of angels by Dionysius is justly rejected, 
 not only by Irenseus and Augustine, 2 but also by the generality of 
 protestants, who upon that and other gi'Oimds of like presumption do 
 reject that author as not being the true Dionysius the Ai'eopagite. 
 Neither do some of our protestant authors, as Chamier and others, 
 admit the government of angels to be monarchical, which supposition 
 the papists would gladly make use of, as a foundation whereon to 
 establish the universal headship of the pope, being a thing which 
 
 ' <TK6\of, Arrovrs[mitli], Tract. Sacr., lib. ii. cap. 8, sec. 3. 
 * Lib. ii., Enchir., cap. 58. 
 
20 A TEEATISE OF [PART I. 
 
 Dionysius himself, as Chamier affirms, never dreamt of.i Yet do 
 none of these authors deny an order among the angels, but willingly 
 grant it, as clearly implied from the term archangel used by Paul, 
 1 Thes. iv. 16,2 and from their being called God's host or army, where 
 order is necessary for the right management of theh strength, and 
 confusion the way to the ruin of their "designs. The thing they dis- 
 like is, the bold and peremptory determination of the particular orders 
 among them, and the assignment of the several charges, employments, 
 and stations to each ; which whosoever shall do, must needs be guilty 
 of ' intruding into things which he hath not seen.'" It would upon 
 the same score be a presumptuous folly to make such a determination 
 of the several ranks and particular employments of devils. Yet this 
 hindereth not, but with a warrantable sobriety we may believe in the 
 general that there is an order among the devils. Not only do these 
 expressions, ' Beelzebub the prince of devils,' ' the devil and liis angels,' 
 and in that they are called ' principahties and powers,' warrant us so 
 to think, but the fore-mentioned considerations about the multitude 
 of devils will force our reason to an assent : for if they must be many, 
 because all mankind is sensible of their assaults, they must have a,lso 
 an order in the management of their temptations — without which 
 their designs of cruelty and malice must, at least in great part, fall to 
 the ground.* Neither do I know well how those authors may be 
 justly blamed, who proceed a little further in their suppositions, to 
 tell us, as most probable,^ that these infernal spirits do share the 
 world among them, and are allotted to several countries and places, 
 as their own proper charge and jurisdiction ; for what otlier interpre- 
 tation those passages in Dan. x. 13 can receive I cannot see: the 
 prince of the kingdom of Persia withstanding the angel one and 
 twenty days ; and his help in that opposition from Michael, cannot, if 
 things be well weighed, be jiroperly under.stood of Cambyses the son 
 of CjTus, or a contest with any man. However, if we let this go as a 
 thing uncertain, because this interpretation is denied by some,<5 yet that 
 which is spoken of their order in the general, and the advantage these 
 spirits have again.st us upon that consideration, seems to be past denial. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, The advantage of place among armies is reckoned 
 much. Satan seems to have sometlung this way as an advantage of 
 ground, in that he is styled spiritual wickedness in high places.^ 
 Wliat advantage high places may be to devils and spirits we cannot 
 further imagine, than that they, being thus above us and about us in 
 the air, see and know our ways and actions, and so receive informa- 
 tion from thence for their malicious proceedings against us. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, But his greatest advantage is from his hioivleclge, 
 which I shall a little explain in the following chapter. 
 
 * Panst., Tol.ii. lib. ix. cap. 11. [Daniel Chamier, author of De CEcumenico Tontificio. 
 Died 1621.— G.] - Sclater, in loc. 
 
 ^ Cal[vin] Instit., lib. i. cap. 14, sec. 8.— [As before, sec see. 5-9.— G.] 
 
 * Vide Bayne on Eph. vi. 12. ° Bayne, Ibid. 
 
 ' Calvin, t» loc. ' 'Ev to?! tirovpavlots, Eph. vi. 12. 
 
Chaf. 4.] Satan's temptations. 21 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 That Satan hath a great measure of hnoiuledge, pi-oved by comparing 
 him tvith the Jcnoidedge of Adam in innocency, and by his titles. 
 — Of his knowledge, natural, experimental, and accessory. — Of his 
 hnoiuledge of our thoughts. — Hoio far he doth not know them, 
 and hoiu far he doth, and by ivhat means. — Of his knowledge of 
 things future, and by ivhat ways he doth conjecture them. — The 
 advantages in point of temptation that he hath by his knowledge. 
 
 In the discovery of Satan's knowledge, I shall first give evidence and 
 demonstration thereof. To which purpose — 
 
 1. Let us consider the knoioledge of Adam in innocency ; which 
 being found to be great, it will thence be easily concluded that Satan's 
 knowledge is far greater. Two notable discoveries we have of Adam's 
 knowledge, the one was his giving of names to all creatures. Gen. 
 ii. 29, which was not only a sign of his dominion, but also a notable 
 instance of his understanding, seeing the names were given according 
 to the natures of creatures ; Avhereof Bochartus gives a large account, 
 as the camel is called "^DJ, because it is apt to repay injuries ; the 
 kite, HKI, from its sharpness of sight ; the pelican is named JlNp, from 
 its usual vomiting, &c.i The consideration of the aptness of names 
 imposed on creatures made Plato acknowledge that it was a work 
 above ordinary capacity. The other discovery of Adam's knowledge 
 was his knowledge of the original of Eve at first sight, Gen ii. 23 ; he 
 said, ' This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh,' &c. 
 This instance Luther made use of to prove the knowledge that we 
 shall have of one another in heaven; which shews that Adam's 
 understanding was then incomparably more sublime than ours, and 
 of a nearer afiproach to the knowledge which a state of glory shall 
 furnish us withal. To this might be added a further proof from the 
 rare inventions and excellent discoveries that some raised wits have 
 made, of things that have laid deep and far out of the view of common 
 capacities. As also those views, sights, and more than ordinary com- 
 prehensions which the souls of men have had, when they were a little 
 freed from the clog and hincbance of the body, either in ecstasies or 
 by approaching death ; all which put together will go far to prove a 
 very great measure of knowledge in Satan, if we take along with us 
 this foundation, that in all the works of God we find the highest 
 knowledge in the noblest being. Living creatures are more excellent 
 than stones or trees, and therefore hath God furnished them with 
 senses, and hath also distinguished them by higher degrees of sagacity, 
 according to their excellency above others. Thus the ape, fox, 
 elephant, &c., have such abilities above the worm and fly, &c., that 
 some have questioned whether they had not some lower degrees of 
 reason : yet as these are below man, so doth his reason far excel their 
 greatest quiclmess of sense. Angels are a higher being than man — 
 for he made him ' lower than the angels ' — and consequently their 
 knowledge is proportionably greater. So that if Adam in innocency 
 
 ' liierozoicon, part 1, 
 
22 A TREATISE OK [PaRT I. 
 
 tmderstood the nature of things, liow much more exactly and fully 
 must we imagine Satan to know them ! 
 
 2. Secondly, But the proof is more full and direct, from those 
 appellations and titles ivhich the Scripture and the experience of men 
 have put upon him; his usual name, Aaifj-av, quasi Aai^fiov, which — 
 in Mat. viii. 31 ; Mark v. 12 ; Eev. xvi. 14— we translate devil, pro- 
 perly signifieth one that is wise, knowing, or skilful. And however 
 the wickedness of that spirit hath so far dishonoured this word, that 
 it is always, as some think, used to signify ' unclean spu-its;' yet still 
 it carries an evidence of their nature in reference to knowledge, that 
 though they are wicked creatures, yet are they wise and knowing. It 
 is said. Gen. iii. 1, ' The serpent was more subtle than any beast of 
 the field;' which, though it be true literally of the serpent, whose 
 wisdom and subtlety naturalists have abundantly noted, yet that 
 expression hath an eye upon Satan, who was the principal agent ; and 
 the sequent there is called subtle, as influenced by Satan, whose instru- 
 ment he was-.i which we may believe, not only upon the credit of 
 Austin and Lyra, but more securely upon the testimony of other 
 scriptures, which najne him ' the old serpent,' Rev. xvii. 0, and impute 
 all that craft in the management of that temptation to a particular 
 remarkable skill and subtlety of Satan. ' The seqicnt beguiled Eve 
 through subtlety,' 2 Cor. xi. 3; and, if Beza conjecture right, the 
 appellation Aaifiicv do so fitly suit this history of the tree of Icnowledge, 
 that the title of knowledge seems to be given him for tliis singular 
 masteniiece of craft. 
 
 3. Thirdly, That Satan hath great knowledge is by these arguments 
 discovered ; but if further inquiry be made into the Jiature of his know- 
 ledge, we shall be nearer to a satisfaction in this particular ; and hero 
 we may observe a threefold knowledge in Satan. 
 
 (1.) First, A natural knoidedge; which the schoolmcn'jiave distin- 
 guished into these two : [1.] An evening knowledge, which he received 
 from things created, whereby the ipccics of things were impressed 
 upon his mind, and so received, being a knowledge a jiosteriori, from 
 the effects of things ; which, because it is more dark and obscure than 
 that which ariscth from the causes of things, they termed evening 
 knowledge. [2.] The other is morning knoidedge, which is a know- 
 ledge of things in the power and wisdom of God, in which he saw the 
 ideas and images of all things. This knowledge they prefer before the 
 other, as lines and figures are better known from mathematical in- 
 struction than by theu- bare tract as written in dust.2 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Besides this he hath an experimental knotvledgej 
 whicii is the improvement of that natural stock, by further acquisi- 
 tions and attainments. And mdeed Satan had very high advantages 
 for an increase of knowledge. He had a gi-eat stock to begin withal ; 
 he hath had fit and suitable objects to work upon in his contempla- 
 tions, so that by comparing things with things in .so large a field of 
 variety, and that for so many years together, it cannot be but that he 
 
 • Principaliter ad Diabolum referenda est ealliditas. 
 
 = Cognitio Vespertina ct Matutina. Barth. SybUte otium Theol. p. 361. Aug. m 
 3 Gen. et Civitat. Dei., Ub. .\i. cap. 29. Dr Joniaon's ' Height of Israel's Idolatry, p. 31. 
 Ipsam creaturam melius ibi, hoe est, in sapientia Dei, tanquam in arte qua facta est. 
 quam in ea ipsa sciunt. — Ang., Civit. Dei., ibul. 
 
Chap. 4.] satan's temptations. 23 
 
 should be grown more experienced and subtle than he was at first ; 
 and the Scripture doth fairly countenance this supposition, by telling 
 us of his devices, 2 Cor. ii. 11 ; of his wiles, Eph. vi. 11 ; and of his 
 depths, Kev. ii. 24.1 All which phrases imply that Satan hath so 
 studied the point of temptation, that he hath now, from long experi- 
 ence and obsei'vation, digested it into an art and method, and that with 
 such exactness that it is become a mystery and a depth, much covered 
 and concealed from the notice and observation of men. 
 
 (3.) Thii'dly, To both the former maybe added another knowledge, 
 which because it is from another spring, I may call it an accessory 
 hioivledge, consisting in occasional discoveries made to him, either 
 when God is pleased to make known so much of his mind and purpose, 
 as he employs him, as an instrument or servant, to execute, as he did 
 in the case of Job and Ahab ; or when he informs himself from the 
 Scriptures, or catcheth hints of knowledge from the church and the 
 ordinances thereof. If good angels have an increase of knowledge this 
 way, as is evident they have, ' for to principalities and powers in 
 heavenly places is made known by the church the manifold wisdom 
 of God,' Eph. iii. 10, we cannot but imagine that Satan hath some 
 addition of knowledge from such discoveries. While we are upon this 
 point, it will be necessary to ofier some satisfaction to two questions. 
 
 Quest. 1. First, Whether Satan knows our thoughts ? 
 
 Ans. 1. It is undoubtedly God's prerogative to know the thoughts. 
 He knows them intuitively, which is beyond the power of any creatm-e : 
 Jer. xvii. 9, ' Who can know it?' This is a challenge to all, imply- 
 ing the utter impossibility of it to any but to God alone ; ' I the Lord 
 search the heart;' he knows the most inward thoughts: Eev. ii. 23, 
 ' I am he which searcheth the reins, and the heart ;' he knows them 
 evidently and certainly : Hob. iv. 13, 'All things arc naked and open 2 
 before him with whom we have to do.' Those secret thinkings and 
 intendments which are hid from others, and which we ourselves can- 
 not distinctly read, becairse of their secret intricacy or confusedness, 
 yet the very inside and outside of them are uncased, cut up and 
 anatomised by liis eye ; in all which expressions God is careful to 
 reserve this to himself, ' I the Lord do it,' or 'I am he, &c., that 
 searcheth ;' and signifies that none else is ahle to do the like. 
 
 Ans. 2. Yet Satan can do much this way ; for if we consider how 
 he can come so near to our spirits, as to commimicate his injections 
 to us, and that he often entertains a dispute with us in this secret way 
 of access that he hath to our thoughts ; if we observe his arguings, his 
 answers and replies to our refusals, so direct, so pertinent, so continued, 
 we shall be constrained to grant that he can do more this way than is 
 commonly imagined. That I may explain this with a due respect to 
 God's prerogative of knowing the heart, I shall, 
 
 1. First, Shew that there are two things which are clearly out of 
 Satan's reach. [1.] Our future thoughts ; he cannot tell what shall be 
 our thoughts for time to come. He may possibly adventure to tell 
 what suggestions he resolves to put into our hearts, but what sliall be 
 our resolves and determinations thereupon he knows not. This is 
 singled out as one part of God's prerogative, that he knoweth the 
 
24 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I 
 
 determinate purposes and resolves of the heart aforehand, because he 
 turneth the heart as he pleaseth, Prov. xxi. 1. [2.] Oiu" present 
 formed thoughts, the immediate and imminent i acts of the mind he 
 cannot directly see into. He may tell what floating thinkings he hath 
 put into our heart, but our own proper thoughts, or formed resolves, 
 he cannot directly view. This is also particularly insisted on as proper 
 to God alone : John ii. 24, 25, ' Christ knew aU men,' so directly, 
 that ' he needed not that any should testify of man.' This Satau 
 stands in need of ; he sometimes knows men and tlieir thoughts, but 
 he needs a sign or notification of these thoughts, and cannot immedi- 
 ately look into them. The reason why Christ needed not this, is ren- 
 dered thus : ' For he knew what was in man,' Mat. xii. 25, that is, 
 intuitively he knew his thoughts, and could immediately read them. 
 
 2. Secondly, / shall endeavour to explain how imich , or hoio far 
 he can jwrj into our thoughts. Several things are granted which argue 
 Satau can go a great way toward a discovery. As, 
 
 (1.) First, That he knows the objects in our fancy or fhantasms, 
 and this as clearly as we do behold things with our eyes. And the proof 
 given hereof is this : that there are ;diabolical dreams, in which the 
 devil cannot create new species, and such as our senses were never 
 acquainted withal, as to make a blind man dream of colours, but that 
 he can only call forth and set in order those objects, of which our im- 
 agination doth retain tlie shadows or impressions ; and this he could 
 not do if he did not visibly behold them in our fancy.- 
 
 (2.) Secondly, It is certain he knows his own suggestions and 
 femj)tations darted into am- minds, upon which he can at present know 
 what our thoughts are busied upon. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, He knows the secret workings of our passions, as love, 
 desire, fear, &c., because these depend upon, or are in a concomitancy 
 of the motions of the blood and spirits, which he can easily discern, 
 though their motions and workings may be kept secret from the obser- 
 vation of all bystanders. 
 
 (4.) Fourtldy, Some go fiuiher, as Scotus, {refercnie Barthol. 
 (SyiiV^o,) 3 supposing that he knows what is in our thoughts at any 
 time, only he knows not to what these thoughts incline ; but I leave 
 this to those that can determine it certainly. In the meantime I 
 proceed, 
 
 3. Thirdly, To sheiu what a gnessing facidty he hath of what he 
 doth not directly know. He hath such grounds and advantages for 
 conjecture, that he seldom fails of finding our mind. As, 
 
 (1.) First, His long experience hath taught him whed imially men 
 do think, in such cases as are commonly before them. By a cunning 
 observation of their actions and ways he knows this. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, He by study and observation knoics our icmjxr and 
 inclination, nnA consequently what temptations do most suit them, and 
 how we do ordinai-ily entertain them. 
 
 ' Querv. 'immanent'? — Ed. t t- i.» • 
 
 " Dr Jenison's ' Height of Israel's Idolatry,' p. 35. Vide Godwin's ' Child of Light, 
 
 p. 65. 
 ^ Quest. Peregrinarum p. 392. Dsemones cognoscunt cogitationes nostras, quantum 
 
 ad Bulijectum, objectum et affectum, non autem quantupa ad finem. Sciunt quid cogi- 
 
 tamus, Bed ignorant ad quem finem. 
 
Chap. 4.] satan's temptations. 25 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, He knows this the more, hy tahing notice of our 
 prayers, our complamirufs and mournings over our defects and mis- 
 carriages. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, He is quicTc and ready to take notice of any exterior 
 sign, by tvhich the mind is signified, as the piilse, the motion of the 
 body, the change of the countenance, all which do usually shew the 
 assent or dissent of the mind, and at least tell him what entertainment 
 his offers have in our thoughts. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, Being so quick-sighted, he can understand those par- 
 ticular signs tvldcli tcmdd escape the ohservation of the zvisest menA 
 There are some thmgs small in themselves, and therefore unobserved, 
 which yet to wise men are very great indicia of things. The like may 
 be said of us, in reference to our inclinations, our acceptance or resist- 
 ance of temptations, which yet he hath curiously marked out. 
 
 (6.) Sistlily, No doubt but he hath ways to p)ut us upon a discovery 
 of our thoughts, luhile ive conceal them, as by continuing and prose- 
 cuting temptations or suggestions, till our trouble or passions do some 
 way discover how it is with us. By all which it appears that his 
 guessings and conjectm-es do seldom fail him. It is now time to speak 
 to the other question, which is. 
 
 Quest. 2. Whether and how fiir Satan knows things to come ? 
 
 A71S. To this I shall return answer in these two conclusions : 
 
 Conclusion 1. First, There is a way of knowing future tilings, ivhich 
 is heyond the Icnoivledge of devils, and proper only to God, Isa. xli. 23 ; 
 there God puts the competition betwixt himself and idols, about the 
 truth of a deity, upon this issue, that ' he that can shew the things 
 that are to come hereafter, he is God ;' which because they cannot do, 
 he doth hereby evince them to be no gods. If Satan could truly and 
 properly have done this, he had had a plea for a godhead. In divine 
 predictions two things are to be considered. [1.] The matter foretold; 
 when the events of things contingent, and as to second causes casual, 
 depending upon indeterminate causes, are foretold. [2.] The manner; 
 when these things are not uncertainly, or conjecturally, or darkly, but 
 clearly, certainly, infallibly, and fully predicted. Of this nature are 
 divine predictions, which Satan cannot perform, nor yet the angels in 
 heaven. 
 
 Conclusion 2. Secondly, Yet Satan hath such advantages for the 
 Icnoivledge of future things, and such means and helps for a discovery 
 of them, thcd his conjectures have often come to pass. 
 
 [1.] First, He knows the causes of things, ivhich are secret to us. 
 UiDon which he seems to foretell many things strange to us ; as a 
 physician may foretell the effects, workings, and issues of a disease, 
 as seeing them in the causes, which would pass for little less than 
 prophecy among the vulgar. Thus an astrologer foretells eclipses, 
 "which would be taken for a divine excellency, where the knowledge 
 of the ground of these f oretellings had not taken away the wonder. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Many things are made known to him hy immediate 
 divine revelation. We know not the intercourse betwixt God and 
 Satan in the matter of Job. Satan having obtained his commission to 
 
 ' Deprehendas .inimi tormenta latentia ex jegrotorum facie. Socpe tacens voccm 
 verbaque vultua habet. 
 
2G A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 afflict liim, might have made a long prophecy of what should come 
 to pass in reference to Job, his children and siibstauce. How many- 
 such predictions he might make, we little know. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, He hath a dee}} viskjht in affairs of kingdoms and 
 states, and so might, from his experience and observation, easily con- 
 jecture mutations and alterations. A politician may do much this way. 
 For aught we know, Satan's prophecy, in the likeness of Samuel, to 
 Saul, of his ruin, and the translation of his kingdom to David, might 
 be no more than a conjectural conclusion, from his comparing the order 
 of the present providence with former threatenings and promises. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, He hath a greater nnderstajiding of Scrijjturc pro- 
 phecies, than ordinarihi the tviscst men have, so that at second hand he 
 might be able to foretell what shall come to pass ; whilst we that do 
 not so clearly sec into Scripture predictions, may not be able to find out 
 the matter. Hence by oracle he foretold Alexander of his success, 
 which he knew from the prophecy of Daniel, chap, xi., long beforc.l 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, He hath advantage from his nature as a s;:»m7, bij 
 tvhich he overhears ami sees the private actings, complottings, and 
 preparations of men in reference to certain undertakings, and can 
 easily, by his agents, communicate such counsels or resolves in remote 
 countries and kingdoms, which must pass for real predictions, if the 
 event answer accordingly. 
 
 [G.] Sixthly, Ue can foretell, and luith prohaUlily of success, such 
 things as he hy temptation is about to put men %ipon, especially seeing 
 he can choose such instruments as he, from experience, knoivs arc not 
 likely to fail his enterprise. 
 
 [7.] Seventhly, To tliis may be added, the ivay and manner hy 
 which he cipresscth himself, cither in doubtful or enigmatical terms, 
 or in general cxjyressions, which may be applied to the event, what 
 way soever it should happen. Of these, authors have observed many 
 instances, which were superfluous to enumeratc.- 
 
 Satan's knowledge being thus explained, it is easy to imagine what 
 an advantage it is to him in the management of his temptations. For, 
 
 First, He by this means knows our tempers and dispositions. 
 
 Secondly, And what is most likely to prevail with us. 
 
 Thirdly, How inclinable we are upon any motion made to us, and 
 what hope to gain upon us. 
 
 Fourthly, He knows fit times, seasons, and advantages against us. 
 
 Fifthly, He knows how to pm-sue suggestions, and can choose strong 
 reasons to urge us withal. 
 
 Sixthly, He knows liow to delude om- senses, to disturb our 
 passions. 
 
 Seventldy, He knows all the ways and arts of afifrightments, vex- 
 ations, disquietments, hindrances, and disturbances of duty. 
 
 [8.] Eighthly, He by this means is furnished luith skill for his 
 public cheats and dclusio7is in the icorld; how to amuse, astonish, 
 and amaze men into errors and mistakes, which he hath always 
 endeavoured with very great success in the world, as we shall see 
 hereafter. 
 
 ' Invictus eris Alexander. — Plutarch in vit Alcrandri. 
 
 ■ Non non supcrabit Gallus Apulum. Ibis redibis nunquam ptr bcUa pcnbis. 
 
Chap. 5.] satan's temptations. 27 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Instances of Satan's power. — Of witclicraft, rohat it is. — Satan's 
 poiver argued from thence. — Of xvmiders. — Whether Satan can do 
 miracles? — An account of what he can do that luaij. — His poiver 
 argued from apparitions and possessions. 
 
 I shall add, in the fifth place, some particular instances of his 
 power, in which I shall insist upon these foiu- — witchcraft, wonders, 
 apparitions, and possessions. 
 
 1. First, Witchcraft affords a very great discovery of Satan's 
 power. But because some give such interpretations of witchcraft, 
 as, if true, would wholly take away the force of this instance, I shall 
 first endeavour to establish a true notion of witchcraft ; and secondly, 
 from thence argue Satan's power. 
 
 (1.) First, Thougli the being of witches is not directly denied, 
 because the authority of Scripture — Exod. xxii. 18 ; Deut. xviii. 10, 
 &c. — hath determined beyond controversy that such there are; yet 
 some will allow no other interpretation of the word,i than a skill and 
 practice in the art of poisoning, because the SeiJtuagint doth interpret 
 the Hebrew word, nstyDQ, by (fidpf^aKov, veneficam; which appre- 
 hension they strengthen by the authority of Josephus,2 who giveth 
 this account of the law, ' Let none of the children of Israel use any 
 deadly poison, or any drug wherewith he may do hurt,' &c. It is 
 easy to observe that this conceit ariseth from a great inobservancy of 
 the reason of the application of these words, (f}dpfjLaKo<; and veneficiis, 
 to witchcraft, in Greek and Latin authors. 
 
 Witchcrafts were supposed to be helped forward by the strength of 
 several herbs, and these, by incantations and other ceremonies at 
 their gathering, imagined to attain a i^oisonous and evil quality or 
 efficacy for such effects as were intended to be produced by them, as 
 appears by Ovid, VirgO, and other authors.3 Hence was it that the 
 word ^cip^aKO'; became applicable to any sort of witchcraft. To this 
 may be added, that such persons were resorted to for help against 
 diseases, [vide Leigh. Crit. Sac. in Voc] As also that they used unguents 
 
 1 Scot, ' Discovery of Witchcraft,' lib. vi. cap. 1. ^ Antiq. lib. iv. cap. 8. 
 
 ' Here quotations are given somewhat imperfectly and iuaccurately from Ovid and 
 Virgil. The following are correct : — 
 
 ' Non facient ut vivat amor Medeides herbrc 
 Jlistaque cum magicis venena Marsa Sonis.' 
 
 Ovid, Art. Amand., ii. 9S, 99. 
 ' Has herbas atque hfec Ponto mihi lecta venena. 
 Ipse dedit Mccris : nascuntur plurlma Ponto. 
 His ego s^pe lupum fieri et se condere silvis 
 Mocrim, ssepe animas imis excire sepulehris.' 
 
 Virgil, Bucol. Eel. viii. 
 ^apuada, philtrum, et magicas actiones qurc in Imaginibus, et characteribus, certis 
 verbis, ac similibus consistunt, siguificat. L'nde pharmaceutria appellatur, Idyllium 
 ii. Theocriti et Eclog. viii. Virgilii. Et Autiquos etiam vocabulum 4>ap/mKlas, pro 
 omni vencficii genere, quo vol homiuibus, vel jumentis, vel frugibus, seu carmine, sou 
 aliis modis nocetur, accipcre, manifesto patct ex Platonc, lib. s. de Legibus. Et apud 
 Aristot. Hist. Animal., cap. 25, <papfiaKi3(s nominantur. Et Apocal., cap. 18, ipapnaKla 
 pro prsestigiis et impostura sumitur. — Dan Senncrt., torn. iii. lib. vi. part 9. cap 2. 
 
28 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 for tiausportations. Hence Godwin [Jew. Antiq., lib. iv. cap. lOJ 
 renders ^apfiaKov; by unguentarios. Diascorides [Cap. de Khamno] 
 hath an expression to this purpose, 'that the branch of that tree, 
 being placed before the doors, doth drive away twv cjiapfj-aKtov xaicovp- 
 'yia<;, witchcrafts.' It were ricUculous to say it ch-ives away poisonings ; 
 which is a sufficient evidence that the Grecians used that word to 
 signify another kind of witchcraft than that which this mistake would 
 establish. Besides this, the Scripture doth afford two strong argu- 
 ments against this interpretation of witchcraft. 
 
 [1.] That this word is ranked wth others, as being of the same 
 alliance, which will carry the apiirehensious of any considerate man 
 to effects done by the help of [Satan, in an unusual way, as Deut. 
 xviii. 10, ' There shall not be found among you any that maketh his 
 son or his daughter to pass through tiie tire '—this is not the con- 
 suming of their children to Moloch, but by way of lustration, a mock 
 baptism, a piece of witchcraft, to preserve from violent death — 'or that 
 useth divination, an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,' 
 &C.1 The very neighbourhood of the witch will tell us that this 
 witch must be a diviner, divination being the general term, compre- 
 liending the seven particvdars following.2 It woidd be a harsh 
 straining to put in the poisoner, in the sense of our opposites, among 
 the diviners. Yet the second argument is more cogent, which is this: 
 That among those whom Pharaoh called together to encounter with 
 Moses, Exocl vii. 11, wc find witches or sorcerers expressed by the 
 same word, D'Stt'DD, which is used in Exod. xxii. and Deut. xviii. 
 "What can more certainly fix the inter]irctation of the word than this 
 place, where the end of Pharaoh's calling them together was, not to 
 poison Moses and Aaron, but by enchantment to outvie them in point 
 of miracles ? which will shew that witchcraft is not poisoning, but 
 the doing of strange acts by the aid of Satan. Neither was this the 
 act of one man— who might possibly, together with that present age, 
 be under a mistake concernmg witches, though it be a thing not to be 
 supposed — but long after him, Nebuchadnezzar, in Dan. ii. 4, being 
 astonished with his dreams, calls for the sorcerers or witches, and 
 magicians, to give him the interpretation ; which had been a matter 
 very improper for them, if their skill had lain only in mixing 
 poisons.3 
 
 When we have thus silenced this imagination, we have yet another 
 to encounter with, and that is. Of those that think these mtches, of 
 which the fore-cited texts do speak, are but mere cheats, and liy some 
 tricks of delusion and legerdemain pretend they can do things which 
 indeed they cannot do at all; and yet finding death threatened to 
 such, which, in a business of mere juggling, would seem too great a 
 severity, they have framed this answer to it,^ that the death is threat- 
 ened, not for juggling, but for their presumptuous and blasphemous 
 undertaking to do things that belong to a divine power, and for taking 
 
 ' Fuller, Pisg. Sight., lib. iy. cap. 7, p. 12S. Maimon[ide8.] Vide Poo!, in loc. 
 
 " Godwin's Jewish Antiq., lib. iv. cap. 40, Pool, in loc. 
 
 ^ Witchcraft is reckoned as distinct from murder in Gal. v. 20, 21. 
 
 ^ Scot Witchcraft, lib. vi. cap. 2. 
 
Chap. 5.] satan's temptations. 29 
 
 his name in vain. Or, as others are pleased to say,i though they have 
 no real power, they are justly punished for the belief they have, that 
 they can do such mischief, joined with their purpose to do it, if they 
 can. 
 
 In answer to this apprehension, I shall not much insist upon these 
 reasons, which yet are sufficiently weak — the latter accusing God's 
 laws of unreasonable severity, and the former accusing them of unne- 
 cessary redundancy, seeing enough in other places is provided against 
 blasphemers'-^ — but shall offer a consideration or two, which I judge 
 will be of force to rectify the mistake. 
 
 [1.] First, Though it cannot be denied but that a great many cheats 
 there have been in all ages, by wliich men have endeavoured to raise 
 the repute and esteem of their own skill and excellencies, or for other 
 base ends ; yet, from hence to conclude that all these things that have 
 been done under the name of witchcraft were such, must be an un- 
 sufFerable piece of insolence ; not only denying that credit which all 
 sober men owe to history, to tlie constant belief of all ages, to the 
 faithfulness and wisdom of judges, jurors, witnesses, laws, and sanc- 
 tions, but also dangerously overthrowing all our senses ; so that at 
 this rate we may well question whether we really eat, drink, move, 
 sleep, and anything else that we do. This reason is urged by grave 
 and serious men. 3 
 
 [2.] Secondly, It cannot be imagined that such things are merely 
 delusory, where the voluntary confessions of so many have accused 
 themselves and others, not of thinking or juggling, but of really acting 
 and doing such things — with such circumstances as have particularised 
 time, ]Dlace, thing, and manner. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, The real effects done by the power of witclicraft shew 
 it not to be delusion. Such are the transportation of persons many 
 miles from their habitations, and leaving them there ; their teUing 
 things done in remote places ; raising of storms and tempests ; vomit- 
 ing of pins, needles, stones, cloth, leather, and such like ; and these, 
 some of them, attested by sober and intelligent persons who were 
 eye-witnesses. Large accounts you have of these in Bodinus, Spren- 
 gerius, and several others that have borrowed these relations from 
 them.* 
 
 The notion of poisonings, or delusory jugglings, being below what 
 the Scripture intends to set forth as witchcraft, it is evident that witch- 
 craft is a power of doing great things by the aid of the devil ; by 
 which our way is open to improve this instance, to demonstrate — 
 
 ' Hobbes' Leviath., cap. ii. p. 7. 
 
 ' Tenison, Hobbes' Creed Exam. Art. i, p. 63. [Tenison, Archbishop o£ Canterbury : 
 ' The Creed of Mr (Thomas) Hobbes E.xammed.' London, 1670, 8vo.— G.] 
 
 ^ Baxter : ' Sin against the Holy Ghost,' p. 8-3. J. Glanvil : ' Considerations of Witch- 
 craft,' p. 6. Tenison against Hobbes, Art. 4, p. 59. 
 
 * Vide Epist. D. Balthasaris Han. M.D. in calce, torn. iii. Oper. Dan. Sennerti de 
 foemma fascinata in cujls cute, literce N.B. notse Crucist 5. capite ad calcem, cum astro- 
 nomicorum et chymicorum characteribus, rosoe figura in dextra et trifolii in sinistra 
 artificiosfe picta cum Anno Christi 1635, cor servatoria telia transfixum, et imago 
 stulti, cum verbo Germanico Narr, procumbcbant. [Dr More.] Mr Baxter ut supra. 
 Dan. Sennertua, torn. iii. lib. vi. par. 9 ; variaa historias cnumerat de morbis incan- 
 tatione inductis. 'Ex. Jo. Langio, Wex. Benedicto, Cornel. Gemma;, Foresto, et 
 aliis. 
 
30 A TKEATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 which was the second thing promised — that Satan's power must be 
 great. For, 
 
 [1.] First, It is acknowledged that a gi-cat part of those thmgs that 
 are done in this matter, as concurrent with, or helpful toward tiic 
 promoting of such acts, are Satan's proper works— as the troubling of 
 the air, raising storms, apparitions, various shapes and appearances, 
 transportations from place "to place, and a great many more things of 
 wonder and amazement, all which exceed human power.i 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Many tilings of wonder done by such persons, to 
 which some suppose tlie secret powers of herbs or things contribute 
 theu- natural aids or concm-rence, are evidences of Satan's deep know- 
 ledge of and insight into natural causes. Of this nature is that 
 ointment with whicli witches are said to besmear themselves in order 
 to their transportation ; the power and efficacy whereof is by some 
 imagined to consist in this, that it keeps the body tonantable and in a 
 fit condition to receive the soul by re-entry after such separations, as, 
 by all circumstances are concluded, have been really made in pursuit 
 of those visionary perambulations and transactions ; which thmgs, if 
 they be so— as they arc not improbable — witches have them from 
 Satan's discovery, and they are to be ascribed to his power.2 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Those actions that are most properly the witch's own 
 actions, and in which the power of hurting doth, as some suppose, 
 reside, are notwithstanding either awakened or influenced by Satan ; 
 so though we grant, what some would have, that the power of hurt- 
 in"- is a natural power, and a venomous magnetism of tlic witch, and 
 that her imagination, by her eye darts those malignant beams which 
 produce real hurts upon men— after the manner of the imagination's 
 force upon a child in the womb, which hath, as by daily experience 
 and history is confirmed, produced marks, impressions, deformities, 
 and wounds— and that Satan doth but cheat the witch into a belief 
 of his aid in that matter ; that witli a greater advantage he may make 
 use of her power, without which he could do nothing ; yet even this 
 speaks his ability, in that at least he doth awaken and raise up that 
 magical force which otherwise would be asleep, and so puts the sword 
 into their hand. Yet some atti-ibute far more to him— to wit, the 
 infusion of a poisonous ferment- by that action of sucking the witch 
 in some part of the body— by which not only her imagination might 
 be heightened by poisonous streams breathed in, which might infect 
 blood and spirits with a noxious tincture.^ 
 
 2. The second grand instance of his power I shall produce from 
 those actions of loonder and astonishment tvhich he sometime per- 
 fm-ms, ichich indeed have been so great that they liave occasioned that 
 question — 
 
 ' Hclmont. Magnet. Vuln. Cura., sec. 87. 
 
 = Dr More : — Death consists not so much in an actual separation of soul and body as 
 in the indisposition and unfitness of the body for vital union. What is the meaning 
 else of that expression, ' Whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell,' except 
 the soul may be separated from the body without death l—J. Glanvil, ' Witchcraft, pp. 
 
 a Helmont, vhi supra. Avicenna ; vide Barthol. Sybilla. ; Perig. Quajst, p. 401. 
 Nescio quis teneros oculos, &c. GlanvU, ' Witchcraft; p. 24 ; Helmont, ut supra,iQe. 
 102. Satan itaque rim magicam banc excitat (secus dormientem et scientia extenons 
 hominls impeditam) in suis mancipiis.— (?ta?ii'i7, ' Witchcraft,' p. 18. 
 
CnAi'. 5.] Satan's TEMrxATioNS. 31 
 
 Whether Satau can do miracles ? 
 
 To this we answer — 
 
 (1.) That God alone can ivork miracles, a miracle being a real 
 act, done ^^sibly, and above the power of nature. Such works some 
 have ranked into three heads i^ [1.] Such as created power cannot 
 produce; as to make the sun stand still or go backward. [2.] Such 
 as are in themselves produceable by nature,^ but not in sucli an order; 
 as to make the dead to live, and those that were born bUnd to see, 
 which is strongly argued, John is. 32, to be above hmnan power; 
 and, John x. 21, to be above the power of devils. [3.] Such as are 
 the usual works of nature, yet produced, above the principles and 
 helps of nature, as to cure a disease by a word or touch. 
 
 Things that are thus truly and properly miraculous are peculiarly 
 works of God ; neither can it be imagined, that since he hath been 
 pleased to justify his commands, ways, and messages, by such mighty 
 acts — 2 Cor. xii. 12 ; Heb. ii. 4 ; John x. 38 — and also hath been put 
 to it, to justify himself and his sole supreme being and godhead from 
 false competitors — Ps. Ixxxvi. 10, and Ixxii. 18 — by his miracidous 
 works, it cannot be imagined, I say, that he would permit any created 
 being, much less Satan, to do such things. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Though Satan cannot do things miracidous, yet he 
 can do things luonderful and amazing — mira non miracula. And in 
 this point lies the danger of delusion, as Christ foretells : Mat. xxiv. 
 24, ' False Christs shall ai'ise, and shew great signs and wonders.' In 
 2 Thes. ii. 4, the apostle tells us, ' The coming of antichrist shall be 
 with all power, and signs, and wonders' — that is, as some interpret,3 
 with the power of signs and wonders ; which, however they be lying, 
 both in reference to the design they drive at — which is to propagate 
 errors — and also in their own nature, being truly such, in respect of 
 their form, false as miracles, being indeed no such matter, but 
 juggling cheats ; yet, notwithstanding, there is no small cunning and 
 working of Satan in them, insomuch that the uncautious and injudi- 
 cious are ' deceived by those wonders that he hath power to do,' Eev. 
 xiii. 13. In this matter, though we are not able to give a particular 
 account of these underground actions, yet thus much we may say — 
 
 [1.] First, That in many cases his great acts, that pass for miracles, 
 are no more hut deceptions of sense. Naturalists have shewn several 
 feats and knacks of this kind. Jo. Bap. Porta -t hath a great many 
 ways of such deceptions, by lamps and the several compositions of oils, 
 _ by which not only the colours of things are changed, but men appear 
 ' without heads, or with the heads of horses, &c. The like deceptions 
 are wrought by glasses of various figures and shapes. If art can do 
 such things, much more can Satan. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, He can mightily work upon the fancy and imagina- 
 tion; by which means men are abused into a belief of things that are 
 not ; as in dreams, the fancy presents things which are really imagined 
 to be done and said, whenas tliey are visions of the night, which vanish 
 
 1 Polamis, 1632. 
 
 - Tho[mas Aquinas] Cont, Gent., liK iii. cap. 101, cited liy Sclatcr on 2 Thcs. ii. 0. 
 [llo, 1627, pp. 148, 149.— G.] 3 Sclatcr, in loc. 
 
 ■* Magia Naturalis, lib. ii. cap. 1 7. 
 
32 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 when the man is awake ; or as in melancholy persons, the fancy of 
 men cloth so strongly impose upon them, that they believe strange 
 absurd things of themselves — that they have horns on their head, that 
 they are made of glass, that they are dead, and what not. If fancy, 
 both asleep and awake, may thus abuse men into an apprehension of 
 impossible things, and that with confidence, no wonder if Satan, whose 
 power reacheththus far, as was before proved, doth take tliis advan- 
 tage for the amusing of men with strange things. Nebuchadnezzar 
 his judgment, Dan. iv. 25, whereby he was ' ckivcn from men, and ate 
 grass as oxen,' was not a metamorphosis, or real change into an ox. 
 This all expositors reject as too hard. Neither seems it to be only 
 his extreme necessity and low estate, whereby he seemed to be little 
 better tliau a beast, though Calvin favour tliis interpretation ; i but 
 but by that expression, ver. 25, ' then my understanding came to me,' 
 it seems evident, as most commentators think, that his understanding 
 was so changed in tliat punishment that he imagined himself to be a 
 beast, and behaved himself accordingly, by eating grass, and lying in 
 the open fields. Tliere are several stories to this purpose of strange 
 transformations, as the bodies of men into asses, and other beasts, 
 which Augustine thiuks to be nothing else but the devil's power upon 
 the fancy.- 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, There arc wonderful secrets in nature, which if cun- 
 ningly twcd and applied to Jit things and times, must needs amaze 
 vulgar heads ; and though some of these are known to philosophers 
 and scholars, yet are tliere many secret things locked from the wisest 
 men, wliose powers and natures because they know not, they may also 
 be deluded by them. Augustine 3 reckons up many instances, as the 
 loadstone, the stone pyrites, selenites, the fountain of Ejurus, that can 
 kindle a torch, and many more ; and determines that many strange 
 things are done by the application of these natural jiowers, either by 
 the vai of man or diabolical art. To tliis purpose he gives an account 
 of an unextingnishable lamp, Avyyo'^ atr/Seo-ro?, in a temjile of Venus, 
 which allured men to worship there, as to an unquestionable deity, 
 when in truth the thing was but an ingenious composition from the 
 stone asl)estou, of wliicli Pliny makes mention, that being kindled, it 
 will not be quenched with water.* Of this nature were those lamps 
 found in several vaults accompanying the ashes of the dead, reserved 
 there in urns, both in England and elsewhcre.5 If men by such helps 
 find such easy ways to delude men, what exactness of workmanship 
 and seeming wonders may be expected from Satan upon such advan- 
 tages I 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Many of his wonders may challenge a higher rise. 
 Satan knows the secret ways of nature's operations, and the ways of 
 accelerating or retarding those works ; so that he cannot only do what 
 nature can do, by a due application of active to passive principles,^ 
 and the help of those seminal powers that are in things, but he may 
 be supposed to perform them in a quicker and more expeditious man- 
 
 ' Calvin, in loc. ' Civit. Dei, lib. xriii. cap. 18. 
 
 3 De Civit. Dei, lib. xxi. cap. 5, 6. * Plin., lib. xxviii. 
 
 • Vide L. Vives Comment, in lib. xxi. cap. 6. De Civit. Dei. 
 ° Determinata activa ad determiuata passiva applicando. 
 
Chap. 5.] satan's temptations. 33 
 
 ner. Thus worms, flies, and serjjents, that are bred of putrefaction, 
 Satan may speedily produce ; and who can tell how far this help may 
 reach in his works of wonders ? 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, The secret tcaij of Satan's movings and actings is no 
 small matter in these a^ffedrs. How many things do common jugglers 
 by the swift motions of" their hands, that seem incredible ! Thus they 
 make the bystanders believe they change the substances, natures, and 
 forms of things, when they only, by a speedy conveyance, take these 
 things away, and put others in their room. They that shall consider 
 Satan as a spirit, subtle, imperceptible, quick of motion, &c., will 
 easily believe him to be more accomplished for such conveyances than 
 all the men in the world. 
 
 Having now seen the way of his wonders, let us next consider the 
 advantage he hath by such actions. If we look upon Simon Magus, 
 Acts viii. 10, 11, we find that he by these ways had a general influ- 
 ence upon the people, ' To him they all gave heed, from the least to 
 the greatest ;' and that liis actions were reckoned no less than mirac- 
 ulous, as done by 'the mighty power of God.' If we go from hence to 
 themagicians of Pharaoh, Exod. vii. 11, it is said, ' They did so with 
 their enchantments,' which, howsoever the matter was, prevailed so 
 with Pharaoh and the court, that they saw no difference betwixt the 
 wonders done by Moses and them, save that, it may be, they thought 
 Moses the more sldlful magician. But besides this, if we consider 
 what they did, it will argue much for his power, if we can imagine, as 
 some do,i that they turned their rods into real serpents ; the j^ower is 
 evident : and there is this that favours that opinion ; it is said they 
 could not make lice, which seems to imply they really did the other 
 things, and it had been as easy to delude the senses in the matter of 
 lice as in the rods, if it had been no more than a delusion. Neither 
 are some awanting to give a reason of such a power — viz., serpents, 
 lice, &c., being the ofi'spring of putrefaction ; by his dexterous applica- 
 tion of the seminal principles of things, he might quickly produce 
 them. If we go lower, and take up with the opinion of those that 
 think that they were neither mere delusions, nor yet true serpents ; but 
 real bodies like serpents, though without life, this vnll argue a very 
 great power.2 Or if we suppose, as some do,3 that Satan took away the 
 rods, and secretly conveyed serpents in their stead, or — which is the 
 lowest apprehension we can have — that Pharaoh's sight was deceived, 
 the matter is still far from being contemptible, forasmuch as we sec 
 the spectators were not able to discern the cheat. 
 
 3. Thirdly, The next instance produceable for evidencing his power 
 is that of apparitions. It cannot be denied but that the fancy of 
 melancholic or timorous j^ersons is fniitful enough to create a thou- 
 sand bugbears ; and also that the villainy of some persons hath been 
 designedly employed to deceive people with mock apparitions— of which 
 abundance of instances might be given from the knavery of the papists, 
 discovered to the world beyond contradiction ; but all this will not 
 conclude that there are no real appearances of spirit or devils. Such 
 sad effects in all ages there have been of these things, that most men 
 will take it for an undeniable truth. 
 ' Tho., Cajetan, Delrio. = Earth. Sybilla Pereg. Qusest., p. 372. » Kivetus. 
 
34 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 Instead of others, let the apparition at Endor to Saul corae to exa- 
 mination. Some indeed^ will have us believe that all that was hut a 
 subtle cheat managed by that old woman ; and that neither Samuel 
 nor the devil did appear, but that the woman, in another room by 
 herself, or with a confederate, gave the answer to Saul. But whoso- 
 ever shall read that story, and shall consider Saul's bowing and dis- 
 course, and the answers given, must acknowledge that Saul thought 
 at least he saw and spake with Samuel ; and indeed the whole trans- 
 action is such, that such a cheat cannot be supposed. 
 
 Satisfj-ing ourselves, then, that there was an apparition, we must 
 next inquire whether it was true Samuel or Satan. It cannot be 
 denied but that many judge it was true Samuel, but their reasons are 
 weak.2 
 
 [1.] That proof from Ecclesiasticus xlvi. 23, is not canonical with us. 
 
 [2.] That he was called Samuel, is of no force. Scripture often 
 gives names of things according to their appearances. 
 
 [3.] That things future were foretold, was l)ut from conjecture ; in 
 which Satan yet, all things considered, had good ground for his 
 guessing. 
 
 [4.] That the name Jehovah is oft repeated, signifies nothing. The 
 devil is not so scarce of words. ' Jesus I know,' saith that spirit in 
 the Acts. 
 
 [5.] That he reproved sin in Saul, is no more than what the devil 
 doth daily to afflicted consciences in order to despair. 
 
 I must go then with those that believe this was Satan in Samuel's 
 likeness. 
 
 [1.] Because God refused to answer Saul by prophets or Urim ; 
 and it is too harsh to think he would send Samuel from the dead, and 
 so answer him in an extraordinary way. 
 
 [2.] This, if it had been Samuel, would have given too much coun- 
 tenance to witchcraft, contrary to that check to Aliaziah, 2 Kings i. 3, 
 ' Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of 
 Baal-zebub ?' 
 
 [3.] The prediction of Saul's death, though true for substance, yet 
 failed as to the exactness of time, for the battle was not fought the 
 next day. 
 
 [4.] The acknowledgment of the witch's power, 'Why hast thou 
 disquieted me?' shews it could not be true Samuel, the power of 
 witchcraft not being able to reach souls at rest with God. 
 
 [5.] That expression of ' gods ascending out of the earth,' is evi- 
 dently suspicious. 
 
 The reality of apparitions being thus established, Satan's power will 
 be easily evinced from it. To say nothing of the bodies in which 
 spirits appear, the haunting of places and persons, and the other effects 
 done by such appearances, speak abundantly for it. 
 
 4. Fourthly, The last instance is of possessions, the reality of which 
 can no way be questioned, because the New Testament affords so 
 much for it. I shall only note some things as concerning this head. 
 As, 
 
 (1.) First, The multitudes of men possessed. Scarce was there 
 
 ' Scot. ' Witchcraft,' lib. vii. cap. 12. - Vide Pool Synops. in loc. 
 
Chap. G.] satan's temptatioxs. 35 
 
 anything in which Christ had more opportunities to shew his authority 
 than in casting out of Satan. Such objects of compassion he met with 
 in every place. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, The multitudes of spirits in one person is a consider- 
 ation not to be passed by. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, These persons were often strongly acted, sometime 
 with fierceness and rage, Mat. viii. 28 ; some living without clothes 
 and without house, huke viii. 27; some by an incredible strength 
 breaking chains and fetters, Mark v. 3. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, Sometime the possessed were sadly vexed and afflicted, 
 cast into the fire and water, &c. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, Some were strangely influenced. We read of one, 
 Acts xvi. 16, that had a spirit of divination, and told many things to 
 come, which we may suppose frequently came to pass, else she could 
 have brought ' no gain to her master by soothsaying.' Another we 
 hear of whose possession was with a lunacy, and had fits at certain 
 times and seasons. The possessed person with whom Mr Kothwell 
 discoursed, within the memory of some living, could play the critic in 
 the Hebrew language.^ 
 
 (G.) Sixthly, In some the possession was so strong, and so fii-mly 
 seated, that ordinary means and ways could not dispossess them : ' This 
 kind comes not out but by prayer and fasting,' Slat. xvii. 21 ; which 
 shews that all possession was not of one kind and manner, nor alike 
 liable to ejection. 
 
 (7.) Seventhly, To all these maybe added obsessioiis: where the 
 devil afflicts the bodies of men, disquiets them, haunts them, or strikes 
 in with their melancholy temper, and so annoys by hideous and black 
 repi'esentations. Thus was Saul vexed by ' an evil spirit from the 
 Lord,' which as most conceive was the devil worldng in his melan- 
 choly humour. That the devil shoidd take possession of the bodies of 
 men, and thus act, chive, trouble, and distress them, so distort, dis- 
 tend, and rack their members ; so seat himself in then- tongues and 
 minds that a man cannot command his own. faculties and powers, but 
 to be rather changed into the nature of a devil than to retain 
 
 anything of a man, this shews a power in him to be trembled at. 
 
 Satan's power being thus explained and proved, I shall next speak 
 something of his cruelty. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 Of Satan's cruelty. — Listances tliereof in Ids dealing with wounded 
 spirits, in ordinary temptations of the loiched and godly, in persecu- 
 tions, cruelties in tvorsliip. — His cruel handling of his slaves. 
 
 He that shall consider his malice and power, must unavoidably con- 
 clude him to be cruel. Malice is always so where it hath the advan- 
 tage of a proportionable strength and opportunity for the effecting of 
 its hatefifl contrivances. It banisheth all pity and commiseration, 
 
 1 Vide Clark's Lives. [' The Lives of Thirtv-two English Divines.' FoUo. 1677. 
 3d ed. p. 671, seq.—G] 
 
36 A TREATISE OF [PART I. 
 
 aud follows only the dictate of its own rage, with such fierceness, that 
 it is only limited by wanting power to execute. We may then say of 
 Satan, that according to his malice and power such is his cruelty. 
 The truth of this will be abundantly manifested by instances : as, 
 
 1. First, From his desperate pursuits of advaniage upon tliosewhosc 
 spirits are wounded. The anguish of a distressed conscience is un- 
 speakably great, insomuch that many are, as Heman, Ps. Ixxxviii. 15, 
 ' even distracted, while they suffer the terrors of the Almighty.' 
 These, though they look round about them for help, and invite all 
 that pass by to pity them, ' because the hand of the Lord hath touched 
 them,' [Job xix. 21,] yet Satan laughs'at their calamity, and mocks 
 at them under their fears, and doth all he can to augment the flame. 
 He suggests dreadful thoughts of an incensed majesty, begets terrible 
 apprehensions of infinite wrath and damnation, he aggravates all their 
 sins to make them seem impardonable. Every action he calls a sin, 
 and every sin he represents as a wilful forsaldng of God, and every 
 deliberate transgression he tells them is 'the sin against the Holy 
 Ghost.' He batllcs them in their prayers and services, and then 
 accuseth their duties foi- intolerable profanations of God's name ; and 
 if they be at last affrighted from them, he then clamours that they 
 are 'forsaken of God' because they have forsaken him. He, as a 
 right Baal-zehub,i rakes in their wounds, as flies are ever sucking where 
 there is a sore. Their outcries and lamentations are such music to 
 him, that he gives them no rest ; and with such triumph doth he tread 
 upon those that thus lie in the dust, that he makes them sometimes 
 accuse themselves for that which they never did, and in derision he 
 insults over them in their greatest perplexities, witii this, ' Where is 
 now thy God ? ' [Ps. xlii. 3,] and ' Who shall deliver thee out of my 
 hand ? ' This were enough to evidence him altogether void of com- 
 passion. But, 
 
 2. Secondly, He shews no less cruelty in his usage of those that are 
 his slaves. The .service that he exacts of those that are his most 
 willing servants, is no less than the highest cruelty ; and not only 
 [1.] in regard of the misery and destruction which he makes them 
 work out for themselves, which is far gi-eater than where men are 
 forced by the most brutish tyrants to buy their own poison or to cut 
 
 tha: 
 
 their own throats, because this is unspeakably less than the < 
 miseries of eternal torments; but [2.] also in regard of the very 
 slavery and (hnidging toil of the service wliich he exacts from them. 
 He is not pleased that they sin, but the vilest iniquities most contrary 
 to God and most abominable to man, as the highest violations of the 
 laws of nature and reason, are the things which he will put them 
 upon, where.there are no restraints in his way. He drave the heathens, 
 as Paid testifies, Kom. i., to affections so vile aud loathsome, that in 
 their way of sinning they seemed to act rather like brutes than men, 
 their minds becoming so injudicious that they lost all sense of what 
 was fit and comely. Neither [3.] doth this satisfy his cruelty, that the 
 worst of abominations be practised, but he urgeth them to the highest 
 desperateness in the manner of performance, and so draws them out to 
 the front of the battle, that they might contemn and outdare God to 
 1 God of a By, or fly-god.— G. 
 
Chap. 6.] satan's temptations. 37 
 
 his face. He will have them sin with a high hand, and in the highest 
 bravado of madness to rush into sin as ' the horse into the battle.' 
 This cruelty of Satan were yet the less if he only brought them forth 
 presumptuously in some one or two set battles upon special occasions ; 
 but [4.] he would have this to be their constant work, the task of every 
 day, upon the same score that Ahithophel advised Absalom to an open 
 and avouched defilement of his father's concubines, that so the breach 
 betwixt them and God might be fixed by a resolute determination, 
 and consequently that their hands might be strong and their hearts 
 hardened in rebellion against God. And [5.] that Satan might not 
 come short of the utmost of what cruelty coiild do, we may yet further 
 observe, that though sinners offer themselves ^villingIy enough to con- 
 flict against God in the high places of the field, yet, as not satisfied 
 with their forwardness, he lasheth and whips them on to their work, 
 and sometime overdrives them in their own earnestness. Haman was 
 so hurried and overborne with violent hatred against Mordecai and 
 the Jews, that his own advancement and the marks of singular favour 
 from the king availed him not, as to any satisfaction and present con- 
 tentment, Esther v. 13. Ahab, though king of Israel, is so vehe- 
 mently urged in his desires for Naboth's vineyard, that he covered his 
 face and grew sick upon it, [1 Kings xxi. 1, seq.] Thus as galley-slaves 
 were they chained to their oar, and forced to their work beyond their 
 own strength. 
 
 3. Thirdly, There is also a cruelty seen in Jiis incessant provoTcings 
 and force upon the children of God, while heurgeth liis loathed temp- 
 tations upon them against their will. When I consider Paul's outcry 
 in this case, Kom. vii. 15, 19, ' That which I do, I allow not ; the 
 evil which I would not, that do I,' &c., my thoughts represent him to 
 me, like those Christians that were tortm'ed in the trough, where 
 water was poured by a continued stream upon their mouths, till the 
 cloth that lay upon their lips was forced down their throats ; or like 
 those that had stinking puddle-water by a tunnel poured into their 
 stomachs, till they were ready to burst ; and surely he apprehended 
 liimself to be under very cruel dealing by Satan when he cried out, 
 ' wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me ? ' If we seriously 
 consider the mind and endeavours of those children of God that are 
 striving against sin, and have cast it off as the most loathsome abomin- 
 able thing, when Satan urgeth them to evil with his incessant impor- 
 tunities, it is as if they were forced to eat their own excrements, or to 
 swallow down again their own vomit ; for the devil doth but as it 
 were cram these temptations down their thi'oats against their will. 
 
 4. Fourthly, If we cast our eye upon the persecutions of all ages, 
 we shall have thence enough to charge Satan withal in point of 
 cruelty, for he who is styled ' a murderer from the beginning,' [John 
 ^^ii. 44,] set them all on foot. It is he that hath filled the world with 
 blood and fury, and hath in all ages, in one place or other, made it a 
 very shambles and slaughter-house of men. [1.] Can we reckon how 
 often Satan hath been at this work ? That is impossible. His most 
 public and general attempts of this kmd are noted by histories of all 
 ages. The persecutions of Pharaoh against Israel, and of the prevail- 
 ing adversaries of Israel and Judah against both or either of them , 
 
?,S A TREATISE Ol' [PaUT I. 
 
 are recorded for the most part in Scripture. The persecutions of the 
 Roman emperors against Christianity are sufficiently known, and what 
 is yet to come who can tell ? A great persecution by Antichrist was 
 the general belief and expectation of those that lived in Austin's time, 
 und long before ; but whether this be one more to the ten former per- 
 secutions, that so the parallel betwixt these and Pharaoh's ruin in 
 the Red Sea after his ten plagues might nm even, be only to be looked 
 for, or that others arc also to be expected, he thinks it would be pre- 
 sumption and rashness to determine.' But, however, his particular 
 assaults of this nature camiot be numbered: how busy is he still at 
 this work in all times and places ! insomuch that ' He that will live 
 godly m this world must suffer persecution,' 2 Tim. iii. 12. But [2.] 
 If we withal consider what inventions and devices of cruelty and tor- 
 ture he hath found out, and what endless variety of pains and miseries 
 he hath prepared, a catalogue whereof would fill a great deal of paper, 
 we can do no less than wonder at the nierciless fury and imi)lacable 
 rage of him that contrived them. Satan, the great engineer, doth but 
 give us the picture of his mind in aU those instruments of destruction. 
 And when we see amongst tyrants ways of torturing every member of 
 the body, and arts of multiplying deaths, that so those that perish by 
 tlicir hands might not have" so much as the mercy of a speedy de- 
 spatch, but that they might feel themselves to die, we may reflect it 
 upon Satan, in Jacob's words to Simeon and Levi, ' Cursed be liis 
 anger, for it is fierce ; and his wrath, for it is cruel,' [Gen. xlix. 7.] 
 [3.] But if we consider what instruments he useth,aud against whom, 
 we shall see cruelty in a liiglier exaltation. Had he used some of the 
 beasts of the eartli" or soineof liis apostate associates, to persecute and 
 afflict the innocent lambs of Clu-ist, it might have been much ex- 
 cused from the natural instinct or cursed antipathy of such agents ; or 
 had he used only the vilest of the children of men to act his tragical 
 fury, the matter had been less ; but as not content with common re- 
 venge, he persecutes men by men, though all of one blood and off- 
 spring, and so perverts the ends of natme, making those that should 
 be the comforts and support of men to be the greatest terror and curse 
 to them— a thing which nature itself abhors, and in regard of which, 
 that the impressK)ns of pity might be more permanent and efficaciou.s, 
 God forbade Israel to ' seethe a kid in the mother's milk,' [Exod. xxiii. 
 19 ;] nay, he hath prevailed with some of good inclinations and rare 
 accomplishments— for such were some of the persecuting emperors— 
 to be his deputies for authorising the rack, for providing fire and faggot, 
 and, which is strange, hath prevailed so tar with them, that they have 
 been willing to open their ears to the most palpable lies, the grossest 
 forgeries, the most unreasonable suggestions that known malice could 
 invent; and then after all, when they were drawn out to butchery and 
 slaughter by multitudes, they have made such spectacles— which might 
 make impressions upon an iron breast or an adamant heart — only 
 advancements of their jollity ; and as Nero upon the sight of flaming 
 Rome took his harp and made melody, so have these tormenting furies 
 fired, by the help of combustible matter, multitudes of such harmless 
 creatures, and then taken the opportunity of their light for their night 
 
 ' Dc Civit. Dei, lib. xviji. car- 5'-- 
 
Chap. 6.] satan's temptations. 39 
 
 sports. And yet, methinks, the devil hath discovered a keener fury 
 when he hath made them rage against the dead, and dig their gi-aves, and 
 revenge themselves upon their senseless ashes, and when they could do 
 no more, seek to please themselves by executing their rage against 
 their pictures or statues ; wliich actions, though they might be con- 
 demned for follies, yet are they evidences of liighest firry, which com- 
 monly destroys the judgment, and sacrificeth wit, reason, and honour 
 upon the altar of revenge. That the devil should so poison man's 
 nature that he should thus rise up against his fellow, that carries the 
 same specific being with himself, shews enough of liis temper against 
 man, but never more than when he prevails against the engagements 
 of kindness, blood, affinity, and relation, to raise a man's enemies out 
 of his own house, ' the father against the son, and the son against the 
 father, the daughter against the mother, and the mother against the 
 daughter,' [JMat. x. 35 ;] for this is little less than an unnatural mutiny 
 of the members against the body. 
 
 5. Fifthly, We have yet a more visible instance of his cruelty in 
 his bloody and tyrannical superstitions. Look but into the rites and 
 ways of his worship among the heathen in all ages and places, and 
 you vnW find notliing but vile and ridiculous fooleries, or insolent and 
 despiteful usages. In the foi'mer he hath driven men to villainous 
 debaucheries, in the latter to execrable cruelties. Of the latter I shall 
 only sjjeak ; though in the former, by debasing man to be his laughing- 
 stock, he is cruel in his scorn and mockery. Here I might mention 
 his tyi-annical ceremonies of the lower order, such as touch not life ; 
 such were their tedious pilgrimages, as in Zeilan ; their painful whip- 
 pings, as of the youth of Lacedicmon at the altar of Diana ; of their 
 priests, and that with knotted cords upon their shoulders, as at Mexico 
 and New Spain ; their harsh usages in tedious fastings, stinking 
 drenches, hard lyings upon stones, eating earth, strict forbearances of 
 wine and commerce, their torturings and manglings of their bodies by 
 tenible lancings and cuttings for the effusion of blood, 1 I^ngs xviii. ; 
 their dismembering themselves, plucking out their eyes, mangling 
 their flesh, to cast in the idol's face, sacrificing theu' own blood, as did 
 the priests of Bellona and Dea Syria, i So cUd the kings of New Spain 
 at their election, as Montezuma the Second, who sacrificed by drawing 
 blood from his ears and the calves of his legs.2 In Narsinga and Bis- 
 nagar they go their pilgrimages with knives sticking on theu- arms and 
 legs till the wounded flesh festered. Some cast themselves imder the 
 wheels of the waggon on which then- idol is di-awn in procession."' Yet 
 are all these but small matters in comparison of the bloody outrages 
 committed upon mankind in the abominable custom of sacrificing men 
 to liim. Of tliis many authors give us a large account.* The Lace- 
 dajmoniaus to avert the plague sacrifice a virgin ; the Athenians, by 
 the advice of Apollo's oracle, sent yearly to King Minos seven males and 
 so many females to be sacrificed to appease the wrath of the god for 
 their killing of Androgens. The Carthaginians, being vanquished by 
 
 ' Teitul. Apolog., cap. P. - Purcbas, Pilgrim., part i. lib. viii. cap. 10. 
 
 ^ Idem, part i. lib. v. cap. 11. 
 
 ' Iphigenia Sacrificata, de qua. . . . Sanguine placastis ventos et virgine csesa.— 
 Virn. Plut. Paral., cap. 06. 
 
40 A TREATISE OF [FaRT I. 
 
 Agathocles, king of Sicily, sacrificed two hundred noblemen's children 
 at once. The Romans had every year such sacrifices of men and women, 
 of each sex two, for a long time ; and this was so common arnong 
 the wiser pagan nations, that whensoever they fell into danger, either 
 of war, sicknesses, or of any other calamity, they presently, to expiate 
 their offences against their supposed incensed gods, and to clear them- 
 selves of their present miseries or dangers, sacrificed some mean 
 persons, who for this reason were called KaOdp/xara, exjnations,! 
 and to this doth the apostle allude in 1 Cor. iv. 13, as Budajus, 
 Stephanus, Grotius, and many others think; as if he should say,* 
 we are as much despised and loaded with cursings as those that 
 are sacrificed for public expiation. But what cniel usage may we 
 exjject for the poor barbarous nations of the world, where he had all 
 possible advantages for the exercise of his bloody tyranny ! Many sad 
 instances of this kind are collected by Purchas in his Pilgrimage, in 
 his discourses of Virginia, Peru, Brasilia, Mexico, Florida, and other 
 places, whose stories of this subject are so terrible, and occur so fre- 
 quently, that they are almost beyond all belief,^ all which for brevity's 
 sake I omit, contenting myself to note one instance or two out of the 
 Scripture : 2 Kings iii. 27, the king of ]\Ioab ' took his eldest son that 
 should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt-offering 
 upon the wall.' This he did, according to the customs of the Phoeni- 
 cians and others, being reduced to great straits, as Kuii]iosing by this 
 means, as his last refuge, to turn away the wrath of his God. Of Ahaz 
 it is recorded, 2 Chron. xxviii. 3, that ' he burnt his children in the fire, 
 after the abominations of the heathen.' That this was not a lustration 
 or consecration of their children, though that also was used, but a real 
 sacrificing, is witliout doubt to Josephus, who expresseth it thus : ' He 
 offered hLs son as an holocaust,' [oXoKdva-Twcre.] But whatever. Ahaz 
 did, it is certain the children of Israel did so ; ' They offered their sons 
 and daughters to devils,' Ps. cvi. 37. And if the ' sacrifices of the 
 dead ' wliich they ate in the wilderness, mentioned ver. 28_, be under- 
 stood of the feasts which were made at ' the burning of their children,' 
 as some thmk 3— though many understand it of their senseless dead 
 gods or their deceased heroes, or for their deceased friends—then this 
 cruelty had soon possessed them. However, possess them it did, as 
 appeai-s also by the description of then- devouring Moloch, which the 
 Jewish Eahbins say was a hollow brazen image in the form of a man, 
 saving that it had the head of a calf, the arms stretched in a posture 
 of receiving ; the image was heated with fire, and the priest put the 
 child in his arms, where it was burnt to death ; in the meantime a 
 noise was made with ckums, that the cries of the child might not be 
 heard, and hence was it called Tophet, from io2)Ji, which signifies a 
 drum ; so that the name and shape of the image shews that it was 
 used to these execrable cruelties. 4 
 
 These Scripture evidences, if we were backward to credit what his- 
 tories say of this matter, may assure us of the temper and disposition 
 
 ' Godivrn, 'Moses and Aaron,' lib. iii. cap. 8. , ■ „ . . 
 
 ■ His ' Pilgrimage ; or, Relations of the World and the Religions observed m all Ages, 
 1614, folio ; and his ' Pilgrimes,' 5 vols, folio, 1625-26— G. 
 3 Lightfoot on Acts vii. 43. •" Godwyn, ' Moses and Aaron, lib. iv. cap. Z. 
 
Chap. 6.] satan's temptations. 41 
 
 of Satan, and may enable us to believe what bloody work he hath made 
 in the world, wliicli I shall briefly sum up in these particulars : — 
 
 [1.] First, These inliuman, or rather, as Purchas calls them, over- 
 human sacrifices, were jiractised in most nations. Not only the 
 Indians, Parthians, Mexicans, &c., but Ji^thiopians, Syrians, Cartha- 
 ginians, Grecians, Komans, Germans, French, and Britons used them. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, These cruelties were acted not only upon slaves and 
 captives, but upon children, whose age and innocency might have 
 commanded the compassions of their parents for better usage. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, These sacrificings were used upon several occasions, 
 as at the .sprouting of their corn, at the inauguration, coronation, and 
 deaths of their kings and noblemen, in time of war, dearth, pestilence, 
 or any danger ; in a word, as the priests in Florida and Mexico used 
 to say, whenever the devil is hungry or thirsty, that is, as oft as he 
 hath a mind. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, In some places the devil brought them to set times 
 for those offerings; some were monthly, some annual. The Latins 
 sacrificed the tenth child ; the annual drowning of a boy and a gii-1 in 
 the lake of IMexico ; the casting of two yearly from the Pons Milvhis ^ 
 at Kome into Tiber, are but petty instances in comparison of the rest. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, We cannot pass by the vast number of men offered up 
 at one time. So tliirsty is Satan of human blood, that from one or 
 two, he hath raised the number incredibly high. In some sacrifices 
 five, in some ten, in some a hundred, in some a thousand have been 
 offered up. It was the argument which Montezuma, the last Emperor 
 of Mexico, used to Cortez to prove his strength and greatness by, that 
 he sacrificed yearly twenty thousand men, and some years fifty thou- 
 sand. Some have reserved their ca^Dtives for that end, others have 
 made war only to furnish themselves with men for such occasions. 
 
 [6.] Sixthly, There are also several cu-cumstances of these diabolical 
 outrages that may give a further discovery of his cruelty, as that these 
 miserable creatures thus led to be butchered have been loaden with 
 all the cursings, revilings, and contumacious reproaches as a necessary 
 concomitant of their violent deaths. Thus were those used who were 
 forced to be the public KaOdpfxara, or expiation, for the removal of 
 common calamities. Death also was not enough, except it had been 
 most tormenting in the manner of it, as of those that suffered by the 
 embracements of Moloch. The joy and feastings of such sacrificings, 
 which were in themselves spectacles of moiu-ning and sorrow, were 
 cruelties to the dead, and a barbarous enforcement against the laws 
 of nature in the living. But the dashing of the smoking heart in the 
 idol's face, and the pulling off the skins from the massacred bocUes, that 
 men and women might dance in them, were yet more cruel ceremonies. 
 And lastly, In those that have been prepared for those solemnities, 
 by delicious fare, gorgeous ornaments, and the highest reverence or 
 honom-s, as was the manner of several countries ; yet was this no 
 other than Salan's in-sulting over their miseries, of which we can say 
 no otherwise, than that his tenderest mercies are cruelties. 
 
 [7.] Seventhly, I may cast into the account, that in some places 
 Viris Illustr. cap. 27, sec. 8 : Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 
 
42 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 Satan, by a strange madness of devotion, hath persuaded some to be 
 voUmteers in suft'ering these tortures and deaths. Some have cast 
 themselves under the chariot-wheels of their idols, and so liave been 
 crushed to pieces. ^ Some sacrifice themselves to their gods : first they 
 out off several pieces of their flesh, crying every time, ' For the worship 
 of my god, I cut this my flesh ; ' and at last say, ' Now do I yield my- 
 self to death in the behalf of my god,' and so kills himself outright. 
 
 [8.] Eighthly, It is wonderful to think that the devil should, by 
 strange pretexts of reason, have smoothed over these barbarous in- 
 humanities, so that they liave become plausible tilings iu the judgments 
 of those miserable wretches. In piacular sacrifices they believed that 
 except the life of a man were given for the life of men, that the gods 
 could not be pacified.- In other sacrifices, both eucharistical and for 
 atonement, they retained this principle, ' that those things are to be 
 offered to the gods that are most pleasing and acceptable to us ; and 
 that the offering of a calf or a pigeon was not siiitable to such an end.' 
 This maxim they further improved by the addition (.)f another of the 
 same kind, ' that if it were fit to offer a liuman sacrifice, it must also 
 be innocent, and consequently little children are the fittest for such a 
 purpose.' And some have also conjectured that the devil hath not 
 been awanting to improve the example of Abraham sacrificing his son, 
 or tlic law in" Lev. xxvii. 28, or the prophecies concerning the death 
 nf Christ, as the great sacrifice of atonement, to justify and warrant 
 liis hellish cruelty.-* In some cases cruelty hath arisen from the very 
 principles of reverence and love which children have to parents, and 
 fiicmls to friends : as in Dragoian, wlien any are sick, they send to their 
 oracle to know whether the parties shall live or die ; if it be answered 
 they shall die, then their friends strangle them and eat them ; and all 
 this from a kind of religious resi)ect to their kindred, to preserve, as 
 they imagine, their flesh from putrefaction, and their souls from tor- 
 ment* The like they do at Javamajor, when tlieir friends grow old 
 and cannot work, only they eat not their own friends, but carry them 
 to the market and sell them to those that do eat them.^ 
 
 [9.] Lastly, Let us call to mind how long the devil domineered iu 
 the world at this rate of cruelty. When the world grew to a freer use 
 of reason and greater exercise of civility, they found out ways of 
 mitigation, and changed these barbarous rites into more tolerable 
 sacrifices ; as in Laodicca, they substituted a hart to be sacrificed 
 instead of a virgin ; iu Cyprus, an ox was put instead of a man ; in 
 Egjqjt, waxen images instead of men. Images of straw at Eomc were 
 cast into Tiber in the place of living men ; and the terrible burnings 
 of Moloch, which was not peculiar only to the nations near to Canaan, 
 but was in use also at Carthage, and found in the American islands by 
 the Spaniards ; the like brazen images were also found in Lodovicus 
 Vivcs his time, by the French, in an island called by them Carolina.^ 
 
 ' T'urclias, Pilgr., part i. lib. v. cap. 11, [e.g., Juggernath in India.— G.] 
 
 ^ Pro vita hominum nisi vita hominis reddatur, non posse deonim numen placari, 
 arbitrantur.— /coH cTHximn., [i.e., John Despagnc] 'Popular Errors' [in the Know- 
 ledge of Religion. London, 1648, 8vo.— G.] cap. 18. 
 
 ^ Vide Lud. Capel. de volo JepUlic, [nc corban.—G.] sec. 9. Vide Pool Synops. Cnt. 
 on 2 Kings iii. 27. ■■ I'uiolias, Pilgr., part i. lib. v. cap. Ifl. '' Purchas, ibid. 
 
 ^ Diod.^Siculus. Biblioth.. lib. .\x. Lod. \ives on Aug. Ue Civ, Dei, lib. vii. cap. 19. 
 
Chap. G.] sa tan's temptations. 43 
 
 These were at last changed iuto ?ifehruati<yn,^ and instead of burning 
 their children, they only passed them betwixt two fires ; but it was 
 long before it came to this. In the time of Socrates, human sacrifices 
 were in use at Carthage, and they continued in the Koman provinces 
 till the time of Tertullian, Eusebius, and Lactantius ; though they 
 had been severely forbidden by Augustus Cresar, and afterward by 
 Tiberius, who was forced to crucify some of the priests that dared to 
 offer such sacrifices, to affright them from those barbarous customs. 
 In other places of the world, how long such things continued, who can 
 tell, especially seeing they were found at Carolina not so very long 
 since ? 
 
 How impossible is it to cast up the total sum of so many large 
 items ! When these terrible customs have had so general a practice in 
 most nations, upon so many occasions, upon such seeming plausible 
 principles ; when such great numbers have been destroyed at once, and 
 these usages have been so long practised in the world, and with such 
 difficulty restrained, what vast multitudes of men must, we imagine, 
 have been consumed by Satan's execrable cruelty ! 
 
 6. Sixthly, There remains one instance more of the devil's cruelty, 
 which is yet different from the former, which I may call his personal 
 cruelties; because they are acted by his own immediate hand upon 
 certain of his vassals, without the help or interposure of men, who, in 
 most of the fore-mentioned cases, have been as instruments acted by 
 him. Here I might take notice of his fury to those that are possessed. 
 Some have been as it were racked and tortured in their bodies, and 
 their limbs and members so distorted, that it hath been not only matter 
 of pity to the beholders to see them so abused, but also of admiration 2 
 to consider how such abuses should be consistent with their lives, and 
 that such rendings and tearings have not quite separated the soul from 
 the body. In the Gospels we read of some such ' cast into the fire, and 
 into the water,' [Mat. xvii. 15 ;] others, conversing ' with tombs and 
 sepulchres,' in the cold nights 'without clothes;' and all of them 
 spoken of as creatures sadly tormented, and ' miserably vexed.' The 
 liistories of later days tell us of some that vomited crooked pins, pieces 
 of leather, coals, cloth, and such like ; of others snatched out of their 
 houses, and th-ed even to fainting, and waste of their spu-its, as Domina 
 Rossa, mentioned by Bodin, with a great many more to this same pur- 
 pose. We may take a view of his dealing with witches, who, though 
 he seem to gratify them in their transportations from place to place, 
 and in their feastings with music and dancings, are but cruelly handled 
 by him very often. " The very work they are put upon — which is the 
 destruction of children, men, women, cattle, and the fruits of the earth 
 — is but a base employment ; but the account he takes of them, of the 
 full performance of their eutevprizes, and the cruel beatings they have 
 of him, when they cauncl accoiniilish any of their revenges, is no less 
 than a severe cruelty, lie .^ivcs them no rest unless they be doing 
 hurt ; and when they cannot do it to the persons designed,_ they are 
 forced to do the same mischief to their own children or relations, that 
 they may gratify their tjTannical master. Bodin relates the story ol 
 ' Purifying sacrifices for the manes of tlie dead, ofFercd in Fchnmnj.—G. 
 
44 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 a French baron, [p. 180,] who was afterward put to death for witch- 
 craft, that after he had killed eight children, was at last upon a design 
 of sacrificing his own child to the devil. And if at any time they 
 grew weary of so execrable a slavery, or confess their wickedness, they 
 are so miserably tormented that they choose rather to die than live. 
 And what else but cruelty can these slaves expect from him, when the 
 ceremonies of their entrance into that cursed service betokens nothing 
 else ; for their bonds and obligations are usually -wi-it or subscribed with 
 their own blood ; and some magical books have been wTit with the 
 blood of many children ; besides, the farewell that they have of him at 
 theu- usual meetings, is commonly this thundering threatening, ' Avenge 
 j'our.selves, or you shall die.' All these particulars are collected from 
 the confessions of w^tches by Bodin, Wiorus, and others. 
 
 But leaving these, let us further inquire into Satan's carriage toward 
 those that in America and other dark and barbarous jilaces know no 
 other god, and give their devoutest worship to him. To those he is 
 not so kind as might be expected ; but his constant way is to terrify 
 and torment them, insomuch that some know no other reason of their 
 worship but that he may not hurt them. And since the English 
 colonies went into these parts, these Americans have learned to make 
 this distinction between tlie Englishman's God and theirs, that theirs 
 is an evil god, and the other a good God ; though that distinction in 
 other places is in the general far more ancient, where they acknow- 
 ledge two gods, one good, the other bad ; and the worse the god 
 is, the saddest, most mournful riles of sacrificing were used, as_ in 
 caves, and in the night — the manner of the worship fitly expressing 
 the nature of the god they served. i Our countrymen have noted of 
 the natives of New England, that the devil appeared to them in ugly 
 shapes, and in hideous places, as in swamps and woods. But these 
 are only the prologue to the tragedy itself, for they only .serve to im- 
 press upon the minds of his worshippers what cruelties and severities 
 they are to expect from him ; and accordingly he often lets them feel 
 his hand, and makes them know that those dark and dinmixl 2}r el udiuins 
 are not for nothing. For sometimes he appears to the worshippers, 
 tormenting and afflicting their bodies, tearing the flesh from the 
 bones, and carrying them away quick 2 with him ; sometimes six have 
 been carried away at once, none ever knowing what became of them. 3 
 By such bloody acts as these he kept the poor Americans in fear and 
 slavery ; so that as bad a master as he is, they durst not but pay their 
 homage and service to him. All these particulars being put together, 
 will shew we do the devil no wrong when we call him cruel. 
 
 • Porphyriue, lib. ii. De Abstincut. riutareh. Lod. Vives in Aug. De Civ. Dei, 
 lib. viii. cap. 13. " ' Alive.' — O. 
 
 ^ Wonder-working rrov[idciiecs] for K[ew] E[uglaud], lib. i. cap. 10. 
 
Chap. 7.] satan's temptations. 45 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Of Satan's diligence in several instances. — The question about the 
 being of spirits and devils handled. — The Sadducees' opinion dis- 
 covered. — TJie reality of spirits proved. 
 
 The last particular observed in the text is his diligence. This adds 
 force and strength to his malice, power, and cruelty, and shews they 
 are not idle, dead, or inactive principles in him, which, if they could 
 be so supposed, would render him less hm-tful and formidable. This 
 I shall despatch in a few instances, noting to tliis purpose, 
 
 1. First, His pains he takes in hunting his prey, and pursuing his 
 designs. It is nothing for him to ' compass sea and land,' to labour 
 to the utmost in his emploj-ment ; it is all his business to tempt and 
 destroy, and his whole heart is in it. Hence intermission or cessation 
 cannot be expected. He faints not by his labour ; and his labour, with 
 the success of it, is all the delight we can sui^pose him to have. So 
 that, being pushed and hurried by the helUsh satisfactions of deadly 
 revenge, and having a strength answerable to those violent impulses, 
 we must suppose him to undergo, with a kind of pleasing willingness, 
 all imagmable toil and labour. If we loolc into ourselves, we find it 
 true, to oiu" no small trouble and hazard. Doth he at any time easily 
 desist when we give him a repulse ? Doth he not come again and 
 again, with often and impudently-repeated importunities ? Doth he 
 not carry a design in his mind for months and years against us ? And 
 when the motion is not feasible,' yet he forgets it not, but after a long 
 interruption begins again where he left ; which shews that he is big 
 with his projects, and his mind hath no rest. He stretcheth out his 
 nets all the day long. We may say of him, that he riseth up early, 
 and sitteth up late at his work, and is content to labom- in the very 
 fire, so that he might but either disturb a child of God or gain a 
 proselyte. 
 
 2. Secondly, Diligence is not only discovered in laboriousness, but 
 also in ap)eculiar readiness to espy and to close in loithfit occasions, 
 which may in probability ansiuer the end ive drive at. In this is 
 Satan admirably diligent ; no occasion shall slip, or through inadver- 
 tency escape him. No sooner are opportunities before us, but we may 
 perceive him suggesting to us, ' Do this, satisfy that lust, take that 
 gain, please yourselves with that revenge.' No sooner obtains he a 
 commission against a child of God, but presently he is upon his back, 
 as he dealt with Job ; he lost no time, but goes out immediately from 
 the presence of the Lord and falls upon him. Besides what he doth 
 upon solemn and extraordinary occasions, these that are common and 
 ordinary are so carefuUy improved by him, that everything we hear 
 or see is ready to become our snare, and Satan wiU assay to tempt us 
 by them, though they he something out of the way of our inclination, 
 and be not so likely to prevail with us. 
 
 3. Thirdly, It is also a discovery of his diligence, that he never fails 
 to pursue every advantage which he gets against us to the utmost. If 
 the occasion and motion thereupon incline us, so that if we are per- 
 
46 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 suaded by them, he follows it on, and is not satisfied with cither a 
 lower degi'ee of acting sinfully, or with one or two acts ; but then he 
 presseth iipon us to sin to the height, with the greater contempt ol" 
 God and grievance of his Spirit, the greater scandal and offence to our 
 brethren; and having once caused us to begin, he would never have us 
 to make an end. His temptations roll themselves upon us like the 
 breaking in of waters, which, by the fierceness of their current, make 
 a large way for more to follow. He knows how to improve his vic- 
 tories, and vnW not, through slothfulness or pity, neglect to complete 
 them. Hence it is that sometimes he reaps a large harvest where ho 
 had so-rni little, and from one temptation not only wounds the soul of 
 him that committed it, but endeavours to diffuse the venom and 
 poisonous steam of it to the infection of others, to the disgrace of 
 religion, the hardening the hearts of wicked men, and the tiirning the 
 ignorant out of the way of truth. In like manner, if he perceive the 
 spirits of men grow distempered and wounded, he then plies them 
 with threatenings, fills them wnth all manner of discouragements, 
 drcsseth every truth with the worst appearance, that it may be appre- 
 hended otherwise than it is, and puts such interpretations on all pro- 
 vidences, that everything may augment the smart of the wound, till 
 they be overwhelmed with terrors. 
 
 4. Fourthly, llic varions icays tvhich he takes, shews also his dili- 
 gence. If one plot take not, he is immediately upon another. He 
 confines not himself to one design nor to one method ; but if he find 
 one temi)tation doth not relish, he prepares another more suitable. If 
 covetousness doth not please us, then he urgeth to profuseness; if 
 terrors do not affright ns to despair, then he abuseth mercies to make 
 us careless and presuming. If we are not content to be openly wicked, 
 then he endeavours to make us secretly hj'pocritical or formal. Some- 
 time he urgeth men to be profane ; if that hit not, then to be erro- 
 neous. If he cannot work by one tool, then he takes another ; and if 
 anytliing in his way disgust, he will not urge it over-hard, but straight 
 takes another course. Such is his diligence, that we may say of liim, 
 as it was said of Paul upon a better ground, he will ' become all things 
 to all men, that he may gain some,' [1 Cor. ix. 19.] 
 
 5. Fifthly, Diligence will most shew itself tvhoi things are at the 
 c/rcatest hazard, or tchen the hopes of success are ready to bring fo>-(h. 
 In this point of diligence our adversary is not wanting. If men are 
 upon the point of error or sin, how industriously doth he labour to 
 bring them wholly over, and to settle them in evil ! One would think 
 at such times he laid aside all other business, and only attended this. 
 How frequent, incessant, and earnest are his persuasions and arguings 
 with such ! The like diligence he sheweth in obstructing, disturbing, 
 and discouraging us when we are upon our greatest services or near 
 our greatest mercies. What part of the day are we more Avandering 
 and vain in our thoughts, if we take not gi'eat care, than when we set 
 about prayer ? At other times we find some more ease and freedom 
 in our imaginations, as if we could better rule or command them ; but 
 then, as Lf our thoughts were only confusion and disorder, we are not 
 able to master them, and to keep the door of the heart so close but 
 
Chap. 7.] sat ax's temptations. 47 
 
 that these troublesome, unwelcome guests will be erowdiug in, is im- 
 possible. Let us observe it seriously, and we shall find that our 
 thoughts are not the same, and after the same manner impetuous at 
 other times as they ai-e when we set about holy things; which ariseth 
 not only from the quickness of our spiritual sense in our readier obser- 
 vation of them at that time, but also from the devil's busy molestation 
 and special diligence against us on such occasions. Besides, when he fore- 
 sees our advantages or mercies, he bestirs himself to prevent or hinder us 
 of them. If ministers set themselves to study and preach truths that are 
 more piercing, weighty, or necessary, they may ob.serve more molesta- 
 tions, interrujrtions, or discouragements of all sorts, than when they less 
 concern themselves with the business of the souls of men. He fore- 
 sees what sermons are provided, and often doth he upon such foresight 
 endeavour to turn off those from hearing that have most need and are 
 most likely to receive benefit by them. Many have noted it, that those 
 sermons and occasions that have done them most good, when they 
 came to them, they have been some way or other most dissuaded from 
 and resolved against before they came ; and then when they have 
 broken through their strongest hindrances, they have found that all 
 their obstruction was Satan's chUgent foresight to hinder them of such 
 a blessing as they have, beyond hope, met withal. The like might be 
 observed of the constant returns of the Lord's day. If men watch not 
 against it, they may meet with more than ordinary, either avocations 
 to prevent and hinder them, or disturbances to annoy and trouble, or 
 bodily indispositions to incapacitate and unfit them. And it is not to 
 be contemned, that some have observed themselves more apt to bo 
 drowsy, didl, or sleeiiy on that day. Others have noted greater bodily 
 indispositions than ordinarily, than at other times ; all which make 
 no unlikely conjecture of the devil's special diligence against us on 
 such occasions. 
 
 Let us cast in another instance to these, and that is, of those that 
 are upon the point of conversion, ready to forsake sin for Chiist. Oh, 
 what pains then doth the devil take to keep them back ! He visits 
 them every moment with one hindrance or other. Sometimes they 
 are tempted to former pleasures, sometime affrighted with jDresent 
 fears and future chsappoiutments ; sometime discouraged with re- 
 proaches, scorns, and afllictions that may attend their alteration ; 
 otherwhile obstructed by the persuasion or threatening of friends and 
 old acquaintances ; but this they are sure of, that they have never 
 more temptations, and those more sensibly troubling, than at that 
 time — a clear evidence that Satan is as diligent as malicious. 
 
 I should now go on to display the subtlety of this powerful, malicious, 
 cruel, and diligent adversary. There is but one thing in the way, 
 which liitherto I have taken for granted, and that is. Whether indeed 
 there be any such things as devils and wicked spirits, or that these are 
 but theological engines contrived by persons that carry a goodwill to 
 morality and the public peace, to keep men under an awful fear of 
 such miscarriages as may render them otherwise a shame to themselves 
 and a trouble to others. It must be acknowledged a transgression of 
 the rules of method to ofl'er a proof of tliat now, which, if at all, ought 
 
48 A TREATISE OF [PaUT I. 
 
 to have been proved in the beginning of the discourse : and indeed the 
 question at this length, whether there be a devil, hath such affinity 
 with that other, though for the matter they are as different as heaven 
 and hell, whether there be a God, that as it well deserves a confirma- 
 tion, — for the use that may be made of it to evidence that there is a 
 God, because we feel there is a devil, — so would it require a serious 
 endeavour to perform it substantially. But it would be not only a 
 needless labour to levy an army against professed atheists, who with 
 high scorn and derision roundly deny both God and devils— seeing 
 others have frequently done that— but also it would occasion too large 
 a digi-ession from our present design. I shall therefore only speak a 
 few thmgs to those that ovn\ a God, and yet deny such a devil as we 
 have described: and yet not (o all of these neither, for there were many 
 heathens who were confident assei-tors of a deity, that nevertheless 
 denied the being of spirits as severed from coiiTOrcity ; and others were 
 so far from the acknowledgment of devils, that they confounded them 
 in the number of their gods. Others there were who gave such credit 
 to the frequent relations of apparitions and disturbances of that kind, 
 that many had attested and complained of, that they expressed more 
 ingenuity! than Lucian, who pevlinaciously refused to believe, becaiise 
 he never saw them ; ami yet thoiigli they believed something of reality 
 in that that was the atl'^iglltnlent^uld trouble of others, they neverthe- 
 less ascribed such extradrdinary things to natm'al causes, some to the 
 powers of the heavens and stars in tlieir influences upon natural bodies, 
 or by the mediation of certain herljs, stones, minerals, creatures, voices, 
 and characters, under a special observation of the motion of the 
 planets.- Some refer such tilings to the subtlety and quickness of the 
 senses of hearing and seeing, which might create forms and images of 
 things, or discover I know not what reflections from the sun and 
 moon. Some [Pomponatius, Epicureans] fancy the shapes and visions 
 to be esnivicE, thin scales or skins of natural things, giving representa- 
 tions of the bodies that cast them off, or exhalations from sepulchres, 
 representing the shape of the body. Others [Cardan, Acadernics] 
 make them the eftects of our untrusty and deceitful senses, the debility 
 and corruption whereof they conclude to be such, and so general, that 
 most men are in hazard to he imposed upon by delusive appearances. 
 But with far greater show of likelihood do some [Averrhoes] make all 
 such things to be nothing else but the issues of melancholy and cor- 
 rupt humours, which makes men believe they hear, see, and suffer 
 strange things, when there is nothing near them ; or really to undergo 
 strange fits, as in lunacy and epilepsy.3 Leaving these men as not 
 capable of information from Scripture e\-idence, because disowTiing it, 
 let us inquhe what mistaken apprehensions there have been in tliis 
 matter among those that have pretended a reverence to and belief of 
 Scripture. The Sadducees deserve the first place, because they are by 
 name noted in Scripture to have ' denied the resurrection,' and to 
 have ' affirmed that there is neither angel nor spirit,' Acts xxiii. 8, 
 and Mat. xxii. 23. 
 
 ' ' Ingenuousness.'— G. 
 
 ° The Peripatetics. Porphyrins. Aug[ustine], De Civ. Dei, ib. x.cap. H. Galen. 
 
 '■' Cassius ad Brutum ex Plutarch, in vita Bruti. 
 
Chap. 7.] satan's temptations. 49 
 
 This opinion of theirs, could we certainly find it out, would make 
 much for the confirmation of the ti'uth in question, seeing, whatever 
 it was, it is positively condemned in Scripture, and the contrary 
 asserted to be true. Many, and that upon considerable gTOunds, do 
 think that they do not deny absolutely that there were any angels at 
 all, but that, acknowledging that something there was which was called 
 an angel, yet they imagining it to be far otherwise than what it is 
 indeed, were accused justly for denying such a kind of angels as the 
 Scripture had everywhere asserted and described. For considering 
 that they owned a God, and, at least, the five books of Moses, if not 
 all the other books of the Old Testament — as Scaliger and others 
 judge, not without great probability, for neither doth the Scripture 
 -nor Josephus mention any such thing of the prophets — it is unima- 
 ginable that they would altogether deny that there was angel or spirit 
 at all.i They read of angels appearing to Lot, to Abraham, and met 
 with it so frequently, that, believing Scriptiu-es to be true, they could 
 not believe angels to be an absolute fiction ; for one fable or falsity in 
 Scripture, which so highly asserts itself to be an unerring oracle of 
 the true G-od, must of necessity have destroyed the credit of all, and 
 rendered them as justly suspected to be true in nothing, when appa- 
 rently false or fabulous in anytlung. 
 
 Again, If we call to mind what apprehensions they had of God, 
 which all consent they did acknowledge, we might more easily 
 imagine what apprehensions they had oi angels, for in regard that 
 Moses made mention of God's face and back-parts, Exod. xxxiii., and 
 that frequently hands and other parts of man's body were attributed 
 to him, they concluded God to be corporeal ; and seeing the best of 
 creatures which God created cannot be supposed to have a more 
 noble being than was that of their Creator, and, at the utmost, to be 
 made according to the pattern of his own image and likeness, they 
 might upon this bottom easily fix a denial of incorporeal spirits, and 
 by consequence that the soul of man was mortal, and therefore that 
 there could be no resurrection ; so that the nature of angels being 
 described under the notion of spiritual substances, they are judged to 
 deny any such thing, supposing that to be incorporeal was as much 
 as not to be at all ; and yet it were unreasonable to deny that they 
 had not some interpretation for those passages of Scripture that men- 
 tioned angels, which in their apprehensions might be some salvo to 
 the truth of those liistorical writings, which they acknowledged ; but 
 what that was we are next to conjecture. And indeed Josephus, by 
 a little hint of their opinion, seems to tell us that they did not so 
 much deny the being of the soid, as the permanency of it ; and so, by 
 consequence, they might not so much deny absolutely the existence of 
 spii-its, as their natural being and continuance.^ Something there 
 was that was called by the name of angel — that they could not but 
 o^vn — and that this must be a real and not an imaginary thing, is 
 evident from the real effect, and things done by them ; yet observing 
 their appearances to have been upon some special occasion, and their 
 
 ' Vide Spanheim, Dub. Evang. part iii. dub. 29. 
 
 ' Lib. ii. de Bello Jud. c. 7, *i'X^5 tc ttiv Siafiovi^v, Kai ras KaB' foou rtfiupias Koi 
 Tijuds &vaipov<n. 
 
50 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 disappearing to have been on a sudden, they might conjecture them 
 to be created by God for the present service, and then reduced to no- 
 thing when that service was done. 
 
 Their opinion, then, of angels seems to be one of these two : either 
 that they were corporeal substances created upon a special emergency, 
 but not permanent beings ; or that they were but images and im- 
 pressions supernaturally formed in the fancy by the special operation 
 of God, to signify his mind and commands to men, upon which they 
 might fitly be called God's messengers and ministers. I put in this 
 last into the conjecture, because I find it mentioned by Calvin,i gg 
 the opinion of Ihc Sadducees ; but both are noted by Uiodate,^ on 
 Acts xxiii. 8, as with equal probability belonging to them. His 
 words are, ' Tlicy did not believe they were subsisting and immortal 
 creatures, but transitory apjiaritions, or some divme actions and mo- 
 tions to produce some special and notable eftcct.' 
 
 Others also have been lately hammering out the same apprehen- 
 sion concerning angels, and jtrofess themselves delivered from it with 
 great difficulty, differing only in this from some of the heathens 
 before mentioned, that what those ascribed to the puissance of the 
 stars, natural powers, or to weakness of senses and corrnjit hvuiiours, 
 they, by the advantage of the general notions of Scripture, have 
 ascribed to God, putting forth his power upon the minds and fancies 
 of men, or working by the humours of the body.^ Upon this foun- 
 dation they will easilier make Iwld with devils, to deny, if not their 
 being, yet their tem]>lations, imagining that we may possibly do him 
 wTong in fathering upon him these solicitations and provocations to 
 sin, which we by cxi)erience find to be working and acting upon our 
 minds, thinking that our own fancies or imaginations may be the 
 only devils that vex us; and this they more readily hearken to, from 
 the nature of dreams and visions wliicli hapj)en to men in an ordinary 
 natural way, where our fsmcies play with us as if tliey were distinct 
 from us ; as also from tliis consideration, tliat tlie lunatic, epilej^tic, 
 and frenzical persons are in Scripture called demoniacs, as Mat. xvii. 
 15, with Luke ix., where the person is called lunatic, and yet said to 
 be taken and vexed by a spirit. So also John x. 20, lie hath a devil, 
 and is mad. But these reasonings can do little with an intelligent, 
 considering man, to make him deny what he so really feels, and is so 
 often forewarned of in Scripture ; for suppose these were called de- 
 moniacs by tlie \Tilgar, it doth not compel us to believe they were so. 
 ]\Ieu are apt to ascribe natural diseases to Satan, and Clirist did not 
 concern himself to cure their misapprehensions, while he cured their 
 diseases.* This some suggest as a reason that may answer many 
 cases, though indeed it cannot answer that of Mat. xvii., because, 
 ver. 18, it is said expressly that ' Jesus rebuked the devil, and he 
 depai'ted out of him,' which would not have been proper to have been 
 spoken on the account of Christ by the evangelist, to express the cure 
 
 ' Fuit ilia quidem dim Saddiicseorum opinio, per angelos nihil designari quam vel 
 motus quos Deus hominibus aspirat, vel ea qum edit virtntis suse specimina.— Instit., 
 lib. i. cap. 14, sec. 9. 
 
 - Diodati: his 'Notes' were published in English, 1664, folio, and in various lesser 
 forms.— G. ■' Hobl.es Lev., cap. 34, pp. 212, 214. 
 
 * Dr More's ' Mystery of Godliness,' lib. iv. cap. 6, sec. 10. 
 
Chap. 7.J satan's temptations. 51 
 
 of a natural disease, for so would he unavoidably have been rendered 
 guilty of the same mistake with the vulgar. But if we should grant 
 that divers mentioned under the name of demoniacs were men dis- 
 tm'bed with melancholy, or the falling-sickness, all were not so ; for 
 those in Mat. viii. 31, ' besought Christ, after their ejection,' to have 
 liberty ' to go into the herd of swine : ' so that if BIr Jlede intended 
 to assert that all demoniacs were no other than madmen and lunatics, 
 I question not but he was mi.staken, and by his reason, not only must 
 madmen and lunatic persons pass for demoniacs, but all di.seases 
 whatsover ; for the bhnd and dumb were called also demoniacs. Mat. 
 ix. 32, and xii. 22. i But the matter seems to be this, that where men 
 were afflicted with such distempers, Satan took the advantage of them, 
 and acted the possessed accordingly ; as he frequently takes the ad- 
 vantage of a melancholy indisposition, and works great terrors and 
 affrightments by it, as in Saul ; or at least that, where h 
 he counterfeited the fits and furies of those natural 
 and acted some like madmen, and others he made dumb and deaf- 
 which seems to have been the case of those in Mat. ix. and xii., 
 where the deafness and dumbness did depend upon the i^ossession, 
 and was cured with it — others were made to ' fall on a sudden 
 into fire or water,' as those that are epileptic, and therefore might 
 such be called both lunatic or epileptic, and also possessed with a 
 devil. 
 
 As to that reason which some fetch from dreams, it is rather a 
 dream than a reason against the being of devils, seeing the effects of 
 these infernal spirits are far otherwise than the utmost of what can 
 be imagined to be acted upon the stage of imaginations ; so that the 
 real and permanent being of devils may be easily proved : — 
 
 [1.] First, From those real acts noted to he done hy angels and 
 devils. The angels that appeared to Lot were seen and entertained 
 in the family — seen and observed by the Sodomites. Those that 
 appeared to Abraham were more than fancied appearances, in that 
 they ' ate and ch-ank ' with him. The devil conveyed Christ from 
 place to place. This could not be a fancy or imagination. Their 
 begging leave to go ' into the .swine ' shews them real existences. 
 ' [2.] Secondly, From the real effects done hy them. We have un- 
 doubted testimonies of men really hurt and tormented by Satan. Of 
 some really snatched away, and carried a great distance from their 
 dwellings. Of others possessed, in whom the devd really speaks 
 audible voices and strange languages, gives notice of things past, 
 and sometime of things to come. The oracles of the heathen, 
 which however they were for the most part false or delusory, yet, 
 in that they were responses from images and idols, were more than 
 phantasms. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, From what the Scripture speaks everyivliere of them. 
 Of their malice and cruelty; that devils are murderers from the 
 beginning; their daily waiting how they may devour; their arts, 
 wiles, and stratagems ; their names and appellations, when styled 
 principalities, powers, spiritual wickednesses, the prince of the power 
 of the air, and a great many more to that purpose, shew that, without 
 
 ' Lib. i. p. S5, on John x. 20. 
 
52 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 apparent folly and dotage, we cannot interpret these of motions only 
 upon the minds and fancies of men. Besides, the Scripture speaks of 
 the offices of good angels, as their standing continually before the 
 throne, then- beholding the face of God, their accompanying Christ 
 at his second coming, their gathering the elect from the four winds, 
 &c., Dan. vii. 10, which cannot be understood of anything else but 
 real and permanent beings ; and this is also an evidence that devils 
 are, seeing the Scripture mentions their fall and their punishment. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Seeing also the Sa-ipture condemned the opinion of 
 the Sadducees, the contrary of that opinion must be true. And ex- 
 pressly in Acts xii. 9, that which was done by an angel is opposed 
 to what might be visional or imaginary. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, The reality of devils and their malignity hath been 
 the opinion of heathens. For there is nothing more common among 
 them than the belief of inferior deities, which they called Bdi.fj.ov€(! or 
 haijxovia, that is, devils; and notwithstanding that they supposed 
 these to be mediators to the supreme gods, yet they learned to dis- 
 tinguish them into good and evil.i The Platonists thought that the 
 souls of tyrants after death became lemures and larva', that is, hurtful 
 devils ; and at last the name devil became of so bad a signification, 
 that to say, 'thou hast a devil,' was reproach and not praise; but 
 what these groped at in the dark, the Scripture doth fully determine, 
 using the word devil only for a malignant spirit.- 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Of Satan's cunning and craft in the general. — Several demonstrations 
 proving Satan to he deceitful; and of the reasons ivhy he makes use 
 of his cunning. 
 
 We have taken a survey of our adversary's strength, and this will 
 open the way to a clearer discovery of his subtlety and craft, which is 
 his great engine by which he works all his tyranny and cruelty in the 
 world, to the luin or prejudice of the souls of men ; of which the 
 apostle in 2 Cor. ii. 11 speaks, as a thing known by the common 
 experience of all discerning persons. His way is to overreach and 
 take advantages, and for tliis end he useth devices and stratagems, 
 which is a thing so ordinary with him, that none can be ignorant of 
 the truth of it : ' We are not ignorant of his devices.' 
 
 This, before I come to the particulars, I shall prove and illustrate 
 in the general, by the gradual procedure of these few following con- 
 siderations : — 
 
 First, All the malice, poicer, cruelty, and diligence of which we 
 have spoJcen, with all the advantages of multitude, order, and know- 
 ledge, by tvhich these cruel qualifications are heightened — tJiese are but 
 his furniture and acomplishment which fit him for his subtle con- 
 trivances of delusion, and make him able to deceive ; neither hath he 
 any use of his power and knowledge but in reference to deceit. In 
 
 ' Mede, 'Apost. Latter Times/ p. 19. August. De Civ. Dei, lib. ix. cap. 11, 19. 
 
Chap. 8.] satan's temptations. 53 
 
 Eph. vi. 11, 12, which is a place wherein the apostle doth of purpose 
 present Satan in his way of dealing with men, his whole practice is 
 set forth under the term and notion of arts and wiles : ' that you may 
 be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.' This is the whole 
 work of Satan, against which the furniture of that spuitual armour 
 is requisite ; and lest any should think that his power or wickedness 
 are other distinct things in him, which are to be provided against by 
 other means of help, he presently adds, that these are no otherwise 
 used by him but in order to his wiles and cunning, and therefore not 
 to be looked upon as distinct, though indeed to be considered in con- 
 junction with liis subtlety and cunning, as things that make his wiles 
 the more dangerous and hazardous : ' For we wrestle not against flesh 
 and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers 
 of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high 
 places ;' which words do but strengthen the apostle's warning and 
 caution about the forementioned wiles, which are therefore the more 
 carefully to be observed and watched against, because his power is so 
 great that he can contrive snares with the greatest skill and art im- 
 aginable ; and his wickedness is so great, that we cannot expect either 
 honesty or modesty should restrain him from making the vilest and 
 most disingenuous proposals, nor from attesting a conveniency or 
 goodness in his motions, with the highest confidence of most notorious 
 lying. 
 
 2. Secondly, The subtlety that the Scripticres do attribute to sin, or 
 to the heart, is mostly and chiefly intended to reflect upon Satan, as the 
 author and contriver of these deceits. In Heb. iii. 13 there is men- 
 tion of the ' deceitfulness of sin,' but it is evident that something else 
 besides sin is intended, to which deceitfidness must be properly ascribed ; 
 for sin being, as most conclude, formally a privation, or if we should 
 grant it a positive being, as some contend, yet seeing the highest no- 
 tion we can arrive at this way, excluding but the figment of Flacius 
 lUyricus, who seems to make original sin indistinct from the very 
 essence of the soid, is but to call it an act.i Deceitfulness cannot be 
 properly attributed to it, but with reference to him who orders that act 
 in a way of deceitfulness and delusion ; which ultimately will bring it 
 to Satan's door. If here the deceitfulness of sin be devolved upon the 
 subject, then it runs into the same sense with Jer. xvii. 9, ' The heai't 
 is deceitful above all things.' But why is the deceitfulness fixed upon 
 the heart ? The ground of that we have in the next words ; it is 
 deceitful, because it is wicked, ' desperately wicked.' But who then 
 inflames and stirs up the heart to tliis wickedness ? Is it not Satan ? 
 Who then is the proper author of deceit but he ? It is true, indeed, 
 that our hearts are proper fountains of sin, and so may be accused 
 possibly in some cases where Satan cannot he justly blamed ; yet if 
 we consider deceitfulness as a companion of every sin, though our 
 hearts be to be blamed for the sin, Satan will be found guilty of the 
 deceitfulness. It may be said a man complies with those things which 
 are intended for his delusion, and so improperly by his negligence may 
 fall under blame of self-deception ; but it is unimaginable that he can 
 properly and formally intend to deceive himself. Deceit then, not 
 ' Vide Barlow, Exer. Metaph., Exer. 2. Flac. Script. Tract. 6, p. 479. 
 
54 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 Ijcing from siii uor ourselves properly, can find out no other parent for 
 itself than Satan. Besides this, that these texts upon a rational 
 inquiry do charge Satan with the deceitfulness of sin ; they do over 
 and above point at the known and constant way of Satan, working so 
 commoiily by delusion, that deceitfulness is a close companion of 
 every sin. The deceitfulness of one sin is as much as the deceitful- 
 ness of every sin. Nay, further, that text of Jcr. xvii. 9, shews this 
 deceitfulness not to be an ordinary sleight, but the greatest of all 
 deceits above measure, and of an unsearchable depth or mystery ; 
 ' who can know it?' 
 
 3. Thirdly, All acts of sin, sometvay or other, come through Satan's 
 fingers. I do not say that all sin is Satan's propr oflfspring, for we 
 have a cui'sed stock of oiu* own ; and it may be said of us, as elsewhere 
 of Satan, sometime we sin out of our own inclination and disposition ; 
 yet in every sin, whetlier it ari.se from us or the world, Satan blows 
 the sparks and manageth all. As David said to the woman of Tekoah, 
 ' Is not the hand of Joab with thee in all this?' [2 Sam. xiv. 19 ;] 
 so may we say, Is not the hand of Satan with thee in every sin thou 
 committest ? This is so eminently true, that the Scripture indiflerently 
 ascribes the sin sometimes to us, sometimes to the devil. It was 
 Peter's sin to tempt Christ to decline suffering, yet Christ rciielling it 
 with this rebuke, ' Get thee behind me, Satan,' JIat. xvi. 23, doth 
 plainly accuse both Peter and Satan. It is the personal sin of a man 
 to be angry, yet in such acts he ' gives place to the devil ; ' both man 
 and Satan concur in it, Eph. iv. 2G. Paul's ' thorn in the flesh,' 2 
 Cor. xii. 7, whatever sin it was, he calls ' Satan's messenger.' He 
 that submits not to God, doth in that comply with Satan ; as, on the 
 contrary, he that doth submit himself to God, doth resist the devil, 
 James iv. 7. 
 
 Neither doth that expression of the apostle, James i. 14, ' Every 
 man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust,' &c., give 
 any contradiction to tliis. It is not the apostle's design to exclude 
 Satan, but to include man as justly cidpable, notwithstanding Satan's 
 tcmi)tations ; and that which he asserts is this, that there is sin and a 
 temptation truly prevalent when there is the least consent of our lust 
 or desire, and that it is that brings the blame upon us ; so that liis 
 purpose is not to excuse Satan, or to deny him to have a hand in 
 drawing or tcmptmg us on to sin, but to shew that it is our own act 
 that makes the sin to become ours. 
 
 4. Fourthly, Such is the constitution of the soul of man, that its 
 sinning cannot he conceived u-iihont some deception or delusion;'^ for, 
 granting that the soul of man is made up of desires, and that the soul 
 were nothing else but, as it were, one willing or lusting power diversi- 
 fied by several objects ; and that this power or these faculties are 
 depraved by the fall, and corrupted ; and that man in every action 
 doth consult with his desires ; and that they have so great an influence 
 upon him, that they are the law of the members, and give out their 
 commands accordingly for obedience ; yet still these three things are 
 firm and unshaken principles : — 
 
 [1.] First, That desires cannot be set upon any object but as it is 
 ' Manton on James i. 14. 
 
Chap. 8.] satak's temptations. 55 
 
 apprehended truly or apparently good. It is incompatible to a rational 
 Houl to desire evil as evil : Omne appetit honum. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, The wUl doth not resolvedly embrace any object till 
 the light of the understanding hath made out, some way or other, the 
 goodness or conveniency of the object.^ 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, There is no man that hath not a competent light for 
 discovery of the goodness or evil of an object presented. Unregenerate 
 men have, (1.) The light of nature. (2.) Some have an additional 
 light from Scripture discovery. (3.) Some have yet more from com- 
 mon convictions, which beget sensible stirrings and awful impressions 
 upon them. (4.) To those God sometime adds corrections and punish- 
 ments, which are of force to make that light burn more clear, and to 
 stir up care and caution in men for the due entertainment of these 
 notices that God affords them. Eegenerate men have all this light, 
 and besides that, they have, (1.) The light of their own experience, 
 of the vileness and odiousness of sin; they know what an evil and 
 bitter thing it is. (2.) They have a more full discovery of God, whicli 
 will make them abhor themselves in dust and ashes. Job xlii. G ; Isa. 
 vi. 5. (3.) They have the advantage of a new heart, the law of the 
 spirit of life, making them free from the law of sin and death. (4.) 
 They have also the help and assistance of the Spirit, in its motions, 
 suggestions, and teachings. (5.) They fortify themselves with the 
 strongest resolutions not to give way to sin. 
 
 Notwithstanding all these, it is too true that both regenerate and 
 unregenerate men do sin ; the reason whereof cannot be given from 
 any other account than what we have asserted — to wit, they are some 
 way or other deluded or deceived ; some curtain is drawn betwixt them 
 and the light ; some fallacy or other is put upon the understanding 
 some way or other ; the will is bribed or biassed ; there is treachery in 
 the case, for it is unimaginable that a man in any act of sin should 
 offer a plain, open, and dh'ect violence to his own nature and faculties ; 
 so that the whole business is here, evil is presented under the notion 
 of good ; and to make this out, some considerations of pleasure or profit 
 do bribe the will, and give false light to the understanding. Hence is 
 it, that in every act of sin, men, by compliance with Satan, are said to 
 deceive, or to put tricks and fallacies upon themselves.^ 
 
 5. Fifthly, All kinds of suhtleti/ are in Scripture directly cJiarged 
 upon Satcm, and in the highest degrees. Sometime under the notion 
 of logical fallacies ; those sleights which disputants, in arguing, put 
 upon their antagonists. Of this import is that expression, 2 Cor. ii. 
 11, ' We are not ignorant of his devices,' where the word in the 
 original is borrowed from the sophistical reasonings of disputants. 3 
 Sometime it is expressed in the similitude of political deceits ; as the 
 Scriptm-e gives him the title of a prince, so doth it mark out his 
 policies in the management of his kingdom, Eev. xii. 7, expressly 
 calling them deceits, and comparing him to a dragon or serpent for 
 his subtlety. Sometime he is represented as a warrior : Eev. xii. 17, 
 
 ' Voluntas sequitur iiUimiiin dictiunen intellectus practici. 
 • James i. 22, 29, napaXoyti'oijm'Oi cavTovs. 
 
 ■* n-ZjuaTa. Thus Satan, Jude !', disputed, urged sophisms alioiit the hod.v of Mo&cs — 
 bte\cy(TO. 
 
56 A TREATISE OF [PaKT I. 
 
 ' The dragon was wi-oth, and went to make war,' &c. ; and here are his 
 warlike stratagems pointed at. Mention is made, 2 Tim. ii. 26, of 
 his snares, and the taking of men alive, or captive, directly alluding to 
 warlike proceedings, [i^aypi'ifievoi.] The subtle proceedings of arts 
 and craft are charged on him and his instruments. Men are said 
 to be enticed, James i., as fish or fowl, by a bait ; others deluded, as 
 by cheaters in false gaming : Eph. iv. 1-1, ' By the sleight of men, and 
 the cunning craft of tliose that lie in wait to deceive.' i The over- 
 reacliing of merchants or crafty tradesmen is alluded to in 2 Cor. 
 ii. 11. All these sleights are in Satan, in their highest perfection and 
 accomplishment. He can ' transform himself into an angel of light,' 
 2 Cor. xi. 14, where he hath an occasion for it ; iu a word, all 
 ' deceiveableness of unrighteousness is in him,' 2 Thes. ii. 10. So 
 that a general -Travovpyia, a dexterity and ability for all kind of subtle 
 contrivances, is ascribed to him, 2 Cor. xi. 3, and that in his very fii-st 
 essay upon Eve, when tlie serpent deceived her ' through subtlety ;' 
 so that whatsoever malice can suggest, or wit and art contrive for 
 delusion, or whatsoever diligence can practise, or cruelty execute, 
 all tliat must be imagined to be in Satan. 
 
 6. Sixthly, All this might be further proved by instances. What 
 temptation can be named wherein Satan hath not acted as a serpent ? 
 Who can imagine tlie cunning tliat Satan used with David in the 
 matter of Uriah ? How easily he got him to tlie roof of the house in 
 order to the object to be presented to him ! How he directs hi.s eye, 
 wrought upon his passions, suggested tlie thought, contrived the con- 
 veniences ! What art must tliere be to bring a darkness into David's 
 mind, a forgetfulness of God's law, a fearlessness of his displeasure, 
 and a neglect of his own danger ! Surely it was no small matter that 
 could blind David's eye, or besot his heart to so great a wickedness. 
 But, above all instances, let us take into consideration that of Eve, in 
 the first transgression, wherein many things may be observed ; as (1.) 
 That he chose the serpent for his instrument, wherein, though we are 
 ignorant of the depth of his design, yet that he had a design in it 
 of subtlety, in reference to what he was about to suggest, is plain 
 from the text, ' Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast 
 of the field.' It had been needless and impertinent to have noted 
 the serpent's subtlety as Satans agent, if he had not chosen it upon 
 that score, as advantageous for his purpose. (2.) He set upon the 
 weaker vessel, the woman ; and yet such, as once gained, he knew was 
 likely enough to prevail with the man, which fell out accordingly. 
 (3.) Some think he took the advantage of her husband's absence, 
 which is probable, if we consider that it is unlikely that Adam should 
 not interpose in tlie discourse if he had been present. (4.) He took 
 the advantage of the object. It appears she was within sight of the 
 tree, ' She saw that it was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes ;' 
 thus he made the object plead for him. (5.) He falls not directly 
 upon what he intended, lest that should have scared her ofi', but 
 fetcheth a compass and enters upon the business by an inquiry of the 
 affair, as if he intended not hurt. (6.) He so inquires of the matter — 
 
 • h Trj Kii;3ei?. . . . irpdt tt)v iKBoUtav t^s TrXdri)!. T\ioi'eKT(iv dicit qui avaritia vel 
 aliis malis artibus lucra comparat. — Beza. 
 
Chap. 8.] satan's temptations. 57 
 
 ' Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden ?' — as if he 
 made a question of the reality of the command ; and his words were 
 so ordered that they might cast some doubt hereof into her mind. 
 (7.) He, under a pretence of asserting God's liberality, secretly under- 
 mines the thi-eatening, as if he had said, ' Is it possible that so 
 bountiful a creator should deny the liberty of eating of any tree ? To 
 what purpose was it made, if it might not be tasted ?' (8.) When 
 he finds that by these arts he had gained a little ground, and brought 
 her to some kind of questioning of the reality of the threatening, 
 for she seems to extenuate it in saying, ' lest we die,' he grows more 
 bold to speak out his mind, and plainly to anniliilate the thi-eatening, 
 ' Ye shall not die.' This he dm-st not do, till he had gained in 
 her mind a wavering suspicion, that possibly God was not in good 
 earnest in that ijrohibition. (9.) Then he begins to urge the con- 
 veniency and excellency of the fruit, by equivocating upon the name 
 of the tree, which he tells her could make them knowing as gods. 
 (10.) He reflects upon God as proliibiting this out of envy and ill- 
 will to them. (11.) In all this there is not a word of the danger, but 
 impimity and advantage promised. (12.) This deadly advice he 
 covers with a pretence of greater kindness and care than God had for 
 them. See in this, as in a clear glass, Satan's way of policy ; after 
 this rate he proceeds in all his temptations. 
 
 If any inquire why so mighty and potent a prince useth rather the 
 fox's skin than the lion's paw, these reasons may satisfy : — 
 
 [1.] First, There is a necessity upon him so to rfo.i He must use 
 his craft, because he cannot compel ; he must have God's leave before 
 he can overcome ; he cannot winnow Peter before he sue out a com- 
 mission, nor deceive Ahab till he get a Hcence ; neither can he 
 prevail against us without om- own consent. The Scripture indeed 
 useth some words that signify a force in tempting, as that he ' put it 
 into the heart of Judas,' ' filled the heart of Ananias,' ' provoked 
 David,' ' rules in the hearts of the children of disobedience,' and ' leads 
 them captive at his will,' &c. ; yet all these and the like expressions 
 intend no more than this, that he useth forcible importimities, frames 
 strong delusions, and joins sometime his jjower to his temptations ; as 
 sometime fowlers shew themselves to the birds they intend to ensnare, 
 that so they may be aflrighted into an awe and amazement, to give a 
 better opportunity to spread their nets over them. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, If he could compel, yet his ivay of craft and subtlety 
 is generally the most -prevalent and successful. Force stirs up an 
 opposition ; it usually alarms to caution and avoidance, and frights to 
 an utter averseness in any design ; so that where force should gam its 
 thousands, subtlety will gain its ten thousands. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, His strength is not useless to him. For besides that 
 it enables him to deceive with higher advantage than otherwise he 
 could do, as hath been said, he hath times and occasions to shew his 
 strength and cruelty, when his cunning hath prevailed so far as to 
 give him possession. What was said of Pope Boniface, that he 
 
 ' Vide Capel. Temp., p. 27 ; Will. Paris in Ames Cas. Consc., lib. ii. cap. 19 ; Good- 
 win, Cliild of Light, p. 47 ; Caryl on Job i. 14. All are volunteei-s ; he never constrains 
 any, neither can he ; the will is never forced by him, neither can it be. 
 
58 A TRKATISE Of [PaRT 1. 
 
 entered like a fox, and ruled like a lion, may be applied to him ; 
 lie insinuates himself l)y subtlety as a fox or serpent, and then rules 
 with rigour as a lion. 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 Of Sakin's deceits in particular. — JVliat temptation is. — Of tempting 
 ' to sin. — His first general rule.— The consideration of our con- 
 dition. — His second ride. — Of 2^'oviding suitable temjitatiom. — 
 Li tvJiat cases he tempts 21s to things unsuitable to our inclinations. — 
 His third ride. — The cautious proposal of the temptation, and the 
 several ways thereof. — His fourth rule is to entice. — The ivay 
 thereof in the general, by bringing a darkness upon the mind through 
 lust. 
 
 Our uext busiuess is to inquire after these ways of deceit in par- 
 ticular ; in which I shall first speak of such as are of more general and 
 vmiversal concernment — such are his temptations to sin, liis deceits 
 against duty, his cunning in promoting error, his attempts against the 
 peace and comfort of the saints, &c. — and then I shall come to some 
 ways of deceits that relate to cases more special. 
 
 As an introduction to the first, I shall speak a word of temptation 
 in the general. Tliis in its general notion is a trial or cxjieriment 
 made of a thing. The word that signifies to tempt, comes from a 
 word that signifies to pierce, or bore tln-ough,' implying such a trial 
 as goes to the very heart and inwards of a thing. In this sense it is 
 attributed to God, who is said to have tempted AbrahaTii, and to put 
 our faith upon trial ; and sometime to Satan, who is said to liave tempted 
 Christ, though he could not ex2)ect to prevail. But though God and 
 8atan do make these trials, yet is there a vast difference betwixt 
 tliem, and that not only in their intentions— the one designing only a 
 discovery to men of what is in them, and that for most holy ends ; the 
 other intending ruin and destruction — but also in the way of tlieu- 
 proceedings.2 God by providence presents objects and occasions; 
 Satan doth not only do" tliat, but further inclineth and positively per- 
 suadeth to evil. Hence is it that temptations are distinguished into 
 trials merely, and seduccments ; suitable to that of TertuUian, [De 
 Orat.] Diabohis tcntat, Deiis probat, The devil tempts, God only tries. 
 We speak of temptation as it is from Satan, and so it is described to be 
 a drawing or moving men to sin under colour of some reason.^ By 
 wliich we may observe that, in evciy such temptation, there is the 
 object to which the temptation tends, the endeavour of Satan to 
 incline our hearts and draw on our consent, and the instrument by 
 which is some pretence of reason ; not that a real and solid reason 
 can be given for sin, but that Satan offers some considerations to us to 
 prevail with us, which, if they do, we take them tobe reasons. This 
 may a httle help us to understand Satan's method in tempting to sin, 
 &c., of which I am first to speak. 
 
 ' Tcipafu a ireipu. " Calv. Instit., lib. iii. cap. 20, sec. 46. 
 
 '■> Capel. Tempt[ations,l p. 26. fl635, 12mo.— G.l 
 
Chap. 9.] satan's temptations. 59 
 
 In temptations to siu, we may observe, Satan walks by four general 
 rules : — 
 
 1. First, He considers and acquaints himself toith the condition of 
 evert/ mail, and for that end he studies man. God's question con- 
 cerning Job, ' Hast thou considered my servant Job ? ' Job i. 8, doth 
 imply, not only his diligent inquiry into Job's .state — for the original 
 expresseth it by Satan's ' putting his heart upon Job, or laying him to 
 his heart' i — but that this is usual with Satan so to do ; as if God had 
 said. It is thy way to pry narrowly into every man : hast thou done 
 this to Job ? Hast thou considered him as thou usest to do ? And 
 indeed Satan owns this as his business and employment in his answer 
 to God, ' I come from gomg to and fro m the earth, from walldng up 
 and down in it.' This cannot be properly said of him who is a spirit. 
 Bodies go up and down, but not spirits ; so that his meaning is, he 
 had been at his work of inquiring and searching. And so Broughton 
 translates it,2 from searching to and fro in the earth ; as it is said of 
 the eyes of God, that they ' run to and fro,' which intends his intel- 
 ligence, search, and knowledge of things. It is such a going to and 
 fro as that in Dan. xii. 4, which is plainly there expressed to be for the 
 increase of knowledge. 
 
 The matter of his inquiry or particidars of his study are such as 
 these : (1.) Man's state ; he considers and guesseth whether a man be 
 regenerate or unregenerate. (2.) The degree of his state: if unre- 
 generate, how near or far off he is the kingdom of God ; if regenerate, 
 he takes the compass of his knowledge, of his gifts, of his graces. 
 (3.) He inquires into his constitution and temper ; he observes what 
 disposition he is of (4.) His place, calling, and relation ; his trade, 
 employment, enjoyments, riches, or wants. (5.) His sex. (6.) His 
 age, &c. 
 
 The way by which he knows these things is plain and easy. Most 
 of these things are open to common observation ; and what is intricate 
 or dark, that he beats out, either by comparing us with ourselves, and 
 considering a long tract of actions and carriage ; or by comparing us 
 with others, whose ways he had formerly noted and observed. 
 
 The end of this search is to give him light and instruction in point 
 of advantage ; hence he knows where to raise his batteries, and how 
 to level his shot against us. This Christ plainly discovers to be the 
 design of all liis study, John xiv. 30, where he tells his disciples he 
 expected yet another ou.set from Satan, and that near at hand; 
 ' for the prince of the. world' was then upon his motion, he was 
 a-coming; but withal, he teUs them of his security against his assaults, 
 in that there was ' nothing in Christ ' of advantage in any of these 
 forementioned ways to foot a temptation upon. It appears, then, that 
 he looks for such advantages, and that without these he hath little 
 expectancy of prevailing. 
 
 2. Secondly, Satan having acquainted himself with our condition, 
 makes it his next care to provide suitable temptations, and to strike 
 in the right vein ; for he loves to have his work easy and feasible, he 
 loves not [to] go against the stream. Thus he considered Judas as a 
 covetous person, and accordingly provided a temptation of gain for 
 ' Caryl, iii. loc. ' lOW, circumspexit, lustravit.— Metaph. 
 
60 A TREATISE OF [PaUT I. 
 
 him. He did the like with Achan ; and hence was it that he had the 
 Sabeans so ready for the plunder of Job ; he had observed them a 
 people given to rapine and spoil ; and accordingly, Job's goods being 
 propounded to them as a good and easy booty, he straightway prevailed 
 with them. It was easy for him to draw Absalom into an open rebel- 
 lion against his father ; he had taken notice of his ambitious and aspir- 
 ing humour, and of the grudges and dissatisfactions under which lie 
 laboured ; so that, providing him a fit opportunity, he engaged him 
 immediately. According to this rule, where he observes men of shallow 
 heads and low parts, he the more freely uuposeth upon them in things 
 palpably absurd ; where he takes notice of a fearful temper, there he 
 tempts them with terrors and affrightful suggestions. He hath temp- 
 tations proper for the sanguine complexion and for the melancholy ; 
 he hath liis methods of dealing witii the lustful and wanton, with 
 the passionate and revengeful; he hath novelties at hand for the 
 itching ear, and suggestions proper for those that are atheistically 
 inclined. 
 
 Obj. To tliis may be objected. That experience tells us Satan doth 
 not always walk in this road, nor confine himself to this rule : some- 
 time he tempts to things which are cross to our tcmi)ers and inclina- 
 tions, &c. 
 
 Ans. It is true he doth so ; but yet the general rule is not preju- 
 diced by this exception, especially if we consider, 
 
 [1.] First, That Satan J>< iiHj .sliU intd.cr tlie commands and restraint 
 of the Almighty, he canncf nhrni/s hmpt what he ivould, hut accord- 
 ing to a superior order awl vmninnHil. Of this nature I suppose was 
 that temptation of which Paul complained so much ; ' he kept down 
 his body,' 1 Cor. ix. 27, upon this very design, that he might liave it 
 in subjection, and yet is he bufleted with a temptation which expected 
 an advantage usually from the temper and frames of our bodies — lor 
 so much, I suppose, that phrase, ' a thorn in the flesh,' will unavoid- 
 ably imply — thougli it still leave us at uncertainties what the tempta- 
 tion was in particular. Here Satan tempts at a disadvantage, and 
 contrary to this rule ; but then we must know that he was not the 
 master of his own game — God expressly ordering such a temptation 
 as was disagreeing with the apostle's disposition, that it might the less 
 prevail or hazard him, and yet be more available to keep him low, 
 ' lest he should be exalted above measure,' which was God's design in 
 the matter. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Sometime our temper alters ; as the tempers of our 
 bodies in a sickness may in a fit be so changed that they may desire 
 at that time what they could not endure at another. A special occa- 
 sion or concurrence of circumstances may alter for the time our con- 
 stitution, and so an unusual temptation may at that time agree with 
 this design. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Sometime by one temptation Satan intends but to 
 lay the foundation of another ; and then of purpose he begins with a 
 strange suggestion, either to keep us at the gaze while he covertly 
 doth something else against us, or to move us to a contrary extreme 
 by an over-hasty rashness. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Sometime he tempts lohen his main design is only 
 
Chap. 9.] satan's temptations. 61 
 
 to tremble and disquiet us; and in such cases the most unnatural 
 temptations, backed with a violent impetuousness, do his work the 
 best. 
 
 3. Thirdly, Satan's next work is the proposal of the temptation. 
 In the two former he provided materials and laid the trains ; in this 
 he gives fire, by propounding his design ; and this also he doth with 
 caution these several ways : — 
 
 [1.] First, He makes the object speaJc for him, and in many he is 
 scarce put to any further trouble: the object before them speaks Satan's 
 mind, and gains" their consent immediately ; yet is there no small 
 cunning used in fitting the object and occasion, and bringing things 
 about to answer the very nick of time which he takes to be advan- 
 tageous for him. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Sometime he appoints a proxy to speak for him; 
 not that he is shamefaced in temptation, and not always at leisure 
 for his own work, but this way he insinuates himself the more danger- 
 ously into our affections, and with less suspicion, using our friends, 
 relations, or intimate acquaintance to intercede for a wicked design. 
 He did not speak himseK to Eve, but chose a serpent : he thought 
 Eve would sooner prevail upon Adam than the serpent could. He 
 tempted Job by the tongue of his wife, as if he had hoped that what 
 so near a relation had counselled would easily be hearkened to. He 
 tempted Christ to avoid suffering by Peter, under a pretence of highest 
 love and care, ' Master, spare thyself,' [Mat. xvi. 23 ;] yet our Savioiir 
 forbears not to note Satan's temptation closely twsted with Peter's 
 kindness. At this rate are we often tempted where we little suspect 
 danger. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, If he finds the two first ways unhopeful or unsuitable, 
 then he injects the motion, and so plainly speaks to us imvardly him- 
 self ' Do this act, take this advantage for pleasure or profit,' &c. He 
 thought it not enough to tempt Judas by the object of gain, but he 
 brake his mind in direct terms, and ' put it into his heart,' Johnxui. 2. 
 He did the like to Ananias, whose heart he filled with a large motion 
 for that lie, and backed it with many considerations of the necessity 
 and expediency of it. Acts v. 3. There is no question to be made of 
 this. Dr Goodwin gives clear proofs of it, and so do several others.i 
 When we consider that thoughts are sometime cast upon the minds 
 of men which are above their knowledge, and that they say and do 
 things sometime which are far beyond any of their accomplishments 
 and parts, and yet in the nature of it wicked, we must be forced to 
 run so high as to charge it upon Satan. Saul's prophesying, 1 Sam. 
 xviii. 10, was by the inJluence of the evil spirit ; and this — as Jimius, 
 Tirinus, and others interpret" — must of necessity be imderstood of 
 such a kind of action and speaking as the true prophets of the Lord 
 usually expressed under the influences of the blessed Spirit ; for from 
 the likeness of the action in both must the name be borrowed. The 
 experience that we have of inward disputings, the bandying of argu- 
 ments and answers in several cases, is a proof of this beyond exception. 
 Wounded consciences express an admirable dexterity in breaking all 
 arguments urged for their peace and establishment ; as also in framing 
 ' Child of Light, p. 45. [As before.— G.] ' Vide Pool : Synops. in loc. 
 
62 A TREATISE OF [PART I. 
 
 objection!? against themselves, so far above the usnal measui-e of com- 
 mon capacities, that we cannot ascribe it to any other than Satan's 
 private aid this way. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, The motion being made, if there be need, he doth 
 irritate and stir xip the mind to tJie embracement ofit; and this he 
 doth two ways : — 
 
 First, By aji earnestness of solicitation ; when he nrgeth the thing 
 over and over, and gives no rest ; when he joins with tiiis an impor- 
 tunity of begging and entreating with the repeated motion ; when he 
 draws together and advantageously doth order a multitude of con- 
 siderations to that end ; and when in all this he doth hold down the 
 mind and thoughts, and keep them upon a contemplation of the object, 
 motions, and reasons. Thus lie provoked Da\id, 1 Chron. xxi. 1 ; 
 and this kind of dealing occasioned the apostle to name his tempta- 
 tions and our resistance by the name of ' wrestlings,' in which usually 
 there appears many endeavours and often repeated, to throw down the 
 antagonist. 
 
 SecoiuUy, He doth irritate by a secret poiver and force that he hath 
 upon our fancies and passions. When men are said to be carried and 
 led by Satan, it implies, in the judgment of some,' more tlian imjwr- 
 tunity; and that though he cannot force the spring of the will, yet he 
 may considerably act upon it by pulling at the weights and ]ihim- 
 mets— that is, by rao\'ing and acting our imaginations and aflections. 
 4. Fourthly, The motion being thus made, notwithstanding all his 
 importunity, often finds resistance; in which case he comes to the 
 practice of a fourth rule, which is to draw aicay and entice the heart 
 to consent — as it is expressed, James i. 14, ' Every man is tempted, 
 when he is drawn away and enticed.' 2 I shall avoid here the variety 
 of the apprehensions which some declare at large about the meaning 
 of the words, satisfying myself with this, that the apostle points at 
 those artifices of Satan by which he draws and allures the will of man 
 to a compliance with his motions, which when he cflects in any degree, 
 then may a man be said to be prevailed upon by the temptation. But 
 then here is the wonder, how he should so far prevail against that 
 reason and knowledge which God hath placed in man to fence and 
 guard him agauist athmg so absurd and unreasonable as every sin is. 
 The solution of this knot we have in 2 Cor. iv. 4, ' The god of this 
 world blinds the eyes of men,' draws a curtain over this knowledge, and 
 raiseth a darkness upon them : which dai-kness, though we cannot fully 
 apprehend, yet that it is a very great and strange darkness may be 
 discovered, (1.) Partly by considering the subject of it — man, a 
 rational creature, in whom God hath placed a conscience, which is 
 both a law, and witness, and judge. It cannot be supposed an easy 
 matter to cloud or obliterate that law, to silence or pervert that wit- 
 ness, or to corrupt that judge ; but it will rise higher in the wonder of 
 it if we consider this in a godly man, one that sets God before him, 
 and is wont to have his fear in his heart — such a man as David was, 
 that in so plain a case, in so liigh a manner, so long a time, with so 
 little sense and apprehension of the evil and danger, Satan should so 
 quickly prevail, it is an astonishment : neither will it be less strange if 
 1 Dr Goodwin, ' Child of Light.' [As before.— G.] - Manton, in loc. 
 
Chap. 10. J satan's temptations. G3 
 
 we consider, (2.) The issue and effect of this blindness. Some rise up 
 against this law of conscience, arguing it false and erroneous, and 
 making conclusions directly contrary, as Deut. xxix. 19, ' I shall have 
 peace, though I walk on in the imaginations of my heart ; ' ' I have 
 fellowship with him, though I walk in darkness,' 1 John i. 6 ; ' We 
 will not hearken unto thee, but will certainly do whatsoever thing 
 goeth out of our ovm mouth,' Jer. xlv. 16, 17; in wliich cases the 
 a-vvTijpriai';, or principles of conscience, are quite overthrown. Some 
 are hardened, and as to any application of their acts to this rule, quite 
 dead and senseless. Though they rise not up against the light, yet 
 are they willingly ignorant, without any consideration of what they 
 are doing. Here the avve&r)ai<;, or witnessing and excusing power ot 
 conscience, is idle and asleep. Some, though they know the law, and 
 in some measure see their actions are sinful, yet they pass no judg- 
 ment, apprehend no danger : ' No man smites upon his thigh, saying, 
 What have I done ? ' Jer. \dii. G. Nay, some are so far from this, 
 that they presumptuously justify themselves, though they see their 
 o«Ti blame and ruin before them : ' I do well to be angry, and that to 
 the death,' saith Jonah, when Satan had spread a darkness upon liim. 
 What shall we say of these things ? Here is darkness to be felt, 
 Egyptian darkness. To explain the way of it fully is impossible for 
 us ; to do it in any tolerable way is dif3ficult. To make some discovery 
 herein I shall, (1.) Shew that the devil doth entice to sin by ' stirring 
 up our lust ; ' (2. ) That by the power and prevalency of our lust he 
 brings on the blindness spoken of. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Tliat Satan enticeth hy our lust. — The several ivays hy lohich he doth 
 it. — Of the 'power and danger of the violence of affections. 
 
 The way, then, by which he doth entice is by ' stirring up our lust.' 
 By ' lust ' I mean those general desirings of our minds after any un- 
 lawful object which are forbidden in the tenth commandment. Thus 
 we read of ' worldly lusts,' of the ' lusts of the flesh,' of 'lustings to 
 envy,' and, in a word, we read of ' divers lusts,' the wliole attempt and 
 striving of corrujit nature against the Spirit being set forth by this 
 expression ' of lusting against the Spirit,' Titus ii. 12 ; 1 Peter ii. 18 ; 
 James iv. 5 ; Titus iii. 3 ; Gal. v. 17. 
 
 That Satan takes advantage of our own lusts, and so ploughs with 
 our heifer, turning our own weapons against om-selves, is evident by the 
 general vote of Scripture. The apostle James, chap. i. 14, tells us that 
 every temptation prevails only by the power and working of our own 
 lusts. Satan is the tempter, but our lusts are the advantages by 
 which he draws and enticeth. The corrupt principle within us is 
 called ' flesh,' but the way whereby it works, either in its own proper 
 motion or as stirred up by the devil, is that of lust and affection ; and 
 therefore he that woidd stop that issue must look to mortify it in its 
 affections and lusts, Gal. v. 24. We are further told by John, 
 1 Epist. ii. 16, that all those snares that are in the world are only 
 
64 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 hazardous and prevailing by our lusts. More generally the apostle 
 Peter speaks, 2 Peter i. 4 ; the whole bundle of actual sins that have 
 ever been in the world came in at this door, ' The corruption that is 
 in the world is through lust.' In the sthring up our lusts Satan useth 
 no small art and subtlety, and ordinarily he worketh by some of these 
 following ways : — 
 
 1. First, He useth his skill to dress up an object of lust thai it may be 
 talcing and alluring. He doth not content himself wth a simple pro- 
 l)Osal of the object, but doth as it were paint and varnish it, to make 
 it seem beautiful and lovely. Besides all that wooing and importunity 
 which he useth to the soul by private and unseen suggestions, he hath 
 no doubt a care to gather together all possible concurring circum- 
 stances, by which the seeming goodness or conveniency of the object is 
 mucli hciglitened and enlarged. We see those that have skill to work 
 upon the liumours of men ]ilace a great part of it in the right circum- 
 stantiating a motion, and in taking the tcmjiers and inclinations of 
 men at a right time. And they observe that the missing of the right 
 season is the hazard of the design, even there where the object and 
 inchnation ordinarily are suitable. There is much in placing a picture 
 in a right position, to give it its proper grace and lustre in the eyes of 
 the beholders. When a man is out of humour he nauseates his usual 
 delights, and gi-ows sullen to things of frequent practice. It is likely 
 Eve was not a stranger to the tree of knowledge before the temptation, 
 but when the serpent suggests the goodness of the fruit, the fruit itself 
 seems more beautiful and desirable, ' good for food, and pleasant to the 
 eyes,' [Gen. ii. 9.] Though we are not able to find out the way of 
 Satan's beautifying an object that it may affect with more piercing 
 and powerful delights, yet he that shall consider that not only pru- 
 dence, in an advantageous management of things, adds an additional 
 beauty to objects proposed, but also that art, by placing things in a 
 right posture, may derive a radiancy and beam of beauty and light 
 U])on them, as an ordinary jiiece of glass may be so jjosited to the sim- 
 beams that it may reflect a sparkling light as if it were a diamond, — 
 he that shall consider this, I say, will not think it strange lor the 
 devil to use some arts of this kind for the adorning and setting oflf an 
 object to the eye of our lusts. 
 
 2. Secondly, We have reason to suspect that he may have ways of 
 deceit aiid imposture upon our senses. The deceits of the senses are 
 so much noted, that some philosophers will scarce allow any credit to 
 be given them ; not that they are always deceitful, but that they are 
 often so, and therefore always suspicious, i The soul hath no intelli- 
 gence but by the senses. It is then a business of easy behef, that 
 Satan may not altogether slight this advantage, but that when he sees 
 it fit for his purpose, he may impose upon us by the deception of our 
 eyes and ears. We little know how oft om- senses have disguised 
 things to us. In a pleasing object, our eyes may be as a magnifying 
 or multiplying glass. In the first temptation Satan seems to have 
 wrought both upon the object and also upon the senses ; she ' saw it 
 was good for food and pleasant.' Who can question but that she saw 
 the fruit before ? But this was another kind of sight, of more power 
 
 ' Descartes, Ant. le grand, PhiloBoph. Vet., &c. 
 
Chap. 1(X] satan's temptations. 65 
 
 and attraction. An instance of Satan's cunning in both the fore- 
 mentioned particulars we have from Austin, relating the story of his 
 friend Alypius, who by the importunity of his acquaintance consented 
 to go to the theatre, yet with a resolve not to open his eyes, lest the 
 sight of these spectacles should entice his heart ; but beiug there, the 
 noise and sudden shouting of the multitude prevailed so far with him 
 that he forgot his i-esolution ; takes the liberty to see what occasioned 
 the shoutmg, and once seeing, is now so inflamed with delight that 
 he shouts as the rest do, and becomes a frequenter of the theatre as 
 others.! What was there to be seen and heard he knew before by 
 the relation of others ; but now being present, his eyes and ears were 
 by Satan so heightened in their oifices, that those bloody objects 
 seemed pleasant beyond all that had been reported of them, and the 
 lust of his heart drawn out by Satan's cunning disposal of the object 
 and senses. 
 
 3. Thirdly, There is no small enticement arising from the fitness 
 and suitableness of occasion. An occasion exactly fitted is more than 
 half a temptation. This often makes a thief, an adulterer, <fec., 
 where the acts of these sins have their rise from a sudden fit of 
 humour, which occasion puts them in, rather than from design or 
 premeditation. Cimningly contrived occasions are Ulie the danger of 
 a precipice. If a man be so foolish as to take up a stand there, a 
 small jjush will throw him over, though a far greater might not harm 
 him if he were upon a level. It is Satan's cunning to draw a man 
 witliin the reach of an occasion. All the resolves of Alyj^iuswere not 
 safegiiard to him, when once he was brought within hearing and sight 
 of the temptation. If he had stayed at home, the hazard of Satan's 
 suggestions, though earnest, liad not been so much as the hearing of 
 his ears and sight of his eyes. In 2 Cor. ii. 11, Paul's fears of Satan's 
 taking advantage against the Corinthians, did manifestly arise from 
 the present posture of their chm'ch affairs : for if the excommunicated 
 person should not be received again into the church, an ordinary push 
 of temptation might either have renewed or confirmed their conten- 
 tions, or precipitated- them into an opinion of too much severity 
 against an offending brother; and that their present frame made 
 them more than ordinarily obnoxious to these snares, is evident from 
 the apostle's caution inserted here in" this discourse, so abruptly, that 
 any man may observe the necessity of the matter, and the earnestness 
 of his affections did lead his pen.3 The souls of men have their general 
 discrasias and disafifections, as our bodies have, from a lingering 
 distemperatm-e of the blood and humom-s ; in which case, a small 
 occasion, like a particular error of diet, &c., in a declining body, will 
 easily form that inclination into particular acts of sin. 
 
 4. Fomthly, Satan hath yet a further reach in his enticements, by 
 the poiver which he hath upon our fancies and imaginations. That he 
 hath such a power was discovered before. This being then supposed, 
 how serviceable it is for his end it is now to be considered. Our 
 fancy is -as a glass, which, with admu-able celerity and quickness of 
 
 ' Spectavit, clamavit, exarsit, abstulit iade secum insaniam qua stimularetur redire, &c. 
 ' Spelled ' precipated,' which is noted as a transition-form found elsewhere.— G. 
 ^ Vide Calvin, in loc. 
 
GG A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 motion, can present before us all kinds of objects ; it can in a luoment 
 run froin one end of the earth to the other ; and besides this, it hath 
 a power of creating objects, and casting them into w]iat_ forms and 
 shapes it pleaseth, all which our understanding cannot avoid the sight 
 of. Now the power of imagination is acknowledged by all to be very 
 great, not only as working u]ion a melancholy and distempered spirit, 
 of which authors give us large accounts,! but also upon minds more 
 remote from such jieremptory delusions ; as may be daily observed in 
 the prejudices and prepossessions of men, who by reason of the 
 impressions of imagination, are not without difficulty drawn over to 
 the acknowledgment of the truth of things, and the true understanding 
 of matters ; neither is the imderstanding only liable to a more than 
 ordinary heat and rapture by it, but the will is also quickened and 
 sharpened in its desires by this means. Hence is it, as one of the fore- 
 cited authors observes,^ that fancy doth often more toward a persuasion 
 by its insinuations than a cogent argument or rational demonsti-ation. 
 This is no less a powerful instrument in Satan's hand, than com- 
 monly and frequently made use of. Who amongst us doth not find and 
 feel him dealing with us at this weapon ? When he propounds an 
 object to our lust, he doth not usually expose it naked under the 
 hazard of dying out for want of prosecution, but presently calls in our 
 fancy to his aid, and there raiseth a theatre, on which he acts before 
 our minds the sin in all its ways and postures. If he put us upon 
 revenge, or upon lusts of uncleanness, or covetousness, or ambition, 
 we are sure, if we prevent it not, to have our imagination presenting 
 these tilings to us as in lively pictures and resemblances, by which our 
 desires may be inflamed and prepared for consent. 
 
 5. Fifthly, Sometime he shews his art hi, preparing and fitting our 
 bodies to his designs, or in fitting temptations to our bodies and the 
 inclinations thereof. The soul, though it be a noble being, yet is it 
 limited by the body, and incommodated by the craziness and indis- 
 positions thereof, so that it can no more act strenuously or evenly to 
 its principles in a disordered body, than it can rightly manage any 
 member of it, in its natural motions, where the bones are disjointed. 
 Hence sickness or other bodily weaknesses do alter the scene, and add 
 another kind of bias to the soul than what it had before. This Satan 
 takes notice of, and either follows his advantage of the present indis- 
 position, or, if he hath some special design, endeavours to cast our 
 body into such a disorder as may best suit his intention. Asa was 
 more easily drawn to be overseen in jieevishncss and rash anger in his 
 latter days, when his body grew diseased. Satan had his advantage 
 against Solomon to draw liim to idolatry when old age and uxorious- 
 uess had made him more ductile to the solicitations of his wjycs; 
 ' When Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart,' 1 Kings 
 xi. 4. The devil, when he took upon him to foretell Job's blaspheming 
 God to his face, yet he attempted not the mam design till he thought 
 he had thoroughly prepared him for it, by the anguish and smart of a 
 distempered body and mmd ; and though he failed in the great busi- 
 ness of his boast, yet he left us an experiment in Job, that the likeliest 
 
 ' Burton's Melanch., part i. sec. 2, p. 93. Reynold's Treat, of Passions, cap. 4. 
 - Rej nolds, Ibid. 
 
Chap. lU.] satan's temptations. G7 
 
 way to i^revail upou the mind iu hideous aad desperate temptations, 
 is to moidd the body to a suitable frame. He prevailed not against 
 Job to cause him curse God, yet he prevailed far, ' he cursed the day 
 of his birth,' and spake many things by the force of that distress, 
 which he professeth himself ashamed of afterwards. The body then 
 will be in danger, when it is disordered, to give a tincture to every 
 action, as a distempered palate communicates a bitterness to every- 
 thing it takes down. 
 
 6. Sixthly, Evil company is a general preparatory to all kinds of 
 temptation. He enticeth strongly that way. For, (1.) Evil society 
 doth insensibly dead the heart, and quench the heat of the affections 
 to the things of God. It hath a kind of bewitching power to eat out 
 the fear of the Lord in our hearts, and to take off the weight and 
 power of religious duty. It not only stops our tongues, and retards 
 them in speaking of good things, but influenceth the very heart, and 
 poisons it into a kind of deadness and lethargy, so that our thoughts 
 run low, and we begin to tliink that severe watchfulness of thoughts 
 and the guard of our minds to be a needless and melancholy self- 
 imposition. (2.) Example hath a strange insinuating force to enstamp 
 a resemblance, and to beget imitation. Joseph, living where liis ears 
 were frequently l)eaten with oaths, finds it an easy tiling, upon a feigned 
 occasion, to swear by the life of Pharaoh, [Gen. xlii. 1.5 ] Evil com- 
 pany is sin's nursery and Satan's academy, by which he trains up those 
 whose knowledge and hopeful beginnings had made them shy of his 
 temptations ; and if he can prevail with men to take such companions, 
 he will with a little labom- presently bring them to any iniquity. 
 
 7. Seventhly, But his highest project iu order to the enticing of 
 men, is to engage their affections to a height and passio7iateness. The 
 Scripture doth cUstinguish betwixt the iTndv/jiia'i and TraOi^fxara, the 
 affections and lusts. Gal. v. 24 ; clearly implying that tlie way to pro- 
 cure fixed desires and actual lustings, is to procure those passionate 
 workings of the mind. 
 
 How powerfid a part of his design this is, will appear from the 
 nature of these passions : which are, 
 
 [1.] First, Violent motions of the heart ; the very wings and sails of 
 the soul, and every passion, in its own working, doth express a violence. i 
 Choler is an eai'nest rage ; voluptuousness is nothing less ; fear is a 
 desperate hurry of the soul ; ' love strong as death ; jealousy cruel as 
 the grave ; ' each of them striving which should excel in violence, so 
 that it is a question yet imdetermined which passion may challenge 
 the superiority. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Their fury is dangerous and unbridled ; like so 
 many wild horses let loose, hurrying their rider which way they please. 
 They move not upon the command of reason, but oft prevent it in 
 their sudden rise ; neither do they take reason's advice for their 
 course proportionable to the occasion, for often their humour, rather 
 than the matter of the provocation, gives them spurs ; and when they 
 have evaporated their heat, they cease, not as following the command 
 of reason, but as weakened by their own violence. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, They are not easily conquered; not only because 
 ' Vide. Fenner, ' Treatise] of Affections.' J. F. Senault of Passions, p. SO 
 
68 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 they renew their strength and onset after a defeat, and, like so many 
 hydra's heads, spring up as fast as cut off; but they are ourselves— 
 we can neither run from them, nor from the love of them. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, And consequently highly advantageous in Satan's 
 design and enticement when they are driven iqj to a fury andpassion- 
 ateness; for besides their inward rage, which the Scripture calls 
 burning, 1 Cor. vii. 9 ; Eom. i. 27, by which men are pricked and 
 goaded^on without rest or ease, to ' make provisions for the flesh,' 
 and to enjoy or act what their unbridled violence will lead to in the 
 execution of their desires, they carry all on before them, and 
 engage the whole man with the highest eagerness ' to fulfil every 
 lust,'''Epli. ii. 3, to go up to the highest degrees, and with an unsatiable 
 greediness to yield themselves ' servants of iniquity unto iniquity,' 
 Rom. vi. 19. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 That lust darkens the mind.— Evidences thereof.— The five loay shy 
 which it doth blind men : First, By preventing the exercise of 
 reason. — The ivoys of that prevention: (1.) Secrecy in tem])ting ; 
 Satan's subtlety therein; (2.) Surprisal ; (3.) Gradual entangle- 
 ments. 
 
 That Satan doth entice us by stirring up our lust, hath been 
 discovered; it remains that I next speak to the second thing pro- 
 pounded, which was, 
 
 That by this power of lust he bliiids and darkens our mind. That 
 the lusts of men are the great principle upon which Satan proceeds 
 in drawing on so great a blindness as we have spoken of, I shall 
 briefly evince from these few observations : — 
 
 1. First, From the unreasonableness and absurdity of some actions 
 in men otherwise sufficiently rational. He that considers the acts of 
 Alexander, in murdering Calisthencs, for no other crime than defend- 
 ing the cause of the gods, and afiirming that temples could not be 
 built to a king without provoking a deity ; and yet this so smoothed, 
 if Quintus Curtius represent him right, that he seemed to flatter 
 Alexander with an opinion of deification after his death ;^ whosoever, 
 I say, shall consider this cruelty, will condemn Alexander as blind 
 and irrational in this matter ; and yet no other cause can be assigned 
 hereof, but that his lust after glory and honour darkened his reason. 
 The like may be said of his killing Hephsestion's physician, because 
 he died. The brutal fury of that consul, that made a slave. to be 
 eaten up with lampreys, for no other fault than the breaking of a 
 glass, can be ascribed to nothing else but the boiling oyer of his 
 passion. A sadder instance of this we have in Theodosiiis senior, 
 who, for an affront given to some of his officers in Thessalonica, com- 
 manded the destruction of the city, and the slaughter of the citizens 
 to the number of seven thousand, without any distinction of nocent 
 
 ' Ego autem seram immortalitatem precor regi Hominem consequitur ali- 
 
 quaudo, nunquam comitatur diTinitas. — Curt., lib. viii. 
 
Chap. 11.] satan's temptations. 69 
 
 and innocent.! This blind rage the historian notes as the fruit of 
 violent and unbridled lust in a man otherwise just and gracious. 
 Thousands of instances of this nature might be added. But, 
 
 2. Secondly, If we consider the known and visible hazards to life 
 and estate, and, tlmt which is more, to tlmt part of them which is 
 immortal; upon all which men do desperately adventure, upon no 
 other ground or motive than the gratifications of their lusts, — we 
 may easily conclude that there is a strange force and power in their 
 passions to blind and besot them ; and this, notwithstanding, is the 
 common practice of all men, where grace, as the only eye-salve, doth 
 not restore the sight. The heathens in all these practices of tiltliiness 
 and folly, recorded Rom. i. 29, they had so far a discovery of the 
 danger, if they had not imprisoned that truth and light in unrighteous- 
 ness, ver. 18, that they knew the 'judgment of God, that they which 
 commit such tilings are worthy of death,' ver. 32. Yet, notwith- 
 standing, the vanity of their imaginations, influenced by lust, darkened 
 their heart so much that they did ' not only do these tilings,' of so 
 great vileness and unspeakable hazard, ' but had pleasure in those 
 that did them.' 
 
 3. Thirdly, The blinding power of lust is yet more remarkable, 
 ivhen lue see men glorying in their shame, and 7nounting their tri- 
 umphal chariots to expose themselves a spectacle to all, in that garb of 
 deformity lohich their lusts have put them in. It is a blindness to do 
 any act against the rules of reason, but it is a far greater blindness 
 for men to pride themselves in them. What have the issues of most 
 wars been, but burning of cities, devastations of flourishing kingdoms, 
 spilling the blood of millions, besides all the famine and other miseries 
 that follow ; yet these actions, that better beseem tigers, lions, and 
 savage brutes, than men of reason, are honoured with the great, 
 triumphant names of virtue, manhood, courage, magnanimity, con- 
 quest, &c. If the power and humour of their lusts of vainglory and 
 revenge had not quite muffled their understandings, these things 
 would liave been called by their proper names of murder, cruelty, 
 robbery, &c. ; and the actors of such tragedies, instead of triumphal 
 arches and acclamations of praise, would have been buried under 
 heaps of ignominy and perpetual disgraces, as prodigies of nature, 
 monsters of men, and haters of mankind. 
 
 4. Fourthly, But there is yet one evidence more plain and con- 
 vincing ; ivhen our hosts are up, though reason offer its aids to allay 
 the stcmn, yet the ivisest of men, otherwise composed and calm, are so 
 far from taking the advantage of its guidance, that oftentimes they 
 trample iipon it and despise it ; and as if lusts, by some secret incan- 
 tation, had made them impenetrable, they are not capable of its light 
 and conduct, and can make no more use of it than a blind man can 
 do of a candle. To this purpose, let us observe the carriage of dis- 
 putants. If men do any way publicly engage themselves in a contest 
 of this nature, though truth can be but on the one side, yet both 
 
 ^ Immoderata animi concitatione impulsus .... facinus crudele et nefariiim com- 
 misit. .... Iracundia .... vclut tyrannus, omnia euo metu gubernans, ruptia habenai, 
 et jugo rationia excusso, gladios inique contra omnes distrinxit. — Theod. Hist. EccUs., 
 Ub. V. p. 587. 
 
70 A TREATISE OF [PaUT I. 
 
 parties give arguments and answer objections with equal confidence 
 of victory, and a contempt of the reasons and strengthof each other's 
 discourses ; and this proves so fatal to him that maintains the mistake 
 or untruth, that not one of a thousand hath the benefit and advantage 
 for the finding of truth, which free and unprejudiced bystanders may 
 have ; so true is that, Omne perit judicium cum res transit in affectum,^ 
 When affections are engaged, judgment is darkened. It is a thing of 
 common observation, that when men are discoursed into anger and 
 heat, they presently grow absurd ; are disabled for speaking or under- 
 standing reason, and are oft hurried to such inconveniences and 
 miscarriages, that they are ashamed of themselves; when they cool, 
 and the fit is over, Lnpcdit ira animum, &c. To all this might be 
 added the power of lust in persons voluptuous, who dedicate them- 
 selves to the pleasures of the flesh. Those that ' serve divers lusts 
 and pleasures,' their slavish estate, their base drudgery, do clearly 
 evince that lust unmans them, and puts out their eyes. Mark Antony 
 by this means became a slave to Cleopatra ; never did a poor captive 
 strive more to obtain the good-^^^ll of his lord than he to please this 
 woman, insomuch that, besotted with his lust, he seemed to want that 
 common foresight of his danger, which the smallest measure of reason 
 might have afforded to any, and so dallied himself into his ruin. 
 From all these considerations and instances, it appears our lusts 
 afford such vapours and mists that our reason is darkened by them, 
 or rather they are like a dose of opium, that strongly stupifies and 
 binds up the Senses. But yet it remains that the various ways by 
 which our lusts do blind us be particularly opened, and they are five. 
 (1.) Our lusts blind us by preventing the use and exercise of reason. 
 (2.) By perverting it. (3.) By withdrawing the mind from it. (4.) 
 By tlisturlting it in its operation. And (5.) By a desperate precipi- 
 tancy ; all which I shall more fully explain. 
 
 I. First, Our lusts bUnd us by preventing and intercepting the 
 exercise of light and reason ; and Satan in this case useth these de- 
 ceits : — 
 
 1. First, He endeavours so to stirvp our Inst as yet to conceal his 
 design. Secrecy is one of liis main engines. He doth not in this case 
 shew his weaiion before he strikes ; and indeed his policy herein is 
 great. For, [1.] By this means he takes us at unawares, secure, and 
 unprepared for resistance. [2.] We are often ensnared without noise, 
 and before our consideration of things can come in to rescue us. [3.] 
 If he get not his whole design upon us this way, yet he oft makes a 
 half victory. By this means he procures a half content or inclina- 
 tion to sin, before we discover that we are under a temptation ; for 
 when the foundation of a temptation is laid uuespied, then we awaken 
 with the sin in our hand, as sleeping men awake sometime with the 
 word in their mouths. If any question, How can these things be ? 
 How can he steal a temptation upon us with such secrecy ? I answer, 
 lie can do it these three ways : — 
 
 (1.) Fii-st, He sometimes after a careless manner, and as it were 
 by the by, drops in a suggestion into onr hearts, and that without 
 noise or importunity, giving it as it tvere this charge, ' Stir not up 
 nor atvaken him;' and then he sits by to observe the issue, and to see 
 
Chap. 11.] satan's temptations. 71 
 
 if the tinder will take fire of itself. Thus many a motion thrown into 
 our hearts, as it were accidentally, ere ever we are aware, begets a 
 sudden flame. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, He sometimes /efcAe^/t a compass, and makes a thtiu/ 
 far different to he a preamble or introduction to his intended design. 
 Thus by objects, employments, discourse, or company, that shew not 
 any direct tendency to evil, doth he insensibly occasion pride, passion, 
 or lust. How slyly and secretly doth he put us upon what he intends 
 as a further snare ! How unawares, while we think of no such thing, 
 are we carried sometime upon the borders of sin, and into the enemy's 
 quarters ! Satan in this acts like a fowler, who useth a stalking- 
 horse, as if he were upon some other emplojTuent, when yet his design 
 is the destruction of the bird. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Another way of secrecy is his raising a croivd of other 
 thoughts in the mind, and lohile these are mixed and confusedly float- 
 ing in the understanding or fancy, then doth he thrust in among them 
 the intended suggestion; and then suffering the rest to vanish, he by 
 little and little singles this out as a more special object of considera- 
 tion, so that we cast a sudden glance upon this, and we are often taken 
 with it before we consider the danger. In this Satan doth as soldiers, 
 who take the advantage of a mist to make a nearer approach to their 
 enemies, and to surprise them before discovery of the danger. This 
 he doth with us while we are in a musing fit or a melancholy dream. 
 
 2. A second deceit for the preventing of a serious consideration 
 is sudden surprisal. In the former he endeavoured to conceal the 
 temptation while he is at work with us, but in this he shews the temp- 
 tation plainly, only he sets upon us without giving of us warning of 
 the onset ; but then he backs it with all the violent importunity he 
 can, and by this he hinders the recollectmg of ourselves and the aid 
 of reason. This course Satan only takes with those whose passions 
 are apt to be very stirring and boisterous, or such as, being his slaves 
 and vassals, are more subject to his commands. Thus a sudden pro- 
 vocation to an angry man gives him not time to consider, but carries 
 him headlong. A sm-prise of occasion and opportunity is frequently 
 a conquest to those that have any earnestness of hope, desire, or re- 
 venge. Surely David was taken at this advantage in the matter of 
 Bathsheba. And here we may note that good men upon such a sudden 
 motion do yield, without any blow or struggling, to that which at 
 other times they could not be drawn to by many reasons. 
 
 3. Thirdly, Consideration is prevented by gradual entanglements. 
 Satan so orders the matter that sin creeps on upon us as sleep, by insen- 
 sible degrees. For this end sometimes he dissembles his strength, and 
 sets upon us with lower temptations, and with less force than other- 
 wise he could. He knows we are not moved to extremes, but by steps 
 and habits ; are not confirmed, but by gradual proceedings. To take 
 too great strides may sometime prevail at present ; but the suddenness 
 and greatness of the alteration begetting a strangeness on the soul, may 
 occasion after-thoughts and recoiling. Therefore he tempts first to 
 thoughts, then to a delight in these thoughts, then to the continuation 
 of them, then to resolve, and so on to practice. And in like manner, 
 he tempts some to make bold with a small matter, which shall scarce 
 
72 A TEEATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 come under the notion of wrong ; then to a greater, and so gradually 
 to higher things, and thus he insensibly brings on a thievish inclina- 
 tion and practice. For the same end sometimes he shews his skill in 
 the management of occasions ; he imperceptibly hooks men into sin by 
 drawing them first to be bold with occasions ; he tells them they may 
 sit at the ale-house, and yet not be drunk ; that they may keep fami- 
 liarity, and yet not be lewd ; that they may look upon a commodity, 
 and yet not steal ; and when the occasions are by this means made 
 familiar to them, then he puts them on a step further, but by such 
 slow motions that the progress is scarce discerned till they be in the 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 0/ Satan's pei-verting our reason. — His second way of blinding. — The 
 possibility of this, and the nmnner of accomplishirig it directly, 
 several ivays ; and indirectly, by the delights of sin, and by sophis- 
 tical arguments; tvith an account of them. 
 
 II. Secondly, The second way by which Satan blinds us through the 
 power of lust is hj perverting and corrupting our reason, drawing it 
 to approve of that which it first disaj)proved. That our lusts have 
 such a power upon the understanding to make such an alteration, need 
 not seem strange to those that shall consider that the Scriptm-e, ])io- 
 pounding the knowledge of the highest mysteries, doth positively re- 
 quhe, as a neces.sary pre-rcquisite to tliese things, that we ' lay aside 
 all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness,' James i. 20, — in these 
 terms, noting the loathsome defilement of our lusts, — that so we may 
 'receive the engrafted word ;' strongly implying that our lusts have 
 a power to elude and evade the strongest reasons, and to hinder their 
 entertainment : which our Saviour notes to have been also the cause 
 of the Jews' blindness, ' How can ye believe, which receive honour one 
 of another ? ' John v. 44. Their lusts of honour stood in their light, 
 and perverted their reason. 
 
 But because this may seem to some almost impossible, that lusts 
 should turn om- sun into darkness, I shall a little explain it. 
 
 The understanding doth usually, if practice of sin have not j^ut out 
 its light, at the first faithfully represent to our mind the nature of good 
 and evil in matters of tcmjitation and duty ; yet its poM'er in tliis case 
 is only cUrective and suasive to the will, not absolutely imperative. 
 The will must follow the understanding's dictate, but is not under any 
 necessity of following its first advice ; it is the tdtimum dictamen, 
 the last dictate, that it is engaged to follow. However the will, in the 
 case last mentioned, be dependent upon the understanding, yet the 
 understanding doth also, quoad exercitium, depend upon the will, and 
 as to the act of consideration, is under its command ; so that after the 
 understanding hath faithfully represented the evil of a sin, the will 
 can command it to another consideration, and force it to new thoughts 
 and consultations about it ; in which case the will doth prompt the 
 understanding, tells it what verdict it would have it to bring in, and 
 so doth really soHcit and beg for a compUance. 
 
Chap. 12.] satan's temptations. 73 
 
 The understanding is ductile and capable of being bribed, and 
 therefore suffers its right eye to be put out by the will, and as a false 
 witness or a partial judge gives sentence as the will would have it ; 
 and thus, as one observes, i the imderstanding and will are like Simeon 
 and Levi, brethren in evil, mutually complying with and gratifying 
 each other. 
 
 The possibility of lusts perverting our understanding being dis- 
 covered, the way and manner how lust doth thus corrupt it, is needful 
 to be opened. 
 
 Lust exerciseth this power imder the management of Satan, directly 
 and indirectly. 
 
 1. First, Oi!7-7-easo7i is directli/ perverted tvhen it is so far lurought 
 upon as to call that good, ichicli is indeed plainly and apparently evil. 
 So great a corruption is not common and ordinary, neither can the 
 heart of man be easily drawn to go so palpably against clear light and 
 evidence. It is therefore only in some cases and in some persons, 
 either of weaker faculties or of extraordinary debauched principles, 
 that Satan can work up lust to give so great a darkness. However, 
 it is evident that Satan useth these deceits in this thing. 
 
 (1.) First, He strives, where the matter will bear it, to put the 
 name of virtue or good upon actions and things that are not so. This 
 temptation doth most appear in those things that are of a doubtful and 
 disputable nature, or in those actions which in their appearance or 
 pretensions may seem to be virtuous. Whatever sin is capable of any 
 paint or varnish, that he takes the advantage of Saul's sacrificing 
 was a great iniquity, and yet the pretence of the general goodness of 
 the action, being in itself commanded, and the supposed necessity of 
 Saul's doing it, because Samuel came not, were considerations upon 
 which his understanding warranted to him that undertaking. Paul's 
 persecution, though a real gratification of his envious lustings, by his 
 blinded understanding was judged duty. What more common than 
 for worldly-mindedness and covetousness to be called a faithful and 
 dutiful care for the provision of our families ! Lukewarmness is 
 often justified under the notion of moderation and prudence ; and 
 anything that can but pretend any kindred to or resemblance of 
 good, our lusts presently prevail for an approbation and vindication 
 of it. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Satan useth the advantage of extremes for the cor- 
 rupting of our understandings. To this purpose he doth all he can 
 to make such an extreme odious and displeasing, that so we may run 
 upon the contrary as matter of duty. Many there are whose heads 
 are so weak, that if they see the danger of one extreme, they never 
 think themselves in safety till they fly to a contrary excess, and then 
 they think the extreme they embrace needs no other justification than 
 the apparent evil of what they have avoided. Satan knowing this, 
 like the lapwing, makes the greatest noise when he is furthest from 
 his nest, and in much seeming earnestness tempts us to something that 
 is most cross to oiu- temper or present inclination ; or endeavours to 
 render something so to us, not with any hopes to prevail with us there, 
 but to make us run as far from it as we can into another snare, and 
 > Fenner, Epistle Dedicatory to 'Mystery of Saving Grace.' 
 
74 A TREATISE OF [PaRT 1. 
 
 also to make us believe that we have done well and avoided a tempta- 
 tion, when indeed we have but exchanged it. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, He directly binds our understandings in sinfiil prac- 
 tices, by engaging us to corn^pt ojnnions tvhich lead to wicked or 
 careless cours(S. Satan with great ease can put men upon sin, when 
 once he hath prevailed with them to receive an error which directly 
 leads to it. Corrupt principles do naturally corrupt practices, and 
 both these may be observed to meet in those deluded ones whom the 
 Scripture mentions, ' that denied the only Lord God, and Jesus Clirist, 
 turninn- also the grace of God into lasciviousness,' Jude 4 ; false 
 teachers that brought in ' damnable heresies,' coimted it ' pleasure to 
 riot,' had ' eyes full of adulteiy, and could not cease from sin,' 2 Pet. 
 ii. 1, 13, 14. With what confidence and security will sin be prac- 
 tised, when an opinion signs a warrant and pleads a justification for it! 
 (4.) Fourthly, In actions whose goodness or badness is principally 
 discoverable hy the ends upon lohich iheijare tindcHaken, it is no great 
 difficulty for Satan to impose upon men a belief that they act by ends 
 and respects tvhich do not indeed move them at all; and in this case 
 men are so blinded that they do not, or will not know or acknowledge 
 they do evil. The matter of the action being warrantable, and the 
 end being out of the reach of conuuon discovery, they readily believe 
 the best of themselves ; and looking more at the warrantableness of 
 the nature of the act in the general than at their gi-ounds and inten- 
 tions, they think not that they do evil. This was a fault which Christ 
 observed in the disciples when they called for ' fire from heaven upon 
 the Samaritans,' Luke ix. 55. The thing itself Elias had done before, 
 and Christ might have done it then, but they wanted the spirit of 
 Elias, and therefore Christ rejects their motion as unlawful in them, 
 who considered not that a spirit of passion and revenge did altogether 
 influence them ; and instead of shewing a just displeasure against the 
 Samaritans, he shews that Satan had blinded them by their lust, and 
 that the thing they urged was so far from being good, that it was 
 apparently evil, in that they were acted by ' another spirit' than they 
 imagined. This way of deceit is very common. How often may we 
 observe Christians pretending conscientious dissatisfactions about the 
 actions of others, when the private spring that animates them is some 
 secret grudge that lies at the bottom ; and yet because the thing 
 wherein they are dissatisfied may truly deserve blame, they are not 
 apt to condemn themselves, but think they do well. 
 
 2. Secondly, Lusts cdso pervert our reason and knmvledge indi- 
 rectly ; 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_ notwith- 
 standing, we are persuaded of some considerable goodness in it, and 
 stich as may for the present be embraced. For this purpose Satan 
 hath ready these two engines : — 
 
 (1.) First, He sets before us the pleasures, jyrofits, and other de- 
 lights 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 har- 
 
beL 
 
 Chap. 12.] satan's temptations. 75 
 
 lot, ' 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,] proflering 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 dan- 
 ger 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 engme 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 
 ". Of these his quiver is fuU : 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.J 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 sin- 
 ning, and this he pleads as a justification of the evil. It is not alto- 
 gether right, but you cannot well avoid it. This plea of necessity is 
 large ; occasion, example, command of others, strength of incUnation, 
 custom, and what not, are pleaded by him in this case. Some parti- 
 cularly reckon them up ; ^ 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 -vdolent impor- 
 tunity 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 
 
 1 Vide Dyke, ' Deceitfuluesa of the Heart," p. 139, &c. 
 
76 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 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 tliou yield, will not God account it a rape upon thine 
 integrity ? If this arrow stick not, 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, Then he extenuates the offeiice 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 dra'OTi out of their hold into a fore- 
 contrived danger. Tims Satan jjleads. This one act of sin may put 
 you into a capacity of honouring God the more. Some have admitted 
 advancements and cUgnities 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 tliem, 
 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.] SLxthly, He plainly disputcth the jmssibiUty 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, <S: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. 
 
Chap. 13.] satan's temptations. 77 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Of Satan's diverting our reason, being the third loay of blinding men. — 
 His policies for diverting our thoughts. — His attempts to that pur- 
 pose in a more direct manner; with the degrees of that procedure. — 
 Of disturbing oi~ distracting our reason, which is Satan's fourth luay 
 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 with- 
 drawing 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 caU evil good, either directly or indhectly. 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 di-ess of the temptation. So that we- 
 may observe in Satan a threefold policy in a subserviency to this de- 
 sign. 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 pur- 
 pose to retm-n at some fitter time, which Christ himself was in expec- 
 tation 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 retmn 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 re- 
 markable, for however we resist and at present stand out, yet his soli- 
 citations 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 Jntf- 
 ing them up ivith a confidence tluit 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 coxirage 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 
 
78 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 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 
 luith us, and is content icc judge the matter sinful, hut 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 o\\ti 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 con- 
 sideration, and so quieted them in that com-se, that the apostle was 
 forced to discover the fallacy of it. Tlie Israelites cursed him that 
 gave a wife to any of the tribe of Benjamin ; but when they turned to 
 tiiem in compassion, they satisfied themselves with this poor distinc- 
 tion, tliat they would not give them wives, but were willing to sutler 
 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 
 lielp 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 with- 
 drawing of our consideration from the danger of sin in a more plain 
 and direct manner — that is, by continuing the prospect of tlie 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, tliat 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 re- 
 lucts it. If there be any incUnation 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 pro- 
 pounded such terms for eternal life as he was not willing to hear of: 
 so do we ; our heart is divided betwixt judgment and atfection, 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 dis)nissio7i to those thoughts tliat opjiose the 
 sin. We say to them, as Felix to Paul, ' Go thy way for tlris 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, Eom. 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 tliis 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. 
 
Chap. 13.] satan's temptations. 79 
 
 Tliis withdrawing of om- consideration is Satan's third way of blinding 
 us. Follows next, 
 
 IV. The fourtli way by which our lust prevails in Satan's hand to 
 blind knowledge, and that is by distracting and disturbing it in its 
 ivorlc. Thi.s 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 under- 
 standing will liinder 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 a]iplication. For as the senses, if any way distracted 
 or hindered, though never so intent, must needs suffer jirejudice in 
 their operations, a tMck air or mist not only hinders the sight of the 
 eye, but also conduceth to a misrepresentation of objects. Thus is the 
 understanding liiudered 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 dis- 
 traction, 
 
 1. First, Satan useth a clamorous imjoortunif)/, and doth so follow 
 us with suggestions, that what way soever we tm-n 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, fj-om 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 tveary iis 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 re- 
 sistance. 
 
 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 wi-ath, 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 liath from 
 outward affiictions, 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 dis- 
 temper our spirits with a sad inclination to speak ' in our haste,' or 
 to act unadvisedly. Job's affiiction imbittered his spirit, and Satan 
 misseth not the advantage. Then he comes upon him with tempta- 
 tions, 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 wiekly and 
 
so A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 more unapt to make any resistance. God himself expressetli the con- 
 dition 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 be- 
 fore 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 liis baits are not discerned. 
 
 V. Fifthly, Our considerations and reasonings against sin are 
 hindered by a boldforivard jn-ccijntanaj. 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. Iviii. 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 wliithcr he would not. Thus do men rush into 
 fim, 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 afright men into a hopelcss7}ess of 
 prevailing against him, and so intimidates men that they throw down 
 their weapons, and yield up themselves to the temptation ; they con- 
 clude there is no hope by all their resistance to stand it out against 
 him, and then tlicy are easily porsuaded to comply with him. To 
 lielp this forward, Satan useth the policy of soldiers, who usually boast 
 high of their strength and resolutions, that, the hearts and corn-age of 
 their adversaries failing, the victory may fall to them without stroke. 
 The devil expressetli 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 tiierefore better were it to save the trouble of striv- 
 ing than to fight to no purpose.' With such like arguings as these 
 are men sometimes prevailed with to tlu-ow down their weapons, and 
 to overrun their reason through fear and hopelessness. 
 
 2. Secondly, Sometimes he is more subtle, and by threaping ^ men 
 doiun, that they have consented already, he 2^uts them upon desperate 
 adventures of going foitcard. 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 wliich 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 
 
 ' ' Arguing ' = to maintoin a thing against contradiction. — G. 
 
Chap. 13.] satan's temptations. 81 
 
 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 con- 
 siderations 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. H.] 
 
 4. Fourthly, Wlien opportunities and occasions luill loell 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 quarrelhng 
 God, and justifying himself in that insolency. The humour that Satan 
 wrought upon was his fretful suUennesSj 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 ch-awn 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.' 
 
 6. FiftMy, All these are but small in comparison of those delibe- 
 rate determinations ivhicli are to he found tvith 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 
 
82 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 hearken.' When the people by a course of sinning liad made them- 
 selves like the wild ass used to the wilderness, then did they peremp- 
 torily 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 shghted. ' There is no hope,' said 
 they ; there is no expectation that we will take any notice of these 
 pleadings, for we have fixed om- 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 dischaigeth 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 liglit which must result from thence ; but 
 we must remember that these tvilh 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 tiieir 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, 
 
 G. Sixthly, That tlirough the working of Satan the mhids of men 
 ore cJarlccned, and the ligld thereof jtut out by the prevalency of 
 atheistical pi-i}ici2)les.^ 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 dogmati- 
 cally 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 punish- 
 ment, who will be scared from taking his delight in sin by any such 
 consideration? Tlie 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 ujion 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 slie 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 beheve there is a God, and yet 
 question the truth of his threatenings. Those conceits that men have 
 ' Capel, ' Temptations,' [as before. — G.] 
 
Chap. 14.] satan's temptations. 83 
 
 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 our- 
 selves,' Ps. 1. — are streams i 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. 
 Ixxiii. 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 pur- 
 pose 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 it 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 repente turpissimiis. 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; yethe further 
 
 (2.) Secondly, That sin may have its utmost accomplishments in 
 all the aggravations ivhereof it may he ca2)ahle. 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 wddened 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 : — 
 • Query, 'steams'? — Ed. 
 
84 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 [1.] First, After sin is once committed, lie rentia his motions and 
 solicitations to act it again, and then again, and so omvard till they 
 be perfect and habituated to it. lu this case he acts over again the 
 former method by which he first ensnared them, only with snch 
 alterations as the present case doth necessitate him unto. Before, lie 
 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 expe- 
 rience ? hast thou not tasted and seen ? hast thou not already con- 
 sented ? Taste and try again, and yet further ; withdraw not thy hand. 
 A little temptation served before, but a less serves now ; for by yield- 
 ing to the fii'st 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 power- 
 ful inclinations to the same sin again arc 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 be- 
 witched witii sucli 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 nmlce one sin an engagement to 
 another, and to force men to draiv iniquity with cord.s 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 fniit, 
 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 tlie 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 iiim the messenger of liis 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 
 
Chap. 14. J satan's temptations. 85 
 
 of dissimulation. Satan knows liow natural it is for men to hide the 
 shame of their iniquity, and accordingly provides occasions and pro- 
 vocations to drive them on to a kind of necessity. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, By a perverse representation of the state of godly and 
 ivicked men, he draws on sin to a higher completement. How often 
 doth he set before us the misery, affliction, contempt, crosses, and sad- 
 nesses 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. 
 Ixxiii. 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. Tliis, 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 care- 
 lessness in sinning, in that it insensibly introduceth atheistical im- 
 pressions 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 rnulti- 
 plication and aggravation of sin, which is the enmity and ojyj^osifion of 
 the law. Of this the apostle Paul sadly complains from his own ex- 
 perience : Kom. vii. 8, ' Sin taking occasion by the commandment, 
 wrought in me all mamier 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 ouly 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 chink, 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 
 i*n 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 
 isbut 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 timei 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 mad- 
 ness, and violent striving to maintain a liberty and freedom to do 
 according to the desires of their heart ; whereas this same law, if it 
 ' As Absalom his servants watched when Amnon's heart was merrj with wine 
 
86 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 be applied to the heart when it is more cooled and not so highly en- 
 gaged upon a design of lust, will break, terrify, and restrain the heart, 
 and put such a dam}) 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 euflaming of the 
 heart to iniquity, Satan shews a wonderful dexterity. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 0/ Satan's keqjmg 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 ivays 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, ' \Vlien a strong 
 man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace.' He urgeth 
 tliis 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 (his 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 tiie devil to 
 rule his slaves with so much quiet as it is ob.served he doth. His 
 BkUl in tliis 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 tlieir wounds to 
 stink and corrupt ; but in this case he takes a contrary course, he 
 keejis 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, ' tiU 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 
 
Chap. 15.] satan's temptations. 87 
 
 shall consider that the heart of a sinner is hardened through the de- 
 ceitfulness of sin, and that the gi-eatest 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 hy secret contri- 
 vances 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 discom-age- 
 ments 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 soids from the blood 
 of men, by faithful warnings or exhortations. The devil was so care- 
 ful 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 Idng's chapel, it is the king's court.' 
 
 3. Thirdly, In order to the keeping out the light from the con- 
 sciences of men, he insinuates loimself as a lying spirit into the inouths 
 of some of his mercenaries; and they speak ' smooth things' and 
 deceit to Satan's captives, telling them that they are in a good condi- 
 tion, 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 advan- 
 tage 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 oft' the light, by caichitig aioay the word 
 after it is sown. This policy of his, Clmst expressly discovers : Mat. 
 xiii. 19, ' When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and under- 
 
8S A TREATISE OK [PaRT I 
 
 staiuletli 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 im- 
 pertinent discourses, urgencies of employment, and a thousand such 
 divertiscments, that so men may not lay the warning to heart, nor by 
 serious meditation to apply it to their consciences. 
 
 5. Fifthly, Kc someiimos snuff's out llie UgJit by j^^''^'^'^"^''^^^- Those 
 hearers, Slat. xiii. 20. 21, that had received the word with some 
 workings of aflfections and joy, are ' presently offended when perse- 
 cution, because of the word, ariseth.' By this he tlireatens men into 
 an acquiescency in tiicir present condition, that if they ' depart from 
 inicpiity, 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 cJioJues it toith the cares of 
 the u-orld, "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 olf men from coming to the light, by putting 
 them upon imsa2y2}rehcnslons of their estate in judging themselves by 
 the common ojmiion. 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 lor 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 tilings 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 main- 
 tained such an opiuion, 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 stirrmg 
 thoughts of sinners iciih hojxs and assurances of secrecy. As children 
 are quieted and pleased with toys and rattles, so are sinners put off 
 
Chap. 15.] satan's temptations. 89 
 
 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 im- 
 pudent, 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 seoth 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 theii' 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 appren- 
 tice 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 en- 
 quire, 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, wliich 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 wUl 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, 
 
90 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 1. First, He endeavours to draw on a hatred against the hght, 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 con- 
 ceive 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 any- 
 thing 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, 2Mssionatc, or otherwise distempered Jit; 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 shake7i 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 men- 
 tioned in Psalm ii., combining and taking counsel against the Lord 
 and his laws, is upon the quarrel of interest. Their suspicious and 
 jealousies that the setting up of Cin-ist 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 pre- 
 tence 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 ])ut 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 apprehen- 
 sion, 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 dhectly 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 m»- 
 avoidable effects of light, tvhich 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 mani- 
 festation 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 
 
Chap. 16.] satan's temptations. 91 
 
 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 ssiv. 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 fii-st 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 maintaiiiing his possession; lohich 
 is his feigned departure : (1.) By ceasing the prosecution of his 
 design; and the cases in ivhich 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 fw keeping his pos- 
 session, ivhich is his stopping all ivays of retreat; and hoiv 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 sup- 
 posed 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 suddeu advantage of the carelessness of the be- 
 sieged. 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 in- 
 terest : — 
 
 1. Fu-st, He frequently ceaseth the prosecution of a design, which 
 yet he liath in his eye and desire, ivhen he perceives tJiat there are 
 some things in his ivay thai 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 sjiits 
 out the sweet morsel which heretofore he kept under his tongue, and 
 sucked a sweetness from it ; when men of noted iniquities abstain 
 
;»2 A TREATISE OF [PaRT 1. 
 
 from them, and become smooth and civil, who would not tliink but 
 that the unclean spirit were gone ? This way and course he puts in 
 jiractice in several cases. 
 
 [1.] First, When he perceives some cxtraordiimry occasion puts 
 any of his subjects into a good mood or Inimour 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 tiiaws 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. Tlius men that receive an eminent 
 kindness and deliverance from God, what is more common than for 
 such meu to say, Oh, we will never be so wicked as we have been, we 
 will never he drunk more, the world sliall see us reformed and new 
 men ! These are indeed good words, and jet though Satan knows 
 that such expressions arc not from a good heart, — as that of Dent. 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 tliat time ; for natural affections raised high in a 
 profession of religion will withstand temptations for a fit, and there- 
 fore he forbears till tlic stream run lower. What a fit of affection 
 liad the Israelites when their eyes had seen that miraculous deliver- 
 ance at the Red Sea ! What songs of rejoicing had they ! what re- 
 solves never to distrust him again ! Ps. cvi. 12, ' Then believed they 
 liis words, tliey 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 con- 
 vinced him of his integrity, and had spared liis life in the cave ! 
 1 Sam. xxiv. 16, and xxvi. 21. He weeps, and acknowledgeth his 
 iniquity, justifies David, owns his Idndness, and seems to acquiesce in 
 his succession to the kingdom. The Ac\\\ had, no question, a great 
 spite at Da-s4d, 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 ccaseth from his design when he sees he 
 cannot fit his temptation with a suitable oiyportunity. 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 momning are at hand; then, 
 but not till then, will I slay my brother Jacob.' The devil often 
 sows his seed, and jet 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 
 
Ohap. IG.\ Satan's temptations. 93 
 
 upon that which time and occasion cannot fitly bring forth to prac- 
 tice. The prophet, Hosea vii. 4, si^eaks 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 pre- 
 sent 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 per- 
 ceives that a restraining grace doth loch 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 some- 
 time 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 
 om-selves are to us. Besides, who can tell how much of God's restrain- 
 ing gi-ace may lie in this, of God's limiting and straitening Satan's 
 commission ? Now the devil hath not so badly improved his observa- 
 tions, but that he knows it is in vain to tempt where God doth stop 
 his way and tie ujj 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 aiue and fear of such as 
 carry an aidhoritij in their co^mtenances and employments for the 
 discouraging of sin, Satan, as hopeless to jjrevail, doth not solicit to 
 scandalous iniquities. Much of external sanctity and saintlike be- 
 haviour ariseth from hence. The faces and presence of some men 
 have such a shining splendour, that iniquity blusheth and hidetli its 
 head before them. Sin dare not do what it would ; so great a rever- 
 ence 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 Joslma, 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 
 
94 A TKEATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 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 Chi-on. 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 c\'ils which 
 afterward he engaged liim 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 shipwi-eck 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 fell judgments. He 
 forbears to urge "them against the pricks when God th-aws his sword and 
 brings forth the glittering sj)ear. 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 with- 
 draws. As great a power as the devil had in Ahab, when he was 
 affrighted and himiblcd he gave way, and for that season drave him 
 not on to his wonted ]iractice of wiclccdncss. 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 tlie 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 ceascth 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 jirevailing poiver of 
 hwivledge and 2orinciples of light. Where tlie 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 sliifts, 
 and is forced to be silent, whilst the power of the gospel cuts ofi' 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 de- 
 clines, those that were escaped from error, and those that had fled 
 from sinful pollutions, were both entangled again and carried to the 
 
Chap. 16.] satan's temptations. 95 
 
 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 wliicli Satan ceaseth the prosecution of 
 his design, which was his first pohcy in feigning himself to he cast 
 out ; hut he further dissembles a flight when he tliinks it not fit to 
 cease whoUy, 
 
 By abating Jiis pursuit, by slacking his course ; and this he doth, 
 
 [1.] First, When he tempts still, but yet less thari 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 mlling to take them, as 
 one speaks, as retainers, and to suffer them to take a liberty to come 
 and go at pleasure.! 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 mterest be but preserved. He knows that 
 one sin loved and embraced brings death for its wages. A leak un- 
 stopped 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 ser\'ice. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, He sometimes offers men a composition, and so keeps 
 his hold privately, by giviiuj them an indidgence and toleration to com- 
 ply tvith religious duties and observations. Pharaoh condescended 
 that Israel should go and serve the Lord in the wilderness, upon con- 
 dition 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, tliat they stand in need of a fuU dis- 
 covery 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 Herochas: 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 behef 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 
 ' Grcenham's Works, p. 793. 
 
9(3 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 ill 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 em- 
 bracement 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, accord- 
 ing 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. Sometunes 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. Drunken- 
 ness 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 tkunkard is now, it may be, gi-own 
 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. Some- 
 times 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. 
 
 Secomlly, 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 im- 
 pieties, 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 thej' 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, wliich, 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. 
 
Chap. 1(J.] satan's temptations. 97 
 
 Having thus explained the three ways by which Satan jiretends to 
 depart from men, I must next shew his design in making such a pre- 
 tence of forsaking his habitation. 
 
 [1.] First, That all this is done by him only iqjon 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 not- 
 withstanding irksome and troublesome to him. The heart of man, as 
 one observes,! is a palace in his estimation, and dispossession, though 
 upon design, is as a ' desert ' to him, that affoi-ds 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 jiurpose 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.' 
 
 [2.] Secondly, The advantages that he designs bi/ this policy 
 are these chiefly: (1.) By this means men are dangerously con- 
 firmed 171 their securities. Thus the Pharisee blessed himself, 
 ' Lord, I thank thee,' &c. They please themselves with this sup- 
 position, that the devil is cast out ; and upon this they cease their 
 war and watchfulness. As Saul, when he heard that David had 
 escaped, ' went not out to seek after him;' so these trouble not them- 
 selves any further to inquire Satan's haunts in their hearts. Thus 
 he sits securely within, whilst they think he is fled from them. 
 (2.) By this means also he fits men as instruments to serve his turn 
 in other ivorhs of his. He must have, in some cases, handsome tools 
 to work withal. All men are not fit agents in persecution, either to 
 credit it, or to carry it through with vigour and zeal ; for this end he 
 seems to go out of some, that under a smoother and profession-like 
 behaviour, when they are stirred up to persecute, the rigour might 
 seem just. Thus ' devout and honourable women' were stirred up to 
 persecute Paul and Barnabas, Acts xiii. 50. The devil had gone out 
 so far, that they had gained the reputation of devout, and then their 
 zeal would easily take fire for persecution, and withal put a respect 
 and credit upon it ; for who would readily suspect that to be evil or 
 Satan's design, wliich is carried on by such instruments? Besides, 
 if he at any time intends to blemish the good ways of God by the 
 miscarriages of professors, he fetcheth his arrow out of this quiver 
 usually ; if he brings a refined hypocrite to a scandalous sin, then 
 doth the mouth of wickedness open itself to blaspheme ' the generation 
 of the just,' as if none were better. Such agents could not be so 
 commonly at hand for such a service, if Satan did not in the ways 
 aforementioned seem to go out of men. (3.) It is another part of his 
 design, after a pretended departure, to take the advantage of their 
 " Greenham, p. 796, [aa before. — G.] 
 
98 A TREATISE OF [PaKT I. 
 
 security, to return with greater streugtli and force. This Christ 
 particularly notes, ' Then taketh he seven spirits worse than himself,' 
 &c. Such, as Peter tells us, being ' again entangled, are totally over- 
 come, and their latter end is worse with them than their beginning,' 
 2 Pet. ii. 20. How many might I name, if it were convenient, that 
 I have known and observed, exactly answering this description of the 
 apostle, that have for some years left off their wicked ways, and engaged 
 for a profession of religion; and yet at last 'have returned like the dog 
 to his own vomit again' ! The devil, when he fights after the Parthian 
 manner— Terj/a vertenies metuendi Parthi — is most to be feared; when 
 he turns his back, he shoots most envenomed arrows, and whom he 
 so wounds, he commonly wounds them to the death. 
 
 The fourth and last stratagem of Satan for the keeping his posses- 
 sion, is to stop the tvay, to barricade zip all passages, that there may 
 be no possibility of escape or retreat. When he perceives that his 
 former ways of policy are not sufficient, but that his slaves and servants 
 are so f:ir enlightened in the discovery of the danger that they are 
 ready to turn back from him, then he bestirs himself to oppose their 
 revolt ; and as God sometimes ' hedgeth up the way' of sinners with 
 ' thorns,' that they should not follow their old lovers, so doth Satan, 
 Hosea ii. 6 ; to which purpose, 
 
 [1.] First, He endeavours to turn them off such resolutions, by 
 threatening to reduce them icith a strong hand. Here he boasts and 
 vaunts of his power and sinners' weakness; as Rabshakeh did against 
 Hezekiah, ' What is that confidence wherein thou trustest? have the 
 gods of Hamath and Arpad,' &c., ' delivered their land out of my hand ? ' 
 [2 Kings xviii. 33, 34.] Have those that have gone before you been 
 able to deliver themselves from me ? Have they been able to rescue 
 themselves ? Did I not force those that were stronger than you ? 
 Did I not make David number the people? Did 1 not overcome 
 him in the matter of Uriah ? Did I not compel Peter to deny his 
 Lord, notwithstanding his solemn profession to the contrary ? And 
 can you think to break away from me so easily ? By this means he 
 would weaken their heart, and enfeeble their resolutions, that they 
 might sit down under their bondage, as hopeless ever to recover them- 
 selves from his snare : but if these alfrightments hinder not, if, not- 
 withstanding these brags, sinners prepare themselves to turn from sin 
 to God ; then, 
 
 [2.] Secondly, He improves all he can that distance tvhich sin hath 
 made betivixt God and them. Sins of ordinary infirmity and common 
 incursion do not so break the peace of God's children, as sins of a 
 higher nature do. Even in the saints themselves, we may observe, after 
 notorious transgression, (1.) That the acquaintance and familiarity 
 betwixt God and them is immediately broken. What a si)eedy 
 alteration is made ! How suddenly are all things changed ! God 
 hides himself The sun that shined but now, and did aftbrd a very 
 comfortable and cherishing heat, before we are aware, is now hid in a 
 cloud. Our warmth and refreshments are turned into cold and chillness. 
 There is also a change on our part, and that suddenly. As in the 
 resurrection, we shall be changed 'in the twinkling of an eye;' so 
 here, in a moment, our joys flag and decay, our deUghts grow dull. 
 
Chap. l(j.] satan's temptations. 99 
 
 our activity is impaired, we are bound and frozen up, and it is alto- 
 gether winter with the soul. (2.) It may be noted, that this begets 
 an enstrangement in us, and we so carry it as if we liad resolved not 
 to renew our league witli God ; for though we are not altogether so 
 desperate as to make formal resolutions of continuing in sin, of casting 
 off God, and bidding an everlasting farewell to our former acquaint- 
 ance ; though we do not say, We will now undo ourselves quite, and 
 harden ourselves in our rebellion ; yet sin hath left us in such a maze, 
 and filled us with so many damps and misgiving thoughts, that we 
 do not think of returning ; we are at a stand, and like a mighty man 
 astonished that cannot find his hands. We perceive we have lost 
 so much, and have run into such great unkindnesses, that, like broken 
 merchants, nothing is more irksome and tedious than to review our 
 ways, or look into our debt-books. Instead of this, we endeavom* to 
 divert our thoughts, to cast off care, as if we conceived that time 
 would eat it out, and that then of course we might fall into the old 
 channel of freedom and comfort. (3.) When we return at last, oh, 
 with what bashfulness and amazedness do we ap^rear at our next 
 supplications ! what blushing, what damps, what apology ! Nay, 
 sometimes as the man without the wedding garment, ' we are speech- 
 less!' [Mat. xxii. 12.] How rightly doth such a man resemble the 
 publican confessing, and the prodigal supplicating. While consulting 
 what to say for himself, he now begins to feel with what sense and 
 feeling the prophets and holy men of old used to express themselves 
 in their confessions, ' We blush, we are ashamed, astonished, and 
 confounded.' This distance sin makes betwixt saints and God some- 
 times ; but betwixt God and the unconverted it is far greater. Now, 
 when either an unconverted sinner or a fallen saint puts himself to 
 look to God for reconciliation, then doth the devil labour to improve 
 this for their hindrance. That he accusetli us to God, is evident by 
 Satan's standing at Joshua's right hand, Zech, iii. 1. How he accuseth 
 God to us we know. He tells us it is in vain to seek to make up our 
 peace after so great provocations ; urging that he is ' a jealous God,' 
 ' of pure eyes,' higlily resenting the affronts we have given him, &c. 
 Nay, he goes so high this way, that God is put to it in Scripture,_of 
 purpose to furnish us with an answer to these objections, to proclaim 
 that he is ' slow to anger,' ' not easily provoked;' that if men return 
 from the evil of their ways, he will ' return to them,' ' accept,' and 
 ' pity' them, &c. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, If this divert them not, but that they still persist in 
 their resolves, then he follotvs after them with a high hand; some- 
 times, as Pharaoh did with Israel, he grows severe and imperious 
 with them, and redoubles the tale of their bricks. He forceth them 
 to higher and more frequent iniquities. Sometimes, as the same 
 Pharaoh, he musters up all his chariots and horsemen to pursue after 
 them, and in the highest diligence imaginable he brings forth his 
 greatest power, besetting them on all sides with temptations and 
 allurements of pleasures and delight. Where he perceives his time 
 to be short, and his power shaken, he comes down in resolves to try 
 his utmost strength. And hence it is that converts complain, that 
 when they begin in earnest to look after God, they are most troubled 
 
100 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 with temptations. Besides this, whatever lie can ilo to make them 
 ' drive heavily,' [Exod. xiv. 25,] shall not be wanting. Sometimes he 
 makes attempts upon their thoughts and affections, which are as their 
 chariot wheels ; and if these can he knocked off any way, it retards 
 them. Sometimes he casts stumbling-blocks in their way. If any 
 prejudice may divert them, if threatenings or penalties can hinder ; if 
 the frownings of friends or anything else can put a stop to their 
 proceedings, he will have them ready. Sometimes he endeavours to 
 retard them by solicitations of acquaintance, ofiers of former occasions 
 and opportunities of sinning, or whatever else may be as a rernora to 
 their intentions. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, But if none of these serve, then, as his last shift, he 
 proclaims open war against them, jmrsues them as enemies and rebels. 
 Now he begins to accuse them for that which they did by his advice 
 and temptation. Now sins that were called little are aggravated. 
 Now that day of repentance, which he was wont to say was long, he 
 tells them it is quite spent, tliat the sun of their hope is set. Nothing 
 now doth he suggest but hell, damnation, and \vrath ; he makes them, 
 as it were, see it, hear it, and feel it in everything. That interest in 
 their hearts which he dissembled before, now he stands upon and 
 asserts, and will not be beat off; designing in all this either to make them 
 weary of these new resolves by this unusual disquietment and hostility, 
 or to precipitate them upon some desperate undertaking, or at least 
 to avenge himself upon them, in venting his nialice and rage against 
 them ; l)ut of this more afterward. 
 
 CHAPTEK XVII. 
 
 Satan's deceits against religious services and duties. — The grounds of 
 his displeasure against religious duties. — His first design against 
 duties is to prevent them. — His several sidMelies for that end, by 
 external hindrances, by indispositions bodily and spiritual, by 
 discouragements ; the tvays thereof, by dislike ; the grounds thereof, 
 by sophistical arguings. — His various pleas tlierein. 
 
 Our next work is to take notice of the spite and methods of the 
 serpent against the ways of worship and service. That these are 
 things against which his heart carries a high fury, and for the over- 
 throw of them employs no small part of his power and subtlety, needs 
 no proof, seeing the experience of all the children of God is an 
 irresistible evidence in this matter. I shall therefore first only set 
 forth the grounds of his displeasure and earnest undertakings against 
 them, before I come to his particular ways of deceit, which are 
 these : — 
 
 1. First, By this means, if he jirevail, he deprives us of our 
 tueapons. This is a stratagem of war which we find the Philistines 
 practised against Israel : they took away all their smiths, lest the 
 Hebrews should make them swords or spears ; hence was it that in 
 the battle there was ' neither sword nor spear found in the hand of 
 any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan,' 1 Sam. xiii. 19, 
 
Chap. 17.] satan's temptations. 101 
 
 22. The word of God is expressly called ' the sword of the Spirit,' 
 [Eph. vi. 17.] Prayer is as a spear, or rather a general piece of armour. 
 If the devil deprive us of these, he robs us of our ammunition ; for by 
 reason of these the church is compared to ' a tower built for an 
 armoury, wherein hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty 
 men,' Cant. iv. 4 ; and the apostle expressly calls them ' weapons of 
 our warfare,' 2 Cor. x. 4, of purpose given us for ' the pulling down 
 of strongholds,' and the demolishing of those forts and batteries of 
 ' high imaginations ' that Satan rears up in the hearts of men against 
 their happiness. If these be taken away, our locks are cut, as Sam- 
 son's were, our strength is departed, and we become weak as other 
 men, [Judges xvi. 17,] — we are open to every incursion and inroad 
 that he pleaseth to make against us. 
 
 2. Secondly, If he hinders these, he intercepts our food and cuts off 
 our -provisions. The word is called ' milk, sincere milk of the word.' 
 It is that by which we are born, nourished, and increase ; it is our 
 cordial and comfort. Christ indeed is ' the bread of life,' and the 
 fountain of all our consolations, but the word and prayer are the con- 
 duit pipes that convey all to us. If these be cut, we ' fade as a leaf,' 
 we languish, we consume and waste, we become as a ' skin-bottle in 
 the smoke,' ' our moisture as the drought in summer,' our ' soul 
 fainteth,' ' our heart faileth, and we become as those that go down to 
 the pit ' ; so that if the devil gain his design in this, he hath all, 
 Grive him this, and give him the kingdom also. This is the most 
 compendious way of doing his work, and that which saves him a 
 labour in his temptations. The strongest holds, that cannot other- 
 wise be taken, are easily subdued by famine ; and, like fig-trees 
 with their ripe figs when they are shaken, ' even fall into the mouth 
 of the eater,' Nahum iii. 12. If our spiritual food fail us, of our 
 own accord we yield up ourselves to any lust that requires our 
 compliance. 
 
 3. Thirdly, Besides these, there is no design whereby Satan can 
 shew more malice and spite against God. He doth all he can to 
 maintain a competition with the Almighty. His titles of ' the god of 
 the world,' ' the prince of the power of the air,' shew what in the pride 
 of his heart he aspires to, as well as what by commission God is 
 pleased to grant him. These duties of worship and service are the 
 homage of God's children, by which they testify the acknowledgments 
 of his deity. By wresting these out of our hands, Satan robs God of 
 that honour, and makes the allegiance of his servants to cease. If he 
 could do more against God, doubtless he would ; but seeing he hath 
 not ' an arm like God,' and so cannot pull him out of heaven, by this 
 means he sets up himself as the god of the world, and enlargeth his 
 territories, and staves off the subjects of the God of heaven from giv- 
 ing him ' the honour due to his name ; ' and that the devil in these 
 endeavours is carried on by a spite against God, as well as by an 
 earnest desire of the ruin of souls, may be abundantly evidenced by 
 his way of management of that opposition that he gives to the duties 
 of service and worship. I shall only, to make out this, instance in 
 three things : — (1.) That where the devil prevails to set up himself as 
 an object of worship, there he doth it in a bold, insolent, presumptu- 
 
102 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 ous imitation of God's appointments in the ways of his service. _ He 
 enjoins covenants, seals, sacrifices, prayers, and services to his miser- 
 able slaves, as may appear by imdoubted histories, of which more in 
 due place. (2.) He never acknowledgeth the trvUh of God's ways, but 
 with an evil mind and upon design to bring them under contempt. 
 His confessions have so much of deceit in them that Christ would not 
 accept them ; and therefore we read that when the devil was sometime 
 forward to give his testimony to Christ, as Mark i. 25, ' I know thee 
 who thou art, the Holy One of God,' Jesus rebuked him, and com- 
 manded him to hold his peace. He clearly saw that he confessed him 
 not to honour him, but by such a particular acknowledgment to stir 
 up the rage and fury of the people against him. To this end Satan, 
 in Acts xvi. 17, many days together publicly owns Paul and Silas, 
 ' These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto 
 us the way of salvation.' Though he spake truth, yet had he a 
 malicious aim in it, wliich he accordingly brought about by this 
 means ; and that was to raise up persecution against them, and to give 
 groimd to that accusation which they afterwards met withal ; ver. 21, 
 ' That they taught customs which were not lawful to be received.' 
 But (3.) his particular spite against God in seeldng to undermine his 
 service is further manifested in this, that the devil is not content to 
 root out the service due to God, but when he hath done that, he de- 
 lights to abuse those places where the name of God was most cele- 
 brated, with greatest profanations. I shall not in this insist upon the 
 conjecture of Tilenus,i that Sylva Dodoncm, a place highly abused 
 by the devil, and respected for an oracle, was the seat or a religious 
 place of Dodanim, mentioned in Gen. x. 4; nor upon that supposal, 
 mentioned also by the same autlior, that the oracle of Jupiter Ham- 
 mon was the place where Cham [Ham] practised that religious wor- 
 ship which he learned in his father's house. We have at hand more 
 certain evidences of the devil's spite. Such was his abuse of the 
 tabernacle by the profane sons of Eh, who profaned that place with 
 their uncleanness and filthy adulteries. Such was his carriage to the 
 ark while it was captivated by the Philistines. Of like nature were 
 his attempts against the temple itself. Solomon in his latter days 
 was tempted to give an affront to it : he built a high place for Che- 
 mosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, 
 1 Kings xi. 7, in the very sight and face of the temple ; but after- 
 ward he prepared to defile the temple itself. Gilgal and Beth-aven 
 are places of such high profanation, that the prophet Hosea, chap. ix. 15, 
 tells them ' all their wickedness was in Gilgal,' none of their abomina- 
 tions were like to those; and in chap. iv. 15, they are dehorted from 
 going to Gilgal or Beth-aven ; and yet both these places had been 
 famous for religion before,- Gilgal was the place of tlie general cir- 
 cumcision of the Israelites that were born in the wilderness ; there was 
 their first solemn passover kept after their entering into the land. 
 Bethel was a place where God as it were kept house, ' the house of 
 God.' Here Jacob had his vision. But the mo)-e famous they had 
 been for duties of worship, the devil sought to put higher abuses upon 
 
 ' Synlag., part. i. disput. 2. Thes. 20-22. 
 - Anowsmith, Tact. Sacr., lib. i. cap. 5, sec. 9. 
 
Chap. 17.] satan's temptations. 103 
 
 them, so that Gilgal became ' an hatred,' and Bethel became a Betli- 
 aven, ' an house of vanity.' 
 
 4. Fourthly, Satan is the more animated to undertake a design 
 against the ways of religious service, because he seldom or never 
 misseth at least something of success. This attemjit is like Saul and 
 Jonathan's bow, that ' returned not empty,' [2 Sam. i. 22.] In other 
 temptations sometimes Satan comes off baffled altogether, but in this 
 work, as it was said of some Israelites, ' he can throw a stone at an 
 hair's breadth, and not miss,' Judges xx. 16. He is sure in one thing 
 or other to have the better of us. His advantage in this case is from 
 our unsuitableness to our service. What we do m the duties of M-or- 
 ship, requires a choice frame of spirit. Our hearts should be awed 
 with the most serious apprehensions of divine majesty, filled with 
 reverence, animated with love and delight, quickened by faith, clothed 
 with humility and seK-abhorrency, and in all the procedure of duties 
 there must be a steady and firm prosecution under the strictest watch- 
 fulness. Of tMs nature is our work, which at the first view would 
 put a man to a stand, and out of amazement force him to say, ' Who 
 is sufficient for these things ? who can stand before such an holy Lord 
 God?' But when we come to an impartial consideration of our 
 manifold weaknesses and insufficiencies in reference to these services, 
 what shall we say ? we find such a narrowness of spirit, such ignorances, 
 sottishness, carelessness of mind, thoughts so confused, tumultuous, 
 fickle, shppery, and unconstant, and oirr hearts generally so deceitful 
 and desperately wicked, that it is not possible that Satan should alto- 
 gether labom- in vain or catch nothing. This being then a sure gain, 
 we may expect it to be under a most constant practice. 
 
 5. Fiftlily, If he so prevails against us that the services of worship 
 become grossly abused or neglected, then doth he put us under the 
 greatest hazards and disadvantages. Nothing so poisonous as duties 
 of worship corrupted ; for this is to abuse God to his face. By this, 
 not only are his commands and injunctions slighted, as in other sins, 
 but we carry it so as if we thought him no better than the idols of the 
 heathens, that have ' eyes and see not, that have ears and hear not.' 
 To come without a heart, or with our idols in our heart, is it any- 
 thing of less scorn than to say, 'Tush, doth the Most High see?' 
 Besides, he hath given such severe cautions and commands in these 
 matters as will easily signify the aggravation of the offence. You see 
 how shai-ply God speaks of those that came to inquire of the Lord 
 with ' the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their face,' Ezek. 
 xiv. 4, 7, ' I will answer them according to the multitude of their 
 idois ;' I will answer them by myself.' Saul's miscarriage in offering 
 sacrifice, 1 Sam. xiii. 13, was that great offence for which God deter- 
 mined to take the kingdom from him. God's severity against Nadab 
 and Abihu, his stroke upon LTzziah, do all shew the hazard of such 
 profanations. But, above all, that danger which both Old and New 
 Testament speak of— the hardening of the heart, blinding the eyes, 
 duUino- the cars, that men should not hear nor see nor be converted 
 and saved, but that the word should, instead of those cordial refreshing 
 smells which beget and promote spiritual life in the obedient, breathe 
 forth such envenomed, poisonous exhalations when it is thus abused 
 
10-1 A TKEATiaE OF [PaKT I. 
 
 and profaned, that it becomes 'the savour of death unto death' — is 
 most dreadful. No wonder, then, if Satan be very busy against these 
 holy tilings, when, Lf he catch us at an advantage of this nature, it 
 proves so deadly and dangerous to us ; for what can more please him 
 that makes it his delight and employment to destroy ? 
 
 All these reasons evince that Satan hath an aching tooth against 
 religious services, and that to weaken, prevent, or overthrow them is 
 his great endeavour. Here then especially may we expect an assault, 
 according to the advice of Sirach: Ecclus. ii. 1, 2, ' My son, when 
 thou enterest God's service, stand fast in righteousness and fear, and 
 prepare thy soul for temptation.' 
 
 What are the subtleties of Satan against the holy things of God, I 
 am next to discover. Duties and" services are opposed two ways: 
 (1.) By prevention, when they are hindered. (2.) By corruption, 
 when they are spoiled. He hath his arts and cunning, which he 
 exerciseth in both these regards: — 
 
 1. First, then. Of Satan's jiolicy for the preventing of religious 
 services. He endeavours liy various means to hinder them. As, 
 
 (1.) First, By exlvnial liiitdranccs. In this he hatji a very great 
 foresight, and accordingly he foresees occasions and opportunities at a 
 distance, and by a long reach of contrivance he studies to lay blocks 
 and hindrances in tlie way. Much he doth in the dark for Ihis end 
 that we know not. As God hath ' secrets of wif5dom that are double 
 to that which is known,' Job xi. 6, so also hath Satan many ways and 
 actings that are not discerned by us. His contrivances of businesses 
 and avocations long aforehand are not so observed by us as they might 
 be. Where he missel h of his end it comes not to light, and often 
 where he is successful in his preventions we are ready to ascribe it to 
 contingencies and the accidental hits of affairs, when indeed the hand 
 and policy of Satan is in it. Paul, that was highly studied and skilful 
 in Sixtan's devices, observing how his pm-poses of coming to the Thcs- 
 saloniaus were often broken and obstructed, he knew where the blame 
 lay, and therefore instead of laying the fault upon sickness, or imprison- 
 ments, or the opjiositions of false brethren — which often made him 
 trouble beyond expectation — he directly chargeth all upon Satan : 
 1 Thes. ii. 18, ' We would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and 
 again, but Satan hindered us.' At the same rate, understanding the 
 purposes of faithful men for the promoting the good of men's souls, 
 he often useth means to stop or liinder them. Some have observed, 
 having a watchful and jealous eye over Satan, that their resolves 
 and endeavours of this nature have usually been put to struggle sore 
 in their birth when their purposes for worldly affairs and matters go 
 smoothly on without considerable ojiposition. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, He makes use of indispositions to hinder service; 
 and here he works sometimes upon the body, sometimes upon the 
 soul, for both may be indisposed. 
 
 [1.] First, Sometimes he takes the advantage of bodily indisposi- 
 tions. He doth all he can to create and frame these upon us, and 
 then pleads them as a discharge to duty. If he can put the body into 
 a fit of drowsiness or distemper, he will do it : and surely he can do 
 more this way than every one will believe — he may agitate and stir 
 
Chap. 17.] satan's temptations. 105 
 
 the humours. Hence some have observed more frequent and stronger 
 fits of sleepiness and illness to come upon them on the days and times 
 that require their attendance upon God, than on other days ; when they 
 shall be lively, active, and free of didness upon common occasions— 
 at sports, songs, interludes — when they shall not have the like com- 
 mand of themselves in the exercises of worship. Surely it was more 
 than an ordinary drowsiness that befell the apostles. Mat. xxvi, 41. He 
 had told them the seriousness of the occasion, that he was ' betrayed,' 
 that his ' soul was exceeding sorrowful even to the death : ' these were 
 considerations that might have kept their eyes from slumber. When 
 they sleep, he awakens them with a piercing rebuke, ' Could ye not 
 watch with me one hour ? ' and adds to this an admonition of their 
 own danger, and the temptation that was upon them, and yet presently 
 they are asleep again, and after that again. Strange drowsiness ! But 
 he gives an excuse for them, which also tells us the cause of it : the 
 ' spirit is willing ' — their hearts were not altogether unconcerned — 
 ' but the flesh, ' that is, the body, that was ' weak ' — that is, subject 
 to be abused by Satan, who brought them into a more than ordinary 
 indisposition, as is noted ver. 43, ' their eyes were heavy.' 
 
 [2.] Secondly, The soul hath also its indispositions, which he readily 
 improves against duty to hinder it. As, 
 
 First, It is capable of a spiritual sluggishness andduhiess, wherein 
 the spiritual senses are so bound up, that it considers not, minds not, 
 hath no list nor inclination to acts of service. What a stupefaction 
 are our spirits capable of ! as David in his adultery seems not to mind 
 uor care what he had done. In like manner are some in a lethargy ; 
 as the prophet speaks, they ' care not to seek after God.' Bernard 
 hath a description of it: Contrahitur animus, sicbtrahiiur gratia, defer- 
 vescit novitius fervor, ingravescit torpor fastidiosus. The spirit is con- 
 tracted, grace withckawn, fervour abates, sluggishness draws on, and 
 then duties are neglected. 
 
 Secondly, The spirit is indisposed by a throng of icorldly affairs, 
 and these oft jostle out duty. Christ teUs us they have the same 
 influence upon men that gluttony and drunkenness have, and these 
 unfit men for action. ' Take heed,' saith Luke xxi. 34, ' to your- 
 selves, lest at any time your heart be overcharged with surfeiting and 
 drunkenness, and the cares of this life.' These then may at so high a 
 rate overcharge the souls of men so as to make them frame excuses : 
 ' I have bought a farm or oxen,' and therefore ' I cannot attend ;' and 
 by this means may they grow so neglective that the ' day of the Lord 
 may come upon them at imawares.' 
 
 Thirdly, Sometimes the soul is discomposed through passion, and 
 then it is indisposed, which opportunity the devil espying, he closeth 
 in ^Ai\\ it. Sometime he ' blows the fire,' that the heat of anger may 
 put them upon a carelessness. Sometimes he pleads their present 
 frame as an unfitness for service, and so upon a pretence of reverence 
 to the service, and ' leaving the gift at the altar ' till they be in a better 
 humour, many times the gift is not oflered at all, 1 Pet. iii. 7. The 
 apostle directs husbands to manage their authority over their wives 
 with prudence, for the avoiding of brawls and contentions : ' Ye hus- 
 '3, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour to the 
 
106 A TKEATISB OF [PaRT I. 
 
 wife as the weaker vessel ;' the reason of which advice he gives in these 
 words, ' that your prayers be not hindered.' Prayers are hindered 
 partly in their success when they prevail not, partly they are hindered 
 when the duty of prayer is put by and suspended ; and this doubtless 
 the apostle aims at, to teach us that contentious quarrellings in a 
 family hinder the exercise of the duty of prayer. Elisha, 2 Kings iii., 
 discomposed himself in his earnest reproof of Jehoram, for with great 
 vehemency he had spoken to him: ver. 13, 14, ' What have I to do 
 with thee ? get thee to the prophets of thy father. Were it not that 
 I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, I woiild not look toward thee, nor 
 see thee.' But when he set liimself to receive the visions of God, he 
 calls for a minstrel, ver. 15, the reason whereof, as P[eter] Martyr and 
 others suppose,i was this, that however what he spake to Jehoram 
 proceeded from zeal, yet being but a man, and subject to the like 
 infirmities of other men, it had distracted and discomposed his spirit, 
 which made him unfit and uncapable to entertain the visions of God. 
 Music then being a natural means for the composure and quiet of 
 the mind, he takes that course to calm and fit himself for that 
 work. 
 
 Fourthly, Ignorance and jwejudice arc spirifual indispositiotis, 
 which are not neglected by the devil. Knowledge is the eye and 
 guide of the soul. If there be darkness there, all acts which depend 
 upon better instruction must cease. The disciples' ignorance of Scrip- 
 tures brought in their unbelief Christ notes that as the fountain- 
 head of all their backwardness : Luke xxiv. 25, ' fools, and slow of 
 heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.' In like manner, 
 if men are not clear or knowing in the ways and necessities of duty 
 and service, the devil can easily prevail with them to forbear and 
 neglect. Prejudice riscth up to justify the disregard of duty, and 
 offers reasons which it thinks cannot be answered. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Satan endeavours to prevent duly by discouracjements. 
 If he can make the ' knees feeble,' and the ' hands hang down,' he will 
 quickly cause activity and motion to cease. The ways by which 
 he endeavours to discourage men from the duties of service are 
 these : — 
 
 [1.] First, He sets before them the ioil and burden of duty. If a 
 man sets his face toward heaven, thus he endeavours to scare him 
 oflf: Is not, saith he, the way of religion a dull, melancholy way H 
 Is it not a toil— a tedious task ? Are not these unreasonable in- 
 junctions: 'Pray continually,' 'Pray without ceasing,' 'Preach in 
 season and out of season"? This suggestion, though it be expressly 
 contrary to command, yet being so suitable to the idle and sluggish 
 tempers of men, they are the more apt to take notice of it, and accord- 
 ingly they seek ways and shifts of accommodating the command to 
 their inclinations. In Amos viii. 5, the toil of sabbaths and festival 
 services, as they thought it, makes them weary of the duty, ' When 
 will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn ? and the sabbath, 
 that we may set forth wheat?' These men thought their services 
 tedious and entrenching upon their callings and occupations : Mai. 
 i. 13, ' They said, Behold, what a weariness is it! ' looking upon it as 
 ' Kuthcrford, ' Divine Influences.' 
 
Chap. 17.] satan's temptations. 107 
 
 an insufferable burden, nay they proceeded so far as to snuff at it. 
 Now when the devil had so far prevailed with them, it was easy to put 
 them upon neglect ; which, as the place cited speaks, presently fol- 
 lowed upon it, they ' brought the torn, and the lame, and the sick for 
 a sacrifice.' Satan first presented these services as a wearisome 
 burden, then they snuffed at them ; next they thought any service 
 good enough, how mean soever, though to an open \dolation of the 
 law of worship ; and lastly, from a pollution of the table of the Lord 
 they proceeded to a plain contempt of duty, ' the table of the Lord is 
 polluted, and the fruit thereof, even his meat is contemptible,' ver. 12. 
 In the management of this discouragement, the devil hath most suc- 
 cess upon those that have not yet tasted the sweetness and easiness of 
 the ways of the Lord, ' his yoke is indeed easy, his burden is light ;' 
 his service is a true freedom to those that are acquainted with God, 
 and exercised in his service. But when men are first beginning to 
 look after God and duty, and are not yet filled and ' satisfied with the 
 fatness of his liouse,' this temptation hath the greater force upon them, 
 and they are apt to be discouraged thereby. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, He endeavours to discourage them, from the ivant 
 of success in the duties of ivoiship. When they have waited long 
 and sought the Lord, then he puts them upon resolves of declin- 
 ing any further prosecution, as he did with Joram at the siege of 
 Samaria; ' Why wait I upon the Lord any longer ?' 2 Kings vi. 33, 
 said he, after he had expected deliverance a long time without any 
 appearance of help. When Saul saw that God ' answered him not, 
 neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets,' 1 Sam. xxviii. 6, 7, 
 the devil easily persuaded him to leave off the ordinary ways of attend- 
 ance upon God, and to consult with the witch of Endor. The profane 
 persons mentioned in Mai. iii. 14, that had cast off all regard to his 
 laws, all respect to his ordinances, were brought to this pitch of 
 iniquity by the suggestions of want of success ; they said, ' It is vain to 
 serve God : and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinances, and 
 that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts ? ' It seems 
 they were like the people spoken of in Isa. Iviii. 2, 3 : they had fasted 
 and prayed, and God delayed to answer them, which they looked upon 
 as a disobligement from duty, and that which they could peremptorily 
 insist upon as a reason which might justify their neglect. ' Where- 
 fore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not ? whei-efore have we 
 afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge ?' Neither doth this 
 discouragement fall heavy only upon those whose hearts are departed 
 already from God, who might be supposed to be forward to embrace 
 any excuse from his service ; but we shall find it bears hard upon the 
 children of God. David was ready to give over all, as a man forsaken 
 of God : Ps. xxii. 1,2,' Why hast thou forsaken me ? my God, I 
 cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not ; and in the night season, 
 and am not silent.' We may clearly gather from his expressions that 
 this temptation had sorely bruised him, and that upon God's delay of 
 answer, he was ready to charge an unrighteousness upon God's carriage 
 toward him ; for in that he adds that he kept his ground, and did not 
 consent to it — as the words following, ' But thou continuest holy,' do 
 imply — it shewed what the devil was objecting to him. And else- 
 
108 A TREATISE OF [PaKT I. 
 
 where, in Ps. Ixix. 3, when he had cried and was not answered, he 
 began to be ' weary, and his eyes failed ; nay, his flesh and heart 
 failed;' his spirit sunk, as a man almost vanquished and overcome 
 with the temptation. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, This our adversary raiseth up discouragements to us 
 from the tmsuitahleness of our hearts to our sei-vices. Herein he 
 endeavours to deaden our hearts, to clog our spirits, to hinder and 
 molest us, and then he improves these indispositions and discomposures 
 against the duty, in whicli he hath a double advantage; for (1.) He 
 deprives us of that delight in duty which should whet on our desires 
 to undertake it, so that we come to the Lord's table as old Barzillai, 
 without a taste or relish of what we eat or drink. When we come to 
 hear, ' the ear that trietli words,' as the palate tasteth meat, finds no 
 savour in what is spoken ; and this Satan can easily do by the inward 
 deadness or disquiet of the heart, even as the anguish of diseases takes 
 away all pleasures which the choicest dainties atford ; as Job observes, 
 ' When a man is chastened with pain upon liis bed, his life abhors 
 bread, and his soul dainty meat,' chap, xxxiii. 20. And when a man 
 is brought to loathe his duties, as having nothing of that sweetness 
 and satisfaction in them which is everywhere spoken of, a small temp- 
 tation may put him u})on neglect of them. (2.) He hath plausible 
 and colourable arguments l)y which he formeth an opinion in the 
 minds of men, that in cases of indisposition they may do better to for- 
 bear than to proceed. He tells them they ought not to pray or pre- 
 sent any service while they are so indisposed, that no prayer is accept- 
 able where the 8i)irit doth not enliven the heart and raise the affections; 
 that they do but lake liis name in vain, and increase their sin, and that 
 they should wait till tiie Spirit fill their sails : and to say the truth, it 
 is a great difficulty for a child of God to hold his feet in such slippery 
 places. How many have I known complaining of this, and persuading 
 themselves verily that they might do far better to leave off all service 
 than to perform them thus ! And scarcely have I restrained them from 
 a compliance \ni\\ Satan, by telling them that indispositions are no 
 bar to duty, but that duty is the way to get our indispositions cured ; 
 that duty is absolutely required, and dispositions to be endeavoured ; 
 and that it is a less offence to keep to duty under mdispositions, than 
 wholly upon that pretence to neglect it ; and indeed, where these in- 
 dispositions are bemoaned and striven with, the services are often more 
 acceptable to God than pleasing to ourselves. The principle is truly 
 spiritual and excellent, a foundation of sapphires and precious stones, 
 upon which, if we patiently wait, he will build a palace of silver ; for 
 that service is more spiritual that is bottomed and carried on by a con- 
 scientious regard to a command, when there are no moral motives 
 from sense and comfort concurring, than that which hath more of 
 delight to encourage it, while the jjower of the command is less sway- 
 ing and influential. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Men are oft discouraged {rom a sense of umvorthmess 
 of the privilege of duty, a kind of excess of humility, which principally 
 relates to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and prayer. The accuser 
 of the brethren tells them that they have nothing to do to take the 
 name of God in their mouths ; that it is an insufferable presumption. 
 
Chap. 17.] satan's temptations. 109 
 
 Hence some, like the woman with the bloody issue, dare not come to 
 Christ to ask a cure, while yet they earnestly desire it, and would 
 rather, if they could, privately steal it than openly beg it. The pub- 
 lican [Luke xviii. 10, seq.] is presented to us in the parable as one that 
 could scarce get over that objection. He is set forth standing at a 
 ' distance, not daring to lift up his eyes to heaven ; ' scarce attempting 
 to speak, rather expressing his un worthiness to pray, than setting upon 
 the duty ; his ' smiting upon his breast,' and saying, ' God be merciful 
 to me a sinner,' argued that much of these discouragements lay upon 
 him. The like we may see in the prodigal, who it seems had it long 
 in dispute whether he should go to his father, whose kindness he had 
 so abused ; and so long as he could make any other shift he yielded to 
 the temptation : at last he came to that resolve, ' I will arise and go 
 to my father, and say, I have sinned against heaven, and thee, and am 
 not worthy to be called thy son.' Which shew that the sense of this 
 kept him off till necessity forced him over it. And this is a discour- 
 agement the more likely to prevail for a neglect of service, because 
 part of it is necessary, as the beginning of those convictions of our 
 folly : to have such low thoughts of ourselves that we are not worthy 
 to come into his presence, nor to look toward him, is very becoming ; 
 but to think that we should not come to him because our conscience 
 accuseth of unworthiness, is a conclusion of Satan's making, and such 
 as God never intended from the premises, but the direct contrary. 
 Come, saith God, though imworthy. The like course doth the devil 
 take to keep men off from the Lord's table. Oh, saith he, it is a very 
 solemn ordinance; he that partaketh of it unworthily, eateth and 
 drinketh damnation to liimself. How darest thou make such bold ap- 
 proaches? While the hearts of men are tender, their consciences 
 quick and accusmg, the threatening begets a fear, and they are 
 driven off long, and debar themselves unnecessarily from theii- 
 mercies. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, Satan endeavours to hinder duty by bringing them 
 into a dislike and loathing of duty. This is a course most effectual. 
 Dislike easily bringeth forth aversation, and withal doth strongly fix 
 the mind in purposes of neglect and refusal. The devil bringeth this 
 about many ways ; as, 
 
 [1.] First, By reproaches and ignominious terms. It was an old 
 trick of the wicked one to raise up nicknames and scoffs against the 
 ways of God's service, thereby to beget an odium in the hearts of men 
 against them. ' The seat of the scornful ' is a chair that Satan had 
 reared up from the beginning. By this art — when ' God was known 
 in Jewry, and his name was great in Israel ' — were the heathens kept 
 off from laying hold on the covenant of God. He rendered them and 
 the ordinances of worship ridiculous to the nations. The opprobium 
 of circumcision, and their unreasonable faith, as the heathens thought 
 it, upon things not seen, was a proverb in every man's mouth, Credat 
 Judceus Apella—non ego.^ The Jews were slandered with the yearly 
 sacrifice of a Grecian. And Apiou affirms that Antiochus found such 
 a one in a bed in the temple ; and that they worshipped an ass's 
 head in the temple. Apion slandered the Jews with ulcers in their 
 1 Horace : Ser. i. 5, 100.— G. 
 
110 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 privy parts every seventh day ; hence he derives sahhath, of sabalosis, 
 which with the Egyptians signifies an ulcer, i 
 
 Lysimachus slandered the Jews in Egypt as leprous church-robbers ; 
 and that their city was hence called Hierosola.^ "When the Gentiles 
 were called into the fellowship of the gospel, it was aspersed with 
 the like scoffs and flouts. It was frequently called a sect, a babbling 
 and strange and uncouth doctrine, Acts xxviii. 22 ; besides a great 
 many lies and forgeries that were invented to make it seem odious ; and 
 by this means it was ' every^vhcre spoken against,' Acts xvii. 18, 20. 
 Machiavel, that propounded the policy of full and violent calumnia- 
 tions to render an adversary odious, knowing that how unjust soever 
 they were, yet some impression of jealousy and suspicion would 
 remain, had learned it of this old accuser, who had often and long 
 experienced it to be a prevalent course, to bring the services of God 
 under dislike, Col umniarc fort iter ; aliquid adhcerebit. David, speaking 
 of what befell himself iu this kmd, Ps. Ixix. 9-12, that his zeal lay 
 under reproach ; his weeping and fasting became a proverb ; and that 
 in all these he was ' the song of the drunkard,' he cxpresseth such 
 apprehensions of the power of this temptation upon the weak, that he 
 doth earnestly beg that Satan might not make it a snare to them : ver. 
 (5, ' Let not them that wait on thee, Lord God of hosts, be ashamed 
 for my sake : let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake.' 
 And further declares it, as a wonderful preservation and escape of this 
 danger, that notwithstanding these reproaches, he liad not declined 
 his duty: ver. 13, ' But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, Lord.' 
 Paul seems to speak his sense of this piece of policy ; liis imprison- 
 ment administered matter of reproacli to his profession. Though his 
 cause were good, yet he suffered trouble as ' an evil-doer,' 2 Tim. ii. 9. 
 This he knew the devil would improve to a shame and disgrace unto 
 the service of God, and therefore he chargeth Timothy to be aware of 
 that temptation : 2 Tim. i. 8, ' Be not thou therefore ashamed of the 
 testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner.' And ver. 16, he 
 takes notice of Onesiphorus, that had escaped that snare, and was not 
 ' ashamed of his chain.' And we have the greater reason to fear the 
 danger of this art, when we find that the tempter made use of it 
 to turn away the affections of the Capernaumites from Christ himself : 
 Mat. xiii. 57, when he had preached in their synagogues to the 
 applause and astonishment of all his hearers, the devil, fearing the pre- 
 valency of his doctrine, finds out this shift to bring them to a dislike 
 of him and his preaching : ' Is not tliis the carpenter's son ? And they 
 were offended in him.' 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Duties are brought under dislike ht/ the hazards that 
 attend them. The dcAal leaves it not untold what men shall meet with 
 from the world if they ' run not with them into excess of vanity ' and 
 neglect. If bonds, imprisonments, banishments, hatreds, oppositions, 
 spoiling of goods, sufferings of all kinds will divert them, he is sure to 
 set all these affrightments before them ; which though they do not 
 
 ' Jos[ephus] cont. Apion, lib. vi. cap. 2. [More accurately : for the former about tlie 
 Grecians, lib. ii. cap. 8 ; about the ass-head, lib. ii. cap. 7 ; and about sabatosis = buboes, 
 lib. ii. cap. 2. The writings of Apion against the Jews, except in the fragments preserved 
 by Josephus, have perished.— G.] '^ Jos. cont. Apion, lib. i. [sec. 34. —G.] 
 
Chap. 17. J satan's temptations. Ill 
 
 move some from their steadfastness — such as Daniel, whose constancj' 
 in duty was not pierced by the fear of lions ; and the three children, 
 who would not decline the ways of the Lord for the terror of a fiery 
 furnace — yet these considerations prevail with most ; as Christ notes, 
 in those that received seed in stony places, whose joy iu the word was 
 soon blasted, and they offended at the ways of duty, ' when tribula- 
 tion and persecution because of the word arose,' Mat. xiii. 21. Christ 
 pronouncing him blessed that should ' not be offended in him,' 
 because of the dangers of his service, shews that the escape of such a 
 temptation is not a common mercy. Mat. si. 6. And if we shall observe 
 Paul's practice upon his first undertaking of the ministry, when ' it 
 pleased God to call him to preach his Son Christ among the heathen,' 
 Gal. i. 16, we shall see, (1.) That he was aware of such objections as 
 these ; (2.) That flesh and blood are apt to comply with them, and to 
 take notice of them ; (3.) And that the best way to avoid them is to 
 stop the ears against them, and not to hearken to them or consult 
 with them ; (4.) And that he that must do it to purpose, must, with- 
 out delay, immediately resolve against such hindrances ; it being most 
 difficult for men that will be inclining to such motions, and hearken- 
 ing to what the devil offers, under pretence of self-preservation, to dis- 
 engage themselves after they have suffered their souls to take the 
 impression. 
 
 [3.] Tliirdly, Tlie meanness of religious appointmeiits, as to the 
 outward view, is also made use of to beget a loathing of them. In 
 this the devil hath this advantage, that however they are all ' glorious 
 within,' and ' as the curtains of Solomon,' yet are they, as to their 
 outward appearance, like ' the tents of Kedar,' without any of that 
 pomp and splendom- which the sons of men affect and admire. Christ 
 himself, when he had veiled his glory by our flesh, was of no exterior 
 ' form or beauty.' The ministration of his word, which is ' the 
 sceptre of his kingdom,' seems contemptible, and a very ' foolishness 
 to men ; ' insomuch that Paul was forced to make an apology for it, in 
 that it wanted those outward braveries of ' excellency of speech and 
 wisdom,' by shewing it was ' glorious in its power,' and was indeed a 
 ' hidden wisdom '—though not like that ' wisdom wluch the princes of 
 wisdom ' and philosophy affected — ' among such as were perfect,' 
 1 Cor. ii. 1, 4, 6. The sacraments, both of the Old and New Testa- 
 ment, seemed very low and contemptible things to a common eye ; 
 neither need we any other evidence to shew that men are apt to 
 disrelish them, and to entertain strange thoughts of them upon this 
 very account, than tliis, that some raise up batteries against these 
 ordinances upon tliis ground, that because they seem low and mean to 
 them, therefore they tliink it improbable that God should have indeed 
 appointed them to be used in the literal sense, or that at best they are 
 to be used as the first rudiments of Christianity, and not enjoined 
 upon the more grown Christians. Neither may I altogether pass over 
 that remarkable humour that is in some, to give additional ornaments 
 of outward garb and form for the greater honour and lustre of these 
 injunctions of Christ ; so that while they endeavour to shew their 
 greatest respects to them, they betray their inward thoughts to have 
 carried some suspicion of their reality because of their plainness ; and 
 
112 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 liy this means, whilst they endeavour to put an honour upon Christ's 
 institutions, they really despise them, and shew their respects to their 
 own inventions. But that we may be further satisfied that Satan 
 works by this engine, let us consider that of 1 Cor. i. 23. The Jews 
 were for signs from heaven to give a credit and testimony to that 
 doctrine which they would receive. The Greeks, who were then the 
 only people for learning, were for philosophical speculations and dis- 
 putes. Now, saith the apostle, the doctrine of the gospel, which 
 is the preaching of Christ crucified, because it came not within the 
 compass of what both these expected, therefore the devil so wrought 
 upon this advantage, that both contemned it ; ' It was to the Jews 
 a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolisliness.' Of this also he 
 speaks more fully, 2 Cor. xi. 3, where he shews that the minds of the 
 Corinthians were' ready to be corrui)ted with error against the plain 
 import of the gospel ; and that which they took offence at was its 
 simplicity. They looked upon it as contemptible, because not con- 
 taining such gorgeous things as might suit a soaring and wanton 
 fancy. Now he resolves all this into a cheat of Satan, taking the 
 advantage of this, as he did upon Eve from the seeming inconsider- 
 ableness of the prohibition of eating a little fruit, to persuade them 
 that so mean a thing as the gospel could not be of God. ' I fear,' 
 saith he, ' lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his 
 subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that 
 is in Christ.' 
 
 [4.] Fourtldy, Tlie sim of professors, through the a-aft of Satan, 
 beget a loathing of these holy things. If God loathe his own appoint- 
 ments, and ' cannot bear them,' because of the iniquities of those that 
 offer them, no wonder if men be tempted to disgraceful apprehensions 
 of them, when they observe some that pretend a high care and deep 
 respect for them live profanely. The sins of Eli's sons wrought this 
 sad effect upon the people, that men, for their sakes, abhorred the 
 offerings of the Lord, 1 Sam. ii. 17. Those that fell off to error, and 
 thence to abominable practices, ' caused the way of truth to be 
 evil spoken of,' 2 Pet. ii. 2. The priests that departed out of the 
 way, ' caused many to stumble at the law,' Mai. ii. 8. Nay, so high 
 doth Satan pursue this sometimes, that it becomes an inlet to direct 
 atheism. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, Satan also works mightily in the profane dispositions 
 of men, and acts that principle to a disregard and tveariness of the 
 services of God. A flagitious wicked life naturally leads to it. Those 
 that ' eat up God's people as bread,' Ps. xiv. 4, ' called not upon God.' 
 This eats out at last the very exterior and formal observation of 
 religious duties. In this Satan bends his force against them, (1.) By 
 heio-htening the spirits of men to an insolent defiance of God by 
 a continued prosperity. He draws out the pride and vanity of their 
 spirits to a bold contempt : ' Who is the Lord that we should serve 
 him ? We are lords ; we will come no more at thee ; our tongues are 
 our own,' &c., Jer. ii. 31. Thus they ' set their mouths against 
 heaven.' Eliphaz tells us this, as the usual carriage of those that 
 lived m peace and jollity : Job xxi. 15, ' Therefore say they unto 
 God, Depart from us ; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways : 
 
Chap. 17.] satan's temptations. 113 
 
 who is the Almighty that we should serve him?' (2.) By hiding 
 from them the necessities of duty. Job speaking of the hypocrite, chap, 
 xxvii. 10, describes him by these neglects of duty, ' Will he delight 
 himself in the Almighty ? wiU he always call upon God ? ' Of this he 
 gives the reason, ver. 9, ' He will call and cry when trouble comes 
 upon him.' When distresses make duties necessary, then he will use 
 them ; in his ' afiiiction he will seek him early,' Hosea v. 1.5 ; as the 
 Israelites did, Ps. Ixxviii. 34, ' When he slew them, then they sought 
 him, and enquired early after God.' But when he is not thus 
 pinched— and Satan will endeavour in this case, that he be as far from 
 the rod of God as he' can make him — he gives over seeking God and 
 loathes it, nay, accounts it as ridiculous so to do ; they ' mock at his 
 counsel,' and contemn his advice of waitrug upon him. 
 
 [6.] Sixthly, Satan picks quarrels in men at the manner of per- 
 formance of duty. When duty cannot be spoken against, then he 
 endeavoiu's to destroy it by the modes, circumstances, and way of 
 performance: as (l.)'lf those that act in them discover any weakness 
 — as who doth not, when he hath done his best ? — this he endeavours 
 to blemish the duty withal. The bodily presence of Paul was ob- 
 jected against him, as being ' contemptible,' and his ' speech as weak,' 
 [2 Cor. X. 10 ;] but the design of that objection lay higher, the devil 
 thereby endeavoming to render the duties of his ministry as contempt- 
 ible, and not to be regarded. (2,) If the circumstauce^ please not, he 
 teacheth them to take pet with the substance, and, like children, to 
 reject all, because everything is not suitable to their wills. (3.) If it 
 be managed in any way not grateful to their expectations, if too cut- 
 tingly and plain, then they think they be justified to say they hate it, 
 as Ahab did Micaiah ; if any way too high or abstrusely, then like- 
 wise they fling off. On this point the de\^l persuaded many of Christ's 
 followers to desert him, John vi. 66, because he had spoken of himself 
 in comparisons that they judged too high. When he said he was that 
 ' bread that came down from heaven,' ver. 58, they said ' that was a 
 saying not to be borne ; ' and on that occasion ' they went back, and 
 walked no more with him.' 
 
 [7.] Seventhly, The devil brings a nauseating of the duties of wor- 
 ship, by a ivrong representation of them, in the carnage and gestures 
 of those that engage in them. It seems strange to some that are but 
 as idle spectators to observe the postures of saints,_seriously lifting up 
 their eyes to heaven, or humbly mourning and smiting on their breasts. 
 These the devil worild render ridiculous, and as the suspicious manage- 
 ments of an histrionical or hypocritical devotion ; as men at a distance 
 beholding the strange variety of actions and postures of such as dance, 
 being out of the sound of their music, shall think them a company of 
 madmen and frantic people. Such perverse prospects doth he some- 
 times afford to those that come rather to observe what others do, 
 than to concern themselves in such duties, that, not seeing their private 
 influences, nor the secret spring that moves them, they judge them 
 foolish, and from thence they contract an inward loathing of the duties 
 themselves. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, In order to the hindering or preventing of duty, Satan 
 useth to impose upon men hy fallacious arguing.^: and by a piece of 
 
11-} A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 his sopliistiy he uuduuvouis to cheat them out of their services. I 
 shall note some of his remarkable dealings in this kind : as, 
 
 [1.] First. He heightens (he dignitij of God's children, upon a design 
 to spoil their didy. He tells them they are ' partakers of the divine 
 nature,' [2 Pet. i. 4;] that they are ' in God and Christ,' and have the 
 communications of his Spirit, and therefore they need not now drink 
 of the cistern, seeing they enjoy the fountam ; and that these services, 
 in their attainments, are as useless as scaffolds are when once the house 
 is built. To prosecute this he takes advantage, (1.) of the natural 
 pride of their hearts. He puffs them up with conceits of the excel- 
 lency of their condition— a thing which all men are apt to catch at 
 with greediness u]ion the least imaginaiy grounds, 1 Cor. viii. 7 ; Col. 
 ii. 18. If a man have but a little knowledge, or have attained to any 
 vain speculations, he is presently apt to be vainly ' puffed up by his 
 fleshly mind.' Tlie same hazard attends any conceited excellency 
 which a man apprehends he hath reached imto. Those monsters of 
 religion, mentioned by Peter and Jude, that made no other use of the 
 ' grace of God ' but to ' turn it into wantonness,' Jude 4 ; yet were they 
 so tumefied with the apprehensions of their privileges, that whilst they 
 designed no other thing than plain licentiousness and a wantonness in 
 the lusts of the flesli.yet it seems they encouraged themselves and 
 allured others from a supposed liberty which their privileges gave 
 them ; and to this ]iurpose had frequently in their mouths ' great 
 swelling words of vanity," 2 Pet. ii. 18, even whilst they ' walked after 
 their own lusts," Jude 16. (2.) To strengthen their proud conceits, 
 the devil improves what the Scriptures speak of the differences of 
 God's children— that some are spiritual, some are carnal ; some weak, 
 others strong ; some perfect, some less perfect ; some little children, 
 some young men, some fathers, 1 Cor. ii. 1 ; Phil. iii. 15 ; 1 John ii. 
 12, 13. The end of all this is to make them apprehend themselves 
 Christians of a higher rank and order, which also makes way conse- 
 quently for a further inference, viz., that there must needs be' im- 
 munities and privileges suitable to these heights and attainments. To 
 this purpose (3.) he produceth those scriptures that are designed by 
 God to raise up the minds of men to look after the internal work and 
 power of his ordinances, and not to centre their minds and hopes in 
 the bare formal use of them, without applj'ing their thoughts to God 
 and Christ, mito whom tiiey arc appointed to lead us. Such as these 
 scriptures: Kom. ii. 28, ' He is not a Jew which is one outwardly; 
 neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh : but he 
 is a Jew which is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart, 
 in the spirit, and not in the letter." And Rom. vi. 7, we should ' serve 
 in newness of spirit, and not in the olduess of the letter." 2 Cor. v. 16, 
 ' Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh : yea, though 
 we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we 
 him no more.' Eph. iv. 13, ' He gave some apostles, and some pro- 
 phets," &c., 'for the perfecting of the saints, . . . till we all come 
 in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, 
 unto a perfect man." By a perverse interpretation of llicsc, and some 
 other scriptures of like import, he would persuade them that the great 
 thing that Christ designed by his ordinances was but to ' train up the 
 
Chap. 17.] satan's temptations. 115 
 
 weaker Chiistians by these rudiments,' as tlie A B C to children, to a 
 more spiritual and immediate way of living upon God ; and that these 
 become altogether useless when Chi-istians have gotten up to any of 
 these imaginary degrees of a supposed perfection. Enough of this 
 may be seen in the writings of Saltmarsh, Winstanly, and others, in 
 the late times. How great a trade Satan drove by such misappre- 
 hensions not long since cannot easily be forgotten ; so that God's 
 worship did almost lie waste, and in many places ' the way to Zion 
 did mourn.' 
 
 [2.] Secondly, He will sometimes confess an equality of privilege 
 among the children of God, and yet plead an inequality of duty. That 
 God is as good and strong to us, and that we have all an equal advan- 
 tage by Christ, he will readily acknowledge ; but then, when we should 
 propound the diligence of the saints in their services for our pattern, 
 as of David's ' praying seven times a-day,' Daniel's three times, Anna's 
 serving God with fastings and prayers night and day, &c. ,i he tells us 
 these were extraordinary services, and as it were works of supereroga- 
 tion, more than the command of God laid upon them. So that we are 
 not tied to such strictness ; and we, being naturally apt to indulge 
 ourselves in our own ease, are too ready to comply with such delusions. 
 And by degrees men are thus brought to a confident belief that they 
 may be good enough, and do as much as is required, though they slacken 
 their pace, and do not fast, pray, or hear so often as others have done. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Another sophism of his is to heighten one duty, to the 
 ruin of another. He strives to make an intestine war among the 
 several parts of the services we owe to God ; and from the excellency 
 of one, to raise up an enmity and undervaluing disregard of another. 
 Thus would he sever as yiconsisteut those things that God hath joined 
 together. As among false teachers, some say, ' Lo, here is Christ,' and 
 others, ' Lo, he is there ;' so we find Satan dealing with duties. He 
 puts some upon such high respects to preaching, that, say they, Christ 
 is to be found here most frequently, rather than in prayer or other 
 ordinances ; others are made to have the like esteem for prayer : 
 and they affirm in this is Christ especially to be met withal ; others 
 say the like of sacraments or meditation. In all these Satan labours 
 to beget a dislike and neglect of other services. Thus, in what relates 
 to the constitution of churches, he endeavours to set up purity of 
 churches, to the destruction of unity, or nnity to the ruin of purity. 
 A notable example hereof we have in the Euchytce, a sect of praying 
 heretics, which arose in the time of Valentinian and Valeus, who, 
 upon the pretence of the commands of Christ and Paul for praying 
 continually, or without ceasing and fainting, owned no other duty as 
 necessary ; vilifying preaching and sacraments as things at best use- 
 less and unprofitable.- The like attempts he makes daily upon men, 
 where though he prevail not so far as to bring some necessary duties 
 of service into open contempt, yet he carries them into too nnich secret 
 neglect and disregard, Luke xviii. 1; 1 Thcs. xv. 17. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, He improves the grace of the gos[)el to infer an 
 unnccessarinesii of duty ; and this he doth not only from the advantage 
 of a profane and careless spirit in such as presumptuously expect 
 ' Grccnham, p. 35, [as lieforc— C] = Tlicod. Ecclcs. Histoiia. 
 
116 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 heaven, though they mind not the way that leads to it ; for with such 
 it is usual, as one observes,^ for Satan to sever the means from the 
 end in things that are good ; to make them believe they shall have 
 peace, though they walk in the imaginations of their heart ; to make 
 them lean upon the Lord for heaven, in the apparent neglect of holi- 
 ness and duty ; as in evil things he severs the end from the means, 
 making them confident they shall escape hell and condemnation, 
 though they walk in the path that leads thither. But besides this, 
 he abuscth the understandings and affections of men by strange and 
 uncouth inferences ; as that God hath received a satisfaction, and 
 Christ hath done all, so that nothing is left for us to do. The apostle 
 Paul was so much aware of this kind of arguing, that when he was to 
 ' magnify the grace of God,' he always took care to fence against such 
 perverse reasonings, severely rebuking and retelling such objections : 
 as in Rom. iii. 7, 8, where speaking that our ' unrighteousness did 
 commend the righteousness of God,' he falls upon that reply, ' _Why 
 then am I judged as a sinner ?' which he sharply refells, as an infer- 
 ence of slanderous imputation to tlie gospel, which hath nothing in it 
 to give the least countenance to that conclusion, ' Let us do evil, that 
 good may come ;' and adds, that damnation shall justly overtake such 
 as practise accordingly. The lilcc we have, Rom. vi. 1, ' Shall we 
 continue in sin, that grace may abound ?' which he rejected with the 
 greatest abhorrency, 'God forbid!' From both which places we 
 may plainly gather, that as unsound as such arguings are, yet men, 
 through Satan's subtlety, are too pione, upon such pretences, to dis- 
 pute themselves to a caicless neglect of duty. This might be enlarged 
 in many other instances, as that of Maximus Tyrius, who disputed all 
 duties unnecessary upon this ground, ' That what God will give, can- 
 not be hindered ; and what he will not give, cannot be obtained ; and 
 therefore it were needless to seek after anything.' Much to the same 
 purpose do many argue, if they be predestinated to salvation, they 
 shall be saved, though they do never so little ; if they be not predes- 
 tinated, they shall not be saved, though they do never so much. In 
 all which inferences the devil proceeds upon a false foundation of sever- 
 ing the means and the end, which the decree of God hath joined to- 
 gether ; but the main of the design is to hide the necessity of duty 
 from them. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, By urging a necessity or conveniency for sitspending 
 or remiiting duties. In temptations to sin, he doth from a little draw 
 on the sinner to more ; but in omissions of duty he would entice us 
 from much to little, and from little to nothing. Very busy he is with 
 us to break or interrupt our constant course of duty. Duties in order 
 and practice, are like so many pearls upon one string ; if the thread be 
 broken, it may hazard the scattering of all. If we be once put out of 
 our way, we are in danger to rove far before we be set in our rank 
 again. To effect this, (L) he will be sure to straiten or hinder us 
 in our opportunities if he can, and then to plead necessity for a dis- 
 pensation. It is true indeed, necessities, when unavoidable — as the 
 issue of providence rather than our negligence — may excuse an omis- 
 sion of duty, because in such cases, God accepting the will for the 
 > Greenham, p. 3.5, [as before.— G.] 
 
Chap. 17. J satan's temptatioms. 117 
 
 deed, will have mercy and not sacrifice. But necessitj' is most-wliat^ a 
 pretence or cover to the slothfiilness of jDrofessors, and the devil will 
 do all he can to gratify them in that humour, and to prepare excuses 
 for them from such hindrances or interruptions as business or dis- 
 turbances can make ; yet if these be not in readiness, he will (2.) 
 endeavour to take off our earnestness by suggesting to us our former 
 diligence, that we at other times have been careful and active ; or 
 (3.) by setting before us the greater negligence of those that are be- 
 low us. The meaning of both which insinuations is to this one pur- 
 pose, that we may make bold with some omissions, without any great 
 hazard of our religious intentions, or scandal and offence to others. 
 Now if he can by any of these ways bring us to any abatement of our 
 wonted care and exercise, he will then still press for more, and from 
 fervency of spirit to a cold moderation ; from thence he will labour to 
 bring us down to seldom performances ; from thence, to nothing. The 
 spiritual sluggard that will be overcome to some neglects, shall be 
 found a companion at last to a waster, Prov. xviii. 9, and will be 
 brought to a total neglect of all. The church of Ephesus, Kev. ii. 4, 
 5, may sadly give proof of this ; they left their first love, and from 
 thence declined so far that at last Grod was provoked to ' remove the 
 candlestick out of its place.' 
 
 [6.] Sixthly, Satan puts tricks upon men in order tO the hindering 
 of duty, by putting us from a service presently needful, with the pro- 
 posal of anoilier, in tuhich, at thai time^ toe are not so concerned. la 
 several duties of Christianity there is a great deal of skill required to 
 make a right choice, for present or first performance ; and to have a 
 right judgment to discover the times and seasons of them, is matter of 
 necessary study. Our adversary observing our weaknesses in this, 
 when no other art will prevail, endeavours to put us upon an incon- 
 venient choice, when he cannot make us neglect all. As (1.) by 
 engaging us in a less duty, that we may neglect a greater ; he is will- 
 ing that we, as the Pharisees, should ' tithe mint and anise,' upon 
 condition that we ' neglect the greater tilings of the law.' This was 
 the fault of Martha, Luke x. 41 , who busied herself in making enter- 
 tainment for Christ's welcome, and in the meantime neglected to hear 
 his preaching : which, as he notes, was the only necessary duty of that 
 time ; ' one thing' is necessary. She is not blamed for doing that 
 which was simply evil in itself — for the thing she did was a duty — 
 but for not making a right choice of duty ; for that rebuke, ' Mary 
 hath chosen the better part,' is only a comparative discommendation ; 
 as Austin interprets, Non tu nialam, sed ilia meliorem, The thing thou 
 doest is not evil, if it had not put thee upon a neglect of a greater 
 good. (2.) He sometimes puts men upon what is good and necessary, 
 but such as they cannot come at without sin. Thus sacrificing in it- 
 self was a necessary duty ; and such was Saul's condition, that it con- 
 cerned him at that time to make his peace with God, and to inquire 
 his mind. Yet when the devil upon that pretence put him upon 
 offering a sacrifice, he put him upon no small transgression, 1 Sam. 
 xiii. 13. The like game Satan sometimes plays with private Chris- 
 tians, who are persuaded beyond their station and capacity in refer- 
 1 Query, ' most part'?— Ed. 
 
118 A TREATISE OK [i*ART I. 
 
 ence to some ordinances of God. (3.) He sometimes puts men 
 upon dangerous undertakings in pursuit of their fency, of gaining 
 an advantage for some service ; and so are they turned out of the 
 way of present obedience, in grasping at opportunities of duty out 
 of their reach. Saul spared the sheep and oxen of the Amalekites 
 for sacrifice, 1 Sam. xv. 15, 22, when obedience had been more 
 acceptable than sacrifice. (4.) There is a further cheat in the 
 choice of duty, when Satan employs them to provide for duties to 
 come, to the neglect of duties presently incumbent upon them; where- 
 as we are more concerned in that which at present is necessary, than 
 in that which may be so for the future ; which is a mistake, like that 
 of caring for the morrow, while we use not what God puts in our hand 
 for to day. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Satan's second grand design against duties is to spoil them. (1.) In 
 the manner of undertaking, and how he effects this. (2.) In the 
 act or performance, hij distracting oidwardly and inioardly. His 
 various ways therein, by vitiating the duty itself. How he doth 
 that. (3.) After performance, the manner thereof. 
 
 The chief of Satan's ways for the hindering and preventmg of duty 
 have been noted ; what he comes short in this design he next labours 
 to make up, by spoiling and depraving them: and this he doth en- 
 deavour three ways : — 
 
 1. 1. First, By putting us upon services in such a manner as shall 
 render them unaccfplable and displeasing unto God, and unprofitable 
 to Its: as by a careless and rash imdertaking of service. We are 
 commanded to ' take heed' to ourselves ' how we hear' or pray ; and 
 to ' watch' over our hearts, that they be in a fit posture for meet- 
 ing with God, because the heart in service is that which God most 
 looks at, and our services are measured accordingly. If then by a 
 heedless undertaldng we adventure upon them, not keeping our ' foot 
 when we go into the house of God,' Eccles. v. 1, we offer no other than 
 ' the sacrifice of fools,' and give occasion to God to comphun that we 
 do but ' di-aw near to him with oiu- lips, while our hearts are far from 
 him.' 
 
 2. Secondly, The like .spoil of duty is made when we adventm-e 
 upon it in our oion strength, and not in the strength of Christ. Satan 
 sees the pride of oiu- heart, and how mucli our gifts may contribute to 
 it, and how prone we are to be confident of a right performance of 
 what we have so often practised before ; and therefore dotli he more 
 industriously catch at that advantage to make us forget that our 
 ' strength is in God,' and that we cannot come to him acceptably but 
 by his own power. Christians are often abused this way. When 
 their strength is to seek, duty is oft perversely set before them, that 
 they may act as Samson did when his locks were cut, who thought 
 to ' shake himself, and to go out as at other times,' and so fell into 
 the hands of the Philistines, [Judges xvi. 20.] 
 
Chap. 18.] satan's temptations. 119 
 
 3. Thirdly, If he can substitute 6a.se ends and principles, as mo- 
 tives to duty, instead of these that God hath commanded, he knows the 
 service will become stinking and loathsome to God. Fasting, prayers, 
 alm.s, preaching, or any other duty may be thus tainted, when they are 
 performed upon no better grounds than ' to be seen of men,' or out 
 of envy, or to satisfy humour, or when from custom, rather than 
 conscience. How frequently did the prophets tax the Jews for 
 this, that they fasted to themselves ! and brought forth fruit to 
 themselves ! How severely did Christ condemn the Pharisees upon 
 the same account ! telling them that in hunting the applause of 
 men, by these devotions, they had got all the reward they were like 
 to have. 
 
 4. Fourthly, When we do our services utiseasonably, not only the 
 grace arid beauty of them is spoiled ; but often are they rendered un- 
 profitable. There are times to be observed, not only for the right 
 management of common actions, but also for duties. What is Christian 
 reproof, if it be not rightly suited to season and opportunity ? The 
 same may be said of other services. 
 
 5. Fifthly, Services ai'e spoiled, when men set upon them without 
 resolutions of leaving their sins. While they come with their ' idols 
 in their heart,' and ' the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their 
 face, God will not be inquired of by them,' Ezek. xiv. 3. He requires 
 of those that present their services to him, that at least they shouldnot 
 affront him with direct purposes of continuing in their rebellions 
 against him ; nay, he expects from his servants that look for a blessing 
 in their duties, that they come with their ' hearts sprinkled from an 
 evil conscience, and their bodies washed with pure water,' Heb. x. 22. 
 If they come to hear the word, they must ' lay aside all filthiness, and 
 superfluity of naughtiness,' James i. 21 ; if they pray, they must ' lift 
 up pure hands,' 1 Tim. ii. 8 ; if they come to the Lord's Supper, they 
 must eat that feast ' with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth,' 
 1 Cor. V. 8. And albeit, he may accept the prayers of those that are 
 so far convinced of their sins — though they be not yet sanctified—that 
 they are willing to lay down their weapons, and are touched with a 
 sense of legal repentance ; for thus he heard Ahab, and regarded the 
 humiliation of Nineveh : yet while men cleave to the love of their 
 iniquity, and are not upon any terms of parting with their sins, God 
 will not look to their services, but abhor them. For thus he declares 
 himself, Isa. i. 11, 'To what purpose is the multitude of your sacri- 
 fices ? Bring no more vain oblations. I cannot away with them, it 
 is miquity, even the solemn meeting, — my soid hateth them, they are 
 a trouble to me, I am weary to bear them : when you spread forth 
 your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you ; yea, when you make many 
 prayers, I will not hear.' The ground of all this is, that their heart 
 was no way severed from the purposes of sinning, ' Your hands are 
 full of blood,' ver. 15. Satan knowing this so well, he is willing that 
 they engage in the services of God, if they wiU keep up theu- allegiance 
 to him, and come with intentions to continue wicked still ; for so, while 
 he cannot prevent the actual performance of duty, — which yet notwith- 
 standing he had rather do, because he knows not but God may by that 
 means some time or other rescue these slaves of Satan out of his hand. 
 
120 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 — he makes their services nothing worth, and renders them abominable 
 to God. 
 
 6. Sixthly, In the manner of undertaking duties are spoiled, when 
 men have not a submissive ■ingenuity'^ in them, hy giving them- 
 selves up to the direction and disposal of the Almighty; but rather 
 confine and limit God to their wills and desires. Sometimes men by 
 attempting of services to God, think thereby to engage God to humour 
 them in their wills and ways. With such a mind did Ahab consult 
 the prophets about his expedition to Kamoth-Gilead ; not so much 
 seeking God's mind and counsel for direction, as thinking thereby to 
 engage God to confirm and comply with his determination. With the 
 same mind did Johanan and the rest of the people consult the Lord 
 concerning their going down to Egypt, Jer. xlii. 5. Tliough they 
 solemnly protested obedience to what God should say, ' whether it 
 were good or evil;' yet when the return from God suited not with 
 their desires and resolutions, they denied it to be the command of 
 God ; and found an evasion to free themselves of their engagement, 
 Jer. xliii. 2. Such dealings as these being the evident undertakings 
 of a hypocritical heart, must needs render all done upon that score 
 to be presumptuous temptings of God ; no way deserving the name 
 of service. 
 
 II. Secondly, Not only are services thus spoiled in those wrong 
 grounds and ways of attempting, or setting about them, but in the 
 very act or pierformance of them. While they are upon the wheel— as 
 a potter's vessel in the prophet — they are often marred ; and this Satan 
 doth two ways. (1.) By disturbing our thoughts, which should be 
 attentive and fixed upon the service in hand. (2.) By vitiating the 
 duty itself. 
 
 1. First, By distracting or disturbing our thoughts. This is a 
 usual policy of Satan. Those fowls which came down upon Abraham's 
 sacrifice are supposed by learned expositors to signify those means 
 and ways by which the devil doth disorder and trouble our thoughts 
 in religious services, Gen. xv. 12. And Christ himself compares the 
 devil stealing our thoughts from duty, to the ' fowls of the aii-,' that 
 gather up the seed as soon as it issowTi, Mat. xiii. 4. There are many 
 reasons that may persuade us that this is one of his masterpieces of 
 pohcy. As (1.) in that the business of distraction is oft easily done. 
 Our thoughts do not naturally delight in spiritual things, because of 
 their depravement; neither can they easily brook to be pent in or 
 confined so strictly as the nature of such employments doth require ; 
 so that there is a kind of preternatural force upon our thoughts, when 
 they are religiously employed ; which as it is in itself laborious, like 
 the stopping of a stream, or driving Jordan back, so upon the least 
 relaxing of the spring, that must bend our thoughts heavenward, they 
 incline to their natural bend and current ; as a stone rolled up a hill, 
 hath a renitentia, a striving against the hand that forceth it, and when 
 that force slackens it goes downward. How easUy then is it for Satan 
 to set our thoughts off our work ! If we slacken our care never so 
 little, they recoil and tend to their old bias ; and how easy is it for 
 him to take off our hand, when it is so much in his power to inject 
 ^ ' Ingenuousness.' — Q. 
 
Chap. 18.] satan's temptations. 121 
 
 thoughts and motions into our hearts, or to present objects to our 
 eyes, or sounds to our ears, which by a natural force raiseth up our 
 apprehension to act, for in such cases nonpossumus non cogitare ; we 
 cannot restram the act of thinking, and not without great heedfuhiess 
 can we restrain the pursuit of those thinkings and imaginations. (2.) 
 Satan can also do it insensibly. Our distractions or rovings of 
 thoughts creep and steal upon us silently, we no more know oi it 
 when they begin than when we begin to sleep, or when we begin to 
 wander in a journey, where oft we do not take ourselves to be out of 
 the way, till we come to some remarkable turning. (3.) And when 
 he prevails to divide our thoughts from our duty, he always makes 
 great advantage, for thus he hinders at least the comfort and profit of 
 ordinances. While we are busied to look to our hearts, much of the 
 duty goeth by, and we are but as those that in public assemblies are 
 employed to see to the order and silence of others, who can be scarce 
 at leisure to attend for their own advantage. Besides, much of the 
 sweetness of ordinances are abated by the very trouble of our attend- 
 ance. When we are put to it, as Abraham was, to be still driving away 
 those fowls that come down upon our sacrifice, the very toil will _ eat 
 out and eclipse much of the comfort. Thus also he at least provides 
 matter to object against the sincerity of the servants of God ; and will 
 assuredly find a time to set it home upon them to the purpose, that 
 their hearts were wandering in their services. Thus he further gets 
 advantage for a temptation to leave off their duty, and will not cease 
 to improve such distractions as we have heard to an utter overthrow 
 of theu- ser\dces. Nay, if he prevail to give us such distractions as 
 wholly takes away our minds and serious attentions from the service, 
 then is the service become nothing worth, though the outward circum- 
 stances of attendance be never so exact and saint-like. Who could 
 appear in a more religious dress than those in Ezek. xsxiii. 31, who 
 came and sat, and were pleased with divine services, as to all outward 
 discovery, as God's people ; yet was all spoiled with this, that their 
 hearts were after their covetousness ? 
 
 Now this distraction Satan can work two ways. 
 
 (1.) First, By outward disturbances. He can present objects to 
 the eyes on purpose to entice our thoughts after them. The closing of 
 the eyes in prayer is used by some of the servants of God to prevent 
 Satan's temptations this way. And we find, in the story of MrEoth- 
 wel, that the devil took notice of this in him, that he ' shut his eyes 
 to avoid distraction in prayer;'' which implies a concession in the 
 devil, that by outward objects he useth to endeavour our distraction in 
 services. The like he doth by noises and sounds. Neither can we 
 discover how much of these cHsturbances, by coughings, hemmings, 
 tramplings, &c., which we hear in greater assemblies, are from Satan, 
 by stirring up others to such noises. We are sure the damsel that 
 had an unclean spirit. Acts xvi., that grieved and troubled Paul, going 
 about these duties with her clamours, was set on by that spirit within 
 her, to distract and call off their thoughts from the services which 
 they were about to undertake. Besides the common ways of giving 
 trouble to the servants of God in outward disturbances, he sometimes, 
 ' ' Vide Clark's Lives. [As before.— G.] 
 
122 A TREATISE OF [PaRT I. 
 
 though rarely, doth it in an extraordinary manner ; thus he endea- 
 voured to hinder Mr Rothwel from praying for a possessed person, hy 
 rage and blaspheming. The like hindrance we read he gave Luther 
 and others ; and truly so strict an attendance in the exercise of our 
 minds, spiritual senses and graces, is required in matters of worship, 
 and so weak are our hearts in making a resistance or beating off these 
 assaults, that a very small matter will discompose us, and a smaller 
 discomposure will prejudice and blemish the duty 
 
 (2.) Secondly, He distracts or disturbs us also hy inivard workings, 
 and injections of motions, and representations of things to our minds : 
 and as this is his most general and usual way, so doth he make use of 
 greater variety of contrivance and art in it. As, 
 
 [1.] First, By the troublesome impetuousness and violence o/his in- 
 jections, they come upon us as thick as hail. No sooner do we put by 
 one motion but another is in upon us. He hath liis quiver full of 
 these arrows, and our hearts, under any service, swarm witii them ; we 
 are incessantly infested by them and have no rest. At other times, 
 when we are upon worldly business, we may observe a great ease and 
 freedom in our thoughts ; neither doth he so much press upon us ; but 
 in these Satan is continually knocking at our door, and calling to us, 
 so that it is a great hazard that some or other of these injections may 
 stick upon our thoughts, and lead us out of the way ; or if they do 
 not, j-et it is a great molestation or toil to us. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, He can so order his dealings with us, that he pro- 
 vokes us sometimes to follow him out of the camp, and seeks to ensnare 
 7IS by improving our own spiritual resolution and hatred against him ; 
 even as courage, whetted on and enraged, makes a man venture some 
 beyond the due bounds of prudence or safety. To this end lie some- 
 times casts into our thoughts liideous, blasphemous, and atheistical 
 suggestions, which do not only amaze us, but oftentimes engage us to 
 <lispute against them, which at such time is all he seeks for ; for 
 whereas in such cases we should send away such thoughts with a short 
 answer, ' Get tliee behind me, Satan,' we by taking up the buckler and 
 sword against them are drawn off from minding our present duty. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, He doth sometimes seek to allure and draw our 
 thoughts to the object by 7-eprescnting what is pleasant and taking. 
 (1.) He will adventure to suggest good things impertinently and un- 
 seasonably, as when he puts us upon praying while we should be liear- 
 ing ; or while we are praying, he puts into our hearts things that we 
 have heard in preaching. These things, because good in themselves, 
 we are not so apt to startle at, but give them a more quick welcome. 
 (2.) He also can allure our thoughts by the strangeness of the tilings 
 suggested. Sometimes we shall have hints of things which we knew 
 not before, or some fine and excellent notions, so that we can scarce 
 forbear turning aside after them to gaze at them ; and yet when all is 
 done, except we wholly neglect the duty for them, they will so vanish, 
 that we can scarce remember them when the duty is over. (3.) Some- 
 times he suits our desires and inclinations with the remembrances of 
 things that are at other times much in our love and affection ; and 
 with these we are apt to comply, the pleasure of them making us for- 
 get our present duty. Thoughts of estates, honours, relations, delights, 
 
Uhap. 18.J Satan's temptations. 123 
 
 recreations, or wliatever else we are set upon at other times, will more 
 easily prevail for audience now. 
 
 [4.] Fourtlily, He hath a way to betray and circumvent us hy 
 heightening our own jealousies and fears against him ; and here he 
 outshoots us in our own bow, and by a kind of overdoing makes us 
 undo our desired work. For where he observes us fearful and watch- 
 ful against wandering, he doth alarm us the more: so that (1.) in- 
 stead of looking to the present part of duty, we reflect upon what is 
 past, and make inquiries whether we performed that aright, or whether 
 we did not wander from the beginning. Thus our suspicions that we 
 have miscarried bring us into a miscarriage : by this are we deceived , 
 and put off from minding what we are doing at present. Or (2.) an 
 eager desire to fix our thoughts on our present service doth amaze and 
 astonish us into a stupid inactivity, or into a saying or doing we know 
 not what ; as ordinarily it happens to persons, that out of a great fear- 
 fulness to offend in the presence of some great personages, become 
 unable to do anything right, or to behave themselves tolerably well ; 
 or as an oversteady and earnest fixing the eye weakens the sight, and 
 renders the object less truly discernible to us. 
 
 [5] Fifthly, Sometimes the exercise of fancy acting or working 
 according to some mistake which ive have entertained as to the manner 
 of performance, doth so hold our thoughts doing, that tve embrace a 
 cloud or shadow ivhen ive shoidd have looked after the substajice. I 
 will give an instance of this in reference to prayer, which, I have ob- 
 served, hath been a snare and mistake to some, and that is this : be- 
 cause in that duty the Scripture directs us to go to God, and to set 
 him before us, therefore have they thought it necessary to frame an 
 idea of God in their thoughts, as of a person present to whom they 
 speak. Hence their thoughts are busied to conceive such a represen- 
 tation ; and when the shadow of imagination vanisheth, their thoughts 
 are again busied to inquire whether their hearts are upon God. 
 Thus ''by playing with fancy, they are really less attentive upon their 
 duty. 
 
 [6.] Sixthly, Satan can lay impressions of distraction upon men be- 
 fore they come to religious services, which shall then work and shew 
 their power to disturb and divide our hearts, which is by a strong pre- 
 pos.session of the heart with anything that we fear, or hope, or desire, 
 or doth any way trouble us. These will stick to us, and keep us com- 
 pany in our duties, though we strive to keep them back. And this 
 was the ground of the apostle's advice to the unmarried persons, to 
 continue in single life, — times of persecution and distress nearly ap- 
 proaching, — that they might ' attend upon the Lord without distrac- 
 tion,' 1 Cor. vii. 37 ; implying that the thoughtfulness and more than 
 ordinary carefulness which would seize upon the minds of persons 
 under such straits and hazards, would unavoidably follow them in 
 their duties, and so distract them. 
 
 2. Secondly, The other way, besides this of distraction, by which 
 Satan spoils oiu- duties in the act of performance, is hy vitiating duty 
 itself; and tliis he commonly doth three ways. 
 
 (1.) First, When he puts men upon greater care for the outtvard 
 garb and dress of a service than for the imvard icork of it. He en- 
 
124 A TUEATISE OF [PaRT 1. 
 
 (leavours to make some devotionai-ies deal with their duties, as the 
 Pharisees did with their cups, washing and adorning the outside, while 
 the inside is altogether neglected. Thus the papists generally are for 
 the outward pomp and beauty of services, being only careful that all 
 things should have their external bravery, as the tombs of the prophets 
 were painted and beautified, which yet were full of rottenness. And 
 the generality of Christians are more taken up with this than with the 
 service of the heart. Paul was so sensible of this snare in the work 
 of preaching, where ordinarily men cared for ' excellency of speech or 
 wisdom,' 1 Cor. ii. 2, that he determines another course of preaching; 
 not notions, or rhetoric, and enticing words, but the doctrine of Christ 
 crucified in sincerity and plainness, 1 Cor. ii. 2. It is not indeed the 
 outward cost and fineness of ordinances that God regards. ' Incense 
 from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country,' Jer. vi. 20, are 
 not to any purpose where the heart doth not most design a spiritual 
 service ; for these are rather a satisfaction to the humours of men than 
 to please God : an offering to themselves rather than to him. And 
 therefore is it, that what Jeremiah confessed they did, (chap. vi. 20,) in 
 buying incense and tlie sweet cane, Isaiah (chap, xliii. 24) seems to 
 deny, ' Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money' — that is, 
 though thou didst it, yet it was to thyself, rather than to me : I ac- 
 cepted it not, and so was it all one as if thou hadst not done it. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Duties and services are more apparently vitiated by 
 human additions: a thing expressly contrary to the second com- 
 mandment, and yet is there a strange boldness in men this way, which 
 sometimes riseth' to such a height, that the plain and clear commands 
 of God are violated under the specious pretence of decency, order, and 
 humility ; and nothing doth more take them than what they devise 
 and find out. Satan knows how displeasing this is to God, and how 
 great an inclination there is in men to be forward in their inventions 
 and self-devised worship, that he can easily prevail with the incau- 
 tious. ■ This was the great miscarriage of the Jewish nation all along 
 the Old Testament ; and of the pharisees, who, though they declined 
 the idolatries of their fathers, yet were so fond ujtou their traditions, 
 that they made their worship vain, as Christ tells them. And this 
 humour also in Paul's time was insinuating itself into Christians, 
 managed by a great deal of deceit [Col. ii. 8] and ' show of wisdom,' 
 ver. 23, which accordingly he doth earnestly forewarn them of. There 
 are indeed several degrees of corrupting a service or ordinance by 
 human additions, according to which it is more or less defiled : yet 
 the least presumption this way is an offence and provocation. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Duties are vitiated in their excess. Natural worship, 
 which consists in fear, love, faith, humility, &c., can never be too 
 much, but instituted worship may. Men may preach too much, and 
 pray too long— a fault noticed by Christ in the pharisees ; they made 
 ' long prayers' — Even in duties, a man may be righteous overmuch. 
 Timothy was so in his great pains and over-abstemious life, to the 
 wasting of his strength — which the apostle takes notice of, and adviseth 
 against it, ' Drink no longer water,' &c., [1 Tim. v. 23.] The Corin- 
 thians were so, when out of a high detestation of the miscarriage of 
 the incestuous person, they were backward to forgive him, and to re- 
 
Chap. 18.] satan's temptations. 125 
 
 ceive him into the church again. Peter is another instance to us of 
 excess, John xiii. 8. First, in a modest humility, he refuseth to let 
 Christ ' wash his feet ;' but after understanding the meaning of it, then 
 he runs to the other extreme, and offers not ' only his feet, but his 
 hands and his head.' When the servants of God are conscious of de- 
 fects in their services, as if they would make amends for these by the. 
 length and continuance of their services, they are easily drawn into an 
 excess every way disadvantageous to themselves and the service. 
 
 III. Thirdly, When Satan's designs do not take to spoil the duties, 
 either by the maimer of the attempt or in the act, he then seeks to 
 play an after-game, and endeavours to spoil them bij some after-mis- 
 carriage of ours in reference to these sei-vices. As, 
 
 (1.) First, When he makes us proud of them. We can scarce per- 
 form any service with a tolerable suitableness, but Satan is at hand to 
 instil thoughts of applause, vainglory, and boasting : and we readily 
 begin to think highly of ourselves and performances ; as if we were 
 better than others, whom we are apt to censure as low and weak in 
 comparison of ourselves. Though this be an apparent deceit, yet it is 
 a wonder how much the minds, even of the best, are apt to be tainted 
 with it ; even where there are considerable endeavours for humility and 
 self-denial, these thoughts are apt to get too much entertainment. 
 Now though we run well, and attain some comfortable strength and 
 watchfulness in the services of God ; yet if they be afterward fly-blown 
 with pride, or if we think to embalm them with praises, or reserve 
 them as matter of ostentation ; though they be angels' food, yet, like 
 the manna of the Israelites when kept too long, they will putrify and 
 breed worms, and so be good for nothing, after that we have been at 
 the pains of gathering it. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, When well-performed services are perverted to secu- 
 rity, then are they also spoiled. We are ready to say of them, as the 
 rich man of his abundance, ' Soul, take thine ease : thou hast much laid 
 up for many years,' [Luke xii. 19.] Satan is willing, for a further 
 advantage, that we think ourselves secure from him ; and as after a 
 full meal we are apt to grow drowsy, so after services we are apt to 
 think ourselves out of harm's way. The church after a high feast 
 with Christ, presently falls asleep, and highly miscarries in seciurity 
 and neglect. Cant. v. 2. By this means do the best of saints some- 
 times lose the things they have wrought, and throw down what they 
 formerly built up. 
 
NOTE. 
 Agreeably lo Note at llie beginning, there will be found below* the more specific title 
 
 page of Part II.— G. 
 
 D.BMONOLOGIA SA CRA . 
 
 OB, A 
 
 TREATISE 
 
 OF 
 
 Sfltan^ i^ttnptations : 
 The Second Part. 
 
 The manifold Subliltice and Stratagems of Satan, for 
 the corrupting of the minds of Men with Errour; 
 and for the destruction of the Peace and Comfort 
 of the Children of God. 
 
 London, Printed by J. D. for Richard Raiidel, and Peter MajAi. 
 Booksellers in Ntto CaMe upon Tine, 1677. 
 
PART II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TJiat it is Satan's grand design to coirupt the minds of men with 
 error— The evidences that it is so— And the reasons of his en- 
 deavours that way. 
 
 Next to Satan's deceits in tempting to sin and against duty, his 
 design of corrupting the minds of men by error calls for our search ; 
 and indeed this is one of his principal endeavours, which takes up a 
 considerable part of his time and diligence. He is not only called in 
 Scripture an ' unclean spirit,' hut also a ' lying spirit,' [1 Kings 
 xxii. 22,] and there are none of these cursed qualifications that lie 
 idle in him. As by his uncleanuess we may easily coiyecture his 
 attempts upon the will and affections to defile them by lust ■, so by 
 his lying we may conclude that he will certainly strive to blind the 
 understanding by error. But a clear discovery of this we may have 
 from these considerations : — 
 
 I. 1. First, From God's interest in truth, in reference to his great 
 designs of holiiiess and mercy in the ivorld. Truth is a ray and 
 beam of him who is the Father of lights. i All revealed truths are 
 but copies and transcripts of that essential, archetypal truth. Truth 
 is the rod of his strength, Ps. ex. 2, the sceptre of his kingdom, by 
 which he doth subdue the hearts of men to his obedience and service 
 in conversion. Truth is that rock upon which he hath built his 
 church, the foundations are the prophets and apostles, Eph. ii. 20— 
 that is, the doctrine of the propliets and apostles, in the Scriptures of 
 the Old and New Testament. Truth is that great depositum com- 
 mitted to the care of his church, which is therefore called the pillar 
 of truth, 1 Tim. iii. 15; because as princes or riders put their pro- 
 clamations on pillars for the better information of their subjects, so 
 doth his chiuch liold out truth to the world. Holiness is maintained 
 by truth, our ways are directed by it, and by it are we forewarned of 
 Satan's devices, John xvii. 17. Now the prince of darkness carrying 
 
 ■' Deus est prima Ncritas essentialis, verbura Dti prima Veritas iiornialis— ^Uac-. 
 Dislinc. Theol. cap. i. [The quotation is from the poslhiimous work o£ Maccovius 
 Distinctiones ct Kcgulas Theologicas ct PhiloBophicas." Amstcl : ItiSti, and various 
 mbscqucnt editious.— G.] 
 
128 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 himself in as full an opposition to the God of truth as he can in all 
 his ways, God's interest in truth will sufficiently discover the devil's 
 design to promote error ; for such is his hatred of God, that, though 
 he cannot destroy truth, no more than he can tear the sun out of the 
 firmament, yet he will endeavour by corrupting the copy to dis- 
 grace the original. Though he cannot break Christ's sceptre, yet by 
 raising error he would liinder the increase of his subjects ; though he 
 cannot remove the rock upon which the church is built, he will en- 
 deavour to shake it, or to interrupt the building, and to tear down 
 God's proclamation from the pillar on which he hath set it to be read 
 of all ; and if we can conceive what a hatred the thief hath to the 
 light, as it contradicts and hmders his designs, we may imagine there 
 is nothing against which the devil will use greater contrivances than 
 against the light of truth. He neither can nor will make a league 
 with any, but upon the terms that Nahash propounded to the men of 
 Jabesh-Gilead — that is, that he may ' put out tlieir right eye,' and so 
 ' lay it for a reproach upon the Israel of God,' 1 Sam. xi. 3. It is the 
 work of the Holy Spirit ' to lead us into truth,' and by the rule of 
 contraries it is the devil's work to lead into error. 
 
 2. Secondly, Though the Scripture doth charge the sin and danger 
 of delusion and error upon those men that promote it to tlic deception 
 of themselves and others, yet doth it chiefly blame Satan for the 
 great contriver of it, and expressly affirms him to be the grand de- 
 ceiver. Instruments and engineers he must make use of to do him 
 service in that work, but still it is the devil that is a lying spirit in 
 tlieir mouths ; it is he that teacheth and promi)ts them, and there- 
 fore may they be called, as Elymas was l)y Paul, the children of the 
 devil. Acts xiii. 10, or, as Cerinthus of old, the first-born of Satan, 
 TTpcoTOTOKOV Tov SaTava. 
 
 The church of Corinth, among other distempers, laboured under 
 dangerous errors, against which when the apostle doth industriously 
 set himself, he doth chiefly take notice, (1.) Of the false teachers, 
 who had cunningly wrought them u]) to an aptitude of declining 
 from the ' simplicity of the gospel.' These he calls false apostles, as 
 having no commission from God, and Satan's ministers, 2 Cor. xi. 
 13, 15 ; thereby informing us who it is that sends them out and em- 
 ploys them upon this errand. (2.) He especially accuseth Satan as 
 the great contriver of all this evil. If any shut their eyes against the 
 light, he gives this for the principal cause, that ' the god of the world 
 blinded their minds,' 2 Cor. iv. 4. If any stumbled at the simplicity 
 of the gospel, he presently blames the ' subtlety of the old serpent ' for 
 it, 2 Cor. xi. 3. When "false doctrine was directly taught, and var- 
 nished over with the glorious pretexts of truth, still he chargeth 
 Satan with it, ver. 14, 'No marvel, for Satan himself is transformed 
 into an angel of light ;' where he doth not only give a reason of the 
 corrupting or the adulterating the word of God by false apostles, as 
 vintners do their wines by mixtures ; a metaphor which he makes use 
 of, chap. ii. 17, KaireikevovTa ; that they learned it of Satan, ' who 
 abode not in the truth, but was a liar from the beginning ;' but also, he 
 further points at Satan, to furnish us with a true account of the 
 ground of that cunning craft which these deceitful workers used, 
 
Chap. 1.] satan's temptations. 129 
 
 while they metamorphosed themselves, by an imitation of the way and 
 manner, zeal and diligence of the apostles of Christ, they were tau"-ht 
 by one who had exactly learned the art of imitation, and who could, 
 to all appearance, act to the life the part of an angel of light. And 
 to take away all objection or wonder, that so many with such seeming 
 earnestness and zeal should give up themselves to deceive by false 
 doctrine, he tells us that this hath been the devil's work from the first 
 beguiling of Eve, ver. 3, and that as he then made use of a serpent for 
 his instrument, so ever since in all ages he hath made so often and so 
 much use of men as his emissaries, that it should now neither seem a 
 marvel, nor a great matter to see the devil at this work by his agents, 
 ov Bavfiaarov, ou f^eya, ver. 14, 15. 
 
 3. Thirdly, That this is Satan's great design, may be further 
 cleared from the constant course of his endeavours. The parable of 
 the tares, Mat. xiii. 25, shews that Satan is as busy in sowing tares, 
 as the master of the field is in sowing wheat. That by tares, not 
 errors in the abstract, but men are to be understood, is evident from 
 the parable itself ; but that which makes men to be tares is sin and 
 error ; so that, in a complex sense, we are taught how tliligent the 
 devil, who is expressly signified by the enemy, ver. 39, is in that em- 
 ployment : much of his time hath been taken up that way. ' There 
 were false prophets,' saith Peter, 2 Epist. ii. 1, ' and there shall be 
 false teachers ;' that is, so it was of old, and so it will be to the end. 
 The shortest abstract of Satan's acts in this matter would be long 
 and tedious ; judge of the rest by a few instances. 
 
 In the apostles' times how quickly had the devil broached false 
 doctrine. That it was necessary to be circumcised, was early taught, 
 Acts XV. 1. In Col. ii. 8, the vain deceit of philosophy, traditions, 
 and the elements of the world, which were the body of Mosaical 
 ceremonies, are mentioned as dangerous intrusions; and in ver. 18, 
 the worshipping of angels, as it seems, was pleaded for, with no small 
 hazard to the church. The denial of the resurrection is expressly 
 charged upon some of the Corinthian church, 1 Cor. xv. 12 ; and that 
 ' the resurrection is past already,' 2 Tim. ii. 18, is afiirmed to have been 
 the doctrine of Hymeneus, Philetus, and others. But these are com- 
 paratively little to that gross error of denying Christ, Jude 4, or ' tliat 
 Jesus is the Christ,' 1 John ii. 22, or ' Jesus Christ is come in the 
 flesh,' 1 John iv. 3, which are branded for antichristian errors, and 
 were boldly asserted by many false prophets that were then ' gone out 
 into the world ;' and to such a height came they at last, that they 
 taught the lawfulness of ' committing fornication, and to eat things 
 offered to idols,' Eev. ii. 20. All these falsehoods took the boldness 
 to appear before all the apostles were laid in their graves : and if we 
 will believe what Austin tells us [De Hceres.] from Epiphanius and 
 Eusebius, there were no less than ten sorts of heretical Antichrists in 
 the apostle John's days, the Simonians, Menandrians, Saturnalians, 
 &c. This was an incredible increase of false doctrine in so short a 
 time, and in the times and preachings of the apostles themselves, 
 whose power and authority, one would think, might have made Satan 
 ' fall before them as lightning.' What progress, then, in this work 
 of delusion might be expected when they were all removed out of the 
 
 I 
 
130 A TREATISE OF [FaRT II. 
 
 world ! They left, indeed, behind them sad predictions of the power 
 of delusion in after times : ' Of yourselves shall men arise, speaking- 
 perverse things.' ' After my departing shall grievous wolves enter,' 
 &c.. Acts XX. 30. ' The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter 
 times some shall depart from the faith,' 1 Tim. iv. 1 ; and Paul, 
 2 Thcs. ii. 3, prophesies of a general apostasy, upon the revealing of 
 ' the man of sin,' and the ' mystery of iniquity,' and that these should 
 be ' jierilous tunes,' 2 Tim. iii. 1. To the same purpose, John men- 
 tions the coming of the gi-eat Antichrist as a thing generally known 
 and beUeved, 1 John ii. 18. But l>efore all these, Christ also had 
 fully forewarned his servants of false Christs, the power and danger of 
 their delusion, and of the sad revolt from the faith which should be 
 before his second coming. Mat. xxiv. 24. And as wc have heard, so 
 have we seen ; all ages since the apostles can witness that Batan hath 
 answered the prophecies that were concerning him. What a strange 
 increase of errors hath been in the world since that time ! Irena^us 
 and Tcrtullian made catalogues long since ; after them Epiphanius 
 and Euscbius reckoned al)out eighty heresies; Austin, after them, 
 brings the number to eighty-eight. Now though there be just 
 exceptions against the largeness of their catalogues, and that it is 
 believed by many that there are several branded in their rolls for 
 licretics that merely suffer upon the account of their name and nation, 
 for Barbarism, Scythism, Hellenism are mustered in the front; and 
 others also stand there for very small matters, as the quarfo-deci- 
 mani, &c., and that some ought altogether to be crossed out of their 
 books ; yet still it will appear that the number of errors is gi-eat, and 
 that all those hai'd names have this general signilication, that the 
 devil hath made a great stir in the world by error and opinion. After- 
 times might also be summoned in to speak their evidence, and our own 
 knowledge and experience might, without any other help, sufficiently 
 instruct us, if it were needful, of the truth of this, that error is one 
 of Satan's great designs. 
 
 II. Secondly, Let us next look into the reasons which do so strongly 
 encjage Satan to these endeavours of raising up errors. If we set 
 these before us, it will not onlj^ confirm us in om- belief that this is 
 one of his main employments — for if error yield him so many advan- 
 tages for the ruin of men and the dishonour of God, there can be no 
 doubt of his readiness to promote it. This also may be of use to put 
 us in mind who it is that is at work behind the cm-tain, when we 
 see such things acted upon the stage, and consequently may beget a 
 cautious suspicion in our minds against his proceedings. The reasons 
 are such as these : — 
 
 1. First, Error is sinful, so that if Satan should be hindered in 
 his endeavours for any further mischief than the corrapting of any 
 particular person, yet he will reckon that he hath not altogether lost 
 his labour. Some errors, that overturn fundamentals of faith, are as 
 deadly poison, and called expressly ' damnable ' by the apostle, 2 Pet. 
 ii. 1. These heresies are by Paul, Gal. v. 20, recounted among ' the 
 works of the flesh,' of which he positively affirms, that ' they that do 
 such things cannot inherit the kingdom of God.' Those that are of a 
 lower nature, that do not so extremely hazard the soul, can only be 
 
Chap. 1.] satan's temptations. 131 
 
 capable of this apology, that they are less evil ; yet as they are opposi- 
 tions to truth, propounded in Scriptiu-e for our belief and direction, 
 they cease not to be sins, though they may be greater or less evils, 
 according to the importance of those truths which they deny, or the 
 consequences that attend them ; and if we go yet a step lower, to the 
 consideration of those rash and bold assertions about tilings not clearly 
 revealed, though they may possibly be true, yet the positiveness of 
 avouchments and determinations in such cases, where we want sufficient 
 reason to support what we affirm— as that of the pseudo-Diouysius 
 for the hierarchy of angels, and some adventurous assertions concern- 
 ing God's secret decrees, and many other things of like nature — are 
 by the apostle, Col. ii. 18, most severely taxed for an unwarrantable 
 and imjust presumption, in setting our foot upon God's right ; as if 
 such men would by violence thrust themselves into that which God 
 hath reserved for himself — for so much the word intruding— e'/a/Sareveiy 
 — imports. The cause of this he tells us is the arrogancy of corrupt 
 reason, the fleshly mind— suitable to that expression, Mat. xvi. 17, 
 ' Flesh and blood hath not revealed it.' The bottom of it is pride, which 
 swells men to this height ; and the fruit, after all these swelling 
 attempts, is no other than as the apples of Sodom, dust and vanity, 
 ' intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up 
 by his fleslily mind.' If then Satan do but gain this, that by error, 
 though not diffused further than the breast of the infected party, 
 truth is denied, or that the heart be swelled into pride and arrogancy, 
 or that he hath hope so to prevail, it is enough to encourage his 
 attempts. 
 
 2. Secondly, But error is a sin of an hmreasing nature, and 
 usually stops not at one or two falsehoods, bid is apt to spaton into 
 many others— as some of the most noxious creatures have the most 
 numerous broods ; for one error hath this mischievous danger in it, 
 that it taints the mind to an instability in every truth ; and the bond 
 of steadfastness being once broken, a man hath no certainty where ho 
 shall stay: as a wanton horse, once turned loose, may wander far. This 
 hazard is made a serious warning against error: 2 Pet. iii. 17, 'Beware 
 lest ye, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your 
 own steadfa.stness.' One error admitted, makes the heart unsteady ; 
 and besides this inconvenience, error doth unavoidably branch itself 
 naturally into many more, as inferences and conclusions resulting 
 from it, as circles in water multiply themselves. Grant but one 
 absurdity, and many will follow upon it, so that it is a miracle to 
 find a single error.i These locusts go forth by bands, as the experi- 
 ence of all ages doth testify, and besides the immediate consequences 
 of an error, which receive life and being together with itself, as twins 
 of the same birth, we may observe a tendency in errors, to others 
 that are more remote, and by the long stretch of multiplied inferences, 
 those things are coupled together that are not very contiguous. If 
 the Lutherans— it is'- Dr Prideaux his observation— admit universal 
 
 ' Ifot Soffe^'Tos dTTiiTcii', r'dXXa TroXXd avixpalvei.. 
 
 = Si Wittenbergcuses admittant universalem gratiam, Huberiani introducent univer- 
 salem electionem, Pucciani fidem naturalem, naturalistso explodent Christum et scrip- 
 tm&s.—Prid., Lett. iii. p. 34. [The Lexliones ' Theologicce ' of John Prideaux: Oxon. 
 1651, &c.— G.] 
 
132 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 grace, the Huberians introduce universal election, the Puccians 
 natural faith, the Naturalists explode Christ and Scriptures at last 
 as unnecessary. This is then a fair mark for the devil to aim at ; 
 if he prevails for one error, it is a hundred to one but he prevails 
 for more. 
 
 3. Thirdly, Satan hath yet a further reach in promoting error, he 
 knows it is a plague that usually infects all round about ; and therefore 
 doth he the rather labour in this work, because he hopes thereby to 
 corrupt others, and infected persons are commonly the most busy agents, 
 even to the ' compassing of sea and land to gain proselytes' to theu- 
 false persuasions. This harvest of Satan's labour is often noted in 
 Scripture. ' They shall deceive many,' Mat. xxiv. 24 ; ' Many shall 
 follow their pernicious ways,' 2 Pet. ii. 2. How quickly had this 
 leaven spread itself in the church of Galatia, even to Paul's wonder ! 
 Gal. i. 6, 'I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that 
 called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel.' Instances 
 of the spreading of error are frequent. Pelagianism rose about the 
 year 415, but presently spread itself in Palestine, Africa, Greece, 
 Italy, Sicily, France, and Britain. Arianism, like fire in straw, in a 
 little time brought its flame over the Christian world, and left her 
 wondering at herself that she was so suddenly become Arian. So- 
 cinianism had the like prevalency ; Lrelius privately had sowed the 
 seeds, and after his death, Faustus Socinus, his nephew, did so bestir 
 himself, that within ten years after his confident appearing, whole 
 congregations in Sarmatia submitted themselves to his dictates, as 
 Calovius affirms,! and within twenty or thirty years more several 
 hundreds of churches in Transylvania were infected, and within a 
 few years more the whole synod was brought over to subscribe to 
 Socinianism. We have also instances nearer home. After the 
 Reformation, in the reign of Edward VI., how soon did popery return 
 in its full strength when Queen Mary came to the crown! which 
 occasioned Peter Martyi-, when he saw young students flocking to 
 mass, to say, ' that the tolling of the bell overturned all his doctrine 
 at Oxford,' Hax una notula omnem vieam doclrinam evertit. And of 
 late we have had the sad experience of the power of error to infect. 
 No error so absurd, ridiculous, or blasphemous, but, once broached, it 
 presently gained considerable numbers to entertain it. 
 
 4. Fourthly, Error is also eminently serviceable to Satan for the 
 bringing in divisions, schisms, rents, hatreds, heart-burnings, ani- 
 mosities, revilings, contentions, tumults, wars, and ivhatsoever bitter 
 fruits, breach of love, and the nudignity of hatred can possibly produce. 
 "Enough of this might be seen in the church of Corinth. The divisions 
 that were amongst themselves were occasioned by it, and a great 
 number of evils the apostle suspected to have been already produced 
 fi-om thence, as-debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisper- 
 ings, swellings, tumults, 2 Cor. xii. 20. He himself escaped not from 
 being evilly entreated by those among them that were turned from 
 the simplicity of the gospel. The quarrelsome exceptions that they 
 had raised against him he takes notice of They charged him with 
 levity, in neglecting his promise to come to them, 2 Cor. i. 17. They 
 ' Consiil. Th. Soc. Proemial, p. 05. 
 
CHAft 1.] SATAil's TEMPTATIONS. 133 
 
 called him carnal, one that walked according to the flesh, chap. x. 2 : 
 they taunted him as a contemptible fellow, ver. 10. They under- 
 valued his ministry, which occasioned, not without great apology, a 
 commendation of himself; nay, they seemed to call him a false apostle, 
 and were so hold as to challenge him for a proof of Christ speaking 
 in him, 2 Cor. xiii. 3. 
 
 If the devil had so much advantage from error that was but in the 
 bud, and that in one church only, what may we imagine hath he done 
 by it, when it broke out to au open flame in several churches ! What 
 work do we see in families when an error creeps in among them ! 
 The father riseth up against the son, the son against the father, the 
 mother against the daughter, the daughter against the mother. 
 What sad divided congregations have we seen ! what fierceness, pre- 
 judices, slanders, evil surmises, censurings, and divisions hath this 
 brought forth! what bandying of parties against parties, church 
 against church, hath been produced by this engine ! How sadly 
 hath this poor island felt the smart of it ! The bitter contests that 
 have been betwixt presbyterian and independent, betwixt them and 
 the episcopal, makes them look more like factious combinations, than 
 churches of Christ. Tiie present differences betwixt conformists and 
 nonconformists, if we take them where they are lowest, they do daily 
 produce such effects as must needs be very pleasing and grateful to 
 the devil, both parties mutually objecting schism, and charging each 
 other with crime and folly. What invectives and railings may be 
 heard in all companies, as if they had been at the greatest distances 
 in point of doctrine ! But whosoever loseth, to be sure the devil gains 
 by it. Hati-eds, strife, variance, emulations, lyings, railings, scorn, 
 and contempt, are all against the known duty of brotherly Idndness, 
 and are undoubted provocations against the God of love and peace. 
 What can we then think of that can be so useful to Satan as error, 
 when these above-mentioned evils are the inseparable products of it ? 
 The modestest errors that ever were among good men are still accom- 
 panied with something of these bitter fruits. The differences about 
 meats and days, when managed with the greatest moderation, made 
 the strong to despise the weak as silly, wilful, factious humorists ; 
 and, on the contrary, the weak judged the strong as profane, careless, 
 and bold despisers of divine institutions; for so much the apostle 
 implies, Kom. xiv. 3, ' Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth 
 not ; and let not him which eateth not, judge him that eateth.' But 
 should we trace error through the ruins of churches, and view the 
 slaughters and bloodshed that it hath occasioned, or consider the 
 wars and desolations that it hath brought forth, we might heap up 
 matter fit for tears and lamentations, and make you cease to wonder 
 that Satan should so much concern himself to promote it. 
 
 5. Fifthly, The greatest and most successful stratagem for the 
 hindering a reformation, is that of raising up an army of errors. 
 Keformation of abuses, and corruptions in worship or doctrine, we 
 may well suppose the devil will withstand with his utmost might and 
 policy, because it endeavours to pull that down which cost him so much 
 labour and time to set up, and so crosseth his end. They who are 
 called out by God to 'jeopard theh- lives in the high places of the 
 
134 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 field,' Judges v. 18, undertake a hard task iii endeavouriug to check 
 the power of the mighty, whose interest it is to maintain those defile- 
 ments which their policy hath introduced, to fix them in the posses- 
 sion of that grandeur and command which so highly gratifies their 
 humours, and self-seeking aspiring minds. But Satan knowing the 
 strength of that power which hath raised them up to oppose, with 
 spiritual resolution, the current of prevailing iniquity, usually provides 
 himself with this reserve, and comes upon their backs with a party of 
 deluded, erroneous men, raised up from among themselves, and by this 
 means he hopes either to discourage the undertakers for reformation, 
 by the difficulty of their work, which must needs drive on heavily 
 when they that should assi.st prove hinderers, or at least to straiten 
 and limit the success; for by this means, (1.) He divides the party, 
 and so weakens their hands. (2.) He strengthens their enemies, who 
 not only gather heart from these divisions, seeing them so fair a prog- 
 nostic of "their ruin, but also imjirove them, by retorting them as an 
 argument, that they are all out of the way of trtitli. (3.) Tiie erroneous 
 party in tlie rear of the reformers do more gall them with their arrows, 
 even bitter words of cursed reviling, and more hazard them with their 
 swords and spears of opposition, than their adversaries in the front 
 against whom they went fortli. In the meanwhile, they that stand up 
 for truth are as corn betwixt two millstones— opi)resscd with a double 
 conflict, beset before and behind. 
 
 Tiiis hath been Satan's method in all ages. And indeed policy 
 itself could not contrive anything that would more certainly obstruct 
 reformation than this. When the apostles, who in these last days were 
 first sent forth, were employed to reform the world, to throw down the 
 ceremonies of the Old Testament and heathen worship, Satan had pre- 
 sently raised up men of corrupt minds to hinder their progress. What 
 work these made for Paul at Corinth, and with the Galatians, the 
 epistles to those churches do testify. The business of these men was 
 to draw disciples after them from the simplicity of the gospel, nay, to 
 another gospel ; and this they could not do but by setting up them- 
 selves, boasting of the Spirit, carrying themselves as the apostles of 
 Christ, and contemning those that were really so, insinuating thereby 
 into the aftections of the seduced, as if they zealously affected them, 
 and that Paul was but ' weak and contemptible,' nay, their very ' enemy, 
 for telling them the truth,' [Gal. iv. IG.] What unspeakable hindrance 
 nuist this be to Paul ! What giief of heart, what fear and jealousy 
 must this produce ! He professeth he was afraid lest he had ' bestowed 
 upon them labour in vain,' Gal. iv. 11 ; and that he did no less than 
 ' travail of them in birth the second time,' ver. 19. If one Alexander 
 could do Paul so much evil by ' withstanding his words,' that he coni- 
 plains of him, and cautions Timothy against liim, 2 Tim. iv. 24; if 
 one Diotrephes, by ' prating against John with malicious words,' pre- 
 vailed with the church, that they ' received him not, nor the brethren," 
 3 John 10, what hurt might a multitude of such be able to do! 
 
 In the primitive times of the church, aftcs' the apostles' days, when 
 those worthies were to contest with the heathen world, the serpent 
 ' cast out of his month water, as a flood, after the woman,' — which most 
 interpret to be a deluge of heresies, and some particularly understand 
 
Chap. 1.] sa tan's temptations. 135 
 
 it of the Arian heresy, — that he might hinder the progress of the gospel; 
 which design of his did so take, that many complaints there were of 
 hindering the conversion of the heathens, by the errors that were among 
 Christians. Epiphanius tells us that pagans refused to come near the 
 Christians, and would not so much as hear them speak, being affrighted 
 by the wicked practices and ways of the Priscillianists. Austin com- 
 plains to the same purpose, that loose and lascivious heretics adminis- 
 tered matter of blaspheming to the idolatrous heathens. 
 
 In after-times, when religion grew so corrupt by popery, that God 
 extraordinarily raised up Luther, Calvin, and others in the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries, to discover those abominations, and to bring 
 back his people from Babylon, the devil gave them no small trouble 
 by a growth of errors, so that they were forced to fight against the 
 papists before and those Philistines behind ; insomuch that reforma- 
 tion attained not that height and universality which might rationally 
 have been expected from such blessed undertakings. This was the 
 conjecture of many, particularly of our countryman Ur Prideaux,i that 
 if these fanatic enthusiasts, which with so great a scandal to the gospel 
 then brake forth, had not retarded and hindered those glorious pro- 
 ceedings, that apocalyptical beast of Eome had been not only weakened 
 and wounded, but utterly overthrown and slain. In particular cities, 
 where any of the faithful servants of Clirist endeavoured to detect the 
 errors of popei'y, these instruments of Satan were ready to join with 
 the common adversary in reproaches and disturbances. How they 
 opposed Musculus at Augusta, and with what fierceness they called 
 him viper, false prophet, wolf in sheep's clothing, &c., you may see in 
 those that write his life. How these men hindered the gospel at lam- 
 bm-g against Junius, at Zurich against Zuinglius, at Augsburg against 
 Urbanus Kegius, you may also see in their lives.2 In all which, and 
 others of like nature, you mil still find, (1.) That there was never a 
 reformation begun, but there were erroneous persons to hinder and 
 distract the reformers ; (2.) That these men expressed as great hatred 
 against the reformers, and oftentimes more, than against the papists ; 
 and were as spitefully bitter in lies, slanders, and scorns against them, 
 as the papists themselves. 
 
 6. Sixthly, Satan can also mal^e use of error either to fix men in 
 flieir present mistaken ivays and careless course, or as a temptation to 
 atheism. Varieties of opinions and doctrines do amuse and amaze 
 men. While one cries, ' Lo, here is Christ,' and another, ' Lo, he is 
 here,' men are so confounded that they do not know what to choose 
 It is one of the greatest difficulties to single out truth from a crowd of 
 .specious, confident pretences, especially seeing truth is modest, and 
 oftentimes out-noised by clamorous, bold error ; yea, sometimes out- 
 vied by the pretensions of spirit and revelation in an antiscriptural 
 falsehood. At what a loss is an unskilful traveller where so many 
 waves 3 meet ! While one party cries up this, another that, mutually 
 charging one another with error, they wlio^o lunifs are anything 
 
 ' Excitata a I.ulhcro bcstia apocalyptica, ct non iiiilal.i l,iiih,iii. -r,! simi^il.i multorum 
 venabulis, ullimum fcie omnium honorum jiulicio, i.lll;i.-.-ii -pii iiiiiii, nisi s|'iritus isl.i 
 iuauspicati tam heioicos distraxisscnt ct vetardassent ini|xUis. I'riil[i-nii.,]. Oral, ile 
 Spir. Sediict., p. 95. [As before— U.] - Melch. Adam, in vita Thool. 
 
 ' Query, ' ways'? — Ed. 
 
13G A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 loosened from a sense and reverence of religion, are easily tempted to 
 disbelieve all. Thus error leads to atheism, and lays the foundation 
 for all those slanderous exceptions against Scripture by which godless 
 men usually justify themselves in their religion. Now though all 
 wicked men are not brought to this, because the consciences of some 
 do so strongly retain the sentiments of a deity, that all Satan's art 
 cannot obliterate those characters ; yet the consideration of the multi- 
 tude of errors doth rivet them in the persuasion of the truth and good- 
 ness of that way of religion wherein they had been educated. Papists 
 are hardened by this ; and though they have no reason to boast of 
 their unity among themselves, as they have been often told, and now 
 of late by Dr Stillingfleet,i who hath manifested that their divisions 
 among themselves are as great, and managed with as great animosity, 
 as any amongst us; yet are their cars so beaten with the objection of 
 sects and schisms elsewhere, that they are generally confirmed to stay 
 where they are. Besides, tliis is a stumbling-block which the devil 
 throws in the way of poor ignorant jieople. If they are urged to a 
 serious strictness in religion, they are affrighted from it by the con- 
 sideration of sects and i^artics, and the woeful miscarriages of some 
 erroneous persons that at first pretended to strictness, imagining that 
 strictness in religion is an unnecessary, dangerous thing, and that the 
 sober, godly Christians are but a company of giddy, imscttled, con- 
 ceited, precise persons, who will in a little time run themselves into 
 madness and distraction, or into despair. And thus out of fear of 
 schism or error, they dare not be religious in good earnest ; but con- 
 tent themselves with 'drawing near to God with their mouths, and 
 confessing him with their lips, whilst their hearts are far from him, and 
 in their works thej' deny him,' [Titus i. IG.] 
 
 There is such a propensity in the hearts of men to be staggered by 
 the multitude and boldness of errors, that tlie apostle Paul expresseth 
 a sense of it, and seems tenderly careful to avoid that blow, which he 
 knew Satan woidd readily give through that consideration, by the 
 ajiology that he makes for God in his holy, wise, pro\adential permis- 
 sion of them, 1 Cor. xi. 19, ' There must be heresies among you.' 
 His intent is not barely to put them off with this, that heresies are 
 unavoidable, but to satisfy them thaj there is a necessity of them, and 
 that they are useful, as God's furnace and fan, to purify and to cleanse, 
 that ' they which are approved may be made manifest.' The like 
 care he hath in 2 Tim. ii. 19, 20, upon the mention of the error of 
 Hymeneus and Philetus, where he obviateth the offence that might 
 arise by reason of their apostasy, partly by removing the fears of the 
 ui^right, in affirming their safety whatever became of otiier men, seeing 
 ' the foundation of God standeth sure,' and partly by declaring it no 
 more suitable or dishonourable for God to permit the rise of errors in 
 his churcli, than for great men to have in their houses not only ' vessels 
 of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth ; some to honour, and 
 some to dishonom-.' By these very apologies it appears that Satan by 
 this device of error designs to shake men's faith and to drive them 
 from their religion. 
 
 ' 'Discourse of the Idolatry of the Church of Rome.' [Works. 1710. 6 vols., 
 folic— G. 
 
Chap. 1.] satan's temptations. 137 
 
 7. Seventhly, Neither can this, that corrupt doctrines bring fcn-th 
 corrupt practices, be of any less weight with Satan, or less engaging 
 for the pursuit of this design, than any of the forementioned reasons. 
 
 Corrupt doctrines are embraced as the very truth of God by the 
 deluded ; and one way or other, directly or consequentially, they lead 
 on practice, and that with the highest security and confidence, as if ■ 
 they were very truths indeed. 
 
 The devil then hath this great advantage by error, that if he can 
 but corrupt the minds of men, especially in the more weighty and 
 fundamental points of religion, then by a great ease and without any 
 more labour he hath gained them to the practice of whatsoever these 
 corrupted principles will lead unto. No course can be taken that 
 with greater expedition and prevalency can introduce profane de- 
 baucheries than this. Thus he conquers parties and multitudes, as a 
 victorious general takes cities and whole countries, by surrender; 
 whereas his particular temptations to sin are but inconsiderable, less 
 successful picqueerings ^ in comparison ; and when he hath once cor- 
 rupted the understancUngs of men, he hath by that means a command 
 over their consciences, and doth not now urge to evil in the notion of 
 a devil or tempter, but as an angel of light, or rather as a usurper of 
 divine authority. He requires, he commands these wicked practices 
 as necessary duties, or at least gives a liberty therein, as being harm- 
 less allowances. This difference was of old observed in Satan's 
 management of persecution and error, that in the former he did com- 
 pel men to deny Christ, but by the latter he did teach them. Inper- 
 secutione cogit homines negare Christum, nunc docet. 
 
 That the lives and i)ractices of men are so concerned by corrupt 
 doctrines, may appear to any that are but indifferently acquainted 
 with Scripture or history. We are told by the apostle Paul that 
 faith and conscience stand so related to each other that they live and 
 die together, and that when the one is sliipwrecked the other is 
 drowned for company, 1 Tim. i. 19. In Phil. iii. 2, he seems severely 
 harsh against those of the concision ; he calls them dogs, ' Beware of 
 dogs ; beware of evil workers.' The reason of which expression I ap- 
 prehend lies not so much in these resemblances, that dogs spoil the 
 flock by devouring, or that the^ are fawning creatm-es, or that they 
 are industrious in prosecution of their prey, — though in all these par- 
 ticulars false teachers may be compared to dogs, for they spare not the 
 flock, they compass sea and land to gain disciples, and they entice them 
 with fair speeches, — ^but rather he intends the similitude to express 
 the profane life and carriage of these seducers, for dogs are filthy 
 creatures, to a proverb, ' The dog to his vomit.' And common 
 prostitutes, for their uncleanness, were called dogs in the Old Testa- 
 ment. So some expound Deut. xxiii. 18, ' The hire of a whore, or the 
 price of a dog.' And we have full and clear descriptions of seducers 
 from their wicked and abominable practices : 2 Peter ii. 10, ' They 
 that walk after the flesh, in the lust of uncleanness, and despise govern- 
 ment ; presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak 
 evil of dignities : ver. 14, ' Having eyes full of adultery, and that can- 
 
 ' 'Pickeer' in Spanish means to 'rob or pillage;' a 'gipsy' in English dialect 
 [Sussex] is called a 'picker' or tramp, e.g., Shakespeare, Hamlet, iii. 2.— G. 
 
138 A TREATISE OF [PaKT 11. 
 
 not cease from sin ; an heart exercised witii covetous practices ; 
 cursed children : ' ver. 18, ' They allure through the lusts of the flesh, 
 through mucli wantonness.' Jude 4, ' There are certain men crept in 
 unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation ; un- 
 godly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness : ' ver. 16, 
 ' These are murderers, complainers, walking after their own lusts,' &c. 
 2 Tim. iii. 2-5, ' Men shall be lovers of their own selves ; covetous, 
 boasters, proud, blasi)hemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, un- 
 holy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, inconti- 
 nent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high- 
 minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God ; of this sort are 
 they wliich creep into houses.' All which do set forth heretical per- 
 sons as the most scandalous wicked wTctches that we shall meet with ; 
 grossly filthy in themselves, corrupted in all the duties of their rela- 
 tions, natural and civil ; defiled in all the ways of their converse with 
 men. 
 
 Neither arc these wicked practices issuing from gross errors to be 
 looked upon as rare, accidental, or extraordinary effects thereof, but as 
 the natural and connnon fruits of them ; for Christ makes this to be 
 the very special property and note whereby false prophets may be dis- 
 covered. Mat. vii. IG, ' Ye shall knt>w them by their fruits. Do men 
 gather grapes off thorns, or figs off thistles ? ' &c. These fruits were 
 not their doctrines, but their lives; for to know Msa projihets by 
 false doctrines is no more than to know false doctrine by false doc- 
 trine. If any object that many false teachers appeared in the shape 
 of seeming holiness and strictness of life, they may be answered from 
 Christ's own words; for there he tells us, to avoid mistakes, that 
 their first appearance, and it may be the whole lives of some of the 
 first seedsmen of any error, is under tlie form of sanctity : ' They come 
 to you in sheep's clothing,' in an outward a]ipearance of innocency 
 and plausible pi-etences ; but then he adds, that their fruits afterward 
 will discover them. A tree at its first planting is not discovered what 
 it is, but give it time to grow to its proiwr fruitfulness, and then you 
 may know of what kind it is ; so that we need not affirm that damn- 
 able doctrines produce wicked lives in all that entertain them at the 
 very first. It is enough for discovery if there be a natural consequen- 
 tial tendency in such doctrines to practical impieties, or that at last 
 they produce them, though not in all, yet in many. 
 
 And that this matter hath been always found to be so, all history 
 doth confirm. Such there were in the apostles' days, as is evident by 
 their complaints. Such there were in the church of Pergamos: Rev. 
 ii. 14, • Thou hast them that hold the doctrine of Balaam ; who taught 
 Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the chiklren of Israel ; to eat 
 things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.' There were 
 also the Nicolaitans, of whom Christ declares his abhorrency, ver. 15. 
 In the church of Thyatira there was the ' woman Jezeltel, who taught 
 and seduced many ' of that church to the like abominable doctrines 
 and practices, ver. 20. Besides these, the apostle John was troubled 
 with the abominable Gnostics, [and] the filthy Caq>ocratians, who 
 taught that men must sin and do tlie will of all the devils, or else 
 they could not evade principalities and powers, who would no other- 
 
Chap. 1.] satan's temptations. 139 
 
 wise be pleased to suffer them to escape to the superior heavens. Of 
 these men and their licentious doctrine doth he speak, 1 John iii. 6, 
 &c., that they that are born of God indeed, must not, dare not, cannot 
 give themselves up to a liberty in such abominations. 
 
 The same fruits of corrupt doctrine appeared after the apostles' 
 days. Wliat was Montanus, but an impm-e wretch ? What were his 
 two companion prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla, but infamous 
 adulteresses? The PriscillianLsts, the Manichees, and abundance 
 more, left the stink of their profaneness behind them, by reason of 
 whom, according to Peter's prophecy, 2 Peter ii. 2, ' The way of truth 
 was evil spoken of.' 
 
 Later times have also given in full evidence of this truth. How 
 shameful and abominable were the lives of John of Leyden and the 
 rest of those German enthusiasts ! Wlio reads the story of Hacket and 
 Coppinger without detestation of their wicked practices ! What better 
 have the Familists and libertines of New and Old England been ! 
 Some were turned off to highest ranting, in all profaneness of swearing, 
 drinking, adultery, and the defying of a godly life ; and this, under the 
 imreasonable boast of spu-it and perfection.^ The heavens may blush 
 and the earth be astonished at these things ! But in the meantime 
 Satan hugs himself in his success, and encourageth himself to further 
 attempts in propagating error, seeing it brings in so great a harvest of 
 sin. 
 
 8. Eighthly, In this design of false doctrine Satan is never alto- 
 gether out ; if he cannot thus defile their lives, yet it is a thousand to 
 one but he ohsfrucfs their graces by it. What greater hindrance can 
 there be to conversion than error ! The word of truth is the means 
 by which God, through his Spirit, doth beget us ; it is part of that 
 , image of God that is implanted in us : it is God's voice to the soul to 
 'awaken it. It cannot then be imagined that God will give the 
 honour of that work to any error ; neither can truth take place or 
 have its effect upon a soid forestalled with a contrary falsehood. 
 Falsehood in possession will keep truth at the door. Neither is con- 
 version only hindered by such errors as directly contradict converting 
 truths, but also by collateral non-fundamental errors ; as they fill the 
 minds of men with prejudice against those that profess another per- 
 suasion, so that for their own beloved error's sake men will not enter- 
 tain a warning or conviction from those that dissent from their 
 opinions : they first account them enemies, and then they despise their 
 message. It is no small matter in Satan's way to have such an 
 obstruction at hand in the grand concern of conversion. Yet this is 
 further serviceable to him, to hinder or weaken the graces of the 
 converted already. If he can set God's children a-madding upon 
 error, or make them fond of novelties, he will by this means exhaust 
 the vigour and strength of their hearts, so that the substantials of 
 religion will be neglected. For as hurtful plants engross all the 
 moisture and fatness of the earth where they stand, and impo\'erish it 
 into an inability for the nourishment of those that arc of greater 
 worth, so doth error possess itself of the strength of the spirit, and in 
 the meantime neglected graces d^rindle into emptiness, and ' fade as a 
 ' See the story of Mr Copp[ingcr.] 
 
140 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 leaf.' The most curious questions and opinions that are, contribute 
 nothing to the establishment of the heart ; it is only grace that doth 
 that : Heb. xiii. 9, ' The heart is established with grace,' and not 
 with disputes about meats; nay, they do grace a prejudice, in that 
 they make it sick and languisliing — for to that sense is the oi-iginal, 
 in 1 Tim. vi. 4, ' Doting about questions,' or growing diseased, because 
 of the earnest prosecution of oi^inions, Nocrwv ■irepl ^i^Wjaei,'^. 
 
 9. Ninthly, Error hath yet another mischief in it, which makes it 
 not a little desirable to Satan ; and that is the judgment or punishment 
 that it brings. So that it every way answers the devil's hatred against 
 both soul and body. The blessings of prosperity and peace do attend 
 the triumphal chariot of truth : Ps. Ixxxv. 11, 12, ' Truth shall spring 
 out of the eartli, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.' 
 And then it follows, that ' the Lord shall give that which is good, and 
 our land shall yield her increase.' But on the contrary, error doth 
 more provoke God than men are aware. How often did God desolate 
 the Israelites, set a fire in their cities, and gave them into the hands 
 of their enemies, because of their cliauging the truth of God into a 
 lie, and worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator ! 
 God left not tlie church of Pergamos and Thyatira without severe 
 threatenings for the error of the Nicolaitans : Rev. ii. 16, ' Repent, or 
 else I will come unto tliee quickly.' Ver. 22, ' I will cast them into 
 great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds, and I will kill her 
 children with death.' And accordingly God fulfilled his threatening 
 upon them, by bringing in the Saracens to desolate them, and to 
 possess their land — as he also brought the Goths upon the empire for 
 the Arian heresj'. How is Satan pleased to labour in a design that 
 will kindle the wrath of the Almighty ! 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Of the advantages ivhich Satan hath, and vseih, for the introduction 
 of error ; as (1.) From his oiun poioer of spiritual fascination. 
 That there is such a poiver, proved from Scripture, and from the 
 effects of it. (2.) From our imperfection of knoivledge; the parti- 
 culars thereof explained. (3.) From the bias of the mind. What 
 things do bias it, and the poicer of them to suxiy the tinder standing. 
 (4.) From curiosity. (5.) From atheistical debauchery of con- 
 science. 
 
 That Satan may the better speed in his design, he carefidly takes 
 notice of, and diligently improves all advantages. Indeed all his 
 stratagems are advantages taken against us ; for so the apostle, in his 
 caution to the Corinthians, calls his devices, ' lest Satan should get an 
 advantage of us,' 2 Cor. ii. 11. But here I only understand those that 
 are more general, which are the grounds and encouragements to his 
 particular macliinations against men, and which also direct him in 
 his procedure. These are, 
 
 1. First, Satan's own power of spiritual fascination, by which he 
 
(Jhap. 2.] Satan's temptations. 141 
 
 infatuates the minds of men, and deludes them, as the external senses 
 are deceived by enchantments or witchcraft. 
 
 That Satan is a cunning sophister, and can put fallacies upon the 
 imderstanding ; that by subtle objections or arguments he can obtrude 
 a falsehood upon the belief of the unskilful and unwary ; that he can 
 betray the judgment by the affections, are things of common practice 
 with him. But that which I am now to speak of is of a higher 
 natm'e, and though it may probably take in much of his common 
 method of ordinary delusion, yet in this it differs, at least that it is 
 more efficacious and jirevalent ; for as his power over the children of 
 disobedience is so great that he can ' lead them captive at his will,' 
 except when he is countermanded by the Almighty, so hath he, by 
 ' commission, a power to lead those to error effectually, without 
 _ s end, that have prepared themselves for that spiritual 
 judgment by a special provocation ; and for aught we know, as he 
 hath an extraorcUnary power whicli he exerts at such times, so may 
 he have an extraordinary method which he is not permitted to practise 
 daily, nor upon all. 
 
 That such a power as this the devil hath, is believed by those 
 wdiose learning and experience have made their judgments of great 
 value with serious men ; and thus some do describe it : It is a delusion 
 with a kmd of magical enchantment ; so Calvin, Gal. iii. 1 : a satani- 
 cal operation whereby the senses of men are deluded ; thus Perkins, 
 who after he had asserted that Satan can corrupt the fantasy or 
 imagination, he compares this spiritual witchcraft to such diseases of 
 melancholy, that make men believe that they are, or do, what they are 
 not or do not, as in the disease called lycanthropia ; and to the 
 enchantments of Jannes and Jambres, who deluded the senses of 
 Pharaoh. Others more fully, call it ' a more vehement operation of the 
 great impostor, whereby he obtrudes some noxious error upon the 
 mind, and persuades with such efficacy that it is embraced with confi- 
 dence, defended strenuously, and propagated zealously.' i 
 
 A particular account of the way and manner by which the devil 
 doth this, is a task beyond sober inquiry. It may suffice us to know 
 that such power he hath, and this I shall confirm from Scripture, and 
 from the effects of such delusion. 
 
 (1.) Fu-st, There are several scriptures which assert a power in 
 Satan to bewitch the minds of men into error, from which I shall 
 draw such notes as may confirm and in part explain this truth in 
 hand. 
 
 And I shall begin with that of Gal. iii. 1, ' foolish Galatians, 
 who hath bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth ? ' &c. 
 The word which the apostle here useth for bewitching, as grammarians 
 and critics note,2 is borrowed from the practice of witches and sor- 
 
 ' Faacinatio est spiritus impostoris vehementior operatio, qua nosium aliquem erro- 
 rem in dogmate vel praxi — doctrinie sana; contrarium, sed sophisticis prsestigiis depic- 
 tum — pro veritate incautis hominibus obtendit, iisque efficaciter persuadet, ut errorem 
 eum confidenter amplectantur, strenu^ defendant,et zelo, nou secundum Deum, propa- 
 gant. — Dkkion, Therapeut. Sacra, lib. iii. cap. 7. 
 
 - Baa-Kalva, Grammaticis dictum esse placet quasi tfiacrKatvia, id est, tois (pdeai n Kofceiv, 
 quo pertinet illud, Viry., ec. iii. Nescio quis teneros, &c. Vide Piscator, in loc, and 
 Leigh. Crit. Sac. 
 
142 A TKEATISE OF [PaRT J I. 
 
 cerers, wlio use by secret powers to biud the senseH, ami to etfcct mis- 
 chiefs. It is true he speaks of fiilse apostles, but he intends Satan as 
 the chief workman; and this he transfers to signify Satan's power 
 upon the mind, in bUnding the understanding for the entertainment of 
 error. Neither can anything be objected why this jilace shoukl not 
 prove a fascinating power in Satan, such as we have been speaking of, 
 but this, that it niay be supposed to intend no more than an ordinary 
 powerful persuasion by arguments. Yet this may be answered, not 
 only from the authority of learned interpreters, who apprehend the 
 apostle and his expression to intend more, but also from some con- 
 comitant particulars in the text. He calls them ' foolish Galatians,' 
 as we translate it, but the original goes a little higher, to signify a 
 madness ; and withal he seems to be surprised with wonder at the 
 power of Satan upon them, which had not only prevailed against the 
 truth, but against such evident manifestations of it as they had when 
 they were so plainly, fully, and efficaciously instructed ; for ' before 
 their eyes Jesus Clu"ist had been evidently set forth ;' which expres- 
 sions and carriage cannot rationally be thought to befit a common 
 ordinary case.i 
 
 Next to this, let us a little consider that famous scripture in 2 Thes. 
 ii. 9-11, ' Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all 
 power. . . . and ior this cause, God shall send them strong de- 
 lusions, that they should believe a lie.' I shall from tliis place observe 
 a few things, which ifi)ut together will clear liie truth we speak of: 
 As, first. In this delusion here mentioned, the a])ostle doth not only set 
 down extraordinary outward means, as signs and lying wonders, but 
 also suits these extraordinary means with a suitable concomitant in- 
 ward i)0wer ; for by ' power ' I do not understand, as some, [Fiscator 
 and Sclater,] a power of shewing signs and doing wonders, as if the 
 apostle had said, iv Bvudfiei a-t]fj.etcov kuI repuTwu, with the power of 
 signs and wonders — for the words w^U not well bear that without 
 some unnatm-al straining ; but I understand by it a power, distinct 
 from the signs and wonders, by which he moves their hearts to believe, 
 by an inwai'd working upon their minds, striking in with the outward 
 means of lying miracles propounded to their senses. And we may the 
 better satisfy om-selves in this interpretation, if we compare it with 
 Eom. XV. 19,2 where not only the power of doing wonders is expressed 
 by a phrase, proper and different from tliis of the text in hand, 
 ' through mighty signs and wonders,' or in the power of signs and 
 wonders, but it is also clearly distinguished from the power of the 
 Spirit of God, in working upon the hearts, to make those wonders effi- 
 cacious and persuasive ; so that, as in the Spirit of God we observe a 
 power to do wonders, and a power to work upon the heart by these 
 wonders, we may conclude that this wicked spirit hath also, in order 
 to sin and delusion, this twofold power. But secondly, I note further, 
 That this power is called a special energy of peculiar force and efficacy 
 in its working — kut ivepyeiav tov SaTuvd. The strange inexpressible 
 
 ' Neque tantum quod sc decipi passi fuerint eos arguit, eed quadam veluti magica 
 incantatione deludi. — Calvin, in loc. Avb-qToi. mente alienati— eorum lapsum magis de- 
 mentise esse quam stultitia;, arguens. — Caltfii,. 
 
 ^ iV Swdfiet ffrjfUttav Kdi Tepirojv, if dvvdfiei TVcdfjJXTtK Qeov. 
 
Chap. 2.] satan's temptatiun.s. 1 13 
 
 strength of it seems to stand in need of many words for explanation. 
 He calls it ' all power ' — iv Trday Swd/iei — which as well notes the 
 degree and height, as the variety of its operations, and then the energy, 
 the virtue, operativeness, and strength of power. Thirdly, It is also 
 to be observed that Satan's success and exercise of this power of de- 
 lusion depends upon the commission of God, and that therefore it is 
 extraoi'dinary, and not permitted to him but upon special occasions 
 and provocation, ' for this cause God shall send,' &c. Fourtlily, The 
 success of this power when exercised is certain. They are not only 
 strong delusions, in regard of the power from whence they come, but 
 also in regard of the event ; those upon whom they come cannot but 
 believe. Infatuation and pertinaciousness are the certain fruits of it.^ 
 Fifthly, The proof of all is manifest in the quality of the errors enter- 
 tained, for they are palpable gross lies, and yet believed as the very 
 truths of God, and they are in such weighty points as do evidently 
 determine the soul to ruin, ' lies to be damned,' which two things are 
 sufficient proofs of spiritual fascination ; it being unimaginable that 
 rational men, and especially such as were instructed to a belief of a 
 contrary truth, should so far degenerate from the light of reason as to 
 be deluded by gross and apparent lies, and of such high importance, 
 except their minds had been blinded in some extraordinary way. 
 Some further confirmation may be added to this truth from 1 Kings 
 xxii. 21 , ' And there came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord, 
 and said, I will persuade him. ... I will go forth, and I will 
 be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said. Thou 
 shalt persuade him, and prevail also.' I might here take notice of 
 Satan's readiness in this work, as wanting neither skill nor will, if he 
 were but always furnished with a commission ; as also the powerful 
 efficacy of spiritual witchcraft, where it pleaseth the Lord to permit 
 to Satan the exercise of his power, ' Thou shalt persuade, and prevail 
 also.' But that which I would observe here, is something relating to 
 the manner of his proceeding in these delusions. He attempted to 
 deceive the false prophets, and by them to delude Ahab ; and both, 
 by being a lying spii'it in the mouth of the prophets, which necessarily, 
 as Peter Martyr observes, implies, (1.) That Satan had a power so 
 strongly to fix upon their imaginary 2 faculty the species, images, or 
 characters of what was to be suggested, that he could not only make 
 them apprehend what he presented to their minds, but also make them 
 believe that it was a divine inspiration, and consequently true ; for 
 these false prophets did not speak hypocritically what they knew to 
 be false, but what they confidently apprehended to be true, as appears 
 by the whole story. (2.) He could ii-ritate and inflame theii- desires 
 to publish these their persuasions to the king, after the manner of 
 divine prophecies. (3.) He had a further power of persuading Ahab 
 that his prophets spake truth.^ 
 
 That passage of Eom. i. 28, ' God gave them over to a reprobate 
 mind,' doth give some account how men are brought by the devil into 
 1 Sclater, ;« foe. [1627. 4to.— G.] = 'Imaginative.'— G.] 
 
 " Licet ei (Deo coneedente) species, imagines et simulacra rerum falsarum effingere 
 iu imaginaria hominum facultate, ita ut falsa pro veri.s eis demonstrentur, deinde potest 
 iuceudere atque inflammare appetitum eorum ad ea incredibili alacritate prjedicanda, &e. 
 Pet. Martyr, in loc. Reynolds, Treat, of Passions, chap. 4, p. 27, [as before. — G.] 
 
144 A TKEATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 these false persuasions. A reprobate mind is a mind iujudicions, a 
 mind that hath lost its power of discerning — Nov<; dBoKCfi6<;. It is 
 plain then that he can so besot and bUnd the mind that it shall not be 
 startled at things of greatest absm-dity or inconveniency. 
 
 If any yet further inquire how he can do these things ; we must 
 answer, that his particular ways and methods in this case we know 
 not: only it may be added, that, Eph. iv. 17, Paul tells us he can 
 make their ' minds vain, and darken their understandings.' By mind, 
 N009, the seat of principles is commonly imderstood. I3y understand- 
 ing, Aidvoia, the reasoning or discursive faculty, which is the seat of 
 conclusions : so that his power seems to extend to the obliterating of 
 principles, and can also disable them to make right inferences, inso- 
 much that he wants nothing that may be necessary to the begetting 
 of strong persuasions of any falsehood which he suggests, according to 
 what is intimated. Gal. v. 3, ' This persuasion cometh not of him that 
 called you' — that is, not of God, but of the devil. 
 
 From all these scriptures then it appears that this spiritual fasci- 
 nation is a power in Satan, which he exerts, by special commission, 
 upon those that receive not the truth in the love of it, by which he can 
 so strongly imprint falsehoods upon their minds, that they become 
 unable to discern betwixt truth ami a lie, and so by darkening their 
 understanding, they are effectually persuaded to believe an error. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, There is yet another proof of this spiritual witchcraft, 
 from the consideration 0/ the effects of it vpon the deluded, and the 
 uncouth, strange, ^innatural luai/ 0/ its proceeding. Let all particulars 
 of this kind be put together, and it will not be found possible to give 
 any other rational account of some errors than that of extraordinary 
 delusion. 
 
 [1.] First, Let us take notice of the vileness and odiousness of some 
 errors that have prevailed upon men. Some have been plainly sottish, 
 so evidently foolish that it cannot be imagined that men that enter- 
 tained them had at that time the use of reason, or any competent 
 understanding. This very consideration the prophet Isaiah insists 
 upon largely, chap. xliv. 9-21, where he taxeth them smartly for the 
 senseless doltislmess of theh" error in worshipping idols. He tells 
 them the matter of it is the work of nature, a cedar, oak, or ash, that 
 they themselves possibly had planted, and the rain did nourish it, 
 ver. 14. He tells them also that the form of it was from the ai-t of the 
 workman, the smith, or carpenter: ver. 12, 13, ' The smith with the 
 tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and 
 worketh it with the strength of his arms. . . . The carpenter 
 stretcheth out his rule ; he marketh it out with a line ; he fitteth it with 
 planes, and he marketh it out with a compass.' He further minds 
 them, that without any reverence they make use of the residue of the 
 materials out of which they formed their idol to common services of 
 di-essing their meat and warming themselves. ' He burneth part 
 thereof in the fire ; with part thereof he eateth flesh ; he roasteth roast, 
 and is satisfied ; yea, warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I 
 have seen the fiie,' ver. 16. Then he accuseth them of sottishness, 
 in that the ' residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: 
 he falleth down to it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and 
 
Chap. 2.] satan's temptations. 145 
 
 saith, Deliver me ; for thou art my god,' ver. 17. And from all this 
 he concludes, that seeing this is so directly contrary to common reason 
 and understanding — wliicli in the ordinary exercise of it would easily 
 have freed them from such a dotage ; for if they had but ' knowledge 
 or understanding to say, I have burnt part of it in the fire ; I have 
 baked bread, and shall I make the residue an abomination ?' ver. 19, 
 they could not have been so foolish. It must, then, of necessity be a 
 spiritual infatuation. ' Their eyes were .shut that they cannot see, and 
 their hearts, that they cannot understand,' ver. 18. 'A deceived heart 
 hath turned him aside,' ver. 20. Other errors there are that lead to 
 beastly and unnatural villanies, such as dii-ectly cross ' all the sober 
 principles of mankind, the natural principles of modesty, the most 
 general and undoubted principles of religion and holiness, as when 
 adulteries, swearing, ranting, going naked, cruelties, murders, outrage- 
 ous confusions and madness, are clothed with pretences of spirit, reve- 
 lation, freedom in the use of the ci'eature, exercise of love, and having 
 all things common, &c.: of which sad iu.stances have been given more 
 than once. Let any sober man consider how it could come to pass, 
 that men that have reason enough to defend them against such furies, 
 and the knowledge of Scrijjture, which everywhere — with the greatest 
 happiness imaginable and highest earnestness — doth prohibit such 
 practices as most abominable, and doth direct to a sober, just, modest, 
 humble, inoffensive life, should entertain notwithstanding, such errors 
 as transform men into beasts, monsters, or rather devils, and religion 
 into the grossest impieties ; and all this as the perfection and top of 
 religious attainment commanded in the word of God or by his Spirit, 
 and well-pleasing to most holy and pm'e divine majesty ! Let it, I 
 say, be left to the consideration of men how it should be, without some 
 such extraordinary cause as hath been mentioned. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Let it be observed also, that some errors brmg with 
 them some extraordinary, strange, unnatural, unusual actions, and 
 put men into such odd garbs, postures, and behaviours, that it is easy 
 to see they are acted by a force or power not human. Some have 
 been carried to do things beyond whatsoever might have been expected 
 from the age and capacities of the parties ; as ecstasies, trances, and 
 quakings of little cliildren ; then- prophesying and speaking Scripture 
 threatenings after such fits. Some have been acted in a way of ecstati- 
 cal fury; as Montanus, of whom Eusebius witnesseth,i that ' sometimes 
 he would be seized upon by a land of malignant spuit, and would 
 suddenly break forth into a rage and madness, and presently utter rash 
 and bold speeches, strange, unusual voices, with prophesyings ; inso- 
 much that he was judged by those that saw him to be acted by the 
 devil.' Others have been as in a more sober spiritual rapture ; an 
 instance whereof I shall give you from Mr Baxter in these words : 
 ' I have heard from an ancient godly man that knew Arthington and 
 Coppinger, that they were possessed with the spirit of the Grundle- 
 tonians. The same man affirmed that he went but once among them 
 
 ' Ferunt quendam nomine Montanum — spiritu quodam maligno abripi, et de repente 
 furore et mentis insania exagitatum bacchari ; atque mox non solum temere garrire, sed 
 peregi-inas quasdem voces fundere et prophetare — NonnuUi ilium tanquam insano 
 spiritu prseditum, dsemonio agitatum increpabant. Ita Christopher, interp. Euseb. Histor. 
 Eccles., lib. v. cap. 15. 
 
14G A TKEATISE OF [PaUtII. 
 
 liimself, and after prayer they breathed on him as giving him the 
 Holy Ghost ; and he was so strangely transjiorted for three days that 
 he was not the same man, and his family wondered what was the 
 matter with him : he had no confession of sin, hiit an elevated strain 
 in prayer, as if he had been in strange raptures ; and after three days 
 he was as before, and came no more at them.' i Some have been carried 
 into childish and ridiculous actions : such was the behaviour of Jo. Gil- 
 pin in his delusion at Kendal in Westmoreland ; as his going to the 
 fiddler's house, playing upon a bass viol in token of spiritual melody; 
 his creeping up the streets upon hands and knees in token of bearing 
 his cross ; his making marks on the ground, and beating it, as his 
 mortification of sin ; and a great many more things of like nature.' 
 
 Such things as these are as spiritual marks and characters engraven 
 upon errors, by which a diaboUcal power, moving and acting such 
 deluded creatures, like so many puppets, is evidently discovered. 
 
 [3]. Thirdly, When we see not only idiots, and those whose defect 
 of understanding might put tiicm under the power of an ordinary 
 cheat, thus imposed ujion, hut men olhcrivisc intcUigenf, rational, and 
 serious, blinded with follies, taken with apparent dotages, admiring 
 trifles, and carried away with things whicli common reason would 
 teach them to abhor, it is more than suspicious that it is not any pro- 
 bability of trutli or excellency in the error that ])rcvails with them, 
 l)ut a spiritual power that doth bewitch tiiem. Wlien we consider 
 tiiut sucii a learned man as Tertullian begins to admire such a wretch 
 as Monlanus; or such a one as Arlhmgton led away with Hacket 
 and Coppinger ; or such a man as Knejierdollin seduced by John of 
 Leyden; and especially such numbers of wise and seemingly sober 
 and religious persons, going down tlie stream after irrational and 
 plainly irreligious errors, — what else can be apprehended to be the 
 cause but a powerful satanical delusion ? 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Add we to these the consideration of the suddenness 
 of the prevalenci/ of such errors against plain and evident trut/is, 
 which is a circumstance taken notice of by the apostle : Gal. i. 6, ' I 
 marvel that yo are so soon removed from him that called you into the 
 grace of Christ unto another gospel.' In which case we may ob.servc 
 it usually falls out that men's affections prevent their discoveries ; at 
 the first view they are taken, before they understand what the error is, 
 and they are persuaded before they know. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly and lastly. That the earnestness of the prosecution by 
 which they maintain and propagate the error is a kind of unnatural 
 fiiry, ivhich hurries men with violence into an unyielding stiffness, to the 
 stifling of all land of charity aiid consideration. These things put toge- 
 ther, I say, makes the matter in hand evident ; when men otherwise 
 rational are at first touch highly enamoured with, and violent in the 
 pursuit of errors that are sottish or devilish, we can resolve it into 
 nothing less than into that of the apostle, ' Who hath bewitched you ? ' 
 The improvement of this first and great advantage for the introduc- 
 tion of errors is more than can be well expressed ; but he hath " 
 other advantages which he noway neglects : among which, 
 
 ' Baxter's ' Confession of Faith,' p. 3, in the margin, [1G55. 4to.— G.] 
 ° See hia storj' called the ' Quaker Shaken.' 
 
Chap. 2.] satan's temptations. 147 
 
 2. Secondly, Our imperfection in knowledge is none of the least. 
 If our knowledge had been perfect, it would have been a task too hard 
 for the devil to make us erroneous ; for men do not err but so far as 
 they are ignorant. To impose upon men against clear and certain 
 knowledge is impossible. Men cannot believe that to be true which 
 they know to be false. It would be as silly for Satan to make such 
 attempts as for a juggler to endeavour the deception of those that 
 know and see the ways of his conveyances as well as himself. That 
 our knowledge is imperfect, I shall prove and explain in the following 
 particulars: — 
 
 [1.] First, The Scripture plainly asserts it. The greatest number 
 of men which are in an unregenerate estate are expressly called foolish, 
 blind, ignorant — men that are in darkness, men that do not know nor 
 consider, that perish through ignorance. Others that, in comparison 
 to these, are called ' children of the light,' and such as ' see with open 
 face,' are notwithstanding, when compared to a state of perfection, 
 represented to be in the non-age of their knowledge, unripe, imper- 
 fect. The apostle doth so express it, 1 Cor. xiii. 9, ' We know in 
 part, we prophesy in part.' In the explanation of this, he compares 
 our attainments in this world to the understanding, thoughts, and 
 speakings of children, ver. 11 : concludes, ver. 12, that all our know- 
 ledge gives us but a dark, imperfect reflection of things : ' we see 
 through a glass darkly.' 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Men that have had the clearest heads, and have 
 been at the greatest pains in their inquiries to find out truths, have 
 brought back the clear conviction of their own ignorance. Austin 
 confesseth that in the Scriptures^which he made his chief study — the 
 things which he knew not were more than the things he imderstood.i 
 Chytrajus, in humble modesty, goes a little further : ' My dearest 
 knowledge,' saith he, ' is to know that I know nothing ; ' and it will 
 be a clear demonstration of that man's ignorance that boasts of his 
 knowledge ; his own mouth will prove against him that ' he knows 
 nothing as he ought to know,' [1 Cor. viii. 2.] 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, The consideration of the nature of the things tuhich are 
 the objects upon ivhich ive employ our search wiU sufficiently convince 
 us that we do comprehend but very little. For though the Scripture 
 hath expressed the main concerns of eternal life so fuUy that they are 
 as clear as Ught, and need no such stretch of the brain but that the 
 meanest capacities may as certainly understand them as they under- 
 stood anything of common business ; as, that Christ died for sinners ; 
 that without faith it is impossible to please God ; that without holi- 
 ness no man shall see his face, &c. Yet, as Peter speaks, 2 Pet. iii. 16, 
 ' There are many things that are hard to be understood,' SvavoijTci 
 Tcva. There are difficulties, depths, and mysteries. Some things, 
 whereof we have but dark touches in Scripture, though enough to let 
 us know that such things there are, and, to humble us for our igno- 
 rance, are in their own nature sublime, boimded on all sides with 
 rocks and precipices, where our near and bold approaches are pro- 
 hibited : such are those things that concern the decrees of God, the 
 Trinity, &c. Other things are dark and uncertain to us, from their 
 ' Plura nescio quam scio. — Epist. IIU, cap. 21. Melch. Adam in vita. 
 
148 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 very proximity to us — as some are pleased to fancy the reason. Such 
 are the nature, faculties, and workings of our own souls within us — 
 which we cannot directly see, as the eye sees not itself, and do but, 
 as it were, guess by dark reflections. Some things in Scripture are acci- 
 dentally obscure to us that were plain to those that heard them first, 
 to whom they were spoken and written ; for now to the understanding 
 of a great many passages there is necessary the knowledge of the 
 tongues in which they were dictated, of the histories of those times to 
 which they severally related ; as also of the particular customs of the 
 Jewish nation, which gave a mould and form to a great many Scrip- 
 ture assertions ; all which were easy and familiar to those that knew 
 the exact propriety of such languages, were acquainted throughly 
 with such histories, customs, usages, and manner of speakings ; and 
 besides all these, the application of general rules to particular cases — 
 where a little circumstance may make a great alteration — is full of 
 puzzle and intricacy ; insomuch tliat some have thought that there 
 are several cases of conscience that are not yet fully determined, and 
 that are like so to remain.^ 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Neither is the nahirc of hioivJcdge itself without an 
 argument to prove the insufficiency of our knowledge. To know is 
 properly to understand things by their causes, or at least by their 
 effects, and to make a right result of particulars from a general maxim. 
 Such a kind of knowledge is necessary in religion, for setting aside 
 some jiarticulars of mysterious height, about which God hath set 
 bounds, lest men in presumptuous boldness should adventure to ' break 
 through unto the Cord to gaze ; ' and some things which are the prin- 
 ciples of nature, or their next results, which are, upon that score, 
 beyond all need of inquiry — in all which it is enough to believe that 
 what the Scrijjlure saith is true, without asking a further account ; 
 yet in other things the Scripture gives us the grounds, reasons, and 
 proofs of what it declares or asserts, as may ajjpear by infinite examplcfs ; 
 BO that to know' Christ died, or that we are justified by faith, or that 
 Christ shall come to judgment, without a knowledge of the grounds 
 and reasons of these things, is indeed but gross ignorance. The like 
 may be said of the knowledge of general precepts, without the know- 
 ledge of their necessary application. 
 
 But how few are there that do thus know ! The greatest part of 
 men satisfy themselves with the bare affirmations of Scripture, and 
 they resolve all into this, that the word of God saith so, or that it 
 is the will of God it should be so, without further inquiry. 
 
 And as for others, though they may know the reasons of many 
 things, yet are there a vast number of iiarticulars whose reasons we 
 know not, though the Scripture may contain them ; and as for conse- 
 quences, and the application of general rules, their just Hmitation, and 
 the enumeration of the cases wherein thej' are true or false, it is that 
 that keeps the wits of men upon the rack perpetually. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, The unsuitahleness of our capacities to those objects of 
 hioicledge may be particularly considered as a further confirmation of 
 our ignorance. The incapacitj' of the vulgar is generally observed. 
 Some we find so grossly ignorant, that they are incapable to compre- 
 hend the easiest matters ; and this makes their persuasion to some 
 ' D'Espagiie, Popular Errors, sec. 2, cap. 12. [As before. — G.] 
 
Chap. 2.] satan's TEJirTATioNS. 149 
 
 plain truths so very difficult, that when they are, as it were, ' brayed 
 iu a mortar' by a multitude of unreasonable! arguments, yet their 
 ignorance ' departs not from them,' but they will stubbornly hold the 
 conclusion of their own fancy, whatever become of the premises. Those 
 that are of a higher form, and seem to imderstand a great many par- 
 ticulars in religion, are ordinarily unable to conjoin all truths into one 
 entire proportionable body: they heap up several notions that they 
 hear here and there, but know not their consistencies ; insomuch that 
 they either are like children, who know all the letters of the alphabet, 
 without the skill to frame words or sentences out of them, being unable 
 to give an account how their notions are related one to another, or to 
 the whole ; or if they attempt such a tiling, they hang inconsistent 
 things on the same thread, and do but humano capiti cervicem jimgere 
 equinam. If these instances, and a great many more of like kind, were 
 not at hand, yet the very condescensions of our great prophet the Lord 
 Jesus, and of his disciples in their ways of teaching, do evince that the 
 capacities of men are low — that they are ' dull of hearing, children in 
 understanding.' The course they took was to in.struct them in a 
 plain, familiar way, by parables and examples. Thus were they ' fed as 
 babes in Christ,' according to the apostle's similitude, witli ' milk, and 
 not with strong meat, because they were not able to bear it,' 1 Cor. iii. 
 1. And yet Christ sometimes complained that this would not do. For 
 so he speaks, John iii. 12, ' If I have told you earthly things,' that 
 is, divine truth in earthly and common similitudes, ' and ye believe 
 not,' i.e., cannot apprehend them, ' how shall ye believe if I tell you of 
 heavenly things ? ' How unable, then, would you be to understand these 
 truths if I should speak in language and expression properly suited 
 to their natures ? A great check to our slowness of apprehension. 
 
 But possibly some may expect higher matters from those that are 
 exalted above the common rank of men by the repute they have of 
 learning. And indeed it cannot be denied but such have very great 
 advantages for the widening of their capacities ; yet are they not such 
 as wholly take away the distemper, but still so much incapacity may 
 be seen in them as will sufficiently justifj' the charge of imperfection 
 in knowledge against the most learned. Let us bring in some in- 
 stances, and it will be evident : 
 
 (1.) The greatest errors that have most disturbed the church in all 
 ages have had their rise from learned men. The names of their 
 authors are marked upon their foreheads. These known errors are so 
 many, that they fill whole volumes. The result of which consideration 
 will be this, that learned men have often been very dangerously mis- 
 taken. 
 
 (2.) The present contentions and disputes o/7?ie?i, managed on all 
 hands with so much earnestness, wherein one party triumphs over 
 another, and all, in their own apprehensions, are victorious. Instead 
 of conquests by arguments and answers, each party is but more 
 confirmed in its own apprehensions ; and yet the one-half is certainly 
 wrong, and perhaps in many things both parties are mistaken. This, 
 I say, sufficiently shows the incapacities of the learned ; for if every 
 capacity were truly correspondent to truth, there would be no moie 
 disputes nor differences. 
 
 ' Query, 'unanswerable'? — Ed. 
 
150 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 (3.) The most learned fnd the business of their oion persitasion and 
 satisfaction in many truths, in lohich common people have no scruple 
 nor doubt, verij dijicult; because they see more objections to be an- 
 swered, and more of the weakness of arguments than others do ; but 
 this shews their capacities are not so Large as some would think. 
 
 (4.) Let us once for all consider that ichich seems to be the 
 highest evidence for knowledge and understanding in the learned, 
 and we shall fnd, ujMn Just examination, it is no more than 
 an argument of their ignorance. What is there wherein they seem 
 more acute and eagle-eyed than in their distinctions, by which they 
 would give us the most minute differences of things, and appear so 
 exact as if they would divide an atom, and give everything its just 
 weight and measure? But let us consider that, though all distinctions 
 are°iot unprofitable, their multitude is become oppressive and trouble- 
 some, and more time must be spent in learning terms and words of 
 art than things ; and their nicety and subtlety so great, that they 
 rather darken truth, and give occasion to bold spirits to undertake the 
 defence of any i^aradox. Nay, if w^e could sever these clearly from 
 their abuses, yet, seeing it is certain there are more distinctions of 
 terms than things, they will evince that our knowledge is more verbal 
 tlian real, and that often for a mountain of words we have but a mole- 
 liill of substantial matter. Nay, seeing we make but a sorry shift at 
 best by these artifices to come to some rude conceptions of tilings, 
 which otherwise we cannot in any tolerable manner comprehend, it is 
 as gi-cat a proof of our imperfection in knowledge, as the necessary use 
 of staves and crutches is an evidence of lameness. If I should i^ass 
 from this to the consideration of the midtitude beyond all number of 
 books that are written, we shall find them but so many proclamations 
 of our ignorance ; for if we could believe them all to contain so many 
 wholesome precepts of necessary truth, which yet we cannot rationally 
 imagine, this would imply that the greatest part wanted these infor- 
 mations ; and that common ignorance is not only a general distemper, 
 but also a distemper hard to be cured, that stands in need of such 
 multitudes of instructors and such varieties of helps. But if we be- 
 lieve that among this infinite number of volumes there are thousands 
 of lies, millions of unproved conjectures, millions of millions of idle, 
 unprofitable fancies, then do we in express terms pronounce them 
 guilty of ignorance, and of ignorance so much the more dangerous, by 
 how much the more bold it is to avouch itself in the light, and to 
 obtrude itself upon the belief of others, who, instead of being better 
 informed by it, shall but increase their own bhndness. Were there 
 nothing to be said but this, that there are such a vast multitude of 
 commentators upon the Bible, which do all pretend to expound and 
 explain it, it would of necessity admit of these conclusions:— [1.] That 
 the Bible hath in it things so dark, or at least our capacities are so 
 dull, that there is need of great endeavours to explain tlie one, or 
 assist the other. [2.] That the knowledge of men is imperfect ; for if 
 all or most men could certainly interpret the Scripture, there needed 
 not so many volumes, but that one or two might have signified as 
 much as now whole libraries can do. 
 
 The imperfection of our knowledge being thus laid open, it is easy 
 
Chap. 2.] satan's temptations. 151 
 
 to see what advantages the devil may make out of it for the promoting 
 of error ; for it must now become our wonder, not that any man errs, 
 but that all do not. We find it easy to impose anything upon chil- 
 dren ; it is an easy matter for a trifle to cheat them out of all they 
 have. Surely then Satan may do as much by men, who are but 
 'children in understanding.' The apostle, Eph. iv. 14, puts us in 
 mind of this hazard under that very similitude, ' that we henceforth 
 be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every 
 wind of doctrine.' How fitly doth he resemble us to children ! Their 
 weaknesses are, [1.] Want of discerning; they see not the true worth 
 of things. [2.] Credulity ; they believe all fair speeches and specious 
 promises : and the hazard of both these is in this, that it makes them 
 unconstant, uncertain, and fickle ; and such are we made by our igno- 
 rance, so little do we truly discern, so apt are we to believe every pre- 
 tence, for the simple believes every word, Prov. xiv. 15 ; that, as the 
 apostle's metaphors do tell us, we are easily tossed from one conceit or 
 opinion to another, as a ship is by the waves, or a feather in the wind. 
 K\vBov(,^6iJ,evoi KoX TrepKpepo/Jievoi. 
 
 3. Thirdly, A third advantage which the devil takes against us in 
 his design of error, is the bias of the mind. Were our understandings 
 purely free, in a just and even balance toward all things propounded 
 to its deliberation and assent, though it were imperfect in its light, the 
 danger were the less ; but now, in regard of the bent and sway it is 
 under, it is commonly partial, and inclined to one side more than to 
 another, and yet the matter were the less, if only one or two noted 
 things had the power of setting up a false light before the mind ; but 
 there are many things that are apt to do us this mischief, which have 
 the same effect upon us that bribes have upon persons interested in 
 judgment, which not only tempts them to do wrong, but so blinds their 
 eyes that they know not they do so, or at least not in so great a mea- 
 sure. The mind is biassed, 
 
 (1.) First, Naturally to error- rather than truths. The corruption 
 of our nature is general, and doth not only dispose the will and affec- 
 tions to practical iniquities, but doth also incline the understanding to 
 error and misapprehension. And that seems to be the ground of 
 Christ's assertion against the Jews : John v. 43, ' I am come in my 
 Father's name, and ye receive me not : if another shall come in his 
 own name, him ye wdl receive.' Wliich implies that men are na- 
 turally more prone to believe an impostor, than one that speaks the 
 most certain and profitable verities ; and besides this general in- 
 clination to vanities and lies, there are, if some think right, some errors 
 that are formally engraven in the nature of fallen man — as that opinion 
 to be saved by works. ^ For not only do all men that have any appre- 
 hensions of a future eternal state resolve that question of obtaining 
 salvation into works as the proper cause, — and indeed no other could 
 have been imagined, if the Scripture had not revealed the redemption 
 by the blood of Jesus — but the Jews in John vi, 28, when they pro- 
 pound that question, ' What shall we do, that we might work the 
 works of God ?' take it for granted, that works of some kind or other 
 are the causes of happiness. Possibly some impression of that notion, 
 1 D'Espagae, Popular Errors, sec. 2, chap. 4. [As before. — G] 
 
152 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 wliile it was a truth, as in the state of innocency it was, may yet re- 
 main upon our natures, though hy the fall the case is altered with us. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, The mind is biassed hy bodily temper and complex- 
 ional inclination. The varieties of complexions introduce varieties 
 of humours and dispositions ; and the understanding being necessi- 
 tated to look through these, as so many coloured glasses, is apt to 
 judge, that is, to misjudge, accordmg to the misrepresentation of 
 objects. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Sometimes habitual acquirements have the same in- 
 fluence upon the understanding that natural humorirs have. The arts 
 and sciences we study, our ways of education and employment, are but 
 so many prejudicate prepossessions that do secretly taint the mind. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, There are also accidental incUmdions, which, though 
 not customary, have the force of a second nature, because their work- 
 ing is violent and impetuous, and these, which ai-e from a wounded 
 conscience or excesses of melancholy, have a bias more than ordinary ; 
 they lay violent hands upon the understanding, and with a mighty 
 torrent run it down. So that if an error be offered that is suitable to 
 such fears or misapprehensions, it can scarce miss of success. The 
 extraordinary turbulences of some other passions, as anger, love, &c., 
 have the like effect. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, Vicious habits do so much bias the mind, that the 
 understanding must needs be defiled by them. Nothing can more 
 jircpare the mind to a wicked error than a wicked life. An error of 
 indulgence being so grateful to corru])tion may readily find favour 
 with the understandings of those that know not to do good, because 
 they have accustomed themselves to do evil. 
 
 (6.) Sixthly, There are external things that have no less power on 
 the understanding than any of the foregoing ; and these are custom, 
 education, and interest. These stick so close, and woi'k so subtly, 
 that though there are few that are not, in disputable cases, influenced 
 by them, yet none are able or willing to take notice how and by what 
 steps they do engage them to pass sentence against truth. And in- 
 deed that man must have a singular measure of suspicious watchful- 
 ness and clear integrity that is not deceived by them. And the best 
 way to keep clear of the mischief that these may do us, is to be severe 
 in our suspicions on that side to which custom and interest have their 
 tendencies. 
 
 (7.) Seventhly, I might note that there is something considerable 
 to this purpose in the naticre of spirits. Some spirits are unfixed and 
 volatile, and these are soon altered by their own unsteadiness. Others 
 are tenacious and unflexible ; and if such be first set wrong, it is not 
 an easy thing that will reduce them to truth. Others are soft and 
 ductile, persuaded by good words as soon as strong arguments. And 
 again, some are of such a rough, sour, contradictious temper, that they 
 will sooner choose to run wrong than comply with the persuasions of 
 those that ofier truth, even for that reason, because they are persuaded 
 to it ; so that the truth which, if none had minded them, they of them- 
 selves would have embraced, they will now refuse when it is pressed 
 upon them, out of a cross and thwarting humour, because they hate 
 nothing more than to do as they are bidden. 
 
Chap. 2.] satan's temptations. 153 
 
 To come a little nearer, let us consider how these things shew their 
 power upon the mind to sway and incline it. It is indeed true, that 
 in things that are clearly and strongly propounded to the understand- 
 ing, it cannot but judge according to the evidence of truth, and cannot 
 be guided by the wUl to judge contrary ; nay, the will — though in 
 things purely speculative it may retain its averseness, as also in things 
 practical, while they are considered only as what may be done before 
 the understanding hath come up to its tinal resolve, determining that 
 such things must or ought to be done — cannot but follow the light and 
 information of the understanding, and that according to the proportion 
 of its conviction ; so that though in some cases a man would have 
 things otherwise than he believes them to be, yet he cannot believe 
 what he will, neither can he refuse to will what is certainly represented 
 to be good and necessary. Tantum quisque vult, quantum intelligit 
 se vellc debere. Notwithstanding all this, the forementioned parti- 
 culars may so bias the mind that it shall not act truly and steadily, as 
 we may see in these three particulars : 
 
 [1.] First, In things clearly demonstrated to the understanding, 
 though the will cannot directly oppose, nor prevail to have them judged 
 false, yet it can indirectly hinder the procedure of the understanding, 
 and divert it from fixing its consideration upon the truth, or from 
 working itself into positive determinations for bringing it into practice. 
 Intellecius sequitur voluntaiem quoad exercitium, non quoad specifi- 
 cationem. Thus many that cannot but believe there is a God, and 
 that his law is true, being biassed by their lusts, the power of pleasures 
 or interest, &c., do prevail upon their understandings to take up other 
 objects of consideration ; so that they are said to forget God, and to 
 cast his commandments behind their backs, as also not to remember 
 their latter end, though they cannot but believe that they shall die. 
 Truth may be imprisoned and fettered, where it cannot be slain. We 
 read of ' holding the truth in unrighteousness,' Rona. i. 18, which was 
 this, that those heathens of whom the apostle speaks, by reason of their 
 vicious inclinations and practices, though they could not obliterate 
 those notices of equity and religion that were imprinted on their minds, 
 yet they kept them at under, as captives in a dungeon, and suffered 
 them not to rise up in a just practical improvement. Now the wrong 
 that is done to truth this way is not only by rendering it unfruitful 
 and useless at present, but hereby the devil hath his advantage in the 
 gaining of time to gather together more forces against that truth, and 
 by frequent onsets of contrary arguings, especially upon the advantage 
 of the mind's indifferency and remissness, begot by long and often 
 diversions, to set another face upon it, and by degrees to overturn 
 former persuasions. This was the very case of the heathens in the 
 })lace last cited, who, being iii'st swayed by their impieties, became 
 unwilling to give way to those dictates of light and justice which they 
 had ; and having thus gratified their lusts, the devil further prevailing 
 with them to find evasions from the power of those truths, they began 
 to make unsuitable inferences from these premises, which they could 
 not deny, and so became sottish and vain in their reasonings, ' changing 
 the glory of the uncorruptible God, into an image made like unto cor- 
 ruptible man.' And by such practices against truth, they at last 
 
154 ' A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 changed the truth into a lie, ver. 25, and at long-run obliterated the 
 knowledge of God out of their minds. This is Satan's old method of 
 overturning truth at last, by divertmg the mind from receiving the 
 present powerful impressions of those principles. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, But in things doubtful, where there is not a clear 
 certainty what is truth, but contrary opinions strive with such equal 
 confidence, that it is difficult to determine which hath the conquest, 
 there the mind may be so swayed by its bias that it may give appro- 
 bation to error; nay, ivliere, upon a fair and indifferent trial, truth 
 hath the greater appearance of strength, and error nothing else than 
 little shadows or appearances of reason to shelter itself under ; yet 
 that way may the mind be inclined by the aforesaid tilings. We have 
 a more easy and facile belief for what we would have than for what 
 we would not. Though there is nothing more noted by common 
 experience than this, that men are usually drawn aside by humours, 
 inclinations, interests, and education, <fec., to judge well of that which 
 an unprejudiced person would easily sec to be weak, unjust, ridiculous, 
 or unreasonable ; yet how these considerations and tempers do exert 
 their force upon the understanding to draw it into a compliance, or by 
 what secret art they can heighten probabilities, and lessen objections ; 
 or by what insensible progress they move, that men thus carried do 
 not perceive that they are under such a force, is not so very dis- 
 cernible. How often may we observe men, that are rational enough 
 to discover the pitiful shifts and poor allegations of others, with such 
 gravity and confidence, where their own interests are concerned, to 
 offer such low reasonings and extravagant impertinences, that all that 
 hear them are ready to laugh at their folly ; and yet they themselves 
 entertain no less than persuasions of the invincibleness of their argu- 
 ings. They so eagerly desiie what they would establish, that they 
 think anything is enough to justify it, and arc apt to imagine that 
 their shifts and excuses appear as strong to others as to themselves. 1 
 have known some that, by the sway of interest, have changed their 
 opinions in religious matters, and have really become otherwise per- 
 suaded than they had been formerly, and not as some who, for advan- 
 tage, will knowingly take up what they cannot believe to be true, and 
 have not been able to say that they have met with new arguments or 
 new answers to objections, but I know not how arguments, which they 
 had contemned, and laid by for weak, began to look big upon them. 
 The arguments by which their former jiersuasion was ui)licld grew 
 insensibly feeble in their hands ; the one revived, gathered strength, 
 after they had a little cherished them, by thinking there might be 
 something in them, though before they knew all tlie particulars, and 
 could not instance in anything which they had not formerly notified 
 and answered ; and the other sort of arguments grew weaker and 
 weaker, till at last they parted with all good conceit of them ; so that 
 such a change was but as the turning of the tables. That which 
 acted behind the curtain, and wrought this change of the fancy, could 
 be no other than some of the forementioned things that biassed their 
 mind ; for where the arguments, j^ro and con, were the same, the 
 alteration of opinion, w-here men are not so wicked as to go directly 
 against their own light, must of necessity be imputed to the different 
 
Chap. 2.] satax's temptations. 155 
 
 positions of external things, and the different humours and inclinations 
 begot by them, even as the different stations of men in the prospect 
 of some pictures represent them variously ; one way they give the 
 shape of a beautiful face, another way they express the ugly deformity 
 of a devil ; or as different reflections of the sunbeams upon the same 
 object clothe it with several colours. The Scriptm-e doth also give 
 us notice of this advantage which the devil takes from the inclinations 
 of men to lead them into mistakes. Tliat of Micah ii. 11, ' If a man, 
 walking in the spirit of falsehood, do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto 
 thee of wine and of strong drink ; he shall even be the prophet of this 
 people,' hath this for its foundation, that, let the error be never so 
 gross and jjalpable, as if a man should prophesy a liberty for drunken- 
 ness, if it be suitable to the sway of peoijle's humours, it will readily 
 enough be embraced, ' he shall be a prophet to this people," that is, 
 such a prophet will easily prevail with such a people ; their vicious 
 inclinations fit them for any impression of a suitable error. The 
 apostle Paul also found this too true in the heresies of his own times ; 
 for he tells us that seducers had learned that cunning from the devil 
 to draw men to error by the sway of their lusts : 2 Tim. iii. G, ' They 
 creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, and 
 led away with divers lusts ;' as also 2 Tim. iv. 6, he prophesies of the 
 future use of this stratagem, ' After their own lusts shall they heap to 
 themselves teachers.' So that the usual prevalency of error was and 
 is from the underground working of lusts, humours, habits, and 
 inclinations, which make men willing to entertain an opinion, which 
 can but gratify them with a suitableness or fitness. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Where the forementioned particulars of inclination, 
 natural or acquired humours, custom, education, &c., do neither 
 divert the understanding, nor engage it to close with error ; yet often 
 do they discover how powerfully they can bias the mind, in that these 
 prevail with men fo modify and mould a truth according to the bent or 
 form of their inclincdions ; as a bowl which is skilfully aimed at a 
 mark, goes nevertheless by a compass which its bias forceth it unto, 
 according to the risings or fallings of the ground it meets with in the 
 way. Men may arrive at real truth in the main, and yet may shape 
 it accorcUng to their humours. For instance, let us consider the 
 different modes or forms in which the same truth is represented under 
 the workings of different tempers. A melancholy person conceives of 
 all things under such reflections as fear and sadness do usually give. 
 If he consider God, he looks uj^on him in the notion of greatest severity 
 and justice ; if upon the ways of duty, he colours them all in black, 
 and can scarce account anything piety which is not accompanied with 
 sadness and mourning ; if he calls his soul to a reckoning, his con- 
 clusions concerning himself are sad, doleful, or at best suspicious. On 
 the contrary, a hilarious, cheerful temper censures all sachiess for 
 sullenness, and is apt to accuse those that go mourning in their way 
 for unthankful murmurers and unbelieving complainers ; it interprets 
 God's favourable condescensions to the weak in the greatest latitude, 
 and is easily persuaded to those things that are upon the utmost brink 
 of liberty, to which others of a more timorous disposition dare not 
 approach for fear of offending. This puts a higher excellency upon 
 
156 A TUEATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 the duties of praise, as the other upon fasting and mourning. Those 
 men that are morose and severe, they are apt to think that God 
 ' is such an one as themselves ; ' and though they acknowledge there 
 is such a grace as charity, yet under a pretence of strictness they 
 cannot helieve they are bound to exercise it towards any that are 
 under any failing of which they judge themselves to be free; and 
 therefore such men are usually very tlifficult in all cases wherein con- 
 descension is to be used ; they are hard to be reconciled,^ and after the 
 miscarriage of any person, are not easily satisfied of their repentance ; 
 and in cases of dissent from their way and practice of religion, they 
 are commonly censorious, and conclude the worst. They again that 
 are naturally mild and gentle, under a pretence of charity and meek- 
 ness, are apt to become remiss in their carriages towards any brother ; 
 and because ' charity thinks not evil,' they model their acknowledged 
 duty into the form of their own disposition, and so think they must 
 ' see, and yet not ))crceive ;' and instead of covering the ' infirmities' 
 of a brother, they have a mantle to cast over every transgression. _ At 
 the same rate also do they frame their conceptions of God, as if he 
 was so merciful tliat he would scarce reckon any abomination tobe 
 above the height of an ordinary infirmity. These arc apt to think 
 that the mercies of God, so much praised in Scripture, signify little 
 less than an ind>dgcnce in transgression far above what precisians are 
 apt to imagine ; and that it is as easy to obtain foi-givencss from God 
 for any oftencc, as it is to say, ' Tlie Lord be niercitul to me a sinner.' 
 Those that accustom themselves to the delights of the senses are 
 apt to bend the way of their religion to that humour ; and think that 
 nothing can be solemn in worship that is not set out with garni.shings 
 that may please the eye or ear. Nay, it is ob.servable enough that 
 religion borrows some taint or shape from the various studies and 
 sciences of men ; in some, as in many of the fathers, we may see 
 religion dipped in Platonism or Peripateticism. Some introduce the 
 distinctions and definitions of philosophy, others compel all scriptures 
 to submit to the laws of strict logical analysis. Thus, according to 
 the various mediums that men look through, are truths discoloured 
 and dressed up in several shapes. It is easy from these instances 
 to imagine that Satan must have a great advantage against us, in 
 point of error, from the bias of the mind. 
 
 4. Fom-thly, Adventurous curiosity is another general advantage 
 by which he works. This ariseth partly from a desire of knowledge, 
 and partly from pride ; and botli these make way for his design. 
 
 A desire after knowledge is natural, and withal very bewitching. 
 Divinum est scire quam-i^lurima, To know hath something in it more 
 than ordinary. This is noted in Job xi. 12, ' Vain man would be 
 wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt.' Though he be 
 foohsh, yet he affects wisdom, and the very delight of knowing doth 
 engage men to curious prying searches, though with much labour and 
 hazard. Of tliis temper were the Athenians: Acts xvii. 21, 'They 
 spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new 
 thing;' not barely in telling news, but in inquiries after new notions 
 and discoveries, and this made them willing to hear Paul, as ' a setter 
 forth of strange gods, and a new doctrine.' 
 
Chap. 2.] satan's temptations. 157 
 
 When this deshe after knowledge is animated with pride, as oft 
 it is, for ' knowledge puffeth up,' then it is more dangerous. When 
 men are upon a design to seem higher than others, to be singular, to 
 see more than what all men see, to be admired, to out-talk their 
 neighbours, what adventures will they not make ! How fair do they 
 lie open to any conceit that may serve this end ! 
 
 That Satan labours to improve this curiosity is without doubt ; he 
 carefully affords fuel to this biuning, and diligently blows it up into a 
 flame. The first temptation had that ingredient in it, ' Ye shall be as 
 gods, knowing good and evil,' [Gen. iii. 5.] And we see it was a great 
 enticement to Eve : that which would make ' one wise' was therefore 
 desirable. The blame of Israel's first idolatry seems to be laid at this 
 door : Deut. xxxii. 17, ' They sacrificed to gods whom they knew not,' 
 to new gods that came newly up ; implying that they were drawn 
 aside from their old established way of worship by a curiosity to try 
 the new ways of the heathens. And so great a hand hath this gene- 
 rally in errors, that Paul, 2 Tim. iv. 3, makes this itch after novelty 
 the great ground of that defection from truth which_ he foresaw was 
 coming, ' They shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears,' 
 Primhts aurium est scabies ecclesiarum. This itch of the ear is the 
 usual forerunner of a scab in the church, because it doth dispose men 
 to receive any kind of teacher. God indeed doth sometimes take the 
 advantage of our natural curiosity for our good. By this means many 
 of John's hearers, who went out into the wilderness to him, as to a 
 ' strange sight,' as those words imply, ' What went ye out into the 
 wilderness to see ?' [Mat. si. 7,] were converted. By this means, 
 the gospel afterwards made a large progress, as we see commonly new 
 teachers affect most at first ; for when men grow acquainted with their 
 gifts, their admiration decays, and the success of their labours is not 
 so great many times. The devil also observing the prevalency of 
 curiosity, and that men are more pleased with new notions than with 
 old truths, he endeavours also to plough with this heifer, and oft 
 makes a great harvest by it. There is yet another advantage more 
 that he sometimes useth, and that is, 
 
 5. FiftUy, Atheistical clelauchery. When men by long custom in 
 sinning have arrived to habitual carelessness and presumption, then 
 they become practical atheists. Their vicious habits work upon their 
 understandings to obliterate all principles. Wlien men are gone so 
 far, they are fit engineers for Satan ; for while they disbelieve all 
 things, they can, to serve a design or to head a party, take up any 
 opinion, and pretend the greatest seriousness in the propagating it, 
 though in the meantime they secretly laugh at the credulity of the 
 ATilgar. 
 
 These men let out themselves and all their parts to the devil, and 
 he knows how to make use of them, to bring on the delusion and 
 deception of others. Many ages have given examples of such. Those 
 seducers mentioned in the New Testament were, some of them, of this 
 rank, and therefore called ' deceitful workers,' [2 Cor. xi. 13.] Such 
 as were not really under those persuasions which they thought to fix 
 upon others, but upon design, transformed themselves into the apostles 
 of Christ ; such as served not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own 
 
158 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 bellies, and yet by good words and fair speeches deceived the hearts of 
 the simple : Rom. xvi. 18, ' Who, through covetousness, with feigned 
 words, made merchandize of men,' 2 Pet. ii. 3. Balaam was such, 
 and the woman Jezebel, that called herself a prophetess, Eev. ii. 20. 
 Such was the Archbishop of Spalato.^ who for advantage could at 
 pleasure take up and lay down his reHgion. Such a one was the 
 false Jew, not so long since discovered in this place, who being a 
 Komish emissary, j^retended to be a Jew converted ; and seeking a 
 pure church, under tliat vizor, designing to overthrow, by private 
 insinuations, the faith of the simple, uncautious admirers 1 2 By such 
 instruments Satan works where he hath opportunity. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 0/ Satan 8 improving these advantages for error : 1. By deluding the 
 understanding directly: which he doth — (1.) By counte7iancing 
 oror from Scripture. Of his cunning therein. (2.) By specious 
 pretences of mysteries; and tvhat these are. Of personal flatteries. 
 (3.) By affected expressions. Reason of their prevalency. (4.) 
 By bold assertions. The reasons of that policy. (5.) By the excel- 
 lency of the licrsons appearing for it, either for gifts or holiness. 
 His metlwd of managing tJuit design. (G.) By 2}rcfe}ided i7ispira- 
 tion. (7.) By p)ret€nded miracles. II is cunning herein. (8.) By 
 peace and prosperity in tvays of error. (9.) By lies against truth, 
 and the p-ofessors of it. 
 
 What are the general advantages wliich Satan hath to forward liis 
 design of error we have seen. It now remains that we take an account 
 of the various ways by wliich he improves those advantages, and those 
 may be referred to two heads : (1.) They are such stratagems as 
 more directly work upon the understanding to delude and bhnd it. 
 Or, (2.) They are such as indirectly by the power of the will and 
 affections do influence it. 
 
 1. First, Those stratagems that more immediately concern the un- 
 derstanding are the use of such arguments, which carry in them a pro- 
 bability to confirm an error, though indeed they are but fallacies, 
 sophisms, or paralogisms, of which the apostle speaks, Col. ii. 4, ' Lest 
 any beguile you,' — that is, lest they impose upon you by ' false reason- 
 ings.' His usual way of proceeding in this case is : 
 
 (1.) First, Wiien he hath to do with men that are brought up with 
 profession and belief of Scripture, he is then careful to give an error 
 some countenajice or pretence from Scripture. It is not his course to 
 decry the Scriptures with such men, but to suppose their truth and 
 authority, as the most plausible way to his design ; for by this means 
 he doth not only prevent a great many startling objections which 
 would otherwise rise up against him — seeing men brought up with 
 Scripture cannot easily be brought to call them false — but with consi- 
 
 • M. Anthony de Dominis, who became Dean of Windsor. Died 1624. — G. 
 - See the narration called ' The False Jew.' 
 
Chav. 3.] Satan's temptations. 159 
 
 derable advantage lie doth thereby authorise and justify his error, for 
 nothing can give more boldness or confidence to a mistake than a belief 
 that it is backed with Scripture. 
 
 That this is one of his grand stratagems may be sufficiently evinced 
 from the infinite number of errors that pretend to Scripture warrant. 
 Those that are above or beyond Scripture, which acknowledge no 
 dependence upon it, are but few and rare, and indeed among Chris- 
 tians error cannot well thrive without a pretence of Scripture. Men 
 would have enough to do to persuade themselves to such errors, but it 
 would be impossible to make a party or i:)ersuade others. Such errors 
 would presently be hissed out of the world. Upon this account is it 
 that atheism skidks and conceals itself, except where generally tole- 
 rated profaneness gives it more than ordinary encouragement, which 
 is not to be ascribed to any shame-faced modesty that atheisms can be 
 supposed to nourish, but to the general dislike of others, who so stick 
 to the authority of the Bible that they reject aU direct contradictions 
 to it with great abhorrency. Hence also it is that some erroneous 
 persons are forced to contradictions in their practice against their pro- 
 fessed principles, because they find it impossible to propagate their 
 errors without some pretence or other to Scripture. They that would 
 undermine those sacred records are forced to make use of their autho- 
 rity for proof of what they would say. The papists have a quarrel at 
 them, and envy them the title of perfection and perspicuity, upon 
 design to introduce traditions, and to set up the pope's judicial autho- 
 rity in matters of faith ; and when they have said all they can to sub- 
 ject the Scriptures to the pope's determination, they are forced at last 
 to be beholden to the Scriptures to prove the pope's determination. 
 They would prove the Scriptures by the church, and then the church 
 by the Scriptures, which is a circle they have been often told of, and 
 of which some of the wiser sort among themselves are ashamed. 
 Others also that will not allow the Scriptures to be a general standing 
 rule are yet forced to make it, in some cases, a ride to themselves, and 
 eagerly plead it to be so to others. They that pretend to be above 
 ordinances, and decry outward teachings as unnecessary or hurtful, 
 yet they teach outwardly, because they see they are not able to enlarge 
 the empire of error without such teaching. Those very errors that 
 make it their chief business to render the Scriptures no better than an 
 old almanack, they yet seek to Scripture to countenance their blas- 
 phemous assertions ; and if they get any scrap or shred of it that may 
 by their unjust torture be wrested to speak any such thing, or any- 
 thing toward it, they think all their follies are thereby patronised, 2 
 Pet. iii. 16 ; and commonly such men either fix upon such places as 
 give wai'uing of the necessary concomitances of the spirit and heart 
 with the outward act of service ; and from hence, separating what God 
 hath joined together, they set up spiritual sabbaths, spu-itual baptism, 
 spiritual worship, to cry down and cashier the external acts of such 
 ordinances, or they pretend kindred to Scripture, as prophesying or 
 foretelling those new administrations wliich they are about to set up. 
 Let H. Nicholas be an instance of tliis, who, though he decried the 
 service of the law under God the Father, and the service of the belief 
 under Christ, and in the room of both these would set up another 
 
160 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 administration under the Spirit ; yet, that he might be the better be- 
 lieved, he applied several scriptures to his purpose, as prophetically 
 foretelling H. Nicholas and his services, and woidd have men imagine 
 that he was that ' angel flying in the midst of heaven with the ever- 
 lasting gospel,' Kev. "xiv. 6 ; and that prophet inquired after by the 
 Jews : John i. 21, ' Art thou that prophet ?' and that ' man ordained 
 to judge the world,' Acts xvii. 31 ; and that the times of his dispen- 
 sation were the times of perfection and glory spoken of in 1 Cor. xiii. 
 9, and Heb. vi. 1. The like pretences for new administrations had 
 Saltmarsh and several others. 
 
 Satan, fixing his foot upon this design, and taking advantage of 
 men's ignorance, curiosity, and pride, &c. , it is impossible to tell what 
 he may do. He hath introduced many heresies already, and none 
 knows what may be behind. Many passages of Scripture are dark to 
 the wisest of men, a great many more are so to the common sort of 
 Christians. A great many \vits arc employed by him as adventurers for 
 new discoveries, and a small pretence is ground enough for a bold uii- 
 dertaker to erect a new notion upon ; and a new notion in religion is 
 like a new fashion in apparel, which bewitcheth the unsteady with an 
 itch to be in it before they well understand what it is ; so that it is 
 alike impossible to stint the just number of errors, as to adjust the 
 various pretences from Scripture upon which they may be coun- 
 tenanced. Leaving, therefore, this task to those that can undertake 
 it, I shall only note a particular or two of Satan's cunning in affixing 
 an error upon Scripture. 
 
 [1.] First, In any grand design of error, he endeavours io lay the 
 foundation of it as near to truth as he can; but yet so that, in the ten- 
 dency of it, it may go as far from it as may be, as some rivers, whose 
 first fountains are contiguous, have notwithstanding a direct contrary 
 course in their streams. For instance, in those errors that tend to 
 overthrow the doctrine of the gospel concerning Christ and ordinances — 
 and these are things which the devil hath a great spite at — he begins 
 his work with plausible pretences of love and admiration of Clu-ist and 
 grace ; he proceeds from thence to the pretence of purer enjoyments ; 
 from thence to a dislike of such preachers and preaching as threaten 
 sin and speak out the wrath of God against iniquity, and these 
 are presently called legal preachers, and the doctrine of duty a legal 
 covenant. Having them once at this point, they easily come to imme- 
 diate assistances and special gifts, which they pretend to have above 
 others. Being thus set up, they are for free grace and the enjoyment 
 of God in spirit. From thence they come to Christian liberty, and by 
 degrees duties are unnecessary. There is no Christ but within them ; 
 and bemg freed from the law, whatever they do is no transgression. 
 This is a path that Satan hath trodden of old, though now and then 
 he may vary in some circumstances, and be forced to stop before he 
 come to the utmost of his journey. You may observe this method in 
 the late errors of New Englan.l,i in the FamiUsts of Germany, and in 
 those of Old England ; in all which at the long-run men are led as far 
 from Scripture as darkness is from light. Now this is not only to be 
 seen in a progressive midtiplication of errors, but often may we perceive 
 ' See the book called ' Wonder-working Providence for New England.' 
 
3.] Satan's temptations. 
 
 161 
 
 the same subtlety of Satan in a simple error, as when he takes up 
 part of a truth which should stand in conjunction with another, and 
 sets it up alone against its own companion, where we shall liave the 
 name and pretence kept up, but the thing quite destroyed. God re- 
 quires services of men, and prescribes to their use prayer, hearing, 
 sacraments ; but because in these God is dishonoured when men only 
 draw near with their lips, he further tell us, ' that he is not a Jew 
 which is one outwardly, neither is that chcumcision which is of the 
 flesh,' &c., [Kom. ii. 28.] This part are some men so fixed upon, that 
 thev think they are discharged of the other, and in practice go quite 
 from these duties ; and yet still they profess they are for ordinances 
 and the worship of God. Just so are some men for Clu-ist, but then 
 it is but the name, not the thing ; they own Christ, they say, but then 
 it is Christ in them, and Christ come in their flesh, but not that Christ 
 that died at Jerusalem as a sacrifice for the sins of men. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Satan takes great care that an error be, in all the 
 ways of its propagation, clothed ivith Scripture phrases; and the less 
 the error can pretend to any plausible ground of Scripture, the more 
 doth he endeavour to adorn it with Scripture language: I understand 
 this chiefly of such errors as are designed for the multitude : so that 
 though Scripture be not used to prove the error, yet are deceivers 
 taught to express their conceptions by it, and to accommodate the 
 words and sentences of it to their purposes; for besides pride and 
 confidence, scriptural eloquence is a necessary ingredient to make a 
 powerful deluder. Observe the ringleaders of eirors, and you shall 
 find that ordinarily such have at first been studious of the Scriptures ; 
 and though never able to digest them, yet when they turned their ears 
 from truth, they have carried their Scripture language, which they had 
 before brought themselves unto by long custom, away with them, 
 and still retain it, and express their opinions by it. 
 
 Now this is a great advantage to Satan. For, first, By this means 
 the ignorant multitude are often caught tvithouf any more ado. If 
 they hear Scriptm-e expressions, they are apt to think that all is truth 
 which is spoken by them; and they the rather believe it, because 
 they will imagine such teachers to be well versed in Scripture, and 
 consequently either so honest or so Imowing that they neither can nor 
 will delude them. Secondly, There is a majesty in Scripture which, in 
 some sense, doth stick to the very expressio7is of it. Men may perceive 
 that generally hearers are more affected with Scripture eloquence than 
 with play-book language. It hath, as it were, a charm in the words, 
 which makes the ear attentive more than a quaint discourse, starched 
 up in the dress of common rhetoric. One gives us an observation to 
 that purpose of his own preaching,i and so may many others. While, 
 then, men hear such language, they have a reverence to it. And as phy- 
 sicians cover their pills with gold that the patient might more willingly 
 take them, so do men often swallow down error without due considera- 
 tion, because conveyed to them in a language which they respect. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Satan's second care for the advancement of error, after 
 he hath given it all the countenance he can from Scripture, is to gild 
 
 ' Savonarola, ' Triumph. Crueis,' lib. ii. cap. 2, [i.e., 'De Veritate Fidei.' Florent. 1497. 
 Folio.— G.] 
 
1 G2 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 it over with spec I'oics pretences. He sets it off with all the bravery he 
 can, and then urgeth that as an argument of its truth. Men are apt 
 to judge that what doth better their spiritual condition cannot be a 
 lie or delusion ; and the argument were the more considerable, if the 
 advantages were such as he pretends them to be ; but the very noise 
 and boast of advantages please the unwary, without a due inquiry into 
 their reality. The apostle, in Eom. xvi.'lS, reduceth all this policy 
 of the deceiver to two heads : (1.) Good words, ^prjaroXoyiaf; — words 
 that set out the profit and advantage of the thing ; (2.) And fair 
 speeches, evXoYi'a?— speeches that flatter the condition of the party. 
 His art, as to the first of these, is to tell them that the notions offered 
 to them are special discoveries, rare mysteries, which have been hidden 
 from others ; and thence infers, that it must of necessity conduce much 
 to their happiness and spiritual perfection to know and embrace them. 
 Those that troubled the church in Paul's days with false doctrines, 
 used this sleight of boasting, as appears by that expression in 1 Tim. 
 vi. 20, ' oppositions of science.' It seems they called their opinions, 
 though they were but profane and vain babblings, by the name of 
 'science' or 'knowledge,' implying that all others, even the apostles 
 themselves, were in the dark, and came short of their illumination. 
 The like we have in Rev. ii. 24 of that abominable prophetess Jezebel, 
 who recommended her bla.s])hemous, filthy doctrines under the name 
 of ' depths,' jjrofundilies or hidden knowledge, though the Spirit of 
 God told that chiu-ch they were not such ; but if depths, they were 
 'depths of Satan'— as it is added there by way of correction— and not 
 of the Spirit of God. We may trace these footsteps of Satan in all 
 considerably prevailing errors; for what hath been more common than 
 to hear men speak of the designs they have been carrying on under 
 the specious titles of Christ's coming to set up a righteous kingdom, 
 the church's coming out of Babylon and out of the wilderness, the 
 dawTiing of the day of the Lord, the day of reformation, ' the time of 
 the restitution of all things,' with abundance of brags of the same 
 kind ? I shall add no particular instance of this nature, but a few 
 strains of H. Nicholas, with whom such high promising vaunts were 
 ordinary. His service of love he compares to the ' most holy ;' whereas 
 John's doctrine of repentance was but a preparation to the holy, and 
 the service of Christ he allowed to be no more than as the holy of the 
 temple. This his service he calls ' the perfection of life, the comple- 
 tion of prophecies, the perfect conclusion of the works of God, the 
 throne of Christ, the true rest of the chosen of God, the last day, the 
 sure word of prophecy, the new Jerusalem,' and what not. 
 
 If we make further inquiry into the nature of these fair promising 
 mysteries, we shall find that Satan most frequently pitcheth upon these 
 three : — 
 
 [1.] First, He befools men into a belief that the Scriptures do, under 
 the veil of their words and sentences, contain some hidden notions that 
 are of purpose so disguised that they may be locked up from the 
 generality of men, at least from learned and wise men ; and that these 
 rarities cannot be discerned from the usual significations of the words 
 and phrases, as we understand other books of the same language, but 
 they fancy these sacred writings to be like the writings of the Egj-p- 
 
Chap. 3.] satan's temptations. 1G3 
 
 tians,! by which they abseondeds their mysteries, especially like that 
 kind of writing, whereby under words of common known sense they 
 intended things which the words themselves could not signify ; and 
 that which occasions this imagination is this, that we read frequently of 
 ' mysteries' in [the] Scriptures, and ' hidden wisdom,' and the ' special 
 revelation' of them to God's childi-en, wliichare very great truths, but 
 yet not to be so understood as tliis delusion supposeth ; for these ex- 
 pressions in Scripture intend uo more than this, that the design of God 
 to save man by Christ is in itself a ' mystery,' which never would have 
 been found out without a special revelation ; and that though this 
 ' mystery ' is now revealed by the gospel, yet as to the application of it 
 to the hearts of men in conversion by the operation of the Spirit, it is 
 yet a ' mystery.' But none of these intend any such suggestion, that 
 there are private notions of truth or doctrine that are lying under 
 ground, as it were, in Scripture words, which the words in the common 
 language will not acquaint us withal ; nay, the contrary is expressly 
 affirmed when we are told that all is plainly laid open to the very 
 simple, so that from the Scriptures they may as well understand the 
 fundamental principles of religion, as they may understand any other 
 thing which their language doth express to them. However, in this 
 Satan takes advantage of men's pride and curiosity to make them for- 
 ward in the acceptation of such offers, especially when such things are 
 represented as the only saving discoveries, which a man cannot be 
 ignorant of but with hazard of damnation. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, In this boast of mystery, Satan sometimes takes an- 
 other com'se somewhat differing from the former, and that is to put 
 men upon allegorical reflections and allusions, by which the historical 
 passages of Scripture are made, besides the import of the history, re- 
 semblances of spiritual truths, which supposeth the letter of Scripture 
 to be true, but still as no better than the first rudiments to train up 
 beginners withal, yet withal that the spiritual meaning of it raiseth 
 the skilful to a higher form in Christ's school. At this rate all are 
 turned into allegories. If they fall upon the first of Genesis, they 
 think they then truly understand it when they apply the light and 
 darkness, and God's separating of them, with such other passages, to 
 the regeneration of the soul. The like work make they with the suffer- 
 ings of Christ. But then the crafty adversary at last enticeth them on to 
 let go the history, as if it were nothing but a parable, not really acted, 
 but only fitted to represent notions to us. Allegories were a trap which 
 the devil had for the Jews, and wherein they wonderfully pleased them- 
 selves. How much Origen abused himself and the Scriptures by this 
 humour is known to many ; and how the devil hath prevailed generally 
 by it upon giddy people in later times I need not tell you. 
 
 The pretence that Satan hath for this dealing is raised from some 
 passages of the New Testament, wherein many things of the Old Tes- 
 tament are said to have had a mystical signification of things expressed 
 or transacted then, and some things are expressly called allegories. 
 Hence papists determine the Scriptiu-e to have, besides the grammati- 
 cal sense, which all of us do own, and besides the tropological .sense, 
 
 ' As IbU a scarabeo accipitris pulcliritiidinem partkipat; by which they signified the 
 moon borrowing its light from the sun. ' ' Concealed.' — G. 
 
164 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II 
 
 which is not diverse or distinct from the grammatical, as when from 
 histories we deduce instructions of holy and sober carriage, an alle- 
 gorical and analogical sense ; in which dealing men consider not that 
 the Spirit of God his interpreting a passage or two allegorically, will 
 never justify any man's boldness in presuming to do the like to any 
 other passage of Scripture ; and beside, when any hath tried his skill 
 that way, another may with equal probability carry the same scripture 
 to a ditferent interpretation, and by this means the Scripture shall not 
 only become obscure, but altogether uncertain and doubtful, and un- 
 able to prove anything ; so that this doth extremely dishonour Scrip- 
 ture, by making it little less than ridiculous. Porphyry and Julian 
 made themselves sport with it upon the occasion of Origen's allegoriz- 
 ing ; and no wonder, seeing that humour, as one calls it,i is no better 
 than a learned foolery. Notwithstanding this, men are sometime 
 transported with a strange delight in turning all into allegories, and 
 picking mysteries out of some by-passages and circumstances of Scrip- 
 ture where one would least expect them ; which I can ascribe to no 
 second cause more than to the working and power of fancy, which, as 
 it can frame ideas and images of things out of that that affords no real 
 likeness or proportion, as men that create to themselves similitudes 
 and pictures in the clouds or in the fire, so doth it please itself in its 
 own work ; and with a kind of natural affection it doth kiss and hug 
 its own baby. It hath been my wonder sometimes to see how fond 
 men have been of their own fancies, and how extremely they have 
 doted upon a very bauble. I might note you examples of this, even 
 to nauseousness, in all studies, as well as in this of religion. Those 
 that affect the sublimities of chemistry do usually by a strange boldness 
 stretch all the sacred mysteries of Scripture, as of the Trinity, of regene- 
 ration, &c., to represent their secrets and processes, as may be seen 
 sufficiently in their AVTitings. One of them I cannot forbear to name, 
 and that is Glauber, who doth so please himself with some idle whims 
 about sal and sol, that at last he falls in with Bernardinus Gomesius, 
 whom he cites and approves, who in this one word, aX?, which signi- 
 fies salt, finds the Trinity, the generation of the Son, the two natures 
 of Christ, the calling of the Jews and Gentiles, the procession of the 
 Spirit, and the communications of the Spirit in the law and gospel; 
 and all this he gathers from the shapes, strokes, and positions of these 
 three letters — a very subtle invention.^ Not unlike to this were some 
 of the dotages of the Jewish Cabala, which they gathered from the 
 different writing of some letters in the sacred text, from the transpos- 
 ing of them, and from their mystical arithmetic. R. Elhs from the 
 letter al^ph, mentioned six times in Gen. i. 1, collected his notion of 
 the world's continuance for six thousand years, because that letter ^* 
 stands for a thousand in the Hebrew computation. Another Rabbi, 
 
 ' VVhitakcr, Def. lit. sententia adv. Durceum., lib. ii. p. 88. Parum a docta quadam 
 insania discrepat. [The title of this famous book is as follows : ' Reeponsionis ad Decern 
 illaa Rationes, quibus fretus Edmundus Campianus certamen Eccleeiaa Anglicans minis- 
 tria obtulit in causa fidei. Defensio contra Confutationem. Joannis Dursei, Scoti, Pres- 
 byteri, Jesuitse. London, 1583, 8vo. Eichard Stock translated the ' Controversv,' 1606, 
 4to.— G.] 
 
 ' Vide Lumen Chymieum Crollii Basil. Chymic. in prefatione. Glauber de signalura 
 Salium, p, 31, 38. 
 
Chap. 3.J satan's temptations. 165 
 
 mentioned by Lud. Cappellus,i hath a profound speculation concern- 
 ing the first letter of Genesis, which, as he saith, doth therefore begin 
 with beth, and not with aleph, to shew the unexceptionable verity of 
 God's word, against which no mouth can justly open itself ; and this 
 he gathers from the manner of the pronunciation of that letter 2, 
 which is performed by the closure of the lips. It were not possible to 
 imagine that wise men should be thus carried away with childish 
 follies, if there were not some kind of enchantment in fancy, which 
 makes the hit of a conceit, though never so silly, intoxicatethem into 
 an apprehension of a rare discovery. And doubtless this is the very 
 thing that doth so transport the allegorizers and inventors of mysteries, 
 that they are ravished either with the discovery of a new nothing or 
 with the rare invention of an enigmatical interpretation. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, The devil hath yet another way of coining mysteries, 
 and that is a pretence of a more full discovery of notions and ivays ; 
 which, as he tells those that are willing to believe him, are but glanced 
 at in the Scripture ; and this doth not only contain his boast of un- 
 folding prophecies, and the dangerous applications of them to times 
 and places that are no way concerned — which hath more than once put 
 men upon dangerous undertakings, — but also his large promise of 
 teaching the way of the Lord more perfectly, and of leading men into 
 a full comprehension of those tremendous mysteries, wherein the Scrip- 
 ture hath as industriously concealed the reasons, way, and manner of 
 their being, as it hath fully asserted that they are : such are the de- 
 crees of God, the Trinity, &c. ; as also of unfolding and teaching at 
 large those things that the Scripture seems only to hint at. In all 
 which points we have instances enough at hand which will shew us 
 how the devil hath played his game, either by making men bold in 
 things not revealed, or by drawing men to dislike sohd truths, and by 
 puffing them up with notions, till at last they were prepared for the 
 impression of some grand delusion. AU this while I have only ex- 
 plained the first head of Satan's specious pretences, which consists in 
 the promise of discoveries and lajs.imGS.—'xpv'^ToX.o'yLai, good words. 
 
 The next head of pretences are those that relate to the persons en- 
 amoured with these supposed mysteries— euXovi'ai, fair speeches. With 
 these he strokes their heads, and causeth them to hug themselves in 
 a dream of an imaginary happiness. For if they have the knowledge 
 of mysteries which are locked up from other men, they cannot avoid 
 this conclusion, that they are the only favourites of heaven, that they 
 only have the Spirit, are only taught of God, &o. Such swelling 
 words of vanity have ever accompanied delusion. And indeed we 
 shall find the confidence of such men more strong, and their false 
 embracements more rapturous, than ordinarily the ways of truth do 
 afibrd, upon this account, that in such cases fancy is elevated, andthe 
 delio-hts of a raised fancy are excessive and enthusiastical. It is a 
 kind of spiritual frenzy, which extends all the faculties to an extraor- 
 dinary activity, the devil doing all he can to further it by his utniost 
 contributions. Joy, delight, hope, love, are all raised to make a 
 hubbub in the heart; whereas, on the contrary, truth is modest, 
 
 ' Lud. Cappelli, Spec, in Eph. vi. 19. [Spicilegio post messem . . . Geneva, 1602, 
 4to.-G.] 
 
166 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 humble, sober, and affords a more silent joy, though more even and 
 
 Here might I set error before you in its rant, and give you a taste 
 of the high-flown strains of it. Montanus, as vile as he was, had the 
 confidence to call himself ' the comforter.' Novatus and his brother 
 would be no less than Moses and Aaron. The Gnostics called them- 
 selves the lUuminati. The Swinkfieldians assumed the title of the 
 Confessors of the glory of Christ. The Family of Love had their 
 Evangelium regni, the gospel of tlie kingdom. The FratriceUi dis- 
 tinguished themselves from others by the term spiritual. Muntser 
 asserted, that all of his opinion were God's elect, and that all the 
 children of their religion were to be called the children of God, and 
 that all others were ungodly and designed to damnation. H. Nicholas 
 affirms, that there was no knowledge of Christ nor Scripture, but in 
 his family. To this purpose most of them speak that forsake the 
 ways of truth ; and though these swellings are but wind and vapour, 
 yet those heights are very serviceable to the devil's purposes : who by 
 this means confirms those whom he hath already conquered, and then 
 fits them out with the greater confidence to allure others ; and men 
 are apt enough to be drawn by fair shows and confident boastings. 
 But I proceed. 
 
 (3.) The third stratagem of Satan for promoting error, is to astonish 
 men icith strange language and affected expressions. It was an old 
 device of Satan to coin an unintelligible gibberish as the proper vehicle 
 of strange euthusiastics' doctrine, and this he artificially suits to his 
 pretended mysteries. Without this, his rare discoveries would be too 
 flat and dull to gain upon any man of competent understanding. For 
 if these dotages were clothed in plain words, they would either appear 
 to be direct nonsense, or ridiculous folly. It concerns him when he 
 hath any feats of delusion in hand, to set them off with a canting 
 speech, as jugglers use their hard words of Ailif, casijl, zaze, presto, 
 millat, &c., to put their ignorant admirers into a belief of some 
 unknown power by which they do their wonders. And this is in some 
 sort necessary. Extraordinary matters are above expression, and such 
 wild expressions put men into an expectation of things sublime. 
 This knack Satan hath constantly used. Jlontanus had his strange 
 speeches ; and all along, downward to our times, we may observe 
 that error hath had this gaudy dress. The Familists especially 
 abound with it. You may read whole books full of such a kind of 
 speaking, as the book called Theologia Germanica, or German 
 divinity,! the books of Jacob Behmen, 'The Bright Morning Star,' &c. 
 Neither are the papists free ; one of late hath taken the pains to shew 
 them this and other follies.2 Among them you may find such talk 
 as this : of being ' beclosed in the midhead of God, and in his meek- 
 head ; of being substantially united to God, of being one'd to God ; as 
 also of the abstractedness' of life, of passive unions, of the deiform 
 fund of the soul ; of a state of introversion ; of a super-essential life, 
 a st.ate of nothingness,' &c. Just like the ravings of H. Nicholas, 
 
 ' It is painful to find Gilpin thus indiscriminately condemning John Tauler's ' Theologia 
 Germanica:' which, by Mies Winkworth's recent translation, has entered on a new lease of 
 deserved popularity . — G. ' Dr Stillingflcet, ■ Idolatry of the Church of Kome.' 
 
Chap. 3.] satan's temptations. 167 
 
 David George, and others, who confidently discoiu'se of being ' godded 
 with Grod,' of being ' consubstantiated with the Deity,' and of God'a 
 ' being manned with them.' 
 
 I have oft considered what reason might be given for the taking- 
 ness of such expressions, and have been forced to satisfy myself with 
 these : First, Many mistake the knowledge of words for the knowledge 
 of things. And well may poor ignorant men believe they have attained, 
 no man knows what, by this device ; when among learned men the 
 knowledge of words is esteemed so great a pitch of learning, and they 
 nourish a great many controversies that are only verbal. Secondly, 
 Some are pleased to be accounted understanders by others, and rest 
 in such high words as a badge of knowledge. Thirdly, Some are 
 delighted with such a hard language upon a hope that it will lead 
 them to the knowledge of the things at last ; they tlunk strange expres- 
 sions are a sign of deep mystei-ies. I knew one that set himself to 
 the reading of Jacob Behmen's books, though at present he confessed 
 he was scarce able to make common sense of three lines together, 
 upon a secret enticement that he had from the language, to come to 
 some excellent discovery by much pains and reading. Fourthly, 
 Some that have their fancies heated, have by this means broken, con- 
 fused impressions of strange things in their imaginations, and conceive 
 themselves to know things beyond what common language can exj^ress: 
 as if with Paul, rapt up into the third heaven, ' they hear and see 
 wonders unutterable.' But what reason soever prevails with men to 
 take up such a way of speaking, Satan makes them believe that it 
 contains a rich mine or treasury, not of common truths, but of extra- 
 ordinary profundities. 1 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, Instead of argument to confirm an error, sometimes 
 we have only bold assertions that it is truth, and a confident condemn- 
 ing the contrary as an error, urging the danger of men's rejecting it, 
 backed with threatening of hell and damnation; and all this in the 
 Words of Scripture. To be sm-e, they are right, and all other men 
 are wrong. This kind of confidence and fierceness hath been still the 
 complexion of any remarkable way of delusion ; for that commonly 
 confines their charity to their own party, which is a great token of an 
 error. Not only may you observe in such extraordinary proclamations 
 of wi-ath against those that will not believe them : a practice used by 
 the mad fanatics of Munster, who, as our Quakers were wont to do, 
 go up and down the streets, crying, ' Wo, wo ; repent, repent ; come 
 out of Babylon ; the heavy wrath of God ; the axe is laid to the root 
 of the tree ; ' but in their more settled teaching they pronounce all to 
 be antichrist, and of the carnal church, that do oppose them. Take 
 for this H. Nicholas his words : ' all knowledge ' besides his, ' is but 
 witchery and blindness, and aU other teachers and learners are a false 
 Christianity, and the devil's sjiiagogue ; a nest of devils and wicked 
 spirits ; a false being, the antichrist, the kingdom of hell, the majesty 
 of the devil,' &c. This piece of art, not only our Quakers, to whom 
 nothing is more familiar than to say to any opposer, ' Thou art 
 damned, thou art in the gall of bitterness, the lake of fire and brim- 
 
 ■ Dicas eos mera tonitrua sonare, nam communi sermone spreto, cxolicnm nescio quid 
 idioma sibi fingunt, visi sunt suos discipulos supra coelum rapere. -Cw^ii)! in Judf lo. 
 
168 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 stone is prepared for thee,' &c., but also the papists commonly prac- 
 tise, who shut all out of heaven that are not of their church ; and 
 when they would affright any from protestantism, they make not 
 nice to tell liim that there is no possibility of salvation but in their 
 way. 
 
 The reasons of this policy are these: (1.) The heart is apt to be 
 startled with threatenings, and moved by commands ; especially those 
 that are of a more tender and frightful spirit ; and though they 
 know nothing by themselves, yet these beget fears which may secretly 
 betray reason, and make men leave the right way because of affright- 
 meut. (2.) The confidence of the assertors of such tilings hath also 
 its prevalency ; for men are apt to think that they would not speak 
 so if they were not very certain, and had not real experience of what 
 they said, and thus are men threaped ^ out of their own persuasions. 
 (3.) The native majesty of Scripture, in a business of so great hazard, 
 adds an unexpressible force to such threatenings ; and though, being 
 misapplied, they are no more Scripture threatenings, yet, because 
 God liath spoken his displeasure in those words, men are apt to revere 
 them — as men cannot avoid to fear a serpent or toad, though they 
 know the sting and poison were taken out, because nature did furnish 
 them with a sting or venom. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, It is a usual trick of Satan to derive a credit and 
 honour io error, from the excellencies, suj)poscd or real, of the persons 
 that more eminently aiypear for it. So tliat it fetcheth no small 
 strength from the qualities of those that propagate it. The vulgar, 
 that do not usually dive deep into the natures of things, content them- 
 selves with the most superficial arguments, and are sooner won to a 
 good conceit of any opinion by the respects they carry to the author, 
 than by the strongest demonstration. 
 
 The excellencies that usually move them are either their gifts or 
 their holiness. If the seedsman of an error be learned, or eloquent 
 and affectionate in his speaking, men are apt to subscribe to anything 
 he shall say, from a blind devotional 2 admiration of the parts where- 
 with he is endowed. And often, where there is no learning, or where 
 learning is decried, as savouring too much of man, if there be natural 
 fluency of speech, with a sufficient measure of confidence, it raiseth 
 them so much the liiglier in the esteem of the common sort, who 
 therefore judge him to be immediately taught of God, and divinely 
 furnished with gifts. At this point began the divisions of the church 
 of Corinth. They had several officers severally gifted ; some were 
 taken with one man's gift, others with another man's ; some are for 
 Paul, as being profound and nervous in his discourses ; others for 
 Apollos, as eloquent; a third sort were for Cephas, as, suppose, 
 an affectionate preacher. Thus upon personal respects were they 
 divided into parties : and if these several teachers were of different 
 opinions, their adherents embraced them upon an affectionate conceit 
 of their excellencies. And generally Satan hath wrought much by 
 such considerations as these. This he m-geth against Christ hirnself, 
 when he set up the wisdom and learning of the rulers and pharisees, 
 as an argument of truth in their way of rejecting such a Messias : John 
 ' ' Out-contradicted ' or ' argued.'— 6. ■ ' Devoted,' = over-attached.— G. 
 
Chap. 3.] satan's temptations. 169 
 
 vii. 48, ' Have auy of the rulers, or of the Pharisees believed on him ?' 
 There is no insinuation more frequent than this : these are learned, 
 excellent, able men, and therefore what they say or teach is not to be 
 disbelieved ; and though this be but argumentum stultum, a foolish 
 argument, yet some that would be accounted wise do make very 
 great use of it. The crack ^ ' of learned doctors among the papists ' is 
 one topic of persuasion to popery, and so to other errors, as appears 
 by this, that all errors abound with large declamations of the praises 
 of their founders and teachers : and the most illiterate errors usually 
 magnify the excellent inspu-ements and gifts of utterance of their 
 
 But the other excellency of holiness in the teachers of error is more 
 generally and more advantageously improved by Satan, to persuade 
 men that all is true doctrine which such men profess. Of this delu- 
 sion Christ forewarned us, ' They shall come in sheep's clothing ' — 
 that is, under the mask of seeming holiness, at least at first; not- 
 withstanding, ' beware of them,' Mat. vii. 15. Those complained of 
 by Paul, 2 Cor. xi. 15, though they were Satan's ministers, yet that 
 they and their doctrine might be more plausibly entertained, they 
 were ' transformed as the ministers of righteousness.' This cunning 
 we may espy in heretics of all ages. The Scribes and Pharisees 
 used a pretence of sanctity as a main piece of art to draw others to 
 their way. Their alms, fastings, long prayers, strict observations, &c., 
 were all designed as a net to catch the multitude withal. Tlie lying 
 doctrines of Antichrist were foretold by Paul, to have their success 
 from this stratagem ; all that idolatry and heathenism which he is to 
 introduce must be, and hath been, through the hypocrisy of a painted 
 holiness, 1 Tim. iv. 2 ; and where he intends most to play the dragon, 
 Eev. xiii. 11, he there most artificially counterfeits the innocency 
 and simplicity of the lamb. Arch-heretics have been arch-pretenders 
 to sanctity, and such pretences have great influence upon men ; for 
 holiness and truth are so near of kin, that they will not readily believe 
 that it can be a false doctrine which a holy man teacheth. They 
 think that God that hath given a teacher holiness will not deny him 
 truth. Nay, this is an easy and plausible measure which they have 
 for truth and error. To inquire into the intricacies and depths of a 
 disputation is too burdensome and difficult for ordinary men, and 
 therefore they satisfy themselves with this consideration, which hath 
 little toil in it, and as little certainty: that surely God will not 
 leave holy men to a delusion. It would be endless to give all the 
 instances that are at hand in this matter. I shall only add a few 
 things of Satan's method in managing this argument, as, 
 
 [1.] First, When he hath a design of common or pi-evailing delu- 
 sion, he mainly endeavours io corrupt some person of a more strict, 
 serious, and religious carriage, to he the captaiii and ringleader; 
 such men were Pelagius, Arius, Socinus, &c. He mainly endeavours 
 to have fit instruments. If he be upon that design of blemishing 
 religion, and to bring truth into a disesteeem, then, as one observes,2 
 he persuades such into the ministry as he foresees are likely to be 
 
 ' 'Talk,' or 'report.' — G. 
 
 ' Acontius' 'Stratagema Satan«,' lib. viii. p. 106, Oxon. [1631. 8vo. — G.] 
 
170 A TKEATISE 01' [PaUT II, 
 
 idle, careless, profane, and scandalous ; or doth endeavour to promote 
 such ministers into more conspicuous places, and provokes them to 
 miscarriage, that so their example may be an objection against truth, 
 while in the meantime he is willing that the opposers of truth should 
 continue their smooth carriage ; and then he puts a two-edged sword 
 into the hands of the unstable: Can that be truth where there is 
 so much wickedness ? and can this be error where there is so much 
 holiness ? 
 
 [2.] Secondly, In prosecution of this design he usually puts men 
 upon some more than ordinary strictness, tlial the pretence of holiness 
 may he the more augmented. In this case a course of ordinary sanctity 
 is not enough, they must be above the common practice ; some singular 
 additions of severity and exactness above what is written, are com- 
 monly aftected to make them the more remarkable. Christ notes 
 this in the Pharisees, concerning all theu- devotions, and the ways of 
 expressing them ; their phylacteries spoken of, Mat. xxiii. 5, as some 
 think,i were not intended by that text of Deut. vi. 8, but only that 
 they should rememljer the law, and endeavour not to forget it, as they 
 do that tie a thread or such like thing about their finger for a re- 
 membrancer ; according to Prov. iii. 3, ' Bind them about thy neck, 
 write them upon the table of thine heart.' However, if they were 
 literally enjoined, they would have them, as Christ tells them, broader 
 than others, as an evidence of theii- greater care. The Caihari 
 boasted of sanctity and good works, and rejected second marriages ; 
 the Apostolic i were so called from a pretended stricter imitation of 
 the singular holiness of the apostles. The Valesians made themselves 
 eunuchs, according to the letter, ' for the kingdom of God.' The 
 Donutists accounted that no true church where any spot or infirmity 
 was found. The Messalians, or Euchytie, were for constant praying, 
 the Ntuhpedtiles for going barefoot, &c. The papists urge canonical 
 hours, whiijpings, penances, pilgrimages, volutntary poverty, abstin- 
 ence from meats and marriage in their priests and votaries. In a 
 word, all noted sects have something of special singularity, whereby 
 they would difference themselves from others, as a peculiar character 
 of their gi-eater strictness ; and for want of better stuff they some- 
 times take up afiFected gestures, devotional looks, and outward garbs ; 
 all which have this note, that what they most stand upon, God hath 
 least, or not at all, required at their hands — their voluntary humility, 
 or neglecting of tlie body being but will-worship, and a self-devised 
 piece of religion. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, When once men are set in the way of exercising 
 severities, Satan endeavours, by working upon their fancies, to pi-ess 
 them, 0)1 further to a delight and satis/action in these^ ways of strict- 
 ness, so that the practisers themselves are not only confirmed in these 
 
 ' Jerome. Theopliylact, Lyra, &c. 
 
 - Atque liac ratione seducta est, astu Sataiiie, innumera hominum muHitudo, qua» ut 
 viam vitie ambnlaret, arctam illam ingressa est, qu» instinctu Satanse per humanas est 
 ad-inventiones inducta, [maxirae eorum qui in monasteriis vi.\erunt.] Postea quam 
 Tidit Satan viam sviam quss ad mortem ducit, traduci, e6 quod sit lata, ct quod multi 
 per illam ambulent, coepissentque quidam arctam et strictam quserere, quae non tereretur 
 a multis. callido consilio effecit, ut pro vera via vitfe, arriperetur ea, quse quidem esset 
 stricla via, vcro vitre non cssct, &c.—Musculus in Mai. vii. 13. [1548. Folio.— G.] 
 
Chap. 3.] satan's temptations. 171 
 
 usages, and the opinions that are concomitant with them, but others 
 are the more easily drawn to hke and profess the same things. Any 
 serious temper, under any profession of religion, easily comes to be 
 devout, and readily complies with opportunities of evincing its devo- 
 tion by strictness. And therefore we shall find among heathens a 
 great devotional severity, and such as far exceeds all of that kind 
 which the papists do usually brag of The Magi abstained from 
 wine, ate not the flesh of living creatures, and professed virginity. 
 The Indian Braclimans did the Hke, and besides used themselves to 
 incredible hardsMp ; they laid upon skins, sustained the violence of 
 the sun and storms, and exercised themselves therewith ; some spend- 
 ing thirty-seven years in this course, others more. We read strange 
 things of this nature concerning the Egj^jtian priests, and others. 
 The Mohammedans are not without their religious orders, which pre- 
 tend a more holy and austere life than others ; and though of some, 
 as of the torlacJis and dervizes, several private villainies are reported, 
 yet of others, as of the order of calender, we are assured from history 
 that they profess virginity, and expose themselves to hardship, and a 
 stricter devotion in their way ; and generally it is said of all of them, 
 that they go meanly clad, or half naked ; some abstinent in eating 
 and drinking, professing poverty, renouncing the world. Some can 
 endm-e cutting and slashing, as if they were insensible ; some pro- 
 fess perpetual silence, though urged with injuries and tortures; 
 others have chains about their necks and arms, to shew that they are 
 bound up from the world, &c. If such things may be found among 
 heathens, no wonder that error boasts of them, for in both there is 
 the same reason of men's pleasing themselves in such hardships, 
 which is from a natural devotion, assisted by Satan's cunning, and 
 the same design driven on by it ; for the devil doth confirm heathens 
 and Mohammedans in theu- false worship by the reverence and respect 
 they carry to such practices. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Because religious holiness hath a beauty in it, and is 
 very lovely, he doth all he can to affect men luith the highest reverence 
 for these pretences of religious strictness; so that they that will not 
 be at pains to practise them, can bestow an excessive respect and 
 admiration upon those that are grown famous in the use of such 
 things ; and by that means being almost adored, they are without 
 doubt persuaded that all they teach or do is right, and in a doting 
 fondness they multiply superstitious errors. Idolatry is supposed to 
 have a great part of its rise from this. Wilde men endeavoured to 
 express their thankful and admiring remembrances of some excellent 
 persons by setting up their pictm-es, their posterity began to worship 
 them as gods. Pilgrimages were fu-st set on foot by the respects that 
 men gave to places that were made famous by persons and actions 
 of more than ordinary holiness ; i and because the devil found men so 
 very apt to please themselves in payiug such devotional reverences, he 
 wrought upon their superstitious humour to multiply to themselves 
 the occasions thereof, and by fabulous traditions sent them to places 
 no otherwise made memorable than by dreams and impostures. Much 
 of this you might see if you would accompany a caravan from Cairo 
 ' Furchas' Tilg, lib. i. cap- 10, out of Euscbius, [as before. — G.] 
 
172 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 to Mecca and Medina, where you would see the zealous pilgrims, with 
 a great many orisons and prayers, compassing Abraham's house, kiss- 
 ing a stone which, they are told, fell from heaven ; blessing themselves 
 with a relic of the old vesture of Abraham's house, washing them- 
 selves in the pond, which, as their tradition goes, the angel shewed to 
 Hagar ; saluting the mountain of pardon, throwing stones in defiance 
 of the devil, as their legend tells them Ishmael did ; their prayers on 
 the mountain of health, their visit to the prophet's tomb at Medina, 
 &c.^ The like might you observe among the papists, in their pil- 
 grimages to Jerusalem and the sepulchre, to the Lady of Loretto's 
 chapel, and other places. By such devices as these the unobser- 
 vant people are transported with a pleasure, insomuch that they 
 not only persuade themselves they are very devout in these rever- 
 ences, but they also become unalterably fixed to these errors that 
 do support these delightful practices, or as consequences do issue 
 from them. 
 
 (6.) Sixthly, A more plausible argument for error than the learning 
 and holiness of the persons that profess it, is that of inspiration, in 
 which the devil soars aloft and pretends tlie highest divine warrant 
 for his falsehoods ; for ' God is trutli,' and ' we know that no lie is of 
 the truth.' Now to make men believe that God by his Holy Spirit 
 doth in any manner dictate such ojiinions, or certainly reveal such 
 things for truths, is one of the highest artifices that he can pretend to, 
 and such a confirmation must it be to those that are so persuaded, 
 that all disputes and doubtings must necessarily be silenced. 
 
 That the devil can tluis ' tran.sform himself into an angel of light,' 
 we are assured from Scripture, whicli liatli particularly cautioned us 
 against this cheat. The apostasy of the later times, 1 Tim. iv. 1, the 
 apostle foretells should be carried on by the prevalency of this pre- 
 tence : ' Some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing 
 spirits.' That by ' spirits ' there, doctrines are intended rather than 
 doctors, is Mr Mede's interpretation ; - but it will come all to one if 
 we consider that the word ' spirit ' carries more in it than either doc- 
 trine or doctor ; for to call either the one or the other ' a spirit ' would 
 be intolerably harsh, if it were not for this, that that ' doctor ' is here- 
 by supposed to pretend an infallibility from the Spirit of God, or, 
 which is all one, that he received his doctrine by some immediate re- 
 velation of the Spirit ; so that by ' seducing spirits ' must be men or 
 doctrines that seduce others to believe them, by the pretence of the 
 Spirit or inspiration ; and that text of 1 John iv. 1 doth thus explain 
 it : ' Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God,' 
 which is as much as" if he had said. Believe not every man or doctrine 
 that shall pretend he is sent of God and hath his Spirit ; and the rea- 
 son there given makes it yet more i)lain, becau.=e many 'false prophets 
 are gone out into the world ; ' so that these ' spirits ' are ' false pro- 
 phets,' men that pretend inspiration. And the warning, ' Believe not 
 every spirit,' tells us that Satan doth vnih. such a dexterity counterfeit 
 the Spirit's inspirations, that holy and good men are in no small hazard 
 to be deceived thereby. Most full to this purpose is that of 2 Thes. ii. 2, 
 ' That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, 
 » Vide Purchas' Pilg, iii. chap. 5. " 'Apostasy of the Latter Times,' p. ". 
 
Chap. 3.] satan's temptations. 173 
 
 nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at 
 hand;' where the several means of seduction are particularly reckoned 
 as distinct from the doctrine and doctors, and by ' sjjirit ' can be meant 
 no other than a pretence of inspiration or revelation, i 
 
 It is evident then that Satan by this artifice useth to put a stamp 
 of divine warrant ujDon his adulterate coin ; and if we look into his 
 practice, we shall in all ages find him at this work. Among heathens 
 he frequently gained a repute to his superstitious idolatrous worship 
 by this device. The men of greatest note among them feigned a 
 spiritual commerce with the gods. Empedocles endeavoured to make 
 the people believe that there was a kind of divinity in him, and 
 affecting to be esteemed more than a man, cast himself into the burn- 
 ings of Mongebel, that they might suppose him to have been taken 
 up to the gods.2 Pythagoras his fiction of a journey to hell was upon 
 the same account. Philostratus and Cedrenus report no less of Apol- 
 lonius, than that he had familiar converses with their supposed deities ; 
 and the like did they believe of their magi and priests ; insomuch that 
 some cunning politicians, observing how the vulgar were under a deep 
 reverence to such pretences, gave it out that they had received their 
 laws by divine inspirations. Numa Pompilius feigned he received his 
 institutions from the nymph ^geria, Lycurgus from Apollo ; Minos the 
 lawgiver of Candia boasted that Jupiter was his familiar. Mohammed 
 also speaks as high this way as any ; his Alcoran must be no less than 
 a law received from God, and to that end he pretends a strange journey 
 to heaven, and frequent converse with the angel Gabriel. 
 
 If we trace Satan in the errors which he hath raised up under the 
 profession of the Scriptures, we may observe the same method. The 
 Valentinians, Gnostics, Montanists talked as confidently of the Spirit 
 as Moses or the prophets could do, and a great deal more ; for some 
 of them blasphemously called themselves the Paraclete or Comforter. 
 Among the monsters which later ages produced, we still find the same 
 strain : one saith he is Enoch, another styles himself the ' great pro- 
 phet,' another hath rajjtures, and all immediately inspired. The 
 papists have as much of this cheat among them as any other ; and 
 some of their learned defenders avouch their lumen propheticum, and 
 miraculo7-um gloria, prophesies and miracles, to be the two eyes, or 
 the sun and moon of their church ; nay, by a strange transportment 
 of folly, to the forfeitui'e of the reputation of learning and reason, they 
 have so multiplied revelations that we have whole volumes of them, as 
 the revelations of their St Bridget and others ; and by wonderful 
 credulity they have not only advanced apparent dreams and dotages 
 to the honour of inspirations or visions, but upon this sandy founda- 
 tion they have built a great many of their doctrines, as purgatory, 
 transubstantiation, auricular confession, &c. By sucli wan-ants have 
 they instituted festivals and founded several orders. The particulars 
 of these things you may see more at large in Dr Stillingfleet and 
 others. And that there might be nothing wanting that might make 
 
 ' Prideaux, 'Orat. X. de spir. Seductoribus,' [as before.— G.] 
 
 "Mt. .ffitna: Diog. Laert., viii. 67, 69-71 : Horace, ad Pizon, 464, &c. Of. Karaten, 
 Empedoclis Agrigent. Carm. Reliqute, p. 36, iSte., and Apollon. ap Diog. Laert., viii. 
 52.-0. 
 
174 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 them shamelessly impudent, they are not content to equal their 
 fooleries with the Scriptures of God, as that the rule of their St 
 Francis — for I shall only instance in him, omitting others for brevity 
 sake — was not composed by the wisdom of man, but by God himself, 
 and inspired by the Holy Ghost, but they advance their prophets 
 above the apostles, and above Christ himself. Their St Benedict, if 
 you will believe them, was rapt up to the third heavens, where he 
 saw God face to face, and heard the choir of angels ; and their St 
 Francis was a nonsuch for miracles and revelations. Neither may we 
 wonder that Satan should be forward in urging this cheat, when we 
 consider, 
 
 [1.] First, What a reverence men naturally caii-y to revelations, 
 and how apt they are to be surprised xoith a hasty credulity. An old 
 prophecy, pretended to be found in a wall, or taken out of an old 
 manuscript, of I know not what uncertain author, is usually more 
 doted on than the plain and infallible rules of Scripture. This we may 
 observe daily ; and foreigners do much blame the English for a facile 
 belief of such things ; but it is a general fault of mankind, and we 
 find even wise men forward in their persuasions upon meaner grounds 
 than those tliat gain credit to old prophecies. For their antiquity 
 and strangeness of discovery, especially at such times wherein the 
 present posture of affairs seem to favour such predictions with a pro- 
 bability of such events, are more likely to get credit than tliese arti- 
 ficial imitations of the ways and garbs of the old prophets, and the 
 cunning legerdemain of those that pretend to inspirations by seeming 
 ecstasies, raptures, and confident declarations, &c. ; nevertheless arrant 
 cheats have by these wnys deceived no mean men. Alvarus acknow- 
 ledgeth that he honoured a woman as a saint that had visions and 
 raptures as if really inspired — and the same apprehensions had the 
 bishop and friars — who was afterward discovered to be a naughty 
 woman.i Who shall then think it strange that the unobservant 
 multitude should be deluded by such an art ? 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Especially if v^q con&xder thai God himself look this 
 course to signify his mind to men. His prophets were divinely in- 
 spired, and the Scriptures were not of ' any private interpretation,' 
 tS/a? eTTiXvaetof. The words that the penmen of Scriptures wrote 
 were not the interpretations of their own private thoughts, ' for the 
 prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of 
 God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,' 2 Pet. i. 20, 21. 
 Now though the prophecies of Scripture ai-e sealed, and no more is to 
 be added to them upon any pretence whatsoever, yet seeing there are 
 promises left us of the ' giving of the Spirit,' of ' being taught and led 
 by the Spirit,' it is an easy matter for Satan to beguile men into an 
 expectation of prophetic inspirations, and a belief of what is pretended 
 so to be ; for all men do not or will not understand that these pro- 
 mises of the Spirit have no intendment of new and extraordinary im- 
 mediate revelations, but only of the efficacious applications of what is 
 already revealed in Scriptm-e. This kind of revelation we acknow- 
 ledge and teach, which is far enough from enthusiasm, that is, a pre- 
 tended revelation of new truths, and we have reason to assert that 
 ' Lib. ii. cap. 45, p. 87. [Diego Alvarez ?— G.] 
 
Chap. 3.J satan's temptations. 175 
 
 internal persuasions without the external word are to be avoided as 
 Satan's cozenages. ^ But for all this, when men's minds are set a- 
 gadding, if they meet with such as magnify their own dreams, and 
 call their fancies visions, the suitableness of this to their humour 
 makes them to reject our interpretations of these promises as false, 
 and to persuade themselves that they are to be understood of such 
 inspirations as the prophets of old had ; and then they presently con- 
 clude they are to believe them, lest otherwise they should resist the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, But the advantage which the devil hath to ivork delu- 
 sion upon by this pretence is a high motive to him to practise upon 
 it. For inspirations, visions, voices, impulses, dreams, and revelations 
 are things wherein wicked impostors may by many ways and artifices 
 play the counterfeits undiscovered. It is easy to prophesy false 
 dreams, and to say, thus saith the Lord, when yet they do but lie, and 
 the Lord never sent them nor commanded them, Jer. xxiii. 31 ; nay, 
 it is easy, by tricks and illusions, to put that honour and credit upon 
 their designs which they could not by their bare assertions, backed 
 with all their art of seeming seriousness. The inventions of men that 
 have been formerly successful in this deceit being now laid open to our 
 knowledge, may make us more wary in our trust. Among the 
 heathens you may find notable ways of deceits of this nature. The 
 story of Hanno and Psappho is commonly known ; they tamed birds 
 and learned them to speak, ' Hanno and Psappho are gods,' and then 
 set them at liberty, that men hearing such strange voices in the woods 
 from birds, might imagine that these men were declared gods by 
 special discovery. Mohammed's device of making a dove to come fre- 
 quently to his ear, which he did by training her up to a use of pick- 
 ing corn out of it, served him for an evidence among the vulgar be- 
 holders, who knew not the true cause of it, of his immediate inspira- 
 tion by the angel Gabriel, who, as he told them, whispered in his ear 
 in the shape of a dove. The like knavery he practised for the confir- 
 mation of the truth of his Alcoran, by making a bull, taught before to 
 come at a call or sign, to come to him with a chapiter upon his horns. 
 Hector Boetius tells us of a like stratagem of a king of Scots, who, to 
 animate his fainting subjects against the Picts that had beaten them, 
 caused a man clothed in the shining skins of fishes, and with rotten 
 wood, which, as a glow-worm in the night, represents a faint light, to 
 come among them in the dark, and through a reed or hollow trunk, 
 that the voice might not appear to be human, to incite them to a 
 vigorous onset : this they took to be an angel bringing them tliis com- 
 mand from heaven, and accordingly fought and prevailed. Crafty 
 Benedict, who was afterward pope under the name of Boniface VIIL, 
 made simple Celestine V. give over the popedom by conveying to him 
 a voice through a reed to this purpose : Celestine, Celestine, renounce 
 the papacy, give it over, if thou wouldst be saved, the burden is be- 
 yond thy strength, &c. The silly man, taking this for a revelation 
 from heaven, quitted his chair and left it for that crafty fox Benedict. 
 
 Whitaker, Di[8putatio de Sacra] Script, contra [Robertum Bellarminum et] Staple 
 
 lum, lib. i. cap. 10, p. 121, [1588, 4to, has beei ' " ■ 
 
 Society by Professor Fitzgerald, 1849, 8vo.— G.] 
 
 tonum, lib. i.'cap. 10, p. 121, [1588, 4to, has been translated and edited for the Parker 
 Fitzg 
 
176 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 Not very many years since the same trick was played in this country 
 to a man of revelations — Paul Hobson — who called himself Da^^d in 
 spirit. When he had ^vearied his entertainer with a long stay, he 
 quitted himself of his company, as I was credibly informed, by a policy 
 which he perceived would well suit with the man's conceitedness, for 
 through a reed in the night-time he tells him that he must go into 
 Wales, or some such country, and there preach the gospel ; the next 
 morning the man avouches a revelation from God to go elsewhere, and 
 so dejjarts. These instances shew you how cunningly a cheating knave 
 may carry on a pretence of revelation or vision. And yet this is not 
 all the advantage which the devil hath in this matter, though it is an 
 advantage which he sometime makes use of when he is fitted with 
 suitable instruments. But he works mo.st dangerously when he so 
 acts upon men that they themselves believe they have visions, raptures, 
 and revelations, for some are really persuaded that it is so with them. 
 Neither is it strange that men should be deluded into an apprehension 
 that they hear and see what they do not ; in fevers, frenzies, and mad- 
 ness we clearly see it to be so ; and who can convince such persons of 
 their mistakes, when with as high a confidence as may be they con- 
 tend that they are not deceived ? Shall we think it strange tliat Satan 
 hath ways of conveying false apprehensions upon men's minds ? No, 
 surely. Do we not see that the senses may be cheated, and that the 
 fancies of men may be corrupted ? Is it not easy for him to convey 
 voices to the ear, or shapes and representations to the eye ? and in 
 such cases, what can ordinarily hinder a belief that they hear or see 
 such tilings ? But lie needs not always work upon the fancy by the 
 senses. If he hath the advantage of a crazy distempered fancy, as 
 commonly he hath in melancholy persons, he can so strongly fix his 
 suggestions upon them, and so efliectually set the fancy on work to 
 embrace them, that without any appearance of madness they will per- 
 suade themselves that they have discoveries from God, impulses by 
 his Spirit, scriptures set upon their hearts, and what not ; and because 
 they feel the workings of these things within them, it is impossible to 
 make them so much as suspect that they are deceived. Do but con- 
 sider the power of any fancy in a melancholic person, and you may 
 easily apprehend how Satan works in such delusions. Melancholy 
 doth strangely pervert the imagination, and will beget in men won- 
 derful misapprehensions, and that sometimes doth bewitch them into 
 peremptory, uncontrollable belief of their fancy. It is a vehement, 
 confident humour, what way soever it takes; the imagination thus 
 corrupted hath an enormous strength, so that if it fix upon things 
 never so absurd or irrational, it is not reducible by the strongest rea- 
 sons. If such a man conceits himself dead, or that he is transformed 
 to a wolf or cat, or that he is made of glass, as many in this distemper 
 have done, there is no persuasion to the contrary that can take place 
 with him. Now if this humour be taken up with divine matters, as 
 usually it doth, for it hath a natural inclination to religious things, it 
 still acts with fierceness and confidence, and there are many things 
 often concomitant to such actings, that if it misconceit inspiration or 
 prophecy, the parties themselves are not only bound up under that 
 persuasion, but even unwary spectators are deluded. For sometime 
 
Chap. 3.] satan's temptations. 177 
 
 a melancholy imagination is not wholly corrupt, but only in respect of 
 some one or two particulars, whilst in other things it acts regularly, 
 and then neither they nor others, that are unacquainted with such 
 cases, are so apt to suspect that they are mistaken in these things, 
 while they act rationally and soberly in other matters. Sometime 
 they have vehement fits of surprisal — for the humour hath its ebbings 
 and flowings— and this gives them occasion to apprehend that some- 
 thing doth supernaturally act or raise them, and then when the things 
 they speak are for the matter of them of religious concern and odd 
 notions — for the humom- flies high and bounds not itself with ordinary 
 things— and withal uttered in Scripture rhetoric and with fervency 
 and m-gencj' of spirit — when these things concur, there is such an ap- 
 pearance of inspii-ation that the parties themselves and others rest 
 fully persuaded that it is so. 
 
 (7.) Seventhly, Pretended and counterfeit miracles the devil makes 
 much use of to countenance error, and this is also one of his strong- 
 holds ; for he suggests that God himself bears witness by these signs, 
 wonders, and miracles to such erroneous doctrme as seems to be con- 
 cerned ' by them. 
 
 That the devil cannot work a true miracle hath been discoursed 
 before, but that he can perform many strange things, and such as may 
 beget admiration, none denies ; and that by such unwonted actions he 
 usually endeavours to justify false doctrines, and to set them off with 
 the appearance of divine approbation, we are sufficiently forewarned in 
 the Scriptures.2 Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses by false miracles. 
 In Deut. xiii. 1, God speaks of the signs and wonders of false prophets, 
 who would by that means seek to seduce the people to follow after 
 other gods. Christ also, in Mat. xxiv. 24, foretells that ' false Christs 
 and false prophets shall arise, and shew great signs and wonders, in- 
 somuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect,' and 
 puts a special note of caution upon it : ' Behold, I have told yoii be- 
 fore.' And to the same purpose is that of Paul concerning Antichrist, 
 2 Thes. ii. 9, where he tells us of powerful ' signs and wonders by the 
 working of Satan,' who doth all the while only lie and cheat that he 
 may draw men to error. 
 
 If we make inquiry how Satan hath managed this engine, we shall 
 observe not only his diligence in using it on all occasions to counte- 
 nance all kind of errors both in paganism and Christianity, but also 
 liis subtle dexterity by cheating men with forgeries and falsehood. 
 
 Heathenish idolatry, among other helps for its advancement, wanted 
 not this. The oracles and responses, which were common before the 
 coming of Christ, were esteemed as miraculous confirmations of the 
 truth of the deities which they worshipped ; the movings and speak- 
 ings of their statues 3 were arguments that the operative presence of 
 some celestial Numen was affixed to such an image. In some places 
 the solemn sacrifices are never performed without a seeming miracle. 
 As in Nova Zembla, where the priest's trances, his running a sword 
 
 ' Query, ' confirmed ' ? — G. 
 
 ' Miraculum voco, quioquid arduum aut insolitum, supra spem aut facultatem mirantis 
 apparet. — Aug. de utilUat. cred. contra Manick., cap. xvi. 
 ^ Spelled ' atatuas.'— G. 
 
178 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 into Lis belly, his making his head and shoulder fall oft' his body into 
 a kettle of hot water by the drawing of a line, and then his re^^ving 
 again perfect and entire, without maim or hurt, are all strange, aston- 
 ishing things to the beholders.^ But besides such things as these, 
 which are standing constant wonders, we read of some that have had, 
 as it were, a gift of miracles, that they might be eminently instrumental 
 to promote and honour paganism. All histories agree that Simon 
 Magus did so many strange things at Kome— as the causing an image 
 to walk, turning stones into bread, transforming himself into several 
 shapes, flying in the air, &c. — that he was esteemed a god. Philos- 
 tratus and Cedrenus" report great tilings of ApoUonius [of Tyana,] 
 as that he could deliver cities from scorpions, serpents, earthquakes, 
 &c., and that many miracles were wrought by him. This man Satan 
 raised up in an extraordinary manner to revive the honoiu- of pagan- 
 ism, that it might at least vie with Christianity. And though few 
 over attained to that "height which ApoUonius and Simon Magus 
 reached nnto, yet have we several instances of great things done now 
 and then by some singular persons upon a special occasion, which 
 Satan improved to his advantage. Ve.ipasian cured a lame and bUnd 
 man. 3 Adrianus cm-cd a blind woman ; and which is more, after he 
 was dead, by the touch of his body, a man of Pannonia who was born 
 blind received his sight.^ Valerius Maximns tells of many strange 
 things, and particularly of a vestal virgin that drew water into a sieve. 
 As Livy tells of another, Claudia by name, who with her girdle drew 
 the ship to the shore which carried the mother of their gods, when 
 neither strength of men nor oxen could do it.5 
 
 Errors under profession of Christianity have been supported and 
 propagated by the boast of miracles. A clear instance for this we 
 have in popery, that religion being a perpetual boast of wonders. To 
 let pass their great miracle of transubstantiation, which, as one hath 
 lately demonstrated, is a bundle of miiacles, or contradictions rather,*' 
 because it ajipears not to the senses of any man, and consequently is 
 not capable of being an argument to prove any of their opinions. We 
 have abundance of strange things related by them, as proofs of some 
 doctrines of theirs in i^articular, as purgatory, invocation of saints, 
 transubstantiation, <fec., and of their profession in the general, devils 
 cast out, blind and lame cured, dead raised, and what not ; it would 
 be endless to recite particulars. It would take a long time to tell 
 what their St Francis hath done — how he fetched water out of a rock, 
 how he was homaged by fowls and fishes, how he made a fountain 
 in Marchia run wine, and how far he exceeded Clirist liimsclf in 
 wonderful feats. Christ did nothing which St Francis chd not do, 
 nay, he did many more things than Christ did : Christ turned water 
 into wine but once, but St Francis did it thrice ; Christ was once 
 transfigured, but St Francis twenty times ; he and his brethren 
 raised above a thousand to life, cast out more than a thousand devils, 
 
 • Johnson's relat. in Hakluyt, torn. i. 
 
 " Misprinted ' Cedremus,' instead of Cedrenus Georgius. See Smith's ' Dictionary, ' 
 fub nomine. — G. •• Cornel. Tacit. Histor., lib. iv. 
 
 * .ffltius Spartianus in vit. Adrian!. ^ De secundo bello Punico. 
 
 ' Mr Baxter, ' Full and Easy Satisfaction, [which is the true and safe Religion ' 1C74 
 4to.— G.] cap. 4. 
 
Chap. 3.J satan's temptations. 179 
 
 &C.1 Their Dorainicus raised three dead men to life. Their Ze- 
 verius,2 while he was alive, did many miracles, and after he was 
 dead his body lay fifteen months sweetly smelling, without any taint 
 of corrui^tion. It is irksome to repeat their stories ; abundance of 
 such stuff might be added out of their own writings, the design of 
 all which is to prove, to those that are so prodigal of their faith as 
 to believe them, that they only are the true church, and that by this 
 note among others they may be known to be so. 
 
 But let us turn aside a little to observe Satan's cunning in this 
 pretence of miracles ; let things be soberly weighed, and we may see 
 enough of the cheat. This great boast is, as Austin hath it, resolved 
 into one of these two — either the figments of lying men, or the craft of 
 deceitful spirits: Vel Jigmenta hominum mendadium, vel portenta 
 fallacimn sjiirifuum. 
 
 As to the first of these, it is evident that a great many things that 
 have been taken by the vulgar for mighty wonders, were nothing but 
 the knaveries of impostors, who in this matter have used a threefold 
 cunning. 
 
 [1.] First, Bi/ mere juggling mid forgery in confederacies and pri- 
 vate contrivances they have set upon the stage persons before instructed 
 to act their parts, or things aforehand prepared, to pretend to he ivhat 
 they tvere not, that others might seem to do what they did not, and all 
 to amaze those that know not the bottom of the matter. Of this nature 
 was Mohammed's dove and bull, who were privately trained up to that 
 obedience and familiarity which they used to him. The pagan priests 
 were not altogether to seek in this piece of art. Lucian tells us of one 
 Alexander, who nourished and tamed a serpent, and made the people 
 of Pontus beheve that it was the god Ji^sculapius, and doubtless the 
 idol priests improved their private artificial contrivances : as of the 
 mo^^ngs of their images, as that of Venus made by Dajdalus, which by 
 the means of quicksilver enclosed could stir itself ; 3 their eating and 
 drinking, as in the story of Bel in the Apochryphal adjections to the 
 Book of Daniel ; their responses, and several other appearances ; as of 
 the paper head of Adonis or Osiris, which, as Lucian reports, comes 
 swimming down the river every year from Egypt to Byblos, &c. ; 
 these and such like they improved as evidences of the power, know- 
 ledge, and reality of their gods. And though in the prevalency of 
 idolatry, where there was no considerable party to oppose, their cheats 
 were not always discovered, yet we have no reason to imagine that the 
 priests of those days were so honest that they were only deceived by 
 the devil's craft, and did not in a villainous design purposely endea- 
 vour the delusion of others. If we had no other grounds for a just 
 suspicion in these cases, the famous instances of the abuse of Paulina 
 at the temple of Isis in Eome, in the reign of the emperor Tiberius, 
 by the procurement of Mondus, who corrupted the priest of Anubis to 
 signify to her the love of their god, and under that coverture gratified 
 the lust of Mondus, mentioned V Josephus.* And that of Tyrannus, 
 
 • Nihil fecit Cliristus quod T'ranciscns non fecit, imo plura fecit quam Christus.— Bai- 
 thol. de Pisis lib. conformitaf., fol. 1149. 
 
 » Query, Xavier, often spelled Xavieiua ?— G. ' Arist., lib. i. de amma. 
 
 ■• Antiquitat. Judie., lib. xviii. cap. 14. 
 
180 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 priest of Saturn in Alexandria, who by the like pretence of the love 
 of Saturn, adulterated most of the fairest dames of the city, mentioned 
 by Ruifinus.i These would sufficiently witness that the priests of 
 those times were apt enough to abuse the people at the rate we have 
 been speaking of. In popery nothing hath been more ordinary. Who 
 knows not the story of the holy maid of Kent and the boy of Bilson ? 
 How common is it with them to play tricks with women troubled 
 with hysterical distempers ; and to pretend the casting out of devils, 
 when they have only to deal with a natural disease. Not very many 
 years since they practised upon a poor young woman at Durham, and 
 made great boasts of their exorcisms, relics, and holy water against 
 the de\'il, with whom they would have all believe she was possessed, 
 when the event discovered that her fits were only the fits of the 
 mother. I myself, and some others in this place, have seen those fits 
 allayed by the fume of tobacco blown into her mouth, to the shame 
 and apparent detection of that artifice. I might mention the leger- 
 demain of Antonius of Padua, who made his horse adore the host, for 
 the conversion of a heretic ; the finding of the images of St Paul and 
 St Dominic in a church at Venice, with this inscription for Paul, 
 ' By this man you may come to Christ ;' and this for Dominic, ' But 
 by this man you may do it easilier : ' and the honour put upon Garnet, 
 by his image on straw,2 found at his execution, in all probability by 
 him that made it and threw it down, or by his confederate: but these 
 are enough to shew the honesty of these kind of men. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Thcij have also a cunning of ascribing effects to 
 lorong causes, and by that means then '««^''c those things ivonders that 
 are none. Mohammed called his fits of falling-sickness ecstasies or 
 trances. Austin tells us the heathens were notable at this : the burn- 
 ing lamp in the temple of Venus, though only the work of art, was 
 interpreted to be a constant miracle of that deity.^ The image which, 
 in another temple, hung in the air, by ignorant gazers was accounted 
 a wonder, when indeed the loadstone in tlie roof and pavement, though 
 imseen, was the cause of it. The Sidonians were confirmed in their 
 constant annual lamentations of Adonis, by a mock miracle of the 
 redness of the river Adonis at one time of the year constantly ; they 
 take it to be blood, when it is nothing else but the coloming of the 
 water by the dust of red earth or minium, which the winds constantly 
 at that itime of the year from mount Libanus do drive into the water.4 
 Neither are the papists out in this point. I will only instance in that 
 observation of Dr Jenison, to confirm the doctrine and practice of 
 invocation : ^ they take the advantage of sovereign baths and waters, 
 and where they espy any fountain good against the stone, or other 
 diseases, presently there is the statue or image of some saint or other 
 erected by it, by whose ^artue the cure and miracle must seem to be 
 done ; or some chapel is erected to this or that saint, to whom prayers 
 before and thanks after washing must be offered. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, where the two former fail, men that devote themselves 
 
 ' Eccles. Hist., lib. xi. cap. 25. ' See Lathbury'a ' Gay Fawkee.' 1840— G. 
 
 ^ De Civitate Dei, lib. xxi. cap. 6. 
 
 ■* Purchas, ' Pilg.' Asia., lib. i. cap. 17. Heylin, 'Cosmography,' p. 689. 
 
 ' ' Height of Israel's Idolatry,' cap. 12. 
 
Chap. 3.] satan's temptations. 181 
 
 to this kind of service imitate their fathe)- the devil, and fall to plain 
 lying and devised fables. Idolatry was mainly underpropped by 
 fabulous stories ; and no wonder, when they esteemed it a pious fraud 
 to nourish piety towards the gods, in which case, as Poly bins saith, 
 though their writers speak monsters, and write childish, absurd, and 
 impossible things, yet are they to be j^ardoned for their good intent.i 
 Among the papists what less can be expected, when the same prin- 
 ciple is entertained among them ? Canus, and Ludovicus Vives men- 
 tioned by him,2 as also some few others, do exceedingly blame that 
 blind piety of coinuig lies for religion, and feigning histories for the 
 credit of their opinions; but while they with great freedom and 
 ingenuity do tax the fables of their own party, they do plainly 
 acknowledge that they are too much guilty of feigning, insomuch 
 that not only the author of the Golden Legend is branded with the 
 characters of a brazen face and a leaden heart, but also Gregory's 
 Dialogues and Bede's History are blamed by him, as containing narra- 
 tions of miracles taken upon trust from the reports of the viilgar.3 
 And indeed the wonders they talk of are so strange, so unlikely, so 
 ridiculous and absurd some of them, that except a man offer violence 
 to his reason, and wilfully shut his eyes against the clear evidences of 
 suspicion, he cannot think they are anything else than dreams and 
 fables, no better than Jilsop's. You may meet with several catalogues 
 of them in protestant writers :"* as their St Swithin's making whole a 
 basket of broken eggs by the sign of the cross ; Patricius his making 
 the stolen sheep to bleat in the thief's belly after he had eaten it ; their St 
 Bridget's bacon, which in great charity she gave to a hungry dog, ^yas 
 found again in her kettle ; Dionysius after he was beheaded carried 
 liis head in his hand three French miles ; St Dunstan took the devil 
 by the nose with his tongs till he made him roar ; Dominicus made 
 him hold the candle till he burnt his fingers ; St Lupus imprisoned 
 the devil in a pot all night ; a chapel of the Virgin Mary was trans- 
 lated from Palestine to Loretto ; a consecrated host, being put into a 
 hive of bees to cure them of the murrain, was so devoutly entertained 
 that the bees built a chapel in the hive, with doors, windows, steeple, 
 and bells, erected an altar and laid the host upon it, sung their canoni- 
 cal hours, and kept their watches by night, as monks used to do in 
 theu- cloisters, &c. Wlio would ever imagine that men of any serious- 
 ness could satisfy themselves with such childish fopperies ? These are 
 the usual ways by which men of design have raised the noise of miracles. 
 The other part of Satan's coming 5 relates to himself and his own 
 actions. When his agents can go no further in the trade of miracle- 
 making, he as a spirit doth often make use of his power, knowledge, 
 and agility, by wliich he can indeed do things incredible and to be 
 wondered at : Portenta faUacium spirituum. It is nothing for him, 
 by his knowledge of affairs at a distance, of the private endeavours • 
 or expressed resolves of princes, to prognosticate future events. By 
 
 ' Hist., lib. xvi. 
 
 2 Loc, lib. xi. cap. 6. [Query, Camus, Bp. of Belley— the reference being to his 
 ' Agathonphile.' Kouen, 1641 ?— G.] 
 
 ^ Vide Chamier, Panst., torn. 5, lib. ii. cap. 15. . . / t, i- 
 
 * Prideaux, Orat. de impost, mendaciis ; Rome's Triumphs; Mr Baxters ' !^afe Reli- 
 gion,' p. 168. [1657. 8vo. — G.l ' Query, 'cunning ■;— Ed. 
 
1R2 A TREATISE OF [PaBT II. 
 
 Lis power over the bodies of men, he can, with the help of inclina- 
 tions and advantages, do mucli to bring a man into a trance, or take 
 the opportunity of a fit of an apoplexy, and then, like a cunning juggler, 
 pretend, by I know not what nor whom, to raise a man from death. 
 He knows the secret powers and virtues of things, and by private 
 applications of them may easily supply spirits, remove obstructions, 
 and so cure lameness, blindness, and many other distempers, and then 
 give the honour of the cure to what person or occasion may best fit 
 his design ; so that either by the officious lies of his vassals, or the 
 exerting of his own power on suitable objects at fit times, he hath 
 made a great noise of signs and wonders in the world. And this 
 stratagem of his hath ever been at hand to gain a repute to false 
 doctrine. And the lather doth he insist upon this, 
 
 First, Because tnie miracles are a divine testimony to truth. As 
 Nicodemus argued, John iii. 2, ' No man could do these miracles 
 that thou doest except God be with him.' Aud there were soleuin 
 occasions wherein they were necessary ; as when God gave public dis- 
 coveries of his mind before the t<crii)tures were written ; and also when 
 he altered the economy of the Old Testament and settled that of the 
 New. In these cases it was necessary that God sliould confirm his 
 word by miracles. But now, though these ends of miracles are ceased, 
 though God liath so settled aud fixed the rule of our obedience and 
 worship that no other gospel or rule is to be expected, and conse- 
 quently no need of new miracles, where the certain account of the old 
 miracles are sufficient attestations of old and unalterable truths ; nay, 
 though God have expressly told us, Deut. xiii. 1, that no miracle — 
 though it should come to pass, and could not be discovered to be a 
 lie — should prevail with us to forsake the established truths and ways 
 of Scripture, or to entertain anything contrary to it ; yet doth Satan 
 exercise herein a proud imitation of the supreme majesty, and withal 
 doth so dazzle the minds of the weaker sort of men — who arc more 
 apt to consider the wonder than to suspect the design — that, without 
 due heed given to the cautions which God hath laid before us in that 
 particular, they arc ready to interpret them to be God's witness to this 
 or that doctrine, to wliich they seem to be appendant. 
 
 Secondly, Because Satan hath a more than ordinary advantage to 
 feign miracles ; he doth more industriously set himself to pretend 
 them and to urge tliem for the accomplishment of his ends. It is an 
 easy work to prevail with men that are wholly devoted to their own 
 interest, under the mask of religion to say and do anything that may 
 further their design ; and the business of miracles is so imitable by 
 art, through the ignorance and heedlessness of men, that with a small 
 labour Satan can do it at pleasm-e. The secret powers of nature — 
 such as that of the loadstone— by a dexterous application brought into 
 act in a fitly-contrived subject, will seem miraciUous to those that see 
 not the secret springs of those actions. There have been artificial 
 contrivances of motions which, had they been disguised under a reli- 
 gious form, and directed to such an end, might have passed for greater 
 miracles than many which we have mentioned. Such was the dove 
 of Archyas, which did fly in the air as if it had been a living creature.^ 
 > [GelliuB, X. 12.— G.] Heylin, ' Cosmographie,' p. 399, [1666 folio.— 0.1 
 
Chap. 3.] sata>''s temptations. 183 
 
 Such was the Ay of Eegiomootanus, and the eagle presented to the 
 Emijeror MaxuniHan, which, in the compass of their little bodies, 
 contained so many springs and wheels as were sufficient to give them 
 motion, and to direct theu- coiurses as if they had been animated. 
 Albertus Magnus his artificial man, and the silver galley and tritons 
 made by a goldsmith at Paris,i were rare pieces of art — their motions 
 so certain and steady, that they seemed to have life and understand- 
 ing. If art can do all" this, how much more may we suppose can Satan 
 do ! how easily can he make apparitions, present strange sights to 
 the eye and voices to the ear, and, by putting out his power, do a 
 thousand things astonishing and wondeiful ! 
 
 (8.) Eighthly, Sometimes Satan pleads for error, from the ease, 
 peace, or other advantages luhich men pretend they have received since 
 they engaged in such a tvay or received such a persuasion. This is an 
 argument from the effect, and frequently used to confirm the minds 
 of men in their opinions. Hence they satisfy themselves with these 
 reasonings : ' I was before always under fears and uncertainties ; I 
 never was at peace or rest in my mind. I tried several courses, fol- 
 lowed several parties, but I never had satisfaction or comfort till now, 
 and by this I know that I am in a right way.' Others argue after the 
 same manner from their abundance and outward prosperity : ' I met 
 with nothing but crosses and losses before, but now God hath blessed 
 me with an increase of substance, prospered my trade and under- 
 takings,' (fcc. These, though apparently weak and deceitful grounds, 
 are reputed strong and conclusive to those that are first resolved upon 
 an error. For men are so willing to justify themselves in what they 
 have imdertaken, that they greedily catch at anythmg that hath the 
 least appearance of probability to answer their ends. 
 
 This plea of satisfaction is commonly from one of these two things : 
 
 1. First, From imvard peace and contentment of mind. Satan 
 knows that peace is the thing to which a man sacrificeth all his 
 labours and travail. This he seeks, though often in a wrong way, and 
 by wi-ong means. He knows also that true peace is only the daughter 
 of truth, ' the ways whereof are pleasantness, and the paths whereof 
 are peace ; ' neither is he ignorant of the delights which a man hath, 
 by enjoying himself in the sweet repose of a contented mind, that he 
 may charm the hearts of the erroneous into a confidence and assurance 
 that they have taken a right course ; he doth all he can to further a 
 false peace in them, and to this purpose he commonly useth this 
 method : — 
 
 [1.] First, He doth all he can to unsettle them from the foundation 
 of truth upon ivhich they icere bottomed. He labours to render things 
 suspicious, doubtful, or imcertain. This some have noted from 2 
 Thes. ii. 2, where Satan's first attempts are to shake their minds, not 
 only by disquiet, of which we are next to speak, but by alteration of 
 their judgment; for mind is sometimes taken for sentence, opinion, 
 judgment, as 1 Cor. ii. 16, ' We have the mind of Christ ; ' and 1 Cor. 
 i. 10, ' In the same mind, and in the same judgment.' - 
 
 [2.] Secondly, His second approach is to raise a storm of restless 
 
 ' For all above, see Heylin, as before. — G. 
 
 ^ Sclater in loc. vovt for yviiiirj, [aa before.— G.] 
 
184 A TKEATISE OF [PaUT II. 
 
 disquiet upon that uncertainty ; and in order to his intended design, 
 he usually fills them with the utmost anxiety of mind, and makes 
 their thoughts, like a tempestuous sea, dash one against another. 
 This piece of his art is noted in the fore-cited place, that ' j'e be not 
 shaken in mind, or troubled : ' the word signifies a great perplexity, 
 dpoela-eai. And this is a usual method which the false teachers among 
 the Galatians practised; they first troubled them, and then endea- 
 voured by the advantage of that trouble to pervert the gos]iel of Christ, 
 Gal. i. 7, and v. 12. To eflect both these, he doth amuse them with all 
 the objections that can be raised. If he can say anything of the an- 
 tiquity of the error, the number, wisdom, learning, or authority of 
 those that embrace it, they are sure to hear of these things to the 
 full. The danger of continuing as they were, and the happiness of 
 the new doctrine, are represented with all aggravating circumstances ; 
 and these so often, that their thoughts have no rest : and if this rest- 
 lessness does wound or wealcen them, he pursues with a high hand. 
 These ways of disturbing the unsettled mind are hinted to us in the 
 aforesaid place— spirit, word, letter, anything that carries a seeming 
 authority to unsettle, or power to amaze and distress. And we may 
 here further note, that where the minds of men are discomposed with 
 other fears or disquiets, Satan is ready to improve them to this use, 
 so that commonly when the word of God begins to work at first upon 
 the consciences of men, to awaken them to the consideration of their 
 sin and danger, the adversary is then very busy with them to inveigle 
 them into some error or other. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Having thoroughly prepared the mind with restless 
 fears, he then advanccth forward with the proffers of peace and com- 
 fort in the ivay of error ivhivh he jyroposclh ; and in this case error 
 will boast much, ' Come to me, and ye shall find rest for your souls.' 
 How grateful and welcome the confident proffers of ease and satis- 
 faction are to a tossed and disquieted mind, any man will easily 
 imagine. It is usually thus : men that are tired out will easily em- 
 brace anything for ease. A man in this case may be wrought upon 
 like wax, to receive any impression ; he will fasten on anything, true 
 or' false, that doth but promise comfort. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, The completement of his method is to please the man 
 in the fruition of the peace j)romised ; and this he labours to do, not 
 only to fix the man in his delusion, but to make that man brag of ease, 
 to be a snare to others. And it is easy for tlie devil to do this : for, 
 first, The novelty of a new opinion doth naturally please, especially 
 'if it give any seeming commendation for discovery or singularity. We 
 see men are fond of their own inventions, and dehghted to be lifted up 
 above others. Secondly, Satan can easily allay the storm which he 
 himself raised : he gives over to molest with anxious thoughts — on the 
 the contrary, he suggests thoughts of satisfaction. Thirdly, And what- 
 ever he can do in a natural way to raise up our passions of joy and 
 delight, he %vill be sure to do it now, to ravislunent and excess if he 
 can ; and then he not only makes these men sure— for what argument 
 can stand before such a confidence ?— but hath an active instrmnent 
 for the allurement of such as cannot discover these methods. 
 
 2. Secondly, Oidward prosperity is the other common plea for 
 
Chap. 3. J satan's temptations. 185 
 
 error. Though successes, plenty, and abundance of worldly comforts 
 argue of theuiselves neither love nor hatred, truth nor falsehood — 
 because the wise providence of God, for holy ends and reasons often 
 undiscerned by us, permits often the tabernacles of robbers to prosper, 
 and permits those that ' deal treacherously ' with the truths of God 
 ' to be i^lanted, to take root, to grow, yea, to bring forth fruit'— never- 
 theless if in a way of error they meet with outward blessings, they are 
 apt to ascribe all to their errors, and to say as Israel, Hosea ii. 5, ' I 
 will go after my lovers that gave me my bread and my water, my wool 
 and my flax, mine oil and my drink,' without any serious consider- 
 ation of God's common bounty, which upon far other accounts, 
 ' gives them corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplies their silver and 
 gold,' which they prepared for Baal, ver. 8. I shall not need to add any- 
 thing further for the proof and explanation of this than what we have 
 in Jer. xliv. 17, 18, where the Jews expressly advance their idolatrous 
 worship as the right way, and confirm themselves even to obstinacy in 
 the pursuit of it, upon this reason : ' We will certainly do whatsoever 
 thing goeth out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the, queen of 
 heaven .... for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and 
 saw no evil: but since we left off to burn incense to the queen of 
 heaven, and to pour out our drink-offerings unto her, we have 
 wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the 
 famine.' 
 
 (9.) Ninthly, Instead of better arguments, Satan usually makes lies 
 Ms refuge : and these respect either the truth which he would cry 
 down, or the errors which he would set up. 
 
 Those lies that are managed against truth are of two sorts : mistakes 
 and misrepresentations of its doctrines, or calumnies against the persons 
 and actions of those that take part with it. 
 
 Those lies that are proper to bespatter a truth withal are such as 
 tend to render it unlovely, inconvenient, or dangerous. Satan hath 
 never been a-wanting to raise up mists and fogs to eclipse the shining 
 beauty of truth. Sometime he persuades men that it is a novelty, 
 and contrary to the tradition of the fathers ; and then, if an error had 
 been once upon the stage before, and had again been hissed out of the 
 world, when it peeps out again into the world, its former impudency 
 is made an argument for its antiquity, and truth is decried as novel. 
 Or if it be but an error of yesterday, and hath only obtained an age 
 or two, then the ghosts of our forefathers are conjured up as witnesses, 
 and the plea runs current. What has become of your fathers ? or, are 
 you wiser than your fathers ? are they all damned ? These were 
 insisted on by the heathens : the gods of the country and the worship 
 of their fathers, they thought, should not be forsaken for Christianity, 
 which they judged was but a novelty in comparison of paganism. 
 Of the same extract is that old song of the papists, ' Where was your 
 religion before Luther?' and to this purpose they talk of the succes- 
 sion of their bishops and popes. And other errors grow a little pert 
 and confident, if they can but find a pattern or sample for themselves 
 among the old heresies. Sometime he endeavours to bring truth into 
 suspicion, by rendering it a dangerous encroachment upon the rights 
 and privileges of men, as if it would turn all upside down, and intro- 
 
186 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 duce factions and confusions. This clamour was raised against the 
 gospel, that it would subvert the doctrine of Moses and the law. 
 Sometimes he clothes the opinions of truth with an ugly dress, and 
 misrepresents it to the world as guilty of strange inferences and 
 absurdities, which only arise from a wrong statmg of the questions ; 
 and where it doth really dift'er from error, lie endeavours to widen the 
 differences to an inconvenient distance, so that if it go a mile from 
 error, Satan will have it to go two: if trutli teach justification by faith, 
 error represents it as denying all care of holiness and good works ; 
 if truth say bare moral virtues are not sufficient without grace, error 
 presently accuseth it as denying any necessary use of morality, or 
 affirming that moral virtues are obstructions and hindrances to salva- 
 tion. It were easy to note abundance of such instances. 
 
 As for calumnies against the persons and actions of those that are 
 assertors of truth, it is well known for an old threadbare design, by 
 which Satan hath gained not a little. Machiavel borrowed the policy 
 from him, and formed it into a maxim ; for he found by experience 
 that where strong slanders had set in their teeth, though never so 
 unjustly, the wounds were never throughly healed ; for some that 
 heard the report of the slander never heard the vindication, and those 
 that did were not always so unprejudiced as to free themselves from all 
 suspicion, but still something remained usually upon their si)irits for 
 ever after; and that, like a secret venom, poisons all that could be said 
 or done by the persons that wrongfully fell under their prejudice, and 
 did not a little derogate from the authority and i)ower of the truths 
 which they delivered. 
 
 The friends of truth have always to their cost found it so. Christ 
 himself escaped not the lies and censures of men when he did the 
 greatest miracles ; they rai.sed this calumny against him, that ' he 
 cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils,' John viii. 48. 
 When he shewed the most compassionate condescensions, they called 
 him ' a man gluttonous, a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and 
 sinners ;' and at last, ujwn a misinterpretation of his speeches, ' I will 
 destroy this temple, and in three days 1 will build it up,' Mat. xxvi. 61, 
 they an-aigned and condemned him for blasphemy ; and liis servants 
 have, according to what he foretold, drunk of the same cup: the 
 more eminent in service the greater draught. Paid, a chosen vessel, met 
 with much of this unjust dealing: he was accused. Acts xxi. 28, as 
 sjieaking against the peoi)le, the law, and the temple, and, chap, 
 xxiv. 5, called ' a pestilent fellow, a mover of sedition, a profaner of 
 the temple.' Neither can we wonder at this, that the greatest inno- 
 cency or highest degree of holiness is no armour or proof against the 
 sharp arrows of a lying tongue ; when we read this as one of Satan's 
 great characters, that he is ' the accuser of the brethren,' and that his 
 agents are so perfectly instructed in this art that they are also branded 
 with the same mai-k of ' false accusers,' JudelO. It is well known how 
 the primitive Christians were used: they were accounted 'the filth and 
 offscom-ing of all tlungs;' there could be nothing that could render 
 them odious or ridiculous but they were aspersed with it ; as that they 
 'sacrificed infants, worshipped the sun, and used promiscuous unclean- 
 ness;' nay, whatever plague or disaster befell their neighbours, they 
 
Chap. 3.] satan's temptations. 187 
 
 were siu'e to carry the blame. And we might trace this stratagem 
 down to om- own days. Luther in his time was the common butt for 
 all the poisoned arrows of the papists' calumny ; which so exceeded all 
 bounds of sobriety and prudence that they devised a romance of his 
 death, how he was choked of the devil; that before he died he desired 
 his corpse might be carried into the church and adored with divine 
 worship ; and that after his death the excessive stench of his carcase 
 forced all his friends to forsake him. All this and more to this pur- 
 pose they published while he was alive ; whose slanders, worthy only 
 of laughter, he refuted by his own pen. The like fury they expressed 
 against Calvin by their Bolsecus, whom they set on work to fill a 
 book with impudent lies against him. Neither did Beza, Junius, or 
 any other of note escape without some slander or other. How unjustly 
 the Ai'iaus of old accused Athanasius of uncleanness, and of bereaving 
 Arsenius of his arm, is sufficiently known in history. i 
 
 But the devil's malice doth not always run in the dirty channel of 
 odious calumnies. He hath sometimes a more cleanly conveyance for 
 his lies against holy men. In prosecution of the same design, it is a 
 fair colour for error if he can abuse the name and credit of renowned 
 champions of truth, by fathering au error upon them which they never 
 owned. By this means he doth not only grace a false doctrine with 
 the authority of an eminent person, whose estimation might be a snare 
 to some well-meaning persons, but weakens the truth, by bringing a 
 faithful assertor of it into suspicion of holding, at least in some points, 
 dangerous opinions ; by which many are affrighted from entertaining 
 anything that they write or preach. For though they may be con- 
 fessedly sound in the most weighty doctrines, yet if it be once buzzed 
 abroad that tliey are in anything unsound, this dead fly spoils all the 
 precious ointment. And the matter were yet the less if tliere were any 
 just cause for such a prejudice ; but such is Satan's art, that if a man 
 explains the same truth, but in different words and forms of speech 
 tlian those that others have been used unto ; or if he casts it into a 
 more convenient mould, that, by laying aside doubtful or flexible 
 expressions, it may be more safely guarded from the exceptions of the 
 adversaries; especially if he carefully choose his path betwixt the 
 extremes on either hand, — this is enough for Satan to catch at, and 
 presently he bestows upon him the names of the very errors which he 
 most strenuously opposeth ; nay, sometimes if he mention anytliing 
 above the reach or acquaintance of those that hear him, it is well if he 
 escapes the charge of heresy, and that he meets not with the lot of 
 VirgUius, bishop of Salzburg, who was judged no less than heretical 
 for venting his opinion concerning the antipodes.2 I know men do 
 such things in their zeal ; but while they do so they are concerned to 
 consider how Satan doth abuse their good meaning to the disservice of 
 truth. 
 
 As Satan's design in bespattering the actions and doctrines of good 
 men is to bring the truth they profess into a suspicion of falsehood, 
 and to advance the contrary errors to the jilace and credit of truth, so 
 doth he use a skill proportionable to his design. And though he be 
 
 5 : and Hcvlin, Cosmogr, p. 399. 
 
188 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 60 impudent that he will not blush at the contrivance of the most 
 gross and malicious lie, yet withal he is so cunning that he studiously 
 endeavours some probable rise for his slanders, and commonly he takes 
 this course: — 
 
 [1.] First, He doth all he can to corrujyf the professors of truth. If 
 riches or honours will tempt them to be proud, high-minded, conten- 
 tious, or extravagant, he plies them with these weapons ; if the jjlea- 
 sures of the flesh and world be more likely to besot them, or to make 
 them sensual, earthly, or loose, he incessantly lays those baits before 
 them ; if fears and persecutions can affright them out of duty, if 
 injuries and provocations may prejudice them into a froward or way- 
 ward temper, he will certainly urge them by such occasions ; and when 
 he hath prevailed in any measure, he is sm-e to aggravate every circum- 
 stance to its utmost height, and upon that advantage to make addi- 
 tions of a great many things beyond what they can" be justly accused 
 of. This old device Paul, in Kom. ii. 24, takes notice of concerning 
 tlic Jews, whose bieach of tlie law so dishonoured God that ' the 
 name of God was blasphemed among the Gentiles through them.' 
 The Jews lived wickedly, and their wicked lives was a cuirent argu- 
 ment among the Gentiles to confirm them in paganism ; for they 
 judged the law of God could not approve itself to be better than their 
 own, when the professors of it were so naugiit. To prevent this 
 mischief, we are seriously warned to be carefully strict in all our 
 stations, ' that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed,' 
 1 Tim. vi. 1 ; Titus ii. 5. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Whatever miscarriages any professor of truth is 
 guilty of Satan takes care that it be presently charged ttpon all the 
 profession. If any one offend, it is matter of public blame ; much 
 more if any company or party shall run into extravagances, or do 
 actions strange and unjustifiable ; those that agree with them in the 
 general name of their profession, though they differ as far from their 
 wild opinions and practices as their enemies do, shall still be ujibraided 
 with their follies. We see this practised daily by differing parties ; 
 according to what was foretold in 2 Pet. ii. 2, ' false prophets ' seduce 
 a great number of Christians to follow their pernicious ways, and by 
 reason of their wild, ungodly behaviour, ' the whole way of truth was 
 evil spoken of.' 
 
 [3.] Tliirdly, Tlie least slip or infirmity of the children of truth the 
 devil is ready to bring upon the stage; and they that will not "charge 
 themselves as offenders for very great evils, will yet object, to the dis- 
 paragement of truth, the smallest mistakes of others : a mote in the 
 eye of the lovers of truth shall be espied when a beam in the eye of 
 falsehood shall pass for nothing. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Slanderous aspersions are sometimes raised from a 
 simp)le mistake of actions, and their grounds or manner ofpetform- 
 ance, and sometimes from a malicious misrepresentation. The devil 
 seldom acts from a simple mistake; but he will either suborn the 
 passionate opposers to a wilful perverting of the true management of 
 things, or wDl by a false account of things take the advantage of their 
 prejudice, to make men believe that such things have been said or 
 done, which indeed never were. The Christians in the primitive 
 
Chap. 3.] satan's temptations. 189 
 
 times were reported to be bloody men, and that they did kill men in 
 sacrifice, and did eat their flesh and drink their blood ; and tliis was 
 only occasioned by their doctrine and use of the sacrament of the body 
 and blood of Clirist. They were accused for promiscuous uncleanness 
 with one another, and this only because they taught that there was no 
 distinction of male and female in respect of justification, and that they 
 were all brethren and sisters in Christ. This accoimt TertuUian gives 
 of the calumnies of those times, and others have noted the like occa- 
 sions of other abuses of them.i They were reported to worship the 
 sun, because they in times of persecution were forced to meet early in 
 the fields, and were often seen undispersed at sunrising. They were 
 reported to worship Bacchus and Ceres, because of the elements of 
 bread and wine in the Lord's supper. If they met in private places, 
 and in the night, it was enough to occasion surmises of conspiracy 
 and rebellion: so ready is Satan to take occasion where none is 
 given. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, But if none of these are at hand, then a doionrigJit lie 
 must do the turn, according to that of Jer. xviii. 18, ' Come and let us 
 devise devices against Jeremiah;' and when once the lie is coined, 
 Satan hath officious instruments to spread it : Jer xx. 10, ' Report, 
 say they, and we will report it.' 
 
 These were the lies raised against truth ; but besides this endeavour, 
 he useth the same art of lying to enhance the credit of error. Lying 
 inspirations, lying signs and wonders we have spoken of ; I shall only 
 mention another sort of lying, which is that of forgery, an art which 
 error hath commonly made use of. Sometimes books and writings 
 erroneous have been made to carry the names of men that never knew 
 or saw them. The apostles themselves escaped not these abuses : you 
 read of the counterfeit Gospels of Thomas and Bartholomew, the Acts 
 of Peter and Andrew, the Apostolical Constitutions, and a great many 
 more. Later writers have by the like hard usage been forced to 
 father the brats of other men's brains. I might be large in these, 
 but they that please may see more of this in authors that have of pur- 
 pose discovered the frauds of spurious, supposititious books.2 The 
 design is obvious : error would by this means adorn itself with the 
 excellent names of men of renown, that so it might pass for good 
 doctrine with the unwary. 
 
 ' Apolog., cap. 7-9, 39. 
 
 - Coci Censura Patrum, [Query, the Thesaurus CathoUcus of Joan. Coccius. — G.] ; Dr 
 James, De Corrupt. Scrip. Concilior, [1688, 8to, and re-edited by Cox, 1843, 8vo] ; Pri- 
 deaux, De Pseudo-Epigraphig, [as before.— G.] 
 
190 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Of Satan's second tcay of improving his advantages, which is by 
 tvorhing upon the understanding iiidirectly by the affections. — This 
 he doth— (1.) By a silent, insensible introduction of error. His 
 method herein. (2.) By entangling the affections tcith the external 
 garb of error, a gorgeous dress, or affected plainness. (3.) By 
 fabulous imitations of truth. The design thereof . (4.) By accom- 
 modating truth to a compliance toith parties that differ from it. 
 Various instances hereof. (5.) By driving to a contrary extreme. 
 (6.) By bribing the affections ivith reivards, or forcing them by 
 fears. (7.) By engaging j^ride and anger. (8.) By adorning error 
 with the ornaments of truth. 
 
 The usual arguments by which Satan dotli tlirectly blind the under- 
 standing to a persuasion to accept darkness for light, we have now 
 considered. It remains that some account be given of the second way 
 of prevailing upon the understanding, and that is by sivaying it through 
 the power and jir> m/r/iry <f the affections. In order to this he hath 
 many devices, tli<' |iniiii]i;il whereof are these: — 
 
 1. First, By xili iil iukI iii.sensiblc procedure he labours to introduce 
 errors ; and lest men sliould startle at a sudden and full presentment 
 of the whole, he thinks it policy to insinuate into the affections, by 
 offering it in parcels. Thus he prevents wonderment and surprisal, 
 lest men should boggle and turn away, and doth by degrees familiarise 
 them to that which at first would have been rejected witli abhorrcncy. 
 We read in the parable of the tares that tlie envious man which 
 sowed them, who was Satan, took his opportunity ' while men slept,' 
 and then went away in the dark ; insomuch that the discovery was 
 not made at the sowing, but at their coming up. In pursuance of 
 this policy, we find the principal instruments of Satan have followed 
 the footsteps of their master ; they ' creep in unawares,' Jude 4 ; they 
 ' privily bring in damnable heresies,' 2 Pet. ii. 1 ; and, as if they were 
 guilty "of some modest shamefacedness, they ' crcej^ into houses,' 2 Tim. 
 iii. 6. The steps by which the devil creeps into the bosoms of men 
 to plant error in the heart are these : — 
 
 [1.] First, He endeavours to gain the heart by the ingenuous, siveet, 
 and delightful society of those that are corrupted already. Error hath 
 a pecuhar art to woo the good-will before it disclose itself It first 
 steals the ear and affections to the person, and thence insensibly 
 derives it to the opinion. Truth is masculine, and persuades by teach- 
 ing, but error doth often teach by persuading. It is very difficult to 
 affect the person, and not to bestow upon the error better thoughts 
 than it deserves. Those therefore that are cunning in the art of 
 seduction, make extraordinary i^retences of affectionate kindness, and, 
 as the apostle noted concerning the seducers of his time. Gal. iv. 17, 
 ' they zealously affect ' those whom they would delude, ' but not well.' 
 Their art doth also teach them not to be over-hasty in propounding 
 their opinions, nor so much as to touch upon them, till they perceive 
 they have gained a firm persuasion of their amity, and of the reality 
 
Chap. 4.] satan's temptations. 191 
 
 of those kindnesses which they have made sliow of ; but when they 
 have once gained this point of advantage, they take opportunity more 
 freely to propound and press their doctrines. Tlius are men at last 
 beguiled ' with enticing words.' 
 
 It is also part of the same design that Satan sometimes makes use 
 of women seducers : For, (1.) They are more apt to be deluded them- 
 selves: 'silly women' are soon 'led captive.' (2.) Being deceived, 
 they are most earnestly forward in the heat of zeal to propagate their 
 opinions. (3.) And by the advantage of their nature they are most 
 engaging ; their affectionate persuasions usually have a peculiar preva- 
 lency. The daughters of Moab, through Balaam's counsel, were made 
 choice of as the fittest instruments to seduce Israel to idolatry. Solomon, 
 though a wise man, was prevailed with by the importunity of his 
 wives, against his former jiractice and knowledge, to favour false wor- 
 ship. The woman Jezebel, Kev. ii. 20, was Satan's under-agent ' to 
 teach and seduce God's servants to commit fornication, and to eat 
 things sacrificed to idols.' (4.) Besides, they have a greater influence 
 upon their children to leaven tliem with their own opinions. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Satan also observes a gradual motion infixing any 
 particular error. If he attempt it immediately, without an external 
 agent, he first puts men upon the reading or consideration of some 
 dark passages that seem to look favourably upon his design ; then he 
 starts the notion or objection ; then begets a scruple or questioning. 
 Having once proceeded thus far, he follows his design with probable 
 i-easons, till he have formed it into an opinion. When it is come 
 to this, a little more begets a persuasion, that persuasion he ripens 
 into a resoluteness and obstinacy, and then at last fires it with zeal 
 for the deluding of others. Having thus laid the foundation by one 
 error, he next endeavours to multiply it, and then brings in the in- 
 ferences that unavoidably follow ; for as one wedge makes way for 
 another, so from one falsehood another will easily force itself, and 
 from two or three who knows how many ? And though the con- 
 sequences are usually more absurd than the principles, yet are 
 they with a small labour brought into favour where the principles 
 are first confidently believed ; so that those errors, which because of 
 their ugly look Satan durst not at first propound, lest he should scare 
 men off from their reception, he can now with an undaunted boldness 
 recommend. It cannot be imagined that ever men would at first have 
 entertained opinions of contempt of ordinances and libertinism, and 
 therefore we may observe they usually come in the rear of other 
 opinions, which by a long tract of art prepare their way. 
 
 Yet may we note, that though Satan usually is forced to wait the 
 leism'e of some men's timorousness and bashfulness, and therefore 
 cannot ripen error to a hasty birth as he desires, hence is it that one 
 man often doth no more for his time, but only brew it, or, it may be, 
 makes only the rude draught of it, and another vents and adorns it ; 
 for so it was betwixt Laslius and Faustus Socinus, betwixt David 
 George and his successors. And though he be so confined to the first 
 principles of error which he hath instilled that he cannot at present 
 enlarge them beyond their own just consequences ; yet there are some 
 choice principles of his which, if he can but fasten upon the mind, 
 
192 A TREATISE OF [PaRtII. 
 
 they presently open the gap to all kind of errors imaginable. They 
 are like the firing a train of gunpowder, which in a moment blows up 
 the whole fabric of truth. Such are the delusions of enthusiasm, 
 inspirations, and prophetic raptures. Let these be once fixed, and 
 then there is nothing so inhuman, irreligious, mad, or ridiculous, but 
 Satan can with ease persuade men to it, and also under the highest 
 pretences of religion and certainty. The experience of all ages hath 
 made any further proof of this altogether needless. 
 
 This is his way when he acts alone. But if he use instruments, 
 though he is also gradual in his procedure, yet it is in a diflerent method ; 
 for there he sometimes proceeds from the abuse of something innocent 
 and lawfid, by the help of a long tract of time, to introduce the grossest 
 falsehood. Thus may we conceive he brought idolatry to its height : 
 first men admired the wsdom or famous acts of their progenitors or 
 benefactors ; next they erected pillars or images of such persons to 
 perpetuate the names, honour, and memory of them and their actions. 
 Another age, being at a greater distance from the things done, and 
 consequently greater strangers to the true ends and reasons of such 
 practices, which being, as it usually falls out in such cases, abused by 
 false reports or misrejiresentations of things — for time covers things of 
 this nature with so thick a mist that it is difficult to discover the true 
 metal of an original constitution — they in a devout ignorance gave 
 the images a greater respect than was at first intended. Then did 
 they slide into a conceit they were not of the ordinary rank of mortals, 
 or at least they were exalted to a condition wliicli ordinary mortals 
 were not capable of. Thus they supposed them deities, and gave 
 them worship of prayers and sacrifices. Hence they went furtlier, 
 and multiplied gods, and that of several sorts, according to the natures 
 of things that were good or hurtful to them ; and then at last consult- 
 ing how mean their offerings were, and how unhkely to please their 
 godships, they concluded human sacrifices most suitable, especially to 
 expiate greater provocations, and in times of great calamity. 
 
 The burdensome heap of ceremonious superstitions in popery was 
 the work of several ages ; they were not brought in all at once. One 
 in a devotional heat fancied such a ceremony as a fit testimony of zeal, 
 or a proper incitement of his aflections ; another deviseth a second, 
 and so all along. As the minds of men were best pleased with their 
 own inventions, and had so much credit or authority to recommend 
 them to others, they increased the sum by new additions, till at last 
 they are become a biu-den not to be borne ; and still as they receded 
 from the primitive purity, and became more careless and corrupt in 
 their lives — for from good bishops they declined to but tolerable arch- 
 bishops, till at last they are become incurable Babylonians — so they 
 departed gradually from the simplicity of the gospel, and abounded in 
 contrivances of ceremonies, i 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, In corrupting established tniths. Satan's proceedings 
 are not by sudden and observable leaps, but by lingering and slow 
 motions — as flowers and plants gi'ow insensibly, and as men gradually 
 wax old and feeble. Violent and hasty alterations he knows would 
 beget observation, dislike, and opposition; neither will he make such 
 
 ' Matth[ias] Prideaux, Introduet. Histories. [1C55. 4to.— G.] 
 
Chap. 4.] satan's temptations. 193 
 
 attempts but where lie is sure of a strong prevalent party, which by 
 force and power is able to carry all before it. In this case he is willing 
 to enforce error by fire and sword. Thus he propagated Moham- 
 medanism at first, and still continueth to do so by the conquering arms 
 of the Tmks ; but where he hath not this advantage, he betakes him- 
 self to another course, and studieth to do his work so that he may 
 not be observed. The possibility of such a change, with the manner 
 of effecting it, we may observe in many churches that have declined 
 from the doctrine which they at first received, but most of all in the 
 church at Rome, which at first was a pure church, as the apostle 
 testifieth, but now so changed from the truths upon which they were 
 bottomed in their fu-st constitution, as if she had not been the same 
 church. They boast indeed that as they were at first, so they are 
 now ; but nothing is more evident than the contrary ; and the possi- 
 bility of their insensible corruption is as demonstrable as the alteration 
 of doctrine in any other church. The manifold ways that Satan takes 
 in this matter, in the abuse of Scripture, by raising perverse interpre- 
 tations and unnatural inferences, and the advantages of a long succes- 
 sion in authority ; of the negligence and ignorance of the conmion 
 people ; of the crafty subtlety" of the teachers, especially when religion 
 began to be abused to secular interest, is described by Acontius and 
 others.i If we should single out any of their noted errors, and follow 
 up the history of it to its first original, we shall find that whatever 
 strong current it hath now gotten, it was very small and inconsider- 
 able in the foimtain. The invocation of saints, though it be now an 
 established article among them, yet its first rise was from the unwary 
 prosopopceias of the ancients, and the liberty of their oratorical de- 
 clamatory style. These gave occasion to some private opinions, these 
 opinions to some private de\'otional liberty in practice, and from private 
 opinions and practices, at last it obtained so strong a party that it 
 procured a public injunction. The hke method was used for the 
 doctrine of transubstantiation, whose beginning was from the abuse of 
 such sentences as this in ancient -s\Titers, that ' after consecration it was 
 no more bread and wine, but the body and blood of Christ ;' by which 
 expression the authors intended no more than this, that the bread 
 and wine in the sacrament were relatively altered, and were more 
 than ordinary bread and wme, because they were representatives of 
 the body and blood of Clirist : however, this gave them comage to 
 interpret literally and strictly these words of Christ, _' This is my 
 body ;' and thus by degrees from the opinion of a few it became the 
 judgment of many, and from the toleration of a private opinion of 
 some doctors, and unimposed, it obtained at last a canon to make it 
 authentic jiublic docti'ine. 
 
 [4.] Fomthly, This insensible proceeding is in nothing more evi- 
 dent than in the power of custom and education. Custom doth by 
 degrees take off the startling of conscience ; and those opinions or 
 practices which at first look affright it, are by a little familiarity made 
 more smooth and tolerable. The dissents of men by frequent seeing 
 and hearing become tame and gentle ; but the force of education is 
 incomparably great, for this makes an error to become as it were na- 
 ' Stratagema Satanre, lib. iv., [as before. — G.] 
 
194 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 tural ; they suck it in with their milk, ami draw it in with their air 
 This general advantage the devil hath over all the chilcheu of erroneous 
 parents, especially where countries or nations are of the same persua- 
 sion ; insomuch that Turks have as great helief of their Alcoran as we 
 of the Bible, and think as reverently of Mohammed as Christians do of 
 Chi-ist. The children of idolatrous pagans have as great a confidence 
 of the truth of their way of heathenish worship, as we have of God's 
 ordinances and institutions. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, We may see something of this stratagem of silent en- 
 tanglement in Satan's sm~prisals ; for sometimes he inveigles men at 
 unawares, and engagcth them in error while they know not what they 
 are doing. Weak heads cannot see the far end of a smooth-faced 
 doctrine, and they usually embrace it by wholesale, for some particular 
 that strikes upon their fancy, or gratifies their humour. If they read 
 a book that hath some good things in it, or is affectionate, for the sake 
 of these they swallow all the rest, though never so dangerous doctrine, 
 without further examination. The like advantage he hath from actions 
 that arc bad or tolerable, according to the various respects which they 
 liave to the ends or consequences that lie before them ; for he frequently 
 doth interest men in an erroneous consequence, by concerning them 
 in actions that lead that way ; and having thus beguiled them into an 
 evil mistake, instead of drawing their foot out of the snare, he pusheth 
 them forward to maintain their ground, and to justify their proceed- 
 ings. This was the case of some of the Corintliians ; when the heathens 
 had offered a sacrifice to an idol, part of the sacrifice was reserved, 
 and either sold at tlie shambles, or used in a feast, to which the 
 heathens sometimes invited their Christian acquaintance or relations. 
 Those that went, knowing that ' an idol was nothing,' ate what was 
 set before them without any regard to the idol, and ' making no ques- 
 tion for conscience sake ;' by their example others that ' had not that 
 knowledge,' 1 Cor. viii. 7, were emboldened, not only to eat against 
 their scruples and doubts of conscience, — -which is all that many inter- 
 preters think to be intended in that place, — but also — as the words make 
 probable — with some positive regard to the idol ; so that by the examples 
 of those that sat in the idol's temple, eating what was set before them 
 as common meat, others misinterpreting their actions, proceeded to eat 
 with a conscience of the idol, as if the idol had been something indeed, 
 and deserving a conscientious regard. Not unlike to this was that art 
 of Julian, mentioned by Sozomen, whereby he endeavoured to twist 
 something of paganism with actions and things that were lawful or 
 necessary. 1 He caused the images of Mars and Mercury to be placed 
 by his own, so that the respects that were payed to the emperor's 
 picture, seemed to carry a concomitancy of reverence to those idols. 
 He also, in prosecution of the same policy, caused their meats and 
 drinks to be sprinkled or mixed with the lustral water, that so every 
 one that used them might be inured to give some regard to his idols ; 
 and that some, at least, might be engaged to a justification of that and 
 such other practices. 
 
 All these are but instances of Satan's silent insinuation, by which 
 ' Sozom. Eocl. Hist., lib. v. cap. 16. 
 
Chap. 4.j satan's temptations. 195 
 
 he secretly steals the affections, and tlirougli these tahits the judg- 
 ment. Next follows, 
 
 A second plot upon the affections, which is an endeavour to entangle 
 them hy the external garb of error. In this he works by two contrary 
 extremes, that he may tlie better prevail with men's different dis- 
 
 [1.] First, He sometimes clothes a false doctrine toith the most 
 pompotis, gorgeom, delightful attire, that, like Solomon's harlot, it 
 may entice those that are pleased with the highest gratifications of 
 the senses, ' I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with 
 fine linen of Egypt,' &c. Most men that are given up to an animal 
 life cannot be pleased with any religion but such as may most please 
 the senses. They so disrelish the simplicity of the gospel — which is, 
 notwithstanding, its particular mark and honom-, 2 Cor. xi. 3 — that 
 they cannot persuade themselves they do anything in religious wor- 
 ship except they abound in costly ceremonious observances. Thus 
 do some interpret that fear of the heathens, which first put them upon 
 images and outward representations of their gods. They were afraid 
 they should not have any religion to their own satisfaction, except 
 thcj' proceeded in such a course as might make their senses sure that 
 they were doing something, primiis in orbe fleas timor fecit. The 
 devil, knowing well the force of external beauties in religion, prepared 
 the way to idolatry by it. They had their costly temples, some of 
 them admirable for antiquity and magnificence, enriched with gifts 
 and offerings, excellent for matter and workmanshi]), adorned with 
 images, lamps, beds, and tables of gold, beautified by art, and natural 
 pleasantness of situation ; they had also their groves in the most plea- 
 sant and delightful places, as that of the Daphne, besides i Antiochia, 
 which was environed with tall cypress trees ten miles about, and 
 within adorned with the sumptuous temples of Apollo and Diana's 
 sanctuary. In these places they had their music and solemn 
 festivals, which were sometimes extraordinary for cost and continuance. 
 Antiochus at Daphne continued an incredible solemnity, with a vast 
 train and costly preparation, for thirty days' together ; and that nothing 
 might be wanting, they had their annual feasts, sacrifices, rites, the 
 adornments of their priests, their white garments, their coats of divers 
 colours, their mitres, &c. ; in a word, nothing was lacking that might 
 please the eye or ear. Ajid doubtless the devil found this course very 
 successful to win the affections of men to Gentilism. And if it were 
 not for this consideration, it might be admired that the Jews, who 
 were instructed in the true worship of God, should, notwithstanding, 
 be so prone to idolatry, and so hardly draAvn from it ; but surely their 
 strong inclinations that way proceeded from a natural delight that 
 men have in a sensual religion, which, by a powerful witchcraft, doth 
 enchant them to an excess of love. The same method the devil takes 
 in popery. The chief enticement lies in its glorious external appear- 
 ance. All their religious places are dressed up in the liighest bravery, 
 they are beautified with images and pictures, with lights and costly 
 adornments ; they abound in rites, ceremonies, gestures, and obser- 
 1 ' Beside ' Antioch in Syria. Cf. Libanius, Monod. de DaphnEeo Templo, iii. 334. — G. 
 
19G A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 vances, and all this is but to dazzle the eyes, aud to win a reverence in 
 men to theii- worship ; and accordingly they practise in these exterior 
 things on purpose to ravish men's affections ; their children are 
 brought up to a confirmed delight and resolution for popery, by pleas- 
 ing them with shows, pictures, representations, processions, and grate- 
 ful observances. If a stranger of another religion come among theru, 
 then, as their first essay, they shew them all their play-things, that their 
 affections may be tickled with the outward pomp and ornament of 
 their way, for they know by experience that a glittering outside and 
 a great deal ado of bodily labour is the all of most men's religion.^ If 
 it have but body enough, they never inquire whether it have spirit or 
 life within. A dead carcase in robes, that may put them to the 
 exercise of their postures and ceremonious compliments, doth make up 
 a more grateful religion for a carnal man than a living, spiritual ser- 
 vice, that necessarily wUl put them upon inward care aud watchfulness 
 in the constant exercise of holy spiritual graces, without affording any 
 considerable gratification to the senses. Hence is it truly more 
 difficult, and yet inwardly more beautiful and glorious, to pray in 
 faith and humility, even in short breathings after God, than to say a 
 thousand Ave Marias, or to perform a task of ordinary penance. But 
 as those that have no children of their own delight themselves in 
 playing with a monkey or baboon, so those that know not how to wor- 
 ship God in spirit and truth seek to satisfy tliemsclves in the perfor- 
 mance of external gesture and ceremony. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, On the other band lie sometimes is willing that an 
 error should affect aii excess of plainness and simplicity. In this he 
 takes advantage of those expressions in Scripture, wherein the gospel 
 is commended for its simplicity ; and the inventions of men, under the 
 pretences of wisdom, humility, and neglecting of the body, are con- 
 demned. Upon this ground he runs men upon such an excess of 
 dotage, that they never think the things of God are rightly managed 
 but when they are brouglit down to a contemptible silliness.^ By this 
 means he arms conceited ignorant men with exceptions against learn- 
 ing, and the necessary decencies of language in preaching ; and with 
 them they are the only preachers, and most likely to be inspired, that 
 use least study and preparation for their work. It is indeed very true 
 that the affected fooleries of a bombast style or starched discourse, and 
 needless citations of sentences for ostentation, without any true advan- 
 tage to the matter in hand, are things very pedantic, and exceedingly 
 unsuitable to the gravity of the work of the ministry, and renders 
 it very ungrateful to a pious mind ; but this contrary folly makes the 
 solemn ordinances of God so nauseous and contemptible, that it often 
 makes way, by Satan's cunning improvement of the temptation, to an 
 atheistical rejection of all worship. In the meantime it is wonderful 
 to observe bow some persons please themselves with this conceit, that 
 their way of worship is plain, and that they speak what immediately 
 comes into their mind ; and though it be nonsense or contradictions, 
 which sufficiently evidenceth that it is nothing of kin to the Spirit's 
 inspirations, which they utter, yet it is argument enough to thern that 
 their opinions and ways are right, because they proceed in a designed 
 
Chap. 4.] satan's temptations. 197 
 
 neglect of all necessary order, and under pretence of the simplicity of 
 the gospel they reduce all they do to childish silliness. Neither is this 
 all the mischief which the devil raiseth out of this conceit, for the 
 contempt and disuse of the sacraments may in great part be ascribed 
 to it. Those erroneous ways of worship that are most noted for 
 decrying those institutions of Christ, have this for theu- plea, that the 
 worship which God is best pleased with is spiritual, and that all bodily 
 services and external observations are things that God stands not 
 upon, such as profit little, and were no further in use, but to recom- 
 mend an internal spiritual communion with God ; so that the more 
 they reject these things, they persuade themselves they have a more 
 true imderstanding of the design of God in religion. Either of these 
 ways Satan makes use of for the befooling of men iuto a humour of 
 pleasing themselves with error. But, 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, He hath of old endeavoured to cloud and enervate the 
 doctrine of the Bible hij traditionary fables. We meet with many 
 passages to this purpose. Sometimes he sets up unwritten traditions, 
 not only of equal authority to the written word, but as completions and 
 perfections of it. This he practised among the Jews mth such success, 
 that the traditions of the elders were of greater force with them than the 
 commands of God, as Christ himself noted of them. Mat. sv. 13. Of 
 these unwritten traditions, which they called ' the law by the word of 
 mouth,' feigned by them to be given to Moses when he was in the 
 mount, and so delivered from hand to hand, the apostles gave many 
 warnings, and signified the hazards that truth stood in by them through 
 die cunning of Satan ; as Col. ii. 8, ' Beware lest any man spoil you 
 through the traditions of men;' 1 Tim. i. 4, 'Neither give heed to 
 fables, and endless genealogies;' Titus i. 14, 'Not giving heed to 
 Jewish fables, and commandments of men;' 2 Tim. iv. 4, 'And they 
 shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto 
 fables.' 
 
 The papists at this day give the same entertainment to this device 
 that the Jews did of old ; they boast as liigh of their traditions, and 
 are every whit as fabulous and foolish in them as they were. Satan 
 in his attempts upon the Gentiles to confirm them in their false wor- 
 ship, though he kept up the substance of this design, yet he was 
 necessitated to alter the scene a little, that he might more handsomely 
 accommodate it to their condition ; and therefore he set up amongst 
 them fabulous imitations of the truths and ordinances of the Scripture, 
 insomuch that there is scarce any grand mystery or remarkable history or 
 ordinance mentioned in the Scripture but we may find something among 
 the heathens in tradition or practice that doth allude to it. What 
 traditionary imitations had they of the creation recorded in the book 
 of Genesis ! That of Ovid concerning the chaos and first beginning 
 of things is known to every schoolboy. The Phoenicians in their theo- 
 logy give an odd account of it from tlieur Taautus, to this purpose : l 
 ' That the first beginnings of all things were a dark, disordered chaos, 
 and the spirit of the dark air ; hence proceeded moth, that is, mire, 
 from thence issued the seeds and generation of all creatures in earth 
 ' Purchas, Tilg., lib. i. cap. 17, [as before— G-l 
 
198 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 and heaven,' &c. The wickedness of men before the flood — mentioned 
 Gen. vi. 1, 2— is fabulously related in an ancient book, falsely ascribed 
 to Enoch, wherein the watchmen or angels are reported to take them 
 wives of the daughters of men, and that from thence was the race of 
 giants. 1 For the description of paradise, the heathens had the poetical 
 fiction of the Elysian fields ; as they had the story of Deucalion, instead 
 of Noah's ark and the deluge. The story of Lot's wife was abused by 
 the fiction of Orpheus his wife, suddenly snatched from him for look- 
 ing back. The history of Samson was turned into their story of 
 Hercules and his ten labours. From the sun standing still in Joshua 
 and Hezekiah's time, came that fiction of Jupiter's doubhng the night, 
 that he might enjoy Alcmena. In some of these disguises of sacred 
 story, they go so near in name and circumstances, that it is past doubt 
 they imitated tlie true history, which they con-upted. For instance, 
 Herodotus relates that Sethon, king of Egypt and priest of Vulcan, 
 was helped by his god from heaven against Sennacherib, wliich plainly 
 relates to Hezekiah king of Judah, and the wonders that God did for 
 him.- So in imitation of Uriah's letters to Joab for his own destruction, 
 we have in Homer and others the story of Prcctus sending letters to 
 Jobatas by Bellerophon, wherein his death was commanded ; the near 
 affinity of the names Joab and Jobatas, shews with what Iieifer the 
 devil ploughed. The history of Abraham's offering up Isaac is by 
 Porphyry applied to Saturn, who saith he was by the Phcenicians called 
 Israel ; he had by Anobieth one only son called Jeud,— an evident 
 allusion, saith Godwyn, [Antiq., lib. iv. cap. 3,] to Gen. xxii. 2, where 
 Isaac is in the Hebrew called Jechid, that is, an only-begotten, — him 
 lie ofi"ered up on an altar ])ur]ioseiy prepared. Here not only the 
 matter, but the names, do clearly shew tiiat Abraham's story is 
 imitated in this. The like imitation I migiit shew to have been 
 among the heathen of doctrinal truths, as of the sacred mystery of the 
 Trinity. In Peru they worship the father, son, and brother ; as also 
 their Tangatauga, which they say was one in tlrree, and three in one.3 
 But their imitation of ordinances is everywhere remarkable, so tliat I 
 need say nothing of their temples, priests, sacrifices, and other religious 
 rites ; only the devil's imitation of the sacraments of the New Testa- 
 ment deserves particular observation. Instances of an apish imitation 
 of baptism are everywhere obvious, and that of the Lord's supper or 
 Chi-istian communion was frequently resembled in the chief Peruvian 
 feasts, where they carried small loaves of bread in great platters of gold, 
 of which all present received and ate little i)ieces, and this as a sign of 
 honour and profession of obedience to their gods and the ingua.* Not 
 unlike to this were those morsels of paste which the Mexicans used in 
 their religious feasts, which they laid at their idol's feet, consecrating 
 them by singing and other ceremonies, and then they called them the 
 flesh and bones of their god Yitziliputzli, alluding directly to that of 
 our Saviour, ' This is my body,' &c., insomuch that Acosta thought 
 
 ' Vide Scaligeri notas in Euseb. Chron., p. 244. 
 
 - Lib. ii. ; mentioned also by Josephus, Antiq. Jews, lib. x. cap. 1. 
 
 ^ Purchas, Pilg. America, lib. ix. cap. 12, [as before.— G.] 
 
 * Turchas, Pilg. America, lib. ix. cap. 12. [Inca or Incas. — G.] 
 
Chap. 4.] satan's temptations. 199 
 
 the devil mocked their transubstantiation by it. This was distributed 
 among all, and was eaten with a great deal of reverence, fear, and 
 devotion. 1 
 
 We may see by those instances that in these fabulous imaginations 
 of truth the devil hath industriously traded, and that which he aimed 
 at in this design may easily be conjectured to be, 
 
 [1.] The despiting and discrediting of truth. He renders it by this 
 means suspicious of some forgery ; as if the Scripture were no better 
 than an uncertain tradition, as if, at the best, it were doubtful whether 
 Scripture or these traditionary fables had better authority. 
 
 [2.] He further intends the entanglement of the affections to enw 
 hy this device; for he doth, as it were, take the spoils' of the tabernacle 
 to adorn his Dagon withal ; and without doubt the heathens were very 
 much hardened in Gentilism by these traditionary stories. Hence 
 one observes,'^ the devil imitated the history of the mu-acle done in 
 favour of Hezekiah, that the Scriptures might lose their credit and 
 authority, and that the glory of such a wonder might be transferred to 
 their idols ; and the consequence of both these is, 
 
 [3.] To deprive the tndh of its convincing jyoiuer upon the con- 
 sciences of men. The principles of Scripture convince by the evidence 
 of their truth. If that truth be questioned by the substitution of an- 
 other competitor, it presently loseth its force, and the commands thereof 
 are disregarded upon a supposition of its imcertainty. 
 
 [4.] Another of bis ways to betray the understanding by the affec- 
 tions, is by putting men upon an accommodation of truth to a compli- 
 ance ivith parties differing from it. And this hath been so much the 
 more successful, because it hath begun, and been carried on, upon the 
 most specious pretences. The avoiding of offences, the smoothing of 
 the way of religion for the gaining of the contrary minded, the preser- 
 vation of peace and unity, are pleas very plausible ; and really, upon 
 the account of these things, the Scriptme, both by its precepts and 
 examples, hath recommended to us condescensions and brotherly for- 
 bearances. The Jews, who were dissatisfied at the first publication of 
 the liberty from the yoke of Mosaical ceremonies purchased for us by 
 Christ, were indulged in the use of circumcision, and observance of the 
 difference of meats for a long time, till they might be the better satis- 
 fied in the truth. These pretences the devil makes use of to under- 
 mine truth. And pleasing his agents with the honour of a pious 
 design — and it may be at first really so intended by them — he prevails 
 with them, not only for a present condescension to men of contrary 
 practice, but to cast the principles of truth into such a fixed mould 
 that they may carry a more near resemblance to those opinions which 
 they do most directly oppose. The appearance of sanctity, peaceable- 
 ness, prudence, and successfulness in such an undertaking, doth ex- 
 ceedingly animate the well-meaning designers, which Satan, in the 
 meantime, carries them beyond all bounds, and so dangerously fixeth 
 an unnatural representation of truth, that it loseth its own splendour, 
 
 J Piirchas, Pilg. America, lib. viii. cap. 13, [as before.— G.] 
 
 ' Ita diaboliLS hoc egit, ut diviimm miraculum in Judjea editum vilesceret, fidem 
 authoritatem amitteret, et tanti operis gloria ad turpissima idola rediret. — Bncholcer. 
 
200 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 and settles at last upon unsafe notions. Thus by the continuance of 
 such a compliance, error begins to recruit its forces, and is as likely 
 to draw over truth wholly to its side — by the argument of resemblance, 
 and the consequences following thereupon — as truth is wholly to ex- 
 tirpate and conquer error. And if it do not that, succeeding ages, 
 that minded not the first design, finding things so continued to them, 
 in deep reverence to their predecessors, form their prudential conde- 
 scensions into perverse opinions. 
 
 If we follow the tract of time from the first preaching of the gospel, 
 we may find Satan's footsteps all along. In the apostles' times, when 
 the believing Jews were tolerated necessarily till time and experience 
 might fully convince them in their observation of the law of Moses, 
 which was certainly given of God, and so might very easily occasion 
 an opinion of the continuance of it. Acts xv. 1, 5, though the apostles 
 did not at all accommodate the standing precepts of the New Testa- 
 ment to carry a perpetual resemblance of that opinion, neither did 
 they still countenance that practice, but did seasonably and fully de- 
 clare against it, exhorting Christians ' to stand in the liberty where- 
 with Christ liath made them free,' Gal. v. 1,2, yet Satan was busy to 
 take advantage of the present forbearances, which the Holy Ghost had 
 directed them unto ; insonuich that instead of convincing all the dis- 
 senters by that lenity, some dissenters waxed bold to persuade the 
 Clu-istians ' to another gospel.' But after their days the devil pursued 
 this design with greater scope; for instance, in Constantine's time, 
 when the Gentiles flocked into the church with dirty feet and in their 
 old rags, they were tolerated in some old customs of Gentilism, and 
 upon a design to win them, they made bold to bend the doctrine of 
 the gospel toward their former usages ; they thought indeed it was 
 best to wink at things, and not to bear too hard upon them at first, 
 but that, tolerating a lesser evil, they might avoid a greater incon- 
 venience; and witlial they deemed they had done great service to 
 the church and Christian religion, if they could any way divert the 
 heathen from worshipping their idols. And to eflect this the easilier, 
 they seemed to cherish their customs and rites of worship, as consonant 
 in the general to the princijjles of Christianity, only they excepted 
 against the object of their worship as unlawful, so that upon the matter 
 they did no more than change the name. The manifold inconveniences 
 that followed this kind of dealing, they did not discover at first ; but 
 besides the infecting the simplicity of Christian religion with the dirt 
 and dregs of paganism, which they might easily have seen, time hath 
 since discovered that here the devil secretly laid the chief foundations 
 of popery. 
 
 Whosoever shall impartially compare the rites, customs, usages, and 
 garbs of popery, with those of paganism, will to his admiration find 
 such an exact agreement and consonancy, that he must necessarily 
 conclude that either paganism imitated jiopery, or popery imitated 
 paganism ; but the latter is true, and that these corruptions in religion 
 by popery came in by a designment of conforming Christianity to 
 heathenism, though it may be upon jiious intentions at first, is no 
 difficult thing to evince ; for besides that the rites of paganism were 
 more ancient, and so could not be borrowed from popery, which came 
 
Chap. 4.] satak's temptations. 201 
 
 long after, the Scripture did foretell a great defection from truth 
 which should be in the ' last days,' and this under a profession of reli- 
 gion ; and the things particularised are such as shew that the defection 
 should cany an imitation of paganism : for no less seems to be signi- 
 fied by 1 Tim. iv. 1, ' The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter 
 times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, 
 and doctrines of devils ;' that is— as Mr Mede, whose interpretation I 
 follow,! doth prove — doctrines concerning devils or demons : as in Heb. 
 vi. 2, we have the phrase of ' doctrines of baptisms,' wMch must needs 
 signify doctrines concerning baptisms ; the Gentile theology of demons 
 is the thing which Paul prophesies should be introduced into Chris- 
 tianity. How clearly this relates to popery may be evident to any that 
 doth not wilfully blind himself by prejudice. Their doctrine of demons 
 was this : they supposed two sorts of gods, supreme and inferior ; the 
 supreme they supposed did dwell in the heavenly lights, sun, moon, 
 and stars, without change of place ; these they judged were so sublime 
 and pure, that they might not be profaned with the approach of earthly 
 things, and that immediate approaches to them were derogatory to 
 their sovereignty. The inferior order of gods they imagined were of a 
 middle sort, betwixt the supreme beings and men, as participating of 
 both. These they called mediators and agents, and supposed their 
 business was to carry up men's prayers to God, and to bring down 
 blessings from God upon men. These were in Scripture called 
 Baalim, and by the Greeks demons ; to this purpose Austin and others 
 speak. 2 
 
 Now these demons they supposed were the souls of dead men, that 
 had been more than ordinarily flimous in their generation. Thus 
 Ninus made an image to his father Belus after he was dead, and 
 caused him to be worshipped. Hermes confesseth that Ji^sculapius, 
 grandfather to Asclepius, and Mercury, his own grandfather, were 
 worshipped as gods of this order. Abundance of instances I might 
 produce to this jiurpose ; but to go on, these demons, because to them 
 was committed the care of terrestrial affairs, as Celsus argues against 
 Origen, and because of the help and advantage that men might receive 
 from them, they supposed it gratitude and duty to worship them, and 
 this worship they performed at their images, sepulclires, and relics. 
 To this purpose Plutarch tells us of Theseus his bones, and Plato of 
 the diJKai or skrines of their demons.^ 
 
 How evident is it that the papists in their doctrine and pi-actice 
 about the invocation of saints and angels, have writ after this copy, 
 and that they are the men that have introduced this doctrine of 
 demons, the thing itself declares without fm'ther evidence. Had the 
 heathens their dead heroes for agents betwixt the supreme gods and 
 men? so have the papists their dead saints to offer up their i^rayers. 
 Did the heathen expect more particular aids from some of these 
 demons in several cases than from others ? so do the papists. Instead 
 of Diana for women in labour, and ^sculapius for the diseased, they 
 
 ' Apostasy of the Latter Times. [Works, 1677, folio, pp. 623, sc^.— G.] 
 ' Do Civitate Dei, lib. viii. cap. 14, IS. 
 
 ■' Vide Du Plessis, Of the Trueness of Christian Religion, cap. 22 ; Origen, Gout. Cols., 
 lib. viii. p. 416 ; Plutarch in Vita Thesei et Dcmetril. 
 
202 A TREATISE OF [PART II. 
 
 have their St Margaret and St Mary for travailing ; Sebastian and 
 Roch against the pestilence ; ApoUonia against the toothache ; St 
 Nicholas against tempests, &c. Did the heathen pray to these demons 
 for their aid ? so do the papists to their saints, as their breviaries, 
 rosaries, and Lady's psalters testify. Had the heathen their feasts, 
 their siatas /eri'as to tlieir demons ? so have the papists. Had they 
 their Febmalia ct ProserpiniUa with torches and lights ? so have the 
 papists their Candlemas with lights. Did the heathen erect images and 
 pillars, or keep the ashes and shrines of their demons? so do the 
 papists ; the one had processions and adorations, so have the other ; 
 and a great many more tilings there are wherein popery keeps a cor- 
 respondence with heathenism. To this piirjiose you may read enough 
 in Monsieur de Croy, ' Of the Three Conformities.' 
 
 To make it yet more clear that the corruptions in religion by popery 
 came in by the design of suiting Christian religion to paganism, I shall 
 in a testimony or two shew you that they professedly avouched tlie 
 design. Gregory the Great wites chidingly to Serenus, bishop of 
 Marseilles, wlio it seems was no forward man in this matter to this 
 purpose.i ' Thou shouldst have considered that thou didst converse 
 chiefly with the Gentiles, to whom pictures are instead of reading, to 
 the end that no oflence be given them under colour of lawful zeal, 
 wherewith thou art not cunningly endued.' And in another epistle to 
 Mellitus,2 he adviseth, ' That the honours and offerings which the 
 heathens gave to their demons should be transferred to the martyrs 
 and their relics,' and gives this reason for it, ' It is impossible,' saith 
 he, ' to cut ofi" all at once from stubborn minds.' 3 Eusebius also en- 
 deavours to persuade to Christianity by this argument, that the 
 Christians' custom of honouring the memories of the martyrs, and 
 solemnly assembling at their sepulchres, did agree with the custom of 
 the Gentiles of doing the like Jionour to then- demons, and having 
 mentioned what Hcsiod s|5caks concerning Plato's opinion, that their 
 champions became demons after death, helpers and iirotectors of men — 
 for which cause they were worshipped at their scpiilchres as gods ; he 
 adds to this purpose, that ' if these honours had been given to the 
 favourites of God, and champions of true religion, it had been well 
 cnougli ;' and for this shews the example and custom of Christians 
 then to go to the tombs of martyrs, there to pray in honour of their 
 blessed sj^irits.' And although at first they might be more modest 
 in honouring the martyrs than now they are, according to that of 
 Austin, ' These observances at the tombs of martyrs,' saith he, ' are 
 only ornaments of their memories, not sacrifices to them as to gods.'* 
 Yet this soon slid into greater abuse, insomuch that Lud. Vives,^ in 
 his notes on that chapter, blames those of his own time for worshipping 
 saints as gods, and tells us he cannot see the difference betwixt the 
 opinion concerning saints, as generally practised, and that of the 
 
 ' Lib. ix. Epist. 9. - Lib. ix. Epist. 71. 
 
 ^ Nam duris mcntibub simul omnia abscinderc impossible est. Vide Perkins's Pre- 
 par[atives] to Demonst. of the rrob[leme of tlie forged CatUolicisme or Universalitie of 
 the Romish Religion, 1613, folio.— G.], cap. 3; [Eusebius] Prjcpar. Evan., lib.xiii. cap. 7. 
 
 * De Civit.Dei.lib. viii.cap. 27. Ornamenta sunt memoriarum, non sacrificiamortuorum. 
 
 ' Non video in multis quid sit discrimen inter eorum opinionem de Sanctis et id quod 
 Gentiles putabant de diis suis. 
 
Chap. 4.] satan's temptations. 203 
 
 heathens couceruing theu- gods. I might add the positive acknow- 
 ledgment of Beatus Rhenanus, Jacobus de Voragine, concerning the 
 burning of candles to the Virgin Mary, which custom they confess 
 was borrowed from the heathens, with a respect to the frowardness 
 of paganism, and a design not to exasperate them, that they might 
 gain them. 
 
 I might also shew that the mischief of this design, of accommodating 
 truth to a compliance \vith different parties, hath not only shewn 
 itself in introducing strange actions and ceremonies, but hath also 
 discovered itself in leavening men's judgments in reference to opinion. 
 Calvin conjectures i that those confident assertions of the powers of 
 nature were first occasioned by an over-officious willingness to re- 
 concile the doctrine of the Scripture with the opinions of philosophy ; 
 and that men being unwilling to run the hazard of the scorn which 
 they might meet with in contradicting the general received principles 
 of iDhilosophers, were willing to form the doctrine of truth relating to 
 human ability accordingly. Abundance of instances of this kind may 
 be given. Whence came the doctrine of purgatory, but fi-om hence ? 
 It is but Plato's philosophy Christianised by the Roman synagogue.2 
 He divided all men into three ranks : the virtuous, who are placed 
 by him in the Elysian fields ; the desperate imgodly, these he ad- 
 judgeth to everlasting fire ; and a third sort, betwixt the perfectly 
 virtuous and the desperately wicked, he sendeth to Acheron, to be 
 purged by punishment. All of tills Eusebius makes mention of at 
 large.3 That the papists derived their purgatory from hence is generally 
 affirmed by protestants— nay, not only in these cases, but in very 
 many more, corruptions have entered into Christianity by an over- 
 eager endeavour to make the doctrine of the Scriptm-es to run even 
 with the sayings and assertions of the schools of philosophers ; a thing 
 complained of old by TertuUian, who plainly affirmed the philosophers 
 to be the patriarchs of the heretics.^ To which agrees that observa- 
 tion of Dr Owen, that those who either apologised for Christians, or 
 refuted the objections of the heathens against Chiistianity, frequently 
 cited the opinions or sentences of the philosophers, and accommodated 
 them to their purpose, that so they might beget in their adversaries 
 more friendly persuasions towards the Christian religion, by evidencing 
 that the mysteries thereof were not absiu-d, nor dissonant from reason, 
 seeing they might be justified by the sayings of their own philo- 
 sophers. And ' here was laid, in this design and its prosecution, (and 
 surely it pleased its undertakers not a little,) the foundation of that 
 evil which religion hath since groaned imder, that men made bold 
 with the tremendous mysteries of Christianity, to accommodate them 
 unwarily to the notions of the Gentiles.' 5 And this the apostle Paul 
 in that caution he gave. Col. ii. 8, ' Beware lest any man 
 
 • [Ex quibus] veteres mihi videntur hoc consilio vires humanas sic extulisse, ne, si im- 
 potentiam diserte assent eonfessi [primum] philosophorum [ipsorum] cachinnos, [quibus 
 cum tunc certamen habebant,] excuterent. . . . Scripture doctrinam cum philosophisK 
 dogmatibus dimidia ex parte conciliare studium illis fuit. — Instilut., lib. ii. cap. 2, sec. 4. 
 
 - Plato, lib. X., de Rep. Dial. ■* De Prtepar. Evang., lib. xi. cap. ult. 
 
 * Chemnitii, Exam. Concil. Trident, p. 3, in Hist. Purgator., cap. 1. 
 
 5 Hinc prima mali labes, dum coelcstia mysteria et tremeiida Christianorum sacra 
 Gcntilium notionibus ct vanis ceremoniis attemperare volueriut.— OfccH's Disser. De 
 Verba, sec. 16. 
 
204 ' A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of 
 men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.' Cer- 
 tainly the snare is neither unusual nor weak, where the caution is so 
 serious. It is a thing naturally pleasing, to be the inventor of any 
 new tiling, or to make new discoveries in religion, to raise new hy- 
 potheses, or to adventure in unbeaten paths, for a reconcilement of 
 religion to any notion or practice famous for its antiquity, or pretence 
 to beauty and decency. Men hug themselves when they can make 
 several things to hit right, and an exact suiting of parallels is instead 
 of demonstration. By this foolish delight the devil makes men bold 
 to make essays ; and what doth answer their humour passeth current 
 for undoubted truth. 
 
 [5.] He dotli sometime blind the understanding, hy toorldng up 
 the offcctions to such an earnest oj^position to some error, that in a 
 forward haste they east the mind upon a contrary extreme; so that 
 through a liasty, violent avoidance of one error, they are cast upon a 
 contrary, and, it may be, as dangerous as tliat they fly from. And this 
 the devil doth with great case, having the plausible pretence of zeal 
 and care to truth, wherein the affections being highly engaged, the mind 
 in a careless confidence doth easily overshoot tlic truth, which com- 
 monly lies in tlie middle, and thinks it doth well enough if it gives 
 the greatest contradiction to the error now to be abominated. Men 
 in this case, having liieir eyes only fixed upon what they would avoid, 
 consider not so nmch whither they are going, as from what they go. 
 So that seeking, as men in a fright, to avoid the pit that is before 
 them, they run backward into another behind them. 
 
 This is such a noted sti-atagcm of Satan, that all men take notice 
 of it in the general, though all men do not improve the discovery for 
 their own particular caution. The wisest of men aie often so be- 
 fooled by their violent resistance of an untruth, that they readily 
 overshoot themselves and miss the mark. The fathers, in the heat of 
 dispute, said many things so inconveniently, that tliose who come 
 after do see and lament these hasty oversights, and have no other 
 way to salve their credit but by giving this observation in excuse for 
 them. And it may be observed that some errors which have risen 
 from this root at first have so strongly fixed themselves, that they 
 have grown up to the great annoyance of the truth ; while the con- 
 trary errors that did occasion them are forgotten, and their memories 
 are perished. I shall but instance in one instead of man^^, and that 
 shall be Arianism. How sadly prevalent that hath been in its time, 
 all men know that know anything of church history. The Christian 
 world once groaned under it. But that which gave the first occasion 
 to Arius to fix himself in that error was the doctiine of Alexander, 
 who, discoursing of the unity in the Trinity too nicely, seemed to 
 justify the error of Sabellius, who had taught, as also Noetus before, 
 that there was but one iierson in the Trinity, called by divers names 
 of Father, Son, and Spirit, according to diflerent occasions ; the 
 Trinity, according to his doctrine, being not of persons, but of names 
 and functions. Wliile Arius was dissatisfied with this accoimt of the 
 Trinity, he ran to a contrary extreme ; and that he might give the 
 highest proof of a Trinity of persons, he affirmed that Jesus Christ 
 
Chap. 4.] satan's temptations. 205 
 
 had a beginning, and that there was a time when he was not, &c. 
 Thus Socrates speaks of the rise of that heresy. T- 
 
 We might further follow the footsteps of this device, and trace it 
 in most opinions ; where we might find the humour of running to a 
 contrary extreme hath still either set up a contrary error, or at least 
 leavened the truth with harsh and unjustifiable expressions and ex- 
 planations. The disputes betwixt faith and works have been thus 
 occasioned and aggravated. Some speak so of faith, as if they slighted 
 works ; others so urge a necessity of works, as if they intended to make 
 faith useless. Some talk of grace, to an utter contempt of morality ; 
 others, on the contrary, magnify morality to the anniliilating of 
 grace. Some in tlieu- practice acquiesce in the outward performance 
 of ordinances : if they pray or receive the sacraments, though never 
 so formally, they are at peace, supposmg they have done all that is 
 reqiiired ; others observing the mistake, and Imowing that God looks 
 more to the performance of the soul and spirit than to the act of the 
 body, upon a pretence of worshipping God in spirit, throw off the 
 observation of his ordinances altogether. Neither is there anything 
 that doth more generally and apparently undo us in the present dis- 
 sensions, as many have complained, than men's violent overdoing and 
 running to contrary extremes. 
 
 [6.] Satan makes use of rewards or ^punishments, on the one hand 
 to bribe, or on the other to force the affections, and they being strongly 
 possessed, easily prevail tvith the understanding to give sentence ac- 
 cmxlingly. Men are soon persuaded to take that for truth which they 
 see will be advantageous to them. Some men indeed take up with a 
 profession of truth, which yet their hearts approve not ; _ but the 
 advantages they have by their profession, do silence their dissatisfac- 
 tions ; these are said to use the profession of truth as ' a cloak of 
 covetousness,' 2 Thes. ii. 5. But others go further, and are really 
 brought to an approbation of that doctrine or way that makes most 
 for their profit, their minds being really corrupted by a self-seeking 
 principle. They persuade themselves, where there is any contest 
 about doctrines, that that doctrine is true which is gainful, and will 
 accordingly dispute for it. Hence that expression in 1 Tim. vi. 5, 
 ' supposing that gain is godliness.' 
 
 To this may be added, that the affections are quickly sensible of 
 the ease and sensual gratifications of any doctrine, and these are 
 usually thi-own into the same scale to make more weight. Men have 
 natm-ally a good liking to that doctrine that promiseth fair for ease, 
 liberty, gain, and honour; and this hath made it a usual piece of 
 Satan's business in all ages to gild an error with outward advantages, 
 and to corrupt the mind by secret promises of advancement. 
 
 On the other side, he labom-s as much to prejudice truth, by repre- 
 senting it as hazardous and troublesome to the professors of it. And 
 tliis not only affrights some from an open confession of the truth they 
 believe, but also, by the help of the aflections, doth persuade some_ to 
 believe that to be an error, which unavoidably brings persecution 
 with it. By this engine are the mmds of men turned about to think 
 well or ill of a doctrine presented to them. This is so well known 
 ' Socr[ates] Eccles. Histor., lib. i. cap. 3. 
 
206 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 that I shall forbear a further prosecution of this head, and '^o to the 
 next course that Satan takes to corrupt the judgment by the aflections; 
 which he doth, 
 
 [7.] By stirring up some particular passions, wJiich in opinions do 
 usually more influence the understanding. And here I shall only 
 insist upon these two, pride and anger, with the peculiar means that 
 Satan hath to engage them in his service. 
 
 That pride and auger are the two usual firebrands of contention 
 and fountains of error, all ages have acknowledged and bewailed. 
 These two companions in evil do so darken the mind, that the miser- 
 able captive in whom they domineer is carried blindfold, he knows 
 not whither, nor how. Pride usually begins, and auger follows with 
 all its forces, to justify what pride hath undertaken. Hence the 
 apostle, in 1 Tim. vi. 4, rakes up all the concomitant filth of error, 
 as envy, strife, railings, evil surmi.sings, and perverse disputings of 
 men, and lays them at the door of pride : ' He is proud, knowing 
 notliing.' 
 
 For the engaging of these two thieves, that rob the understanding of 
 its light, Satan hath many artifices in readiness. Pride, which is 
 forward enough of itself, is soon excited by laying before it an oppor- 
 tunity of a seeming rare discovery, or of advancing the glory of know- 
 ledge above the common ])itch, of being seen and admired as more 
 excellent than others, <fec. : for upon such unworthy grounds have some 
 dared to adventure upon strange uotions ; yet there is nothing that 
 doth more firmly engage it than contention or dispute : for though 
 the proper end of disput^ition be the sifting out of truth, yet such is 
 mans pride, and Satan's advantage by it, that it seldom attains its 
 true end in those that are engaged. Bystanders that keep their 
 minds calm and unbiassed, may receive more satisfaction than the con- 
 tenders themselves ; and there needs no other evidence of this than 
 the common experience which men have of our frequent contentions ; 
 where we have confutations, answers and replies, and yet still all par- 
 ties continue in their opinions without conviction. So that they that 
 would unfeignedly seek truth, in my mind, take not the best course in 
 their pursuit, that presently engage themselves in a public dispute ; 
 for the usual heats that are begot in a contention alienate their minds 
 from a just impartiality, and the dust they raise blinds their ej-es, that 
 they discern not truly. Let us look into this artifice of engaging pride 
 by disputation, and by it the judgment. First we find that when a 
 humour of contending is raised, certain tmths are neglected, as to 
 their imjirovement and practice ; for so much of the strength of the 
 soul is laid out upon disputable questions, that little is left for more 
 weighty matters. Secondly, In disputes men's credit is so concerned, 
 that it is a most difficult thing to preserve a faitliful regard to verity, 
 especially where they are managed with aflYonts and contumelies. 
 They that by calm handling might be induced to acknowledge a mis- 
 take, will scarce come near that point of ingenuity, when they must 
 be called fool, knave, or ass for their labour. Hence ordinarily, 
 though they profess otherwise, men seek rather victory than truth. 
 Thirdly, In disputes pride and passion are usually heightened, and the 
 stronger the passions are the weaker is the judgment. Eager alterca- 
 
Chap. 4.] satan's temptations. 207 
 
 tions bring a confusion, both upon the matter of which they dispute 
 and upon the understanding that shoukl judge. Fourtldy, In the 
 heat of disputation, when the mind is inflamed, men usually behave 
 themselves like those in a fray, where they snatch and throw anything 
 that comes to hand, and never mind where it hits ; they will affirm 
 or deny an}i;hing that may seem any way to bring them off. 
 Fifthly, These assertions being once affirmed must be maintained, and 
 so errors and contentions increase without end. Disputes fix a man 
 in his persuasion, and do, as it were, tie him to the stake, so that 
 right or wrong he will go thi-ough with it. Sixtlily, Some dispute in 
 jest against their present judgment, and yet at last dispute themselves 
 into a belief of what they wantonly at first affirmed ; as some tell lies 
 so long, that at length they believe them to be true. Seventhly, A 
 sadder mischief often follows a disputing humour, which is a hazard 
 of the loss of all truth. Men dispute so long till they suspect all 
 things, and after a long trade of scepticism turn atheists. ^ 
 
 After the same manner doth the devil engage anger in all disputes 
 and controversies, for it keeps company with pride, wherever there is 
 a provocation. And besides this, anger stirring up injuries and 
 wrongs, hath often engaged men, as it were in revenge, to change 
 their opinion, and to take up another way or doctrine. Nay, often 
 that shuple mixture of pride and anger which we call emulation, 
 hath privately tainted the integrity of mind, and prepared it for 
 the next fair opportunity of error. This is noted of Arius, by 
 Theodoret, that when Alexander was chosen bishop of Alexanckia, 
 he envied liim the preferency, and from thence sought occasions of 
 contention, which after a little while the de\dl brought to his hand, as 
 we have heard.^ 
 
 So great is the power of these two passions over the understanding, 
 that we have cause to wonder at their success. Seldom or never can 
 it be shewn that any ringleader in error was not visibly tainted with 
 pride, or not apparently soured with discontents and emulation. 
 
 [8.] To these ways of blinding the understanding by the affections 
 I shall add but one more, which is this : Satan endeavours mainly to 
 adorn an error loitli truth's clothing. He takes its ornaments and 
 jewels to dress up a false doctrine, that it may look more lovely and 
 dutiful ; I mean that he designs, where errors are capable of such an 
 imitation, to put them into the way, method, garb, and manner which 
 truth doth naturally use. If truth be adorned with zeal, order, strict- 
 ness, or have advantageous ways of managing itself, error must 
 straightway imitate it in all these things ; and though he that looks 
 near may easily discern that it is not the natural complexion of error, 
 but an artificial varnish, and such as doth no more become it than a 
 court dress doth become a coarse, clownish, country person— for you 
 may at first look usually discover the wolf under sheep's clothing, and 
 under the garb of the apostles of Christ you may see the ministers of 
 Satan— yet are the credulous usually affected with these appearances. 
 If they find a professed strictness, a seeming severity, an imitation of 
 
 1 Contentionibus amittitur Veritas, et multi eo adiguntur, ut poatea nihil constitni 
 posse certi sibi persuadeant, atque ita religionis omne studium abjiciant. — Acontivs, 
 Strat\_agew.a] Satance, lib. i. p. 23. ' Theod. Eccles. Hist., lib. i. cap. 2. 
 
208 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 the ways of truth, or of the fruits thereof, they commonly seek no fur- 
 ther, hut judge that to he truth which doth the tilings that truth doth ; 
 and if error can handsomely stand in competition with truth, upon a 
 pretence of being as effectual in good works, and doing things of them- 
 selves lovely and of good rejwrt, it doth much gain upon the good 
 liking of those whose consideration leads them not much further than 
 fair appearances. I shall only exemplify this hy the art and policy 
 which Julian used to set up paganism, and to riiin Christianity ; and 
 those who have observed the ways which he took to gain his end, will 
 readily acknowledge he was as well skilled in advancing error and 
 suppressing truth as any whosoever, and knew exactly to suit his 
 designs to men's inclinations. He observing that Christian religion 
 had some particular things in its practice and way which made its 
 face to shine, as that it had persons solemnly set apart by ordination 
 for teaching the mysteries of the gospel, and for managing the public 
 worship of God ; that these persons were to be grave in their carriage, 
 and exemplary in a strict holy conversation ; that the constitutions of 
 religion appointed certain necessary and effectual ways of discipline, 
 for punishment, and restoring of oftendcrs, and bringing them to 
 repentance ; that it took care of the comfortable maintenance of those 
 that had given up themselves to the ministry of the word and prayer ; 
 that it also enjoined a relief of the poor and strangers, &c. : taking 
 notice, I say, of these excellencies in Christianity, and how lovely they 
 were in the eyes of their enemies, he appointed the like constitutions 
 for paganism, and ordained tliat the idol temples should be suited in 
 convenicncy and comeliness to Christian churches : that there should 
 be seats and desks for the chief doctors and readers of Gentilism, who 
 at set times were to exhort the people and pray with them ; and that 
 colleges and monasteries should be erected for them, and for the relief 
 of the poor and strangers ; he commanded discipline and penances for 
 the chastisement of offenders ; he required that their priests should 
 seriously give up themselves to the worship of God, as also their 
 families, that they should not frequent shows and taverns, nor prac- 
 tise any infamous trade and art. Thus Sozomen reports liim,i and 
 gives us a copy of his letter to Arsacius, high priest of Galatia, to this 
 purpose ; and all this he did to bring Gentilism into credit with the 
 vulgar, whom he had observed to be affected to Clu-istianity for its 
 order, strictness, and government. 
 
 Yet is not this the only instance that may be given in this kind : 
 for observe but any error that by schism sets up for itself in a dis- 
 tinct party, and you shall see that though it departs from the truth of 
 the church, and from its communion, yet still, as the Israelites did 
 with the Egyi^tians, it carries away with it these jewels of the church, 
 and keeps to some considerable part of the church's way, though 
 modified according to its own bent, that it might have a lustre with 
 it, to make it taking with others. 
 
 These eight particulars are the most remarkable ways of Satan 
 whereby the affections are gained to a good liking of error, and by 
 them the judgment secondarOy corrupted to call it truth. 
 ' Sozom. Eccles. Hist., lib. v. cap. 15. 
 
Chap. 5. J satax's temptations. 209 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Satan's attempts against the peace of God's children evidenced— 
 (1.) By his malice ; (2.) From the concernment of peace to God's 
 children; ichat these concerns are, explained. _ (3.) From the 
 advantages lohich he hath against them by disquieting their minds 
 — 1. Confusion of mind ; 2. Unfitness for duty, and how ; 3. Re- 
 jection of duty ; 4. A stumUing-hlock to others ; 5. Preparation of 
 the mind to entertain venomous impressions, aiul ivhat they are ; 
 6. Bodily loeakness ; 7. Our miseries Satan's contentment. 
 
 We have viewed the ways of Satan by which he tempts to sin, by 
 which he withdraws men from duty and service, by which he corrupts 
 the mind through error. It only now remains that something be 
 spoken of his attempts against the peace and comfort of the children 
 of God. 
 
 That it is also one of Satan's chief designs to cheat us of our 
 spiritual peace, may be fully evinced by a consideration of his malice, 
 the great concern "of inward comfort to us, and the many advantages 
 which he hath against us by the disquiet of om- minds. 
 
 1. First, Whosoever shall seriously consider the devil's implacable 
 mcdice, icill easily believe that he so envies our happiness that he ivill 
 industriously rise up against all our comforts. It is his inward fret 
 and indignation that man hath any interest in that happiness from 
 which he irrecoverably fell, and that the Spirit of God should produce 
 in the hearts of his people any spiritual joy or satisfaction in the be- 
 lief and expectation of that felicity ; and therefore must it be expected 
 that his malice — heightened by the torment of his own guilt, which, 
 as some think, are those ' chains of darkness ' in which he is reserved 
 at present ' to the judgment of the great day,' [2 Peter ii. 4,]— will 
 not, cannot leave this part of our happiness unattempted. He en- 
 deavours to supplant us of our birthright, of our blessing, of our sal- 
 vation, and the comfortable hopes thereof From his common 
 employment in this matter, the Scripture hath given him names, im- 
 porting an opposition to Christ and his Spirit in the ways they take 
 for our comfort and satisfaction. Christ is our advocate that jsleads 
 for us ; Satan is Sta/3o\o?, a calumniator. The Spirit intercedes for 
 us ; Satan is KaT}]yopo<i twv aheK(^S}v, ' the accuser of the brethren, 
 who accuseth them before God night and day,' Eev. xii. 10. The 
 Spirit is our comforter ; Satan is our disturber, a Beelzebub who is 
 ever raking in our wounds, as flies upon sores. The apostle Paid had 
 his eye upon this when he was advising the Corinthians to receive 
 again the penitent incestuous person ; his caution was most serious : 
 2 Cor. ii. 11, ' Lest Satan get advantage of us,' lest he deceive and 
 circumvent us ; for his expression relates to men cunningly deceitful 
 in trade, that do overreach and defraud the unskihul, irXeoveKTT]- 
 OwfjLev ; and the reason of this caution was the known and commonly 
 experienced subtlety of Satan, ' for we are not ignorant of his devices,' 
 implying that he will, and frequently doth lie at catch to take all ad- 
 vantages against us. Some indeed resh-ain these advantages to ver. 
 
iilf A TKEATISE OF [FaRT II. 
 
 10,1 as if Paul only meant that Satan was designing to fix the 
 Corinthians uijou an opinion, that backsliders into great sins were 
 not to be received again, or that he laid in wait to raise a schism in 
 the church upon the account of this Corinthian, Others 2 restrain 
 this advantage which he waited for to ver. 7, where the apostle ex- 
 presseth his fear lest the excommunicated person should 'be swal- 
 lowed up of too much sorrow ; ' but the caution being not expressly 
 bound up to any one of these, seems to point at them all, and to tell 
 us that Satan dri\cs on many designs at once, and tliat iu this man's 
 case Satan would endeavour to put the Corintliians upon a pharisaical 
 rigour, or to rend the church by a division about him, and to oj^jjress 
 the penitent by bereaving him of his due comfort ; so that it appears 
 still that it is one of his designs to hinder the comfort and molest the 
 hearts of God's children. 
 
 2. Secondly, Of such concern is inioard spiril-ual peace io us, that 
 it is but an easy conjecture to conclude from thence that so great an 
 adversary will niakc it his design to rob us of such a jewel ; for, 
 
 [1.] Spiritual comfort is the sweet fruit of holiness, by which God 
 adorns aud bcnutifies the ways of religious service, to render them 
 amiable and pleasant to the undertakers : ' Her ways are ways of 
 pleasantness, and all her jiaths arc peace,' Prov. iii. 17 ; aud this is 
 the present ' rest aud refreshment ' of God's faithful servants under all 
 their toil, that when they have 'tribulation from the worhl,' yet they 
 have 'peace in him,' Johnxvi. 33; and that, being 'justified i)y faith, 
 they have peace with God,' and sometimes 'joy unspeakable aud full 
 of glory,' 1 Peter i. 8; and this they may the more confidently expect, 
 because ' the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace,' &c.. Gal. v. 22. 
 
 [2.] Spiritual comfort is not only our satisfaction, but our imoarcL 
 strength and aciivity; for all holy services doth depend ujjon it. By 
 this doth God strengthen our heart and gird up our loins ' to run the 
 ways of his commandments.' It doth also strengthen the soul to 
 undergo afflictions, to glory in tribulations, to triumph in persecu- 
 tions. The outward man is also corroborated by the inward peace of 
 the mind : ' A merry heart doth good like a medicine, but a broken 
 spirit drieth the bones,' Prov. xvii. 22 ; all which arc intended by 
 that expression, Neh. \xn. 10, ' The joy of the Lord is your strength ; ' 
 it is strength to the body, to the mind, and that both for service and 
 suffering ; the reason whereof the apostle doth hint to us, Phil. iv. 7, 
 ' The peace of God, which passeth all imderstanding, shall keep yom* 
 hearts and minds' — that is, peace doth so guard us as with a gar- 
 rison, <f>povp>'ia-ei — for so much tlie word imports — that our affections, 
 our hearts, being entertained with divine satisfactions, are not easily 
 enticed by baser proffers of worldly delights, and our reasonings, our 
 minds, being kept steady upon so noble an object, are not so easily 
 perverted to a treacherous recommendation of vanities. 
 
 [3.] Joy and iieace are propounded to our careful endeavours, for 
 attainment and preservation, as a necessary duty of great import- 
 ance to ns. Eejoicings are not only recommended as seemly for the 
 upright, but enjoined as service, and that in the constant practice : 
 ' Rejoice evermore ; ' 'In everything give thanks,' 1 Thes. v. 16, 18 ; 
 ' Piscator, in loc. " Calviu, in he. 
 
Chap. 5.] satan's temptation's. 211 
 
 ' Rejoice in the Lord ahvay ; and apijain I say, rejoice,' Phil. iv. 4. 
 In the Old Testament, God commanded the observation of several 
 feasts to the Jews. These, though they had their several respective 
 grounds from God's appointment, yet the general design of aU seems 
 to have been this, that ' they might rejoice before the Lord their God,' 
 Lev. xxiii. 40; as if God did thereby tell them that it was the comely 
 complexion of religion, and that which was very acceptable to himself, 
 that his children might always serve him in cheerfulness of heart, 
 seeing such have more cause to rejoice than all the world besides. 
 They are then miich mistaken that think mournful eyes and sad 
 hearts be the greatest ornaments of religion, or that none are seri- 
 ous in the profession of it that have a cheerful countenance and a re- 
 joicing frame of spirit. It is true, there is a joy that is devilish, and a 
 mirth which is madness, to which Christ hath denounced a woe : ' Woe 
 be to them that laugh now, for they shall mourn and weep,' [Luke vi. 
 25] ; but this is a joy of another nature, a carnal delight in vanity and 
 sin, by which men fatten their hearts to ruin ; and whatsoever is said 
 against this can be no prejudice to spiritual, holy joy in God, his 
 favour and ways. 
 
 [4.] Spiritual comfort is also a badge of our heavenly Fathers 
 kindness. As Joseph, the son of his father's affections, had a special 
 testimony thereof in his parti- colom-ed coat, so have God's favourites 
 a peculiar token of his good- will to them when he gives them ' the 
 garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness,' [Isa. Ixi. 7.] If 
 spiritual comfort be so advantageous to us, it will he. no wonder to 
 see Satan so much rage against it. It would be a satisfaction to him 
 to tear these robes off us, to impede so needful a duty, to rob us 
 of so much streng-th, and to bereave us of the sweet fruits of our 
 labours. 
 
 3. Thirdly, It further appears that Satan's design is against the 
 comforts of God's children, by the many advantages he hath against 
 them, from the trouble and disquiet of their hearts. I shall reckon up 
 the chief of them ; as, 
 
 [1.] From the trouble of the spirit he raiseth confusions and dis- 
 tractions of mind ; for, (1.) It is as natural to trouble to raise up a 
 swarm of muddy thoughts as to ' a troubled sea to cast up mire and 
 dirt ; ' and hence is that comparison, Isa. Ivii. 20 ; a thousand fearful 
 sm-mises, evil cogitations, resolves, and counsels immediately _ offer 
 themselves. This disorder of thoughts Christ took notice of in his 
 disciples when they were in danger, ' Why do thoughts arise in your 
 hearts ? ' Luke xxiv. 38. And David considered it as matter of great 
 anxiety, which called for speedy help : Ps. xciv. 19, 'In the multitude 
 of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul.' Some- 
 times one fear is suggested, then presently another ; now this doubt 
 perplexeth, then another question is begot by the former ; they think 
 to take this course, then by and by they are off that, and resolve upon 
 another, and as quickly change again to a third, and so onward, one 
 thought succeeding another, as vapours from a boiling pot. (2.) Such 
 thoughts are vexatious and distracting, the very thoughts themselves, 
 being the poisonous steams of their running sores, are sadly afflictive, 
 and not unfitly called cogitationes onerosa, burdensome thoughts. 
 
212 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 But as tliey wrap up a man in clouds and darkness, as they puzzle him 
 in his resolves, nonplus him in his undertakings, distract him in liis 
 counsels, disturb and hinder him in his endeavours, &c. , so do they bring 
 the mind into a labyrinth of confusion. What advantage the devil 
 hath against a child of God when his heart is thus divided and broken 
 into shivers, it is easy to imagine. And Da^'id seems to be very 
 sensible of it when he put up that request, Ps. Ixxxvi. 11, ' Unite my 
 heart to fear thj' name.' 
 
 [2.] By disquiet of heart the devil unfits men for duty or service. 
 Fitness for duty lies in the orderly temper of body and mind, making 
 a man willing to undertake, and able to finish his work with comfort- 
 able satisfaction. If either the body or mind be distempered, a man 
 is unfit for such an undertaking ; both must be in a suitable frame, 
 like a well-tuned instrument, else there will be no melody. Hence, 
 when David prepared himself for praises and worship, he tells us liis 
 ' heart was ready and fixed,' and then ' his tongue was ready also,' so 
 was his hand with psaltery and harp ; all these were awakened into a 
 suitable posture, Ps. xlv. 1, 2, and cviii. 1, 2. That a man is or hath 
 been in a fit order for service may be concluded from — (1.) His alac- 
 rity to undertake a duty. (2.) His activity in the prosecution. (3.) 
 His satisfaction afterward, right grounds and principles in these 
 things being still presuppo.sed. This being laid as a foundation, we 
 shall easily perceive how the troubles of the spirit do unfit us for 
 duty. For, 
 
 First, These do take away all alacrity and forwardness of the mind, 
 partly by divcrtiiifj it from duty. Sorrows when they prevail do so 
 fix the mind uiwii the present trouble, that it can tliink of nothing 
 but its burden ; they confine the thoughts to the jiain and smart, and 
 make a man forget all other things, as David in his trouble ' forgot to 
 eat his bread,' [Ps. cii. 4] ; and sick per.sons willingly discourse only 
 of their diseases ; i)artly by indisposing for action. Joy and hope are 
 active principles, but sorrow is sullen and sluggish. As the mind 
 in trouble is wholly employed in a contemplation of its misery, rather 
 than in finding out a way to avoid it, so if it be at leisure at any 
 time to entertain thoughts of using means for recovery, yet it is so tired 
 out with its burden, so disheartened by its owa. fears, so discouraged 
 with opposition and disappointment, that it hath no list to undertake 
 anything. By this means the devil brings the soul into a spiritual 
 catoche,! so congealing the spirits, that it is made stiff and deprived 
 of motion. 
 
 Second, Disquiets of heart unfit us for duty, by hindering our 
 activity in prosecution of duty. The whole heart, soul, and strength 
 should be engaged in all religious services, but these troubles are as 
 clogs and weights to hinder motion. Joy is the dilatation of the soul, 
 and widens it for anything which it undert^ikes ; but grief contracts 
 the heart, and narrows all the faculties. Hence doth David beg an 
 ' enlarged heart,' as the principle of activity : Ps. cxix. 32, ' I will 
 run the way of thy commandments, when thou shaft enlarge my heart ;' 
 for what can else be expected when the mind is so distracted with 
 fear and sorrow, but that it should be uneven, tottering, weak, and 
 
 ' An ' apoplexy,' Cfr. kcitox'?.— G. 
 
Chap. 5.] satan's temptations. 213 
 
 confused ? so that if it do set itself to anything, it acts troublesomely, 
 drives on heavily, and doth very little with a great deal ado ; and yet, 
 were the unfitness the less, if that little wliich it can do were well 
 done, but the mind is so interrupted in its endeavours that sometimes 
 in prayer the man begins, and then is presently at a stand, and dare 
 not proceed, his words are ' swallowed up, he is so troubled that he 
 cannot speak,' Ps. Isxvii. 4. Sometimes the mind is kept so em- 
 ployed and fixed on trouble, that it cannot attend in hearing or pray- 
 ing, but presently the thoughts are called off, and become wandering. 
 
 Third, Troubles hinder our satisfaction in duty, and by that means 
 unfit us to present duties, and indispose us to future services of that 
 kind. Our satisfaction in duty ariseth, (1.) Sometimes from its own 
 lustre and sweetness, the conviction we have of its pleasantness, and 
 the spu-itual advantages to be had thereby ; these render it alluring 
 and attractive, and by such considerations are we invited to their per- 
 formance, as Isa. ii. 3, ' Come ye, let us go up to the mountain of the 
 Lord ; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.' 
 Hosea vi. 1, 'Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath 
 torn, and he will heal us ; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up ;' 
 but trouble of spirit draws a black curtain over the excellencies of duty, 
 and presents us with frightful thoughts about it, so that we judge of it 
 according to our fears, and make it frightful to ourselves, as if it would 
 be to no piu-pose — rather a mischief than an advantage. (2.) Some- 
 time our satisfaction ariseth from some special token of favour which 
 our iadulgent Father lets fall upon us while we are in his work, as 
 when he gives us more than ordinary assistance, or puts joy and com- 
 fort into our hearts. And this he often doth to make us come again, 
 and to engage afresh in the same or other services, as having ' tasted 
 and seen that the Lord is gracious,' [1 Pet. ii. 3,] and that there is a 
 blessedness in waiting for him. As in our bodies he so orders it that 
 the concocted juices become a successive ferment to those that succeed 
 from our daily meat and drink : so from duties performed doth he be- 
 get and continue spiritual appetite to new undertakings. But oh how 
 sadly is all this hindered by the disquiet of the heart ! The graces of 
 faith and love are usually obstructed, if not in their exercise, yet in 
 their delightful fruits, and if God offer a kindness, inward sorrow hin- 
 ders the perception : as when Moses told the Israelites of their deli- 
 verance, ' they hearkened not for hard bondage,' [Exod. vi. 9.] _ If a 
 message of peace present itself in a promise, or some consideration of 
 God's merciful disposition, yet usually this is not credited. Job con- 
 fesseth so much of himself : Job xix. 16, ' If I had called and he had 
 answered me, yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my 
 voice.' David also doth the like : Ps. Ixxvii. 2, 3, ' My soul refuseth 
 to be comforted ; I remembered God, and was troubled.' Matter of 
 greatest comfort is often so far from giving ease, that it augments the 
 trouble. However, the heart is so hurried with its fears, and discom- 
 posed with grief, that it cannot hearken to, nor consider, nor believe 
 any Idnd offer made to it. 
 
 By all these ways doth the devil, through the disquiet of mind, 
 unfit the Lord's people for duty ; and what a sad advantage this is 
 against us cannot easily be told. By this means he may widen the 
 
214 A TREATISE OF [PaRT 11. 
 
 distance betwixt God uiid us. keep our wounds open, make us a 
 reproach to religion ; and what not ? But (3.) By these disquiets he 
 pushcth us on to reject all duties ; for wben he hath tired us out 
 by wearisome endeavours, under so great indispositions and unfitness, 
 he hath a fair advantage to tenij)t us to lay all aside. Our present 
 posture doth furnish him with arguments, he forgeth his javelins 
 upon our anvil, and they are commonly these three : — 
 
 [1.] That duties are difficult. And this is easily proved from our 
 own experience ; while we are broken or bowed down with sorrows, we 
 make many attempts for duty, and are oft beat oft" with loss; our 
 greatest toil helps us but to very inconsiderable performances ; hence, 
 he infers, it is foolisluiess to attempt that which is above our strength, 
 better sit still than toil for nothing. 
 
 [2.] That they arc nnfmilful; and this is our own comjilaint, for 
 troubled spirits have conuuonly great expectations from duties at 
 first, and they nm to them, as the impotent and sick jieople to the 
 pool of lietliesda, with tlioughts of immediate ease as soon as they 
 .shall stej) into them ; but \s'lien they have tried, and waited a while, 
 stretcliing themselves upon duty, as Elisha's servant laid the staff" upon 
 the face of the Slumammite's son, and yet there is no voice nor hearing, 
 no answer from God, no peace, then are they presently dissatisfied, 
 reflecting on tlie promises of God and the coimseis of good men, with 
 tliis, Wliere is all the pleasantness you speak of? wiiat advantage 
 is it that we have thus run and laboured, when wc Iiavc got nothing? 
 And tiien it is easy for the devil to add. And why do you wait on the 
 Lord any longer ? 
 
 [3.] His last and most dangerous argument is, that they are sinful. 
 Unfitness for duty produceth many distractions, much deadncss, wan- 
 dering thoughts, great interruptions, and pitful performances. Hence 
 the troubled soul comes off from duty wounded and halting, more 
 distressed when he hath done tlian when he began ; upon these con- 
 siderations, that all liis service was sin, a mocking of God, a taking 
 his name in vain, nay, a very blasphemous affront to a divine majesty. 
 Upon this the devil starts the question to his lieart, Whether it be 
 not better to forbear all duty, and to do nothing ? Thus doth Satan 
 improve the trouble of the mind, and often with the designed success. 
 For a dejected spirit dotli not only afford the materials of these 
 weapons whicli the devil fi-ames against it, but is much prepared 
 to receive them into its own bowels. The grounds of these arguments 
 it grants, and the inferences are commonly consented to, so that 
 ordinarily duty is neglected, either, 1. Tlu'ough sottislmess of heart ; 
 or, 2. Through frightful fears ; or, 3. Through desperateness ; bring- 
 ing a man to the very precipice of that atheistical determination, ' I 
 have cleansed my hands in vain,' [Ps. Ixxiii. 1 3.] 
 
 Fourth, 8a tan makes use of the troubles of God's children as a 
 stumbling-block to others. It is no small advantage to him, that he 
 hath hereby an occasion to render the ways of God unlovely to those 
 that are beginning to look heavenward ; he sets before them the siglis, 
 groans, complaints, and restless outcries of the wounded in sphit, to 
 scare them oft" from all seriousness in religion, and wliispcrs this to 
 them, ' Will you choose a life of bitterness and sorrow ? can you eat 
 
Chap. 5.] satan's temptations. 215 
 
 ashes for bread, and mingle your drink with tears ? will you exchange 
 the comforts and contents of life for a melancholy heart and a dejected 
 countenance ? how like you to go moiu'ning all the day, and at night 
 to be scared with dreams and terrified with visions ? will you choose a 
 life that is worse than death, and a condition which will make you a 
 terror to yom-selves and a burden to others ? can you be in love with 
 a heart loaden with grief, and perpetual fears aliuost to distraction, 
 while you see others in the meantime enjoy themselves in a contented 
 peace ? Thus he follows young beginners with his suggestions, mak- 
 ing them believe that they cannot be serious in religion, but at last 
 they will be brought to this, and that it is a very dangerous thing to 
 be religious overmuch, and the highway to despair ; so that if they 
 must have a religion, he readily directs them to use no more of it 
 than may consist with the pleasures of sin and the world, and to make 
 an easy busuiess of it, not to let sin lie over-near their heart, lest it dis- 
 quiet them ; nor overmuch to concern tliemselves with study, reading, 
 prayer, or hearing of thi-eatening, awakening sermons, lest it make 
 them mad ; nor to affect the sublimities of communion with God, 
 exercises of faith and divine love, lest it discompose them and dash 
 their worldly jollities out of countenance. A counsel that is readily 
 enough embraced by those that are almost persuaded to be Christians ; 
 and the more to confirm them in it, he sticks not sometime to asperse 
 the poor troubled soul with dissimulation — where that accusation 
 is proper, for the devil cares not how inconsistent he be \vith himself, 
 so that he may but gain his end — afiirming all his seriousness to be 
 nothing but whining hyi^ocrisy. So that whether they judge these 
 troubles to be real or feigned, his conclusion is the same, and he 
 persuades men thereby to hold off from all religious strictness, holy 
 diligence, and careful watchfulness. 
 
 Fifth, A further use which the devil makes of these troubles of 
 spirit is, to prepare the hearts of men thereby to give entertainment 
 to his venomous impressions. Distress of heart usually opens the door 
 to Satan, and lays a man naked, without armour or defence, as a fair 
 mark for all his poisoned arrows ; and it is a hundred to one but some 
 of them do hit. I shall choose out some of the most remarkable, and 
 they are these : — - 
 
 [1.] After long acquaintance ivith grief he labours to fix them in it. 
 In some cases custom doth alleviate higher griefs, and men take an 
 odd kind of delight in them ; Est qucedam etiam dolendi vohtptas. It 
 is some pleasure to complain, and men settle themselves in such 
 a course, their finger is ever upon their sore, and they go about 
 telling their sorrows to all they converse with — though to some this is 
 a necessity, for real sorrows, if they be not too great for vent, will con- 
 strain them to speak — yet in some that have been formerly acquainted 
 with grief, it degenerates at last into a formaUty of complaining ; and 
 because they formerly had cause so to do, they think they must always 
 do so. But besides this, Satan doth endeavour to chain men to their 
 mourning upon two higher accounts i : 1. By a delusive contentment 
 
 •' Collins 'Cordial,' part ii. p. 154. [Misprint for Collinges, whose 'Cordial for a 
 Fainting Soul' (1649, 4to) is one of the richest of Puritan experimental treatises; and 
 not less so his ' Intercourses of Divine Love,' (2 vols. 4to. l';"o-S3.)— 0. 1 
 
216 A TREATISE OV [PaRT II. 
 
 in sorrow, as if our tears paid some part of our debt to God, and made 
 amends for the injuries done to him. 2. By an obstinate sullenness 
 and desperate resolvedness they harden themselves in sorrow, and say 
 as Job, chap. vii. 11, ' I will not refrain my mouth, I will speak in the 
 anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 
 Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me ?' 
 
 [2.] Another impression that men's hearts are apt to take, is, iin- 
 thankfulness for the favours formerly hestoiced upon them. Their 
 present troubles blot out tlie memoiy of old kindnesses. They conclude 
 they have nothing at all, because they have not peace. Though God 
 heretofore hath sent down from on high, and taken them out of the 
 great waters, or out of the mire and clay where they were ready to 
 sink ; though he hath sent theiu many tokens of love, conferred on 
 them many blessings ; yet all these are no more to them, so long as 
 their sorrows continue, than Haman's wealth and honour was to 
 him, so long as Mordecai the Jew sat at the king's gate. Thus the 
 devil oft prevails witli God's children, to deal with God as some 
 unthankful persons deal with their benefactors ; who, if they be not 
 humoured in every request, deny tlie reality of their love, and despise 
 with great ingratitude all that was done for them before. 
 
 [3. J By inward gi'iefs, the heart of the afllicted are prepared to 
 entertain the worst interpretation that the devil can jmt upon the 
 providences of God. The various instances of Scriptm-e, and the 
 gracious promises made to those that ' walk in darkness and see no 
 light,' do abundantly forewarn men from making bad conclusions of 
 God's dealings, and do tell us that God in design, for our trial and for 
 our profit, doth often hide his face 'for a moment,' when yet his purpose 
 is to 'bind us up with everlasting compassions.' Now the devil 
 labours to improve the sorrows of the mind to give a quite contrary 
 construction. If they are afllicted, instead of saying, ' Sorrow may 
 endm-e for a night, but joy will come in the morning,' [Ps. xxx. 5,] 
 or that ' for a little whileGod hath hidden himself,' he puts them to 
 say, 'this darkness shall never pass away.' If the grief be little, he 
 drives them on to a fearful exjjectation of worse; as he did %yith 
 Hezekiah, Isa. xxxviii. 13, 'I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, 
 so will he break all my bones ; from day even to night wilt thou make 
 an end of me.' If God puqiose to teach us by inward sorrows our 
 pride of heart, carelessness, neglect of dependence upon him, the 
 bitterness of sin, or the like, the de\il will make us believe, and we 
 are too ready to subscribe to him, that God proclaims open war against 
 us, and resolves never to own us more. So did Job, chap. xix. 6, 
 ' Know now that God hath overthrown me, and compassed me with 
 his net ;' how often complained he, ' thou hast made me as thy mark, 
 thou hast broken me asunder, thou hast taken me by my neck and 
 shaken me to pieces '! So also Hcmau, Ps. Ixxxviii. 14, ' Why castest 
 thou off my soul ? why hidest thou thy face from me ?' 
 
 [4.] Upon this occasion the devil is ready to envenom the soul with 
 sinful ivishes and execrcdions against itself. Eminent saints have 
 been tempted in their trouble to say too much this way. Job solemnly 
 cursed his day : Job iii. 3, ' Let the day perish wherein I was born, 
 and the night in which it was said. There is a man-child conceived.' 
 
Chap. 5.] satan's temptations. 217 
 
 &c. So also Jeremiah, chap. xx. 14, ' Cursed be the day wherein I 
 was born : let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. 
 Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man- 
 child is born unto thee ; and let that man be as the cities which God 
 overthrew, and repented not.' Strange rashness ! what had the day 
 deserved? or wherein was the messenger to be blamed? Violent 
 passions hm-ried him beyond all bounds of reason and moderation. 
 When troubles within are violent, a small push sets men forward; and 
 when once they begin, they are carried headlong beyond what they 
 first intended. 
 
 [5.] On this advantage the devil sometimes emboldens them to 
 quarrel God himself directly. When Job_ and Jeremiah cursed their 
 day, it was a contumely against God indirectly ; but they durst not 
 make bold with God at so high a rate as to quarrel him to his face. 
 Yet even this are men brought to often when their sorrows are long- 
 lasting and deep. The devil suggests, Can God be faithful, and never 
 keep promise for help ? can he be merciful, when he turns away his 
 ears from the cry of the miserable ? where is his pity, when he multi- 
 plies his wounds without cause ? Though at first these cursed inti- 
 mations do a little startle men, yet when by frequent inculcating they 
 grow more familiar to the heart, the distressed break out in their 
 rage with those exclamations, Where is the faitlifulnessof God? 
 where are his promises ? hath he not forgotten to be gracious ? are 
 not his mercies clean gone ? And at last it may be Satan leads them 
 a step higher, that is— 
 
 [6.] To a despairing desperateness. For when all passages of relief 
 are stopped up, and the burden becomes great, men are apt to be 
 drawn into rage and fury when they think their burden is greater 
 than they can bear, and see no hope of ease ; in a kind of revenge they 
 express their anger against the hand that wounded them. The devil 
 is officiously ready with his advice of ' Curse God and die,' [Job. 
 ii. 9,] and they, being full of anguish, are quickly made to comply 
 with it. 
 
 [7.] When it is at this height, the devil hath but one stage more, 
 and that is the suggesting of irregtdar means for ease. Kage against 
 God doth not quench the inward burning, blasphemies against heaven 
 easeth not the pain, the sore runs still and ceaseth not, the trouble 
 continues, the man cannot endure it longer, all patience and hope is 
 gone. What shall he do in this case ? The devil offers his service ; 
 he vdll be the physician, and commonly he prescribes one of these 
 two things : (1.) That it is best to endeavour to break through all 
 this trouble into a resolved profaneness ; not to stand in awe of laws, 
 not to believe that there is a God that governs in the earth, but that 
 this is only the bitter fruit of melancholy and unnecessary seriousness, 
 and therefore it is best ' to eat, drink, and be merry.' If a man can 
 thus escape out of his trouble, the devil needs no more ; but oft he 
 cannot, the wounds of conscience mil not be thus healed. Then, 
 (2.) He hath another remedy, which will not fail, as he tells them, 
 that is, to ' destroy themselves,' to end their troubles with their lives. 
 How open are the breasts of troubled creatures to all these darts ! 
 and were it not that God secretly steps in and holds the afflicted with 
 
218 A TREATISE OF [PaRT 11. 
 
 his riglit hand, it i« scarce imaginable but that wounded consciences 
 should by Satan's subtle improvement of so fair an advantage be 
 brought to all this misery. 
 
 [8.] Satau can afflict the body hy the mind. For these two arc so 
 closely bound together that their good and bad estate is shared betwixt 
 them. If the heai't be merry the countenance is cheerful, the strength 
 is renewed, the bones do flourish like an herb. If the heart be troubled 
 the health is impaired, the strength is ckied up, the marrow of the 
 bones wasted, &c. Grief in the heart is like a moth in the garment, 
 it insensibly consumeth the body and disordereth it. This advantage 
 of weakening the body falls into Satan's hands by necessary conse- 
 quence, as the prophet's ripe figs, that fell into the mouth of the cater. 
 And surely he is well pleased with it, as he is an enemy both to body 
 and soul. But it is a greater satisfaction to him in that as he can 
 make the sorrows of the mind produce the weakness and sickness of 
 the body, so cau he make the distemper of the body, by a reciprocal 
 requital, to augment the trouble of the mind. How little can a 
 sickly body do ! It disables a man for all services ; he cannot oft 
 pray, nor read, nor hear; sickness takes away the sweetness and com- 
 fort of religious exercises. This gives occasion for them to flunk the 
 worse of themselves. They think the soul is weary of the ways of 
 God, wlicu the body cannot hold out. All failures which weariness 
 and faintness produce arc ascribed presently to the bad disposition of 
 the mind, and this is like oil cast upon the flame. Thus the devil 
 makes a double gain out of spiritual trouble. 
 
 [9.] Let it be also reckoned among the advantages which Satan 
 hath against men from trouble of spirit, that it is a contentment to him 
 to see them in their miseries. It is a sj)ort to him to see them, as Job 
 speaks, take their flesh in their teeth, and cry out in the bitterness of 
 their souls, [Job. xiii. 14.] Their groanings are his music. When 
 they wallow in ashes, drown themselves in tears, roar till their throat 
 is dry, spread out their hands for help, then he gluts his heart in 
 looking upon their woes. When they fall upon God witli their unjust 
 surmises, evil interpretations of providence, questioning his flivour, 
 denying his grace, wishing they had never beeu born, then he claps 
 his hands and shouts a victory. The ])leasantest sight to him is to 
 see God liiding himself from his child, and that child broken with 
 fears, torn in pieces with griefs, made a brother to dragons, a com- 
 panion to owls, under restless anxieties, perpetual lamentations, feeble 
 and sore broken, their strength dried like a potsherd, their throat dry, 
 their tongue cleaving to their jaws, their bowels boiling, their bones 
 burnt with heat, their skin black upon them, their flesh consumed, 
 their bones sticking out, chastened with strong pain upon their bed. 
 This is one of Satan's delightful spectacles, and for these ends 
 doth he all he can to bereave them of their comfort, which we may 
 the more certainly persuade ourselves to be true, when we consider 
 the grounds forementioned, his malicious natm'c, the advantages of 
 spiritual peace, and the disadvantages of spiritual trouble. 
 
Chap. 6.] satan's temptations. 219 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Of the various ivays by ivhicJi he hinders peace — 1. Way by discom- 
 posures of spirit. These discomposures explained, by shewing, (1.) 
 What advantage he takes from our natural temper, and ivhat tempers 
 give him this advantage. (2.) By luhat occasions he luorks upon 
 our natural tempers. (3.) W ith what success. ^ [1.] These occasions 
 siiited to natural inclinations, raise great disturbance. [2.] They 
 have a tendency to spiritual trouble. The thing proved, and the 
 manner hoio discovered. [3.] These disturbances much in his poiuer. 
 General and particular considerations about that poiuer. 
 
 Having evidenced that one of Satan's principal designs is against 
 the peace and comfort of God's children, I shall next endeavour a dis- 
 covery of the various ways hy which he doth undermine them herein. 
 All inward troubles are not of the same kind in themselves, neither 
 doth ISatan always produce the same effects out of all ; some being in 
 their own nature disquiets, that do not so directly and immediately 
 overthrow the peace and joy of believing, and the comforts of assur- 
 ance of divine favom-, as others do. Yet seeing that by all he hath no 
 small advantage against us as to sin and trouble, and that any of them 
 at the long run may lead us to question our interest in grace and the 
 love of God, and may accordingly afHict us, I shall speak of them 
 all; which that I may do the more distinctly, I shall rank these 
 troubles into several heads, under peculiar names — it may be not alto- 
 gether so proper but that the curious may find matter of exception to 
 them — that by them and their explanation the differences may the 
 better appear. I distinguish therefore of a fourfold trouble that the 
 devil doth endeavour to work up upon the hearts of men. They are, 
 1. Discomposures. 2. Affrightments. 3. Dejections of sadness. 4. 
 Distresses of horror. Of all which I shall speak in their order. 
 And, 
 
 1. Of discomposures of sold. These are molestations and distm-b- 
 ances by which the mind is put out of order and made unquiet. The 
 calm in which it should enjoy itself, and by which it should be com- 
 posed to a regular and steady acting, being disturbed by a storm of 
 commotion, and in which the conscience or the peace of it is not pre- 
 sently concerned. This distinction of the trouble of soul from the 
 trouble of conscience is not new. Others have observed it before, i and 
 do thus explain it : Trouble of soul is larger than trouble of con- 
 science; every troubled conscience is a troubled soul, but every 
 troubled soul is not a troubled conscience; for the soul may be 
 troubled from causes natural, civil, and spiritual, according to variety 
 of occasions and provocations, when yet a man's inward peace with 
 God is firm ; and in some cases, as in infants and in men chstracted 
 with fevers, &c., there may be passions and disturbances of soul when 
 the conscience is not capable of exercising its office : nay, the soul of 
 Christ was troubled— Jolm xii. 27, ' Now is my soul troubled'— when 
 
 ' Dififerunt inter Be casus aninise icgia; cl casus conscicntia; wgrK, kc—Dkhson, 
 Therap. Sacr., Ub. i. cap. 2. [Edinburgh, 1656, Svo.— G.] 
 
220 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 it was not possible that siu or despair should have the least footing 
 in him. 
 
 For the opening of these discomposures of soul I shall — 1. Shew 
 upon what advantage of natural temper the devil is encouraged to 
 molest men. 2. By what oceasions he doth work upon our natural 
 inclinations. 3. And with what success of disturbance to the soul. 
 
 (1.) As to our natural dispositions, Satan, as hath formerly been 
 noted, takes his usual indications of ivorking from thence. These 
 guide him in his enterprises ; lois temptiitions being suited to men's 
 tempers, proceed more smoothly and successfully. Some are of so 
 serene and calm a disposition, that he doth not much design their 
 discomposure ; but others there are whose passions are more stu'ring 
 — fit matter for him to work upon: and these are, 
 
 [1.] The angry dif^position. How great an advantage this gives to 
 Satan to disturb the heart, may be easily conceived by considering the 
 various workings of it in several men, according to their difierent 
 humours. It is a passion that acts not alike in all ; and for the dif- 
 ferences, so far as we need to be concerned, I shall not trouble the 
 schools of philosophers, but content myself with what we have in Eph. 
 iv. 31 , where the apostle cxpressetli it by three words, not that they 
 differ essentially, declaring thereby the varioius ways of anger's work- 
 ing. The first is iriKpia, which we translate bitterness. This is a 
 disi)leasurc smothered ; for some when they are angry cover it, and 
 give it no vent, partly for that they are sometimes ashamed to mention 
 the ground as trivial or unjust, partly from sullenness of disposition, 
 and oft from a natural rescrvedness ; while tlie flame is thus kept 
 down, it burns uiwardly, and men resolve ^ in their minds many trouble- 
 some, vexatious thoughts. TJie second word is Ov/j.o';, lorath ; this is 
 a fierce, impetuous anger. Some are soon moved, but so violent that 
 they are presently transported into rage and frenzy, or are so i)eevishly 
 was^ush that they cannot be spoken to. The third is op'yi}, translated 
 here anger, but signifies such a displeasure as is deep, entertaining 
 thoughts of revenge and pursuit, settling itself at last into hatred. 
 Any of tliese is enough to bereave the heart of its rest, and to alarm 
 it with disturbanccs." 
 
 [2.] Others have an envious nature, alicays maligning and repining 
 at other men's felicity ; an evil eye that cannot look on another's better 
 condition without vexation. This turns a man into a devil. It is the 
 devil's proper sin, and the fury that dolii unquiet him, and he the 
 better knows of what avail it would be to help on our trouble. 
 
 [3.] Some are of proud fnnpers, always overvaluing themselves, with 
 the scorn and contempt of others. This humour is troublesome to all 
 about them, but all this trouble dotli at last redound to themselves. 
 These think all others should observe them, and take notice of their 
 supposed excellencies, which if men do not, then it pines them or stirs 
 up their choler to indignation. Solomon, Prov. xxx. 21, mentioning 
 those things that are greatly disquieting in the earth, instanceth in 
 ' a servant when he reigneth ; and the handmaid that is heir to her 
 mistress,' intending thereby the proud, imperious insolcncy of those 
 that are unexpectedly raised from a low estate to wealth or honour. 
 ^ Query, 'revolve'? — Ed. ' Bayue, in loc. 
 
Chap. 6.J satan's temptations. 221 
 
 He that is of ' a, proud heart stirreth up strife,' Prov. xxviii. 25 ; and 
 as he is troublesome to others, so doth he create trouble to himself ; 
 for he not only molests himself by the working of his disdainful 
 thoughts, while he exerciseth his scorn towards others : Prov. xxi. 24, 
 ' The haughty scomer deals in proud wrath;' but this occasions the 
 affronts and contempt of others again, which beget new griefs to his 
 restless mind. 
 
 [4.] Some have a natural exorlitancij of desire, an evil coveting; 
 they are passionately carried forth toward what they have not, and 
 have no contentment or satisfaction in what they do enjoy. Such 
 humours are seldom at ease, their desires are painfully violent ; and 
 when they obtain what they longed for, they soon grow weary of it, 
 andihen another object takes up their wishes, so that these ' daughters 
 of the horse-leech are ever crying. Give, give,' Prov. xxx. 15. 
 
 [5.] Others have a soft effeminate temper, a iveahiess of soul that 
 makes them unfit to hear any burden, or endure any hardness. These, 
 if they meet with pams or troubles — and who can challenge an exemp- 
 tion from them ? — they are presently impatient, vexing themselves by 
 a vain reluctancy to what they cannot avoid ; not but that extraor- 
 dinary burdens will make the strongest spirit to stoop, but these cry 
 out for the smallest matters, which a stout mind would bear with some 
 competent cheerfulness. 
 
 [6.] And there are other dispositions that are tender to an excess of 
 syvipatJiy, so that they immoderately affect and afflict themselves with 
 other men's sorrows. Though this be a temper more commendable 
 than any of the former, yetSatan can take advantage of this, as also 
 of the fore-named dispositions, to discompose us, especially by suiting 
 them with fit occasions, which readily work upon these tempers. And 
 this was, 
 
 (2.) The second thing to be explained, which shall be performed by 
 a brief enumeration of them, the chief whereof are these : 
 
 [1.] Contempt or disestimation. When a man's person, parts, or 
 opinion are slighted, his anger, envy, pride, and impatience are 
 awakened, and these make him swell and restless within. Even good 
 men have been sadly disturbed this way. Job, as holy a man as he 
 was, and who had enough of greater matters to trouble his mind, yet 
 among other griefs complains of this more than once : Job xii. 4, ' I 
 am as one mocked of his neighbour : the just upright man is laughed 
 to scorn;' chap. xix. 15, ' They that dwell in mine house, and my 
 maids, count me for a strangei-. I called my servant, and he gave 
 me no answer. Yea, young children despised me ; I rose up and they 
 spake against me.' "Thus "he bemoans himself, and, which is more, 
 speaks of it again with some smartness of indignation : Job xxx. 1 , 
 ' Now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers 
 I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.' David 
 also, who had a stout heart under troubles, complains that he could 
 not bear reproaches : Ps. Ixix., ' Reproach hath broken mine heart ; I 
 am full of heaviness.' What these reproaches were, and how he was 
 staggered with them, he tells us : ver. 10, ' I chastened my soul with 
 fasting, that was to my reproach. I made sackcloth my garment ; 
 and I became a proverb to them. They that sit in the gate speak 
 
222 A TREATISE OF [PaUT II. 
 
 against me ; and 1 was tlie song of the drunkards.' With these he 
 was so stounded that if he had not catched hold on God by prayer, as 
 he speaks, ver. 13, he had fallen, ' But as for nie, my prayer is unto 
 thee, Lord,' &c. ; and he afterward speaks of his support under 
 reproaches as a wonder of divine assistiince : Ps. cxix. 51, 'The 
 proud have had me in derision : yet have I not declined from thy law.' 
 
 [2.] Injury is another occasion by which the devil works upon our 
 tempers to disquiet us. Wrongs of injustice and oppression are hard 
 to bear. This is a common ground of trouble. Good men cannot 
 always acquit themselves in this case as they ought. Jeremiah, when 
 smitten by Pashur, and put in the stocks, Jer. xx. 2, 8, fiills into a 
 sad ])assion : ' I am a derision daily, every one mocketh me. I cried 
 out, I cried violence and spoil,' uuitating the passionate aflViglitmeuts 
 of those that ciy, Murder, murder, &c. No wonder, seeing Solomon 
 gives it as an axiom built upon manifold experience, Eccles. vii. 7. 
 Oppression doth not only make a man unquiet, but mad in his xm- 
 quietness ; and not only those that are foolish and hasty, but the most 
 considerate and sedate persons : ' Oppression makes a wise man mad.' 
 
 [3.] Another occasion of men's discomposure is, the jyrosperit// of the 
 icickcd. Their abimdance, their advancements to honours and dignity, 
 hath always been a grudge to those whose condition is below them, 
 and yet suppose tliemselves to have better grounds to expect prefer- 
 ment than they. This astonished Job even to trembling: Job xxi. 7, 
 ' When I remember, I am afraid, and trembling taketh liold on my 
 flesh ; ' and the matter was but this, ' Wherefore do the wicked live, 
 become old, yea, and mightj- in power ? ' &c. Tlie trouble that seizetii 
 on men's heai-ts on this occasion is called fretting, a vexation that 
 wears out the strength of the soul, as two hard bodies waste by mutual 
 attrition or rubbing. And it t;ikcs its advantage from our envy chiefly, 
 though other distemi)ers come in to help it forward : Ps. xxxvii. 1 , 
 ' Fret not thyself because of e^ol-doers, neither be thou envious against 
 the workers of iniquity.' David confesseth that he was apt to fall 
 into this trouble, Ps. Ixxiii. 3, ' I was envious at the foolish, when 1 
 saw the pro-sperity of the wicked' Against tliis disquiet we have 
 frequent cautions, Prov. xxiv. 1, 19, and Ps. xlix. 16, 'Be not afraid 
 when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased.' All 
 which shew our proneness to this disease. 
 
 [4.] Crosses and affliciiom give Satan an opportunity to tcork upon 
 our jMssions ; as disappointments of expectations, loss of friends, of 
 estate, persecutions and sufferings for conscience sake, &c. None of 
 these in their own nature are 'joyous, but grievous;' and what use 
 they have been of to the devil to discompose the minds of the sufferers, 
 is e\idenced by common experience. The tears, sad countenances, 
 and doleful lamentations of men are true witnesses of the disquiet of 
 their hearts. Every one being pressed with the sense of his own 
 smart is ready to cry out, ' Is there any sorrow like my sorrow ? I 
 am poor and comfortless ; my lovers and my friends have forsaken nie, 
 and there is none to help.' Some grow faint under their burden, while 
 their eyes fail in looking for redress, especially when new unexpected 
 troubles overwhelm their hopes : ' \Vlien I looked for good, then evil 
 came ; and when I waited for light, there came darkness,' Job xxx. 26. 
 
Chap. 6.] satan's temptations. 223 
 
 ' Why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us ? We 
 looked for peace, and there is no good ; and for the time of healing, 
 and behold trouble,' Jer. xiv. 19 ; and here they sink, concluding there 
 is no hope. Others that bear up better in a blessed expectation of 
 spiritual profit, having that of David in their eye, ' Blessed is the man 
 whom thou afiiictest, and teachest in thy law ; ' yet they cannot for- 
 bear their complaints even to God ; Ps. xsv. 17, ' The troubles of 
 mine heart are enlarged ; oh bring thou me out of my distresses ; look 
 upon mine affliction and my pain.' Nay,i those that have had the 
 highest advantages of heavenly support, whose hearts have been kept in 
 peace, counting it all joy that they have fallen into these trials — and 
 God doth more this way for those that suffer for the gospel's sake 
 than ordinarily for others; yet have not these been under a stoical 
 senselessness of their trouble. Though they were not 'distressed,' 
 they were ' troubled on every side ;' though ' not in despair,' yet they 
 were ' perplexed,' 2 Cor. iv. 8 ; though their afflictions were light, yet 
 were they afflictions still. 
 
 [5.] To these may be added, the pain or anguish of sickness and 
 bodily distemper. Though there are various degrees of pain, and that 
 some sicknesses are less affiictive than others, yet none of them forbear 
 to pierce the mind. The whole man is cliscomposed. He that is 
 exercised with ' strong pains upon his bed,' cries out in the bitterness 
 of his soul ; and he that by insensible degr-ees languisheth, grows 
 ordinarily peevish, and his mind bleeds by an inward wound, so that he 
 ' spends his days in sighing,' and his years in mourning. And others 
 there are who, being before acquainted with bodily pains, grow very 
 impatient in sickness, and are able to bear nothing. And besides the 
 present sense of pain, the expectation of death jiuts some into great 
 commotion ; the fears of it, for it is natm-ally dreadful, fills them with 
 distpiet thoughts ; and those that approach to the grave by slow steps, 
 under consumption or languishing sicknesses, they are habituated to 
 sadness, and can think of nothing cheerfully — except they have gi-eat 
 assurance of salvation, and have well learned to die— because the 
 coffin, grave, and winding-sheet are still presented to them. These, 
 though they be very suitable objects for meditation, and, well improved, 
 of great advantage for preparation to death, yet doth Satan thereby, 
 when it is for his pm-pose, endeavour to keep men under grief, and to 
 bereave them of their peace. 
 
 [6.] Satan takes an advantage of trouble from the miseries of others. 
 Sympathy is a Christian grace ; and to bear one another's burdens, to 
 mourn with those that mourn, shews us to be fellow-feeling members of 
 the same body ; for ' if one member suffer, all the members suffer -with 
 it,' [1 Cor. xii. 26.] Yet are some men naturally of so tender a con- 
 stitution, that Satan overdrives them herein. Every common occasion 
 will wound them. The usual effects of God's ordinary providence on 
 the poor, lame, or sick, are deeply laid to heart by them ; and instead 
 of being not unsensible of other men's miseries, they are not sensible 
 of anything else, neither do they enjoy their own mercies. And here, 
 as Satan can every moment present them with objects of pity, ordinary 
 or extraordinary, so upon a religious pretence of merciful consideration, 
 1 Misprinted 'may.' — G. 
 
224 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 they are made cruel to themselves, refusing their own peace, bccauKc 
 other men are not at ease. 
 
 (3.) The third particular promised to be explained for the discovery 
 of these discomposures of soul was this, that by a concur7-ence of these 
 and such like occasions (o such (emjjcrs, the hearts of men are disturbed, 
 a7id (heir imcard peace broken. This I shall evidence of these three 
 things: 1. That these occasions meeting with such dispositions, do 
 naturally raise great disturbances in their present working ; 2. Tliat 
 they have a tendency to further trouble ; 3. That Satan dotli design, 
 and hath it ordinarily m his jiower, to discompose the hearts of men 
 hereby. 
 
 [1.] That these occasions meeting with such dispositions, do naturally 
 raise great disturbances. This is evident from what hath been said 
 already; for (1.) All these dispositions carry as much fire in their oicn 
 bosoms, as is sufficient to burn up the standing corn of any man's peace. 
 What is anger, but an inward bm-ning, a restless confusion of the 
 spirits ? sometime a frenzy, a distraction, a troubled sea full of rage, a 
 wild beast let loose. Envy, that is a fretful peevishness, a vexatious 
 repining, needing no other tormentors but its own furies, recoiling upon 
 him that bred it, because it cannot wreak its spite upon its objects. 
 An envious person is a self-murderer, by the verdict of Elijihaz: Job 
 V. 2, ' Wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the foolish 
 one.' This is not barely to be understood of its provoking the judge 
 of all the earth to send down its deserved destruction ; but also, if not 
 chiefly, of its own corroding temper, which by long continuance wastes 
 the strength and consumes the body. Pride is a perpetual vexation, 
 creating its troubles from its own fancy. Irregular covetings keep a 
 man still upon the rack ; they make a man like the Tantalus of tlie 
 poets ; they give a man a caninus appetitus, a strong appetite with ex- 
 cessive greediness, and restless pursuit, and constant dissatisfactions ; 
 he is ever gaping, and never enjoying. Impatience is a wearisome 
 conflict with a burden which it can neither bear nor yet shake off; 
 where all the fruit of the vain labour amounts to no better account 
 than this, that the impatient makes his burden the greater, the bands 
 that tie it on the stronger, and the strength that should bear it the 
 weaker. Lastly, An excess of pity multiplies ' wounds without cause.' 
 It hinders a man to be happy so long as there are any that are miser- 
 able. He is always, in reference to his quiet, at the mercy of other 
 men. The afliicted can torment him at a distance ; and, by a kind of 
 magic, make him feel the torments that are inflicted upon Ms image. 
 \^Tio can deny but that men that are ridden by such vexatious dis- 
 positions must lead an unquiet life, and always be tossed with inward 
 tempests ? Especially, (2.) When we consider hoiufit the fore-mentioned 
 occasions are to draiu out these humours to their tumultuary extrava- 
 gances. A lighted match and gunpowder are not more exactly suited 
 to raise a shaking blast, than those occasions and tempers are to 
 breed an inward annoyance. Some of these humom-s are so trouble- 
 some, that rather than they wll want work, they will fight with their 
 own shadows, and, hj a perverseness of prejudicated fancy, will create 
 their own troubles ; and the best of them, which seem sometime to 
 take truce and compose themselves to rest, while occasions are out of 
 
Ohap. 6.] Satan's temptations. 225 
 
 tke way; yet they are quickly awakened, like sleeping clogs that are 
 roLd^with the least noise. What work, then, may we expec they 
 will make when they are smnmoned ^ give their abearance upon a 
 solemn occasion ? But (3.) If we should deal by mstances, and brmg 
 uprJhe tageVe effect, that have been brought forth by these con^ 
 curring caus°es, it will appear that they make disturbances m good 
 earnest. Let us either view the prions fits that have been, like sudden 
 flashes, soonest gone, or their more lastmg inipressious, ami we sha U 
 find it true. As to violent fits raised by such occasions and disposi- 
 Sons eSSples are infinite. What rages, outrages, madnesses, and 
 extravagancL have men run into 1 Some, upon provocations, have 
 fu iousfy acted savage cruelties, and for small matters have been 
 carried to the most desperate revenges. Others have J^en brought to 
 such violent commotions within themselves, that the frame of natoe 
 hath been thereby weakened and overthrown. As byUa, who in a 
 sttng p^s on vomited choler till he died. Some m their fury have 
 aeted^hat which hath been matter of sorrow to them a 1 their days^ 
 But, omitting the examples of heathens and wicked men, let us consider 
 The wonderfS transports of holy men. , Moses, a man ™^ bgo^ 
 comparison in meekness, was so astomshed with a sudden s^ Py^^ ot 
 trouble at the sight of the golden calf, that he threw ^o^^^^^^/^^ f 
 of the law, and brake them. Some mdeed observe f^'^ J^^^f^ '^^ 
 nificancy of Israel's breaking the law and orfeitmg ^ocl s pio echon 
 as his peculiar people ; but this is more to be ascribed to the design- 
 mentoffine providence, that so ordered it, than to the intendment 
 of Moses, who no doubt did not this from a sedate and f m dhb na- 
 tion as purposing by this act to tell Israel so much; but was huiried 
 by his g?i^f as n?t considering well what he did, ^ break them Asa 
 a good- man when he was reproved by the prophet, instead o thankful 
 Stance of the reproof, grows angry, falls into a rage, and throws the 
 Set nto prison. Mils, discomposed with Jezebel s per-cution 
 desh-es that God would take away his hte Jonah, m his anger faU 
 out with God, and jastifies it when he hath done. Smely ^ch fits as 
 these proceeded from great mward combustion. Would wise sober 
 holy lien have said or done such things if they l^ad not been trans 
 ported beyond themselves ? and though m such cases l^e fits aie soon 
 over, yet we observe that some are apt to fall mto such fits of en, ar d 
 are o easily irritated, that, like the epileptic person Possessed by the 
 devU, upon every occasion, they are by him 'cast into the fire or into 
 the water,' [Mat. xvii. 15,] and by the frequent retmrn of their dis- 
 
 'Ts"oX?i:whos:1empers are more apt to retain a troublesome 
 impression it is very ob\ious that their discomposures have as mucii 
 S^y ngth and bread'h as the other had in height. You may view 
 Haman tormented under his secret discontent, which l^^^ P "^^ «^? 
 envy formed in him, for the want of Mordecai s obeisance. 1 ^f^^S^ 
 favour, a great estate, high honour, and what else a man could wish 
 to make him content are aU sw.^lowed up in this gulf, and became 
 nothing to him. You see Amnon, vexed and sick for 1^^ sister Tamai 
 waxini lean from day to day. You see Ahab, though a ^^f. ^J« 
 had enough to satisfy his mmd, in the same condition for Naboths 
 
226 A TREATISE OF [1'AUT IJ. 
 
 vioeyard. If you say these were wicked iiieu, who vid tlieir lusts 
 without a bridle, and used the spur ; look then upou better men and 
 you will see too much. Kachel so grieves and mourns for want of 
 children, that she professeth her life inconsistent with her disappoint- 
 ment : ' Give me children, else I die,' [Gen. xxx. 1.] Hannah upon 
 the same occasion weeps and cats not, and prays in the bitterness of 
 her soul, and the abundance of her comi)laint and grief. Jeremiah, 
 being pressed with discouragements from the conti'adiction of evil men, 
 calls himself ' a man of strife and contention to the whole earth,' Jer. 
 XV. 10 ; his sorrows thence arising, had so imbittcrcd his life, that he 
 puts ' a woe' upon his birth : ' Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast 
 born mc a man of strife.' Paul had a noble courage under manifold 
 afflictions ; he could glory in the cross and rejoice in persecutions ; 
 nevertheless the greatness of his work, the froward perverseness and 
 unsteadiness of professors, which put him under fears, jealousies, and 
 new travail, the miseries of Christians, and the care he had for the 
 concerns of the gospel— 2 Cor. xi. 2 ; Gal. vi. 19— which was a con- 
 stant load ujion his mind, his heart,- like old Eli's, trembling still for 
 the ark of God, made him complain as one worn out by the troubles 
 of his heart : 2 Cor. xi. 27, ' In weariness and painfulncss, in watch- 
 ings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and naked- 
 ness. Besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon 
 mc daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not 
 weak ?' &c. For the Jews he had great heaviness and continual sor- 
 row in his heart ; and for the Gentiles he had ]icrpetual fears, Rom. 
 ix. 2. Now though lie had a gi-eat share of divine comforts inter- 
 mixed, and a more than ordinary assistance of the Spirit to keep him 
 from sinful discompo.sure of spirit, at least fo such a height as it 
 ordinarily prevails upon others, yet was he very sensible of his burden, 
 and doubtless the devil laboured to improve lliese occasions to weary 
 out his strength. For by these and such like things he froqueully 
 vexeth the righteous souls of the fiiithful ministers of the gospel from 
 day to day ; so that their hearts have no rest, and their hands grow 
 often feeble, and they cry out. Oh the burden ! oh the care ! being 
 ready to say, as Jeremiah, cliap. xx. 7, ' Lord, thou hast deceived me, 
 and I was deceived: I am a derision daily, every one raocketh me.' 
 Thus say they. Did we ever think to meet with such disappointments, 
 such griefs, from the wilfulness, pride, weakness, ignorance, pettish- 
 ness, inconstancy, negligence, and scandals of friends ? and such 
 hatred, contradictions, scorns, and injuries from enemies ? Were we 
 free, what calling would we not rather choose? Mdiat place would 
 we not rather go to, where we might spend the remainder of our days 
 in some rest and ease ? AVere it not better to work with our hands 
 for a morsel of bread ? for so might cm- sleep be sweet to us at night, 
 and we should not see these sorrows. At this rate are good men 
 sometime disturbed, and the anguish of their spirit makes their life a 
 bm-den. 
 
 [2.] Yet is not this all the disturbance that the devil works upon 
 our hearts by these things, though these are bad enough, but they 
 have a tendency to further trouble. Discomposures of spirit, if they 
 continue long, turn at last into troubles of conscience. Though there 
 
Chap, (i.] satan's temptations. 227 
 
 is no affiuity betwixt simple discomposure of soul and troubles of 
 conscience in theii" own nature — the objects of the former being things 
 external, no way relating to the soul's interest in God and salvation, 
 wliicli are the objects of the latter — yet the effects produced by the 
 prevalency of these disturbances are a fit stock for the engrafting of 
 doubts and questionings about om- spiritual condition. As Saul's 
 father first troubled himself for the loss of his asses, and sent his son 
 to seek them ; but when he stayed long, he forgot his trouble, and 
 took up a new grief for his son, whom he feared he had lost in pursuit 
 of the asses ; so is it sometime with men, who, after they have long- 
 vexed themselves for injuries or afflictions, &c., upon a serious con- 
 sideration of the worldng and power of these passions, leave their 
 former pursuit, and begin to bethink themselves in what a condition 
 their souls are, that abound with so much murmuring, rage, pride, or 
 impatience, and then the scene is altered, and they begin to fear they 
 have lost their souls, and are now perplexed about their spiritual 
 estate. To make this plain I will give some instances, and then 
 add some reasons, which will evidence that it is so, and also how it 
 comes to be so. 
 
 For instances, though I might produce a sufficient number to this 
 purpose from those that have written of melancholy, yet I shall only 
 insist upon two or three from Scripture. 
 
 Hezekiah, when God smote him with sickness, at first was discom- 
 posed upon the apprehension of death, that he should so soon be 
 deprived of the ' residue of his years, and behold man no more with 
 the inhabitants of the world,' as he himself expresseth it, Isa. xxxviii. 
 10 ; afterward liis trouble grew greater, ' He chattered as a crane or 
 swallow, and mourned as a dove;' he was in ' great bitterness,' ver. 
 17; and sadly oppressed therewith, ver. 14. That which thus dis- 
 tressed him was not simply the fear of death. We cannot imagine so 
 pious a person would so very much disquiet himseh upon that single 
 account ; but by the expressions which he let fall in his complainings, 
 we may understand that some such thoughts as these did shake him : 
 that he apprehended God was angry with him, that the present stroke 
 signified so much to him, all circumstances considered — for he was yet 
 in his strength, and Jerusalem in great distress, being at that time 
 besieged by Sennacherib's army,i and for him to be doomed to death 
 by a sudden message at such a time, seemed to carrj' much in it — 
 and that surely there was great provocation on his part ; and it seems, 
 upon search, he charged himself so deeply with his sinfulness, that 
 his fqiprehensions were no less than that, if God should restore him, 
 yet in the sense of his vileness he should never be able to look up ; 
 ' I shall go softly all my j'ears in the bitterness of my soul,' ver. 15 ; 
 which expression imijlies a supposition of liis recovery, and a deep 
 sense of iniquity, and accordingly when he was recovered, he takes 
 notice chiefly of God's love to his soul and the pardon of his sin, which 
 evidently discover where the trouble pinched him : ' Thou hast in love 
 to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption, for thou hast cast 
 all my sins behind thy back,' ver. 17. 
 
 Job's troubles were very great, and his case extraordinary. Satan 
 ' 2 Kings XX. 6. Vide Lightfoot, Harm, in loc. 
 
228 A TREATISE OF [PaRT TI- 
 
 had maliciously stripped him of all outward comforts ; tliis he bore 
 with admirable patience : Job i. 21 , ' Naked came I out of my mother's 
 womb, and naked shall I return thither : the Lord gave, and the Lord 
 hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the Lord.' The dcNal, seeing 
 now himself defeated, obtains a new commission, wherein Job is wholly 
 put into his hand — life only excepted, chap. ii. 9. He sets upon him 
 again, and in his new encounter labours to bring upon him spiritual 
 distresses, and accordingly improves his losses and sufferings to that 
 end, as appears by his endeavours and the success ; for as he tempted 
 him by his wife to a desperate disregard of God that had so afflicted 
 him, ' Curse God and die,' so he tempted him also by his friends to 
 question the state of liis soul and liis integrity, and all from the con- 
 sideration of his outward miseries. To that purpose are all their 
 discourses. Eliphaz, chap. iv. 5-7, from his sufferings and his 
 carriage under them, takes occasion to jeer his former piety, as being 
 no other than feigned, 'It is come -upon thee, and thou faintest : is 
 not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy 
 ways ? — that is. Is all thy religion come to this ? and also concludes 
 him to be wicked, ' Who ever perLshed, being innocent ? and where 
 were the righteous cut off?' BildaJ, chap. viii. 6, 13, chargeth him 
 with hypocrisy upon the same gi-ound, and while he makes his defence, 
 Zophar plainly gives him the lie, chap. xi. 3 ; and at this rate they 
 go their round ; and all this while Satan, whose design it was to afflict 
 his conscience with the sense of divine wrath, secretly strikes in with 
 these accusations, insomuch that though Job stoutly defended his 
 integrity, yet he was wounded with inward distresses, and concluded 
 that these dealings of God against him were no less than God's severe 
 observance of his iniquity ; as is plain from his bemoaning himself in 
 chap. X. 2, ' I will say unto God, Do not condemn me : shew me 
 wheretbre thou contendest mth me ;' ver. 16, 17, ' Thou huntest me 
 as a fierce lion, thou renewest thy witnesses against me,' &c. 
 
 David was a man that was often exercised with sickness and troubles 
 from enemies, and in all the instances almost that we meet with in 
 the psalms of these his afflictions, we may observe the outward occasions 
 of trouble brought him under the suspicion of God's wrath and his 
 iniquity ; so that he was seldom sick, or persecuted, but this called on 
 the disquiet of conscience, and brought his sin to remembrance ; as 
 Ps. vi., wliich was made on the occasion of his siclmess, as appears 
 from ver. 5, wherein he exi^resseth the vexation of his soul under the 
 apprehension of God's anger ; all his other griefs running into this 
 channel, as little brooks, losing themselves in a great river, change 
 their name and nature. He that was at first only concerned for his 
 sickness, is now wholly concerned with sorrow and smart under the 
 fear and hazard of his soul's condition ; the like we may see in Ps. 
 xxx\aii. and many places more. 
 
 Having made good the assertion that discomposures of soul upon 
 outward occasions, by long continuance and Satan's management, do 
 often run up to spiritual distress of conscience, I shall next, for 
 further confirmation and illustration, shew how it comes to be so. 
 
 (1.) Discomposures of spu-it do obstruct, and at last extinguish the 
 inivard comforts of the sold ; so that if we suppose the discomposed 
 
Chap. G.] satan's temptations. 229 
 
 person at first, before he be thus disordered, to have had a good measure 
 of spiritual joy in God's favour, and dehght in his ways, yet the dis- 
 tm-bances, 
 
 [1.] Divert his thoughls from feeding upon these comforts, or from 
 the enjoyment of himself in them. The soul cannot naturally be higlily 
 intent upon two different things at once, but whatsoever doth strongly 
 engage the thoughts and affections, that carries the whole stream with 
 it, be it good or bad, and other things give way at present. When 
 the heart is vehemently moved on outward considerations, it lays by 
 the thoughts of its sweetness which it hath had in the enjoyment of 
 God ; they are so contrary and inconsistent, that either our comforts 
 will chase out of our thoughts our discomposures, or our discomposures 
 will chase away our comforts. I believe the comforts of Elias, when 
 he lay down under his grief, and desired to die ; and of Jeremiah, 
 when he cried out of violence, run very low in those fits of discontent, 
 and their spirits were far from an actual rejoicing in God. But this is 
 not the worst; we may not so easily imagine that upon the going away 
 of the fit, the wonted comforts return to their former course. For, 
 
 [2.] The mind being distracted with its burden, is left impotent 
 and unahle to return to its former exercise. The warmth which the 
 heart had, being smothered and suspended in its exercise, is not so 
 quickly revived, and the thoughts which were busied with disturbance, 
 like the distempered humours of the body, are not reduced suddenly 
 to that evenness of composure as may make them fit for their old 
 employment. And, 
 
 [3.] If God should offer the influences ofjoijful support, a discom- 
 posed spirit is not in a capacity to receive them, no more than it can 
 receive those counsels that by any careful hand are interposed for its 
 relief and settlement. Comforts are not heard in the midst of noise 
 and clamour. The calmness of the soul's faculties are presupposed as 
 a necessary qualification towards its reception of a message of peace. 
 Phinehas his wife being overcome of grief for the ark's captivity and 
 her husband's death, could not be affected with the joyful news of a 
 son, [1 Sam. iv. 19, seq.'\ But, 
 
 [4.] Sinful discomposures hinder these gracious and comfortable 
 offers; ifive could possibly, ivhich tve cannot ordinarily, receive them, 
 yet loe cannot expect that God tvill give them. The Spirit of consola- 
 tion loves to take up his lodging in a ' meek and quiet spirit,' and 
 nothing more grieves him than bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, and 
 malice, which made the apostle, Eph. iv. 30, 31, subjoin his direction 
 of ' putting these away ' from us, with his advice of ' not grieving 
 the Spirit by which we are sealed unto the day of redemption.' And 
 then, 
 
 [5.] TJie former stock of comfort, lohich persons distempered with 
 discomposures might he supposed to have, will soon be ivasted, for our 
 comforts are not like the oil in the cruse, or meal in the barrel, which 
 had, as it were, their spring in themselves. We are comforted and 
 supported by daily communication of divine aid, so that if the spring- 
 head be stopped, the stream will quickly grow dry. It is evident then 
 that inward consolations in God will not ripen under these shadows, 
 nor grow under these continual droppings, seeing a discomposed spirit 
 
230 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 is not capable to receive more, nor able to keep what comfort it had 
 at first. We may easily see how it comes to pass that these disturb- 
 ances may in time bring on spiritual troubles ; for if our comforts be 
 once lost, trouble of conscience easily follows. Where there is nothing 
 to fortify the heart, the poison of malicious suggestions will unavoid- 
 ably prevail. 
 
 (2.) Discomposures of soul afford the devil Jit matter to luorjc upon. 
 They furnish him with strong objections against sincerity of holiness, 
 by which the peace of conscience, being strongly assaulted, is at last 
 overthrown. The usual weapons by wliich Satan fights against the 
 assurance of God's children, are the guilt of sins committed and the 
 neglect of duty ; and the disturbed soul affords enough of both these 
 to make a charge against itself: for, 
 
 [1.] Where there is much discomposure there is much sin. If in 
 the multitude of words there wants not iniquity, then much more in 
 the multitude of unruly thouglits. A disturbed spirit is lUvc troubled 
 water ; all the mud that lay at the bottom is raised up and mixeth 
 itself with the thoughts. If any injury or loss do trouble the mind, 
 all the thoughts are tinctured with anger, pride, impatience, or what- 
 soever root of bitterness was in the heart before. We view them not 
 singly as the issues of wise providence, but ordinarily we consider 
 them as done by such instruments, and against ourselves, *as malicious, 
 spiteful, causeless, ungi-ateful wrongs; and then we give too great a 
 liberty to ourselves to rage, to meditate revenge, to threaten, to 
 reproach, and what not. And if our disposition have not so strong a 
 natural inclination to these distempers, yet the thoughts by discom- 
 posure are quickly leavened. It is the compari.son used by the ajjostle, 
 1 Cor. V. 8, to express the power of malice, which is a usual attendant 
 in this service, to infect all the imaginations with a sharpness, which 
 makes them swell into exorbitancy and excess ; hence jiroceed revil- 
 ings, quarrellings, &c. When tlic tongue is thus fermented, it is 'a 
 fire, a world of iniquity,' jiroducing more sins than can be reckoned, 
 ' it defileth the whole body,' engaging all the faculties in heady pur- 
 suit, James iii. G. 
 
 [2.] Discomjwsures obstruct duties. This is the inconvenience which 
 the apostle, 1 Pet. iii. 7, tells us doth arise from disturbances among 
 relations. If the wife or husband do not carry well, so that discon- 
 tents or differences arise, their prayers are hindered. Duties then are 
 obstructed, 1. In the act. When the heart is out of frame, prayer 
 is out of season, and there is an averseness to it ; partly because all 
 good things are, in such confusions, burdensome to the humour that 
 then prevails, which eats out all desire and dehght to spiritual things ; 
 and partly because they dare not come into God's presence, conscious 
 of their own guilt, and awe of God hindering such approaches. 2. 
 They obstruct the right manner of performance, straitening the heart 
 and contracting the spirit, that if anything be attempted it is poorly 
 and weakly performed, 3. And also the success of duty is ob.structed 
 by discomposure. God will not accept such services, and therefore 
 Christ adviseth to ' leave the gift before tlie altar,' though ready for 
 offering, where the spirit is overcharged with offences or angry 
 thoughts, and ' first to go and be reconciled to our brother,' and then 
 
Chav. G.] Satan's temptations. 231 
 
 to ' come and ofler the gift,' it being lost labour to do it before, [Mat. 
 V. '24.] From tliese sins of omission and commission Satan can, and 
 often doth, frame a dreadful charge against those that are thus con- 
 cerned, endeavouring to prove by these evidences that they are yet, 
 notwithstanding pretence of conversion, in ' the gall of bitterness and 
 bond of iniquity,' [Acts viii. 23,] whereby the peace of conscience is 
 much shaken ; and the more because also, 
 
 [3.] These discomposures of soul give Satan a jit season for the 
 ■management of his accusation. Strong accusations do often effect 
 nothing when the season is unsuitable. Many a time he hath as 
 much to say against the comforts of men, when yet tliey shake all off, 
 as Paul dicl the viper off his hand, and feel no harm, [Acts xxviii. 3.] 
 But that which prepares the conscience to receive the indictment is a 
 particular disposition which it is wrought into by suspicious credulity 
 and fearfulness. These make the heart, as wax to the seal, ready to 
 take any impression that Satan will stamp upon it. Now, by long 
 disturbances, he works the heart into this mould very often, and upon 
 a double account he gains himself a fit opportunity to charge home 
 his exceptions. 1. In that he sets ujjon the conscience with his 
 accusations after the heart hath been long molested and confused 
 with its other troubles ; for then the heart is weakened, and unable to 
 make resistance as at other times. An assault with a fresh party 
 after a long conflict disorders its forces, and puts all to flight. 2. In 
 that long and great discomposures of mind bring on a distemper of 
 melancholy ; for it is notoriously known by common experience that 
 those acid humours producing this distemper, which have their rise 
 from the blood, may be occasioned by their violent passions of mind, 
 the animal spirits becoming inordinate by long discomposm-es of sad- 
 ness, envy, terror, and fretful cares, and the motion of the blood 
 being retarded, it by degrees departs from its temperament, and is 
 infected with an acidity, so that persons no way inclined naturally to 
 melancholy may yet become so by the disquiets of their troubled 
 mind. 
 
 Both these ways, but chiefly melancholy, the devil hath his ad- 
 vantage for disturbing the conscience. Melancholy most naturally 
 inclines men to be solicitous for their souls' welfare ; but withal dis- 
 poseth them so strongly to suspect the worst — for it is a credulous, 
 suspicious humour in things hurtful — and afflicts so heavily with sad- 
 ness for what it doth respect, that when Satan lays before men of that 
 humour their miscarriages under their discontents, their impatience, 
 unthankfulness, anger, "rash thoughts, and speeches against God or 
 men, &c., withal suggesting that such a heart cannot be right with 
 God, after serious thoughts upon Satan's frequently repeated charge, 
 they cry out, Guilty, guilty ; and then begins a new trouble for their 
 unregenerate estate, and their supposed lost souls. 
 
 [4.] In this case usually Satan hath greater liberty to accuse, and 
 by his accusations to molest the conscience, in that men of discomposed 
 spirits, by the manifold evils arising thence, provoke God to desert 
 them, and to leave them in Satan's hand to be brought into an hour 
 of temptation. Satan's commission is occasioned by our provocations, 
 and the temptations arising from such a commission arc usually 
 
232 A TREATISE OF [FaRT II. 
 
 dreadful. They are solemn temptations, and called so after a singular 
 manner ; for of these I take those scriptures to he meant, ' Watch 
 and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. Mat. xxvi. 41 ; ' And 
 lead us not into temptation,' Mat vi. 13. Such temptations are not 
 conmion temptations, and are of unknown force and hazard to the 
 soul, which way soever they are designed, either for sin or terror. 
 For several things do concur in a solemn temptation. As, 1. Satan 
 doth in a special manner challenge a man to the combat, or rather 
 he challenges God to give him such a man to fight with him, as he 
 did concerning Job. This Christ tells us of, Luke xxii. 31, ' Simon, 
 Satan hath desired to have you.' The word signifies a challenging 
 or daring — e^aueladai ; and it seems the devil is oft daring God to 
 give us into his hand, when we little know of it. 2. There is also a 
 special suitableness of occasion and snare to the temper and state of 
 men. Thus he took Peter at an advantage in the liigh priest's hall ; 
 and in the case we now speak of he takes advantage of men's pro- 
 vocations and melancholy. " 3. There is always a violent prosecution, 
 which our Saviour expresseth under the comparison of sifting, which 
 is a restless agitation of the corn, bringing that which was at the 
 bottom to the top, and shuftling the top to the bottom, so that the 
 chaff or dirt is always uppermost. 4. And to all this there is divine 
 permission, Satan let loose, and we left to our ordinary strength, as is 
 implied in that expression, ' He hath desired to have you that he 
 might sift you.' Now then, if the devil have such ground to give 
 God a challenge concerning such men, and if God do, as he justly 
 may, leave such men, whose bitterness of spirit hath been as ' a 
 smoke in his nostrils all the day,' [Isa. Ixv. 5,] in Satan's hand, he 
 will so shake them that their consciences shall have no rest. And 
 this he can yet the more easily effect, because, 
 
 [5.] Discomposures of spirit have a particular tendency to incline 
 our ihoughis to severity and hars/mess, so that those who have had 
 long and great disturbances upon any outward occasions — of loss, 
 affliction, or disappointment, &c. — do naturally think, after a solemn 
 review of such troubles, harshly of God and of themselves. They are 
 ready to conclude that God is surely angry with them in that he doth 
 afflict them, or that they have unsanctified hearts in that their 
 thoughts are so fretful and unruly upon every inconsiderable petty 
 occasion. It is so ordinary for men under the weight of their trouble, 
 or under the sense of their sin, to be sadly apprehensive of God's 
 wrath and their soid's hazard, that it were needless to offer instances : 
 let David's case be instead of all. That his troubles begot such 
 imaginations frequently, may be seen tlu-oughout the book of the 
 Psalms. We never read liis complaints against persecuting enemies, 
 or for other afflictions, but still liis heart is afraid that God is calling 
 sin to remembrance. In Ps. xxxviii. he is under great distress, and 
 tells how low his thoughts were : he was ' troubled,' greatly ' bowed 
 down;' he 'went mourning all the day long;' he expresseth his 
 thoughts to have been tlaat ' God had forsaken him,' ver. 21 : and his 
 hopes, though they afterward revived, were almost gone ; he cries out 
 of his sins as having ' gone over his head,' and become ' a burden too 
 heavy for him,' ver. 4, and therefore sets himself to confess them. 
 
Chap. 6.] ba tan's temptations. 233 
 
 ver. 18. He trembles at God's anger, and feels the ' arrows of God 
 sticking fast in him,' ver. 2. But what occasioned all this ? The 
 psalm informs us, God had visited him with sickness, ver. 7. 
 Besides that— for one trouble seldom comes alone — his friends were 
 perfidious, ver. 11 ; his enemies also were busy laying snares for his 
 life, ver. 12. Now his thoughts were to this purpose, that surely he 
 had some way or other greatly provoked God by his sins, and there- 
 fore he fears wrath in every rebuke, and displeasure in every chastise- 
 ment, ver. 1. The like you may see in Ps. cii., where the prophet 
 upon the occasion of sickness, ver. 3, 23, and the reproach of enemies, 
 ver. 8, is under great trouble, and ready to fail except speedy relief 
 prevent, ver. 2 : the reason whereof was this, that he concluded these 
 troubles were evident tokens of God's indignation and wrath ; ' because 
 of thine indignation and thy wrath,' ver. 10. From these five par- 
 ticulars we may be satisfied that it cannot be otherwise, and also how 
 it comes to be so, that sometime ti'ouble of conscience is brought on 
 by other discomposing troubles of the mind. For if these take away 
 the comforts which supported the soul, and afford also arguments to 
 the devil to prove a wicked heart, and withal ' a fit season ' to urge 
 them to a deep impression, God in the meantime standing ' at a dis- 
 tance,' and the thoughts naturally inclined to conclude God's wrath 
 from these troubles, how impossible is it that Satan should miss of 
 disquieting the conscience by his strong, vehement suggestions of 
 wickedness and desertion ! 
 
 In our inquiries after Satan's success in working these discom- 
 posures of mind, we have discovered, 1. That the disturbances thence 
 arising are great ; 2. That they have a tendency to trouble of con- 
 science. There is but one particular more to be spoken of, relating to 
 his success in this design, and that is, 
 
 (3.) These disturbances are imich in Satan's poioer. Ordinarily he 
 can do it at pleasure, except when God restrains him from applying 
 fit occasions, or when, notwithstanding these occasions, he extra- 
 ordinarily suspends the effect, which he frequently doth when men 
 are enraged under suffering upon the account of the gospel and 
 conscience ; for then, though they be bound up under affliction 
 and iron, yet the ' iron enters not into the soul ;' though they are 
 troubled, they are not distressed. These extraordinaries excepted, 
 he can as easily discompose the spirits of men as he can by tempta- 
 tion draw them into other sins; which may be evidenced by these 
 considerations : 
 
 [1.] We may observe that those ivhose passionate tempers do usually 
 transport them into greater vehemencies, are never oid of trouble. 
 Their fits frequently return, they are never out of the fire, and this 
 is because Satan is still provided of occasions suitable to their inclina- 
 tions. 
 
 [2.] Though God, out of his common bounty to mankind, hath 
 allowed him a comfortable being in the world, yet we find that gene- 
 rally the sons of men, under their various occupations and studies,- are 
 wearied out ivith vexations of spirit. This Solomon, in Ecclesiastes, 
 discovers at large in various employments of men, not exempting the 
 pursuit of wisdom and knowledge: chap. i. IS, 'In much wisdom is 
 
234 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 much grief; and he that mcreaseth knowledge iacreaseth sorrow:' 
 nor pleasures nor riches, for by all these he shews that a man is ob- 
 noxious to disquiets; so that the general account of man's life is but 
 this : chap. ii. 23, ' All his days are sorrows, and his travail grief ; yea, 
 his heart taketh not rest in the night.' That it is so, is testified by 
 common experience. past denial; but how it comes to be so, is the 
 inquiry. It is either from God, or from Satan working by occasions 
 upon our tempers. That it is not from God, is evident ; for though 
 sorrow be a part of that curse which man was justly doomed unto, yet 
 hath he appointed ways and means by which it might be so mitigated 
 that it might be tolerable without discomposure of spirit ; and there- 
 fore Solomon, designing iu his Ecclesiastcs to set forth the chief good, 
 shews that feUcity consists not in the common abuse of outward things, 
 because that brings only vexation, but in the fear of God leading to 
 future happiness, and in the meantime in a thankful, comfortable use 
 of things present without anxiety of mind. Hence doth he fix his 
 conclusion, as the result of his experience, and often repeats it : ' There 
 is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and 
 that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour,' chap. ii. 24, 
 iii. 12, 13. and v. 18, 19. Not that Solomon plays the epicure, giving 
 advice ' to eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,' nor that he speaks de- 
 ridingly to those that seek their felicity in this life, as if he should say, 
 ' If ye do terminate your desires upon a terrene felicity, there is no- 
 tliing better tiian to cat and drink,' etc. But lie gives a serious i^osi- 
 tive advice of enjoying the things of this life with cheerfulness, which 
 he affirms proceeds from the sole liouuty of God as his singular gift : 
 ' It is the gift of God,' chap. iii. 13 ; 'it is oiir portion '— tliat is, our 
 allowance, chap. v. 19, for these two expressions, ' our portion,' and 
 ' God's gift,' they are of the same signification with Solomon here ; 
 and when a man hath power to enjoy this allowance in comfort, it is 
 God that ' answeretii him in the joy of liis heart,' ver. 20. It is plain, 
 then, that God ' sows good seed in his field ; ' the springing up, tliere- 
 fore, of these tares of vexation, which so generally afilict the sons of 
 men, must be ascribed to this, ' the enemy hath done it,' [Mat. xiii. 28.] 
 
 [3.] It is also a considerable ground of suspicion that Satan can do 
 much in discomposures of spirit, in that sometimes those whose tem- 
 pers are most cool and calm, and ivJiose singtdar dependence vpon, and 
 communion tvith God, must iiceds more sircngihen then i <i</ai/is/ //use 
 passionate vexations, are noticithstanding precipitated inh, cinlui/ 
 commotions. Moses was naturally meek above the cdiiiiiinii disposi- 
 tion of men, and his very business was converse with God, wliose pre- 
 sence kept his heart under a blessed awe ; yet, upon the people's mur- 
 muring, he was so transported with sullenness and unbelief, at the 
 waters of Meribah, Num. xx. 10-12_, that ' it went ill with him ; ' 
 which David thus exprcsseth, Ps. cvi. 33, ' They provoked his spirit, 
 so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips.' Who can suppose less in 
 this matter than that Satan, having him at advantage, hurried him 
 to this rashness — specially seeing such vehemencies were not usual 
 with Moses, and that his natural temper led hmi to the contraiy ? 
 This hath some affinity with the next consideration, which is, 
 
 [4.] That when men most foresee the occasions of their trouble, and 
 
Chap. 6.] satan's temptations. 235 
 
 do most fear the trouble that might thence arise, and most firmly design 
 to keep their hearts quiet, 7/et are they oft forced, against all care and 
 resolution, upon extravagant heats. David resolved and strenuously 
 endeavoured to possess his soul in serenity and patience ; — for what 
 could be more than that solemn engagement? Ps. xxxis. 1, ' I said 
 I will look to my ways ; ' and what endeavours could be more severe 
 than to keep himself ' as with bit and bridle ' ? what care could be 
 more hopefid to succeed than to be ' dumb with silence ' ?— yet for all 
 this he could not keep his heart calm nor restrain his tongue : ver. 
 3, ' My heart waxed hot within me ; while I was musing the fire 
 burned : then spake I with my tongue.' Who suspects not the hand 
 of Satan in this ? 
 
 [5.] It is also remarkable, that when we have least reason to give 
 loay to discomposure, tuhen ive have most cause to avoid all provoca- 
 tions, yet then ive have most occasions set before us. When we would 
 most retire from the noise of the world for private devotion, when we 
 would most carefully prepare ourselves for a solemn ordinance, if we 
 be not very watchful, we shall be diverted by business, disturbed with 
 noises, or some special occasion of vexation shall importune us to dis- 
 quiet ourselves — when yet we shall observe, if we have not these 
 solemn affairs to wait upon, we shall have fewer of these occasions of 
 vexation to attend us. This cannot be attributed to mere contingency 
 of occasions, nor yet to our tempers solely ; for why they should be 
 most apt to give us trouble when they are most engaged to calmness, 
 cannot well be accounted for. It is evidently, then, Satan that 
 maUciously directs these occasions — for they have not a malicious in- 
 genuousness to prepare themselves, without some other chief mover — 
 at such times as he knows would be most to our prejudice. 
 
 These general considerations amount to more than a suspicion, that 
 it is much in Satan's power to give disturbances to the minds of men ; 
 yet, for the clearer manifestation of the matter, I shall shew that he 
 can do much to bring about occasions of discomposure, and also to 
 stir up the passions of men upon these occasions. 
 
 1. That occasions are much in Iris hand, I shall easily demonstrate. 
 For, 
 
 First, There being -so 7nany occasions of vexation to a loeah, crazy 
 mind, tve may well imagine that one or other is still occurring ; and 
 while they thus offer themselves, Satan needs not be idle for want of 
 an opportunity. 
 
 Second, But if common occasions do not so exactly suit his design, 
 he can prepcn-e occasions; for such is his foresight and contrivance, 
 that he can put some men — without their privity to his intentions, or 
 any evil design of their own — upon such actions as may, through the 
 strength of prejuchce, misinterpretation, or evil inclination, be an 
 offence to others ; and, in like manner, can invite those to be in 
 the way of these offences. I am ready to think there was a con- 
 trivance of Satan — if we well consider all circumstances — to bring 
 Uavid and the object of his lust together ; while Bathsheba was 
 bathing, he might use his art in private motions to get David up 
 to the roof of his house. But more especially can the devil prepare 
 occasions that do depend upon the wickedness of his slaves ; these are 
 
236 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 servants under his command, he can ' say to one, Go, and he goes ; 
 and to another. Come, and he comes.' If contempt or injury, affronts 
 or scorns, &c., be necessary for his present work against any whom he 
 undertakes to disturb, he can easily put his vassals upon that part of 
 the service ; and if he have higher employment for them, he ever finds 
 them forward. And hence was it, that when Satan designed to 
 plunder Job, he could quickly perform it, because he had the Chal- 
 deans and Sabeans ready at a call. 
 
 Third, If both these should fail him, he can easily awaken in us 
 the memory of old occasions that have been heretofore a trouble to us. 
 These being raised out of their graves will renew old disturbances, 
 working afresh the same disquiets which the things themselves gave 
 us at first. 
 
 If Satan's power were bounded here, and that he could do no more 
 than set before men occasions of vexation, yet we might justly, on 
 that single account, call him the troubler of the spirits of men ; con- 
 sidering that naturally the thoughts of men are restless, and their 
 imaginations ever rolling. If men sequester themselves from all 
 business, if they shut themselves up from commerce with men, turn 
 Eremites — as Jerome did— on purpose to avoid disquiet, yet their 
 thoughts would huriy them from place to place, sometimes to the 
 court, sometimes to the market, sometimes to shows and pastimes, 
 sometimes to quarrellings ; sometimes they view fields, buildings, and 
 countries ; sometimes they fancy dignities, promotions, and honours ; 
 they are ever working upon one object or other, real or supposed, and 
 according to the object such will the affections be, high or low, joyful 
 or sorrowful ; so that if the utmost of what Satan could do were 
 no more than to provide occasions, discomposures would follow 
 naturally. The evil dispositions of men would thereby be set a-work- 
 ing, though Satan stood by as an idle spectator. The serpent — in our 
 breasts, as Solomon tells us, Eccles. x. 11 — would ' bite without 
 enchantment,' that is, except it were charmed. But Satan can do 
 more than tempt objectively, when he hath ijrovided the fuel he can 
 also bring fire. For, 
 
 2. He can also set our passio7is on ivork, aiid incense them to greater 
 fury than otherioise they would arrive at. We see persons that are 
 distempered with passion may be whetted up to a higher pitch of 
 rage by any officious flatterer, that will indulge the humour and 
 aggravate the provocation. Much more then can Satan do it by 
 whispering such things to our minds as he knows will increase the 
 flame ; and therefore is it, that where the Scripture doth caution 
 us against anger — as the proper product of our own corruption, calling 
 it our wi-ath, Eph. iv. 26, 27 — there also it warns us against the devil, 
 as the incendiary, that endeavours to heighten it. And where it tells 
 us of the disorders of the tongue, — which, though a little member, can 
 of itself do great mischief, James iii. 6 — there it also tells us that the 
 devil brings it an additional fire from hell : ' It is set on fire of hell.' 
 And there are several ways by which Satan can irritate the passions. 
 As, 
 
 [1.] By presenting the occasions worse than they are, or were ever 
 intended, unjustly aggravating all circztmstances. By this means he 
 
Chap. C] satan's temptations. 237 
 
 makes the object of the passions the more displeasing and hateful. 
 This must of necessity provoke to a higher degree. 
 
 [2.] He can iii a natural loay move, as it tvere, the ivheels, and set 
 the passions a-going, if they xoere of themselves more dull and sluggish, 
 for he hath a nearer access to our passions than every one is aware of. 
 I will make it evident thus : our passions in their workings do depend 
 upon the fluctuations, excursions, and recursions of the blood and 
 animal spirits, as naturalists do determine.! Now that Satan can 
 make his approaches to the blood, spirits, and humours, and can make 
 alterations upon them, cannot be denied by those that consider what 
 the Scripture speaks in Job's case, and in the cases of those that were 
 by possession of the devil made dumb, deaf, or epileptic ; for if he 
 could afflict Job with grievous boils, chap. ii. 7, it is plain he disordered 
 and vitiated his blood and humours, which made them apt to produce 
 such boils or ulcers ; and if he could produce an epilepsy, it is evident 
 that he could infect the lympha with such a sharpness as by vellicating 
 the nerves might cause a convulsion ; and these were much more than 
 the disorderly motions of blood, spirits, or humours, which raise the 
 passions of men. If any object to this, that then, considering Satan's 
 malicious diligence, we must expect the passions of men would never 
 be at rest ; it is answered, that this power of Satan is not unlimited, 
 but oft God prohibits him such approaches, and without his leave he 
 can do nothing ; and also grace in God's children, working calmness, 
 submission, and patience, doth balance Satan's contrary endeavour. 
 For as hurtful and vexatious occasions, being represented by the sense 
 to the imagination, are apt to move the blood and spirits ; so, on the 
 contrary, the ballast of patience and other graces doth so settle the 
 mind, that the blood and spirits are kept steady in their usual course. 
 [3.] When the passions are up, Satan can by his suggestions make 
 them more heady and violent. He can suggest to the mind motives 
 and arguments to forward it, and can stir up our natural corruption, 
 with all its powers, to strike in with the opportunity. Thus he not 
 only kindles the fire, but blows the flame. 
 
 [4.] And he can further fix the mind upon these thoughts, and keep 
 them still upon the hearts of men. And then they eat in the deeper, 
 and like poison diffuse their malignity the further. We see that 
 men, who are at first but in an ordinary fret, if they continue to medi- 
 tate upon their provocation, they increase their vexation ; and if they 
 give themselves to vent their passions by their tongues, though they 
 begin in some moderation, yet as motion causeth heat, so their own 
 words whet their rage, according to Eccles. x. 13, ' The beginning of 
 the words of his mouth is foolishness, but the latter end of his talk is 
 mischievous madness.' The same advantage hath Satan against men 
 by holding down their thoughts to these occasions of discomposure. 
 
 If occasions be so much in Satan's power, and he have also so great 
 a hand over men's passions, it is too evident that he can do very 
 much to discompose the spirits of men that are naturally obnoxious 
 to these troubles, except God restrain him, and grace oppose him. 
 Thus have I spoken my thoughts of the first sort of troubles, by which 
 Satan doth undermine the peace of men's hearts. 
 
 1 ride Willis de anima brut., cap. 8, 9. 
 
'238 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 0/the second way to hinder peace. — Affrigldments, the general nature 
 and burden of them, in several j)(irticidars. — What are the icai/s by 
 which he affrights: \. Atheistical injections. Observations of his 
 proceeding in them; 2. Blasphemous thoughts; 3. Affrightful 
 suggestio7is of reprobation. Observations of his proceedings in thai 
 course ; 4. Frightful motions to sin ; 5. Strong immediate impres- 
 sions of fear ; G. Affrightful scrxtpulosity of conscience. 
 
 The next rank of troubles by which the devil doth endeavour to 
 molest us, I call affrightmcnts. It is usual for those that speak of 
 temptations, to distinguish them thus: Some are, they say, entice- 
 ments, some are allrightmcnts ; but then they extend these aft'right- 
 ments further than 1 intend, comprehending under them all those 
 temptations of sadness and terror, of which I am next to speak. But 
 by affrightlnents, I mean only those perplexities of spirit into which 
 Satan casts men, by ovei-acting their fears, or astonishing their minds, 
 by injecting unusual and horrid thoughts against their consents.' 
 Some there are that have thought those temptations, of which the 
 apostle .complains, 2 Cor. xii. 7, ' There was given me a thorn in the 
 flesh, tlie messenger of Satan to bulfct me,' were of this kind — that is, 
 horrid injections frequently repeated, as men deal their blows in fighting. 
 Gerson, speaking of these, tells us they sometime come from the sole 
 suggestion of Satan troubling the fancy, and saying, Deny CJod, curse 
 God ; and then adds, such was the thorn in the flesh given to the 
 apostle.2 But whether this was the trouble of the apostle, or some 
 other thing — for several things are conjectured, and nothing can be 
 positively proved — we are sure, from the sad experience of many,'that 
 such troubles he doth often give ; which I shall first explain in the 
 general, and then give a particular of these friglitful injections. 
 
 1. To explain the nature and burden of this kind of trouble, I shall 
 present you with a few observations about them. As, 
 
 [1.] These astonishing thoughts are purely injections, such as Satan 
 casts into the mind, and not what the mind of itself doth produce; as 
 one expresseth it, they are more darting than reflecting. Not but 
 that our natural corrujjtion could of itself beget blasphemous or athe- 
 istical thoughts ; but when they have their rise from ourselves solely, 
 they do not so startle us. Having some share at least of our consent 
 going along with them, they appear not so strange. But in this case 
 in hand, Satan is the agent, and men are the sufferers, their under- 
 standings and souls being busied all the while to repel them, with the 
 utmost of their reluctances. And to tho.se that do thus strive against 
 them, making resistance with all their strength, with tears and prayers, 
 they are only their afflictions, but not their sins. For the thoughts 
 are not polluted by the simple apprehension of a sinful object, no more 
 than the eye is defiled by beholding loathsome and filthy things ; for 
 
 ' Irritamenta, terriculamenta. 
 
 ^ lu calce, torn. iv. p. 973. Talis stimulus datus fuit apostolo. 
 
CiiAP. 7.] Satan's temptations. 239 
 
 then should the mind of Christ have been defded, when Satan pro- 
 proiuided himself blasphemously as the object of his worship ; his 
 mind as truly apprehended the meaning of that sayuig, ' fall down 
 and worship me,' as ours can do, when he casts such a thmg uumedi- 
 ately into our thoughts. Which is a consideration to be observeil 
 diligently by those that meet with such sad exercise. If they do 
 truly apprehend that they are but their sufferings, and that God will 
 not charge the sin upon them, they will more easily bear and overcome 
 the trouble. 
 
 These injections are commonly impetuous and sudden, frequently 
 compared to Ughtniug ; and this is usually made a note of distinction 
 betwixt wicked, blasphemous thoughts rising from cm* natural cor- 
 ruption, and darted in by Satan ; the former being more leisurely, 
 orderly, and moderate, according to the usual course of the procedure 
 of hiunan thoughts, the latter usually accompanied with a hasty 
 violence, subtly and incoherently shooting into our understandings, 
 as lightning into a house ; so that all the strength we have can neither 
 prevent them nor expel them, nor so much as mitigate the violence of 
 them. 
 
 [3.] They are also for the most part incessant and constant trouhlers 
 where they once begin. Though Satan hath variety, in regard of the 
 matter of these amazing injections — for sometimes he affrights one 
 man with blasphemous thoughts, another with atheistical thoughts, a 
 third with grievous, unusual temptations to sin, as murder, &c. — yet 
 usually he tixeth his foot upon what he first undertakes. And as 
 cunning huntsmen do not change their game that they first rouse, that 
 they may sooner speed in catching the prey ; so what frightful thought 
 Satan begins the trouble with, that he persists in, and is withal so 
 vehement in his pursuit, that he gives little intermission. He makes 
 these unwelcome thoughts haunt them like ghosts, whithersoever they 
 go, whatsoever they do ; he will give solemn onsets it may be twenty 
 or forty times in a day : and at this rate he continues, it may be for 
 some considerable time, so that they are not quit of the trouble for 
 several months, or it may be years. 
 
 [4.] The matter of these affrightments are things inost contrarij to 
 the impressions of nature or grace, and therefore most odious and 
 troublesome. When he is upon this design, things that are most con- 
 trary to the belief and inchnation of men are best for his purpose ; as 
 men that intend to afi"right others choose the most ugly vizors, the 
 strangest garbs and postures, and make the most uncouth, inhuman 
 noises ; and the more monstrous they appear, the better they succeed 
 in then- purposes. Yet Satan doth not always choose the very worst, 
 for then most of the troubles of this kind would be about the same 
 tiling ; but he considers the strength of our persuasions, our estab- 
 lishment in truths, the probability or improbability of an after game 
 with us ; and accordingly sometimes refuseth to trouble us with injec- 
 tions, contraiy to what we are most firmly rooted in, choosing rather 
 that which, though contrary to our thoughts and resolves, we have not 
 been fixed in without a great deal of labour, and which, if there be 
 occasion, might most fitly be charged upon us as our own, so that, 
 whereas other suggestions would be slighted as apparent malice and 
 
240 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 scarecrows, these are most afflicting, as being an assault against such 
 a fort which costs us much to rear, and which we are most afraid to 
 lose, and most liable to his accusation after a long continuance, as 
 being the issue of our own unsettledness. 
 
 [5.] The first and most obvious efiects of these injections are the 
 utmost ahhorrenaj of the ?7i»i(Z— which jiresently startles at the appear- 
 ance of such odious things — and the tremhlimj of the body, sometimes 
 to an agony and faintbuj. The invasion of one single injection hath 
 put some into such a heart-breaking affrightment, that they liave not 
 recovered themselves in a whole day's time. This trembling of the 
 body and agony of the mind are the usual consequences of anything 
 that is surprising, strange, and fearful ; and therefore is trembling of 
 the body made by divines a mark to discover that these hideous, blas- 
 phemous thoughts are cast in by Satan, and have not their rise from 
 our own hearts ; for the horror of the mind is usually so great, when 
 it is spoken to in this language, that it cannot bear up under its 
 astonishment and trouble. Yea, those very men that are otherwise 
 profane, and can with boldness commit great iniquities, cannot but 
 shake, and inwardly conceive an unspeakable hatred at these mon- 
 strous suggestions. 1 
 
 [6.] These (tjfrirjhtments are more common than men are umally 
 aware of. They are by some thought to be rare and extraordinary ; 
 but this mistake ariseth from tlic concealment of these kind of 
 troubles. Those that are thus afflicted are often ashamed to speak to 
 others what they find in their own hearts; but if all would be so 
 ingenuous as to declare openly what fearful imaginations are obtruded 
 upon them, it would appear that Satan very frequently endeavours to 
 troulile men this way. 
 
 [7.] These are very grievous hurdeiis, and Jiard to he borne upon 
 many accounts. 
 
 First, "Who can well express the inward torture and molestation of 
 the mind, when it is forced against its own natural bent and inclina- 
 tion to harbour such monsters within itself! How would nature 
 reluct and abominate the drinking do^vn of noisome puddled water, 
 or the swallowing of toads and serpents ! And hence was it that 
 persecutors in their devilish contrivances invented such kind of tor- 
 tures. And what less doth the devil do when he forceth blasphemies 
 upon their thoughts, and commits a rape by a malicious^ violence 
 upon their imaginations? David, under these temptations, Ps. 
 Ixxiii. 21, cries out, ' Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked 
 in my reins:' and it cannot be otherwise, for the reason already 
 mentioned. Nature abhors to be forced to what is most contrary 
 to itself, and so doth grace. Now the things by which Satan 
 works these affrightments are contrary to nature or grace, or both 
 together; and as they will strive to the utmost of their ability to 
 cast out what is so opposite to them, so must the devil to the utmost 
 of his ability, if he would carry his design, strengthen himself in 
 his force, and from hence, as when fire and water are committed to- 
 
 ' Horrore Bui sic implent animum, ut tantum noii pectus ipsum expectorare videantur, — 
 ad quorum prsBentiam natura vel depravatissima contremiscit. — A rowsmith. 'Tract. Sacr., 
 lib. ii. cap. 7, bcc. 6. [For ' Tract ' read ' Tactica Sacra.' Cambridge, 1657, 4to.— G.] 
 
Chap. 7.J satan's temptations. 241 
 
 gether, ariseth a most troublesome conflict ; aud indeed if there were 
 a compliance of our consent, there would be no affrightment ; neither 
 can this kind of temptation be managed except there be the utmost 
 dissent of the mind. If any think there is no great ground for these 
 temjrtations, because some of the particulars by which he is said to 
 affright men are natural to us, as, for instance, atheistical thoughts, 
 which are by some called the master- vein of our original corruption, 
 and by others said to be in the heart of every man naturally, and then 
 consequently not so troublesome as is imagined, &c. ; I answer, that 
 when divines call these or blasphemous thoughts natural, they do not 
 mean that they are natural impressions engraven on us by creation, 
 — for they assert the contrary ; that it is a natural and unextiuguish- 
 able impression upon every man that there is a God, &c., and usually 
 give in this for proof, that the greatest atheists in fear and extremity 
 wUl manifest a secret belief of a deity, by calling out, God, &c.,i 
 or by some other posture, as Caligula by hiding himself when it 
 thundered, — but they mean only that our'natural corruption may pro- 
 duce these thoughts, and that they are the natural issues thereof; and 
 therefore Perkins, in answer to a question of this nature, tells us that 
 these two thoughts, ' there is a God,' and ' there is no God,' may be, 
 and are both, in the same heart.2 Now as this will give us the rea- 
 son why Satan doth make choice of these thoughts to trouble us 
 withal, which may also rise from ourselves — which I have hinted 
 before, and shall presently again touch upon — so it tells us still that 
 whether these thoughts arise from our own corruption or from Satan, 
 our natm-al impressions are strong against them, and withal that they 
 cannot be so affrightful but when Satan doth manage them, and when 
 the contrary impressions of nature are awakened to give strong resist- 
 ance, and then that struggling must be as the tearing of our bowels, 
 and still the worse in that we are incessantly pursued, Satan still cast- 
 ing back with unwearied labour the same thoughts as they are re- 
 pulsed and rejected, as soldiers that besiege cities use to cast over the 
 walls their fired grenades. 
 
 Second, These are also grievous, as they set the mind upon the rack, 
 and stretch it under laborious and doiibtfal inquiries after the grounds 
 or causes of this kind of trouble, for the heart, astonished with such 
 cursed guests against his will, presently reflects upon God and itself 
 What have I done, and wherefore am I thus disquieted with monsters? 
 why doth the righteous Lord suffer Satan to break open my heart, and 
 fill me with such fearful thoughts ? But when men's inquiries are 
 not so high, but detained in a consideration of the nature of the trouble 
 and manner of its working, without looking up to the providence of 
 God, then are their troubles increased. 
 
 Third, As these injections necessitate men, in their own defence, to 
 oppose and every icay to resist, it is an increase of the burden. What 
 pleadings are they put to, what defiances, what endeavours to call off 
 the thoughts ! and all to little purpose ; while the trouble continues 
 they are forced to lie in their armour, and to be constantly in their 
 ward. 
 
 ' Perkins, Cases of Conscience, lib. i, cap. 10, sec. 2. 
 
 ' ' Treatise of Imaginations,' cap. 3. 
 
242 A TREATIBE OF [PaRT 11. 
 
 Fourth, Aud yet are they further troublesome in the after-game that 
 Satan plays by these thoughts. It is not all of his design to afifriglit 
 men, but he usually hath another temptation to come in the rear of 
 this, and that is to turn these affrightments into accusations, aud by 
 urging them long upon the hearts of men, to make them believe that 
 they are their own thoughts, the issues of theh o\vn natural corrup- 
 tion ; and after men are by contmual assaults weakened, their senses 
 and memory didled, their understanding confounded, etc., they easily 
 conclude against themselves. The tempter imputes all the horrid 
 blasphemy to them, boldly calls them guilty of all ; and because their 
 thoughts have dwelt long upon such a subject, and withal knowing 
 that corrupt natm-e of itself will lead men to such horrid blasphemies 
 or villainies — which makes it probable that it might be their own fault, 
 and for this reason Satan makes choice of such injections as may in 
 the accusation seem most likely to be true — being strongly charged as 
 guilty, they yield ; and then begins another trouble more fearful than 
 the former. 1 Oh, what sad thoughts liave they then of themselves, as 
 the most vile blasphemous wretuhes ! sometimes they think that it is 
 impossible that otlicr men's hearts should entertain such intolerable 
 things within them as theirs, and that none was evci- so bad as they ; 
 sometimes they think that if men knew what vile imaginations and 
 monstrous things are in their minds, they would in very zeal to God 
 and religion stone them, or at least exclude them from all commerce 
 with men ; sometimes they think their sin to be the sin against the 
 Holy Ghost ; sometimes they think God is engaged in point of honour 
 to shew upon them some remarkable judgment, and they verily look 
 for some fearful stroke to confound them, and live under such a friglit- 
 ful expectation. These and many more to this purpose are their 
 thoughts, so that these temptations are every way troublesome, both in 
 their first and second effects. 
 
 Thus I have in the general expressed the nature of these affright- 
 ments. What the particular injections are by which he studies to 
 aflfright men, I shall next declare. They are principally six : 
 
 1. Atheistical thoughts. By injecting these into the mind he doth 
 exceedingly afiright men, and frequently for that end doth he suggest 
 that there is no God, and that the Scriptures are but delusive con- 
 trivances, &c. Concerning these I shall note a few things ; as, 
 
 [1.] Though there be an observable difference betwixt atheistical 
 injections and temptations to atheism, not only in the design— Satan 
 chiefly intending seduction in the latter, and affrightment by the 
 former — but also in the manner of proceeding— (for when he designs 
 chiefly to tempt to atheism, he first prepares his way by debaucliing 
 the conscience wdth vicious or negligent living,— according to Ps. xiv. 
 1, that which makes men ' say in theh hearts there is no God,' is this, 
 that 'they are corrupt, and have done abominable works'— and in 
 this method was famous Junius tempted to atheism : but when he 
 chiefly intends to affright, he sets upon men that by a watchful and 
 strict conversation cut off from him that advantage)— yet he doth so 
 manage himself that he can turn his course either way, as he finds 
 probability of success after trial ; for he presseth on upon men most 
 ' Vide Dickson, Therap. Sacra., lib. iii. cap. 26, sec. 7. 
 
(Jhap. 7.J Satan's temptations. 243 
 
 where he finds them most to yiekl, so that those who were but at 
 first affrighted may at last be solemnly persuaded and urged to be- 
 lieve the suggestion to be true if they give him any encouragement 
 for such a procedure.! 
 
 [2.] Contemplative heads and great searchers are usually most 
 troubled in this manner, partly because they see more difficulties than 
 other men, and are more sensible of human inability to resolve them, 
 and partly because God, who will not suffer his children to be tempted 
 ' above what they are able,' doth not permit Satan to molest the 
 weaker sort of Christians with such dangerous assaults. 
 
 [3.] Persons of eminent and singxdar holiness may he, and often are, 
 troubled luith atheistical thoughts, and have sad conflicts about them, 
 Satan labouring, where he cannot prevail for a positive entertainment 
 of atheism, at least to disquiet thek minds by haunting them with his 
 injections, if not to weaken their assent to these fundamental truths, 
 in which lie sometimes so prevails, that good men have publicly pro- 
 fessed that they have found it a harder matter to believe that there is 
 a God than most do imagine. 
 
 [4.] Satan lies at the catch in this design, and usually takes men at 
 the advantage, suddenly setting upon them, either in the height of their 
 meditations and inquiries into fundamental truths — for when they soar 
 aloft, and puzzle themselves with a difiiculty, then is he at hand to 
 advise them to cut the knot which they cannot unloose — or in the depth 
 of their troubles — for when men cannot reconcile the daily afiiictions 
 and sufferings which they undergo, with the love and care of God 
 toward his children, then it is Satan's season to tell them that there 
 is no supreme disposer of things. In both these cases the devil leaps 
 upon them unawares, Uke a robber out of a tliicket, who, if he do 
 not wound them by the dart of atheistical injection, at least he is 
 sure to astonish them, and to confound them with amazement. For, 
 
 [5.] Sometimes he pursues luith wonderful violence, and toill dispute 
 with admirable subtlety, urging the inequality of providence, the seem- 
 ing contradictions of Scripture, the unsuitableness of ordinances to an 
 infinite loisdom and goodness, tvith many more arguments of like kind; 
 and this with such unexpected acuteness and seeming demonstra- 
 tion, that the most holy hearts and wisest heads shall not readily 
 know what to answer, but shall be forced to betake themselves to 
 their knees, and to beg of God that he would rebuke Satan, and up- 
 hold them that their faith fail not. Nay, he doth not only dispute, 
 but by urging, and with unspeakable earnestness threaping,^ the 
 conclusion upon men, doth almost force them to a persuasion, so that 
 they are almost carried off their feet whether they will or no ; which 
 was the very case of David when the devil pm-sued him with atheisti- 
 cal thoughts on the occasion of the prosperity of wicked men, and his 
 daily troubles : Ps. Ixxiii. 2, ' My feet were almost gone, my steps 
 had well-nigh sHpped.' 
 
 [6.] Yet for all this he sometimes lays aside his sophistical subtlety, 
 and betakes himself to an impudent importunity ; for sometimes he 
 
 ' The construction of this paragraph is involved and inaccurate, but the thought is 
 sufficiently plain, when from ' for when he designs,' &c., down to ' advantage,' is placed 
 in parenthesis.— G. ' Arguing against contradiction. — G. 
 
244 A TREATISE OF [PaKT II' 
 
 insists only on one argument, not changing that which he first took 
 up, nor strengthening his suggestion with variety of arguments, but 
 by frequent repetition of the same reason persists to urge his injected 
 atheism. This gives no discovery of any deep reach if he designed to 
 persuade— for it is scarce rational to imagine that serious men, who 
 by many arguments are fuUy persuaded there is a God, should readOy 
 lose their hold upon the appearance of one objection— but it shews 
 that he purposeth only to molest. And this appears more evidently, 
 when he contents himself with weak and trivial arguments, which the 
 afflicted party can answer fully, and yet cannot for all that quit them- 
 selves of the trouble; for instance, it is not very_ many years since 
 a serious and pious person came to me, and complained that he could 
 not be at rest for atheistical thoughts that perpetually haunted him_ ; 
 and upon a particular inquiry into the cause and manner of his 
 trouble, he told mc the first rise of it was from his observation, that I 
 had interpreted some scriptures otherwise than he had heard some 
 others to have done ; but withal he added that he knew the reason of 
 his perplexity was but silly, and that which he could easily answer ; 
 this being no just charge against the Scripture, whose sense and truth 
 might for allthat be one, and uniform to itself, but only an iinpUca- 
 tion of human weakness appearing in the different apprehensions of 
 expositors ; yet notwithstanding he affirmed he could not shake off" 
 the trouble, and that his thoughts were ever urged with the same 
 thing for a long lime together. Nay, such is his impudency in this 
 kind of trouble, that those who know it is the best way not to dispute 
 fundamentals with Satan, but with abliorrcncy to reject him— after the 
 example cf Christ, with a 'get thee behind me, Satan'— and accordingly 
 do with their utmost strength reject them, yet they find that he doth 
 not readily desist. 
 
 How sad is this trouble ! how arc pious persons affrighted to see the 
 face of their thoughts made abominably ugly and deformed by these 
 violent and unavoidable injections ! It is not only wearisome to those 
 that know it to be solely Satan's malice, but it often proves to be an 
 astonishing surprisal— like that of a traveller who, while he passeth on 
 his way without foresight or thought of danger, is suddenly brought 
 to the top of a great precipice, where, when he looks down to the vast 
 deep below, his head swims, his heart pants, his knees tremble, and 
 the very fear of the sudden danger so confounds him that he is through 
 excessive dread ready to fall into that which he would avoid ; so are 
 these amazed at so great hazards before them. Satan could not by all 
 his art prevail with them to abandon the holy ways of God in ex- 
 change for the pleasures of sin, and now they seem to be in danger to 
 lose all at once ; and yet it is more affrightful by far to those that 
 charge, through Satan's cunning, all this atheism upon themselves. 
 
 2. Another afiVightful injection is that of blasphemous thonghts, as 
 that God is not just, not compassionate ; that scriptures and ordinances 
 are but low and sorry things, &c. 
 
 That Satan doth delight to force such thoughts upon men, is evident, 
 [1.] From his naiure. He is a blasphemous spirit, and withal so 
 malicious, that whatsoever is in his cursed mind he will be ready to 
 vent upon all occasions. 
 
Chap. 7.] satan's temptations. 245 
 
 [2.] From his practice ; for where he can obtain the rule over naen's 
 imaginations, as in some distracted persons, and those that are dis- 
 tempered with fevers, he usually makes them vomit forth oaths, curs- 
 ings, and blasphemies, and this he doth to some that, while they have 
 had the use of their reason, have not been observed to give their 
 tongue the liberty of swearing or cursed speaking. 
 
 [3.] Frovi his professed design in the case of Job, concerning whom 
 he boasted to God himself that he would make him curse him to his 
 face, and accordingly tempted him by his wife to curse God and die. 
 
 [4.] From the sad experience of those that have suffered under this 
 sad affliction: for many have complained of blasphemous thoughts; 
 and those whom he cannot conquer he will thus trouble. Neither 
 need we think it strange that the devil can impress blasphemies upon 
 the imaginations of men against their wills, when we consider that he 
 could make Saul, in his fits, to behave himself like an inspired person, 
 and cause him to utter things beyond and unsuitable to his disposi- 
 tion, after the rate and manner of those raptures which idolatrous 
 ])riests used to be transported withal. Bacchatur vates. [Virgil.]! 
 This, in 1 Sam. xviii. 10, is called Saul's prophesying, when the ' evil 
 spirit from the Lord vexed him ; ' and is the same with that which is 
 spoken concerning Baal's priests : 1 Kings xviii. 29, ' They prophesied 
 until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice ' — that is, they 
 were exercised with trances and rapturous furies, in wliich they uttered 
 strange sounds and speeches. How easily, then, may Satan possess the 
 fancies of men with blasphemies ! so that the unwilling may be 
 troubled with them, and those that are deprived of the benefit of rea- 
 son, may, from the power of the impression upon their imagination, 
 vent them with a kind of unwilhngness. 
 
 Melancholy persons do very frequently meet with this kind of 
 trouble, Satan having a great power upon their imagination, and great 
 advantages, from the darkness of that humour, to make the fear arising 
 from such thoughts the more astonishing, and to delude them into an 
 apprehension that they are guilty of all that passeth through their 
 thoughts, and also to work this perplexity to more dismal efi"ects. In 
 these kind of men he doth play the tp-ant with such injections, abus- 
 ing them to such a height as if they were his vassals and slaves, whose 
 thoughts and tongues were in his and not their own keeping ; and so 
 strongly doth he possess them with this perplexity sometimes, that all 
 the counsels, reasonings, or advice of others cannot in the least satisfy 
 or relieve them ; yet, notwithstanding, I have known several under 
 this afSiction who, when by physic the state of their bodies hath been 
 altered, have found themselves at ease immediately, the trouble gradu- 
 ally and insensibly ceasing of itself. 
 
 Others there are that have great vexation from these thoughts, and 
 these are commonly such as by some long and grievous pain, sickness, 
 or other crosses, have their spirits fretted and imbittered ; then is 
 Satan ready to suggest that God is cruel or regardless of his people ; 
 and these thoughts are the more dreadful because fretting and mur- 
 muring spirits have a natural tendency to think harshly of God ; so 
 that Satan in this case doth with the more boldness obtrude these 
 ' ' Immanis in antro Baccbatnr vates,' jEneid, iv. 6, 7S.— G. 
 
246 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 suggestions upon them, finding so great a forwardness toward such 
 imaginations, and also with greater severity he doth reflect upon 
 them, as being in some likelihood compliant and consenting. 
 
 When other persons — not so concerned as these two sorts of men 
 above mentioned— are assaulted with blasphemous thoughts, the fits 
 are less permanent, and, because they easily discover the design and 
 author of them, not liighly aSrightful, though still troublesome. 
 
 The burden of these injections are much like the former, very sadly 
 afflicting. For who can easily bear the noise of Satan while he shouts 
 continually into their ears odious calumnies and blasphemous indig- 
 nities against God ? David could not hear wicked men blaspheme 
 God but it was ' as a sword in his bones,' exceeding painful. The 
 impressions of nature, that teach us to revere and honoiu- God ; the 
 power of education, that confirms these impressions ; the persuasion 
 of faitli, that assures us of the reality and infinite excellency of a 
 Godhead ; and the force of love, that makes us more sensibly appre- 
 hensive of any injury or dishonour done to him whom we love above 
 all ; — all these do suffer by these violent incursions of Satan, and the 
 sufferer finds himself to be pained and tortured in these noble parts. 
 How grievous must it be to a child of God to have iiis ear chained to 
 these intolerable, ingrateful reproaches !— especially when we consider 
 that the devil will in this case utter the most dreadful blasphemies he 
 ean devise, which will still add to the affliction— for even those men 
 that through habit can well bear ordinary petty oalhs, will yet startle 
 at outrageous jirodigious swearing— and tliorefore whatever covert and 
 consequential lilasphemics may be to some men, these impudent, hideous 
 abuses of the holy and just God must needs sadly trouble those that 
 are forced to hear tliem. And the more constant the greater trouble. 
 Who would not be weary of their lives that must be forced to undergo 
 this vexation still without intermission? And yet the devil can 
 advance the trouble a little higher by the apparatus or artificial i dread 
 which he puts upon the temptation in the manner of the injection ; as 
 the roaring of the lion increaseth terror in the beasts of the field, who 
 without that would tremble at liis presence ; and as the thundering 
 and lightning at the giving of the law increased the fear of Israel, so 
 when Satan is upon this design, he shakes as it were the house, and 
 makes a noise that the fright may be increased. 
 
 3. Suspicious fears ofhdng excluded out of God's eternal decree of 
 election is another of his afrightments. This is when Satan boldly 
 takes upon him to determine God's secret counsel concerning any 
 man ; peremptorily asserting that he is none of God's elect. In wliich 
 case he often doth only inject the suspicion confidently, without offer 
 of proof ; or if he use arguments, they never amount to a proof of his 
 assertion; neither is it possible they should, for these are among 
 ' God's secrets,' and out of Satan's reach, though possibly they may 
 prove the person to be not converted at present. So tliat this kind of 
 trouble dift'ers exceedingly from those disquiets of temptation which 
 frequently men suffer about their state of regeneration. And indeed 
 the question should not be confounded, it being of gi-eat concern to 
 men when their peace is assaulted to be able to observe the difference 
 ' 'Artful' = unreal.— G. 
 
Chap. 7.] satan's temptatioxs. 247 
 
 betwixt these two assertions, ' Thou are not elected,' and ' Thou art 
 not yet regenerated.' Seeing — the latter being granted— there yet 
 remains a hope of the probability or possibility of that man's conver- 
 sion afterwards. The suspicions of non-conversion are more common, 
 and not so dangerous ; nay, in unregenerate persons the fears of their 
 being yet in that condition, being joined with diligence and care to avoid 
 the danger, are necessary and advantageous ; but the former being 
 granted, all hopes are, together with that concession, laid off, which 
 must needs make the affrightment intolerable. In tliis we may 
 observe, 
 
 [1.] That Satan, for the better management of this design, doth not 
 only inject these suspicions in the most dreadful language — as, ' Thou 
 art a lost and damned wretch, hopelessly miserable to all eternity ; 
 God hath not elected thee to life, but prepared for thee, as a vessel of 
 wrath, the lake of fire and brimstone for ever,' &c. — but also he doth 
 assert them with the highest peremptoriness imaginable, as if he had 
 authority from God to pronounce a sentence of condemnation against 
 a man. This must needs amaze the afflicted unspeakably. 
 
 [2.] In this he also observes Jiis advantages; for there are some men 
 so sadly suited to this design, that Satan comes better to speed upon 
 them than others. Usually he fixeth his eyes, 
 
 First, Upon young persons at their first serious attendances upon, 
 and considerations of, Scripture truths. Their hearts are then tender. 
 Youth hath a natural tender-heartedness. We find them coupled 
 together in Eehoboam's character : 2 Chron. xiii. 7, ' When Keho- 
 boam was young and tender-hearted.' And they are apt to receive 
 sti'ong impressions. When those who were formerly mindless of their 
 spiritual concern begin to be serious, they can no sooner fall upon a 
 consideration of those weighty doctrines, that there are sheep and goats, 
 some saved and some damned, that the blessed are few in comparison of 
 the many that take the broad way to destruction, and that these were 
 from eternity ordained unto life, and these only, &c. ; no sooner, I 
 say, begin they to ponder these things, but Satan is ready with his sus- 
 picion, ' And what dost thou know but thou art one of these excluded 
 wretches ? If but few are saved, a thousand to one thou art none of 
 them ; for why should God look upon thee more than another ? ' 
 These are his first essays i with young men beginning to be serious, 
 in which afterward he proceeds with greater boldness as he seeth 
 occasion. 
 
 Secondly, He also doth this to persons that are some way quickened 
 to a devotional fear of God and care of their souls, hut luithal are 
 ignorant, and not able distinctly to apprehend and orderly to range 
 the doctrines of the Scriptures into a due consistency luith one another: 
 Their careful fears make them inquire into what God hath said con- 
 cerning the everlasting state of men ; and before they can be able to 
 digest the principles of reUgion, Satan sets some truths edgeways 
 against them, which put them into great affrightment ; while, through 
 their ignorance, other truths, appointed and declared for the satisfac- 
 tion of the minds of those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, 
 cannot come in to their relief. How startling must the truths of 
 ' Spelled 'assays.' — G. 
 
218 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 God's election be when they stand forth alone, and are not accompanied 
 with the invitations of the gospel, that promise pardon and acceptance 
 to all that will come in and submit to Christ ! Satan usually holds 
 such kind of men to the consideration of those truths that have the 
 most dismal aspect ; and while they are stopped there, they can draw 
 forth no other conclusions than these, that they are in hazard, and, 
 for aught they know, utterly lost. 
 
 Third, Satan hath also this plot against those that by some grievous 
 iniquity, or long continuayice in sin, have highly provoked the Lord. 
 Here he -useth arguments from the heinousness of their iniquity : 
 Thou art a reprobate, because thou hast committed these great evils, 
 these are marks of damnation, &c. ; which arguments, though they be 
 of no value, and no way proving tliat for which they are brought, yet 
 Satan injecting suspicions, and their own consciences in the mean- 
 time justly accusing, they so sink under their fear that they sutler 
 Satan to make what conclusion he will, and then they subscribe 
 to it. 
 
 Fourth, Above all, melancholy persons give the devil the greatest 
 advantage to raise affrightments. That distemper naturally fills men 
 with sad thoughts, and is credulous of the worst evil tliat can be 
 objected against him that hath it. Of itself, it can create the blackest 
 conceits and saddest surmises, and then believes its own fancy. When 
 Satan strikes in with this \\\xmo\\v—fing unique creduntque — they are 
 the more confirmed in their suspicions; and the fright is the greater, 
 because they are as incredulous of wiiat is good, if it be told them, as 
 they are apt to believe what is evil, and to believe it, Ix-cause they fear 
 it, dum timet cre(?//,— tliough no other reason were offered: but much 
 more when Satan, in a prophetic manner, foretells their misery, and 
 assures them they must never be happy. 
 
 [3.] The suspicions wluch the devil hath by these advantages 
 raised up, he doth endeavour to increase, and to root them deeply in 
 the minds of them upon whom he hath thus begun. And indeed, by fre- 
 quent inculcating the same thing, with his continued peremptoriness of 
 asserting the certainty of their non-election, he at last brings up very 
 many to a full persuasion that it is so ; and besides other arts that he 
 may have, or exercise in this particular, he commonly practiseth upon 
 men by perverting the true intendment and use of the doctrine of 
 election. That there is such a thing as election, and that of a deter- 
 minate number, are truths undeniable ; and the end of their dis- 
 covery in the gospel is the comfort and confirmation of the converted. 
 Here they may see God's unchangeable love to them — how much they 
 stand engaged for the freeness of grace, and that the foundation of God 
 is sure, &c. ; for to this purpose doth our Sa\'iour improve these doc- 
 trines, John xvii. 6, 7, 9, 12, 15, 16. But nothing of this is spoken 
 to discourage any man from his endeavours, neither can any man 
 prove that he or any other is excluded out of the decree of election, 
 except in case of the sin against the Holy Ghost ; neither is it possible 
 for the de^il to prove any such thing against any man ; neither ought 
 any to suppose himself not elect ; but on the contrary, if he is willing 
 to forsake sin, and desirous to be reconciled to God, he ought to 
 apprehend a probability that he is elected, because the proffer of 
 
Chap. 7.] satan's temptations. 249 
 
 Chi-ist is made to all that will receive him. And therefore should 
 men stop their ears against such suggestions, and not dispute that 
 with Satan, but rather hearken to the commands, exhortations, and 
 promises of Scripture, it being most certain that these ' secret things 
 belong to G-od,' Deut. xxix. 29, and are no man's rule to walk by, 
 seeing ' revealed things only belong to us ; ' all this the de\dl per- 
 verts, for he endeavours to make election the immediate object of 
 our faith, and our rule to walk by, as if it were necessary that every 
 man knew God's eternal purpose concerning liim before he begin his 
 endeavours. And as he argues some men into a perverse carelessness 
 upon the ground of election, making them to conclude that if they 
 are ordained to life, they shall be saved, though they live wickedly ; 
 if they be not, they shall be damned, though they endeavour never so 
 much to the contrary ; so he also ai'gues some, from this doctrine, 
 into terrible fears of damnation, because they cannot be assured 
 aforehand that their names are written in heaven. And these dread- 
 ful suspicions he doth labour to strengthen by some men's unwary 
 handling of the doctrine of non-election. When some preachers un- 
 skilfully urge the dangerous signs of reprobation, or speak severely of 
 God's decrees, without due caution and promise of mercy to all peni- 
 tent sinners ; or when some, unskilful in the methods of comforting 
 the distressed in conscience, because they are not able to shew the 
 afflicted their condition, or to speak ' a word in season ' to quiet their 
 minds, and to direct them what course to take, do usually refer them 
 to God's decree, and tell them. If God have decreed them to salva- 
 tion, tliey shall be saved ; Satan doth industriously hold them there ; 
 by this means he leads them from their promises and their duty, and 
 keeps them musing and poring upon election till they are bewildered, 
 and cannot find the way out. Thus have several continued under 
 their affrightments for many years. 
 
 [4.] We may observe. That when Satan hath brought them into 
 this snare, he doth tyrannically domineer over them. He doth deride 
 them under their trouble, and mock at them when their fear comes 
 upon them. And because now the very thought or hearing of election 
 is as a dagger to the heart, and a ' dreadful sound in their ears,' he 
 delights to repeat it to them ; for the very naming of tlie word be- 
 comes as dreadful as the sentence of condemnation to a malefactor, 
 being always accompanied with this reflection. Oh how miserable am 
 I tliat have no part nor portion in it ! Besides, he doth busy their 
 minds with imaginary representations of hell, and sets before them, as 
 in a scheme, the day of judgment, the terrors of the damned, the 
 sentence against the goats on the left hand, the intolerable pains of 
 everlasting burnings, and that which is the misery of all these miseries, 
 the eternity of all. Thus he forceth their meditations, but still with 
 application to themselves ; neither doth he sufler them to rest in the 
 night, but they are terrified with sad dreams, and the visions of the 
 night do disquiet them. 
 
 [5.] Hoiu grievous this affrightment is, I should next observe ; but 
 that is partly expressed in the aforegoing particulars, and may yet 
 more fully appear by a consideration of these three things : 
 
 First, That a man hath nothing dearer to him than his soul. Alas ! 
 
250 • A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 that cannot be counterbalanced by the gaining of the whole world, 
 and to have no hope or expectancy of its salvation must needs be 
 terribly affrightful ! 
 
 Second, TJiese susjncions of non-election prevailing, all promises 
 and comforts are urged in vain, and they commonly return them back 
 again to those that offered them ivith this reply, ' They are true and 
 useful to those unto" whom they appertain, but they belong not unto 
 me.' Nay, all means are rejected as useless. If such be advised 
 to pray or read, they will in tlieir fit of affrightraent refuse all ; upon 
 this reason, that they are not elected. And then to what purpose, 
 say they, is prayer, or any endeavours ? For who can alter his 
 decree ? And, indeed, if their afl'rightments continued at a height 
 without intermission, they would never do anything ; but this is their 
 help, that some secret underground hopes which they espy not, do 
 revive, at least sometimes, and jnit them upon endeavours which, 
 through God's blessing, become means of better information. 
 
 Tliird. Though Satan's injections of non-election be altogether 
 unproveable, and withal so terrifying, that it might be supposed men 
 should not be forward in tlicir belief of so great an uniiappincss ; yet 
 can he prevail so far that the pyersons above named — especially the 
 melancholy — arc made to believe him, and this chief y by possessi7ig 
 their imaginations ivith his frequent confident affirmations. We see 
 it is a common ])raclice to teach birds musical notes and sounds, which 
 is only by constnnt repetition, till a strong impression is made upon 
 their fancy ; and thus may one man impose ui)on the imagination 
 of another with his songs or sayings ; for what we hear often we 
 cannot forbear to repeat in our thoughts, being strongly fixed upon 
 our fancy. No wonder, then, if Satan, by often repeating, ' Tiiou art 
 not elected, thou art damned,' &c., do form so strong an impression 
 upon the imagination, that poor amazed creatures learn to say after 
 him, and then" take the echoes of their fancy to be the voice of con- 
 science condemning them. Now, then, if the unhappiness suspected 
 be the greatest beyond all comparison, if these susj)icions entertained 
 cut off all succours of comfort that may arise from the promises of 
 God and the endeavours of man, if Satan can prevail with men to 
 entertain them with any persuasion — as we see he can — how dread- 
 fully will these persuasions recoil upon a man ! And thus will his 
 thoughts run, ' I am persuaded I am not elected ; and if not elected, 
 then comforts and prayers are all in vain ; and if these be in vain, 
 there is no possibility of salvation, nor the least hope of a who knoivs, 
 or a peradventure ; and if that, oil unspeakably miserable ! ' Under 
 tliese astonishing thoughts doth Satan exercise their hearts by sus- 
 picions of non-election. But, 
 
 4. Sometimes he takes another course to affright men, and that 
 is by injecting motions of some abominable sin or evil into their 
 minds, to the commission ivhereofhe seems strongly to solicit ; yet not 
 with any full intention or exi)ectation of prevalency, but with a 
 purpose to molest and disquiet. And for that end, he commonly 
 chooseth such sins as are most vile in their own natm-e, and most 
 opposite to the dispositions of men. Thus he injects thoughts of 
 uncleanness to a chaste person ; thoughts of injustice and wrong to 
 
Chap. 7.] satan's temptations. 251 
 
 a just man ; thoughts of revenge and cruelty to a weak man ; thoughts 
 of rejoicing' in the loss and misery of others to the merciful man. Or 
 else he injects motions to such sins wherein formerly men have been 
 overtaken, but have been made bitter by deep repeutance ; the very 
 thoughts whereof are now become most loathsome. And sometimes 
 he pm-sues men with thoughts of self-murder, even while there is 
 notlung of discontent or trouble in their minds to second such a temp- 
 tation. By this manner of proceeding he creates great affrightmeuts to 
 the hearts of men. For, 
 
 [1.] These are strange surprisals ; and persons under this kind of 
 trouble cannot but be amazed to find such thoughts within them, 
 which are most contrary to their dispositions, or their most serious 
 resolves. The chaste person tempted to uncleanness, or the just man 
 to revenge ; the humble person urged to the same sin that cost him so 
 ' dear, &c. ; they wonder at their o^vn hearts, and while they rnistake 
 these temptations, by judging them to be the issues of their own 
 inclination, with astonishment they cry out. Oh, I had thought that 1 
 had mortified these lusts, but what a strange heart have I ! I see 
 sin is as strong in me as ever ! And I have cause to fear myself, &c. 
 
 [2.] And this is yet a greater trouble, because usually Satan takes 
 them at some advantage of an offered occasion or opportunity, then 
 he gives them a sudden "push, and with importunity urgeth them 
 to take the time. This often affrights them into trembling, and their 
 fears do so weaken their purposes that their hazards are the greater, 
 in that they are astonished into an inactivity. So that in tliis case 
 the men of might do not readily find their hands. 
 
 [3.] Neither are these motions sudden and transient glances, ivliich 
 perish as soon as they are horn, though it be a very frequent thing 
 with Satan to cast in motions into the heart for trial sake, without 
 further prosecution; but he, in this case, pursues with frequent repeti- 
 tions, following hard after them, to the increase of the affrightment. 
 So that for a long time together men may be afflicted with these mes- 
 sengers of Satan to buffet them ; and though they may pray earnestly 
 against them that they may be removed, yet thoy find the motions 
 continue upon them. Which must needs be a hateful annoyance to 
 an upright heart, that doth know it to be only Satan's design to 
 affright ; much more must it afiSict those that do not perceive the con- 
 triver and end of such motions, but judge them to be the natural 
 workings of their own evil heart. 
 
 5. Satan can also affright men hy immediate impressions of fear 
 upon their minds. He can do much with the imagination, especially 
 when persons are distempered with melancholy, for such are naturally 
 fearful, and any impressions upon them have the deepest, most piercing 
 operation. They are always framing to themselves dismal things, and 
 abound with black and dark conceits, siumising still the worst, and 
 always incredulous of what is good. Hence it is that sometimes men 
 are seized upon by fearfidness and trembling, when yet they cannot 
 give any tolerable account of a cause or reason why it should be so 
 with them. And others are excessively astonished with the shadows 
 of their own thoughts upon the meanest pretences imaginable. 
 
 That this is the work of Satan doth appear by unquestionable evi- 
 
252 A TREATISE OF [FaRT II. 
 
 dence. This was that ' evil spirit ' which God sent between Abimelech 
 and the men of Shechem, Judges ix. 23. God permitted Satan, for 
 the punishment of them both, to raise fears and jealousies in the heart 
 of Abimelech against the men of Shechem, and in the hearts of the 
 men of Shechem against Abimelech. They were mutually afraid of 
 one another, and these fears wrought so far, that they were, for the 
 prevention of a supposed danger, engaged in treacherous conspiracies, 
 to the real ruin of them both. The ' evil spirit ' that vexed Saul, 
 1 Sam. xvi. 14, was nothing else but sudden and vehement fits of 
 terror and inward fear, which the devil raised by the working up of his 
 melancholy. For we may observe these fits were allayed by music ; 
 and also we might see by his disposition out of his fits, and by his 
 carriage in them, that inward fears were his tormentors ; for, 1 Sam. 
 xviii. 9, it is noted that Saul eyed David, that is, his jealous fears 
 began to work concerning David, of whom it is said expressly, ver. 12, 
 ' that he was afraid because the Lord was with him,' and when the 
 evil spirit came upon him his heart was exercised with these fears, 
 and accordingly he behaved himself when he cast the javelin at David 
 with a purposeto slay him. Upon any occasion, of trouble especially, 
 the devil was at hand to heighten his affrightment, insomuch that 
 when the supposed Samuel told'liim of his death, 1 Sam. xxviii. 20, 
 lie was afraid to such a height that he ' fell straightway all along on 
 the earth, and there was no strength in him.' Neither must we sup- 
 pose that Satan in tliis kind of working is confined only to wicked 
 men ; for there is nothing in this manner of affrightment which is in- 
 consistent with the condition of a child of God, especially when God 
 gives him up to trial or coiTCction. Nay, many of God's servants 
 suifer under Satan's hand in this very manner. Let us consider the 
 troubles of Job, and we shall find that though Satan endeavoured to 
 destroy his peace by discomposure of spirit, by questioning his integ- 
 rity, by frightful injections of blasphemous thoughts, yet all these he 
 vanquislied with an undaunted courage, the blasphemy he rejected 
 with abhorrency, his integrity he resolved he would not deny so long 
 as he lived, his losses he digested easily with a sober composed mind, 
 blessed God that gives and takes at pleasure ; and yet he complains of 
 his fears, and his frequent surprisals thereby, insomuch that his friends 
 take notice that most of his trouble arose from thence : chap. xxii. 10, 
 ' A sudden fear troubleth thee ;' and he himself confesseth as raucli, 
 ix. 34, ' Let not bis iear terrify me ... . but it is not so with me.' 
 So that it appears that Job's inward distress was mostly from strong 
 impressions of affrighting fears. 
 
 These fears impressed upon the mind must needs be an unexpres- 
 sible trouble. There is nothing that doth more loosen the sinews and 
 joints of the soul, to the weakening and utter enfeebling of it in all its 
 endeavours, than fears ; it scatters the strength in a moment. And 
 besides the present burden, which will bow down the backs of the 
 strongest, these fears have a special kind of envious magnanimity in 
 them. For (1.) they come by fits, and have times of more fierce and 
 cruel assaults, yet in their intervals they leave the heart in a trembling 
 fainting posture ; for the devil gives not over the present fit till he 
 hath rent them sore, and left them, as he did the man's son in INIark 
 
(Jhap. 7.] Satan's temptations. 253 
 
 ix. 26, ' as one dead ' : so that it is no more to be reckoned compassion 
 and gentleness in Satan toward the afflicted that their fits are not con- 
 stant, than it can be accounted tenderness or kindness in a tyrant who, 
 when he hath racked or tormented a man as much as strength will 
 bear without killing out of hand, gives over for a time that the party 
 might be reserved for new torments. (2.) These fits usually return at 
 such times as the party affiicted seems to promise himself some little 
 ease, being designed to give the greater disappointment in intercept- 
 ing his expected comforts. Sleep and meat are the two great refresh- 
 ments of the distressed ; these times Satan watcheth for his new 
 onsets. Job found it so in both cases ; his meal-times were times of 
 trouble : chap. iii. 24, ' My sighing cometh,' that is, the fits of sighing 
 return, ' before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.' 
 And his sleeping-times were no better: vii. 13, 'When I say. My 
 bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint ; then thou 
 scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions : so that my 
 soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than life.' (3.) These fears 
 do make them feel the weight, not only of real present evUs, but of all 
 others which the imagination can represent to them. So tliat the 
 sight or hearing of any sad thing afflicts them with surmises that this 
 will be their case. Hence are they full of misgiving thoughts. Some- 
 times they fear that they shall at last fall off from God into some 
 scandalous sin, to the dishonour of God and religion, as that they shall 
 be apostates, and tui-n openly profane ; sometimes they fear they shall 
 meet with some signal devouring judgment by which they shall one 
 day perish, as David said in the like case, ' I shall one day perish by 
 the hand of Saul,' [1 Sam. xxvii. 1.] Thus are they crucified betwixt 
 their present burden and future expectations of evil. 
 
 6. The last, and indeed the meanest, engine for the working of 
 affrightment, is scrupulosity of conscience. Satan vexeth the con- 
 science and distracteth the mind, by raising up needless, groundless 
 fears concerning^ a man's practice. Where the ignorance of men or 
 their timorous dispositions do encourage Satan to this enterprise, there 
 he_ multiplies scruples upon them ; so that, though they assent to the 
 doing of anytliing as good or lawfid, yet are they constantly affrighted 
 from it by a suspicious fear that it may be otherwise. 
 
 This kind of trouble takes in almost all kind of actions. It extends 
 to the way of a man's calling, the way of his management of it, the 
 rates he takes and the prices he gives for his commodities ; our very 
 natural actions of sleeping, eating, drinking, company, recreation, are 
 not unconcerned. In all which the devil affrights the timorous con- 
 science that, it may be he hath offended : if he buys or sells, he is 
 disquieted with a maybe that he hath sold too dear, or bought too 
 cheap ; if he eats or sleeps, he fears he hath been excessive, a sluggard 
 or a glutton : thus are some men molested in everything they do. 
 
 Neither is this kind of affrightment to be despised ; for though often 
 it is a groundless fear, and so appears to be to discerning Christians, 
 yet those that are under this molestation think it bad enough. Though 
 it be not as a rack, that afflicts with violent pains, yet it is as those 
 kinds of punishments which at first are nothing, but by continuance 
 do tire men out with little ease, and so at last become intolerable. 
 
254 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 Besides, this is a multiplying trouble ; for one scruple begets another, 
 and by continuance of scrupling, the conscience grows so weak and 
 unsteady, that everything is scrupled, and the man brought to a con- 
 tinual affrightment of doing wrong in every action. Neither can all 
 men make use of the remedy that is prescribed for the cure of this 
 distemper, which is, that when such scruples cannot be removed by 
 reason, then either men should forbear the thinking upon such things 
 from whence scruples are apt to arise, or they should break them down 
 by violence, and go over tlie belly of their scruple to the performance of 
 their action. I deny not but that something may be done and endea- 
 voured this way ; but any may see that it is not easy for every one to 
 do either of these : so that this is also a troublesome evil, from which 
 it is not easy to be discharged. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Of Satan's third ivay to hinder peace, bij spiritual sadness. — Wherein, 
 ' 1. 0/the degrees of spiritual sadness. 2. 0/ the frequency of this 
 trouble, evidenced several ways. Of the difference betwixt God and 
 Satan in tcounding the conscience. 3. Of the solemn ocmsions of 
 this trouble. 4. The engines by which Satan tvorks spiritual sad- 
 ness. (1.) His sophistry. His topics emimerated and explained. 
 [1.] Scriptures perverted. \2.] Fake notions. \?>.'] Misrepresenta- 
 tions of God. [4.] (S/rtS.- hoiv he aggravates them. [5.'] Lessening 
 their graces: hoio he doth that. (2.) His second engine, fear: how 
 he forwards his design that icay. 
 
 Besides the troubles already mentioned under the heads of discom- 
 posures of spirit and affrightments, there is a third kind of trouble 
 which Satan gives to the children of God, and this may, for distinction 
 sake, be called spiritual sadness. These spiritual sadnesses are troubles 
 raised in the miiul, relating to the conscience and spiritual state or con- 
 dition of men. Tiicy dificr exceedingly from the two former sorts of 
 trouble: for, (1.) These troubles wholly concern the conscience in 
 point of regeneration, and men's suitableness thereunto; whereas 
 simple discomposm-es of spirit firstly relate to outward things. (2.) 
 In these the conscience is immediately concerned, but m other troubles 
 the conscience is either wholly untouched, or wounded only secondarOy, 
 by continuance and progi-ess of the discomposure of the spirit. (3.) 
 In these troubles, conscience is the great instrument by which the 
 devil works ; whereas, in the trouble of affrightments, the devil acted 
 alone, the heart being in the meantime uncomijUant and resisting. 
 For the oi^eniug of this trouble I shall explain — 
 
 1. The several degrees thereof. It is a trouble of conscience unduly 
 aggravated by Satan, wherein he confines himself to the operations of 
 conscience. But then, as he suggests the troubles of men by the 
 voice of conscience, so he doth all he can to make it irregular in its 
 actings, and excessive in that irregularity. So that in this case the 
 conscience is evQ, and employs itself in that mistake, to inquire into 
 
Chap. 8.j satan's tkmptations. 255 
 
 men's regeneracy or holiness, always being either a neuter or an ad- 
 versary, and the devil helps this forward all he can. 
 
 The apostle, in Heb. x. 22, makes naention of an ' evil conscience,' 
 and that chiefly as it doth occasion fear, hindering our comfortable 
 access to God. This the conscience doth when it doth not execute its 
 office aright, either in ' not excusing ' when it ought, or in ' accusing ' 
 when it should not ; and these false accusations cause diiferent sorts 
 of troubles according to the variety of the matter for which it doth 
 condemn. Hence is it that there are three degrees of trouble of con- 
 science below the trouble of despair : — 
 
 [1.] The lowest degree is when a regenerate person doth not posi- 
 tively determine the case of his soul, luhether he be regenerate or not, 
 hut is only kept in suspense betwixt hope that he is, and/ear that he is 
 not, the conscience in the meantime foi-bearing to ivitness for him, 
 though it hath just cause to excuse him. This we may call a doubting 
 or questioning' conscience ; and though it comes far short of these dis- 
 tresses in which some men are plunged upon the account of their souls, 
 yet is it a trouble, for their peace is hereby hindered and their de- 
 sires of satisfaction frustrated, which in matters of so great concern, 
 as are these of everlasting life and everlasting misery, must be very 
 disquieting. When the affections are earnest, then- satisfaction camiot 
 be delayed without trouble ; for ' hope deferred makes the heart sick,' 
 Prov. xiii. 12 ; not only doth it faint under its doubts, but is by that 
 means so weak in its purposes that it is easily drawn to admit of 
 greater inconveniences, which may lay the foundation of more per- 
 plexing disturbances. 
 
 That the conscience may be in such a distemper that it will not 
 witness for a man, when yet it cannot witness against him, is the 
 observation of those that have treated of the nature of conscience.^ 
 Sometimes it will not make application of God's promises. Though it 
 will believe that he that forsakes sin is regenerate, that he that truly 
 repents shall be pardoned, yet it will not affirm for a man that he 
 forsakes sin or repents, though he really do so ; or if it cannot deny 
 that, yet it will sometimes refuse to make that conclusion which one 
 would think would follow of itself by natural consequence, and so re- 
 fuseth to judge the person regenerate or pardoned, though it cannot 
 deny but that he forsakes sin and repents. The greatness of the bless- 
 ing, the remainders of unbelief, the deep sense of unwortliiness, with 
 other considerations, do keep off the heart from making, as I may say, 
 so bold with the promises ; but all this while the devil is doing his 
 utmost to aggravate these considerations, affrighting the conscience 
 from that just absolution which it ought to give. 
 
 [2.] Another degree of trouble arising from an evil conscience, is 
 when the condition of a regenerate person is determined by conscience, 
 but falsely, to be very bad. I must here, as some others have done,- 
 for want of better terms, distinguish betwixt the state of regeneracy 
 and a man's conchtion in that state, though the words state and con- 
 dition are used promiscuously the one for another. A man may be 
 in a regenerate state, and yet his condition in that state may be very 
 
 ' Ames, ' Case Consc.,' lib. i. cap. 9. 
 » Dickson, Therap. Sacra, lib. iii. cap. 1. 
 
256 A TREATISE OF [PaKT II. 
 
 bad and blameworthy, as not walking worthy of so holy a calling ; as 
 a person may be a man, and yet unhealtliy or languishing. Thus 
 many of the Asian churches were true churches, and yet in a bad 
 condition ; some ' lukewarm;' some had ' a name to hve,' and yet were 
 comparatively ' dead,' because their works were not full or ' perfect 
 before God ; ' and others had ' left their first love.' To this purpose 
 is that of the apostle, 2 Cor. xiii. 5, ' Know ye not your own selves, 
 how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?' — el fii] rt 
 dSoKifiol eare — where the word ' reprobate ' is not to be taken in the 
 strict, severe sense for one ' not elected,' but for one whose conversation 
 is not so sound and approved as it should be : for this relates not to 
 their being in Christ, but to their assurance of being in that state, 
 which the apostle affirms they might know, except the fault lay in 
 their negligent, careless conversation. 
 
 This kind of trouble then is of this nature : the conscience doth not 
 accuse a man to be unregcnerate, yet it condemns him for a carriage 
 unsuitable to the gospel ; and this sometimes when his actions are not 
 absolutely evil, but partly good, iiarlly bad. When the conscience 
 condemns the actions as altogether sinful, because of some mixture of 
 infirmities, in which case we should imitate the apostle, m Eom. vii., 
 who when by reason of the remainders of sin in him, he could not do 
 the good he would — that is, in such a manner and degree as he desired, 
 nor avoid the evil which he would so clearly and fully as he wished, 
 some imperfections in his best endeavours still cleaving to him ; yet 
 his conscience took a right course, he was humbled for his imperfec- 
 tions, but withal acquits himself in point of integrity ; his conscience 
 testified, ver. IG, that he ' consented to the law as good ;' and ver. 22, 
 that he ' delighted in the law of God, after the inward man.' But in 
 this case of spiritual trouble, the conscience takes all in the worst 
 sense ; it only fixeth upon the imperfections, and makes them to serve 
 for proofs against the sincerity. Thus if a man in praying be troubled 
 with wandering thoughts, then a distempered conscience condemns 
 that prayei'as a sinful profanation of the name of God. If the great 
 concern of God's glory run along in such a way as is also advantageous 
 to the person in outward things, then will such a conscience condemn 
 the man for self-seeking, though his main design were truly the honour 
 of God. In all actions where there is infirmity ajipearing with the 
 most serious endeavours, or where God's glory and man's good are 
 twisted together, the disordered conscience will be apt to take part 
 with Satan, accusing and condemning the action. Yea, very often 
 when the actions are very good, no way justly reprovable, the conscience 
 shall condemn. If he have had peace, he shall be judged for security; 
 if he have faith in God's promises, it will call it presumption ; if he 
 have a zeal for God, it will be misinterpreted for carnal rigour ; if he 
 have joy, it shall be misjudged to be natural cheerfulness or delusion ; 
 in a word, all his graces shall be esteemed no better than moral virtues. 
 At this rate are the children of God put to great trouble, losing, as I 
 may say, the tilings they have wrought, sadly bemoaning their hard- 
 ness of heart, or want of faith and love, when in their carriage and 
 complainings, they give very high proofs of all. In this also Satan is 
 busy to nourish the conscience in its jealousies, and doth suggest many 
 
Chap. 8.] satan's temptations. 257 
 
 objections to confirm it in its distemper. The conscience is not always 
 of a peevisli or perverse humour ; for sometimes it will smite a man 
 for a miscarriage, — as it did to David when he cut off the lap of Saul's 
 garment,^and yet not break his peace : which is a sufficient evidence 
 that it is put, in this case, far out of order ; which advantage Satan 
 works upon to disquiet the heart, to make men unthankful for the 
 mercies they have received, and to incapacitate them for more. This, 
 for distinction sake, we may call the trouble of a grieved or dejected 
 conscience, according to that of Ps. xlii. 5, 11, 'Why art thou cast 
 down, my soul? and why art thou disquieted witliin me?' Though 
 such men are under God's favour, yet they misdeem it, and think God 
 is angry with them ; their heart pants, their soul thirsts, their tears are 
 their meat, they are ready to say unto God, ' My rock, why hast thou 
 forsaken me ?' and though they have some hopes for the future, that 
 God ' will command his loving-kindness,' and that they ' shall yet 
 praise him;' yet their present apprehension of their spiritual wants 
 and weaknesses, and of the displeasure of God, which they suppose 
 they are under, makes them go mourning all the day. 
 
 [3.] The third degree of trouble of conscience is when the conscience 
 peremptorily denies the state of regeneration. Hereby a man that is 
 really regenerate, is concluded to be yet ' in the gall of bitterness, and 
 bond of iniquity ;' his former hopes are taxed for self-delusion, and 
 his present state to be a state of nature. This trouble is far greater 
 than the two former, because the party is judged to be in greater 
 hazard, and by many degrees more remote from hope. It is the fre- 
 quent and sad thought of such, that if death should in that estate cut 
 off their days, oh, then they were for ever miserable ! The fears and 
 disquiets of the heart on this account are very grievous, but yet they 
 admit of degrees, according to the ignorance of the party, the dis- 
 temper of the conscience, the strength of the objections, or severity of 
 the prosecution, in regard the conscience is now sadly out of order. 
 We may call this degree of grief, for distinction, ' a wounded spirit ;' 
 which how hard it is to be borne Solomon tells us, Prov. xviii. 14, by 
 comparing it with all other kind of troubles, which the spirit of a man 
 can make some shift to bear, making this heavier than all, and above 
 ordinary strength. 
 
 Some make inquiry what may be the difference betwixt a wounded 
 spirit in the regenerate and the reprobate ? To which it may be an- 
 swered, (1.) That in the party's apprehension there is no difference 
 at all ; both of them may be compassed about with the sorrows of 
 death, and suppose themselves to be in the belly of hell. (2.) Neither 
 is there any difference in the degree of the trouble ; a child of God 
 may be handled with as much seeming severity, as he whom God in- 
 tends for a futm-e Tophet. (3.) Neither is there_any such remarkable 
 difference in the working of the spirits of the one and other, that they 
 themselves at present, or others that are bystanders, can easily observe. 
 Yet a formal difference there is ; for grace being in the heart of the 
 one, will in some breathing or pulse discover its life. And though 
 sometimes it acts so low or confusedly that God only can distinguish, 
 yet often those that are experienced observers will discover some real 
 breathings after God, and true loathing of sin, and other traces of 
 
258 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 faith and love, that are not so discernible to the parties themselves. 
 (4.) But iu God's design the diifercnoe is very great ; the wicked lie 
 under his lash as malefactors, but the regenerate are as patients under 
 cure, or children under discipline. (5.) And accordingly the issue 
 doth determine, that God's intention in wounding their spirits were 
 not alike to both ; the one at last coming out of the_ furnace as gold, 
 the other still remaining as reprobate silver, or being consiimed as 
 di-oss. Thus have ye seen the nature and degree of spiritual sadness. 
 2. For the further explanation whereof I shall next shew you that 
 this is a usual trouble to the chihhcn of God. 
 
 "Which, (1.) I might evidence from several instances of^ tJiosc tmt 
 have suffered much under it; as David, whose complaints in this case 
 are very frequent, and Heman, who left a memorial of Ms griefs in 
 Ps. Ixxxviii. Jonah also, in the belly of the whale, had a sharp fit of 
 it, when he concluded that he was ' cast out of God's sight,' and his 
 ' soul fainted witliin him,' Jonah ii. 4, 7. Neither did Hezekiah 
 altogether escape it, for though his disquiet began upon another ground, 
 it ran him into spiritual trouble at last. But besides these, innumer- 
 able instances occur. One sliall scarce converse with any society of 
 Christians but he shall meet with some who, with sad complaints, shall 
 bemoan the burden of their hearts, and the troubles of their conscience. 
 
 (2.) The provisions ichich God Iiath made in his icord for such, is 
 an evidence that such distempers are frequent. He that in a city shall 
 observe the shops of the apothecaries, and there take notice of the 
 great variety of medicines, pots, and glasses full of mixtures, confec- 
 tions, and cordials, may fi-om theuce rationally conclude, that it is a 
 frequent thing for men to be sick, though he should not converse with 
 any sick person for his information. Thus may we be satisfied from 
 the declarations, directions, and consolations of Scripture that it is a 
 common case for the chikhcn of God to stand in need of spiritual 
 IDliysicians and spiritual remedies to liclp them when they are wounded 
 and fainting. Solomon's exclamation, ' A wounded spirit who can 
 bear?' shews that the spirit is sometimes woimded. The prophet's 
 direction, ' He that walks in darkness and sees no light, let him tmst 
 in the Lord,' [Isa, 1. 10,] clearly unplies that some there are that walk 
 in darkness. God's creating the ' fruit of the lips, Peace, peace ;' his 
 promises of restoring ' comforts to mourners ;' his commands to others 
 to comfort them ; do all inform us that it is a common thing for his 
 children to be under such sadnesses of spirit, that all this is necessary 
 for their relief. 
 
 (3.) The reasons of this trouble do also assure us of the frequency 
 of it ; for of them we may say, as Chnst speaks of the poor, [Mat. 
 xxvi. 11,] 'we have them always with us;' so that the grounds of 
 spiritual sadness considered, it is no wonder to find many men com- 
 plainmg under this distemper. The reasons are, 
 
 [1.] The 7nah'ce of Satan, who hath no greater revenge against a 
 child of God, when translated from the power of darkness to the king- 
 dom of Clirist, than to hinder him of the peace and comfort of that 
 condition. 
 
 [2.] The many advantages which Satan hath against^ us. For the 
 effecting of this we cannot imagine that one so malicious as he is 
 
Chap. 8.] satan's temptations. 259 
 
 will sufier his malice to sleep, when so many fair opportunities of 
 putting it in practice do offer themselves. For, first, The qiiestiotis 
 to be determined for settling the peace of the soul are very intricate, 
 and often of greater difficulty than doctrinal controversies. How hard 
 is it to conclude what is the inimnmni quod sic, the lowest degrees 
 of true grace ! or the maximum quod sic, the highest degree of sin 
 consistent with true grace I To distinguish betwixt a cliild of God at 
 the lowest, and a hypocrite or temporary believer at the highest, is 
 difficult. In mixed actions, to be able to shew how the soul doth 
 manage its respect to God, when the man hath also a respect to him- 
 self, especially when it is under any confusion, is not easy. And in 
 these actions, where the difference from others of like kind lies only in 
 the grounds and motives of the undertaking, or where the prevailing 
 degree must distinguish the act in reference to different objects that 
 are subordinate to one another — as our loving God above the world 
 or ourselves, om- fearing God above men, &c. — it is not every one that 
 can give a satisfactory determination. Second, As the intricacies of 
 the doubts to be resolved give the devil an advantage to puzzle us, 
 so is the advantage heightened exceedingly by the great injudicious- 
 ness and unsMlfidness of the grecdest part of Christians. These ques- 
 tions are in their notion difficult; more difficult in their application to 
 particular persons, where the ablest Christian may easily be non- 
 plussed ; but most difficult to the weak Christians. These Satan can 
 baffle with every poor objection, and impose what he will upon them. 
 TJiird, Especially having the advantage of the zvorking guilt of 
 conscience, which he can readily stir up to present to a man's re- 
 membrance all his failings and miscarriages of what nature soever. 
 And when guilt rageth in an unskilful heart, it must needs create 
 great disquiet. Fourth, But most of all when our natural fcws arc 
 awakened; as when a man hath been under any great conviction, 
 though he be cured of his trouble, yet it usually leaves a weakness in 
 the part, as bruises and maims do in any member of the body, which 
 at the change of weather or other accidental hurt will renew their old 
 trouble ; and then when fresh guilt begins to press hard upon the 
 conscience, not only do the broken bones ache, by the reviving of 
 former fears, but the impressions of his old suspicious, bad conceit of 
 himself, and jealousies of the deceitfulness of his heart, which had 
 then fixed themselves by a deep rooting, do now make him most 
 fearful of entertaining any good thought of himself. So that if any 
 consideration tending to his support be offered, he dare not come near 
 it, suspecting his greatest danger to lie on that hand. These advan- 
 tages considered, we should not think it strange that any child of God 
 is driven to spiritual sadness, as some do, but may rather wonder that 
 this is not the common condition of all Christians. 
 
 [3.] Another reason that must be assigned for these troubles is divine 
 dispensation. Such are his children, some so careless, others proud, 
 others stubborn, many presumptuous, that God is forced to correct 
 them by this piece of discipline, and to cure them by casting theui 
 into a fever. Others of his children he thus exerciseth for other ends, 
 sometimes to take occasion therefrom of making larger discoveries of 
 his love ; sometimes thereby preventing them from falling under some 
 
260 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 grievous miscarriage, or for the trial and exercises of their graces. 
 We may observe, accordingly, that there are three sorts of men that 
 usually have exercises of this kind. 
 
 (1.) Those who at their conversion are either ignorant, melancholy, 
 or were grossly scandalcnis, are usually brought through ivith great 
 fear aiid sadness. And this is so observable, that by the mistake of 
 men it is made a general rule that none are converted but they are 
 under great and frightful apprehensions of wrath and dismal terrors. 
 This indeed is true of some, but these ordinarily are tlie scandalous, 
 melancholy, and ignorant sort — though sometimes God may deal so 
 with others, for who can limit him? Yet are there many whose 
 education hath been good, and their instruction aforehand great, whose 
 conversion is so gradual and insensible, tliat they are strangers to these 
 troubles of conscience, and profess that if these heights of fear be 
 necessary to conversion, they must be at a loss ; neither can they give 
 an account of the time of their conversion, as others may. 
 
 (2.) Those whose conversion was easy, when after their conversion 
 they miscai-ry hy any great iniquity, they meet with as great a measure 
 of terror and fear, and some think far greater, as those whose neio 
 birth tvas more difficult. David's greatest troubles of soul came upon 
 him after he began to appear more public in the world ; for then he 
 met witli many temptations, and great occasions for God's exercising 
 his discipline over him. I believe, when he kept his father's sheep, 
 his songs had more of praises and less of comjjlainings than afterward. 
 It is the opinion of some that God's dealing in this kind of dispensa- 
 tion, even when miscarriage is not the cause, is more sharp usually to 
 those whose conversion hath been most easy. 
 
 (3.) There is another sort of men, to tvhom God vouchsafes but 
 seldom and short fits of spiritual joy , as hreathing times, betwixt sharp 
 Jits of soul-trouble, for necessary refreshment and recovery of strength; 
 but the constant course which God holds with them is to exercise 
 them under fears, while he hides his face from them, and suffers Satan 
 to vex them, by urging his objections against their holiness and 
 integrity. Henian was one of this rank, and the great instance which 
 God hath given in his word for the support of others that may be in the 
 same case. For he testifies, Ps. Ixxxviii. , that he suffered the terrors of 
 God almost to distraction, and this from liis youth up. It is not fit 
 for us too narrowly to question why God doth thus to liis children, 
 seeing his ' judgments are unsearchable,' and his ' ways past finding 
 out ; ' but we may be sure that God sees this dealing to be most fit for 
 those that are exercised therewith. It may be to keep pride from 
 them, or to prevent them from falling into some greater inconvenience 
 or sin, unto which he takes notice of a more than ordinary j^roneness 
 in theh' disposition ; or for the benefit of others, who may thereby take 
 notice what 'an evil and bitter thing it is' to sin against God, and 
 what a malicious adversary they have to deal with. Whoso shall con- 
 sider these reasons of spiritual sadness, must needs confess, that seeing 
 the advantages which men give to a malicious devil to vex their con- 
 sciences are so many and great, and the weakness of God's children so 
 hazardous, for the prevention whereof, a wise, careful Father will 
 necessarily be engaged to exercise his discipline, it cannot be expected 
 
Chap. S.j satan's temptations. 261 
 
 but that spiritual troubles should be very frequent among the servants 
 of God. 
 
 Quest. Here it is requisite that I give satisfaction to this query. 
 Seeing that God doth sometime wound the consciences of his children, 
 and that Satan also wounds them, what are the differences betwixt 
 God and Satan in inflicting these wounds ? 
 
 Ans. For the right understanding of this question I shall propound 
 two things : 
 
 (1.) That it is a truth that God doih sometimes wound the con- 
 sciences of his children ; and this, 
 
 [1.] Before conversion: but in order to it, as preparatory to that 
 change, men are then in their sins, walking in the vanity oftheir 
 minds. To translate them from this estate he awakens the conscience, 
 shews them their iniquities, and the danger of them, that at present 
 they are ' in their blood,' ' children of wrath, as well as others,' and 
 that without Christ they are miserable. The effect of this must 
 needs be serious consideration, deep thoughts of heart, with some 
 trouble ; only as to the measure and degree there is great difference. 
 God doth not in the particular application of these things to the con- 
 science tie up himself exactly to the same manner and. measure of 
 proceechng, though he keep still to his general method. Hence is it 
 that some, in regard of God's gentle, leisurely dealing, and the fre- 
 quent interposure of encouragements, are, if compared with the case 
 of others, said to be allured and ' drawn with cords of love.' But 
 others have a remarkable measure of trouble, sharp fits of fear and 
 anguish; and those most commonly are such whose conversion is 
 more quick, and the change visible from one extreme to another, as 
 Paul, when converted in the midst of his persecuting rage, or those 
 whose ignorance or melancholy makes their hopes and comforts inac- 
 cessible for the present. These troubles God owns to be the work of 
 his Spirit. The same Spirit, which is a ' Spirit of adoption ' to the 
 converted, is a 'spirit of bondage' to these, Eom. viii. 16. And 
 accordingly we find it was so to the converts in Acts ii., who being 
 'pricked in their hearts' by Peter's sermon, 'cried out. Men and 
 brethren, what shall we do?' The like did the jailor. And the pro- 
 mise which God makes of calling the Jews, Zech. xii. 10, doth express 
 God's purpose of dealing with them in this very method : ' They shall 
 look upon him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for him as 
 one that mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for 
 him ; ... in that day shall be a great mourning.' 
 
 [2.] God also sometimes wounds the conscience of his children after 
 conversion; and tliis he doth to convince and humble them for some 
 miscarriage which they become guilty of.i As when they grow secure, 
 carnally confident of the continuance of their peace— when they are 
 carelessly neghgent of duty and the exercises of their graces — when 
 they fall into gross and scandalous sins, or wilfully desert the ways of 
 truth, and in many more cases of like kind. When his children make 
 themselves thus obnoxious to divine displeasure, then God hides his 
 face from them, takes away his Spirit, signifies his anger to their con- 
 sciences, threatens them with the clanger of that condition, from 
 ' Ti'rfe Goodwin's ' Child of Light.' [.is before.— G.] 
 
2G2 A TREATISE OF [PaUT TI. 
 
 whence follows grief and fear in the hearts of his people. In this 
 manner God expressed his displeasure to David, as his complaints in 
 Ps. li. do testify : ' Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones 
 which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins. 
 Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from 
 me. Kestore unto me the joy of thy salvation,' &c. 
 
 (2.) Notwithstanding all this, there is a great difference betwixt 
 God and Satan in this matter, which mainly appears in two things:— 
 [1.] God doth limit himself in all the trouble which he gives his chil- 
 dren, to his great end of doing them good, and healing them, and con- 
 sequently stints himself in the measure and manner of his work to 
 such a proportion as his wisdom sees will exactly suit with his end. 
 So that his anger is not like the brawlings of malicious persons that 
 know no bounds. He will not 'always chide;' his debates are in 
 measure, and this ' lest the spirit should fail before him,' Isa. Ivii. 16. 
 So that when he wounds tlic conscience before conversion, it is but to 
 bring them to Christ, and to prevent their taking such courses^ as 
 might through delusion make them take up their stand short of him. 
 So much of mourning and fear as is requisite for the true effecting of 
 this, he appoints for them, and no more. When he wounds after con- 
 version, it is but to let them feel that it is an evil and bitter thing to 
 sin against him, that their ' godly sorrow may work repentance ' suit- 
 able to the offence, and that they may be sufficiently cautioned for the 
 time to come to ' sin no more, lest a worse thing befall them.' He that 
 afflicts not willingly, will put no more grief upon thcni than is neces- 
 sary to bring Ihcni to this. But Satan, when he is admitted — and God 
 doth often permit him in subservience to his design, to wound the 
 conscience — he proceeds according to the boundless fury of his malice, 
 and plainly manifests that his desire is to destroy and to tread them 
 down that they may never rise again. This though he cannot effect, 
 for God will not suffer him to proceed further than the bringing about 
 his holy and gracioas purpose, yet it hinders not but that still his 
 envious thoughts boil up in his breast, and he acts according to his 
 own inclination. For it is with Satan as it is with wicked men. _ If 
 God employ them for the chastisement of his chikken, they consider 
 not who sets them on work, nor what measures probably God would 
 have them observe, but they propose to themselves more work than 
 ever God cut out for them ; as Assyria, when employed against Jeru- 
 salem, Isa. X. 7, had designs more large and cruel than was in God's 
 commission. God had stinted him in his holy purpose ; _ yet the 
 ' Assyrian meant not so, neither did his heart think so ; but it was in 
 his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few.' So that when God 
 is ' a little displeased,' as he speaks, Zech. i. 15, they do all that lies 
 in them to help forward the affliction. Thus doth the devil endeavour 
 to make all things worse to God's children than ever God intended. 
 Here is one difference betwixt God and Satan, in the wounding of 
 consciences. But, 
 
 [2.] They are yet further differenced, m that all that God doth in 
 this work is still according to tndh. For if he signify to the imcon- 
 verted that they are in a state of nature, liable to the damnation of 
 hell, unless they accept of Christ for salvation upon his terms, this is 
 
Chap. 8.] satan's temptations. 2(33 
 
 uo more than what is true. God doth not misrepresent their case to 
 them at that time. Again, if he express his displeasure to any of his 
 converted children that have grieved his Spirit by their follies, by 
 setting before them the threatenings of his word, or the examples of 
 his wrath, he doth but truly tell them that he is angry with them, 
 and that de jure, according to the rigour of the law and the demerit 
 of theu- offence he might justly cast them off; but he doth not posi- 
 tively say that, de eventu, it shall infallibly be so with them. Eut 
 Satan, in both these cases, goes a great way further. He plainly 
 affirms to those that are in the way to conversion, that God will not 
 pardon theu- iniquities, that there is no hope for them, that Christ will 
 not accept them, that he never intended the benefit of liis sufferings 
 for them. And when the converted do provoke God, he sticks not to 
 say the breach cannot be healed, and that they are not yet converted. 
 All which are most false assertions. And though God can make use 
 of Satan's malice, when he abuseth his children with his falsehoods to 
 their great fear, to carry ou his own ends by it, and to give a greater 
 impression to what he truly witnesseth against them ; yet is not God 
 the proper author of Satan's lying, for he doth it of his own wicked 
 inclination. The effect of these desperate false conclusions, which is 
 the putting his chUdreu into a fear in order to his end, may be 
 ascribed to God ; but the falsehood of these conclusions are formally 
 Satan's work and not God's ; for he makes use of so much of Satan's 
 wrath as may be to his praise, and the ' remainder of his wrath he 
 dotli restrain,' [Ps. Ixxvi. 10.] 
 
 I have discovered the nature and degrees of these sph-itual troubles, 
 and that it is a common thing for the children of God to fall imder 
 them. For the further opening of them I shall next discover, 
 
 3. The usual solemn occasions that do, as it were, invite Satan to 
 give his onset against God's children ; and they are principally these 
 six:— 
 
 [1.] The time of conversion. He delights to set on them when 
 they are in the straits of a new birth, for then the conscience is 
 awakened, the danger of sin truly represented, fear and sorrow, in 
 some degree, necessaiy and unavoidable. At this time he can easily 
 overdrive them. Where the convictions are deep and sharj:), ready to 
 weigh them down, a few grains more cast into the scale will make the 
 trouble, as Job speaks, ' heavier than the sand,' [chap. vi. 3 ;] and 
 where they are more easy or gentle, yet the soul being unsettled, the 
 thoughts in commotion, they are disposed to receive a strong impres- 
 sion, and to be turned, as wax to the seal, into a mould of hopelessness 
 and desperation. That this is one of Satan's special occasions, we 
 need no other evidence for satisfaction than the common experience of 
 converts. Many of them do hardly escape the danger, and after their 
 difficult conquest of the troubles of their heart — which at that time 
 are extraordinarily enlarged — do witness that they are assaulted with 
 desperate fears that their sins were unpardonable, and sad conclusions 
 against any expectation of favour from the Lord their God. These 
 thoughts we are sure the Spirit of God will not bear witness unto, 
 because false, and therefore we must leave them at Satan's door. 
 
 [2.] Another occasion which Satan makes use of, is the time of 
 
2G4 A TREATISE OF [PaKT II. 
 
 solemn repentance for some great sin committed after conversion. 
 Sometimes God's children fall, to the breaking of their bones. What 
 great iniquities they may commit through the force of temptation, I 
 need not mention. Tlie adultery and murder of David ; the incest of 
 the Corinthian ; Peter's denial of Christ, with other sad instances in 
 the records of the Scriptures, do speak enough of that. These sins — 
 considering their heinousness, the scandal of religion, the dishonour 
 of God, the grievdng of his Spirit, the condition of the party offending 
 against love, knowledge, and the various helps which God affords 
 them to the contrary, with other aggravating circumstances — being 
 very displeasing to God, their consciences at least, either compelled to 
 examination by God immediately, or mediately by some great afflic- 
 tion, or voluntarily awakening to a serious consideration of what hath 
 been done, by the working of its own light, assisted thereunto by 
 quickening grace, 1 Cor. xi. 31, 32, — call them to a strict account. 
 Thence follow fear, shame, self-indignation, bitter weeping, deep 
 humiliation. Then comes Satan ; he rakes their wounds, and by his 
 aggravations makes them smart the more. He pours in corrosives 
 instead of oil, and all to make them believe that their ' spot is not the _ 
 spot of God's children,' [Ueut. xxxii. 5 ;] that their backslidings ' 
 cannot be healed. An occasion it is, as suitable to his malice as he 
 could wish ; for ordinarily God doth severely testify his auger to them, 
 and doth not easily admit them again to the sense of his favour. At 
 which time the adversary is very busy to work up their hearts to an 
 excess of fear and sorrow. This was the course which he took with 
 the incestuous Corinthian, taking advantage of his great transgressions 
 to ' overwhelm him with too much sorrow,' 2 Cor. ii. 7, 11. 
 
 [3.] Satan walcheth the discomposures of the spirits of God's chil- 
 dren, under some grievous cross or affliction. This occasion also falls 
 fit for his design of wounding the conscience. When the liand of the 
 Lord is lifted up against them, and their thoughts disordered by the 
 stroke, suggesting at that time God's anger to them and their sins, he 
 can easily frame an argument from these grounds, that they are not 
 reconciled to God, and that they are dealt withal as enemies. David 
 seldom met with outward trouble, but he at the same time had a 
 conflict with Satan about his spiritual condition or state, as his fre- 
 quent deprecations of divine wrath at such times do testify ; ' Lord, 
 rebuke me not in thy wrath,' &c. There is indeed but a step betwixt 
 discomposure of spirit and spiritual troubles, as hath been proved before. 
 
 [4.] When Satan Jiath p)-epared the hearts of God's children by 
 atheistical or blasphemous tlwughts, he takes that occasion to deny their 
 grace and interest in Christ, and the argument at that time seems un- 
 answerable. Can Christ lodge in a heart so full of horrid blasphemies 
 against him ? Is it possible it should be washed and sanctified, when 
 it produceth such filthy, cursed thoughts ? All the troubles of affright- 
 ment, of which before, are improvable to this purpose. 
 
 [5.] Another spiritual occasion for spiritual trouble is melancholy. 
 Few persons distempered therewith do escape Satan's hands. At one 
 time or other he casts his net over them, and seeks to stab them with 
 his weapon. Melancholy indeed affords so many advantages to him, 
 and those so answerable to his design, that it is no wonder if he make 
 
Chap. 8.] katan's temptations. 265 
 
 much of it. For, 1. Melancholy affects both head and heart ; it affords 
 both fear and sadness, and deformed, misshapen, delirious imagina- 
 tions to work upon, than which nothing can be more for his purpose.i 
 For where the heart trembles and the head is darkened, there every 
 object is misrepresented. The ideas of the brain are monstrous ap- 
 pearances, reflected from opaque iind dark spirits, so that Satan hath 
 no more to do but to suggest the new matter of fear. For that ques- 
 tion. Whether the man be converted, &c., being once started, to a 
 mind already distempered with fear, must of itself, it being a business 
 of so high a nature, mthout Satan's further pursuit, summon the utmost 
 powers of sadness and misreprehension^ to raise a storm. 2. Besides, 
 the impressions of melancholy are always strong. It is strong in its 
 fears, or else men would never be tempted to destroy themselves ; it is 
 strong in its mistakes, or else they could never persuade themselves of 
 the truth of foolish, absurd, and impossible fancies ; as that of Nebuch- 
 adnezzar, who by a delusive apprehension, believing himself to be a 
 beast, forsook the company of men, and betook to the fields to eat grass 
 %vith oxen. The imaginations of the melancholic are never idle, and 
 yet straitened or confined to a few things ; and then the brain, being 
 weakened as to a true and regular apprehension, it frames nothing but 
 bugbears, and yet with the highest confidence of certainty. 3. These 
 impressions are usually lasting, not vanishing as an early dew, but 
 they continue for months and years. 4. And yet they have only so 
 much understanding left them as serves to nourish their fears. If 
 their understanding had been quite gone, their fears would vanish with 
 them, as the fiame is extinguished for want of air ; but they have only 
 knowledge to let them see their misery, and sense to make them ap- 
 prehensive of their pain.'^ And therefore will they pray with floods of 
 tears, unexpressible groanings, deepest sighing, and tuembling joints, 
 to be delivered from their fears. 5. They are also apt after ease of 
 their troubles to have frequent returns. What disposition, all these 
 things being considered, can be more exactly shaped to serve Satan's 
 turn ? If he would have men to believe the worst of themselves, he 
 hath such imaginations to work upon as are already misshapen into a 
 deformity of evil surmising. Would he terrify by fears or distress by 
 sadness? he hath that already, and it is but altering the object, which 
 oftentimes needs not — for naturally the serious melancholic employs 
 all his griefs upon his supposed miserable estate of soul, and then he 
 hath spiritual distress. Would he continue them long under their 
 sorrows, or take them upon all occasions at his pleasure, or act them 
 to a greater height than ordinary ? still the melancholic temper suits 
 him. This is sufficient for caution, that we take special care of our 
 bodies, for the preventing or abating of that humour by all lawful 
 means, if we would not have the devil to abuse us at his will. 
 
 [6.] Sickness or death-bed is another solemn occasion which the 
 devil seldom misseth with his will. Death is a serious thing; it repre- 
 sents the soul and eternity to the life. While they are at a distance, 
 men look slightly upon these ; but when they approach near to them, 
 
 ' Willis, de anima Bnit., cap. 9, de Melancholia. 
 
 ' Query, ' misappreliensiou'? — G. 
 
 ■* Feel. Plateri prox. med., cap. 3, de mentis alienationc. 
 
266 A TKEATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 men usually have such a sight of them as they never had hefore. We 
 may truly call sickness and death-bed an hour of temptation, which 
 Satan will make use of with the more mischievous industry, because he 
 hath but ' a sliort time ' for it. That is the last conflict, and if he 
 miss that, we are beyond his reach for ever. So that in this case Satan 
 encourageth himself to the battle with a now or never. Aud hence we 
 find that it is usual for the dying servants of God to undergo most 
 sharp encounters. Then to tclJ them, when the soul is about to loose 
 from the body, that they are yet ' in their blood ' ' without God and hope,' 
 is enough to affright them into the extremcst agonies, for they see no 
 time before them answerable to so great a work, if it be yet to do. 
 And withal they are under vast discouragements from the weariness 
 and pains of sickness, their understandings and faculties being also 
 dull and stujjified, so that if at this last plunge God should not extra- 
 ordinarily appear to rebuke Satan and to pluck them out of these great 
 waters, as he often doth, by the fuller inleriiosition of the light of his 
 face, and the larger testimony of his Si)irit, after their long and com- 
 fortable profession of their faith and holy walking, their light would 
 be ' jint out in darkness,' and they would ' lie down in sorrow.' Yet 
 this I must note, that as desirous as Satan is to improve this occasion, 
 he is often remaikably disappointed, and tliat wherein he, it may 
 be, and we would least expect, I mean in regard of those wlio, through 
 a timorous disposition or melancholy, or upon other accounts, are, as 
 I may so say, ' all their lifetime snl)ject to bondage.' Tlio.se men wlio 
 are usually exercised with frequent ills of sjnritual trouble, when they 
 come to sickness, death-bed, and some otlier singular occasions of 
 trouble, though wc might suspect tlieir fears would then be working, 
 if ever, yet God, out of gracious indulgence to them, considering their 
 moidd and fasliiou, or liecause he would jirevent their extreme faint- 
 ing, &c., doth meet them with larger testimonies of his favour, higher 
 Joys, more confident satisfactions in his love, than ever they received 
 at any time before, and this, to their wonder, their high admiration, 
 m.aking the times which they were wont to fear most, to be times of 
 greatest consolation. This ob.servation I have grounded not upon one 
 or two instances, but coidd produce a cloud of witnesses for it. Enough 
 it is to check our forward fears of a future evil day, and to heal us of 
 a sighing distemper, while we afflict our.selves with such thoughts iis 
 these: If I have so many fears in health, how shall I be able to go 
 through the valley of the shadow of death ? 
 
 4. 1 have one thing more to add for these chscoveries of these 
 spiritual troubles, and that is to shew you fJie engines l»j which Satan 
 worlcs tJicm, and they are these two, sophistry and fears. 
 
 I. As to his sophistry, by which he argues the children of God 
 into a wrong apprehension of themselves, it is very great. He hath 
 a wonderful dexterity in framing arguments against their jieace ; he 
 hath variety of shrewd objections and subtle answers to the usual, 
 replies by which they seek to beat him off. There is not a fallacy by 
 which a cunning sopliister would seek to entangle his adversary in 
 disputation, but Satan would make use of it ; as I might particularly 
 shew you, if it were proper for a common auilitorj'. Though he hath 
 so much imiradence as not to blush at the most silly, contemptible 
 
 J 
 
Chap. 8. J satan's temptations. 267 
 
 reason that can be offered, notwitlistauding lie hath also so much wit 
 as to urge, though never true, yet always probable arguments. How 
 much he can prevail upon the beliefs of men, in cases relating to their 
 souls, may be conjectured by the success he hath upon the under- 
 standings of men, when he argues them into error, and makes them 
 believe a lie. We usually say, and that truly, that Satan cannot in 
 any case force us properly to consent ; yet considering the advantages 
 which he takes, and the ways he hath to prepare the hearts of men 
 for his impressions, and then his very great subtlety in disputing, we 
 may say that he can so order the matter that he will seldom miss of 
 his aim. It would be an endless work to gather up all the arguments 
 that Satan hath made use of to prove the condition or state of God's 
 cliilch-en to be bad. But that I may not altogether disappoint yom- 
 expectations in that thing, I shall present to your view Satan's usual 
 topics, the commonplaces or heads unto which all his arguments may 
 be reduced. And they are, 
 
 [1.] ScrqAure abused and 'perverted. His way is not only to 
 suggest that they are rmregcnerate, or under an evil frame of heart, 
 but to offer ]iroof that these accusations are true. And because ho 
 hath to do with them that profess a belief of Scriptures as the oracles 
 of God, he will fetch his proofs from thence, telling them that he will 
 evidence what he saith from Scripture. Thus sometimes he assaults 
 the weaker, unskilful sort of Christians, Thou art not a child of God ; 
 for they that are so are enlightened, translated from darkness, they 
 are the children of the light; but thou art a poor, ignorant, dark, 
 blind creature, and therefore no child of God. Sometimes he labours 
 to conclude the like from the infirmities of God's children, abusing to 
 this purpose that of 1 John iii. 9, ' He that is bom of God doth not 
 commit sin,' and ' he cannot sin, because he is born of God.' Thus 
 he urgeth it. Can anything be more plainly and fully asserted ? Is 
 not this scripture ? Canst thou deny this ? Then he pursues. But 
 thou sinnest often ; that is thine own complaint against thyself, thy 
 conscience also bearing witness to the truth of this accusation ; there- 
 fore thou canst be no child of God. Sometimes he plays upon words 
 that are used in lUvers senses — a fit engine for the devil to work by — 
 for what is true in one sense will be false in another ; and his arguing 
 is from that which is true to that which is false. I remember one 
 that was long racked with that of Rev. xxi. 8, ' The fearful and un- 
 believing,' &c., ' shall have their part in the lake which burns with 
 fire and brimstone.' From whence the party thus argued: The 
 proposition is true, because it is scripture, and I cannot deny the 
 assumption. ' Fearful I am, because I am doubtful of salvation ; and 
 unbelieving I am, for I cannot believe that I am regenerate, or in a 
 state of grace, and therefore I cannot avoid the conclusion.' To the 
 Siime purpose he disputes against some from 1 John iv. 18, ' There is 
 no fear in love : but perfect love casteth out fear ; but thou art fuU of 
 fears, therefore thou lovest not God.' Sometimes he makes use of 
 those scriptures that make the prevailing degree of our love and 
 respects to God above the world and the things of this life, to be the 
 characters of true grace ; as that of John, ' If any man love the world, 
 the love of the Father is not in liim ;' and that of Christ ' If a mau love 
 
268 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 anything more than me, he is not worthy of me : he that forsakes not 
 all for me cannot be my disciple,' &c. Then he urgeth upon them 
 their love of the world, and unwillingness to part with their estates ; 
 and so brings the conclusion upon them. In.stances might be infinite ; 
 but by these you may judge of the rest. Let us now cast our eye 
 upon his subtlety in managing his arguments against men. _ 1- He 
 grounds his argiuuents on Scripture, because that hath authority with 
 it, and the very troubled conscience hath a reverence to it. 2. He 
 always suits Ms scriptures, which he thus cites, to that wherein the 
 conscience is most tender. If there be anything that affords matter 
 of suspicion or fear, he will be sure to choose such an arrow out of the 
 quiver of Scripture as will directly hit the mark. 3. Though in the 
 citation of Scripture he always urgeth a sense which the Holy Ghost 
 never intended, yet there wilfbe always something in those scriptures 
 which he makes use of, which, in words at least, seem to favour his 
 conclusion ; as appears in the instances now given. For when he 
 would conclude a man not to be a child of God because of his igno- 
 rance, something of his argument is true: it may be the man is 
 sensible that his knowledge is but little, compared with the measures 
 which some others have ; or that he is at a loss or confused in many 
 doctrinal points of religion ; or hath but Uttle experience in many 
 practical cases, &c. Tiiis as it is true, so it is his trouble ; and whilst 
 he is poring upon his defect, Satan claps an arrest upon him of a far 
 greater debt than God chargcth upon him, and from scriptures that 
 speak of a total ignorance of the fundamentals of religion, as that 
 there is a God, that Christ Jesus is God and man, the Redeemer of 
 mankind by a satisfaction to divine justice, &c., or of a wilful igno- 
 rance of the worth of the proffer of the gospel, or its reality, which is 
 discovered in the refusal of the terms thereof, he concludes him to be 
 in a state of darkness ; whereas the ignorance which the man complains 
 of is not the ignorance which those scriptures intend. So in the next 
 instance, the sins which a child of God complains of are those of daily 
 incursion, which he labours and strives against ; but that committing 
 sin mentioned in the text hath respect to the Gnostics, who taught a 
 liberty in sinning, and fancied a righteousness consistent with the 
 avowed practice of iniquity. Hence doth John, 1 Epist. iii. 7, 
 directly face their opinion in these terms, ' Little children, let no man 
 deceive you ; he that doth righteousness is righteous ;' and, ' He that 
 is born of God' neither doth nor can avouch a liberty of sinning, it 
 being contrary to the principles of the new nature. So that the 
 miscai-riages of infirmity which the child of God laments in himself 
 are not the same with "that of the text, upon which Satan grounds 
 the accusation. The like may be said of the third instance, from 
 Eev. xxi. 18. The threatening there is against such a fear to lose 
 the comforts of the world, that they dare not believe the gospel to be 
 true, and accept it accordingly ; which is nothing to those fears and 
 doubtings that may be in a child of God, in reference to his happi- 
 ness. Thus in all the rest the fallacy lies in misapplying the Scripture, 
 to suit them to that wherein the conscience is tender, under a sense 
 which was never intended by them ; yet in another sense, the thing 
 charged upon the conscience is true. (4.) Yet is Satan so subtle, 
 
Chap. 8.] satan's temptations. 269 
 
 that when he disputes by such fallacious arguments, he chiefly endea- 
 vours to draw ofl" the defendant's eye and consideration from that part 
 of the argument wherein its weakness lies, which in this case is always 
 in the abuse of the scripture to a wrong sense. This he doth, partly 
 from the advantage which he hath from the reverence that they carry 
 to Scripture ; they believe it to be true, and are not willing to suspect 
 the sense ; and many are so weak that if they should, Satan is so 
 cunning that he can easily baffle them in any distinction that they 
 can make. And partly from the sense they have of that whereof they 
 are accused, they feel themselves so sore in that place, and for that 
 very end doth Satan direct his scripture to hit it, that they readily 
 take it for granted that the hinge of the controversy tm-ns upon it, 
 and that the whole dispute rests upon it. Now Satan having these 
 fair advantages, by a further improvement of them hides the weakness 
 of his argument. For, [1.] He takes that sense of the Scripture, in 
 which he misapplies it, for granted, and that with great confidence, 
 making as if there were no doubt there. [2.] He turns always that 
 part of the argument to them which they can least answer, pressmg 
 them eagerly with the matter of charge, which they are as ready to 
 confess as he is to accuse them of, and aggravating it very busily. 
 And because the unskilful have no other direction for the finding the 
 knot of the controversy than Satan's bustle — though he, like the lap- 
 wing, makes the greatest noise when he is furthest from his nest, on 
 purpose to draw them into a greater mistake — they look no further ; 
 and then, not being able to answer, they are soon cast, and striking in 
 with the conclusion against themselves, they multiply their sorrows, 
 and cry out of themselves as miserable. 
 
 [2.] Another piece of his sophistry is, the improving certain false 
 notions, wliich Christians of the lueaher sort have received, as proofs of 
 their unregeneracy or had condition. As there are vulgar errors con- 
 cerning natural things, so there are popular errors concerning spiritual 
 things. These mistakes in a great part have their original from the 
 fancies or misapprehensions of unskilful men. Some indeed have, it 
 may be, been preached and taught as truths, others have risen without 
 a teacher from mere ignorance, being the conclusions and surmises 
 which weak heads have framed to themselves, from the sayings or 
 practices of men, which have not been either so cleared from the 
 danger of mistake, or not so distinctly apprehended as was necessary. 
 These false inferences, once set on foot, are traditionally handed down 
 to others, and in time they gain among the simple the opinion of un- 
 doubted truths. Now, wherever Satan finds any of these that are fit 
 for his purpose — for to be sure whatever mistake we entertain, he will 
 at one time or other cast it in our way — he will make it the foundation 
 of an argument against him that hath received it, and that ^vith very 
 great advantage. For a falsehood in the premises will usually produce 
 a falsehood in the conclusion. And these falsehoods being taken for 
 granted, the devil is not put to the trouble to prove them. If then he 
 can but exactly fit them to something in the party which he cannot 
 deny, he forthwith carries the cause, and condemns him by his own 
 concessions, as out of his own mouth. 
 
 It is scarce possible to number the false notions which are already 
 
270 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 entertained among Cliristians relating to grace and conversion, much 
 less those that may afterward arise. But I shall mention some that 
 Satan frequently makes use of as gi-ounds of objection. 
 
 First, It is a common apprehension among the weaker sort, that 
 conversion is always accompanied with great fear and terror. This 
 is true in some, as hath been said, and though none of the preachers 
 of the gospel have asserted the universality of these greater measiu-es 
 of trouble, yet the people, taking notice that many speak of their deep 
 humiliations in conversion, and that several authors have set forth 
 the greatness of distress that some have been cast into on that occa- 
 sion — though without any intention of fixing this into a general rule — 
 have from thence supposed that all the converted are brought to their 
 comforts through the flames of hell. Upon this mistake the devil 
 disquiets those that have not felt these extreme agonies of sorrow in 
 themselves, and tells them that it is a sure sign that they are not yet 
 converted. Though it is easy for a man that sees the falsehood of the 
 notion to answer the argument, yet he that believes it to be true can- 
 not tell what to say, because he finds he never was under such troubles, 
 and now he begins to be troubled becaiisc he was not troubled before, 
 or, as he supposeth, not troubled enough. 
 
 Second, Another false notion is, that a convert can give an acconnt of 
 the time and manner of his conversion. This is true in some, as in Paul 
 and some others, whose change hath been sudden and remarkable, 
 though in many tliis is far otherwise ; who can better give account that 
 they are converted, than by what steps, degrees, and methods they were 
 brought to it. But if any of these receive the notion, they will pre- 
 sently find that Satan will turn the edge of it against them, and will 
 tell them that they are not converted, because they cannot nominate 
 the time when, nor the manner how, such a change was wrought. 
 
 Third, Some take it for granted that conversion is accompanied 
 with a remarkcdjle measure of gifts for iiraijer and exhortation ; and 
 then the devil objects it to them, that they are not converted, becaiLso 
 they cannot pray as others, or speak of the things of God so readily, 
 fluently, and affectionately as some others can. Thus the poor, weak 
 Christian is baffled for want of abilities to express himself to God and 
 men. 
 
 Fourth, False notions about the nature of faith are a sad stumhling- 
 hloch to some. Many supi)Ose that saving faith Ls a certain belief that 
 our sins are pardoned, and that we shall be saved, making faith and 
 assm-ance all one. This mistake is the deeper rooted in the minds of 
 men because some have directly taught so, and those men of estima- 
 mation, whose words are entertained with great reverence by well- 
 meaning Christians. For whom notwithstanding tliis may be jileaded 
 in excuse, that they have rather described faith in its height than in 
 its lowest measures. However it be, those that have no other under- 
 standing of the nature of faith can never answer Satan's argument, if 
 he takes them at any time at the advantage of fear or doubting : for 
 then he will dispute thus. Faith is a belief that sins are pardoned, 
 but thou dost not believe this, therefore thou hast no faith. Oh, 
 what numbers of poor doubting Christians have been distressed with 
 this argument ! 
 
 I 
 
Chap. 8.] satan's temptations. 271 
 
 Fifth, Some take it for a truth that groicth of grace is always 
 visible, and the 2jrogress remarkable. And then because they can 
 make no such discovery of themselves, the devil concludes their grace 
 to be counterfeit and hj^iocritical. 
 
 Sixth, Of like nature are some mistaken signs of true grace, as that 
 true grace fears God only for his goodness. And then if there be any 
 apprehension of divine displeasure impressed upon the heart, though 
 upon the necessary occasion of miscarriage, they, through the devil's 
 instigation, conclude that they are iinder ' a spirit of bondage,' and 
 their supposed grace not true, or not genuine at least, according to 
 that disposition which the New Testament will furnish a man withal. 
 It is also another mistaken sign of grace, that it doth direct a man to 
 love God singly for himself, without the least regard to his own sal- 
 vation ; for that, they think, is but self-love. Now, when a child of 
 God doth not see his love to God so distinct, but that his own salva- 
 tion is twisted with it, Satan gets advantage of him, and forceth him 
 to cast away his love as adidterate and selfish. Like to this mistake, 
 but of a higher strain, is that of some, that where grace is true, it is 
 so cai-ried forth to honour God, that the man that hath it can desire 
 God may be honoured though he should be damned. God doth not 
 put us to such questions as these, but upon supposition that this is 
 true, the grace of most men will be shaken by the objection that 
 Satan will make from thence ; he can and will presently put the mis- 
 taken to it. Canst thou say thou art willing to go to hell, that God 
 may be glorified ? If not, where is thy grace ? From such mistakes 
 as these he disputes against the holiness of the children of God ; and 
 it is impossible but that he should carry the cause against those who 
 grant these things to be true. Satan can undeniably shew them that 
 their hearts will not answer such a description of a convert or gracioiis 
 heart as these false notions will make. So long then as they hold 
 these notions they have no relief against Satan's conclusions ; no com- 
 fort can be administered till they be convinced that they have em- 
 braced mistakes for truths. And how difficult that will be in this 
 case, where the confidence of the notion is great, and tlie suspicion 
 strong, that the defect is only in the heart, hath been determined by 
 frequent experience already. 
 
 [3.] The thu-d piece of Satan's sophistry from whence he raiseth 
 false conclusions, is his misrepresentation of God. In this he directly 
 crosseth the design of the Scriptures, where God in his natme and 
 dealings is so set forth, that tlie weakest, the most afliicted and tossed, 
 may receive encouragement of acceptance, and of his fatherly care 
 over them in their saddest ti'ials. Yet withal, lest men should turn 
 his grace into wantonness, and embolden themselves in sin because of 
 his clemency, the Scriptures sometimes give us lively descriptions of 
 his anger against those that wickedly presume upon his goodness, and 
 continue so to do. Both these descriptions of God should be taken 
 together, as affording the only true representation of him. He is so 
 gentle to the humbled sensible sinner, that ' he will not break their 
 bruised reed, nor qiiench their smoking flax,' [Mat. xii. 20.] And so 
 careful of liealth that, for their recovery, he will not leave them alto- 
 gether unpuuLshed, nor suffer them to ruin themselves by a surfeit 
 
272 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 upon worldly comforts ; yet witli ' the froward he will shew himself fro- 
 ward,' Ps. xviii. 26. And 'as for such as turn aside unto their 
 crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of 
 iniquity,' Ps. cxxv. 5. He will ' put out the candle of the wicked,' 
 for he sets them in ' slippery places, &c., so that they are cast down 
 into destruction, and brought into desolation as in a moment ; tliey 
 are consumed with terrors,' [Ps. Ixxiii. 19.] Now Satan will some- 
 times argue against the children of God, and endeavour to break their 
 hopes by turning that part of the description of God against them, 
 which is intended for the dismounting of the confidence of the wicked, 
 and the bringing down of high looks. By tliis means he wrests the 
 description of God to a contrary end, and misrepresents God to a 
 trembling afflicted soul. This he doth, 
 
 Fhsi, By misrepresenting Jiis nature. Hero he reads a solemn 
 lecture of the holiness and justice of God, but always with reflection 
 upon the vileness and unworthiness of the person against whom he 
 intends his dart. And thus he argues: Lift up thine eyes to the 
 heavens, behold the brightness of God's glory : consider his imspotted 
 holiness, his infinite justice. The heavens are not clean in his sight ; how 
 mucli more abominable and filthy tlien art thou ! His eyes are pure, 
 he cannot wink at nor approve of the least sin ; how canst thou then 
 imagine, except thou be intolerably im])udent, that he hath taken such 
 an unclean wretch into his favour ? He is a jealous God, and will by 
 no means acquit the guilty ; canst thou then with any show of reason 
 conclude thyself to be his child ? He beholds the wicked afar off ; he 
 shuts out their prayer ; he laughs at their calamity ; he mocks when 
 their fear comes; and therefore thou hast no cause to think that he 
 will hear thy cry, though thou shouldst make many prayers. It can- 
 not be supposed that he will incline his ear. It is his express deter- 
 mination, that if any man regard iniquity in his heart, the Lord will 
 not hear his prayer. This, and a great deal more will he say. And 
 while Satan speaks but at this rate, we may call him modest, because 
 his allegations are in themselves true, if they were applied rightly. 
 Sometimes he will go further, and plainly belie God, speaking in- 
 credible falsehoods of him : but because these properly appertain to 
 a higher sort of troubles, of which I am next to speak, I shall not 
 here mention them. However, if he stops here, he saith enough 
 against any servant of God that carries a high sense of his unworthi- 
 ness. For being thus brought to the view of these astonishing attributes, 
 he is dashed out of countenance, and can think no other, but that it 
 is very unlikely that so unworthy a sinner shoidd have any interest in 
 so holy a God. Thus the de^dl affrights him off, turning the wrong 
 side of the description of God to him ; and in the meantime hiding 
 that part of it that speaks God's wonderful condescensions, infinite 
 compassions, unspeakable readiness to accept the humble, broken- 
 hearted, weary, heavy-laden sinner, that is prostrate at his footstool 
 for pardon. All which are on purpose declared in the description of 
 God's nature, to obviate this temptation, and to encourage the weak. 
 
 Second, He misrepresents God in his providence. If God chastise 
 his children by any affliction, Satan perversely wrests it to a bad con- 
 struction, especially if the afiliction be sharp, or seem to be above 
 
Chap. 8.J satan's temptations. 273 
 
 their strength, or frequent, and most of all if it seem to cross their 
 hopes and prayers ; for then he ai-gues, These are not the chastise- 
 ments of sons. God indeed will visit their transgressions with rods, 
 but his dealing with thee is plainly of another nature, for he ' breaketh 
 thee with his tempests.' And whereas he corrects his sons that serve 
 him in measure, thou art bowed down with thy trouble to distress and 
 despair : but he will lay no more upon his sons than they are able to 
 bear. He will not always chide his servants ; but thou art afflicted 
 every morning. And besides, if thou wert pure and upright, surely 
 now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy right- 
 eousness prosperous : for to his sons he saith, ' Call upon me iu the 
 day of trouble, I will deliver thee ; and thou shalt glorify me,' Ps. 1. 
 15. Hence comes the complaint of many, that they are not regenerated, 
 because they think God deals not with them as with others. Oh, say 
 they, we know God chastiseth 'every son whom he receiveth ;' but our 
 case is every way different from theii'S, our troubles are plagues, not 
 rods ; our cry is not heard, our prayers disregarded, our strength 
 faileth us, our hearts fret against the Lord, so that not ouly the 
 nature and quality of oi;r affections, but the frame of our heart under 
 them, in not cndming the burden, — which is the great character 
 of the chastisement of sons, Heb. xii. 7, — plainly evinceth that we 
 are imder God's hatred, and are not his children. This objection, 
 though it might seem easy to be answered by those that are not 
 at present concerned, yet it will prove a difficult business to those 
 that are under the smart of afflictions. How much a holy and 
 wise man may be gravelled by it, you may see in Ps. Ixsii., where 
 the prophet is put to a grievous i3lunge upon this very objection ; 
 ver. 14, 'All the day long have I been plagued, and chastised every 
 morning.' 
 
 And yet in all this Satan doth but play the sophister, working upon 
 the advantages which the nature of the affliction and the temper of 
 men's hearts do afford him. For, 1. Affiictions are a great depth, one 
 of the secrets of God, so that it is hard to know what God intends by 
 them. 2. The end of the Lord is not discovered at first, but at some 
 distance, when the fruits thereof begin to appear. 3. The mind of 
 the afflicted cannot always proceed regularly in maldng a judgment 
 of God's design upon them : especially at first, when it is stounded by 
 the assault, and all things in confusion ; faith is to seek, patience 
 awanting, and love staggering. After it hath recollected itself, and 
 attained any calmness to fit it for a review of the ways of God and of 
 the heart, it is better enabled to fix some grounds of hope : Lam. iii. 
 19-21, ' This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.' 4. Afflic- 
 tions have a light and a dark side, and their appearances are according 
 to om- posture in which we view them : as some pictures, which if we 
 look upon them one way, they appear to be angels, if another way, 
 they seem devils. 5. Some men in affliction do only busy themselves 
 in looking upon the dark side of affliction. Their disposition, either 
 through natural timorousness or strong impressions of temptation, is 
 only to mecUtate terrors, and to surmise evils. These men out of the 
 cross can draw nothing but the wormwood and the gall, while others, 
 that have another prospect of them, observe mixtures of mercy and 
 
'274 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 and do melt into submission and thankfulness. These, 
 considered together, are a great advantage to Satan in disputing against 
 the peace of God's afflicted children, and it often falls out, that as he 
 doth misrepresent God's design, so do they, urged by temptation, upon 
 that account misjudge themselves. 
 
 Third, He also misrepresents God in the iuorks of Jus Spirit. If 
 God withdraw his countenance, or by his Spirit signifies his displea- 
 sure to the consciences of any, if he permit Satan to molest them 
 with spiritual temptations, presently Satan takes occasion to put his 
 false and malignant interpretation upon all ; he tells them that God's 
 liiding liis face is his casting them off; that the threateniugs signified 
 to their conscience are plain declarations that their present state is 
 wrath and darkness ; that Satan's molestations by temptations shew 
 them to be yet under his power ; that the removal of their former 
 peace, joy, and sensible delight which they had in the ways of God is 
 beyond contradiction an evitlenco that God liath no delight in them, 
 nor they in him ; that their faitii was but that of temjioraries, their 
 joy but that of liypocrites, which is only for a moment. How often 
 have I heard Christians complaining thus : We cannot be in a state 
 of grace ; our consciences lie under the sense of God's displeasure, 
 they give testimony against us, and we know that testimony is true, 
 for we feel it. It is true, time was when we thought we had a delight 
 in hearing, praying, meditating, but now all is a burden to us, we 
 can relish nothing, we can profit nothing, we can remember .nothing. 
 Time was when we thouglit we had assurance, and our hearts rejoiced 
 in us ; sometimes we have tliought our hearts had as much of peace 
 and comfort as tliey could hold, now all is vanished, and we are under 
 sad fears ; if God had had a favour to us, would he iiave dealt thus 
 with us? Tims are they cheated into a belief that they never had 
 any grace ; they take all for granted that is urged against them ; 
 they cannot consider God's design in liiding his face, nor yet can they 
 see how grace acts in them under these complainings ; how they 
 express their love to God in their desires and pantings after liim, in 
 their bewailing of his absence, in abhorring and condemning them- 
 selves, &c. ; but their present feeling — and an argument from sense is 
 very strong — bears down all before it. 
 
 Thus doth Satan frame his arguments from misrepresentations of 
 God, whicli, thougli a right view of God would easily answer them, 
 yet how difficult it is for a person in an hour of temptation to di.spel, 
 by a right apprehension of the ways of the holy God, doth abundantly 
 appear from Ps. Ixxvii., where the case of Asaph, or whoever else he 
 was, doth inform us — 1. That it is usual for Satan, for the disquieting 
 of the hearts of God's children, to offer a false i:>rospect of God. 2. 
 That this overwhelms their hearts with grief, ver. 3. 3. That the 
 more they persist in the prosecution of this method, under the mists of 
 prejudice, they see tlie less, being apt to misconstrue everything in 
 God to their disadvantage, ver. 3, ' I remembered God, and was 
 troubled.' 4. The reason of all that trouble lies in this, that they can 
 only conclude wrath and desertion from God's carriage toward them. 
 5. That till they look upon God in another method, and take up better 
 thoughts of him and his providences, even while they carry the appear- 
 
Chap. 8.] satan's temptations. 275 
 
 ance of severity, they can expect no ease to tlieir complainings. For 
 before the prophet quitted himself of his trouble, he was forced to 
 acknowledge his mistake, ver. 10, in the misconstruction he made of 
 his dealings, and to betake himself to a resolve of entertaining better 
 thoughts of God, ver. 7. His interrogation, ' Will the Lord cast off 
 for ever ?' &c., shews indeed what he did once think, being misled by 
 Satan, but withal that he would never do so again. ' Will the Lord 
 cast off for ever ?' is not here the voice of a despairing man, but of 
 one that, through better information, hath rectified his judgment, and 
 now is resolved strongly to hold the contrary to what he thought be- 
 fore : as if he should say. It is not possible that it should be so ; he will 
 not cast off for ever, and 1 will never entertain such perverse thoughts 
 of God any moi-e. 6. But before they can come to this, it will cost 
 them some pains and serious thoughts. It is not easy to break these 
 fetters, to answer this argimient, but they that will do so must appeal 
 from their present sense to a consideration of the issues of these deal- 
 ings upon other persons, or upon themselves at other times ; for the 
 prophet, ver. 5, ' considered the days of old, and the years of ancient 
 times ;' and ver. 6, he also made use of his own experience, calling 
 to remembrance that after such dealings as these, God by liis return 
 of favour gave him ' songs in the night.' 
 
 [4.] Another common head from whence this great disputant doth 
 fetch his arguments against the good condition and state of God's 
 servants, is their sin and miscarriages. Here I shall observe two or 
 three things in the general concerning this, before I shew how he 
 draws his false conclusions from thence. As, 
 
 Fi7'st, That with a kind of feigned ■ingenuity'^ he will grant a dif- 
 ference betwixt sin and sin— betwixt sins reigning and not reigning, 
 sins mortified and not mortified ; betwixt the sins of the converted 
 and the unconverted ; and upon this supposition he usually proceeds. 
 He doth not always, except in case of great sins, argue want of re- 
 generation from one sin ; for that argument, This is a sin, therefore 
 thou art not a convert, would be easily answered by one that knows 
 the saints have their imperfections ; but he thus deals with men : 
 These sins whereof thou art guilty are reigning sins, such as are in- 
 consistent with a converted estate, and therefore thou art yet unre- 
 generated. 
 
 Second, He produceth usually, for the backing of his arguments, such 
 scriptures as do truly represent the state of men unsanctified ; but then 
 his labour is to make the parties to appear suitable to the description 
 of the unregenerate. And to that purpose he aggravates all their 
 faiUngs to them ; he makes severe inquiries after all their sins, and if 
 he can charge them with any notorious crime, he lays load upon that, 
 still concluding that a regenerate person doth not sin at such a rate as 
 they do. 
 
 Third, This is always a very difficult case ; it is not easy to answer 
 the objections that he will urge from hence ; for, (1.) If there be the 
 real guilt of any grievous or remarkable scandal which he objects, 
 the accused jjarty, though never so knowing, or formerly never so 
 holy, will be hardly put to it to determine anything in favour of his 
 
 ' ' Ingenuousness.' — G. 
 
276 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 estate. [1.] The fact cannot be denied. [2.] The Scripture nominates 
 particularly such offences as render a man unfit for the kingdom of 
 God. [3.] Whether in such cases grace be not wholly lost, is a 
 question in which all are not agreed. [4.] However, it will be very 
 doubtful whether such had ever any grace. The Scripture hath given 
 no note of difference to distinguish betwi.Kt a regenerate and unre- 
 generate person in the acts ofnuu'der, adultery, fornication, &c. It 
 doth not say the regenerate commits an act of gross iniquity in this 
 manner, the unregenerate in that, and that there is a visible distinc- 
 tion betwixt the one and the other, relating to these very acts. And 
 whatever may be supposed to be the inward workings of grace in the 
 soul, while it is reduced to so narrow a compass as a spark of fire raked 
 up in ashes, yet the weight of present guilt upon the soul, when it is 
 chai-ged home, will always poise it toward the worst apprehensions 
 that can be made concerning its state. Former acts of holiness will 
 be disowned under the notion of hypocrisy ; or if yet owned to be true, 
 they will be apt to think that true grace may be utterly lost. Present 
 acts of grace they can see none, so that only the after-acts of repent- 
 ance can discover that there is yet a being and life of grace in them, 
 and till then they can never answer Satan's argument from great sins. 
 But, (2.) In the u.?ual infirmities of God's children the case is not so 
 easy. For the Scri])turcs give instances of some whose conversations 
 could not be taxed with any notorious evils ; who, thougli they were 
 not ' far from the kingdom of God,' yet were not ' of the kingdom of 
 God,' [Mark xii. 34 :] a freedom then from great sins is not pleadable as 
 an undoubted mark of grace. And if others that are not converted may 
 have no greater infirmities than some that arc, the difference betwixt 
 the one and the other must depend upon the secret jiowers of grace 
 giving cheek to these infirmities and striving to mortify them ; and 
 this will be an intricate question. The ajiostle, Kom. vii. 15, notes 
 indeed three differences betwixt the regenerate and unregenerate in 
 this case of sins of infirmity. [1.] Hatred of the sin before the com- 
 mission of it: 'What I hate, that do I.' [2.] Keluctancy in the act: 
 ' What I would, that do I not.' [3.] Disallowance after the act : ' That 
 which I do, I allow not.' Yet seeing natural light will afford some 
 appearances of disallowance and reluctancy, it will still admit of 
 further debate whether the princii>lcs, motives, degrees, and success 
 of these strivings be such as may discover the being and power of real 
 gi-ace. 
 
 While Satan doth insist upon arguments from the sins of believers 
 for the proof of an unconverted estate, he only aims to make good 
 tliis point, that their sins are reigning sins, and consequently that they 
 cannot be in so good a condition as they are willing to thinkv And 
 to make their sins to carry that appearance, his constant course is to 
 aggravate them all he can. This is his design, and the means by 
 which he would effect it. His great art in this case is to heighten 
 the sins of the regenerate. This he doth many ways. As, 
 
 (1.) From the nature of the sin committed, and the manner of its 
 commission ; and this he chiefly labours, because his arguments from 
 hence are more probable, especially considering what he fixeth upon 
 usually is that which may most favour his conclusion : as, [1.] If any 
 
Chap. 8.] satan's temptations. 277 
 
 have fallen into a great sin which a child of God doth but rarely 
 commit, then he argues against him thus : They that are in Christ do 
 mortify the flesh with the affections and lusts, they cast away the 
 works of darkness ; and these works of the flesh are manifest, Gal. 
 V. 19, ' Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, 
 witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations,' &c. ' Because of these 
 things Cometh the wi-ath of God upon the children of disobedience.' 
 ' Be not therefore partakers with them ;' ' have no fellowship with the 
 unfruitful works of darkness,' Eph. v. 6, 11. But thou hast not put 
 these away, nor mortified tliem, as thy present sin doth testify, there- 
 fore thou art no child of God. [2.] If any do more than once or 
 twice relapse into the same sin, suppose it be not so highly scandal- 
 ous as the former, then he pleads from thence that they are back- 
 sliders in heart, that they have broken their covenant with God, that 
 they are in bondage to sin. Here he urgeth, it may be, that of 2 Pet. 
 ii. 19, 20, ' Of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in 
 bondage. . . . The dog is returned to his vomit.' [3.] Or if any have 
 by any offence more remarkably gone against their knowledge or 
 violated their conscience, then he tells them that they sin wilfully, 
 that they reject the counsel of the Lord, that they are theseryants of 
 sin ; ' for his servants ye are to wliom ye obey,' Rom_. vi. 16 ; ' and 
 that where there is grace, though they may fall, yet it is still against 
 their wills,' &c. [4.] If he have not so clear ground to manage any 
 of the former charges against tliem, then he argues from the frequency 
 of their various miscarriages. Here he sets their sins in order before 
 them, rakes them all together, that he may oppress them by a multi- 
 tude, when he cannot prevail by an accusation from one or two acts ; 
 and his pleading here is. Thou art nothing but sin, thy thoughtsare 
 evil continually, thy words are vain and unprofitable, thy actions 
 foolish and wicked, and this in all thy employments, ui all relations, 
 at all times. What duty is there that is not neglected or defiled ? 
 what sin that is not some way or other committed ? &c. Can such a 
 heart as thine be the temple of the Holy Ghost ? For the temple of 
 the Lord is holy, and his people are washed and cleansed, &c. 
 
 These are all of them strong objections, and frequently made use of 
 by Satan, as the complaints of the servants of God do testify, who are 
 made thus to except against themselves: If our sins were but the 
 usual failings of the converted, we might comfort ourselves, but they 
 are great, they are backslidings, they are against conscience, they are 
 many ; what can we judge but that we have hitherto deceived our- 
 selves, and that the work of conversion is yet to do ? _ The objections 
 that are from great sins, or from recidivationi or wilful violation of 
 conscience, do usually prevail for some time against the best that are 
 chargeable with them ; they cannot determine that they are converted, 
 though they might be so, so long as they cannot deny the matter of 
 fact upon which the accusation is grounded.^ Till their true repent- 
 ance give them some light of better information, they are in the dark, 
 and cannot answer the argument. Jonah being imprisoned in the 
 whale's belly for his stubborn rebellion, at first concluded himself a 
 castaway : chap. ii. 4, ' Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight.' 
 • ' KcUipsc.'— G. 
 
278 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 Neither could he thiuk better of himself till, upon his repentance, he 
 recovered his faith and hope of pardon : ' Yet will I look again toward 
 thy holy temple.' Yea, those objections that are raised from the mul- 
 titude and frequency of lesser failings, though they may be answered 
 by a child of God while his heart is not overshadowed with the mists 
 and clouds of temptation, yet when he is confu.sed with violent com- 
 motions within, his heart will fail liim, and till he can bring himself 
 to some composure of spirit, he hatii not the boldness to assert his 
 integrity. David was gravelled with this objection: Ps. xl. 12, ' Innu- 
 merable evils have compassed me about, mine iniquities have taken 
 hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up ; they are more than 
 the hairs on my head, therefore my heart faileth me.' 
 
 (2.) He aggravates the sinfulness of our condition from llie fre- 
 quency and violence of his own temptations. It is a usual thing for 
 him to give young converts incessant onsets of temptation to sin. 
 Most commonly he works upon their natural constitution ; he blows 
 the coals that are not yet quite extinguished, and that have greater 
 forwardness, from their own inclination, to kindle again, as lust and 
 passion. The first motions of the one, though it go no further than 
 those offers and risings up in the heart, and is there damped and kept 
 down by the opposing principle of grace ; and the occasional out- 
 breakings of the other, wiiich he provokes by a diligent preparation of 
 occasion from without, and violent incitations from within, furnish hmi 
 with sufficient matter for his intended accu.sations ; and sometimes- 
 being, as it were, wholly negligent of the advantages which our tempers 
 give him, or not being able to find any such forwardness to these evils 
 in our constitution as may more eminently serve his ends— he satisfies 
 himself to molest us with earnest motions to any sins indifferently; 
 and all this to make us believe that sin is not crucified in us, which 
 some are more apt to believe, because they observe tlieir temptations 
 to these sins to importune them more, and with greater vehemency, 
 than they were wont to do before ; and this doth yet the more astonish 
 them, because they had liigh expectations that, after their conversion, 
 Satan would fall before them, and tlieir temptations abate ; that tiidr 
 natures should be altered, and their natural inclinations to these sins 
 wholly cease ; but now, finding the contrary, they are ready to cry 
 out — especially when Satan violently bufiets them with this objection — 
 We are yet in our sins, and under the dominion thereof ; neither can 
 it be that we are converted, because we find sin more active and 
 stirring than formerly ; it is not then surely mortified in us, but lively 
 and strong. Though in this ca,se it be very plain that temptations 
 are only strong, and sin weak, and that grace is faithfully acting its 
 part against the flesh, arguing, not that grace is so very weak, but 
 that Satan is more busy than ordinary. The sins are not more than 
 formerly, but the light that discovers' them more is greater, and the 
 conscience that resents the temptation is more tender. Yet all this 
 doth not at first give ease to the fears that are now raised up in 
 the mind. They find sin working in them; their expectations of 
 attaining a greater conquest on a sudden, and with greater ease, are 
 disappointed, and tiie desire of having much makes a man think him- 
 self poor ; and withal they commonly labour under so much ignorance 
 
Chap. 8.] satan's tjemptatioxs. 279 
 
 or perverse credulity, that they conclude they consent to everything 
 which they are tempted to, insomuch that it is long before these clouds 
 do vanish, and the afflicted brought to a right understanding of them- 
 selves. 
 
 (3.) From some remarkable appearances of God doth Satan aggra- 
 vate our sinful condition. If God shew any notable act of power, 
 he makes the beams of that act reflect upon our unworthiness with a 
 dazzling light. When Peter saw the power of Christ in sending a 
 great multitude of fishes into his net, having laboured all night before 
 and caught nothing, it gave so deep an impression to the conviction of 
 his vileness, that "he was ready to put Christ from him, as being 
 altogether unfit for his blessed society : ' Depart,' saith he, ' from me, 
 for I am a sinful man,' [Luke v. 8.] If God discover the glorious 
 splendour of his holiness, it is enough to make the holiest saints, such 
 as Job and Isaiah, to cry out they are undone, being ' men of unclean 
 lips,' Isa. vi. 5 ; and to ' abhor themselves in dust and ashes,' Job 
 xUi. 6. The like may be said of any discovery of the rest of the 
 glorious attributes of God. Of all which Satan makes this advantage, 
 that the parties tempted should have so deep a consideration of their 
 unworthiness as might induce them to believe— as if it were by a 
 voice from heaven— that God prohibits them any approaches to him, 
 and that they have nothing to do to take God's name within their 
 mouths. And though these remarkable discoveries of God, either by 
 his acts of power and providence, or by immediate impressions upon 
 the soul, in the height of contemplation, have ordinarily great effects 
 upon the hearts of his children, but not of long continuance ; yet 
 where they strike in with other arguments, by which they were already 
 staggered as to their interest in God, they mightily strengthen them, 
 and are taken for no less than God's own determination of the ques- 
 tion against them. 
 
 But this is not all the use that Satan makes of them; for from 
 hence he sometimes hath the opportunity to raise new accusations 
 agamst them, and to tax them with particular crimes, which, in a par- 
 ticular manner, seem to prove them unregenerate. For wlaat would 
 seem to be a clearer character of a man dead in trespasses and sins 
 than a hard heart, that can neither be sensible of judgments nor 
 mercies ? This he sometimes chargeth upon the children of God, 
 from the great disproportion that they find in themselves betwixt the 
 little sense that they seem to have— and that which is disproportion- 
 able, they reckon to be nothing — and the vast greatness of God's 
 mercy or holiness. I have observed some to complain of utter 
 unthankfulness and insensibleness of heart— from thence conclucUng 
 confidently against themselves— because, when God hath remarkably 
 appeared'for them in deliverances from dangers, or in unexpected 
 kindnesses, they could not render a thankfulness that carried any pro- 
 portion to the mercy. While they were in the highest admiration of 
 the Idndness, saying, ' What shall I render to the Lord ?' they were 
 quite out of the sight of their own sense and feeling, and thought they 
 returned nothing at all, because they returned nothing equivalent 
 to what they had received. Others I have known, who, from the 
 confusion and amazement of their spirit, when they have been over- 
 
280 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 whelmed with troubles, have positively determined themselves to be 
 senseless, stupid, past feeling, hardened to destruction ; when, in both 
 cases, any might have seen the working of their hearts to be an 
 apparent i contradiction to what Satan charged them withal. For 
 they were not unapprehensive either of mercies or judgments ; but, on 
 the contrary, had only a greater sense of them than they were able io 
 
 (4.) To make full measure, Satan doth sometimes aggravate the 
 miscarriages of those whom he intends to accuse, hy comparing their 
 lives and actions ivith the holy lives of some eminent servants of God, 
 especially such as they have only heard of aiid not known personally. 
 For so they have only their N^rtues represented, mthout their failings. 
 Here Satan takes a liberty of declaiming against them : and though 
 he could never sjiarc a saint a good word out of respect, yet that 
 others might be put out of heart and hope, he will commend the holi- 
 ness, strictness, care, constancy of dead saints to the skies. And then 
 he queries, Ai't thou such a one ? Canst thou say thou art anything 
 like them, for a heavenly heart, a holy life, a contempt of the world, 
 a zeal for God, for good works, for patient sufiering? &c. All this 
 while not a word of their weaknesses. These, saitli he, were the ser- 
 vants of the Most High : their examples thou shouldst follow, if thou 
 expectest their crown. Had they any more holiness than they needed ? 
 And if thou hast not so nmch, thou art nothing. What can humility, 
 modesty, and sense of guilt speak in such a case ? They go away 
 mourning, their fears increase upon them, and what God hath set be- 
 fore them, in the examples of his servants, for the increase of their 
 diligence, they take to be as a witness against them, to prove them 
 unconverted. 
 
 [5.] The last part of Satan's sophistry is to lessen their grcwes, that 
 so he may altogether deny them. In this lie proceeds upon such scrip- 
 tures as do assert the fruits of the Spirit, and urgeth for his foundatipn 
 that none are the children of God but such as ' are led by the Spirit,' 
 [Rom. viii. 14 ;] and that he that hath ' not the Spirit of Christ is none 
 of his,' [Rom. viii. 9.] The necessity of faith, love, patience, humility, 
 with the fruits of these and other graces, he presseth ; but still in 
 order to a demonstration, as he pretends, that such are not to be found 
 in those whose gracious state he calls into question, and consequently 
 that they are not the children of God. 
 
 The rule by which he manageth himself in tliis dispute is this : 
 The more giaces are heightened in the notions, that must give an 
 account of their nature and beings, tlio more difficult it will be to find 
 out their reality in the practice of them. His design then hath these 
 two parts: 1. He heightens gi-ace in the notion, or abstract, all he 
 can ; 2. He lessens it in the concrete, or practice, as much as is pos- 
 sible, that it may appear a very nullity, a shadow and not a substance. 
 I shall speak a little of both. 
 
 (1.) As to the first part of his design, he hath many ways by which 
 
 he aggravates grace in the notion. We may be sure, if it lie in his 
 
 way, "he will not stick to give false definitions of grace, and to tell 
 
 men that it is what indeed it is not. He is a liar, and in any case 
 
 ' ' Evi.icut;-G. 
 
Chap. 8.] satan's temptations. 281 
 
 whatsoever he will lie for his advantage, if he have hope his lie may 
 pass for current ; but he cannot always use a palpable cheat in this 
 matter, where the nature of any grace is positively determined in 
 Scripture, except it be -wdth the ignorant, or where the nature of grace 
 is made a business of controversy among men. I will not make con- 
 jectures what Satan may possibly say in belying the nature of grace, 
 to make it seem to be quite another thing than it is ; but shall rather 
 shew you the more usual plausible ways of deceit which herein he 
 exerciseth ; and they are these that follow : — 
 
 First, As the same graces have different degrees in several persons, 
 and these different degrees have operations suitable : some acts being 
 stronger, some weaker, some more perfected and ripened, others more 
 imperfect and immature ; so when Satan comes to describe grace, he 
 sets it forth in its highest excellencies and most glorious attainments. 
 You shall never observe him to speak of graces at their lowest pitch, 
 except where he is carrying on a design for presumption, and then he 
 tells men that any wishing or woulding is grace ; and every formal 
 ' Lord forgive me ' is true repentance ; but, on the contrary, he offers 
 the highest reach of it that any saint on earth ever arrived at, as 
 essentially necessary to constitute its being; and tells them if they 
 have not that, they have nothing. Let us see it in the particulars. 
 
 [1.] Grace sometimes hath its extraordinaries, as I may call them. 
 We have both precept and example of that nature in Scripture, which 
 ai'e propounded, not as the common standard by which the being and 
 reality of grace is to be measured, but as patterns for imitation, to 
 provoke us to emulation, and to quicken us in pressing forward. Of 
 this natme I reckon to be the example of Moses, desiring to be blotted 
 ' out of God's book,' [Exod. xxxii. 32,] whatever he meant by it, in 
 his love to the people ; and the like of the apostle Paul, wishing him- 
 self to be ' accursed from Christ for his brethren's sake,' [Kom. ix. 3.] 
 Of this nature also we have many precepts; as, 'rejoice evermore,' 
 [1 Thes. V. 16,] of 'waiting and longing for the appearance of Christ,' 
 [2 Thes. iii. 5,] of 'rejoicing when we fall into divers temptations,' [James 
 i. 2,] and many more to this purpose, all which are heights of grace 
 that do rarely appear among the servants of God at any time. 
 
 [2.] Grace hath sometimes its specicd assistances. This is when 
 the occasion is extraordinary ; but the grace befitting that occasion is 
 promised in ordinary, and ordinarily received. When God calls any 
 to such occasions, though compared with that measure of grace which 
 usually is acted by the children of God upon ordinary occasions, it is 
 a special assistance of the Spirit. Of this nature is that boldness which 
 the servants of Christ receive, to conftjss Christ before men in times of 
 persecution, and to die for the truth, with constancy, courage, and joy. 
 
 [3.] There are also singular eminences of grace, which some diligent, 
 careful, and choice servants of God attain unto, far above what the 
 ordinary sort arrive at. Enoch had liis conversation so much in 
 heaven, that he was said to ' walk with God,' [Gen. v. 24.] David's 
 soul was often full of delight in God. Some in the height of assm-ance 
 rejoice in God with 'joy unspeakable, and full of glory,' [1 Pet. i. 8.] 
 Moses was eminent in meekness. Job in patience, the apostle Paul in 
 zeal for promoting the gospel, &c. Now Satan, when he comes to 
 
282 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 question the graces of men, he presents them with these measures ; 
 and if they fall short, as ordinarily they do, he concludes them altoge- 
 ther graceless. 
 
 Second, Satan also can do much to heighten the ordinary toork 
 and usiccd fruits of every grace. His art herein lies in two things. 
 [1.] He gives us a description of grace as it is in itself abstracted 
 from the weakness, dulness, distraction, and infirmities, that are 
 concomitant with it, as it comes forth to practice. He brings to our 
 view grace in its glory, and without the spots by which our weakness 
 and Satan's temptation do much disfigure it. [2.] He presents us 
 with grace in its ivhole body, completed with all its members, faith, 
 love, hope, patience, meekness, gentleness, &c. From both these he 
 sets before those whom he intends to discourage a complete copy of 
 an exact holy Christian ; as if every true Cliristian were to be found 
 in the constant practice of all these graces at all limes, on all occa- 
 sions, and that without weakness or infirmity. Whereas indeed a 
 true Christian may be found sometimes evidently practising one grace, 
 and weak, or at present defective, in another. And sometimes the 
 best of his graces is so interrupted with temjitation, so clogged with 
 infirmity, that its workings are scarce discernible. 
 
 Third, He hath a policy in heightening those attainments and work- 
 ings of sold, in things relating to God and religion, which are to be 
 found in temporary believers ; which, because they sometimes appear 
 in the unconverted as well as in the converted, thougli all uncon- 
 verted men have them not, are therefore called common graces. This 
 he doth that he may from tlicnce take occasion to disprove the real 
 graces of the servants of God ; of whom ' better things, and things 
 that accompany salvation,' that is, special saving graces, are to be 
 expected, Heb. vi. 9. His way herein is, [1.] To shew the utmost 
 bravery of these common graces; how much men may have, how 
 far they may go, and yet at last come to nothing. For_ gifts, 
 they may have powerful eloquence, prophecy, understanding of 
 mysteries, faith of miracles. For good works, they may give their 
 estates to relieve the poor. In moral virtues they may be excel- 
 lent, their illumination may be great; they may taste the 'good 
 word of God, and the powers of the world to come,' Heb. vi. 4. 
 Their conversation may be ' without offence,' and their conscience 
 honest, as Paul's was before his conversion. [2.] With these heights 
 of common grace, he compares the loivest degree of special grace. 
 And because the principles, motives, and ends whicli constitute the 
 difference betwixt these two, are, as it were, underground, more re- 
 mote from sense and observation, and oftentimes darkened by tempta- 
 tion; he takes the boldness to deny the truth of grace, upon the 
 account of the small, inconsiderable appearance that it makes, con- 
 fidently affirming that special grace must of necessity make a far 
 greater outward show than these common graces. In what manner, 
 and to what end, Satan doth heighten grace in the abstract, we have 
 seen. It remains that we discover — 
 
 (2.) How he doth lessen grace in the concrete. This is the centre 
 of his design. He would not extol grace so much, but that he hopes 
 thereby to ' condemn the generation of the just,' and to make it ajipear 
 
Chap; 8.] satan's tejiptations. 283 
 
 that there are few or none that are truly gracious. When he comes 
 to apply all this to the condition of any child of God, he deals 
 treacherously : and his cunning consists of three parts : — 
 
 [1.] He compares the present state of any one toith luhom he deals, 
 to the highest attainments and excellencies of grace ; allowing nothing 
 to be grace, but what will answer these descriptions he had already 
 given. Here the tempter doth apparently make use of a 'false 
 balance, and a bag of deceitful weights.' For thus he puts them to 
 it: Thou sayest thou hast grace, but thou dost altogether deceive 
 thyself, for indeed thou hast none at all. Compare thyself with others 
 that were in Scripture noted as undoubtedly gracious, and thou wilt 
 see that in the balance thou art lighter than vanity. Abraham had 
 faith, but he believed above hope. Moses and Paul had love, but 
 they manifested it by preferring their brethren's happiness before their 
 own. David was a saint, but he had a heart ravished with God. 
 The martyrs spoken of in Heb. xi., they could do wonders ; they were 
 above fears of men, above the love of the world ; they loved not their 
 lives to the death : how joyfully took they the spoiling of their goods ! 
 how courageously did they suffer the sharpest torments ! Besides, 
 saith he, all the children of God are described as sanctified through- 
 out, abounding with all fruits of righteousness ; their faith is work- 
 ing ; their love still laborious ; their hope produceth constant patience : 
 what art thou to these ? That in thee which thou callest faith, or 
 love, or patience, &c., it is not fit to be named with these. Thy fears 
 may tell thee that thou hast no faith, and so may thy works ; thy 
 murmurings under God's hand is evidence sufficient that thou hast no 
 patience. The little that thou dost for God, or especially woiddest do, 
 if it were not for thy own advantage, may convince thee that thou 
 hast no love to him ; thy weariness of services and duties, thy con- 
 fessed unprofitableness under all, do proclaim thou hast no delight in 
 God nor in his ways. He further adds, for the confirmation of all 
 this : Consider how far temporaries may go, that shall never go to 
 heaven. Thou art far short of them ; thy gifts, tliy works, thy virtues, 
 thy illumination, thy conversation, thy conscientiousness, are nothing 
 like theirs : how is it possible then that such a one as thou, a pitiful, 
 contemi^tible creature, shouldest have anything of true grace in thee ? 
 Thus he makes the ajjplication of all the discovery of grace which he 
 presented to them. Though he needs not urge all these things to 
 every one, any one of these particulars frequently serves the turn. 
 When a trembling heart compares itself with these instances, it turns 
 its back, yields the argument, and is ashamed of its former liopes, as 
 those are of their former confidence who flee from battle. Hence then 
 do we hear of these various complaints : one saith, Alas ! I have no 
 grace, because I live not as other saints have done, in all exactness. 
 Another saith, I have no faith, because I cannot believe about i reason, 
 and contrary to sense, as Abraham did. A third cries out, he hath 
 no love to God, because he cannot find his soul ravished with desire 
 after him. Another thinks, he hath a hard heart, because he cannot 
 weep for sin. Another concludes against himself, because he finds 
 not a present cheerful resolve, while he is not under any question for 
 ' Query, 'above'?— Ep. 
 
284 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 religion, to suflFer torments for Christ. Some fear themselves, be- 
 cause temporaries in some particulars have much out-gone them. 
 You see how complaints may upon this score be multiplied without 
 end ; and yet all this is but fallacy. Satan tells them wliat grace is 
 at the highest, but not a word of what it is at lowest ; and so unskil- 
 ful is a tossed, weak Christian, that he in examining his condition 
 looks after the highest degrees of grace, as affording clearer evidence, 
 and not after the sincerity of it, which is the safest way for trial, 
 where graces are weak. In a word, this kind of arguing is no better 
 than that of children, who cannot conclude themselves to be men, 
 because their present stature is little, and they are not as tall as the 
 adult. 
 
 [2.] Another part of his cunning in lessening the real graces of 
 God's children, is to take them at an advantage, tvhen their graces are 
 weakest, ami themselves most out of order. He that will clioose to mea- 
 sure a man's stature while he is upon his knees, seems not to design to 
 give a faithful account of his heiglit. No more doth Satan, who, when 
 he will make comparisons, always takes the servants of God at the 
 worst. And indeed many advantages do the children of God give him, 
 insomuch tliat it is no wonder that he doth so oft baffle them, but 
 rather a wonder that they at any time return to their comforts. First, 
 Sometimes he takes them to task while they are yet young and tender, 
 when they are but newly converted, before their graces are grown up, 
 or have had time to put forth any considerable fruit. Second, Or 
 when their graces are tired out by long or grievous assaults of tempta- 
 tion, for then they are not what they are at other times. Third, When 
 their hearts are discomposed or muddied with fear, for then their sight 
 is bad, and they can so little judge of things that differ, that Satan can 
 impose almost anything upon them. Fourth, Sometimes he comes 
 upon them when some grace acts his part but poorly, as not having its 
 perfect work, and is scarce able to get through, sticking, as it were, in 
 the birth. Fifth, Or when the progress of grace is small and imper- 
 ceptible. Sixth, Or while in the absence of the sun, which produceth 
 flowers and fragrancy, and is the time of the singing of birds, Cant. 
 ii. 11, 12, it is forced to cast off its summer fruits of joy and sensible 
 delights, and only produceth winter fruits of lamenting after God, 
 longing and panting after him, justifying of God in his dealings and 
 condemning itself, all tliis while ' sowing in tears' for a more pleasing 
 crop. Seventh, Or while expectations are more than enjojTnents : the 
 man it may be promised himself large incomes of greater measures of 
 comforts, ease, or strength, under some particular ordinances or helps 
 which he hath lately attained to, and not finding things presently to 
 answer what he hoped for, is now suspicious of his case, and thinks he 
 hath attained nothing, because he hath not what he would. Eighth, 
 Sometimes Satan shews them his face in this glass when it is foulest, 
 through the spots of some miscarriage. Ninth, Or he takes advantage 
 of some natm'al defects, as want of tears, which might be more usual 
 in former times, but are now dried up ; or from the ebbings and un- 
 certainty of his affections, which are never sure rules of trials. Tenth, 
 Or in such acts that are of a mixed nature in the principles and mo- 
 tives, where it mav seem to be uncertain to which the act must be 
 
Chap. 8.] satan's temptations. 285 
 
 ascribed as to the true parent. The heart of a gracious person being 
 challenged upon any of these points, and under so great a disadvantage, 
 being called out to give a proof of himself, especially in the view of 
 grace set forth in all its excellency and glory, shall have little to j^lead, 
 but will rather own the accusation. And the rather because, 
 
 [3.] It is another part of Satan's cunning to urge them, whilst they 
 are thus at a stand, ivith a possibility, nay, a ijrobahility of their mis- 
 taking themselves, by passing too favourable an opinion formerly of 
 their actions. To confirm them in this apprehension, first. He lays 
 before them the consideration of the deceitfulness of the heart, Jer. 
 xvii. 6, which, being so above all things, and desperately wicked be- 
 yond ordinary discovery, makes a fair way for tlie entertainment of a 
 suspicion of self-delusion in all the former hopes which a man hath 
 had of himself. Satan will plainly speak it : Thou hast had some 
 thoughts and workings of mind towards God, but seeing they carry so 
 great a disproportion to rule and example, and come so far short of 
 common graces, it is more than probable that such poor, weak, con- 
 fused appearances are nothing. How knowest thou that thine adher- 
 ence to and iiractice of the command and services of God are any more 
 than from the power of education, the prevalency of custom, or the 
 impressions of moral suasion ? How dost thou know that thy desires 
 after God, and thy delight in him, are any more than the products of 
 natural principles, influenced by an historical faith of Scripture doc- 
 trine ? It is oftentimes enough for Satan to hint tliis. A suspicious 
 heart, as it were greedy of its own misery, catcheth at all things that 
 make against it; and hence complains that it hath no grace, because 
 it sees not any visible fruits, or makes not a sufficient appearance at 
 all times when opposed or resisted ; or because it wants sensible pro- 
 gress, or gives not the summer fruits of praises, rejoicings, and delights 
 in God ; or because it seems not to meet with remarkable improve- 
 ments in ordinances ; or because it cannot produce tears and raise the 
 affections ; and because the party doth not know but his heart might 
 deceive him in all that he hath done. Wliich the devil yet further 
 endeavoureth to confirm, second, By a consideration of the seeming 
 holiness and graces of such as believed themselves to be the children 
 of God, and were generally by others reputed so to be, who yet, after 
 a glorious profession, turned apostates. This being so great and un- 
 deniable an instance of the heart's deceitfulness, makes the poor 
 tempted party conclude that he is certainly no true convert. 
 
 Thus have we seen Satan's sophistry in the management of those 
 five grand topics from whence he draws his false conclusions against 
 the children of God, pretending to prove that they are not converted ; 
 or at least if they be in a state of grace, that they in that state are in 
 a very bad, unsuitable condition to it. For if his arguments fall short 
 of the first, they seldom miss the latter mark. This was his first 
 engine. Now follows, 
 
 II. The other engine by which he fixeth these conclusions, which, 
 though it be not argumentative, yet it serves to sharpen all his fal- 
 lacies against the comforts of God's children — this is /mr, which, 
 together witli his objections, he sends into the mind. That Satan 
 can raise a storm and commotion in the heart by fear, hath been 
 
28(3 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 proved before. I .sliall now only in a few things shew how he doth 
 forward his design by astonishing Uie heart with his frightful thun- 
 derings. 
 
 [1.] His objections being accompanied with affrightments, they pass 
 for strong undeniable arguments, and their fallacy is not so easily de- 
 tected. Fear, as well as anger, darkens reason, and disables the 
 understanding to make a true, faithful search into things, or to give a 
 right judgment. As darkness deceives the senses, and makes every 
 bush afPrightful to the passenger, or as muddied waters hinder the 
 sight, so do fears in the heart disable a man to discover the silliest 
 cheat that Satan can put upon it. 
 
 [2.] They are also very credulous. When fear is up, any sugges- 
 tion takes i)lace. As suspicious incredulity is an effect of joy, — the 
 disciples at first liearing that Christ was risen, ' for joy believed it 
 not'— so .suspicious credulity is the effect of fear. And we shall 
 observe several tilings in the servants of God that shew a strange 
 inclination, as it were a natural aptitude, to believe the evil of their 
 spiritual estate which Satan suggests to them. As,frst, There is a 
 great forwardness and precii)itancy in the heart to close with evil 
 thoughts raised up in us. When jealousies of God's love are injected, 
 there is a violent hastiness forthwith — all calm deliberation being 
 laid aside — to entertain a belief of it. This is more tiian once noted 
 in the Psalms. In this case, David acknowledgeth this hasty humour, 
 ' I said in my haste,' P.s. xxxi. 22, and cxvi. 11. This hasty forward- 
 ness to determine things that are again.st us without duee.Kamination, 
 Asaph calls a great weakness : ' This is my infirmity,' Ps. Ixxvii. 10. 
 Second, There is observable in those that are under spiritual troubles, 
 a great kind of delight, if I may so call it, to hear threatenings rather 
 than promises, and such discourses as set forth the misery of a natural 
 state, rather than such as speak of the happiness of the converted ; 
 because these things, in their apprehension, are more suitable to their 
 condition, and more needful for them, in order to a greater measure of 
 humiliation, which tiiey suppose to be necessary. However, thus they 
 add fuel to the flame. Third, They have an aptitude to hide them- 
 selves from comfort, and witli a wonderful nimbleness of wit and 
 reasoning, to evade and answer any argument brought for their com- 
 fort, as if they had been volunteers in Satan's service to fight against 
 themselves. Fourth, They have also so great a blasting upon their 
 understanding, that Satan's tempting them to doubt of their good 
 estate is to them a sufficient reason to doubt of it ; and that is ground 
 enough for them to deny it, because Satan questions it. 
 
 [3.] These fears make all Satan's suggestions strike the deeper; 
 they point all his arrows and make them pierce, as it were, ' the joints 
 and marrow ;' they poison and envenom them, to the great increase of 
 the torment and hindrance of the cure ; they bind the objections upon 
 them, and confirm them in a certain belief that they are all true. 
 
 We have now viewed Satan's engines and batteries against the ser- 
 vants of the Lord, for the destruction of their joy and peace, by 
 spiritual troubles ; but these are but the beginnings of sorrows, if 
 compared with those distresses of soul which he sometimes brings 
 upon them. Of wliich next. 
 
Chap. 9. J satan's tejiptatioks, 287 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 Of his fourth lomj to hinder peace, by spiritual distresses. 1. The 
 nature of these distresses ; the ingredients and degrees of them. 
 Whether all distresses ofsoid arise from melancholy. 2. Satan's 
 method in working them; the occasions he makes use of the ar- 
 guments he urgeth, the strengthening of them hy fears. 3. Their 
 weight and burden explained in several particulars. — So7ne con- 
 cluding cautions. 
 
 The last sort of troubles by which Satau overthrows the peace of 
 the soul, are spiritual distresses. These are more grievous agonies of 
 soul, under deepest apprehensions of divine wrath, and dreadful fears 
 of everlasting damnation, differing in nature and degree from the for- 
 mer sorts of troubles ; though in these Satan observes much-what the 
 same general method which he used in spiritual troubles last men- 
 tioned. For which cause, and also that these are not so common as 
 the other, I shall siieak of them with greater brevity. Herein I shall 
 shew— 1. Their nature ; 2. Satan's method in working them : 3. Their 
 weight and burden. 
 
 1. The nature of spiritual distresses will be best discovered by a 
 consideration of those ingredients of which they are made up, and of 
 the different degrees thereof 
 
 (1.) As to the ingredients, there are several things that do concur 
 for the begetting of these violent distresses. As, 
 
 [1.] There is usually a compliccdion of several kinds of troubles. 
 Sometimes there are outward troubles and inward discomposures of 
 spirit arising from thence ; sometimes affrightments of blasphemous 
 thoughts long continued, and usually spiritual troubles, in which their 
 state or condition have been called to question, have gone before. 
 Heman, who is as famous an instance in this case as any we meet 
 withal in Scripture, in Ps. Ixxxviii., seems not obscurely to tell us so 
 much ; his ' soul was full of troubles,' ver. 3 ; and in ver. 7 he com- 
 plains that God had afflicted him ' with all his waves.' And that these 
 were not all of the same kind, though all concurred to the same end, 
 he himself explains, ver. 8, 18, where he bemoans himself for tlie un- 
 kindness of his friends : ' Thou hast put away mine acquaintance ; 
 lover and friend hast thou put far from me.' 
 
 [2.] These troubles drive at a further end than any of the former ; 
 for their design was only against the present quietness and peace of 
 God's children, but these design the ruin of their hopes for the future. 
 They are troubled, not for that they are not converted, but for that 
 they expect never to be converted. This is a trouble of a high nature, 
 making them believe that they are eternally reprobated, cut off from 
 God for ever, and imder an imi)Ossibility of salvation. 
 
 [3.] These troubles have the consent and belief of the party. In 
 some other troubles Satan disquieted the Lord's servants by imposing 
 upon them his own cursed suggestions, violently bearing in upon them 
 temptations to sin and blasphemy, or objections against their state of 
 regeneration, while in the meantime they opposed and refused to give 
 
288 A TREATISE uF [PaRT 11. 
 
 consent ; but in these Satan prevails with them to bflicve that tlicir 
 case is really such as their feai-s represent it to be. 
 
 [4.] They are troubles of a far higher degree than the former; the 
 deepest sorrows, the sharpest tears, the greatest agonies. Heman, Ps. 
 Ixxxviii. 15, 16, calls them ' terrors even to distraction: ' ' While I 
 suffer thy terrors, I am distracted ; thy fierce wrath goeth over me, 
 thy terrors have cut me off.' 
 
 [5.] There is also God's deserting of them in a greater measure than 
 ordinary, by withdrawing his aids and comforts. And, as Mr Perkins 
 notes, 'If the withdrawing of grace be joined with the feeling of God's 
 anger, thence ariseth the bitterest conflict that the soul of a poor crea- 
 ture undergoes.' i 
 
 (2. ) As to the different degrees of spiritual distresses, we must ob- 
 serve — That according to the concurrence of all or fewer of these in- 
 gredients, for they do not always meet together, though most fre- 
 quently they do ; and according to the higher or lower degrees in 
 which these are urged u])on the conscience, or apprehended and be- 
 lieved by the troubled party, these agonies are more or less; and 
 accordingly ?t;e may distinguish them variotisly. As, 
 
 [1.] Some arc desperate terrors of cursed rejyrolmtcs under despera- 
 tion. These terrors in them are, in the greatest extremity, the very pit 
 of misery, of the same nature with those of the damned in hell, ' where 
 the worm that never dies,' is nothing else but the dreadful vexation and 
 torment of an accusing con.science.2 They are commonly accompanied 
 with blaspheming of God, and an utter rejection of all means for 
 remedy ; and though they sometimes turn to a kind of secure despera- 
 tion,— by which, when they see it will be no better, they harden thern- 
 selves in their misery, and seek to divert their thoughts — as Cain did, 
 betaking himself to' the building of cities; and Esau, when he had 
 sold his birthright, despised it, and gave himself up to the pursuit of 
 a worldly interest ; — yet sometimes these terrors end in self-murder, 
 as in Judas, who being smitten with chead of conscience, went and 
 hanged himself. We have many sad instances of these desperate 
 terrors. Cain is the first we read of; and though the account the 
 Scriptiu-es give of him be but short, yet it is sufficient to let us see 
 what his condition was— Gen iv. 11-16. First, He was cursed from 
 the earth. Of this part of his curse there were two branches : 1. That 
 his labour and toil in tillage should be great and greatly unsuccessful ; 
 for thus God himself explains it, ver. 12, 'When thou tillest the 
 ground, it shall not henceforth yield mito thee her strength.' The 
 earth was cursed with barrenness before to Adam, but now to Cain it 
 hath a double emse. 2. That he should be a man of uncertain abode 
 in any place : ' A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth ; ' 
 not being able to stay long in a place by reason of the terrors of his 
 conscience. His own interpretation of it, ver. 14, shews that herein 
 lay a great part of his misery : ' Thou hast driven me out this day 
 from the face of the earth.' By which it appears that he was to be as 
 one that was chased out of all society, and as one that thought liimself 
 safe in no place. Secondly, He was ' hid from the face of God ' — 
 that is, he was doomed to carry the inward feeling of God's wrath, 
 ' Treat, of Desertions. " Ames, ' Cases of Consc.,' lib. i. 
 
Chap. 9.] satan's temptations. 289 
 
 without any expectation of mercy. Thirdly, His mind being terriiied 
 imder the apprehension of that wrath, he cries out that his ' sin was 
 greater than it could be pardoned,' or that his ' punishment was greater 
 than he could bear ; ' for the word in the original signifies both sin 
 and punishment, vi?- Take it which way you will, it expresseth 
 a deep horror of heart. If in tlie former sense, then it signifies 
 a conviction of the greatness of his sin to desperation ; if in the latter 
 sense, then it is no less than a blasphemous reflection upon God, as 
 unjustly cruel. Fourthly, This horror was so great, that he was afraid 
 of all he met with, suspecting everything to be armed with divine 
 vengeance against him : ' Every one that findeth me shall slay me.' 
 Or if that speech was a deshe that any one that found him might kill 
 him, as some iuterpret,i it shews that he preferred death before that life 
 .of misery. It seems, then, that God smote him with such terror and 
 consternation of mind, and ^vith such affrightful trembling of body, for 
 his bloody fact, that he was weary of himself, and afraid of all men, 
 and could not stay long in a place. By these tokens, or some other way, 
 God sets his mark upon him, as upon a cursed miscreant, to be noted 
 and abhorred of all. Such another instance was Lamech, of whom 
 the same chapter speaks : 1. The sting of conscience was so great, that 
 he is forced to confess his fault— the interpretations of those that take 
 it interrogatively, ' Have I slain ?' or, ' If I have, what is that to you?' 
 &c., are upon many accounts improper, much more are those so that 
 take it negatively — which, whether it were the abomination of poly- 
 gamy, as some think, by wliich example he had destroyed more than 
 Cain did; or if it were murder in a proper sense, as the words and 
 context plainly carry it, it is not very material to our purpose. How- 
 ever, God smote him with horror, that he might be a witness against 
 himself 2. He accuseth himself for a more grievous sinner and more 
 desperate wretch by far than Caiu : ' If Cain,' ver. 24, ' shall be avenged 
 sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.' Which is as much as 
 to say, that there was as much difl'erence betwixt his sin and Cain's, as 
 betwixt seven and seventy-seven. 3. It seems also, by his discourse 
 to his wives, that he was gi-ievously perplexed with inward fears, sus- 
 pecting, it may be, his very wives as well as others might have private 
 combinations against him ; for the prevention whereof, he tells them 
 by Cain's example of God's avenging him. These two early examples 
 of desperation the beginning of the world affords ; and there have been 
 many more since, as Esau and Judas. Of late years we have the 
 memorable instance of Francis Spira, one of the clearest and most 
 remarkable examples of spiritual horror that the latter ages of the 
 world were ever acquainted with. Yet I shall not dare to be confident 
 of his reprobation, as of Cain's and Judas's ; because the Scripture hath 
 determined their case, but we have no such certain authority to deter- 
 mine his. 
 
 [2.] There are also distresses from melancholy; which may be further 
 differenced according to the intenseness or remissness of the distemper 
 upon which they depend. For sometimes the imagination is so ex- 
 ceedingly depraved, the fears of heart so great, and the sorrows so 
 deep, that the melancholy person, crying out of himself that he is 
 
 1 Lightfoot, Harm, in !oc. 
 
290 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 damned, uuder the curse of God, &c., appears to be wholly besides 
 himself, and his anguish to be nothing else but a delirious, irrational 
 disturbance. There are too many sad instances of this. Some I have 
 known that for many years together have laboured under such appre- 
 hensions of hell and damnation, that they have at last proceeded to 
 curse and blaspheme God in a most dreadful manner, so that they 
 have been a terror to all their friends and acquaintance. And thougia 
 sometimes they would fall into fits of obstinate silence, yet being urged 
 to speak, they would amaze all that were about them with the confident 
 averment of their damnation, with horrible outcries of their supposed 
 misery and torments, and with terrible rage against heaven. (Some 
 in this distemper will fancy themselves to Ije in hell already, and will 
 discourse as if they saw tlie devils about them and felt their torture. 
 Such as these give plain discovery by their whole carriage under their 
 trouble, and some concomitant false imaginations about other things 
 — as when they fancy themselves to be in prison or sentenced to death, 
 and that torments or fire are provided for them by the magistrate, &c. 
 — that it is only melancholy ]ierverting tlieir understanding that is the 
 cause of all their sorrow. Others there are who arc not altogether 
 irrational, because in most other things their understanding is right ; 
 yet being driven into melancholy upon the occasion of crosses or other 
 outward .afflictions, they at last fl.x all their thoughts upon their souls; 
 and now their fancy becoming irrcgulnr in part, the whole of the 
 irregularity appears only in that wlnicin they chiefiy concern them- 
 selves. Hence they misjudgr iIk ihmIms, and condemn themselves to 
 everlasting destruction ; sometimes witliout any apparent cause ; and 
 sometimes they accuse themselves of such things as they never did. 
 They fear and cr}' out they are danmed, but they cannot give a parti- 
 cular reason why they should entertain these fears, neither can they 
 shew any cause wliy they should refuse the comforts of the promises 
 that are offered ; but they say tliey know or are pei'suaded it is so, upon 
 no better account than this. It is so, because it is so. Or if they give 
 reasons of their imagination, they are commonly either feigned or frivo- 
 lous ; and yet in all other matters they are rational, and speak or act 
 like men in their right minds. Of botli these kinds of desperation I 
 shall speak nothing further. It is enough to have noted that such 
 there are, because the cure of the former is impossible, and the cure of 
 the latter doth wholly depend upon physic. 
 
 Quest. Some may jKwsibly question, Whether all extraordinary 
 agonies of soul, upon the apprehension of eternal damnation, be not 
 the fruits of melancholy ? And if not, then what may the difference 
 be betwixt those that proceed from melancholy, and those that are 
 properly the terrors of conscience ? 
 
 Ans. As to the first part of the question, I answer. First, Tliat all 
 sjyiritiial distresses are not to he ascribed to melanclioly. For, 
 
 [1.] There are some melancholy persons who are never more free 
 from spiritual troubles— though frequently accustomed to them at 
 other times — than when, upon the occasion of some special trouble, or 
 sickness threatening death, there is greatest cause to fear such onsets 
 upon the increase o/jnelancholi/. Some such I have known. 
 
 [2.] Sometimes these distresses come suddenly, their conscience 
 
Chap, l).] satan's temptations. 291 
 
 mniting them in the very act of sin; and these persons sometimes 
 such as are not of a melancholic constitution. Spira was suddeuly 
 thunderstruck with terrors of conscience upon his recantation of some 
 truths which lie held ; and so were some of the martyrs. 
 
 [3.] Sometimes terrors that have continued long, and have been very 
 fierce, are removed in a moment. Now it is not rational to say that 
 melancholy only occasioned aU such troubles, wherein bodies that are 
 not natm'ally of that complexion— and some such have been surprised 
 with terrors of conscience ; if we will take a liberty to suppose an 
 accidental melancholy, we must of necessity allow some time ; and, 
 usually, some precedaneousi occasion to mould them into such a dis- 
 temper. Neither do the fears of melancholy cease on a sudden, but 
 abate gradually, according to the gradual abatement of the humour. 
 To say that Cain's or Judas's despair were the invasions of strong 
 melancholy, is not only beyond all proof, but also probability. Neither 
 is it likely that David, whose ruddy countenance and inclination to 
 music are tokens of a sanguine complexion, was always melancholic 
 under his frequent complaints of spiritual trouble. 
 
 [4.] They tliat read the story of Spira, and observe Ms rational 
 serious replies to the discom'ses that were offered him for his comfort 
 and his carriage aU along, will liave no cause to conclude his trouble 
 to be only melancholy; neither did the sober judicious bystanders 
 ascribe his distress to any such cause. 
 
 [5.] The agony of Christ ^qjon the cross, under the sense of divine 
 wrath for our sins, though it were without desj^eration, is an undeniable 
 proof that there may be deep sense of God's displeasure upon the soul 
 of man, which cannot be ascribed to melancholy. 
 
 Second, I answer, That it is not to be denied but that God m,ay 
 make use of that humour as his instrument, for the increase and con- 
 tinuance of terrors upon the consciences of those tvhom he thinks fit to 
 punish, for a7iy provocation ^ ivith spiritual desertion, as he made use 
 of that distemper to punish Saul and Nebuchadnezzar. I speak not 
 here of those distresses which are nothing else but melancholy, such 
 as those before mentioned, of which physicians have given us frequent 
 histories,^ though in this case the secret ways of God's providences are 
 to be adored with humble silence ; but of those terrors of con.science 
 wliich have a mixture of melancholy to help them forward, yet so as 
 that the judgment and reason are not thereby perverted. Spira, when 
 his case was hastily concluded by an injudicious friend to be a strong- 
 melancholy, made this reply, Well, be it so, seeing you will needs 
 have it so ; for thus also is God's wi-ath manifested against me. 
 Which shews, [1.] That he believed God doth sometimes manifest 
 his wrath against man by melancholy. And [2.] That he denied this 
 to be his condition ; for he still concluded that God sent the terrors of 
 his wrath immediately upon his conscience, as the sentence of liis just 
 condemnation for denying Christ. Now when God doth make use of 
 melancholy, as his instrument in Satan's hand, to make the soul of 
 man more apprehensive of his sin and God's wrath — though he doth 
 not always make use of this means, as hath been said — while he still 
 
 * ' Preceding,' or ' inviting.' — G. 
 
 ' Vide Fel. Plateri. observ., lib. i., in mentie alienatione. 
 
292 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 prei?erves the understanding from false imaginations, the distress is 
 still rational, and we have no cause to make any great difference be- 
 t\m:t these troubles that have such a mixture of melancholj^ and such 
 as have not. Neither must we say that then it is in the power of the 
 physician to remove or mitigate such spiritual distresses. For if God 
 see it fit to make use of melancholy for such a purpose, he can sus- 
 pend the power of physic, so that it shall not do its work till God hath 
 performed all his purpose. And the unsuccessfulness of remedies in 
 this distemper, while it seems to be wonderfully stubborn in resisting 
 all that can be done for cure, is more to be ascribed, in some cases, to 
 God's design, than every physician doth imagine. 
 
 As to the latter part of the question, How the terrors of melancholy 
 ami those of conscience are to he distinguished? I shall only say this ; 
 that, as I said, we are not much concerned to make any distinction 
 where the distressed party acts rationally. It is true something may 
 be observed from these mixtures of melancholy; and thence may some 
 indications be taken by the friends of the distressed, which may be of 
 use to the afflicted party. Pliysic in this case is not to be neglected, 
 because, though God may permit that distemper in order to the terror 
 of the conscience, we are not of God's counsel, to know how high he 
 would have it to go, nor how long to continue ; but it is our duty, 
 with submission to him, to use all means for lielp. However, seeing 
 the physician is the only proper judge of the bodily distemper, it were 
 improper to speak of the signs of melancholy in those mixed cases, to 
 those that cannot make use of them. And as for these distresses of 
 melancholy that are irrational, they are of themselves so notorious, 
 that I need not give any account of them. There is usually a consti- 
 tution inclining that way, and often the parents or friends of the party 
 have been handled in the same manner before ; or if their natural 
 temper do not lead them that way, there is usually some cross, trouble, 
 disappointment, or the like outward affliction, that hath first pressed 
 them heavily, and by degrees hath wrought them into melancholy, 
 and then afterward they come to concern themselves for their souls ; 
 as that woman in Plater's ob.servations, who being long grieved with 
 jealousy upon grounds too just, at last fell into grievous despair, crying 
 out that God would not pardon her, that she was damned, that she felt 
 hell already and tlie torments of it, &c.i Or there are some concomi- 
 tant deliriums, imaginations apparently absurd or false, &c. , all which 
 give plain discoveries of irrational distresses. And if there remained 
 any doubt concerning them, the consideration of all circumstances 
 together, by such as are sober and judicious, would easily afford a 
 satisfaction. 
 
 (3.) Having now confined the discourse to the spiritual distresses 
 of God's children, that are not so oppressed with melancholy as to be 
 misled with false imaginations, I must next, concerning these dis- 
 tresses, offer another observable distinction, which is this: Tlmt they 
 are either made iip of all the five forementioned ingredients, or only 
 of some of them, and so may he called total or partial, though in each 
 of these there may be gi-eat differences of degrees. 
 
 [1.] Sometimes then the children of God rtuiy be h-ought into total 
 ' Lib. i. de mentiE alienatioue. 
 
Chap. 9.] satan's temptations. 293 
 
 distresses of conscience, even ivith desperation, and, that ivhicJi is more 
 hideoits, tvifh blasphemy, if Mr Perkins his observation hold true, 
 who tells us, ' that they may be so overcharged with sorrow as to cry 
 out they are damned, and to blaspheme God:'i ^nd we have no 
 reason to contradict it, when we observe how far David went in his 
 haste more than once. And whatever may be the private differences 
 betwixt these and the reprobates in their agonies— as differences there 
 are, both in God's design, and their hearts, though not visible— yet if 
 we compare the fears, troubles, and speeches of the one and the other 
 together, there appears little or no difference wliich bystanders can 
 certainly fix upon. If it seems harsh to any that so horrid a thing 
 as despair should be charged upon the elect of God, in the worst of 
 their distresses, it will readily be answered : First, That if luc sup- 
 pose not this, ive must suppose that which is tcorse. If we like not to 
 say that God's children may fall into despair, we must conclude, very 
 uncharitably, that they that fall into despair are not God's children. 
 Secohd, It is easy to imagine a difference hetioixt partial and total 
 despair, beticixt imaginary and real. The children of God, imder 
 strong perturbation of spirit, may imagine themselves to do what they 
 do not, and so may bear ftilse witness against themselves — professing 
 that all their hope of salvation is lost, when yet the root of their hope 
 may still remain in their hearts undiscovered. The habit may be 
 there when all visible acts of it are at present suspended, or so dis- 
 guised in a crowd of confused expressions that they cannot be known ; 
 or, if they have real distrust of then- salvation, yet every fit of real 
 diffidence is not utter desperateness ; neither will it deuominate a 
 man to be totally desperate, any more than every error, even about 
 fundamentals, will denominate a man a heretic.2 For as it must be 
 a pertinacious error in fundamentals that makes a heretic, so it 
 must be a pertinacious diffidence that makes a man truly desperate. 
 Third, But sometimes the children of God have only partial distresses. 
 That is, they may have a great measure of some of the ingredients, 
 without mixtm-e of the rest. Particularly, they may have a great 
 measure of the sense of divine wrath and desertion, without despera- 
 tion. The possibility of this is evident, beyond exception, in the ex- 
 ample of our blessed Saviour, when he cried out, ' My God, my God, 
 why hast thou forsaken me?' [Mat. xxvii. 46.] None can ascribe 
 desperation to him without blasphemy ; and if they should, the very 
 words, ' My God, my God' — expressing his full and certain hope — do 
 expressly contradict them. Such an instance of spiritual distress 
 without desperation I take Heman to be. How high his troubles 
 were is abundantly testified in Ps. Ixxxviii. ; and yet that his hope 
 was not lost appears not only by his prayer for relief in the general — 
 for hope is not utterly destroyed where the appointed means for help 
 are carefully used— but by the particular avouchment of his hope in 
 God, in the first verses of that psalm, ' Lord God of my salvation, 
 I have cried day and night before thee.' 
 
 (4.) The last difference of spiritual distresses which I shall observe is 
 this, that some are more transient fits and flashes of terror under a 
 present temptation, ivhich endure not long ; others are more fixed and 
 
 ' Treatise ' Of Desertions.' ' Ames, ' Cases of Consc.,' lib. iv. cap. i>. 
 
294 A TREATISE OF [PaKT II. 
 
 permanent. The less durable distresses may be violent and sharp 
 while they hold. Temptations of diffidence may strongly possess a 
 child of God, and at first may not be repelled ; and then before their 
 faith can recover itself, they vent their present sad apprehensions of 
 their estate, as Jonah did, chap. ii. 4, ' I said, I am cast out of thy 
 sight.' Many such fits David had, and in them complained at this 
 rate, ' Why hast thou forsaken me ? why castest thou off my soul ? ' 
 Ps. xxxi. 22, ' I said in my haste, I am cut oif from before thine 
 eyes.' Ps. cxvi. 11, ' I said in my haste, AH men arc liars;' which 
 was a great height of distrust, and too boldly reflecting upon God's 
 faithfulness, considering the special promises that God had made to 
 him. Such sharp fits were those of Bainham and Bilney, martyrs, 
 whose consciences were so sorely wounded for recanting the truth 
 which they professed, that they seemed to foel a very hell within 
 them. 
 
 The more fixed distresses, as they arc of longer continuance, so 
 they are often accompanied with the very worst symptoms ; for when 
 in these agonies, no sun nor star of comfort appears to them for many 
 days, all hope that they shall be saved seems to be taken away, [Acts 
 xxvii. 20 ;] and l)eing tired out with complaints and importunities, 
 without any answer, they at last reject the use of means. Some have 
 lain many years — as the paralytic man at the pool of Bethesda — 
 without cure ; some from their youth up, as Heman complains. Some 
 carry their distresses to their death-bed, and it may be are not cased 
 till their souls are ready to depart out of their bodies, and tlien they 
 often end suddenly and comfortably. Some I could tell you of, who 
 on their death-bed, after grievous terrors, and many outcries concern- 
 ing their miseries of ' blackness and darkness for ever,' lay long 
 silent ; and then on a sudden brake out into raptures of joy and 
 adoring admiration of the goodness of God, using that speech of the 
 ai)Ostk', Rom. xi. 33, ' Oh tlie depth of the riches both of the wisdom 
 and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his 
 ways past finding out!' Others go out of the world in darkness, 
 without any ai)pearance of comfort. Such an instance was Mr 
 Chambers, as the story of his death testifies, mentioned by Mr Per- 
 kins, in his treatise ' Of Desertions,' of whom this account is given : 
 that in great agonies he cried out, 'he was damned,' and so died. 
 The case of such is surely very sad (o themselves, and appears no less 
 to others ; yet we must take heed of judging rashly concerning such. 
 Nay, if their former course of life hath been uniformly good — for 
 who will reject a fine web of cloth, as one speaks, for a little coarse 
 listi at the end — especially if there be any obscure appearance of 
 liope— as that expression of Mr Cliambers, ' Oh that I had but one 
 drop of faith !' is by Mr Perkins supposed to be — we ought to judge 
 the best of them. We have seen the nature of spiritual distresses in 
 the ingredients and ihflerences thereof. We are now to consider, 
 
 2. Satan's method in procimng them : which consists, (1.) In the 
 occasions which he lays hold on for that end. (2.) In the arguments 
 which he useth. (3.) In the working up of their fears, by which he 
 confirms men in them. 
 
 ' ' Selvage,' or border. — G. 
 
Chap. 9.] satan's temptations. 295 
 
 (1.) As to (he occasions, he follows much the same course ivMch 
 hath been described be/ore in spiritual troubles; so that I need not 
 say much, only I shall note two things : — 
 
 [1.] That it makes much for Satan's purpose, if the party against 
 whom he designs have fallen into some grievous sins. Sins of common 
 magnitude do not lay a foundation suitable to the superstructure 
 whtch he intends. He cannot plausibly argue reprobation or damna- 
 tion from every ordinary sin ; but if he finds them guilty of something 
 extraordinary, then he falls to work with his accusations. The most 
 usual sins which he takes advantage from, are, as Mr Perkins observes, 
 those against the third, sixth, and seventh command ; sometimes those 
 against the ninth. Murder, adultery, perjury, and the wilful denial 
 of truth against conscience, are the crimes upon which he grounds his 
 charge, but most usually the last. Upon this, the distressed Spira, 
 and some of the martyrs. As for the other, the more private they are, 
 Satan hath oft the more advantage against them, because God's secret 
 and just judgment will by this means ' bring to light the hidden 
 things of darkness,' [1 Cor. iv. 5,] and force their consciences to accuse 
 them of that which no man could lay to their charge, that he might 
 manifest himself to be ' the searcher of the hearts, and trier of the 
 reins,' [Rev. ii. 23.] Thus have many been forced to disclose private 
 murders, secret adulteries, and to vomit up, though with much pain 
 and torture, that which they have by perjury or guile extorted from 
 others. 
 
 [2.] Where Satan hath not these particular advantages, he doth 
 endeavour to prepare men for distresses, bij other troubles long co7i- 
 tinued. All men that are brought to despair of their happiness, must 
 not be supposed to be greater sinners than others. Some are distressed 
 with fears of eternal damnation, that are in a good measure able to 
 make Job's protestation in these cases, chap. xxxi. 9, &c., that their 
 'heart hath not been deceived by a woman;' that they have not laid 
 wait at their neighbour's door ; that they have not lift up their hand 
 against the fatherless, when they saw their help in the gate; that 
 their land doth not cry against them, nor the furrows thereof complain; 
 that when they saw the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in 
 brightness, their heart hath not been secretly enticed, nor their mouth 
 kissed their hand; that they rejoiced not in the destruction of him 
 that hated tliem, nor lift up themselves when evil found him, &c. 
 Notwithstanding all which, their fears are upon and prevail against 
 them. But then before Satan can bring them to consent to such 
 dismal conclusions against themselves, they must be extraordinarily 
 fitted to take the impression ; either tired out under great afflictions, 
 or long exercised with fears about their spii-itual estates, without inter- 
 mixture of comfort or ease, or their faculties broken and weakened by 
 melancholy. Any of these give him an advantage equivalent to that 
 of great sins. For though he cannot say to these. Your sins are so 
 enormous, that they are, considered themselves together with their 
 circumstances, sad signs of reprobation ; yet he will plead that God's 
 carriage towards them doth plainly discover that he hath wholly cast 
 them off, and left them to themselves, without hope of mercy. 
 
 (2.) As for /he urgiiments which he use.th, they are much-what from 
 
296 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 the same topics which he maketh choice of in bringing on spiritual 
 troubles. Only as he aims at the proof of a great deal more against 
 God's children, than that they are not converted ; so accordingly he 
 screws up his mediums for proof to a higher pin. His arguments 
 are, 
 
 [1.] From scriptures ivresied or miscqiplied. His choice of scrip- 
 tures for this purpose, is of such places as either seem to speak most 
 sadly the dangerous and fearful estate of men, according to the first 
 view and literal representation of them, through the unskilfulness of 
 those that are to he concerned ; or of such places as do really signify 
 the miserable unhappiness of some persons, who through their own 
 fault have been cut off from all hope, and the possibility of the like 
 to some others for the future. So tliat, in framing arguments from 
 Scripture, the devil useth a twofold cunning. First, There are some 
 scriptures which have the word damnation in them, appUed to some 
 particular acts and miscarriages of men, when yet their intendment is 
 not such as the word seems to sound, or as he would make them to 
 believe. Now wlien he catcheth a child of God in such acts as are 
 there specified, if he finds that his ignoi-ance or timorousness is such 
 as may render the temptation feasible, he presently applies damnation 
 to them, by the authority of those texts. For instance, that text of 
 Rom. xiv. ii3, hath been frequently abused to that end, ' He that 
 doubteth, is damned if he eat.' The word ' damned ' there, strikes 
 deep with a weak, troubled Christian that is not skilful in the word of 
 righteousness. For whether Satan apply it to sacramental eating, as 
 sometimes he doth to the ignorant, though contrary to the purpose of 
 the text, or to doubting in the general, he makes this conclusion out 
 of it: 'Thou doubtcst, or thou hast eaten the sacrament doubtingly, 
 therefore there is no hope for thee ; thou art damned.' Whereas all 
 this while, the devil doth but play the sojjhister in the abuse of the 
 signification of words. For that scripture evidently relates to the 
 difference that then was in the church, about eating those meats that 
 were unclean by Moses's law ; in which case the apostle doth positively 
 declare, that the difierence betwixt clean and unclean meats is taken 
 away ; so that a Chi-istiau might with all freedom imaginable cat 
 those meats that were formerly unclean, with this proviso, that he 
 were ' fully persuaded in his own mind,' [Rom. xiv. 5.] The necessity 
 of wliich satisfaction, he proves from this, that otherwise he should 
 offend his own conscience, wliich in that case must needs condemn 
 him, and that is the damnation that is there spoken of ; as is more 
 evident by comparing this verse with the next foregoing, ' Happy is 
 he that condemneth not himself.' But he that doubteth, doth con- 
 demn himself, because ' he eats not of faith,' — that is, from full per- 
 suasion of the lawfulness of the thing. This scripture then hath 
 nothing at all in it to the purpose for which Satan brings it. It doth 
 not speak of any final sentence of condemnation passed upon a man 
 for such an act ; all and the utmost that it saith, is only this, that it 
 is a sin to go against the persuasion of conscience, and consequently it 
 puts no man further off salvation than any other sin may do ; for which, 
 upon repentance, the sinner may be pardoned. 
 
 Another text which Satan hath frequently abused, to the very great 
 
Chap. 9.] satan's temptations. 297 
 
 prejudice of mauy, is that of 1 Cor. xi. 29, ' He that eateth and 
 drinketh ixnworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself.' 
 With this scripture he insults over the humble, fearful Christian, 
 who is sensible of his unworthiness of so great a privilege. Some- 
 times he keeps him off long from the sacrament of the Lord's supper, 
 upon this very score that such an unworthy wretch ought not to 
 make such near and familiar approaches to Christ. And if at last he 
 is persuaded to partake of this ordinance, then, taking advantage of 
 the party's consciousness of his great vileness, and the very low 
 thoughts which he entertains of himself, he endeavours to persuade 
 liim that now he hath destroyed himself for ever, and run upon his 
 own irrecoverable damnation. Thus he pleads it. Can anything be 
 more plain than that thou hast eaten and drunken unworthily ? Thy 
 own conscience tells thee so ; and can anything be more positively 
 asserted than this, that he that doth so, eateth and drinketh damna- 
 tion to himself ? What then canst thou think of thyself, but that thou 
 art a damned wi-etch ? Neither do I speak barely what may be sup- 
 posed Satan would say in this matter, but what may be proved by 
 many instances he hath said and urged upon the consciences of the 
 weak, who have from hence concluded, to the great distress of their 
 souls, that by unworthy receiving of the sacrament they have sealed 
 up their own condemnation ; and all this by abusing and perverting 
 the sense of this text. For the unworthy receiving doth relate to the 
 miscarriages which he had taxed before, and it implies a careless, pro- 
 fane eating ; such as might plainly express the small or unworthy 
 esteem that they had in their hearts for that ordinance. And the 
 damnation there threatened is not final and in-evocable damnation, 
 but temporal judgment ; as the apostle himself doth explain it in the 
 next verses ; ' For this cause many are sickly. . . . And if we would 
 judge ourselves we should not lie judged.' That is, as he further 
 explains it, we should not be thus chastened or afflicted; and the 
 word translated ' damnation' doth signify judgment — Kpi/xa. At the 
 furthest, if we should take it for the condemnation of hell, all that is 
 threatened woidd be no more than this : that such have deserved, and 
 God in justice might inflict the condemnation of hell for such an 
 ofi'ence ; which is not only true of this sin but of all others, which still 
 do admit of the exception of repentance. All this while this is 
 nothing to the poor humbled sinner, that judgeth himself unworthy in 
 his most serious examination and greatest dfligence. Satan here plays 
 upon the unexactness of the translation, and the ignorance of the 
 party in criticisms ; for it is not every one that can readily answer 
 such captious arguments. 
 
 [2.] But he hath another piece of cunning, which is this: He doth 
 by a suigular kind of art, threap upon men some scripture that really 
 speaks of eternal condemnation, ivithout any sufficient evidence in 
 mcdter of fact for the due application of them, only becatcse they cannot 
 p>rove the contrary. His proceeding herein is to this purpose. First, 
 After he hath prepared his way, by foi-miug their minds to a fearful 
 suspicion of their estate, he sets before them such scriptures as these : 
 God hardened the heart of Pharaoh : he hath prepared ' vessels of 
 wrath, fitted for destruction.' Chi'ist prayed not ' for the world : ' and 
 
298 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 that concerning tbe Jews, ' He hath bUnded theu- eyes, and hardened 
 their hearts.' Secondly, He confidently affiims that they are such. 
 Thirdly, He puts thcni to prove the contrary, and herein he sends 
 them to the search of God's eternal decrees ; in which art Satan, like 
 an kjms fatuus, leads them out of the way. And though he cannot 
 possibly determine what he affirms, he shifts off the positive pi-oof 
 from himself, and leaves it upon them to make out, that they are not 
 thus determined of by God's unchangeable purpose. And because 
 the tempted, under so great a cloud, have no such persuasion of their 
 present graces as may enable them to make sure their election by the 
 fruits of their vocation, they are beaten ofl' from their hold, and arc 
 brought to believe that the argument is unanswerable. Because they 
 cannot say they are converted, they conclude they must be damiicil, 
 overlooking the true answer that they might make, by keeping close 
 to the possibility or probability that they may be converted, and so 
 escape the damnation of hell. This general hope being of such higli 
 concern to the distressed, for it is the first thing that must relieve 
 them till better evidence come in, it is Satan's great policy to cheat 
 them of it, which he often doth by this method now declared. 
 
 (2.) Satan doth mainly endeavour io 7ni.srvprescnt God to troubled 
 souls, and from thence lie dnnrc/h out ai(/ume>its against them. In 
 the former case of spiritual trouljlcs, he misrei)resent8 God, in that he 
 represents only some attrii)utes of his, not only distinct from, but in 
 opposition to others, by which he labours to conceal the sweet and 
 beautiful harmony that is among them ; and also to make one attri- 
 bute an argument against the comft)rtable supporting considerations 
 which another would afford. Ho insists upon God's justice without 
 respect of mercy, upon his holiness without any regard of his gracious 
 condescensions to the infirmities of the weak. But when it is his 
 business to bring any under spiritual distresses, he then misrepresents 
 God at a higher rate, and sticks not to asperse him with abominable 
 falsehoods. There are two lies which he commonly urgeth at this 
 time : — 
 
 [1.] He represents God as « cruel tyrant, of a rigorous, unmerciful 
 disposition, that delights himself in the ruin and misery of men. To 
 this purpose he rakes together the harshest passages of the Scripture, 
 that speak of God's just severity against the wilful obstinate sinners, 
 that stubbornly contemn his ofl'ers of grace. God indeed hath cleared 
 himself of this aspersion, by solemn oath, Ezek. xxxiii. 11, ' As I live, 
 saitli the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the deatli of tlie wicked, 
 but that the wicked tuin from his way and live.' Yet the tempted 
 will sooner believe Satan's suggestion than God's oath ; partly because 
 the sense of their vileness doth secretly sway them to think there is 
 reason that he should be so ; partly because their fears incline them 
 to suspect the worst; and partly the uneasy tossings of theu- mind 
 long continued reviveth the natural frowardness of the spirit against 
 God. Which, how ai)t it is, when fretted with vexation, to entertain 
 harsh thoughts of God, may be seen in the answer of the slothful ser- 
 vant to his lord, who returned his talent back again unimproved, with 
 a reflection importing that his master was such as none could please ; 
 so severe that he was discom-aged from making any attempt of serving 
 
Chap. 9.] satan's temptations. 299 
 
 him acceptably : Mat. xxv. 24, he said, ' Lord, I knew thee that thou 
 art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering 
 where thou hast not strawed.' 
 
 [2.] He belies God further, by representing him as designing the 
 ruin and misery of the tempted jxrson in 2Kirticidar. He would make 
 him believe that God had a particular spleen, as it were, against him 
 above other men, and that in all his dealings with, or concerning him, 
 he is but as a ' bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places,' 
 [Lam. iii. 10,] ready to take any advantage to cut him off. And 
 accordingly he gives no other interpretation of all the ways of God but 
 such as make them look like tokens of final rejection of those that are 
 concerned in them. If there be upon them outward afliictions, he 
 tells them these are but the forerunners of hell ; if they lie under 
 inward sense of wrath, he calls that the first-fruits of everlasting 
 vengeance ; if any particular threatening be impressed upon their 
 consciences by the Spirit of God, in order to their humiliation and 
 repentance, he represents it as God's final sentence^ and absolute 
 determination against them. If for caution God see it fit to set before 
 them the examples of his wrath, as it is very frequent for him to do, 
 lest we ' should fall after the same example of unbelief,' 1 Pet. ii. 6 ; 
 1 Cor. X. 6, Satan perverts this to that which God never intended, for 
 he boldly asserts that these examples prognosticate their misery, and 
 that God signifies by them a prediction of certain unavoidable un- 
 happiness. , . r^ ■, 
 
 This must be observed here, that these misrepresentations of God 
 are none of Satan's primary arguments ; he useth them only as fresh 
 reserves to second others. For where he finds any wing of his bat- 
 talions ready to be beaten, he comes up with these supplies to relieve 
 them. For indeed these considerations of God's severity m the 
 general, or of his special resolve against any in particular, are not of 
 force sufficient to attack a soul that is within the trenches of present 
 peace ; they are not of themselves proper mediums to produce such a 
 conclusion. Though we suppose God severe, except we should imagine 
 him to be a hater of mankind universally, we cannot thence infer the 
 final ruin of this or that individual person. And besides that these 
 are unjustifiable falsehoods, they cannot make the final damnation of 
 any one so much as probable till the heart be first weakened in its 
 hopes by fears or doubtings, raised up in it upon other grounds. Then 
 indeed men are staggered, either by the deep sense of their un worthi- 
 ness, or some sad continuing calamity, and the seeming neglect of 
 their prayers. If Satan then tell them of God's severity, or that, all 
 his providences considered, he hath set them up as a ' mark for the 
 arrows of his indignation,' they are ready to beUeve his report, it being 
 so suitable to their present sense and feeling. 
 
 [3.] Satan also fetcheth arguments from the sins of God's children, 
 hut his great art in this is hij unjust aggravatio^is to mcdce them look 
 like those offences lohicli hi/ special exception in Scripture are excluded 
 from pardon. The apostle, 1 Jolm v. 16, tells us of a ' sin that is 
 unto death ;' that is, a sin which, if a man commits, he cannot escape 
 eternal death, and therefore he would not have such a sinner prayed 
 for. That the popish distinction of venial and mortal sins is not here 
 
300 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 intended, some of the papists themselves do confess.^ What he means 
 by that sin he doth not tell us, it being a thing knowTi sufficiently 
 from other scriptures. The note of unpardonableness is indeed affixed 
 to sins under several denominations ; the sin against the Holy Ghost 
 Christ pronounceth unpardonable, Mat. xii. 31. Total apostasy from 
 the truth of the gospel hath no less said of it by the apostle when he 
 calls it ' a drawing back to perdition,' Heb. x. 39. Whether these 
 be all one, or whether there is any other species of sin irremissible 
 besides that against the Holy Ghost, it is not to our purpose to make 
 inquiry. Whatever they are in themselves, Satan in tliis matter 
 makes use of the texts that speak of them distinctly, as we shall 
 presently see. But, besides these, the Scriptures speak of some that 
 were ' given up to vile affections, and to a reprobate mind,' Eom. i. 
 26, 28. And of others that were given up ' to hardness of lieart," 
 Mat. xiii. 14; Acts xxviii. 26. Now whosoever they are of whom 
 these things may be justly affirmed, they are certainly miserable, hope- 
 less wretclies. Here then is Satan's cunning, if he can make any 
 child of God believe that he hath done any such act, or acts of sin, as 
 may bring him within the compass of these scriptures, then he in- 
 sults over them, and tells them over and over again that they are cut 
 off for ever. 
 
 To this purpose he aggravates all their sins. And, 
 First, If he find them guilty of any great iniquity, he ficcetli vpon 
 that, and labours all he can to make it look most dcsjierately, that so 
 he may call it the sin against the Holy Ghost; and in this be hath a 
 luiglity advantage, that most men arc in the dark about that sin, all 
 men being not yet agreed whetlier it be a distinct species of sin, or a 
 higher degree of wilfulness relating to any particular sin. Upon this 
 score Satan can lay the charge of this sin upon those that apostatize 
 from the truth, and through weakness have recanted it. Thus he dealt 
 with Spira, witli Bilney, with Bainham, and several others. There is 
 so near a resemblance in these sins of denying truths to what is said 
 of the unpardonable sin, that these men, though they were scholars 
 and men of good abilities, yet they were not able to answer the argu- 
 ment that the devil urged against them, but it prevailed to distress 
 them. Upon others also hath Satan the advantage to fix this accusa- 
 tion ; for let the species of the sin be what it will, if they have any- 
 thing of that notion, that the sin against the Holy Gliost is a pre- 
 sumptuous act of sin under temptation, they will call any notorious 
 crime the sin against the Holy Ghost, because of the more remarkable 
 aggravating circumstances that have accompanied such a fact. 
 
 Second, He aggravates the sins of God's children from the wilful- 
 ness of their sinning. It is a thing often too true that a child of God 
 may be carried by a violent impetus, or strong inclination of affection, 
 to some particular iniquity, where the forwardness of desires that 
 way, by a sudden haste, do stifle those reluctancies of mind which 
 may be expected from one endowed with the Spirit of God, whose 
 power upon them doth ordinarily sway them ' to lust against the 
 flesh.' But it is more ordinary to find a temptation to prevail, 
 notwithstanding that an enlightened mind doth make some resist- 
 
 ' Loritius !» loc. ; Barth. Petrus in loc. 
 
Chap. 9.] satan's temptations. 301 
 
 ance ; which, because it is too feeble, is easily borne down by the 
 strong importunities of Satan, working upon the inclinations of 
 the flesh. Both these cases are improved against them over whom 
 Satan hath got any advantage of doubting of their estate. If they 
 have resisted but ineffectually, or not resisted at all, he chargeth them 
 with the highest wilfulness, and will so aggravate the matter that they 
 shall be put in fear, not only that there can be no grace — where sin 
 liath so much power as either to control so much light and endea- 
 vours, or hath so subjected the heart to its dominion that it can com- 
 mand without a contradiction— but that they can have no hope ; that 
 they that sin with so high a hand should ever enter into God's rest. 
 And to this purpose he commonly sets before them that text of Heb. 
 X. 26, ' If we sin wilfidly after that we have received the knowledge 
 of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.' Or that of 
 Heb. vi. 4, ' It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, . _. . 
 if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance.' Both which 
 places speak indeed, at least, such a difficulty as in common use of 
 speech is called an impossibility, if not an utter absolute impossibility, 
 of repentance and pardon. But then the sinning wilfully or falling 
 away there mentioned, is only that of total apostasy ; when men that 
 have embraced the gospel, and by it have met with such impressions 
 of power and delight upon their hearts, which we usually call common 
 grace, do notwithstanding reject that gospel as false and fabulous, and 
 so rise up against it with scorn and utmost contempt, as Julian the 
 apostate did. If now the true intendment of those scriptiu-es were 
 considered by those that are distressed with them, they might presently 
 see that they were put into fear, where no such cause of fear was. 
 But all men have not this knowledge, nor do they so duly attend to 
 the matter of the apostle's discourse as to be able to put a right inter- 
 pretation upon it. Upon such Satan imposeth his deceitful gloss, and 
 tells them: Wilful sinners cannot be restored to repentance; but you 
 have sinned wilfully; when sin was before you, you rushed into it 
 without any consideration, as the horse into the battle ; or when God 
 stood in your way with commands and advice to the contrary, when 
 your consciences warned you not to do so great wickedness, yet you 
 woidd do it. You were as those that break the yoke and burst the 
 bonds. Upon this supposition, that these texts speak of wilful sinning 
 in the general, how little can be said against Satan's argument ! How 
 many have I laiown that have been tortured with these texts, judging 
 their estate fearful, because of their wilfulness in sinning ! who upon 
 the breaking of the snare of Satan's misrepresentation, have escaped 
 as a bird unto the liill. 
 
 Third, When either of the two former ways will not serve the turn — 
 that is, when he meets with such against whom he hath nothing of 
 notorious wickedness to object, or such as have a better discerning of 
 Scripture than so to be imposed upon — he labours to make a charge 
 against them, from the mimher of their miscarriages. Here he takes 
 up all the filtii he can, and lays it upon one heap at their door. It is 
 indeed an easy thing for Satan to set the sins of a child of God in order 
 before him, and to bring to mind innumerable evils, especially to one 
 that is already awakened with a true discovery of the corruption of 
 
302 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 nature and the vileness of sin. In which case the more a man con- 
 siders, the more he will discover ; and sins thus set in battle array, 
 though they he not more than ordinary heinous, yet being many, have 
 a very dismal appearance. Satan's design in this is to bring men 
 under the aifrightmcnts which seem most proper to be raised from a 
 perverse aspect of the third ranli of scriptures, which a little before I 
 pointed at. For the word of God, speaking of the final estate of 
 men, doth not only discover the hopeless condition of some as to eternal 
 life from some particular acts of sin, but also the sad estate of others 
 from the manner, degi'ees, and frequency of sinning. The heathens, 
 because they improved not the knowledge of God, which they had 
 from the works of creation, neither making those inferences in matters 
 relating to his worship, which those discoveries did direct them unto, 
 nor behaving tlieniselves in full compliance to those rules of virtuous 
 conversation which they might have drawn from these principles, and 
 unto which in point of gratitude they were obliged : Rom. i. 21 , ' They 
 glorified liim not as God, neither were thankful ; tlierefore God gave 
 them to a reprobate mind.' And generally, concerning all others, the 
 Scrijiture teacheth us that a return to a jirofane fleshly life, after some 
 leformatlon, hath a greater hazard in it than ordinary, as appears by 
 the parable in Mat. xii. 45, ' Seven more wicked spirits re-enter;' 
 where one that was cast out is received again ; and ' the last state of 
 that man is worse than the first.' So also 2 Pet. ii. 20. To this pur- 
 pose is that of Solomon concerning the danger of continuance in sin, 
 after many reproofs: Prov, xxix. 1, ' He that being often reproved 
 hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without 
 remedy.' These, and many such like scrijitures, Satan hath in readi- 
 ness, which he plies home upon the consciences of those that are 
 troubled with the .sense of sin ; telling them that their hearts and ways 
 being continually evil, notwithstaniUng all the courses that God hath 
 taken to reclaim them ; that they having so long neglected so great 
 salvation, or that after having seemed to entertain it, became more 
 sinful than before — which they will easily believe, because they are 
 now more sensible of sin, and more observant of their miscarriages 
 than formerly — there can be no question but they are given up to vile 
 aflections ; and like the gi-ound that bears nothing but ' briars and 
 thorns, they are rejected, and nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be 
 burned,' [Heb. vi. 8.] The wound that is made Avith this weapon is 
 not so easily healed as some others already mentioned ; because though 
 Satan do uiaduly wrest these passages to such failures in the chikken 
 of God as have little or no affinity with them, for they only speak of 
 falling into open profaneness with contumacy, yet they that have deep 
 convictions, accompanied with great fears, do usually think that there 
 are none worse than they are. And though they will grant that some 
 others have more flagitious lives, yet they think they have hearts so 
 desperately wicked, that they must needs be under as great hazards as 
 those whose lives seem to lie worse. 
 
 [4.] There is but one argument more that carries any probability 
 of proof for everlasting condemnation, and that is from a hard and 
 impenitent heart. How Satan will manage himself to make a child of 
 God believe that he hath such a heart, is our last observation relating 
 
Chap. 9. J satan's temptatioxs. 303 
 
 to his sophistry. And it is this : he unjustly aggi-avates the discom- 
 posures of the spirits of those tliat are troubled for sin, and from thence 
 draws his arguments of irrecoverable damnation, pleading that their 
 hearts are seared, hardened, uncapable of repentance, and consequently 
 of heaven. That final impenitency will conclude damnation is certain ; 
 and that some have been given up to such a judicial hardness long be- 
 fore death, that they could not repent, may not only be evidenced from 
 the threatening of God to that purpose. Mat. xiii. 15, ' Make the heart 
 of this people fat,' &c, but also from the sad instances of Pharaoh, of 
 whom it is said, that 'God hardened his heart;' and the Jews who 
 were blinded, Rom. xi. 8, ' God hath given them the spirit of slumber, 
 eyes that they should not see, and ears that they shoidd not hear.' 
 But still the art lieth in this. How to make a child of God believe 
 that it is so with him. For this purpose he must take him at some 
 advantage, he cannot terrify him with this argument at all times. 
 While he is acting repentance with an undisturbed settled frame of 
 heart, it is not possible to make him believe he doth not, or cannot 
 repent ; for this were to force him contrary to sense and experience. 
 But he must take him at some season wliich may, with some proba- 
 bility, admit of his plea, and nothing is more proper for that design 
 than a troubled heart ; so that he hath in this case two tilings to do : 
 First, He disquiets the soul into as great a height of confusion as 
 he can. That, second, when he hath melted it into heaviness, and 
 torn it into pieces, he may work upon its distractions. 
 
 There are many tilings that fall out in the case of great anxiety of 
 mind, that are capable of improvement for the accomplishment of this 
 design. As, 1. Distracting troubles bring the heart under the stupidity 
 of amazement. Their thoughts are so broken and disjointed, that they 
 cannot unite them to a composed, settled resolution in anj'thing; 
 they can scarce join them together to make out so much as might 
 spell out their chstinct desires or endeavours ; they scarce know what 
 they are doing, or what they would do. 2. They also pioison the 
 thoughts luith harsh apprehensions against God. Great distresses 
 make the thoughts sometimes recoil against the holy Lord with un- 
 seemly questionings of his goodness and compassion ; and this puts 
 men into a bad sullen humour of untowardness, from whence, through 
 Satan's improvement, arise the greatest plunges of despair. 3. Most 
 usually in this case the greatest endeavours are fruitless cmd dissatis- 
 factory. Satan, though he be no friend to duty, doth unseasonably 
 urge them to repent and pray ; but it is because they cannot do either 
 with any satisfaction, and then their failures are matter of argument 
 against them. For if they resolve to put themselves upon a moi'e 
 severe coiu'se of repentance, and accordingly begin to think of their 
 sins, to number them, or to aggi-avate them, they are usually affrighted 
 from the undertaking by the heinous appearance of them. They can- 
 not, they dare not think of them ; the remotest glimpse of them is 
 terrible to an affrighted conscience ; the raising of them up again in the 
 memory, like the rising of a ghost from the grave, is far more astonish- 
 ing than the first prospect of them after commission. So true is that 
 of Luther, ' If a man could see sin perfectly, it would be a perfect 
 hell.' If they set themselves to beg theu- pu'doa by earnest prayer, 
 
304 A TREATISE OF [PaRT II. 
 
 they are so distracted and confused in prayer, that their prayers please 
 them not ; they come off from the duty more wounded than when 
 they began. Or if in any measure they overcome these difficulties, so 
 that they do pray and confess their iniquities, then they urge and 
 force a sorrow or compunction upon themselves, but still to a greater 
 dissatisfaction. For it may be— and this usually happens in greater 
 distresses— they cannot weep, nor force a tear, or if they do, stUl they 
 judge their sorrow is not deep enougli, nor any way suitable to the 
 greatness of their sin. 4. To all these Satan sometimes makes a fur- 
 ther addition of trouble, hy injecting Uas})hemous ihonglds. Here he 
 sets the stock, with an intention to graft upon it afterward. When 
 all these things are thus in readiness, then comes he to set fire to the 
 train, and thus he endeavours to blow up the mine. Is not thy heart 
 hardened to everlasting destruction? How canst thou deny this? 
 Art thou not grown stupid, and senseless of all the hazards that are 
 before thee ? Here he insists upon the amazement and confusion of 
 their spirit ; and it is very natural for those that are drunk with the 
 terrors of the Almighty, to think themselves stupid, because of the 
 distraction of their thoughts. I have known several that have pleaded 
 that very argument to tiiat purpose. Satan goes on :_ What greater 
 evidence can there be of a hardened heart than impenitency ? Thou 
 canst not moiu-n enough. Thou hast not a teai- for thy sins, thougli 
 thou couldst weep enough formerly upon every petty occasion ; nay, 
 thou canst not so much as pray for pardon. Is not tliis not only 
 a heart that doth not, bnt that cannot repent? Besides, saith he, 
 thou knowest the secret thoughts that thy heart is privy to ; do they 
 not boil up in thy breast against God ? Art thou not ready to tax 
 him for dealing tlms with thee? What is this untowardness, but 
 desperate obduratcness ? And if with all these there be blasphemous 
 injections, then he tells him it is a clear case that he is judicially 
 hardened ; in that he acts the part of the damned in hell already. 
 Bv all, or some of these deceits, the devil doth often prevail so far 
 with men, that they conclude their heart to be so obstinate, so stupid, 
 that it is impossible that it should be ever mollified or brought into a 
 penitential frame, and consequently that there is no hope of their sal- 
 vation. 
 
 (3.) There is but one thing more, besides the occasions which he 
 takes, and the arguments which he makes use of, relating to Satan's 
 method for the procurement of spiritual distresses, and that is his 
 endeavour to strengthen these arguments by the increase of fears in 
 their hearts. 
 
 What Satan can do in raising up misgiving, tormenting fears, hath 
 been said ; and how serviceable this is to his design, I shall shew in a 
 few particulars, having only first noted this in the general, that as his 
 design in these distresses is raised to express his utmost height^ of 
 malice against men — in pushing them forward to the greatest mischief, 
 by excluding them totally from the lowest degree of the hope of happi- 
 ness, and by persuading them of the inevitable certainty of their 
 eternal misery— so he doth endeavour, by the strongest impressions of 
 fear, to terrify them to the utmost degree of affrightful amazement, 
 and consequently the effects of that fear are most powerful ; for, 
 
Chap. 9.] satan's temptations. 305 
 
 [1.] By this means the spirits of men are formed and moulded into 
 a frame most suitaUefor the belief and entertainment of the most dis- 
 mal impressions that Satan can put upon them. For strong fears, like 
 fire, do assimilate everything to their own nature, making them 
 naturally incline to receive the blackest, the most disadvantageous in- 
 terpretations of all things against themselves, so that they have no 
 capacity to put any other sense upon what lies in their way, but the 
 very worst. Hence are they possessed with no other thoughts but 
 that they are remediless wretches, desperate miscreants, utterly for- 
 saken of God. They are brought into such a woeful partiality against 
 their own i:)eace, that they cannot judge aright of any accusation, plea, 
 or argument that Satan brings for a proof of their unhappiness ; but 
 being fiUed with strong prejudices of hell, they think every sophism a 
 strong argument, every supposition a truth, and every accusation con- 
 clusive of no less than their eternal damnation ; insomuch that their 
 fears do more to discomfit them than all Satan's forces. ' A dreadful 
 sound being in their ears,' [Job xv. 21,] their strength fails them at 
 the appearance of any opposition ; as when fear comes upon an army 
 they throw away their weapons, and, by an easy victory, give their 
 backs sometimes to an inconsiderable enemy. 
 
 [2.] Men thus possessed with fear do not only receive into their own 
 bowels every weapon which Satan directs on purpose to the wounding 
 and slaying of their hopes, but by a strange kind of belief they imagine 
 everything to he the sword of an enemy. All tliey hear or meet with 
 turns into poison to them, for they think everything is against them — 
 promises as well as threatenings, mercies as well as judgments, and 
 that by aU these, one as well as another, God, as with a flaming sword 
 turning every way, doth hinder their access to the tree of life. Bilney 
 the martyr, as Latimer in his sermons reports of him, after his denial 
 of the truth, was under such horrors of conscience, that his friends were 
 forced to stay with him night and da}^ No comforts would serve. 
 If any comfortable place of Scripture was offered to him, it was as if a 
 man should cut him through with a sword. Nothing did him good ; 
 he thought that all scriptures made against him, and sounded to his 
 condemnation. Neither is it so rare a thing for fears to form the im- 
 agination into such misshapen apprehensions, as that we should think 
 such instances to be only singular and unusual ; but it is a common 
 effect of terror, which few or none escape that are under sphitual dis- 
 tresses. The blackness of their thoughts make the whole Scripture 
 seem black to them. The unfit medium through which they look 
 doth discolour every object. So that the book of life, as Mrs Kath. 
 Bretterge in the like case expressed herself concerning the Bible, seems 
 to be nothing else but a book of death to them.i 
 
 [3.] From hence it follows that no counsel or advice can take place 
 with them. Excessive fears do remove their souls so far from peace, 
 that they will not believe there is any hope for thern, though it be told 
 them. The most compassionate, serious admonitions of friends, the 
 strongest arguments against despair, the clearest discoveries of the 
 hopes that are before them, &c., effect but little. While they are 
 spoken, it may be, they seem to relieve them a little ; but the comfort 
 ' Vide her story in Clark's Lives. [.\s before.— G.] 
 
306 A TREATISE OF [PaUT 11. 
 
 abides not with tliem, it is soon gone. Though tlicy cannot answer 
 the arguments brought for them, yet they cannot beUeve them ; as if 
 their souls were now dciirived of all power to bcUeve anything for their 
 good : suitable to that expression of Spira, in answer to his friends 
 that laboured to comfort him, ' I would believe comfort, but cannot ; 
 I can believe notliiug but what is contrary to my comfort.' Nay, 
 when they are told that many others have been under the like dread- 
 ful apprehensions of everlasting misery who have at last been com- 
 forted—and by manifold experience we find that it is the greatest ease 
 to distressed souls to hear, especially to speak with some that have 
 been in the Uke case, for this will oft administer some liope that they 
 also maybe at last comforted, when the most comfortable promises of 
 the Scripture are a terror to them ;— yet this doth [not] effect the least 
 ease for them sometimes, because some are so wholly possessed with 
 unalterable prejudice against themselves, that tliey think none arc or 
 ever were like them. They compare tliemsclvcs to Judas and Cain, 
 and think their iniquity to be aggravated by many circumstances far 
 beyond the pitch of them. Thus Spira judged of himself: ' I tell you,' 
 saith he, ' my case is mine own, it is singular, none like it.' 
 
 [4.] Though fears make the soul unactive to anything of comfort, 
 because they wholly destroy ils inclination and alter its bias to liope, 
 yet, on the contrary, thc>i make, il vcrynimhlc and active to jiursue the 
 conclusions of misery tvhich they have helped to frame, for the spring 
 of all the faculties of the soul are bent that way. Hence it is that those 
 who are possessed with these agonies will eagerly plead against them- 
 selves, and with an admirable subtlety will frame arguments against 
 their peace, coin distinctions, and make strange evasions to escape the 
 force of any consolation that may be offered to them. Their under- 
 standings arc, as it were, whetted by their fears to an unimaginable 
 quickness. Who would not wonder to hear the replies that some will 
 give to the arguings of their friends that labour to comfort them ! 
 What strange answers Spira gave to those that pleaded with him ! 
 How easily he seemed to turn oif the example of Peter denying Christ, 
 and those scriptures that speak of God's love to mankind, &c., may be 
 seen at large in his narrative. 
 
 [5.] Fears by a strange kind of witchcraft do not only make them 
 believe that they shall be imhapi)y, but also will at last persuade them 
 thai they fed and see their misery already. How astonishingly doth 
 Spira speak to this puqjose : ' I find he daily more and more hardens 
 me ; I feel it.' Answerable to this, I remember, was the case of one 
 who was long imprisoned in deep distresses. He told me that he verily 
 believed that scripture of Isa. Isvi. 23, 24 was fulfilled ujion him, ' From 
 one sabbath to another shall all flesh come to worship before me, and 
 they shall go forth and look upon the carcases of the men that have 
 transgressed against me ; for their worm shall not die, neither shall 
 their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring to all flesh.' 
 To his own feeling he had the torments of conscience, and the sense 
 of divine WTath was as a burning fire within him, and to his appre- 
 hension every look from others was a gazing upon him as a monster 
 of misery, ' abhorred of all flesh.' 
 
 The nature of spiritual distresses, and Satan's method in working 
 
Chap. S).] satan's temptatioxs. 307 
 
 them, hoins; explained, tlic lasl thing promised is now to be opened. 
 This is, 
 
 3. The burden and weight of these distresses, which how grievous, 
 how intolerable it is, may be sufficiently seen in what hath been 
 already said, and may be further evidenced in the particulars fol- 
 lowing : — 
 
 [1.] Those that are luounded ivith these fiery darts do at first usually 
 conceal their tvound and smother their grief, being ashamed to declare 
 it, partly because some great transgression, it may be, hath kindled 
 all this fire in their bosoms, and this they are unwilling to declare to 
 others ; partly because they suspect — though no one remarkable sin 
 hath occasioued these troubles — that the discovery of their case will 
 expose them to the wonder and censures of all that shall hear of them. 
 By this means the fire burns with greater vehemency. Their sore 
 runs continually, and having none to speak a word in season for the 
 least relief, it becomes more painful and dangerous ; as bodily dis- 
 tempers, concealed by a foolish modesty from the i)hysician, increase the 
 trouble and hazard of the patient. Here have they many stragglings 
 within themselves, many attempts to overcome their fears, but all in 
 vain. They sit alone and keep silence, they flee the company and 
 society of men, they labour after solitary places where they may weep 
 with freedom, if their tears be not yet dried up, or at least where they 
 may pour out their complaints against themselves. They meditate 
 nothing but their misery, they can fix their thoughts upon notliing 
 else, they ' chatter as a crane or swallow, they mom'u as a dove,' they 
 are as ' a pelican in the wilderness, as an owl in the desert,' but still 
 without ease. They are but as those that are ' snared in dens and 
 prison-houses,' who the longer they lie there have the less patience 
 to bear the present uuhappiness, and the less hope to be delivered 
 from it. 
 
 [2.] When they are tired out loith private conflicts, and Imve no 
 rest or intermission of trouble, then at last tlvey are forced to speak; 
 and having once begun to open their troubles, they care not ivho knoios 
 it. If there be any heinous sin at the bottom, their consciences are 
 forced to confess it. Wickedness, that was once sweet in his mouth, 
 ' is turned in his bowels, it is the gall of asps within him,' Job xs. 
 14, 15. Thus doth God make men to vomit up what they had swal- 
 lowed down. Terrors chase away all shame, they can now freely speak 
 against their sin with the highest aggravations. And if their con- 
 sciences have not a heinous crime to accuse them of in particular, yet 
 in the general they will judge and condemn themselves as the most 
 stubborn, sinful, or hardened wretches, justly branded with indelible 
 characters of the wrath of God. However, the distress becomes 
 greater ; if they truly accuse themselves of any particular sin, that 
 vomit is not without a violence offered to nature wliich otherwise 
 would cover its shame. It cannot be done without sickness, straining, 
 and torture ; and when it is done, they take it for granted that every 
 one passeth the same judgment upon them which they do upon them- 
 selves ; and the frequent speaking doth confii-m their minds in their 
 fearful expectations. For what men do accustom themselves to assert, 
 that they do more confideDtly believe. If they only complain of them- 
 
308 A TREATISE OF [PaRT 11. 
 
 selves in the general, with any intentions of procnreraent of pity, as is 
 usual for the distressed to do, j^et while they cry out to others, ' Is this 
 notliing to you, all you that pass by ? Is there any sorrow like to my 
 sorrow?' &c., [Lam. i. 12,] still they think their ' stroke is heavier than 
 theu- groaning,' [Job xxiii. 2 ;] and theh cry to others doth strongly 
 fix this apprehension in themselves, that none can he more miserable 
 than they. Thus are they brought to Job's condition : chap. xvi. 6, 
 ' Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged ; and though I forbear, 
 what am I eased?' » t • 
 
 [3.] All this while they are under an expressible^ sense of divme 
 lorath. Heman speaks his apprehensions of it under the similitude of 
 the most hideous and dismal comfortless imprisonment: Ps. Ixxxviii.G, 
 ' Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.' David, 
 in Ps. cxvi. 3, compares it to the ' sorrows of death,' and— the highest 
 that human thoughts can reach—' the pains of hell.' ' The sorrows of 
 death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me ; I found 
 trouble and sorrow.' Well might they thus judge, all things con- 
 sidered; for sin, that then lies heavy upon them, is a great weight, 'a 
 burden,' saith David, ' greater than I can bear,' especially when it is 
 pressed on by a heavy hand : ' Thy hand presseth mc sore.' Sin 
 makes the greatest wound, considering the conscience, wliich is 
 wounded by "it, is the tenderest part, and of exquisite sense. Hence 
 the grief of it is comiiarcd to the pain of a iimning, fretting ulcer, that 
 distempers the whole body: ' IMy wounds stink and are cdrrupted ; my 
 sore ran in the night, and ceased not.' Or to the pain of l)n)lcen and 
 shattered bones: Ps. xxxviii. 3, 'There is no soundness in my flesh, 
 because of thine anger ; neither is there any rest in my bones, because 
 of my sin.' The instrument also that makes the wound is sharp, and 
 cuts deep : ' It is sharper than a two-edged sword,' [Heb. iv. 12 ;] but 
 when the weapon is poisoned,— and Satan hath a way to do that,— then 
 it burns, making painful, malignant inflammations. The wrath of 
 God, expressed to the conscience, brings the greatest terror : ' Who 
 knows the power of thine anger?' Ps. xc. 11. It is impossible for 
 the most trembling conscience, or most jealous fears, to go to the 
 utmost bounds of it; neither can we apprehend any torture greater. 
 The rack, tortures, fire, gibbets, &c., are all nothing to it. Hence it 
 is that those who were afraid of suffering for truth, when by this 
 means they were brought under these distresses, could then be filing 
 to suffer any torment on the body ; yea, and heartily wish to sutler 
 much more, so that these tortm-es might be ended. Thus it was with 
 Bainham martjT,2 who, in the public congregation, bewailed his abju- 
 ration of the truth ; and prayed all his hearers ' rather to die by and 
 by, tlian do as he had done.' But that of Spira seems almost beyond 
 belief Thus speaks he to Vergerius, ' If I could conceive but the least 
 spark of hope of a better estate hereafter, I would not refuse to endure 
 the most heavy weight of the wrath of that great God, yea, for twenty 
 thousand years, so that I might at length attain to the end of tliat 
 misery.' What dreadful agonies were these that put him to these 
 wishes ! But it is less wonder, if you observe what apprehensions he 
 had of his present trouble, he judged it worse than hell itself. And if 
 ' Query, ' inexpressible' ?— G. - [Foxe,] Acts and Mon., cap. 8, p. 93S. 
 
Chap. 9.] satan's temptations. ' 309 
 
 you would have a lively exposition of David's expression, ' The pains 
 of hell,' &c., you may fetch it from this instance: ' My present estate,' 
 saith lie, ' I now account worse than if my soul, separated from my 
 body, were with Judas and the rest of the damned ; and therefore I 
 desire rather to be there than thus to live in the body.' So that if you 
 imagine a man crushed under the greatest weight, wounded in the 
 most tender parts, and those wounds provoked by the sharpest corro- 
 sives, his bones all disjointed and broken, pined also with hunger and 
 thirst, and in that case put under the highest tortures ; yet you have 
 but a very shadow of divine wrath. Add to all these, according to 
 Spira's wish, twenty thousand years of hell itself, yet all is nothing to 
 that which a distressed mind supposeth ; while the word eternity pre- 
 sents the soul with the total sum of utmost misery all at once. Oh, 
 unexpressible burden of a distressed mind ! who can understand it truly, 
 but he that feels it ? How terribly is the mind of man shaken with 
 terrors, as the wilderness by a mighty wind ! which not only produceth 
 violent motions, but also hideous noise, murmur, and howling. 
 
 [4.] This burden upon the mmAforceth the tongue to vent its sorrow 
 in the saddest accent of most doleful outcries. Their whole language 
 is lamentation ; but when the pangs of their agonies come upon them, 
 for their distresses have their fits, then they speak in the bitterness of 
 their souls. Oh, said Bainham, I would not for all the world's good 
 feel such a hell in my conscience again. One, formerly mentioned, in 
 these distresses cries out, ' Woe, woe, woe, a woeful, a wretched, a for- 
 saken woman ! i It would surely have made a man's hair to stand 
 upright for dread to have heard Spira roaring out that terrible sentence, 
 ' How dreadful is it to fall into the hands of the living God !' [Heb. 
 X. 31.] Or to have heard his reply to him that told of his being at 
 Venice : ' cursed day ! ' saith he, ' cursed day ! Oh that I had 
 never gone thither, would God I had then died ! ' &c. The like out- 
 cries had David often: Ps. xxi. 1, ' My God, my God, why hast thou 
 forsaken me ? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the 
 words of my roaring?' And Heman, Ps. Ixxxviii. 14, 'Lord, why 
 castest thou off my soul, why hidest thou thy face from me?' It is 
 true David's and Heman's words have a better complexion than those 
 others last mentioned; but their disquiet of heart seems, at some 
 times, to have urged their expressions with impetuous violence ; as 
 those passages seem to say, Ps. xxxviii. 8, ' I have roared by reason 
 of the disquietness of my heart ;' Ps. xxxii. 3, ' My bones waxed old 
 through my roaring all the day long ;' Job iii. 24, ' My roarings are 
 poured out like water.' If their lamentations were turned into roar- 
 ings, and those roarings were like the breaking in of a flood, and that 
 flood of so long continuance that it dried up the marrow of the bones, 
 we may safely imagine that they were not so much at leisure to order 
 their words, but that their tongues might speak in that dialect which is 
 proper to astonishment and distress. 
 
 [5.] Though the mind be the principal seat of these troubles, yet 
 
 the body cannot he exempted from a co-partnership in these sorroics. 
 
 Notwithstanding, this is so far from abating the trouble, that it 
 
 increaseth it by a circulation. The pains of the body, contracted by 
 
 ' Mis K. B. [Mrs Katlierine Bretterge, as before.— G.] 
 
310 A TREATISE Of [PAKT II. 
 
 tlie trouble of the mind, arc communicated again to the fountain from 
 whence they came, and reciprocally augment the disquiet of the mind. 
 The body is weakened, their 'strength poured out like water;' they 
 are ' withered like grass,' pined as ' a skin,' become as a ' bottle in 
 the smoke.' Thus David frequently comj^lains: Ps. xxii. 14, he 
 describes himself as I'educed to a skeleton, ' I am poured out like 
 water, and all my bones are out of joint : my heart is like wax ; it is 
 melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up Hke a 
 potsherd ; my tongue cleaveth to my jaws ; and thoTi hast brought me 
 to the dust of death.' Neither is this his peculiar case, but the 
 common efiect of spiritual distresses: Ps. xxxix. 11, 'When thou 
 with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makcst his beauty to 
 consume away like a moth.' 
 
 [C] Being thus cUstressed for their souls, they cast off all care 
 of their bodies, estates, fam Hies, and all their outicard concerns whatso- 
 ever. And no wonder, for being pursuadcd that they have made 
 shipwreck of their souls, they judge the rest arc not worth the 
 saving. 
 
 [7. J Giving all for lost, they usually cast about for some ease to 
 tlieir miuds, by seeking after the loicer degrees of misery, hearing or 
 supposiruj that all are not tormented alike, they endeavour to persuade 
 themselves of a cooler hell. Tiiis, if they could reach it, were but poor 
 comfort, and little to their satisfaction ; but, as poor as it is, it is 
 usually denied to them, for while they judge themselves to be the 
 greatest sinners, they caimot but adjudge themselves to the greatest 
 torments ; and these endeavours being frustrated, they return back to 
 themselves, as now hopeless of the least ease, worse than Ijcforc. Now 
 they fix themselves upon the deep contemplations of their misery. Oh, 
 think they, how great had our happiness been if we liad l)een made 
 toads, serpents, worms, or anything but men ; for tlien sliould we 
 never have known this unhappiness ; and this begets a tliousand vain 
 wishes. Oh that we had never been born ! or that death could 
 annihilate us ! or that as soon as we had been born, we had died ! as 
 Job sjieaks: chap. iii. 11, 12, ' Why died I not from the womb ? why 
 did I not give up the gliost when I came out of the belly ?' for then 
 had we not contracted so much guilt. ' Or that the mountains and 
 hills could fall upon us, and cover us from the face of our judge," 
 [Eev. vi. IC] 
 
 [S.] When all their hopes are thus dashed, and, like a shipwrecked 
 man on a plank, they are still knocked do\vn with new waves, all 
 tlieir endeavours being still frustrated, they seem to themselves to be 
 able to hold out no longer ; then they give over all further inquiries, 
 and the use of means, they refuse to pray, read, hear. They ]ierceive, 
 as Spira said, that they pray to their own condemnation, and that all 
 is to no piu-jiose. They are ' weary of their gi-oanings,' Ps. vi. G ; thou- 
 'eyes fail with looking up;' then- 'knees are feeble;' their hands 
 hang do'STi ; and as Heman : Ps. Ixxxviii. 4, 5, ' They count them- 
 selves with those that go down to the pit, free among the dead, like 
 the slain that lie in the grave, whom God remembereth no more.' 
 Thus they lie down under theu- bm'den, and while they find it so hard 
 to be borne, it is usual for them to come to the utmost point of 
 
CiiAr. 0.] Satan's temptations. 311 
 
 desperateness, Satan suggesting and forwarding them. Sometimes 
 they open their mouths vnth complaints against God, and blasi)heme. 
 And, as the last part of the tragedy, being weary of themselves, 
 they seek to put an end to then- present misery, by putting an end to 
 their lives. 
 
 I have presented you with Satan's stratagems against the peace of 
 God's children. The remedies against these and other subtleties of 
 our grand enemy I shall not offer you, because many others have 
 done that already, to whose writings I must refer you. Some principal 
 directions I have pointed at in the way, and in the general, have done 
 this for the help of the tempted, that I have endeavoured to sliew 
 them the methods of [the] tempter, which is no small helpto preserve men 
 from being thus imposed upon, and to recover oirt of his snare those 
 that ai'e. It is a great preservative from sickness, and no mean advan- 
 tage to the cure, to have a discovery of the disease, and the causes of 
 it. I shall conclude these discoveries wth a caution or two. 
 
 [1.] Lei none think rvorse of the serious practice of holy strictness in 
 religion, because these spiritual distresses do sometimes befall those 
 that are conscientiously careful in the ways of God, ivhile the profane 
 and negligent professors are strangers to such trials. These troubles 
 are indeed very sad, but a senseless, careless state is far worse. These 
 troubles often end very comfortably, whereas the other end — except 
 God make them sensible by conviction of their sin and danger — in 
 that real misery, the fears whereof occasion these sorrows to God's 
 children. And tlie danger of spiritual troubles is not so great as 
 is that of a hardened heart ; nay, God frequently makes use of them 
 to prevent eternal ruin — for one that goes roaring to the pit, there are 
 thousands that go laiighing to hell. 
 
 [2.] Let none slight or scoff at these tremendous judgments. It is 
 too common with men, either to ascribe spiritual troubles to melan- 
 choly, as if none were ever thus concerned, but such, as by too much 
 seriousness in religion, are become mad — a fair iiretence for careless- 
 ness — or to a whining dissimidation. To the former I have said 
 something before, and as for the latter I shall only reply, in the words 
 of Spira, to one that objected hyijocrisy to him : ' I am a castaway, a 
 vessel of wi-ath ; yet dare you call it dissembling and frenzy, and can 
 mock at the formidable example of the heavy wrath of God that 
 should teach you fear and terror. But it is natural to the flesh 
 to speak, either out of malice or ignorance, perversely of the work of 
 God.' 
 
 [3.] Let none he afraid of this Goliath, let no man's heart faint 
 because of him. A fear of caution and diligence to avoid his snares is 
 a necessary duty — ' Be sober, be vigilant ; because your adversary the 
 devil,' &c., [1 Pet. v. 8] — but a discouraging, distrustful fear is a dis- 
 honourable reflection upon God's power and promises to help us, and 
 upon the captain of our salvation, who goeth out before us. Let 
 us hold on in the practice of holuaess, and not be afraid. ' The God 
 of peace shall tread down Satan imder our feet shortly,' [Kom. xvi. 
 20.] Amen. 
 
NOTE. 
 Agreeably to Note at beginning, there will be found below* the more specific title 
 page of Part III.— G. 
 
 » D.HMONOLOGIA SA CRA . 
 
 Satnn^ Ccmptatioii^. 
 The Third Part. 
 
 COST Al SING 
 
 An Account of the Combate betwixt Christ and Satan, 
 in Matth. 4. Wherein the deep Subtilty of Satan, 
 in managing those Temptatione, is laid open, as the 
 grand Instance of the Sum of his Policy in all his As- 
 saults upon Men ; Leading to a consideration of ma- 
 ny Temptations in particular, and of special directions 
 for Resistance. 
 
 By E. O. 
 
 Heb. 4. 15. 
 —He was Tempted m all points like as we are, yet mthmit Sin. 
 
 London, Printed by /. D. for Richard Randtl, and Peter Maplisden, 
 Booksellers in NaD-Castle upon Tine, 1677. 
 
 J 
 
PART III. 
 
 Then loas Jesus led up of the Spirit into the loilderness, to he tempted 
 of the devil. — Mat. iv. 1. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 The first circumstance of the combat — The time when it happened — 
 The two solemn seasons of temptation — The reasons thereof 
 
 I SHALL here consider the great temptation which it pleased our Lord 
 Christ to submit wxiio, as a most famous instance for confirmation 
 and ilkistration of the doctrine of temptations already handled. 
 
 The first verse sets down several remarkable circmnstances of this 
 combat, all of them matter of weight and worth : as, 
 
 1. First, The time lohen this fdl o\it; not as a loose and accidental 
 emergency, but as particularly made choice of both by God and 
 Satan, being most fit and proper for the design which each of them 
 were carrying on. This is expressly noted in Mat. iv. 1, ' Tlien was 
 Jesus led up;' but more full in Mark i. 12, ^Immediately the Spirit 
 driveth him into the wilderness;' manifestly directing us to expect 
 somethmg worthy of our observation in that circumstance. Neither 
 can we miss of it, when the things unto which this directs us are so fully 
 related immediately before. For we find in both these evangelists, 
 which speak so exactly of the time of these temptations, that Christ 
 was baptized of John. This was in order to the fidfiUing the right- 
 eousness of his office. As the priests under the law, when they came to 
 be thirty years old, entered upon thek function by washings, or 
 baptizings and anointings : l so Christ, that he might answer his type, 
 beginning to be about thirty years of age, was solemnly inaugurated 
 into the great office of the mediatorship by baptism, and the extra- 
 ordinary descending of the Holy Ghost, by which he was ' anointed 
 with the oil of gladness above his fellows.' To this solemn instalment 
 the Father adds an honourable testimony concerning him, ' This is 
 my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,' Luke iii. 23. Im- 
 mediately after this was he carried to the place of combat. Hence 
 we may infer, 
 
 Ohs. 1. That our entering upon a special service for God, or re- 
 
 ' Xumb. iv. 3. Vide LigUtfoot, ' Temple Service auti Harmony.' Lev. viii. G, 12. 
 
314 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 ceivincj a fecial favour from God, arc tioo solemn seasons ivhich 
 Satan makes use of for temptalion. Often these two seasons meet 
 together in the same person at the same time. Paul, after his rapture 
 into the tliird heaven, 2 Cor. xii. 2, 7, which, as some conceive, was 
 also upon his entrance upon the ministry, was bufFetcd by ' the mes- 
 senger of Satan.' 
 
 Sometime these two seasons are severed; yet still it may be ob- 
 served that the devil watcheth them. When any servant of God is to 
 engage in any particular employment, he will be upon him. He 
 assaidted Moses by persecution, when he was first called to deliver 
 Israel. As soon as David was anointed, immediately doth he enrage 
 the minds of Saul and his corn-tiers against him. It was so ordinary 
 with Luther, that he at last came to this, that before any eminent 
 service he constantly expected either a fit of sickness, or the bufFetings 
 of Satan. He is no less sedulous in giving his assaults when any 
 child of God hath been under peculiar favours or enjoyments. The 
 chiu-ch, after a high entert.ainment with Christ, is presently over- 
 come by a careless, sleepy indisposition. Cant. v. 1,2. 
 
 Though this may seem strange, yet the harshness of such a pro- 
 vidence on God's part, and the "boldness of the attempt on Satan's 
 part, may be much taken off by the consideration of the reasons 
 hereof. 
 
 (1.) First, On Satan's jjarf. It is no great wonder to see such an 
 imdertakmg, when we consider his fury and malice. The more wc 
 receive from God, and the more we are to do for him, the more doth 
 he malign us. So much the more as God is good, by so much is his 
 eye evil. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, There are in such cases as these several advantages, 
 which, through our weakness and imperfection, we are too apt to 
 give liim ; and for these he lieth at the catch. 
 
 [1.] As first. Security. We are apt to grow proud, careless, and 
 confident, after or upon such employments and favours ; even as men 
 arc apt to sleep or surfeit upon a full meal, or to forget themselves 
 when they are advanced to honoiu-. Job's great peace and plenty 
 made him, as he confesseth, so confident, that he concluded he should 
 'die in his nest,' chap. xxix. 18. David enjoying the fivour of God in 
 a more than onlinary measure, though he was more actjuainted with 
 vicissitudes and changes than most of men, grows secure in liis appre- 
 hension, that he ' should never be moved,' Ps. xxx. G ; but he ac- 
 knowledgeth liis mistake, and leaves it upon record as an experience 
 necessary for others to take warning by, that when he became warm 
 under the beams of God's countenance, then he was apt to fall into 
 security ; and— this it seems was usual with him in all such cases — 
 when he was most secure, he was nearest some trouble or disquiet. 
 ' Thou didst hide thy face ' — and then to be sure the devil will shew 
 liis — ' and I was troubled.' Enjoyments beget confidence ; confidence 
 brings forth carelessness ; carelessness makes God withdraw, and gives 
 opportunity to Satan to work unseen. And thus, as armies after 
 victory growing secure, are oft surprised; so are we oft after our 
 spiritual advancements thi-own do\vn. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Discouragement ami tcrcjivcrsation is another thing 
 
Chap. 1.] satan's temptations. 315 
 
 the devil watclietli lor. By his assaults he represents the duty diffi- 
 cult, tedious, dangerous, or impossible, on purpose to discourage us, 
 and'to make us fall back. No sooner doth Paul engage in the gospel 
 than the devil is upon him, suggesting such hazards as he knew were 
 most prevalent with our frail natures, if he had not been aware of 
 him, and refused to hearken to what flesh and blood would have said 
 in the case, Gal. i. 16. When God honoured Moses with the high 
 employment of delivering Israel, the hazard and danger of the work 
 was so strongly fixed ujjon his thoughts, that he makes many excuses : 
 one while pleading his inability and insufficiency, ' Who am I, that I 
 should go to Pharaoh?' Exod. iii. 11. Another while he urgeth 
 Israel's unbelief, and a seeming impossibility to satisfy them of his 
 commission, Exod. iv. 1. After that he deviseth another shift, ' I am 
 not eloquent,' ver. 10. And when aU these subterfuges were removed, 
 Satan had so affrighted him with the trouble and difficulty of this 
 undertaking, that he attempts to break away from his duty: ver. 13, 
 ' Send by the hand of him whom thou wilt send;' that is, spare me 
 and send another: and till the anger and displeasure of God was 
 manifested against him, he submitted not. In Jonah the temptation 
 went higher. He, upon the apprehensions mentioned, ran away from 
 his service, and puts God to convince him by an extraordinary ijunish- 
 ment. And when Satan prevails not so far as wholly to deter men by 
 such onsets, yet, at least, he doth dishearten and discourage them, 
 so that the work loseth much of that glory, excellency, and exactness, 
 which a ready and cheerful imdertaking would put upon it. 
 
 [3.] Thu-dly, The fall or miscarriage of the saints at such times is 
 of more than ordinary disadvanta(je, not only to others— for if they 
 can be prevailed with to lay aside their work, or to neglect the im- 
 provement of their favours, others are deprived of the benefit and help 
 that might be expected from them— but also to themselves. A pre- 
 vailing temptation doth more than ordinarily prejudice them at such 
 times. The greatness of the disappointment under special service, the 
 unworthy neglect and imanswerableness to special favours, are extra- 
 ordinary provocations, and produce more than ordinary chastisements, 
 as we see in Jonah's aflliction, and the spouse's desertion. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, As we have seen the reason of Satan's keenness in 
 taking those opportunities, so may we consider the reasons of God's 
 ■permission, which are these : — 
 
 [l.J First, Temptations at such seasons are permitted for more 
 eminent trial of the upright. On this account was Job tempted. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, For an increase of diligence, humility, and loatch- 
 fulness. If these privileges and mercies will not discourage Satan, 
 what will ? And if Satan so openly malign such enjoj-ments, we may 
 be awakened to hold them faster and set a double guard upon them. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, For a j)le7diful firniturc <;/' experience. Temptation 
 is the shop of experience. Luther was so great a gainer by this, that 
 he became able so to speak to the consciences and conditions of his 
 hearers, that the thoughts of their hearts were manifested by his speak- 
 ing, as if he had had an intelligencer in their own bosoms. Hence did 
 he commend prayer, meditation, and temptation as necessary requisites 
 for the accomplisluucnt nf a minister. 
 
316 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 Applic. This may administer matter of counsel to us in both cases 
 aforementioned, if we be put upon eminent employments or receive 
 eminent favours. 
 
 1. First, We must not he so secure as to think Satan will be asleep 
 that while, or that loc are beyond danger. While we are receiving 
 kindnesses, he is devising plots and laying snares. With privileges 
 and mercies expect exercises and hazards. 
 
 2. Secondly, in ijarticular, We may receive something of advice 
 from this consideration in reference to both cases. 
 
 (1.) If God is about to employ us in any service, 
 
 [1.] We have little need to be confident of our abilities or perform- 
 ance, when we know that temptations wait for us. 
 
 [2.] We must not only be sensible of our weakness, that we be not^ 
 confident ; but we must be apprehensive of the strength and power of 
 God to carry us through, that we be not discouraged. 
 
 [3.] We must see our opposition, that we may be watchful ; and 
 yet must we refuse to give it the least place of consideration in our 
 debates of duty, lest it sway us against duty or dishearten us in it. 
 
 (2.) If God be pleased to lionour us with ix;cu]iar favours, then, 
 
 [1.] Though we must improve them to the full, yet must we not 
 feed on them without fear. 
 
 [2.] We must not stay in the enjoyment or play with the token, 
 but look to the tendency of such favours and improve them to duty, 
 as to their proper end. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 The second circumstance, Christ's being led by the Spirit — What 
 hand the Spirit of God hath in temptations. — And of running into 
 temptation ivhcn not led into it. 
 
 2. The second circumstance acquaints hoiv Christ ivas carried to 
 the combat. In solemn combats and duels, the persons undertaking 
 the fight were usually carried to the place with great solemnity and 
 ceremony. Christ in this spiritual battle is described as having the 
 conduct of the Spirit, ' He was led up of the Spirit,' &c. Wliat this 
 Spirit was is, though by a needless and over- officious diligence, ques- 
 tioned by some ; but we need not stay much upon it, if we consider the 
 phrase of the evangelists, who mention Sjnrit without any note of dis- 
 tinction—which of necessity must have been added if it had intended 
 cither liis proper spirit as man, or the wicked spirit Satan— directing 
 thereby to understand it of him to whom the word Spirit is more pecu- 
 liarly attributed, viz., the Holy Ghost. Or if we observe the close 
 connexion in Luke betwixt that expression of Christ's being ' full of 
 the Holy Ghost,' and his being ' led by the Spirit,' it will be out of 
 controversy that the Holy Spirit is here intended. Hence was it that 
 Beza translates it more fully, ' Jesus being full of the Holy Gliost, 
 was led, eode^n Sjnriiu, of the same Spirit ;' and the Syriac, in Mat- 
 thew, doubts not to express it by the Holy Spirit. And what else can 
 be imagined, when in this text tho Spirit that led him up, and the 
 
Chap. 2.] satan's temptations. 317 
 
 devil that tempted, are mentioned in so direct mi opposition ? ' He 
 was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.' 
 The manner of his being carried thither is expressed by such words 
 as signify, though not an external rapture like that of Philip, a strong 
 inward motion and impulse upon him. The Spirit driveth — sK^dXXev 
 — him, saithMark. The Spirit 'led him' — ijyeTo—saiih Luke, using 
 the same word by which the Scripture elsewhere expresseth the power 
 of the Spirit upon the children of God, who are said to be ' led ' by 
 him. 
 
 Ohs. 2. Hence note tJiat the Sinrit of God hath a hand in tempta- 
 tions. Christ was led by the Spirit to be tempted. This must not 
 be understood as if God did properly tempt any to sin, either by en- 
 ticing their hearts to evil, or by moving and suggesting wicked things 
 to their minds, or by infusing evil inclinations, or by any proper com- 
 pliance with Satan to undermine and delude us by any treachery or 
 deceit. None of these can be imagined without apparent derogation 
 to the holiness of God, ' who tempteth no man, neither can he be 
 tempted with evil,' [Jaanes i. 13.] But what we are to understand by 
 the Holy Spirit's concerning himself in temptations, is included in these 
 particulars : — 
 
 1. First, God gives commission to Satan, without which his hand 
 would be sealed up under an impossibility of reaching it out against 
 any. 
 
 2. Secondly, Opportunities and occasions do depend upon his pro- 
 vidence, without which nothing comes to pass. Neither we nor any- 
 thing else do or can move without him. 
 
 3. Thirdly, The Spirit oversees the temptation as to measure and 
 continuance. The length and breadth of it is ordered by him. 
 
 4. Fourthly, The issue and consequences of every temptation are at 
 his appointment. The ways of its working for our exercise, humilia- 
 tion, or conviction, or for any other good and advantage whatsoever, 
 they all belong to his determination. 
 
 So that it is not improper to assert that God and Satan do concur 
 in the same temptation, though the ways of proceeding, with the aims 
 and intentions of both, be directly difi'erent and contrary. Hence is 
 it that the temptation of David, 1 Sam. xxiv. 1, and 1 Chron. xxi. 1, 
 are upon several regards attributed both to God and Satan. 
 
 Appl. 1. This note is of use to remove those harsh interpretations 
 which poor tempted Christians meet withal, commonly from such as 
 have not touched their burdens with the least of their fingers. Men 
 are apt in these cases to judge, 
 
 (1.) First, The ivays of religion, as being ways, at least in the more 
 serious and rigid practice of them, of intolerable hazard and perplex- 
 ity, and only upon an observation that those who most addict them- 
 selves to a true and strict observance of duty and command usually 
 complain of temptations, and express sometimes their fears and dis- 
 tress of heart about them. This is your reading, your praying, and 
 hearing. Such preaching, say they, leads men to despair and perpetual 
 disquiet ; and upon the whole they conclude it dangerous to be reli- 
 gious above the common rate of those that prosecute it in a slow and 
 careless iudifferency. 
 
318 A TREATISE OF [ParT III. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, The like severity of censure do they use in reference 
 to the ^nritiial state of the tempted, as if they were vessels of his 
 hatred, and such as -were by him given up to the power of tliis ' wild 
 boar of the forest ' to devom- and tear. All kind of distresses are 
 obnoxious to the worst of misjudgings from malevolent minds. The 
 sufferings of Christ produced this censorious scoff, ' Let God deliver 
 liim, if he will have him,' [Mat. xxvii. 43.] David's troubles easily 
 induced his adversaries to conclude that ' God had forsaken him, and 
 that there was none to deliver liim,' Ps. Ixxi. 11. But in troubles of 
 this nature, where especially there are frightful complainings against 
 themselves, men are more easily drawn out to be peremptory iu their 
 uncliaritable determinations coucerning them, because the trouble 
 itself is somewhat rare, and apt to beget hideous impressions ; and 
 withal the vent wliich the alllicted parties give by their bemoaning of 
 their estate, in liope to case themselves thereby, is but taken as a 
 testimony against themselves, and the undoubted echoes of their real 
 feelings. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Their sins are upon this ground misjudged and 
 heightened. Unusual troubles ^^^th common apprehension argue 
 unusual sins. The viper upon Paul's hand made the barbarians 
 confident he was a man of more than ordinary guilt and wickedness, 
 Acts xxviii. 4. David's sickness was enough to give his enemies 
 occasion to surmise that it was the puui.shmcnt of some great trans- 
 gression. ' An evil disease,' say they, ' cleaveth to Imn,' Ps. xli. 8. 
 Those that were overwliclmed by the fall of the tower of Siloam, and 
 those whose blood I'ilate mixed witli their sacrifices, were judged 
 greatest siimers, Luke xiii. 4. But in inward temptations, this 
 misjudging confidence is every way more heightened; and those 
 that are most molested are supposed to have given more away to 
 Satan. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, Temptations are also misjudged to he icorse than 
 they are. They are indeed things to be trembled at ; but they are 
 not properly of an astonishing, amazing, or despaii-ing considera- 
 tion, as men are apt to think that view the workings of them at a 
 distance. 
 
 Against all those unrighteous surmises, the poor afflicted servants 
 of Christ may have relief from this truth in hand, that the Holy 
 Spirit of God hath a hand in temptations : and therefore it is im])os- 
 sible that every^'herc they should be of such a signification. Were 
 they in themselves no way serviceable to God's glory in the gracious 
 exercise of his children, the Spirit of wisdom and holiness would not 
 at all have a hand in them. If under Satan's as.saults you meet with 
 those that by such a harshness of censure would aggravate your 
 troubles, and so grieve those whom God hath saddened, you may 
 boldly appeal from them to him that judgeth righteously. And 
 indeed, if men would but consider, in the saddest case of this nature, 
 either, 
 
 [1.] The end of the Lord in permitting temptations, which, if seen, 
 would give a high justification of his dealing, and force men to 
 applaud and magnify his wisdom, rather than to censiu-e it. Or, 
 
 [2.] If they could but see the secret tuai/s of God's support, how he 
 
CuAr. 2.] Satan's temptations. 319 
 
 acts his part in holding them by the hand, in counterworking of Satan, 
 and confounding him under the exercise of his highest malice, and 
 also in the ways of his preservation and deUverance. Or, 
 
 [3.] If the harmlessness of temptations, ivhen their sting is taken 
 out, were but tueifjhed, men would change their minds as readily as the 
 barbarians cUd, when they saw the viper not effect that mischief they 
 supposed upon Paul ; and would see cause to stand amazed at the 
 contrivances of so much power and wisdom, as can tm'u these to 
 quite other ends and uses, than what they of themselves seem to 
 threaten. 
 
 Applic. 2. This consideration wUl further express its usefulness ?« 
 comforting its under temptaiions. It might have been Paul's great 
 discouragement, that in his answer before Nero no man stood with 
 liim, 2 Tim. iv. 16 ; but this was his supjiort, that God was with him. 
 The like encouragement we have under all assaults of Satan, that we 
 are not left to ourselves, but the Spirit of God is with us, and that he 
 concerns himself on a design to oversee and overrule his work, and to 
 put a check upon him when there is need. So that he cannot tempt 
 as he will, nor when he will, nor in what he would, nor as long 
 as he would ; but that in all cases, we may rely upon the great 
 master-contriver, for relief, help, mitigation, or deliverance, as there 
 is need. 
 
 Ohs. 3. In that the evangelists do not say that Christ cast himseK 
 upon a temptation, neither did go to undertake it till he was led to it, 
 we note, that tvhatever may be the advantage of a temptation by the 
 Spirit's ordering of it, or ivhal security from danger ive may promise 
 to ourselves iipon that account, yet must loc not run upon temj)tations ; 
 though IOC must szcbmit when we are fairly led into them. The rea- 
 sons of this truth are these : — 
 
 (1.) First, There is so much of the nature of evil in temptations 
 that they are to be avoided if possible. Good they may accidentally be, 
 that is, beyond their proper nature and tendency, by the overruHng 
 hand of God ; but being in their own natural constitution evil, it is 
 inconsistent with human nature to desire them as such. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, To run upon them ivould be a dangerous tempting of 
 God ; that is, making a bold and presumptuous trial, mthout call, 
 whether he wiU put forth his power to rescue us or not. Now he 
 that runs upon a temptation hath no promise to be delivered out of 
 it. And besides, runs upon so desperate a provocation, that in all pro- 
 bability he shall miscarry in it, as a just punishment of his rashness. 
 
 Quest. But inquiry may be made, Wlien do men run uncalled and 
 unwarrantably upon temptation ? I answer, many ways. As, 
 
 Ans. [1.] First, When men engage themselves in sin and apparent 
 ivichedness, in the works of the flesh. For it can never be imagined 
 that the holy God should ever by his Spirit call any to such things as 
 his soul abhors. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, When men run upon the visible and app)arent occa- 
 sions and causes of sin. This is like a man's going to the pest-house. 
 Thus do they, that though they design not to be actors in evd, yet 
 will give their company and countenance to persons actually engaged 
 in evil. 
 
320 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, When men unnecessarily, without the cmiduci either 
 of command or urging an unavoidable providence, do put themselves, 
 though not upon visible and certain opportunities, yet, upon dangerous 
 and hazardous occasions and simres. Peter had no errand in the 
 high-priest's hall ; his curiosity led him thither ; he might easily have 
 foreseen a probable snare ; but confideutly putting himself forward, 
 where his danger was more than his business, he ran upon the tempt- 
 ation, and accordingly fell. The like did Dinah, when she made a 
 needless vagary to "see the daughters of the land ; where she met 
 with her sin and shame. Gen. xxxiv. 1. Neither do they otherwise, 
 who dare adventure themselves in families— whilst yet they are free 
 and may otherwise dispose of themselves— where they see snares and 
 temptations will be laid before them. The case indeed is otherwise to 
 those that are under the necessary engagement of relation, natural or 
 voluntary, if it be antecedent to the hazard, to live in such places or 
 callings ; they have a greater promise of preservation than others can 
 lay claim to, Ps. xci. 11 ; Prov. x. 2!). 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Tiiosc run upon temptation, that adventure ajjpa- 
 rently beyond (heir strength, and put themselves upon actions good or 
 harmless, disproportiouahly to their ahilitics. The apostle gives the 
 instance in marriage abstinence, 1 Cor. vii. 5, which he cautions may 
 not be undertaken at a careless adventure for fear of a temptation : 
 and by this may we judge other things of like nature. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, "They are also guilty that design an adventure unto the 
 utmost hounds of lawful liberty. Those that have a mind to try con- 
 clusions, how near they may make their approaches to sin, and yet 
 keep oflT from the defilement, such as would divide a hair betwixt good 
 and evil, have at best but a hair's breadth lietwixt them and sin ; but 
 how easily arc they brought over that. Like a man that walks upon 
 the utmost verge of a river's brink, ofttimes meets with hollow ground 
 and a dangerous slip before he is aware. 
 
 [6.] Sixthly, Those also may be reckoned in the number of such as 
 rush upon their danger, who go abroad luithout their weapons, and 
 forget in the midst of daily dangers the means of p>reservation. 
 "Thomas, by his neglect, slid into a greater unbelief than the rest of 
 the apostles. David's unwatchful heart was easily smitten by the 
 intelligence which his eyes brought him. They that would plead then- 
 innocency against temptation had need to carry their arms and pre- 
 servatives still with them. 
 
 Ap)plic. This truth is a sufficient caution against the_ rash adven- 
 turoitsness of those who forwardly engage themselves in ^natters of 
 temptation. As the foi'mer observation told us, temptations are not 
 to be feared, so this also tells they are not to be slighted. The 
 carriage of the Philistines when the ark came among them is matter 
 of imitation to us. We may tremble justly when we hear of their 
 approach, but our hazard should be the whetstone of our courage, and 
 our danger should bring us to resolves of a more stout resistance, that 
 we may ' quit ourselves like men.' 
 
 The apostle. Gal. vi. 1, seems to imply, when he tells those that 
 were more severe and careless of others, that ' they may also be tempted,' 
 that the best of men do little know what a change a temptation may 
 
Chap. 3.] satan's temptations. 321 
 
 make upon them ; a small temptatiou may be too strong for them, and 
 may carry them to what they never thought of ; nay, may break down 
 the strongest of their resolves, and snap their purposes as a thread in 
 a flame. It did so with Peter, who was quickly overcome by that 
 which he had with so much confidence undervalued. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The third circtimsiance, the place of the combat. — Tlie advantage given 
 to temptations by solitude. 
 
 3. The third cu-cumstance next to be considered is the jilace of this 
 combat, ' the luilderness.' To inquire what or where this wilderness 
 was, is not only impertinent and useless, as to anything we can 
 observe from it in reference to temptation, but also a matter of mere 
 uncertain conjecture ; only they that would understand it of a place 
 more thinly peopled are expressly contradicted by Mark i. 13, where 
 it is said, ' he was with the wild beasts ; ' noting thereby a desolate 
 and dangerous soHtude, far remote from human society and comfort. 
 
 It is much more our concern to seek after the reasons of his choice 
 of that place, or rather among those many that are given, to satisfy 
 ourselves with what may have the greatest appearance of truth. They 
 that think Christ hereby designed to shew the uncertain changes and 
 vicissitudes of outward things in this life, or to point at the futm'e low 
 estate of his chiurch in the world, that it should sojourn in a wilder- 
 ness ; or to direct those that have dedicated themselves to God to 
 withdraw from the blandishments and allurements of the earth, with 
 a gi-eat many more hints of instruction and document of that kind ; 
 they, I say, that offer no other, seem not to attend to the true design 
 of the choice of this place, wliich notwithstanding is evidently dis- 
 covered to have been done in order to the temptation.^ ' He was led 
 into the wilderness to be temjjted.' The ]Aace then was subservient 
 to the conflict, as the proper theatre on which so great a contest was 
 to be acted. And if we shall but mind what special consideration 
 was to be had of such a place, — a howling desolate wilderness, — we 
 may with ease pitch upon these following reasons: — 
 
 (1.) First, It pleased God to have an eye to the glory of Christ's 
 conquests, when in a single combat he should so remarkably foil the 
 devil, without any the least advantage on his part, there being none 
 that might be the least support or encouragement to him. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, The conclition of the place gave rise to the first 
 temptation. For in that he ' hungered' in a barren wilderness, it gave 
 occasion to Satan to tempt him more strongly to ' turn stones into 
 bread.' 
 
 (8.) Thirdly, In the choice of such a place God seems to offer 
 Satan a special advantage in tempting, wliich was the solitude and 
 danger of liis present condition. 
 
 To omit the two former considerations, as not altogether so usefxd, 
 ' Spanheim, Dub. Evan, in loc. 
 
322 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 further than what I shall be engaged to speak to afterwards, this last 
 affords tliis observation : 
 
 Obs. 4. Tliat solitude affords a great advantage to Satan in the 
 matter of temptation. This advantage ariseth from solitude two ways : 
 
 (1.) First, As it doth deprive us of help. So great and many are 
 the blessed helps arising from the society and communion of such as 
 fear the Lord, as counsel, comfort, encouragement from their graces, 
 experiences, and prayers, &c. , that the woe pronounced to him ' that 
 is alone' is not groundless, Eccles. iv. 10. Christians in a holy com- 
 bination can do more work, and so have a good reward for their 
 labour. They can mutually help one another when they fall ; they 
 can mutually heat and warm one another ; they can also strengthen 
 one another's hands to prevail against an adversary. He then that is 
 alone, being deprived of these advantages, lieth more open to the 
 stroke of temptation. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Solitude increaseth melancholy, fills the soul with 
 dismal apprehensions ; and withal doth so spoil and alter the temper 
 of it that it is not only ready to take any disadvantageous impression, 
 but it doth also dispose it to leaven and sour those very considerations 
 that should support, and to put a bad construction on things that 
 never were intended for its hurt. 
 
 Ap)plic. This may warn us to take heed of giving Satan so great 
 nn advantage against us, as an nnncccssary solitude may do. I know 
 there are times and occasions that do justly require us te seek a soli- 
 tary place for the privacy of duty, or for secret lamentations, as Jere- 
 miah desired, chap. ix. 1, 2, or to avoid the trouble and snare arising 
 from our mixing with an assembly of treacherou.s and wicked men. 
 This is no more than care and watchfulness. But when these reason,s 
 urge not, or some of like nature, but either out of pettish discontent 
 or a mopish reservedness, we withdraw from those aids and comforts 
 which are necessary for our support, we do strengthen Satan's liands 
 against us and weaken our owa. 
 
 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 The fourth circumstance, the end icherefore Christ was led to the 
 wilderness. — Holiness, employment, privileges, exempt not from 
 temptation. — Of temptations that leave not impressions of sin behind 
 iJiem. — Hoio Satan's temptations are distinguished from the lusts 
 of our oivn heart. 
 
 4. The fourth circumstance was the end. There was no other 
 design in the main of Christ's being led up and into the wilderness, 
 but that he might be ' tempted.' In this two things seem to be matter 
 of equal wonder : — 
 
 (1.) First, Why Christ would submit to be temi:)ted. For this many 
 great and weighty reasons may be given. As, 
 
 [1.] First, Thus was Christ evidenced to be the second Adam, and 
 the seed of the woman. His being tempted, and in such a manner. 
 
Chap. 4.] satan's temptations. 323 
 
 doth clearly .satisfy us that he was true man ; and that in that nature 
 he it was that was promised ' to break the serpent's head.' 
 
 [2.] Secondly, This was a fair j)>'eludium and earnest of that final 
 conquest over Satan, and the breaking down of his power. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, There was a more pecuKar aim in God by these means 
 of temptation to qualify him with pity and power to help, ' For in 
 that he sufiered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are 
 tempted,' Heb. ii. 18. And having experience of temptation himself, 
 he became a merciful high-priest, apt to be ' touched with the feeling 
 of our infirmities,' Heb. iv. 15. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, The consequence of this experimental compassion in 
 Christ, was a further reason why he submitted to be tempted, to wit, 
 that we might have the greater comfort and encouragement in the 
 expectancy of tender dealing from him. Hence the apostle, Heb. iv. 
 16, invites to ' come boldly to the thi-one of grace at any time of need.' 
 
 [5.] Fiftlily, A further end God seemed to have in this, viz., to 
 give a signal and remarkahle instance to tis of the nature of tempta- 
 tions ; of Satan's subtlety, his impudency, of the usual temptations 
 which we may expect ; as also to teach us what weapons are necessary 
 for resistance, and in what manner we must manage them. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, It seems as strange that Satan would undertake a 
 thing so unfeasible and hopeless as the tempting of Christ. What 
 expectation could he have to prevail against him, who was ' anointed 
 with the oil of gladness above his fellows' ? [Ps. xlv. 7.] Some answer, 
 
 [1.] First, That Satan might iwssibly doid>t lohether Christ were 
 the Son of God or no. But the improbability of this I shall speak 
 of afterwards. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Others attribute it to his malice, which indeed is 
 great, and might possibly blind him to a desperate undertaking. But, 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, We may justly apprehend the poioer of sin over Satan 
 to be so great that it might enforce him to the bold attempt of such a 
 tvicJcedness. We see daily that wicked men, by the force of their own 
 wicked principles, are restlessly hurried upon acts of sin, though they 
 know the prohibition, and are not ignorant of the threatened danger. 
 Satan is as great a slave to his own internal corrupt principles as any. 
 And whatsoever blind fmy is stirred up in man by the power of his 
 lust, we may very well suppose the like in Satan. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, There is a superior hand upon the devil, that sways, 
 limits, and orders him in his temptations. He cannot tempt when he 
 would, neither always what he would, but in his own cursed inclina- 
 tions and the acting of them, he is forced to be subservient to God's 
 designs. And in this particular, whatever might be Satan's proper 
 end or principle, it is evident that God carried on a gracious design 
 for the instruction and comfort of his children. 
 
 The end of Christ's going to the wilderness bemg that he might be 
 tempted, if together with this the holiness and dignity of Christ in 
 respect of his person and office be considered, we may note from it, 
 
 Obs. 5. That neither height of privilege, nor eminency of employ- 
 ment, nor holiness of person, ivill discourage Satan from ^ tempting, or 
 secure any from his assaults. The best of men in the highest attain- 
 ments may expect temptations. Grace itself doth not exempt them. 
 
324 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 (1.) For first, None of these privileges in us, nor emineticies of 
 grace, ivant matter to fix a temj^tation uiwn. The weaknesses of the 
 best of men are sucli that a temptation is not rendered improbable, as 
 to the success, by their graces. Nay, there are special occasions and 
 inclinations in them, to encourage temptations of pride and neglect. 
 He found indeed nothing in Christ that might ofifer the least proba- 
 bility of prevalency ; but in the best of men, in their best estate, he 
 can find some encouragement for his attempts. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, None of us are beyond the necessity of such exercises. 
 It cannot be said that we need them not, or that there may not be 
 holy ends wherefore God should not permit and order them for our 
 good. Temptations, as they are in God's disposal, are a necessary 
 spiritual physic. The design of them is to humble us, to prove us, 
 and to do us good in the latter end, Deut. viii. 16. Nothing will work 
 more of care, watchfulness, diligence, and fear in a gracious heart, 
 than a sense of Satan's designment against it. Nothing puts a man 
 more to prayer, breathing after God, desiring to be dissolved, and 
 running to Christ, than "the troublesome and afflictive pursuits of 
 Satan. Nothing brings men more from the love of the world, and to 
 a delight in the ordinances of God, tlian the trouble which here abides 
 them unavoida])ly from Satan. This discipline the best have need of. 
 There are such remainders of pride and other evils in them, that if 
 God should not jiermit these jiricks and thorns to humble tliem, and 
 thereby also awaken them to laborious watchfulness, tliey would be 
 careless, secure, and sadly declining. This made Augustine conclude 
 that it was uo way expedient that wc should want tcmptations,i and 
 that Christ taught us as much when he directed us not to pray that 
 we should ' not be tempted,' but that we might not be ' led into the 
 power and prevalency of temptation.' 
 
 (3.) Thiidly, The privileges aiul graces of the children of God do 
 stir up Satan's pride, revenge, and rage against them. And though 
 he hath no encouragement to expect so easy a conquest over these as 
 he hath over others, who are captivated by him at pleasure ; yet hath 
 he encouragements to attempt them, for tlie singular use and advan- 
 tage he makes of any success against them, the difficulty of the work 
 being recompensed by tlie greatness of the booty. For the fall of a 
 child of God, especially of such as are noted above others, is as when 
 ' a standard-bearer fainteth,' [Isa. x. 18 ;] or as the fall of an oak, that 
 bears do-mi with it the lower shrubs that stand near it. How the hearts 
 of others fail for fear, lest they should also be overcome ; how the hearts 
 of some grow thereby bold and venturesome ; how a general disgrace 
 and discredit thereby doth accrue to religion, and the sincere profession 
 of it, are things of usual observation. If such men had not in them 
 sometliing of special prey in case of conquest, his pride would not so 
 readily carry him against the heads and chief of the people, while he 
 seems to overlook the meaner and weaker. Out-houses, though rnore 
 accessible, are not the objects of the thief's design, but the dwelling- 
 house, though stronger built and better guarded, because it affords 
 liopes of richer spoil, is usually assaulted. Neither do pirates so much 
 
 ' Non nobis expedit esse sine tentationlbus ; non rogamus iit uon tciitemui-, seJ ne 
 inducat in tentationem. — Aug. in Ps. Ixiiii. 
 
set themselves to take empty vessels, though weakly manned, but richly 
 laden ships, though better able to make resistance, are the ships of 
 their desire. 
 
 Applic. 1. This may be applied for the encouraging^ of those tliat 
 think it strange that temptations do so haunt them, especially that they 
 should, in their apprehension, be more troubled by him when they fly 
 furthest from him. The consideration of this will much allay these 
 thoughts, by these inferences which it affords : — 
 
 (1.) First, There is nothing unusual be/alls these complainants. 
 Satan frequently doth so to others ; they cannot justly say their case is 
 singular, or that they are alone in such disturbances ; it is but what is 
 common to man. If they urge the uncessantness of the devil's 
 attempts, Christ and others have felt the like. If they object the 
 pecuHar strangeness and horridness of the temptation, as most unsuit- 
 able to the state of an upright soul, Christ met with the like. He was 
 tempted to self-destruction, to distrust, to blasphemy itself in the highest 
 degree. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, TJiere is a good advantage to be made of them: they 
 are preservations from other sins that would otherwise grow upon us. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, These temptations to the upright do but argue Satan's 
 loss of interest in them, and their greater sensibility of the danger. 
 The "captivated sinners complain not so much, because they are so 
 inured to temptation that they mind not Satan's frequent accesses. He 
 that studies humility is more sensible of a temptation to pride than he 
 that is proud. 1 
 
 2. Secondly, This is also of use to those that are apt to be confident 
 upon their successes against sin through grace. Satan, they may see, 
 will be upon them again ; so that they must behave themselves as 
 mariners, who, when they have got the harbour, and are out of the 
 storm, mend their ship and tackling, and prepare again for the sea. 
 
 Lastly, If we consider the unspotted holiness of Christ, and his con- 
 stant integrity under these temptations, that they left not the least of 
 taint or sinful impression upon him, we may observe, 
 
 06s. 6. That there may be temptations, luithout leaving a touch of 
 guilt or impurity behind them upon the tempted. 
 
 It is true this is rare with men. The best do seldom go down 
 to the battle, but in their very conquests they receive some wound ; 
 and in those temptations that arise from our own hearts, we are never 
 without fault ; but in such as do solely arise from Satan, there is a 
 possibihty that the upright may so keep himself, that the wicked one 
 may not so touch him as to leave the print of his fingers behind him. 
 
 Quest. But the great difficulty is. How it may be known when temp- 
 tations are from Satan, and when from ourselves ? 
 
 Ans. To answer tliis I shall lay down these conclusions: — 
 
 (1.) First, The same sins which our oivn ludures ivoidd suggest to 
 us, may also be injected by Sedan. Sometimes we begin by the for- 
 ward working of our own thoughts upon occasions and objects pre- 
 sented to us from without, or from the power of our own incHnation, 
 without the offer of external objects, and then Satan strikes in with it. 
 
 ' Tentationem experiuntur ac sentiunt hi, qui ex animo pictati student. — Miisculus, 
 in loc. 
 
326 A TREATIbE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 Sometimes Satan begins with us, and by his injected motions endea- 
 vours to excite our inclinations ; so that the same thing may be some- 
 time from ourselves, and sometimes from Satan. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Tliere is no sin so vile, but om man heart might pos- 
 sibly p-oduce it wifJwut Satan. Evil thoughts of the very worst kind, 
 as of mm-ders, adulteries, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies may, as 
 Christ speaks. Mat. xv. 19, be produced naturally from our own hearts; 
 for seniinally all sins, the very greatest of all impieties, are there. So 
 that from the greatness and vilene.ss of the temptation we cannot abso- 
 lutely conclude that it is from Satan, no more than from the common- 
 ness of the temptation, or its suitableness to our inclination, we can 
 conclude infallibly that its first rise is from ourselves. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Tiicre are many cases wherein it is very difficult, if 
 not altogether impossible, to determine whether our oivn heart or Satan 
 gives the first life or breathing to a temptation. Wlio can determine, 
 in most ordinary cases, when our thouglits are working upon objects 
 presented to our senses, whether Satan or our o^sti tln)ugiits do run 
 faster? Yea, when such thoughts are not the consequent of any 
 former occasion, it is a work too hard for most men to determine 
 which of the parents, father or mother, our own heart or Satan, is first 
 in the faidt. They are both forward enough, and usually join liand in 
 liand witli ."iuch readiness, Hint he must have a curious eye that can 
 discover certainly to whom the first beginning is to be a.scribed. 
 
 The difficulty is so great, that some have judged it altogether im- 
 possible to give any certain marks by which it may be determined 
 when they are ours and when Satan's." And indeed tlie discoveries 
 laid down by some are not sufficient for a certain doterniination ; and 
 so far I assent, that neither the suddenness of sucli thoughts — for the 
 motions of our own lusts may be sudden — nor the horridness of the 
 matter of them, are sufficient notes of distinction. That our owa cor- 
 rupt hearts may bring forth that which is unnatural and terrible, 
 cannot be denied. Man)' of the sins of the heathens mentioned in 
 Rom. i. were the violent productions of lust against natural principles; 
 and to ascribe these to the devil, as to tlie first instigator, is more than 
 any man hath warrant to do. Yet though it be confessed that in some 
 cases it is impossible to distinguish, and that where a distinction may 
 be made, these notes mentioned are not fully satisfactory, there may, I 
 believe, be some cases wherein there is a possibility to discover when 
 the motions are from Satan, and that by the addition of some remark- 
 able circumstances to the fore-named marks of difference. 
 
 (4.) Fom-tlily, Though it be true, which some say,2 that in most 
 cases it is needless altogether to spend our time in disputing whether 
 the motions of sin in our minds are firstly from ourselves or from 
 Satan, our greatest business being rather to resist them tlian to differ- 
 ence them ; yet there are special cases wherein it is very necessary to 
 find out the truep)arent of a sinful motion, and these are when tender 
 consciences are wounded and oppressed with violent and gi-eat tempta- 
 tions, as blasphemous thoughts, atheistical objections, <fec. For here 
 Satan in his furious molestations aims mainly at this, that such 
 affiicted and tossed soids should take all these thoughts which are 
 ' Capel, ' Tempt.,' p.irt 3, cap. 4, sec. 1. - Ihid., part 1, cap. 4. 
 
Chap. 4.] satan's temptations. 327 
 
 obtruded upon their imaginations, to be the issue of their own heart. 
 As Joseph's steward hid the cup in Benjamin's sack, that it might be 
 a ground of accusation against him, so doth the devil first oppress 
 them with such thoughts, and then accuseth them of all that villainy 
 and wickedness, the motions whereof he had with such importunity 
 forced upon them ; and so apt are the afflicted to comply with accusa- 
 tions against themselves, that they believe it is so, and from thence 
 conclude that they are given up of God, hardened as Pharaoh, that 
 they have sinned against the Holy Ghost, and finally that there is no 
 hope of mercy for them. All this befalls them from their ignorance 
 of Satan's dealings, and here is their great need to distinguish Satan's 
 malice from theu- guilt. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, Setting aside ordinary temptations, wherein it is 
 neither so possible nor so material to busy ourselves to find out whe- 
 ther they are Satan's or ours ;— in extraordinary temptations, such as 
 have been now instanced, we may discover if they proceed from Satan, 
 though not simply from the matter of them, not from the suddenness 
 and independency of them, yet from a due comideratioii of their nature 
 and manner of lyroceeding, compared ivith the present temper and 
 disposition of our heart. As, 
 
 [1.] First, TVJien tmtisual temptations intrude upon us luith a high 
 impetuosity and violence, while our thoughts are othenvise concerned 
 and taken up.^ Temptations more agreeable to our inclination, 
 though suddenly arising from objects and occasions presented, and 
 gradually proceeding, after the manner of the working of natural pas- 
 sions, may throng in amidst our thoughts or actions that have no ten- 
 dency that way, and yet we cannot so clearly accuse Satan for them ; 
 but when tilings that have not the encouragement of our affections are 
 by a sudden violence enforced upon us, while we are otherwise con- 
 cerned, we may justly suspect Satan's hand to be in them. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, While such things are borne in upon us, against the 
 actual loathing, strenuous reluctancy, and high complcmiings of the 
 sold, tuhen the mind is filled with horror and the hody with trembling 
 at the presence of such thoughts.^ Sins that owe their first original to 
 ourselves, may indeed be resisted upon their first rising up in our 
 mind ; and though a sanctified heart doth truly loathe them, yet they 
 are not without some lower degree of tickling delight upon the affec- 
 tions ; for the flesh in those cases presently riseth up with its lustings 
 for the sinful motion ; but when such unnatural temptations are from 
 Satan, their first appearance to the mind is a horror without any sen- 
 sible working of inclination towards them ; and the greatness of the 
 soul's disquiet doth shew that it hath met with that which the affec- 
 tions look not on with any amicable compliance. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Our hearts may bring forth that which is unnatural 
 in itself, and may give rise to a temptation that toould be hmrtd to 
 
 ' Ilia; plenimque suggerunt, quse nature gratiora, idque placide et gradatim, ita ut 
 mens sui compos maneat in ipso sestu, hse autem impetu plusquara humano irruentes, 
 fulguris instar, ocyus quam solent passiones dianoeticse, b^c.—Arrousnuth, Tactica 
 rSoeral /., lib. ii. cap. 7, sec. 6. 
 
 ' Horrore sui si implent animum, ut tantum non pectus ipsum expectorare videantur, 
 dum ea perpetim dictitaii sentit, et dolet, ad quoque priBsentiam, natura vel depravatia- 
 sima contremiscet. — Idem, Ibid. 
 
328 A TREATISE OK [PaKT III. 
 
 the thoughts of other men, but that it should of its own accord, without 
 a tempter, on" a sudden bring forth that which is directly contrary to 
 its present light, reason, or inclination ; as for a man to be haunted 
 with thoughts of atheism, while he is under firm persuasions that there 
 is a God ; or of blasphemy, while he is imder designs of honoming him, 
 is as unimaginable as that our thoughts should of themselves contiive 
 our death, while we are most solicitous for our life; or that our 
 thoughts should soberly tell us it is night when we see the sun shine. 
 Temptations that are contrary to the present state, posture, light, and 
 disposition of the soul arc Satan's. They are so unnatural as to its 
 present frame, that the production of them must be from some other 
 agent. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Much more evident is it that such proceed from 
 Satan, when they are of long continuance and constant trouble, when 
 they so incessantly beat upon the mind, that it hath no rest from 
 tliem, and yet is under grievous perplexities and anxieties of mind 
 about them. 
 
 Applic. The consideration of tliis is of great use to those that suffer 
 under the violent hurries of strange temptations. 
 
 (1.) First, In that sometime they can justly complain of the afflic- 
 tion of such temptation, when they liave no reason to charge it upon 
 themselves as their sin. It is one thing to be tempted, and another to 
 consent or comjily. To be tempted, and not to be brought into temp- 
 tation, is not evil. Satan only barks when he suggests, but he then 
 bites and wounds when he draws us to consent.^ 
 
 (2.) Secondly, That not only the sin hut the degree also, by just 
 consequence, is to be measured by the consent of the heart. If we 
 consent not, the sin is not ours, and tlie less degree of consent we give, 
 the less is in the sin, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterivards 
 an hungered. — Mat. iv. 2. 
 
 Of Christ's fast, tvith the design thereof— Of Satan s tempting in an 
 invisible toay. — Of his incessant importunities, and hoiv he flies 
 when resisted. — Of inward tein2^tations, tvith outward afflictions. — 
 Several advantages Satan Juxth by tempting in affliction. 
 
 I am next to explain the fast of Christ, the end and design whereof, 
 because it is not expressly mentioned, is variously conjectured. Not 
 to insist in this discourse, which is designed for practice, on the con- 
 troversy about the Quadragesimal fast, that which I shall first consider 
 is the "opinion of Musculus,2 who, upon this ground that his fast was 
 not the principal thing for which the Spirit led him into the wilder- 
 ness ; for he was not led to fast, but to be tempted — thereupon concludes, 
 
 1 Aliud est tentari, aliud tentationem recipere. Tentari et non in tentationem ferri 
 non est malum. — Aug., De. Bono Persevei:, lib. ii. cap. 6. Mordet Satan cum ad con- 
 sensum traliit, latrat solum cum suggerit. — Bernard. ' Musculus, in loc. 
 
 < 
 
Chap. 5.] satax's temftatioxs. 329 
 
 that this was only a consequent of his solitary condition in the wilder- 
 ness, and no other thing than what befell Moses and Elias, who being 
 engaged by God to attend him in such a service, where the ordmary 
 means of the support of life were wanting, were therefore kept alive 
 by him in an extraorcUnary way without them. Thus he thinks the 
 fasting was not, at least principally, designed, but that he being to 
 undergo a temptation in a desolate wilderness where he had no meat 
 to eat, there God restrained his hunger, so that he neither desired nor 
 needed any. If we acquiesce in this, it will afford this doctrine :— 
 
 Doct. 1. That lolien God leads forth his children to such services as 
 shall unavoidably deprive them of the ordinary means of help or supply, 
 there God is engaged to give extraordinary stipport, and his people 
 may expect it accordingly. 
 
 This is a great truth in itself, and a great and necessary encourage- 
 ment to all the children of God that are called out to straits ; but I 
 shall not insist on this as the genuine product of this fast. 
 
 If we look further amongst protestant divines, we shall observe it 
 taken for granted, that Christ fasted upon design, and this is generally 
 reduced to those two heads : — 
 
 (1.) First, Either for instruction : as to shew that he was God,hy 
 fasting so long, and that under the trouble of molesting and disquiet- 
 ing temptations ; whereas the fasts of like date in Moses or Elias were 
 accompanied with the quiet repose of their thoughts ; or to shew that 
 he was man, in that he really felt the natural infirmities of the himan 
 nature, in being hungry; or to teach us the usefulness of fasting in tlie 
 general, when tit occasions invite us thereto; or, 
 
 (2.) Secondly, For confirmation of his doctrine, to put an honour 
 and dignity upon liis employment ;i^ as Elias fasted at the restoring 
 of prophecy, and at the Reformation. As Moses fasted at the writing 
 of the law, so Christ began the gospel of the kingdom with fasting. 
 However, that these things cannot be spoken against, being conclusions 
 warrantably deducible from this act of Christ's ; yet these seem not, 
 in my apprehension, to come fully up to the proper end of this under- 
 taking of his ; which seems not obscurely to be laid before us in that 
 passage of Luke iv. 2, ' being forty days tempted of the devil ; and in 
 those days he did eat nothing;' where we see that his being ' tempted 
 forty days ' was the principal thing, and that his fasting had a plain 
 reference and respect to his temptation. Thus far, I suppose, we 
 may be secure, that we have the design in the general, that his fasting 
 was in order to his temptation. But then whether this was designed 
 as an occasion of the temptations, or as a remedy against them, it is 
 not so easy to determine. That one of those, at least, was intended, can- 
 not be denied by those that wUl grant that his fast related to the 
 combat ; and it seems not to labour of any repugnacy or absurdity, if 
 we say that it is possible that both these ends might be aimed at, and 
 accordingly I shall proceed to observe upon them. There are only 
 some other things to be first despatched out of the way : as 
 
 The continuance of the fast, why it was forty days, neither more 
 nor less. Though some adventure to give reasons for it,2 not only 
 papists, who, according to their wont, are ridiculous and trifling in 
 
 1 Vide Lightfoot, Harm, in lor. ■ Spanheim, Dub. Evan. In loc. 
 
330 A TREATISE UF [PaKT III. 
 
 this matter ; but also protestants, supposing that some regard was, or 
 ought to be, had to his fulfilling the times of the fasts of Moses and 
 Elias ; yet I think it is neither pertinent nor safe to determine any- 
 thing about it, only it observes to us that the continuance of this was 
 a considerable time. 
 
 We are more concerned to inquire whether Christ was under any 
 conflict of temptation all that time ; i which although some deny, lest 
 they should favour a seeming contradiction among the evangelists, yet 
 the words of Luke are so express, ' being forty days tempted of the 
 devil,' Luke iv. 2, that no tolerable evasion can be found to cast these 
 temptations to the end of the forty days ; for he tells us, he was not 
 only tempted after the expiration of the forty days, but that he was 
 tempted during the continuance of the forty days beside ; only there 
 was a difference in the kinds of these temptations, in regard of the 
 way wherein Satan managed them, and this also is fully set down by 
 Matthew, 'And when the tempter came to him,' which with the other 
 expression of Luke compared, shews us, that during the space of the 
 forty days Satan tempted Christ, and yet came not to him till after- 
 ward—that is, he managed those temptiitions in an invisible way. 
 Hence we may note, 
 
 Doct. 2. That Satan doth tisualhj tempt in an invisible way and 
 manner. To explain this a little, I shall evidence it by a few considera- 
 tions. As, 
 
 (L) First, TJuxt he hath a hand in all sins first w last, and then 
 it must needs he in an invisible loay. His work is to tempt, to go 
 about laying snares to ckaw men to sin. Wicked men are ' of their 
 lather the devil,' John viii. 44, and do his works. Carnal desires are 
 ' Ids lusts ;' giving way to anger is 'giving place to the devil,' Eph. iv. 
 2G, 27, and resisting of sin is called in the general, ' a resisting of the 
 devil,' (fcc, James iv. 7. In all this work of Satan, men do not see him. 
 When he puts evil motions into their hearts they do not perceive him, 
 and therefore doth he his work in an invisible way. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, We have sufficient discoveries of these private paths 
 of his: for, [1.] Somethue he tempts by /ribitZs.- he tempted Job by 
 his \\ife, Christ by Peter. [2.] Sometime by external objects, as he 
 drew out Achan's covetousness, and David's uncleanness, by the eye. 
 [3.] Sometime by injecting thottfjhts and motions to our mind. [4.] 
 Sometime by exercising an invisible power upon our bodies, in stirring 
 up the humours thereof, to provoke to passion or excessive mirth. All 
 these ways, of which I have discoursed before more largely, are secret 
 and invisible, and by such as these he most usually tempts. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, The iviles, dep>ths, secrets, and devices of Satan, which 
 the Scripture tells us are his most familiar ways and courses, they in 
 their own nature imply a studied or designed secrecy and impercepti- 
 bility. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, He hath peculiar reasons of policy for his invisible 
 Avay of dealmg ; for the less visible he is, the less suspicious are his 
 designs, and consequently the less frightful and more taking. By this 
 way he insinuates himself so into our bosoms, that he gets a party in 
 us against ourselves before we are aware ; whereas in vain he knows 
 
 ' Spanheim, in loc. 
 
Chap. 5.] satan's temptations. 331 
 
 lie should spread his net if his designs and enmity were discovered to 
 us. 
 
 Applic. This must teach us to suspect Satan where we see him 
 not, and so to converse with objects and occasions as still fearing that 
 there may be angids in herba, a secret snare laid for us to entrap us 
 at unawares. 
 
 If we again cast oiir eyes upon what hath been said, that Cbrist was 
 tempted ' all the forty days,' it will then give us this observation : — 
 
 Doct. 3. TJiaf Satan is sometime incessant in temptation, and sets 
 upon us loith continued importunities. 
 
 Here we may note a distinction of temptations, besides that of in- 
 visible and visible, of which I have spoken, that some are moveable 
 and short fits, and as it were skirmishes, in which he stays not long, 
 and others are more fixed and durable. We may call them solemn 
 temptations, in which Satan doth, as it were, pitch down his tents, 
 and doth manage a long siege against us. Of these last sort is this 
 observation. 
 
 Thus he tempted Paul, contmuing his assault for some time before 
 he departed, 2 Cor. xii. 8. Thus also he dealt with Joseph, who was 
 solicited day by day for a long time together. Gen. xxxix. 10. Of 
 these I shall note a few things. As, 
 
 (1.) First, Such temptations are not without a special commission. 
 He cannot indeed tempt at all without leave, but in the ordinary 
 course of his temptations he hath a general commission under such 
 restraints and limitations as pleaseth the Most High to put upon him ; 
 but in these he must have a special order, as we see in Job's case. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Such temptations have also a special ground. Either 
 the present state and posture of our condition is such as Satan appre- 
 hends highly advantageous for his design, and therefore he desires to 
 have the winnowing of us at such a season ; or there are more than 
 ordinary dispositions and inclinations in our heart to what we are 
 directly tempted to, or to some other consequent design. These 
 animate and encourage him to high resolves of prosecuting us more 
 closely, upon an expectation that a continued solicitation is most likely 
 to prevail at the long run. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, It is possible that such temptations may stand out 
 against the endeavotirs of many prayers, and that we shall find they 
 are not so easily shaken off as the viper that was upon Paul's hand. 
 Paul, 2 Cor. xii. 8, prayed thrice against the messenger of Satan, that 
 is, as Estius and others interpret, he prayed often and fervently, and 
 yet it departed not. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, Such temptations give no rest nor intermission ; 
 men are haunted and dogged by them; what way soever they go, 
 they still hear the same things, and cannot command their thoughts 
 to give an exclusion to his motions, but still by renewed disputes and 
 arguings, or by clamorous importunities, they are vexed and tor- 
 mented : which surely shews a high degree of earnestness and im- 
 pudency in Satan. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, These are consequently very burdensome, exceeding 
 irksome and tiresome to us. Paul calls them ' buffetings,' for their 
 trouble and molestation. Satan so molested Job in his affliction by 
 
332 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 inward accusations and troubles of terror, that, as an overwearied man, 
 he cries out he had no quiet, and that he was disappointed of his hope 
 of ease in sleep, because he was then ' scared with dreams and terrified 
 with visions,' [Job vii. 14.] 
 
 (6.) Sixthly, These are also upon a special design on God's part, 
 either to find us icorlc and to keep vs doing, or to prevent sin and 
 miscarriage ; to keep down om- pride, lest we should be ' exalted 
 above measure,' [2 Cor. xii. 7 ;] to awaken us from slothfulness and 
 security, lest we should 'settle upon our lees,' [Jer. xlviii. 11 ;] or to 
 be an occasion of his grace, and an evidence of his power in our pre- 
 servation, satisfying us and others, that in the greatest shocks of our 
 spiritual battle his ' grace is sufficient for us,' [2 Cor. xii. 9.] Upon 
 these, and such like designs as these, doth the most wise God per- 
 mit it. 
 
 (7.) Seventhly, Satan doth not attempt temptations of this kind but 
 upon a special design, and that either because he hopes by a violent 
 and pertinacious impetuosity at length to prevail, or that he would 
 please himself to molest us ; for surely the cries and complainings of 
 God's children are music in his ears ; or at least upon a design to dis- 
 courage us in our services, and to make way for other temptations of 
 murnmring, blasphemy, despair, &c., which are as a reserve or am- 
 bushmcnt laid in wait for us. The inferences from hence are these 
 two : — 
 
 Applic. 1. That the children of God under such temptations may 
 be encouraged under a patient expectation, by considering that Christ 
 did undergo the like assaults from Satan. It is in itself tedious and 
 disheartening, but they may see, 
 
 (1.) First, That this way of trouble is mual, and that to the best; 
 and therefore they should not fiiint under it. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, That grace is siijicieni to preserve from the preva- 
 lency of the /nost earnest temptations even there, where om- heavenly 
 Father thinks it not fit to preserve us from the trouble of them. Wlien 
 Paul gives the highest security that the faithfulness of God can afford, 
 that temptations shall not be above strength, 1 Cor. x. 13, or the 
 ability that shall be given them, he tells them they are not to expect 
 always such aids as shall presently drive away the temptation, that it 
 must immediately vanish, or that their temptations shall become light 
 and contemptible, but that God's foithfulness will be no further en- 
 gaged in the general, than [1.] to make their temptations tolerable, 
 that they ' may be able to bear them," though not without much to 
 do. [2.] That the ' way of escape ' shall be concurrent with the con- 
 tinuance of the temptation, that though the temptation abide, yet we 
 shall be aided under it. [3.] That yet he is as careful of our help in 
 temptations as he is ready to commissionate them, when need requkes. 
 His resolves that we should be tempted, and his resolves that we 
 should be succoured, they bear the same date. ' With the temptation 
 he will make a way to escape.' 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, That such temptations do not argue [1.] either a 
 likelihood, much less a necessity, that they should prevail ; nor [2.] any 
 want of care and love in God; nor [3.] do they always evidence a 
 more than ordinary proneness and inclination in us ; for Christ, who 
 
Chap. 5.] satan's temptations. 333 
 
 was most averse to the least of sin, who was highest in God's love, 
 against whom there was no possibility he should prevail, yet was thus 
 tempted. 
 
 Applic. 2. Secondly, In such continued violences it will concern us 
 to make stout resistances ; according to the coimsel of James, chap, 
 iv. 7, ' Kesist the devil, and he will fly.' 
 
 Ohj. But I have done so, and yet the temptation is the same, and 
 stUl continues. 
 
 Ans. (1.) First, It is not enough to resist, hut ice must continue to 
 do so. Some make limited resistances, as besieged persons that set a 
 time for their liolding out, and then if they be not relieved at that 
 time, they yield ; but we must resolve a perpetual resistance, as long 
 as the temptation lasts. When one hand is beaten off, we must hold 
 by another ; when both are beaten off, we must, as it were, hold by 
 our teeth. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, In a faithful resistance, we may cast the lohole matter 
 upon God, and engage him in the quarrel ; as David : ' I will say unto 
 God, Why hast thou forsaken me ? ' &c. 
 
 Ohj. But how is it consistent with truth that the temptation should 
 continue, when James tells us that Satan will fly upon resistance ? 
 
 Ans. (1.) It may be the resistance is not as it onght, and so the 
 hiame is ours. If we be not serious, as some who defy the devil in 
 words, and resist him by crossing themselves, things which doubtless 
 the devil laughs at ; or if in the confidence of a presumptuous bravado, 
 or if not with that humility and care that is requisite, it will be no 
 wonder if he depart not. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, He doth fly at everij resistance more or less ; he 
 doth give back, and is discouraged, and is a loser by every opposition. 
 (3.) Tliirdly, Though the scripture say that he shall fly, — that is, 
 sooner or later, — yet it doth not say that he shcdl do so immediately, 
 though most usually he doth so where he is peremptorily rejected. 
 But in some cases time must be allowed ; for the devil, as it is in 
 Chrysostom's comparison, stands like a fawning dog scratching and 
 waving his tail, and if anything be given him, it makes him importu- 
 nate for more ; yet though we give him nothing, we cannot expect 
 that the first or second denial should make him cease his trouble : as 
 he hath been encouraged by former compliances, so will he not be dis- 
 couraged but with many and continued denials. 
 
 If we consider the fast of Christ as an occasion designed by God 
 for an advantage to the temptation, and then look upon his condition 
 in the wilderness, being under hazards from wild beasts, in want of 
 necessaries, and without a possibility of supplies in a usual way, and 
 also under the discomforts of cold and long nights,— for according to 
 the conjectures of some this was about our October and November i — 
 then we may observe, 
 
 Boct. 4. That it is Satan's way to second outward distresses and 
 afflictions ivith imoard temptations. We see the like carriage of 
 Satan toward Job. His affliction was followed with many temxitations. 
 All his friends, in urging him with hypocrisy, were no otlier than 
 parties to Satan's design, though they knew it not apparently. His 
 
 ' Liirhtfoot, Harm, in loc. 
 
334 A TREATISE OF [PaHtIII. 
 
 wife is set on by the tempter, as the serpent against Eve, to provoke 
 him to ' curse God and die.' Besides all this, whosoever shall consider 
 what inward workings of heart, spiritual trouble and conflict, his 
 words frequently express, they will quickly find that when God put 
 Job into Satan's hand, under that only limitation of not touching his 
 life, he gave Satan a liberty to pursue him with inward temptations as 
 well as outward vexations. When Israel was pinched with the straits 
 of the wilderness, Satan was most busy with thorn to put them upon 
 distrust, murmuring, revolt, thsobedient opi)ositions, idolatry, and 
 what not. David gives in his experience to confirm this truth. He 
 never met with outward troubles but he had also inward temptations 
 with them, as fretting, disquiet, sad apprehensions of God's wrath, 
 haste, distrust, fear, &c., as the relation of his several straits do testify. 
 And besides these, the generality of God's children find it so. Out- 
 ward afliictions seldom pass alone. ^Vllen they have ' fightings with- 
 out,' they have ' fears witliin ' usually. Seldom have they a sickness, 
 or meet ydth a sad providence, but they have Satan busy with their 
 souls, molesting their peace, or endeavouring to ensnare them. Thus 
 their feet are never in the stocks but the iron enters into their soul. 
 And for this reason is it that outward afiiictions and troubles are called 
 temptations in Scripture, because temptations usually accompany them, 
 and they are indeed the solemn seasons that Satan desires to improve 
 for that end ; and for that is it that Luke expresseth that which we 
 translate a time of temptation by Kaipos veipaafiov, which signifies an 
 occasion or opportunity of temptation, Luke viii. 13; 1 Peter i. G; 
 2 Peter ii. 9. 
 
 The temptations that Satan drives on, upon the advantage of an 
 afflicted estate, are the.se :— 
 
 (1.) Fu'st, To drive men upon impatient outbrealdngs agaimt God, 
 as the Israelites in the wilderness turn upon Moses with this, ' Hast 
 thou brought us into the wilderness to slay us ? ' [Exod. xiv. 11.] To 
 this tended Job's temptation by his wife, ' Curse God, and die,' as it is 
 in our translation, which cannot in anywise admit of the excuse that 
 Beza makes for her, as if she gave wholesome advice, ' to die blessing 
 of God,' because he reproves her sharply as having spoken foolishly 
 and wickedly ; but at best it is an ironical scoff at Job's integrity, 
 ' Dost thou bless God while thou art killed by his displeasure ? ' if it 
 be not a direct suggestion of revengeful despite. At such times men 
 are too apt to entertain cruel thoughts of God, and sadly reflective 
 upon his mercy or justice. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, In this posture of afliiction he strives to put them 
 upon direful conclusions against themselves, as if God called solemnly 
 their sin to remembrance, and that they are forsaken of God, and 
 marked out for destruction, the pledge and earnest whereof they take 
 these troubles to be. We may observe that David's afiiictions awak- 
 ened his conscience to object guilt and miscarriage, so that he is as 
 earnest to deprecate the marking and remembrance of his sin as he is 
 to pray against his troubles. For this see Ps. xxv. 6, 7, xxxviii. 
 1,4. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, He pusheth them usually upon contempt of religion, 
 and abandoning the ivays of God. We are too apt to blame religion 
 
Chap. 5.] satan's temptations. 335 
 
 for all ouv troubles; and as we expect that onr owning the ways of 
 God should secure us from outward affliction, so when we find it other- 
 wise we are too forward to say, ' We have washed our hands in vain,' 
 &c., [Ps. Ixxiii. 13.] 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, The sin of distrust, is another evil that he drives at; 
 he would have men conclude that God cannot or will not deliver. 
 ' Can God prepare a table in the wilderness ? ' said the Israelites, by 
 the power of temptation, when they were distressed, [Ps. Ixxviii. 19.] 
 (5.) Fiftlily, Another evil aimed at in such a case, is to put us 
 upon indirect courses andtuays to escajpe from our troubles. Flectere 
 si nequeo superos, &c. Saul went to the witch of Endor when God 
 answered him not. Distresses naturally prompt such things, and 
 a little temptation makes us comply, as is noted by the wise man's 
 desire, ' Give me not poverty, lest I put out my hand and steal,' [Prov. 
 XXX. 9.] Distresses of poverty put men upon theft and imlawful ways. 
 The reasons of Satan's tempting the afflicted are these : — 
 (1.) First, That outward afflictions are a load and burden. This 
 gives a probability that his designs may the better take place. It is 
 easy to overthrow those that are bowed down, to break those that are 
 bruised, to master those that are weary and weak-handed. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, An afflicted estate is a temptation of itself and 
 nat^iralhj dictates evil things. It is half of Ids design brought to his 
 hand, it affords variety of matter for a temptation to work on._ 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Such a condition strongly backs a temptation, and 
 furnisheth many arguments for a prevalency ; for troubles are serious 
 things ; they speak to the heart, and what they speak, they speak 
 fiercely ; they represent things otherwise than common discovery can 
 do, and for the most part they shew an ingenuity in multiplying fears, 
 and aggravating hazard, and ascertaining suspected events, so that 
 Satan can scarce desire a fairer hit than what these offer him. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, They also give him the advantage of darkness; for 
 to such their ' way is hid,' Job iii. 23, and God hath hedged them in ; 
 they neither know where they are, whether their trouble be a chastise- 
 ment of sin, or for trial, or for prevention of miscarriage, or to make 
 way for more comfortable manifestations ; and as little know they how 
 to behave themselves in their trouble, or how and when to get out of 
 it. In such groping uncertainties, it is scarce possible but they should 
 be put wrong. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, An afflicted condition brings on weakness and indis- 
 position to duty ; it makes the hands weak, and the knees feeble. 
 This made Job to faint, chap. iv. 5 ; this dried up David's strength. 
 The first assault of an affliction doth stound the soul, and put it into 
 such a confusion, that hope turns back, and faith is to seek, and every 
 grace so out of order, that a man shall be unable to do anything 
 of duty in a comfortable manner. 
 
 (6.) Sixthly, In this case men are apt to conclude their prayers are 
 not heard: ' I cry in the day-time, and thou hearest not,' [Ps. xxii. 
 2,] says David ; ' Hath the Lord forgotten to be gracious ?' [Ps. Ixxvii. 
 9.] And with such seeming probability is this urged upon us by 
 affliction, that Job professeth he could not believe his own sense and 
 knowledge in such a case. ' If I had called, and he had answered 
 
336 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 me ; yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice,' 
 Job ix. 16. 
 
 (7.) Seventlily, Afflictions strongly fix guilt upon us, and repre- 
 sent God ' searching out our iniquities, and inquiring after our sin,' 
 Job X. 6. 
 
 (8.) Eighthly, They imhiUer the spirit, and beget impressions upon 
 the mind, of very hard thoughts of God. 
 
 (9.) Ninthly, They violently push men on to speak unadvisedly. 
 There is such a swelling ferment of the old leaven of impatience and 
 distrust in the mind, that it is matter of pain and difficulty to be 
 silent : ' Their belly is as wine that hath no vent ; it is ready to burst 
 like new bottles,' and they are ' weary with forbearing and cannot 
 stay, and must speak let come on them what will,' Job xxxii. 19. 
 
 All these advantages doth an afflicted condition bring to Satan ; and 
 who can tliink that he who is so studious of our ruin will be willing 
 to miss so fair an opportunity ? 
 
 Applic. (1.) First, This must teach us to have a tvaicJiful eije over 
 affliction. Though at all times we must expect Satan's stratagems, 
 yet in troubles especially prepare for them ; according to the wise 
 man's advice, 'In a day of adversity, consider,' [Eccles. vii. 14.] 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Seeing Satan takes advantage of the sharp humours 
 of impatience and distrust, we must be particularly careful not to 
 touch too much upon the harshness of our troubles, becaiise this is that 
 that sets fretting and distracting thoughts on work. Afflictions, like 
 the pillar of the cloud and fire in the wilderness, have a light and 
 darkness; and accordingly, those that converse with the dark side 
 of troubles envenom their imaginations, and poison their thoughts 
 with dark and hideous conclusions, and, in a word, ch-aw forth nothing 
 but the wormwood and the gall ; whereas those that study and view 
 the light side of them are full of praise and admiration for the 
 gracious mixtures, comfortable mitigations, encouraging supports, &c. , 
 which they observe. It is wisdom then to keep upon the right side 
 of them. 
 
 Though it be the design of God to turn the dark side of the cloud 
 to us, yet may we have a competent light to guide us if we would im- 
 prove it. When the sun is set, the moon may be up. Nay, it is our 
 duty to strive to recover the right side of the cloud. He hides that 
 we may seek. 
 
 If this fast of Christ's be considered as a remedy against tempta- 
 tions, then may we observe that solemn temptations are to he resisted 
 with fastings aiul prayers. Of this I shall forbear to speak, till I 
 come to speak of Christ's answer, and the repulse of Satan. 
 
Chap. G.] satan's temvtatioxs. 337 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 And tvhen the tempter came to him, he said, If thou he the Son of 
 God, command that these stones be made bread. — Mat. \v. 3. 
 
 That Christ's temptations we)-e real and not in vision. — Tliat temptation 
 is Satan's employment, loith the evidences and instances thereof. — 
 Of Satan! s tempting visibly, tvifh the reasons thereof. 
 
 Next follows a particular account of those more eminent tempta- 
 tions wherewith Christ was assaulted by Satan. Before I speak of 
 these, I must necessarily remove this stumbling-block out of the way, 
 viz., whether Christ was really tempted, or only in a vision. That 
 tills was but visionary hath been supposed ; not only by some, whose 
 conceits in other things might justly render their supposals in this 
 matter less worthy of a serious consideration,! but also by very grave 
 and serious men,^ whose reasons, notwithstanding, are not of that 
 weight as to sway us against the letter and history of these tempta- 
 tions, which give us a full account of these things as really transacted, 
 without the least hint of understanding them as done only in a 
 vision. For, 
 
 (1.) First, It is a dangerous thing to depart from the literal sense 
 of what is historically related. If we take such a liberty, we may as 
 well understand other historical passages after the same rate, and 
 so bring the history, not only of Christ's suffering to a visionary and 
 fantastical cross, but also of all the New Testament to a very 
 nothing. 3 
 
 (2.) Secondly, The circumstances of the temptation are so p>arH- 
 cidarly set down — as the devil's coming to him, leaving him, taking 
 him to tlie temple, &c. — that if we may expect in anything to secure 
 ourselves fi-om a visionary supposition, we may do it in this history.* 
 
 (8.) Thirdly, This imagination doth wholly enervate and make 
 void the very end and design of Christ's being tempted; for where 
 were the glory of this victory over Satan, if it were only a visionary 
 temptation, and a visionary conquest ? or where were the comfort and 
 encouragement which believers — from the apostle's authority, Heb. 
 ii. 18, and iv. 16 — might reap from this, that Christ imagined him- 
 self to be tempted, when really he was not so ? Nay, how impossible 
 is it to make that expression of the apostle, ' He was tempted in all 
 points like as we are,' to agree to an imaginary temptation ? except 
 we also say that we are only temj^ted visionaiily and not really ? 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, Neither is it a plea of any value against this truth, 
 that it seems to derogate too much from the honour and authority of 
 our Saviour, that Scitan should so impudently assault him loith tempta- 
 tions to ivorship him, and should carry him at fleasure from place to 
 place, when we find that he voluntarily submitted to higher indignities 
 from Satan's instruments, and ' turned not away his cheek ' from those 
 
 ' Hobbes's Leviathan, cap. 45, p. 3.5-t. - Calvin, Scultetus. 
 
 ^ Tenison Hobbes's ' Creed Exam.,' p. 65. * Spanheim, Dub. Evan, in Inc. 
 
 Y 
 
338 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 that ' smote' him, spit iipoa him, and contumeliously mocked him, and 
 at last submitted to death, even the death of the cross, i 
 
 As for those objections from -n-Tepvyiov kpov, the pinnacle of the 
 temple, upon which Scultetus thinks it was impossible for Christ to 
 stand ; as also the objection of the impossibility to shew the kingdoms 
 of the world from any mountain, I shall answer them in their proper 
 place. In the meantime I shall return to tlie verse in hand, in which 
 I shall first pitch upon the general 2^rocenimm, or introduction to these 
 special temptations, which is this, ' The tempter came to him.' 
 
 In tliis we are to take notice of the name given to Satan, and also 
 the way and manner of the assault, in that expression, ' he came to 
 him.' 
 
 There are three distinct names given to him in these temptations. 
 [1.] His name 'Satan' shews his malice and fury, which is the 
 ground and fountain whence all that trouble proceeds which we meet 
 with from him. [2.] He is styled ' the tempter,' and that signifies to us 
 how he puts forth this malice, his way and exercise in the exerting of 
 it. [3.] He is called ' the devil ' or accuser, expressing thereby the 
 end and issue of all. From this name, then, here given, we may 
 observe : — 
 
 Obs. 1. First, 2'hat it ts Satan's ivork and employment to tempt men. 
 We need not here dispute whether it be proper to Satan to tempt — 
 that is, an soli, et semper compefat, whether it agree to him only and 
 always, which some indeed afiirm in sucli a sense as this, that men do 
 tempt men as Satan's instruments, the world tempts as it is the object 
 and matter of temptations, but Satan tempts as the proper author and 
 engineer of temptations. Others there are that think that men can 
 and do properly tempt themselves, according to James i. ' Every 
 man is temi)ted, when he is drawn away of his own lust.' 2 But the 
 question is altogether needless as to us ; "though we and others may be 
 true and proper tempters, yet this hindereth not but that it is most 
 true, that Satan makes temptation his very work and business. And 
 therefore not only here, but in 1 Thes. iii. 5, the devil is described by 
 his emploj'ment, ' Lest by any means the tempter,' or he that 
 tempteth, 'hath tempted you:' which the ordinary gloss doth thus 
 explain, Diaholus, cujits est officium tenfare. This name, then, is put 
 upon Satan, Kar e^o^vv, by way of eminency. Implying, [1.] That 
 though there be never so many tempters, yet Satan is the chief. [2.] 
 That he makes temptation his proper employment. 
 
 That Satan doth so, I shall evidence by these few notes : — 
 
 [1.] First, Temptation is in iiseli a business and %vo7-k. For if we 
 consider either the work of any one temptation, where Satan is oft 
 put to it, after suggestion to persuade, and after persuasion to insti- 
 gate and provoke ; or if we consider what furniture, tools, means, and 
 instruments are requisite, and what it maj' cost to bring all things to- 
 gether into fit order and method ; or if we tliink of the various ways 
 and manners of temptation, that some are mediate, some immediate ; 
 
 1 Non mirum est Christum permisisse se circumduci a diabolo, qui permieit se a mem- 
 bris sui crueifigi. — Oreyorius. 
 
 " Aquinas, Sum. part 1, q. 114, art. 2. Homines instrumentaliter, mundus materialiter, 
 Satanae efficienter. — SclaUr on 1 T/ies. iii. 5. 
 
Chap. 0.] satan's temptations. 339 
 
 some inward, some outward ; some moveable, some fixed and solemn ; 
 some enticements to evil, some affrightments from duty, others in- 
 vasions of our peace and joy; or lastly, if we call to mind what 
 study, what art, what fetches and contrivances the devil is some- 
 times put upon, we shall easily see that it keeps him doing, and 
 that he eats not the bread of idleness that hath that employment to 
 follow. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Satan gives up himself u7ito it, is lolioUy in it. He 
 'walks to and fro,' 'goes about' seeking advantages of tliis nature, 
 ' compasseth sea and land ' to proselyte men to his slavery, useth all 
 means, upon all men, at all times, with all diligence. Hence was it 
 that Latimer, in his homely way of speaking, called him 'a busy 
 bishop in his diocese,' and excited the sluggish to learn laboriousness 
 of the devil. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, He takes a delight in it, not only from a yiatural pro- 
 pensity, ivhich his fall put upon him, luherehy he cannot hut tempt — 
 as an evil tree cannot but bring forth evil fruits— but also from the 
 power of a habit acquired by long exercise, which is accompanied 
 with some kind of pleasure ; and further, whatever pleasure may be 
 supposed to arise from revengeful pride or companionship in evil, he 
 hath of that in full measure, pressed down, and running over. Sola- 
 men iniseris, &c. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, All other things in Satan, or in his endeavours, 
 have either a subserviency, or some way or other a reference and re- 
 spect to temptation. His power, wisdom, malice, and other infernal 
 qualifications, render him able to tempt ; his labour and diligence in 
 other things are but the work of one that prepares materials and 
 occasions ; his other business of accusing, affrighting, destroying, tor- 
 menting, are but the ends and improvements of tempting. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, He cares not how it goes on, so thai it go on ; as a 
 man that designs to be rich, cares not how he gets it; which shews 
 that tempting in general is his design. Of this we have many in- 
 stances, as [1.] He sticks not to lie and dissemble ; he will tell them of 
 the ' kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,' and a thousand 
 fair promises which he never intends. [2.] He will tempt for a small 
 matter ; if he can but gain a little, or but molest us, yet he will be 
 doing. [3.] He will not give over for a foil or disappointment. [4.] 
 He is not ashamed to tempt contradictory things : he tempted Christ 
 against the work of redemption, ' Master, spare thyself,' [Mat. xvi. 22.] 
 He tempted Judas to further it in betraying him. [5.] Any tempta- 
 tion that he sees will hold, he takes up. Hence is it that he tempts 
 not the Jews now to idolatry, because he hath them fast in another 
 snare, being strongly led to an opposition and contempt of Christ. 
 [6.] He will sometime tempt where he hath not probability to pre- 
 vail, even against hope. Thus he tempted Christ and Paid. 
 
 Applic. (1.) The use of the observation is this, If it he his business 
 to tempt, it must be our zvork to resist. 
 
 [1.] First, To resist is a labour. It is not an idle formality, con- 
 sisting in words of defiance, or a few ridiculous crossings and sprink- 
 lings of holy water, or spitting at the name of him, as ignorant people 
 are wont to do. 
 
340 A TREATISE Of [PaRT III. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, We must (jive up ourselves fo this ivovk, always fight- 
 ing and opposing. 
 
 [3.] Tliirdly,lt will be necessary to make use of all helps, as prayer, 
 fasting, the counsel and support of holy and experienced men. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, We must also cast off all hindrances. Whatsoever 
 in us is apt to take fire or give advantage must be laid off, as pride, 
 which doth prognosticate a fall, and security, which betrays the best, 
 or presumption, which provokes God to leave those of highest attain- 
 ments, Neh. xiii. 16. 
 
 2. Secondly, In this general introduction, we may cast our eye upon 
 the ivaij and nuinner of the assaidt. When it is said, ' the tempter came 
 unto him,' we are unavoidably forced to suppose another manner of 
 coming than that whereby he tempted him for forty days together. 
 And when we call to mind that at his coming here mentioned, he 
 carried Christ to the temple, and from thence to a high mountain, 
 and there propounded himself an object of worship ; we can imagine 
 no less than that Satan here came visibly to him. But in what shape 
 or manner of appearance it is altogether uncertain, though it is most 
 probable it was not in the form of a brute, but in some lustre of 
 majesty or glory, as an angel, because a deformed or base appearance 
 had been unsuitable to the boast of giving ' the kingdoms of the world,'^ 
 or to his desire that Christ should ' fall down and worship him.' 
 Hence we may observe : — 
 
 Ohs. 2. That Satan sometimes tempts in a visible appearance, and 
 by voice. 
 
 [1.] First, The possibility of this is evident from the apparitions of 
 angels. Satan is still an angel, and there is nothing of a natural in- 
 capacity in him as to an outward appearance to our eyes and senses, 
 more than in glorified spirits. i 
 
 [2.] Secondly, In the first temptation he did no less, tohenhe used the 
 serpent as a trunk to speak through, and an instrument to act by. In 
 possessions he speaks audibly, and evidenccth a real presence. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Undoubted instances may be given of Sata7is tempt- 
 ing and molesting visibly. I deny not but there are a great many 
 idle stories of this kind, and a number of ridiculous figments ; but it 
 would be iinreasonable and highly prejudicial to the truth of history, 
 and the common faith of mankind, to refuse credit to the serious 
 accounts of sober men, because of some foolish and unwarrantable 
 fables. 
 
 What is related of Luther and his several troubles from Satan this 
 way, is evident in the story of his life. Cyi'illus tells us of one 
 Eusebius, disciple of Jerome, who when he was dying, cried out of the 
 devil's appearing to him. The like is storied of St Martin and others, 
 and of these, you may read more collected by IMr Clark, i 
 
 If we would inquire into the reasons of Satan's appearing thus, we 
 cannot more fitly pitch upon any other than these : — 
 
 ' Piscat., in loc. 
 
 ' Fratres adjuvate me. ne percam, nonne videtis Dajmonum agmina, qui me debel- 
 lare, et ad Tartara ducere festinant, quid hie astas cruenta bestia?— W. Sefiarclaeus in 
 Epist. ad II. Bucerum, &c.. tells of a country man, at Tribury, [' Friburg' ?--Q.j in Ger- 
 many, to whom the devil appeared in the shape of a tall man, claiming his Boul, and 
 otfering to set down his sine in a scroll. 
 
Chap. 7.] satan's temptations. 341 
 
 [1.] Fii-st, Either he thinks a great affrightment necessary in some 
 cases, and for that end appears. Or, 
 
 [2.] Secondly, He sees his appearance needful, to give a greater 
 evidence and certainty to the reality of the pleasures of sin which he 
 promiseth. That is the common ground of his appearing in the ways 
 and designs of witchcraft. 
 
 [3.] Or tliirdly, In the height of rage, when he perceives other ways 
 not available, and when he hath to do with persons not ignorant of his 
 devices, where he sees he hath no need of a visor, or covert ways of 
 dealing, then lie sticks not, if permitted, to tempt or molest openly. 
 
 This must teach us not to wonder at such temptations, much less 
 to judge those that may be so molested, as if Satan had a greater share 
 in them, seeing Christ was thus tempted. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The general vieio of these temptations.— 0/ Satan's gradual proceeding 
 in temptations. — 0/ reserving a great temptation last, — What a 
 great temptation is; in ivhat cases to be expected. — 0/ Satan's using 
 a common road, in contparing these temptations with the ordinary 
 temptations of men. — Of the advantage Satan tal-es of natural 
 appetite, sense, and affections. 
 
 I have done with the proa;mium to the temptations. Yet before I 
 open them particularly, I shall take a general view of them. First, 
 By comparing the.se with the other temptations of Christ during the 
 forty days. Secondly, By comparing these with the temptations of 
 men. 
 
 1. First then, If we compare these with the former temptations, 
 and observe that we have no account given us of those temptations, 
 but only in the general, ' that he was tempted,' whereas these are par- 
 ticularly set down and recorded, we cannot apprehend less than this, 
 that these last temptcdions ivere certainly greater and more remarkable 
 temptations. Hence note, 
 
 Obs. 3. Thcd it is Satan's method to be gradual in his temjitutions, 
 and that he keeps his greatest temptations to the latter end. 
 
 That Satan is gradual in his temptations ; this is true of him, if we 
 regard, 
 
 (1.) First, The manner of his proceeding, that he drives slowly, 
 entreats geutly, and is very careful that he do not over-drive men, but 
 after they are accustomed to his way, he puts on imperiousness and 
 commands them. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, If the matter of temptation be regarded, he is 
 gradual there also. He tempts to little sins first, then to greater. 
 
 I shall illustrate both these particulars by the example of Thomas 
 Savage, apprentice to Mr Collins, vintner at the Ship Tavern, in 
 Ratcliffe, who suffered in anno 16 GO, for murdering his fellow-servant. 
 He confesseth that the devil took this course with him : he first 
 tempted him to neglect of duty, then to contempt of ordinances and 
 
342 A TUEATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 IJiofanation of the Sabbath, then to driukiug, tlieu to fornication, then 
 to rob and steal from his master, and last of all to murder ; and takes 
 particular notice that in this last temptation, to kill his fellow-servant, 
 there was a violent and more than ordinary power of Satan upon him, 
 to instigate him to that wickedness. All this you may read at large 
 in the i^rinted narration of his life. 
 
 (1.) The reasons of his gradual proceedings are, 
 
 [1.] First, He looukl discover no more of himself in any temptation 
 than he is necessitated unto for the (jaining his end, lest he cross his 
 own design, and instead of drawing men to wickedness, scare or 
 affright them from it. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Sins are muttiaUi/ jn-eparatory to each other. Smaller 
 proffers and temptations do insensibly prepare and incline the heart to 
 greater. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, That he keeps his greatest temptations last, is a 
 consequence of the former ; for which, besides what is now spoken, 
 these reasons may be given : — 
 
 [1.] First, There is provocation given him in refusing his lesser 
 assaidts. His ' head is bruised' by every refusal, he is set at defiance, 
 which calls him out to stronger opposition. He perceives by often 
 repulses that tliose with whom he hath to do are not subjects of his 
 kingdom, and that his ' time is short,' and therefore no wonder is it, if 
 lie assault most furiously and with all his strength. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, There is also imlicy in it. When he hath brought 
 down our strength and weakened our courage, then a violent onset is 
 fair to procure him a victory. 
 
 But because I mention a great temptation, it may not be amiss 
 both for the further explaining of the text, and illustration of the 
 matter, to shew what is a great temptation. These were great temp- 
 tations to Christ, and there are several things remarkable in them, 
 which, wherever they appear, they will denominate the temptation 
 great, and the more of them are conjoined together, and in higher 
 degree, it may justly be called still the greater. As, 
 
 (1.) First, in these temptations, we may note there were external 
 objects as ivell as insinuated suggestions. Inward motions are real 
 temptations, but when they have the objects and things presented to 
 the eye or the senses, then do tliey strongly urge. At this advantage 
 the devil tempted Eve. He urged her when the fruit was within the 
 view. Thus he tempted Achan, when the gold and garment were in 
 his eye. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, These temptatio7is ivere complex, consisting of many 
 various designs, like a snare of many cords or nooses. When he 
 tempted to turn stones to bread, it was not one single design, but 
 many, that Satan had in prosecution. As distrust on one hand, pride 
 on another, and so in the rest. The more complicated a temptation 
 is, it is the greater. 
 
 (3.) Tlrhdly, These loere also perplexing, entangling temptations. 
 They were dilemmatical,^ such as might ensnare, either in the doing 
 or refusal. If he had turned stones into bread, he had too much 
 honoured Satan by doing it at his motion. If he did not, he seemed 
 
 ' Putting into a 'dilemma.' — G. 
 
Chap. 7.] satan"s temftations. 343 
 
 to neglect his own body, in not making necessary provisions for him- 
 self, being now hungry. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, These temptations proceeded upon considerable ad- 
 vantages. His hunger urged a necessity of turning stones into bread. 
 His present straits, and the lowness of his condition, seemed to speak 
 much for the reasonableness of giving proof of his divine nature, by 
 casting himself down from the temple, and of domg anything that 
 might tend to a more plentiful being and support in the world. Ad- 
 vantages strengthen temptations. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, These temptations luere accompanied ivith a greater 
 presence a7idpoiver of Satan. He appeared visibly in them, and was 
 permitted to touch and hurry the body of Christ, and to depaint and 
 set forth the glory of the world, doubtless in the most taking way, to 
 the eye of Christ. 
 
 (6.) Sixthly, The matter of these temptations, or the things he 
 tempted Christ to, ivei-e great and heinous abominations : a distrust 
 of providence, a presumption of protection, and a final renunciation 
 of the worship due to him, and transferring it to the most unworthy 
 object, God's professed enemy ; and yet were they seconded by the 
 strongest, most powerful, and most prevailing means, as his present 
 straits, his infalUble assurance of sonship, pleasure, and glory. Where 
 the matter is weighty, and the medium strong and pressing, there is 
 the temptation great. 
 
 (7.) Seventhly, AH these temptations pretended strongly to the ad- 
 vantage and benefit of Christ, and some of them might seem to be 
 done without any blame, as to turn stones to bread, to fly in the air. 
 The more kindness a temptation pretends to us, it is the stronger. 
 
 (8.) Eighthly, Satan urged some of them in a daring, provoking 
 luay; ' If thou be the Son of God ?' as if he had said, I dare thee to 
 shew thyself what thou pretendest to be. These kind of provocations 
 are very troublesome to the most modest and self-denying, who can 
 scarce forbear to do what they are urged unto at such times. 
 
 (9.) Ninthly, These temptations seem to be designed for the engage- 
 ment of all the natural poivers of Christ ; his natural appetite in a 
 design of food ; his senses in the most beautiful object, the world in 
 its glory ; the affections, in that which is most swaying, pride, and 
 delight in extraordinary testimonies of divine power and love, in sup- 
 porting him in the air, &c. 
 
 (10.) Tentlily, Some of these icarranted as duty, and to supply 
 ■roecessary hunger, others depending upon the security of a piromise, 
 ' He shall give his angels charge,' &c. The greater appearance of 
 duty, or warrantableness, is put upon sin, the greater is the tempta- 
 tion. 
 
 By these ten particulars may we, as by a standard, judge when any 
 temptation is great or less. 
 
 Applic. 1. Let us tlien take heed of small temptations, or the 
 smoother proceedings of Satan, as ive tuotdd avoid the greater attempts 
 that are to folloio. Where he is admitted to beat out our lusts with 
 a rod or a staff, he may be suspected to bring the wheel over them at 
 last, [Isa. xxviii. 27, seq.} 
 
 Let us also after our assaidts expect more and greater, because the 
 
344 A TREATISE OF [PaKT UI. 
 
 greatest are last to be looked for. This holds true ia three cases. 
 [1.] In solemn temptations, where Satan fixeth his assaults, there the 
 utmost rage is drawn out last. [2.] In the continuance and pro- 
 gress of profession, the further we go from him and the nearer to 
 God, be sure of the highest measure of his spite. [3.] At the end of 
 our race : for if he miss his prey then, it is escaped for ever, as a bird 
 unto its hill. 
 
 Ohj. But some may say, I am but a messenger of sad tidings ; and 
 that by bringing such a report of giants and walled cities, I may make 
 the hearts of the people to faint. 
 
 Ans. I answer; This is bad news only to the sluggish, such as 
 would go to heaven with ease, and in a fair and easy way ; but to the 
 laborious resolute soldiers of Christ this is no great discouragement : 
 for, [1.] It doth but tell them of their work, which as they are per- 
 suaded of, so it is in some measure their delight, as well as their 
 expectation. [2.] It doth but tell them, Satan's malice and fury, 
 which they are assured of, and ai'e most afraid of it sometimes, when 
 it seems to lie idle and as asleep. [3.] It doth teU them tliat Satan's 
 thoughts concerning them are despairing, he fears they are going, or 
 gone from him. If they were his wilUng servants, there would be no 
 hostility of this natui'c against them. 
 
 I have thus compared these special temptations with those where- 
 with our Lord Christ was exercised during the forty days. I shall. 
 
 Secondly, Compare these temptations of Chiist with those that 
 usually befall his members, in which there is so much suitableness and 
 agreement both in matter and manner, that it cannot be unuscful to 
 take notice of it, which will the better appear in inshmces. First, 
 then, let us consider the first temptation of Eve : Gen. iii. G, ' And 
 when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was 
 pleasixnt to the eyes, and a tree to be desned to make one wise,' <fcc. 
 Here are all the arguments and ways summed up by which Satiui pi'e- 
 vailed upon her. It was ' good for food ;' here he wrought upon the 
 desire of the natural appetite. It was ' pleasant to the eyes ;' here he 
 took the advantage of the external senses. It was ' to be desired to make 
 one wise ;' here he inflamed the affections. Let us again call to mind 
 the general account of temptations in 1 John ii. 16, ' All that is in the 
 world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the ej-es, and the pride of life;' 
 where the apostle designedly calls all off from a love of the world, 
 because of the hazard and danger that we lie open unto, from the 
 things of the world, striking upon and stirring up our lusts ; which 
 he ranks into three general heads, according to the various ways 
 whereby these outward things do work upon us, in exciting our natural 
 powers and apprehensions to sinful lustings ; and these are so fully agree- 
 ing with those three in Eve's temptation, that I need not note the parallel. 
 Let us now cast our eyes upon these temptations, and the suitable- 
 ness of Satan's ways and dealings will immediately appear. When he 
 tempted Christ to turn stones into bread, there he endeavoured to take 
 advantage of the ' lust of tlie flesh,' which in 1 John ii. I understand in 
 a more restrained sense, not for the lustings of corrupt nature, but for 
 the lustings of the body in its natural appetite, acccording to that ex- 
 pression of Christ, ' The spirit is willing, but the flesh' — or body—' is 
 
Chap. 7.] satan's temptations. 345 
 
 weak.' And if we should not so restrain it in this place, the lust of the 
 flesh would include the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, contrary 
 to the clear scope of the text, for these are also the lustings of corrupt 
 nature. When he further tempted liim ' to cast himself down,' he 
 pushed him upon ' the pride of life ;' when he shewed him ' the king- 
 doms of the world, and the glory of them,' he attempted to gain upon 
 him by the ' lust of tlie eyes.' From this proportion and suitableness 
 of temptation to Christ and his members, observe, 
 
 Ohs. 4. That Satan iisuaUy treads in a beaten path, iisinci Icnown 
 and experienced methods of teviptation. It is true, in regard of cir- 
 cumstances, he useth unspeakable varieties in tempting, and hath many 
 more devices and juggles than can be reckoned up ; yet in the general 
 he hath digested them into method and order, and the things upon 
 which he works in us are the same. Thus he walks his round, and 
 keeps much-what the same track, not only in different persons, but 
 also in the same men, using the same temptations over and over ; and 
 yet this argues no barrenness of invention or sluggishness in Satan ; 
 but he hath these reasons for it : — 
 
 [1.] First, Because the same temptations being suited to human 
 nature in general, will, with a small variation of circumstance, suit all 
 men: their inclinations generally answering to one another, as face 
 answers to face in water. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Tliese standing methods are famous with him, as 
 generally powerful and taking; aud it can be no wonder if Satan 
 practise most with these things that have the Xaxgesi prohatum est of 
 experience to follow them. 
 
 [3] Thirdly, The more experienced he is in any temptation, the 
 more dexterously and successfully still he can manage it ; so that we 
 may expect him' more cunning and able in what he most practiseth. 
 
 Applic. This may be some satisfaction to those that are apt to think 
 of themselves and their temptations as Elias did in his persuasion, ' I 
 alone am left,' [1 Kings xix. 14.] Where Satan useth anything of 
 vigour and fierceness, we are apt to say, ' None are tempted as we,' 
 none in like case, we are singular, they are peculiar and extraordinary 
 temptations, &c. ; but it is a mistake. Even that of Solomon maybe 
 applied to these, ' There is nothing new,' [Eccles. i. 9,] nor anything 
 befallen us which others have not undergone before us ; and would 
 but Christians be so careful to observe the way of the serpent upon 
 their hearts as they might, and so communicative of their experi- 
 ences as they ought, the weak and heavy laden would not go so mourn- 
 ing under such apprehensions as commonly affright them, that none 
 were ever so tempted as they are. It would be some support at 
 worst, when the most hellish furies do oppress them, to know that 
 others before them were in these deeps, and as fearful of being over- 
 whelmed as themselves, and yet were delivered. The deliverances of 
 those that have escaped the danger, is ground of hope to those that 
 are at present under it. 
 
 Obs. 5. The usual advantages that Satan takes against its is from 
 our natural appetite, our external senses, oi- our passions and affections. 
 All these are usual ways by which Satan works against us, as appears 
 from what hath been said ; neither are any of them so mean and con- 
 
346 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 temptible, but that we have cause to fear the power and influence of 
 them. Hence the Scripture cautions descend to the eyes : ' Look not 
 upon the wine when it is red in the cup,' [Prov. xxiii. 31 ;] ' Be sober, 
 be vigilant,' &c., [1 Peter v. 8.] The appetite is not so easily kept in, 
 but that it may prevail to gluttony and drunkenness ; and some are 
 so powerfully carried by this, that they are said ' to make their bellies 
 their god,' [Phil. iii. 19.] Of the power of sense and affection, else- 
 where hath been spoken. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The rise of Christ's first temptation.— 0/ Satan's suiting his tempta- 
 tions to the conditions of men.— Of tempting men upon the plea of 
 necessity. — The reasons and cheats of that plea. — His pretences of 
 friendship in tempting, with the danger thereof. 
 
 Having thus considered these temptations as they lie before us in 
 their general prospect, I shall now speak of this first special tempta- 
 tion in particular, in which— (1.) The rise, or occasion ; (2.) The 
 temptation itself ; (3.) The argument by which Satan would enforce 
 it, are to be distinctly noted. 
 
 1. First, As to the rise of it, it is questioned by some why Satan 
 begins with this first. The cause they assign, in part at least, is from 
 his first success against Eve, in a temptation about eating, as if this 
 were the chief and most hopeful arrow in his quiver. But we need 
 not go so far, when the evangelist is so punctual in setting it down, in 
 the latter end of the former verse, ' he was an hungered.' This the 
 devil took notice of, and from hence took the rise of his temptation, 
 that by ' turning stones to bread,' for the satisfaction of his present 
 hunger, he might be induced to make way for the secret stratagems 
 which he had prepared against him on this occasion. Here I note, 
 
 Ohs. 6. That where Satan hath a design against any, he doth take 
 the advantage of their condition, and suits his tcnqjtation accordingly. 
 Thus, if men be in poverty, or in the enjoyments of plenty, in sickness 
 or health, if in afflictions, under wrongs, in discontents, or carried to 
 advancements and honours, or whatever else may be considerable re- 
 lating to them, he observes it, and orders his designs so as to take in 
 all the advantages that they will afford. That it is his concern and 
 interest so to do, we may imagine, upon these grounds : — 
 
 (1.) First, Our consent must be gained. This he cannot properly 
 and truly force, but must entice and deceive us to a compliance with 
 him. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, If our condition speak for him, and lie fair for the 
 furtherance of any device of his, our consent is upon the matter half 
 'gained. It is much, if so powerful an advocate, as is our present 
 state, do not influence us to an inclination. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, This doth his ivorh easily and effectually. He more 
 generally prevails by this course, and with less labour. 
 
 Applic. This policy of Satan should advantage us by suggesting fit 
 memorials to us in our expectations of temptation. Though we know 
 
Chap. 8.] satan's temptations. 347 
 
 not all Satan's thoughts, yet may we know where and how he will 
 usually make an onset. Our condition will tell us what to look for. 
 The distressed and alHicted may expect a temptation suited to their 
 condition, as of murmuring, repining, revenge, distrust, use of indirect 
 means, despairings, &c. They that have peace and plenty may be 
 sure they shall be tempted suitably, to pride, boasting, covetousness, 
 oppression, contempt of others, security, or whatever may be fit to be 
 ingrafted on that stock. The like may be said of any other different 
 condition. How fairly are we forewarned, by an observation made 
 upon Satan's proceeding upon these advantages, where to expect 
 hun, and how to provide against him. 
 
 Let us proceed to a further inquiry, Hoiu the devil managed this 
 advantage of Christ's hmger. He plainly urgeth him with a neces- 
 sity of providing supplies for himself, spreading before him his desire 
 to eat, and the impossibility of help, in a barren and desolate wilder- 
 ness : as if he had said, ' The want of the body is to be provided for ; 
 nature and rehgion consents to this ; the wilderness affords no help, 
 ordinary means fail ; there is therefore a necessity that some extraor- 
 dinary course be taken, therefore turn stones to bread ; tliis is not 
 unsuitable to the condition and power of him who is the Son of God.' 
 At this rate he pleads. 
 
 Obs. 7. Observe then. That Satan usually endeavotirs to run his 
 temptations upon the plea of necessity, and from thence to infer a duty. 
 
 When he cannot pretend a fiiir and direct way to irregular prac- 
 tices, he would break a door and force a way by necessity. 
 
 Under this notion of necessity, the devil marshals all those pre- 
 tences that seem to be of more than ordinary force, in their usual 
 prevalencies. Thus he teacheth men to think they are necessitated, if 
 they be carried by a strong incUnation of their own, or if there be an 
 urgency and provocation from others, or if they be in straits and dan- 
 gers ; and sometime he goes so high as to teacli men that a necessity 
 is included in the very fabric of their natural principles, by which 
 they presumptuously excuse themselves in being sinful, because by 
 nature they are so, and cannot be changed without special grace. 
 Scarce shall we meet any man with seasonable reproof for his iniquity, 
 but he will plead such kind of necessities for himself, — I could not 
 help it ; I was strongly carried ; or, I was compelled ; I must do so, or 
 else I could not escape such a danger, &c. 
 
 The reasons of this policy are these : — 
 
 (1.) First, He knows that necessity hath a compulsive force, even to 
 things of otherwise greatest abhorrencies. A treasury of instances is 
 to be had in famines and besieged places, where it is usual to eat un- 
 clean things, not only creatures that are vile, but even dung and 
 entrails ; nay, so tyrannical is necessity, that it makes inroads into, 
 and conquests upon nature itself, causing 'the tender and delicate 
 woman, which would not adventure the sole of her foot upon the ground 
 for delicateness and tenderness, to have an evil eye towards the hus- 
 band of her bosom, towards her son, and towards her daughter,' Deut. 
 xxviii. 56. A like force doth it exercise upon the minds and con- 
 sciences of men. It makes them rise up against their light, it en- 
 gageth men to lay violent hands upon their own convictions, to stifle 
 
348 A TKEATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 and extinguish them. How many mournful examples have we of this 
 kind ! How many have apostatized from truth, being terrified by the 
 urging necessities of danger, contrary to the highest convictions of 
 conscience ! 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Necessity can do much to the darkening of the un- 
 derstanding, anJd change of the judgment, by the strong influence it 
 hath upon the affections. Men are apt to form their apprehensions 
 according to the" dictates of necessity. What they see to be hazardous, 
 they are inclinable to judge to be evil. Men in straits not only violate 
 their reason, but sometime by insensible steps, unknown to them- 
 selves, slide into a contrary judgment of things, directly cross to what 
 they have believed and professed. Which persuasion they owe not to 
 any further accession of light, or new discovery of argument ; for oft- 
 times the same arguments which, in the absence of trouble, tliey have 
 contemned as weak, by the appearance of dangei', put on another face 
 and seem strong; but to the prcvalency of their fears. And th\is 
 many in all ages have altered their judgments and thoughts, not be- 
 cause they knew more, but because they feared more. 
 
 The like necessities do men form to themselves from exoibitant and 
 greedy hopes and expectations of a better condition, compared to that 
 wherein they at present are ; and the like influence it hath in the 
 alteration of their judgments. Let the bishop of Spalato be an 
 example of this, who loathed the Komish religion first, and in Eng- 
 land, whither he came for jcfugc, writ against it ; but saw a necessity, 
 from the disappointment of expectation, to change his mind, returned 
 to Rome again, and persuaded himself that that was true which 
 he had formerly pronounced false ; and so writ against the church of 
 England, as before he had done against the church of Rome. To 
 him we may add Ecebolius,i of whom Socrates reports, that, according 
 to the various appearings of hazards, he changed his religion several 
 times. Under Constantine, he was a Christian ; under Julian, a 
 p^gan ; and under Jovinian, a Christian again. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Necessity offers an excuse, if not a Justiflcation, of the 
 greatest miscarriages.- Lot offered to expose his daughters to the 
 raging lust of the Sodomites for the preservation of his angel-strangers, 
 which surely he would in no wise have done, but that he thought the 
 present necessity might have excused him. Esau jirofanely sells 
 his birthright, but cxcuscth the matter so, ' Behold, I am at the 
 point to die ; and what profit shall this birthriglit do to me ?' Gen. 
 XXV. 32. Aaron jiroduceth a necessity, from the violent resolves of 
 the people, in justification of himself in the matter of the golden 
 calf, ' Thou knewest that this people are set on mischief,' [Exod. 
 xxxii. 22.] 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, Neces.sity is a universal plea, and fitted to the 
 conditions of all men in all callings, and under all extravagancies. 
 The tradesman, in his imlawful gains or overreachings, ])leads a neces- 
 sity for it from the hardness of the buyer in other things ; the poor 
 
 ' Eccles. Hist., lib. iil. cap. 11. 
 
 - Antioclius put Eleazer and the Maccabees in mind of this excuse, \l it be a sin to 
 do contrary to your law, compulsion doth excuse H.—Jo!<cj>liiis on lite lirr.i i>f the 
 Maccabees. 
 
Chai'. 8.] Satan's temptations. 349 
 
 man pleads a necessity for stealing, and the rich pleads the same 
 necessity for revenge, and thus it serves all with a pretext. 
 
 These considerations, discovering this course so hopeful as to this 
 design of the devil, he will be sure to put us to this pinch where 
 he can. But, besides this, we may observe three cheats in this plea 
 of necessity : — 
 
 [1.] First, Sometimes he puts men upon feigning a necessity lohere 
 there is none. Saul sacrificed upon a needless supposal that, Samuel 
 not coming at the time appointed, there was a necessity for him to do 
 it. He spared also the cattle upon the Uke pretence, that it was a 
 necessary provision for sacrifice. And thus would the devil have per- 
 suaded Christ, that there was an absolute necessity to turn stones 
 to bread, when in truth there was no such need. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Sometimes he puts men upon a necessity of their oion 
 sinful procurement. Herod sware to gratify the daughter of Herodias, 
 and this is presently pleaded as a necessity for the cutting off John 
 Baptist's head. Saul forbade the tasting of meat, and sealed the 
 penalty by an oath and curse, and this is by and by made a necessity 
 for the taking away of Jonathan's life, — who had tasted honey not 
 knowing his father's curse,— had not the people rescued him, [1 Sam. 
 xiv. 24, seq.'\ 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Sometime he siretcheth a necessity further than it 
 ought. He knows that God hath such a regard to real necessities, that 
 upon that ground he will disj)ense with his Sabbath and the present 
 performance of duty. These instances he lays before men, and 
 endeavours to persuade them, that in like manner God will, upon 
 a necessity, dispense with sins, as well as with the present opportunity 
 of service. What a covering, in all ages, men have made of necessity 
 for their highest outrages and extravagancies, and with what confidence 
 they have managed such pleas, would be endless to relate. 
 
 Applic. This must warn us not to suffer ourselves to he imposed 
 upon by the highest pretences of necessity. Whatever it may dispense 
 with, as in some cases it will suspend a present service, and warrant 
 the performance of a duty, besides the common rule and way wherein 
 it ought orchnarily to be managed, it must never be pleaded to give 
 warranty to anything in its own nature sinful. Necessity will not 
 justify lying, stealing, covetousness, adulteries, &c., Ferenda niagis 
 omnis necessitas quam peipetranda cdiqua iniquitas.—Aug[astine.] 
 
 Besides, we must be wary in judging what is a necessity. Men are 
 apt to plead a necessity where there is none ; and if we give way to 
 a facile admittance of excuses of this kind, we shall presently multiply 
 necessities, and have them to serve us at every turn. Some would 
 warrant sin by necessity, others would turn off duty and rule by pre- 
 tending a necessity where none is ; both are to be avoided as snares of 
 Satan. 
 
 Once more, before we dismiss this rise of the temptation of Christ in 
 hand, let us observe that, in persuading him to turn stones to bread, 
 lie seems to express a great deal of care and tenderness to Christ, with 
 an invidious reflection upon the love and providence of God : as if he 
 should say, ' I see thou art hungry, and this wilderness afiords nothing 
 to eat, and God hath not taken care to spread a table for thee ; I 
 
350 A TREATISE OF [PaUT III. 
 
 therefore, pitying thy condition, as a friend, advise tliee to turn stones 
 to bread.' 
 
 Ohs. 8. Note, Tliat Satan manageth his most cruel designs umler 
 the highest pretences of friendship. He did so with Eve, ' Tlie Lord 
 knoweth that ye shall be as gods,' [Gen. iii. 5 ;] as if he had a greater 
 regard to them than God himself. He tempted Christ in the mouth 
 of Peter to ' spare himself,' under the show of great kindness, [Mat. 
 xvi. 22 ;] and no less are his common pretences to all men. This is 
 a deep policy, for by tliis means the mischief intended is the better 
 concealed, and the less care and provision made against it ; and 
 besides, the affections and desires are stirred up to a laasty embrace- 
 ment of the motion, and an eager swallowing of the bait. 
 
 So great a subtlety is in this manner of dealing, that those who 
 affect the name of great politicians in the world have learned from 
 Satan to shew greatest respects and a most friendly countenance to 
 those whom they most hate and intend to ruin. Thus our Kichard 
 the Third of England constantly dealt with those for whose blood 
 he lay in wait ; and the i>recepts of Machiavel are fitted to this, that it 
 is wisdom ' to hug those whom we desire to destroy.' Ehud's present 
 made way for his dagger, [Judges iii. 22.] Joab s sword could not so 
 well have despatched its errand upon Abner, if he had not ushered 
 it in with a kiss, [2 Sam. xx. 9.] 
 
 Applic. This should make us most suspect those temptations that 
 offer us most kindness and advantage, and such as are most gratifying 
 to our humours and desires. For can it be imagined in good earnest 
 that Satan intends us a real good ? Can the gifts of enemies pass for 
 courtesies and favours with an}',i but such as are bewitched into a 
 blockish madness ? Satan is more to be feared when he flatters than 
 when he rageth ; and tliough such offers may be looked upon by 
 some as more benign, and less odious temiitations, as some kind of 
 famihar spirits are more kindly treated by some, under the notion of 
 white devils, yet may we say of them, as Cornelius Agrippa speaks of 
 some unlawful arts and ways of Thurgia,2 Ed snnt peniitiosiora, quo 
 imperitis diviniora, They have the greatest danger that pretend the 
 highest friendship. Thus much for the rise of the temptation. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A particular consideration of the matter of the first temptation, ivhat 
 Satan aimed at in bidding him turn stones into bread. — Of Satan's 
 moving us to things good or latvful. — The end of such a motion.— 
 How to know luhethei- such motions are from Satan or the Spirit. 
 — WJiai to do in case they be from Satan.— Of his various aims in 
 one temptation.— What they are, and of his policy therein.— Of his 
 artificial contrivement of motions to make one thing infer another. 
 
 Next follows the temptation itself, ' Command that these stones be 
 made bread.' There is no great difficulty in the words. The Greek 
 indeed hath a remarkable suitableness to the supposition, on which 
 ' Timeo Danaoa el dona ferentes. = Query : ' Thaumaturgia' ?— G. 
 
 J 
 
Chap. 9.] satan's temptations. 351 
 
 Satan insists, taking Christ to be the Son of God. It is very perti- 
 nently spoken, ' Say or speak' — etTre— that these stones be made bread ; 
 for if God speak, it must be done. 
 
 It is not worth the while to insist upon so small a variety of expres- 
 sion as is betwixt this evangelist, who hath it ' these stones,' and Luke, 
 who speaks it in the singular number, ' this stone ; ' for besides that, 
 as some suppose, this expression of Luke might, for anything that 
 appears to the contrary, be Satan's lowering his request to one stone, 
 when Christ had denied to turn many into bread upon his first ask- 
 ing ; this one stone in Luke, taken collectively for the whole heap, vnW 
 signify as much as these stones in Matthew ; or the phrase ' these 
 stones,' in Matthew, by an imitation of a common Hebraism, may be 
 no more but one of these stones, or this stone, as it is in Luke ; as it 
 is said, Jephthah was buried in the cities of Gilead, that is, in one of 
 the cities. 1 
 
 The thing urged was the turning or changing the form of a crea- 
 ture, whicli is a work truly miraculous and wonderful, and such as 
 had neither been unsuited to the power of Christ, nor unlawful in 
 itself. It is from hence justly questioned where the sting of this sug- 
 gestion lay, or in what point was the temptation couched. 
 
 (1.) First, It was not in the unlawfulness or sinfulness of the thing 
 mentioned. For Christ did as much as would amount to all this when 
 he turned water into wine, and when he fed multitudes by a miracu- 
 lous multiplication of a few loaves and fishes. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, It ivas not unsidtable to his condition, as hungry ; 
 for so it seemecl a duty to provide for himself, and which Satan took 
 for granted. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Neither seemed it any derogation to his poioer and 
 divine nature, hut rather an advantage and fit opportunity to give afidl 
 proof of it, to the stopping of Satan's mouth for ever. 
 
 Notwithstanding these, there was poison and malignity enough in 
 the suggestion, and under these green leaves of plausible pretences lay 
 liid many snakes. For [L] By this was he secretly tempted to admit 
 of a doubting of the truth of the divine testimony, lately declaring 
 him to he the Son of God. [2.] As also further to question his 
 Father's providence and love ; [3.] and unnecessarily to run out of the 
 ordinary way of supply, and to betake himself to indirect means or 
 extraordinary courses. [4.] And all this to the abuse and undervalu- 
 ing of his power, in prostituting it to Satan's direction or persuasion ; 
 and the devil had gained a considerable advantage if he could have 
 prevailed with him to do such a thing by his instigation. [5.] It may 
 be he further thought this might entice to a high esteem of himself, 
 and so make way for a vain ostentation of his power and interest in 
 God. All or most of these seem to be the design that the devil was 
 driving forward. Several things are hence observable. 
 
 Ohs. 9. That ivhere Satan doth not Judge it his present interest to 
 suggest to us things in their own nature sinful, he ivill move us to things 
 good in themselves, in hopes tho-eby to lead us into evil. This way of 
 tempting is from a more refined policy than downright motions to sin, 
 and doubtless it is less suspected, and consequently more taking. 
 1 Spanheim, Dub. Etiii. in loc, and Lightfoot, Harm, in lo'-. 
 
352 A TREATISE OF | PaRT III. 
 
 The evils that Satan wonld introduce by this method are such as 
 these: — 
 
 (1.) First, Sometime when he tempts us to that which is good, it 
 is that he might affright us from it. His approbation is enough to 
 put a discredit and disgraceful suspicion upon anything. Such a 
 design had he when he gave testimony for Christ, ' that he was the 
 Son of God,' Mat. viii. 29 ; or for the apostles, that they were the 
 ' servants of the most high God,' Acts xvi. 17. It was not his inten- 
 tion to honour him or them by bearing them witness, but to bring 
 them under suspicion and trouble. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, There are a great many tvays to misearnj in a lawful 
 action, either by propounding bad ends, or by failures in tlie manner 
 of performance, or by a misimprovement of the whole. These mis- 
 carriages, and the possibility and probability of them, Satan carries in 
 his mind ; yet doth he not at first propound them, but moving us unto 
 the thing, he hath an expectation that we will slide into them of our- 
 selves, or be inclined by some suitable touches of suggestion upon our 
 minds, together with the tendency or improvableness of the thing or 
 action to such evils as are properly consequent to it. Satan did not 
 here tempt Christ to these sinful ends directly, but to an action which 
 he hoped might insensibly jiroduce them. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Anotlier evil hereby aimed at is the hindrance of a 
 greater good, not only as a diversion to turn ns off a better or mwc 
 profitahle occasion, hut also as an unseasonable intei~ruj)tion of some- 
 thing at present more concei-ninq ns. Thus he makes the suggestion 
 of good things the hindrance of jjrayer or hearing. 
 
 Qtiest. Some will say, This is a perplexing case, that in things good 
 or lawful in themselves, men should be in such dangers, and will 
 thereupon desire to know how they may distinguish Satan's contriv- 
 ances and motions from those that have no dependence upon him, or 
 are from the Spirit of God ? 
 
 Ans. In answer to this : — 
 
 [1.] Let us, when we fear thus to be circumvented, look well to what 
 impressions are upon our spirit luhen we are moved to what may be 
 laufid. For together ^vith the motion, if it be Satan's, we shall find 
 either a corrupt reason and end privately rising up in our mind, or we 
 may observe that our hearts are out of order and perversely inclined. 
 This is oft unseen to ourselves. When the di.sciples moved Christ to 
 bring down ' fire from heaven,' if they had considered the present re- 
 vengeful selfish frame of their spirits, which our Lord tells them they 
 were ignorant of, they might easily have known that the motion had 
 proceeded from Satan. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, The concurrent cirum-sfances of the thing or action are 
 to be seriously loeighed, for from thence we may take a right measure 
 of the conveniency or inconveniency of the proceeding in it. What is 
 from Satan it will be either unseasonable as to the time, place, and 
 person, or some other tiling will appear that may give a discovery. As 
 here Clirist refuseth to turn stones to bread, because not only the way 
 and manner of the proposal doth sufficiently lay open the design, but 
 also the circumstances of Chrisfs condition at that time shewed the 
 motion to be unseasonable and inconvenient ; for if Satan had urged 
 
Chap. 11] satan's temptations. 353 
 
 the necessity of it for the satisfaction of liis hunger, Christ could have 
 answered, that the experience that he had of God's support for forty- 
 days together, was sufficient to engage him to rely yet further upon 
 him. If he had urged further, that by this means he might have had 
 a full proof of God's love and care, or of his sonship, it was at hand to 
 tell him that it was needless to seek a further evidence when God had 
 given one so full a little before. If again he had pleaded it to have 
 been a useful occasion to give a testimony of his power to the satisfac- 
 tion of others, he could have told him that it had been impertinent 
 to have done it then, when he was in the wilderness, where none could 
 have the benefit of it. So that uotliing Satan could have propounded 
 as a reason for that miracle, but it might have been repelled from a 
 consideration of his present condition. 
 
 Applic. The instruction that may be gathered from this is, that we 
 must not entertain thoughts of doing laiuful things loithout a due in- 
 quiry into the temper of our own hearts, and a full consideration of all 
 circumstances round about, tuifh the probable tendencies and conse- 
 quences of it. 
 
 Quest. 'Qui, may some say, if I judge such a motion to be a thing 
 lawful, which doth proceed from Satan, what am I to do ? 
 
 Ansio. I answer, [1.] Consider whether the good be necessary or 
 not. If it be necessary, it is a duty and not to be forborne, only the 
 abuses are to be watched against and avoided. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, If it be a duty, consider whether it be seasonable or 
 unseasonable, necessary or not, as to the present time ; if it be not, it 
 may be suspended, and a fitter opportunity waited for. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, If it be only lawful and not necessary, we ought to 
 abstain from it wholly, after the example of David, Ps. xxxix. 2, who 
 ' abstained even from good,' that is, from lawful bemoanings of him- 
 self or complainings against Absalom, that had rebelled against him ; 
 because it was not necessary, and, the circumstances of his condition 
 considered, very dangerous, lest vent and way being given, he might 
 have been easily drawn to speak passionately or cUstrustfully against 
 God, and foolishly against providences. 
 
 That the thing unto which Satan moved Christ was lawful, hath 
 been noted. Next, let us consider luhat end Satan might propoxind to 
 himself in this motion, and we shall see, as hath been said, that he 
 did not so narrow and contract his design as that only one thing took 
 up his intentions, but several. Hence have we this observation : — 
 
 Obs. 10. That in one single temptation Satan may have various 
 aims and designs. 
 
 Temptation is a complicated thing, a many-headed monster. Satan 
 hath always many things in his eye. 
 
 [1.] First, In every temptation there is a direct and principal 
 design, a nmin thing that the devil toould have. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, There are several things subservient to the main 
 design, as steps, degrees, or means leading to it; the lesser still making 
 way for the greater. If Satan design murder, he lays the foundation 
 of his work in inward grudgings and hatreds ; next he gives provo- 
 cations, by reproachful words, or disdainful carriages and behaviours, 
 as our Saviour notes in the expressions of raca and fool, Mat. v. 22, 
 
354 A TREATISE OF [1'ART III. 
 
 and so by degrees enticeth on to murder. Tlie like we may observe 
 in the lusts of uncleanness, and other things. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Besides these there are usually reserves, something in 
 ambmhment to loatcli our retreats ; for Satan considers what to do in 
 case we repel and refuse his motion, that so he may not altogether 
 labour in vain. A contrary extreme watcheth those that fly from a 
 temptation ; pride, security, self-confidence, and boasting are ready to 
 take them by the heel. So truly may it be said of Satan, that he 
 knoweth the way that we take : if we go forward, he is there; if back- 
 ward, we may also perceive him ; on the left hand, he is at work; and 
 on the right hand, he is not idle. All these we may particularly see 
 in this temptation in hand. He had a main design, of which more 
 presently ; he prepares means and seconds to help it forward ; such 
 were those pleas of necessity and convenicucy which the hunger 
 and want of Christ did furnish him withal, and there wanted not 
 the reserves of presumption and self-neglect in case he resisted the 
 motion. 
 
 Tlie reasons of this policy are these : — 
 
 (1.) First, Tllien Satan tempts, he. is not certain of Ids prevalency, 
 even ichen the prot)oJ)ililies are the greatest; and therefore doth he 
 provide himself with several things at once, that if the tcmjited party 
 nauseate one thing, there may be another in readiness that may please 
 liis palate. God gives this advice to the spiritual seedsman, ' In the 
 morning sow tliy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand ; 
 for thou knowest not what shall prosper, whether this or that,' | Eecles. 
 xi. G.] Satan, that seedsman of the tares, imitates this ; and because 
 he knows not what shall prosper, therefore doth he use variety. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Where many things are ot once designed, it is a 
 hundred to one'tlietj will not all return empty. It is much if many 
 snares miss ; he that hath broken one or two, may not only be enticed 
 with a third temptation — as being either wearied out with the assaults, 
 or made pliable with the allurements of the former, but may also sit 
 down secure, as having, in his supposal, passed all the danger, and so 
 unawares fall into an unseen or unsuspected trap. 
 
 AiypUc. This may [1.] by way of caution, assure us that we have no 
 cause to think that all fear is over, when we have avoided the more 
 obvious and conspicuous designments of a temptation, but rather to 
 suspect some further train than we yet have discovered. [2.] That 
 there is a necessity for us to be chcumspect every way, and, Janus-like, 
 to have an eye before and behind, that we may make timely discoveries 
 of what Satan intends against us. 
 
 As we have taken a view of the various designments of Satan in 
 one temptation, so it is also remarkable, that these various ways of 
 his in this temptation, do give strength one to another, and have as 
 close a connexion as stones in an arch. Christ was pleased to com- 
 mend the wisdom of the unjust steward, though he intended not the 
 least approbation of his dishonesty. So we may turn aside and observe 
 the cunning artifice of the devil, in the management of this argument 
 against Christ, which is to this purpose, as if he had thus proceeded : 
 ' If thou art the Son of God,' as the voice from heaven lately testified, 
 it can be no inconvenience, but every way an advantage to give a 
 
Chap. lU.J satan's tejii-tations. 355 
 
 further proof of it. Thy present condition of want and hunger seem 
 to contradict it ; for how strange and unbeseeming is it for the Son of 
 God to be in such straits ! yet if thou beest what thou saycst thou art, 
 it is easy for thee to help thyself. God, that made the world of nothing, 
 by the power of liis command, can much more change the forms of 
 things that are made already ; it is but speaking, and these stones 
 that are before thee will be turned into bread ; and besides that, in so 
 doing thou mayest seasonably vindicate tliyself from the eclipse of 
 thy present condition. Necessity and duty — for it is duty to supply 
 the want of the body, which cannot be supported without its proper 
 nourishment — compel thee unavoidably to it, except thou fearest not 
 to contract the guilt of self-destruction, especially seeing Ido not urge 
 thee to provide delicacies, but only bread, and such as is needful to 
 keep in the lives of the poorest men, in the poorest manner. 
 
 Ohs. 11. Hence note, Satan in driving on a temptation, uscth such 
 an artificial confrivement of motives and things, that still one doth 
 infer another, one strengthens another. Temptations are like a screw, 
 which if once admitted, will improve its first hold to draw in all the 
 rest. By these arts doth Satan, like a cunning serpent, wriggle himself 
 into the affections of men. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Of Satan s chief end in this temptation; his skill in nuiking the means 
 to sin plausible. — The reasons of that policy, icith his art therein. — 
 Mens ignorance his advantage. — Of the differences of things p)ro- 
 pounded to our use. 
 
 The various aims of Satan, and their close dependence one upon 
 another, having contributed to us their several observations, it remains 
 that we ask after the main and chief thing that Satan principally 
 intended. And to make way to this, it must be noted, that in grand 
 temptations especially, the main design of Satan comprehends these 
 two : the chief end, and the chief means conducing to that end. About 
 these, some authors conjecture variously, whose differences we have no 
 great occasion to mention, seeing the text gives so great a satisfaction 
 in this matter. 
 
 1. For first. The main end of Satan we have not obscm-ely expressed 
 to us in these words, ' If thou be the Son of God,' which if we compare 
 with Mat. iii. 17, ' Tliis is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,' 
 we shall easily apprehend that here Satan doth but echo to that voice 
 which came down from heaven ; as he did with Eve. God had said, 
 of the tree in the midst of the garden, ye shall not eat, [Gen. iii. 3.] 
 Satan, having as it were the sound of this yet in his ears, in a clear 
 reference to it saith, ' Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat?' ver._ 1. 
 So here is also an evident respect to God's testimony concerning Christ, 
 as if he had said, ' Hath God said thou art his Son ? If thou beest 
 indeed such as he testified, give some proof of it/ &c. By which it 
 appears that his design was to undermine this testimony, or some way 
 or other to defeat it. Neither need it pass for an objection against tliis. 
 
35G A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 that Satan doth not directly mention his doubt or distrust, nor positively 
 suggest to Christ a questioning or misbehef of his sonship, for it was 
 not suitable to his policy so to lay open his main end. That must 
 have been expected afterward, as the last in execution, if it had taken 
 effect, though it were first in intention. 
 
 2. Secondly, The chief means by which he would have brought 
 this end about, may be understood fi'om Christ's answer to the tempta- 
 tion ; for it cannot but be imagined that Christ knew the bottom of 
 Satan's policy, and that his answer must fully confront the means by 
 which Satan endeavoured to ensnare him. His answer was, ' Man 
 lives not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
 mouth of God.' If we can then come to a certain xmderstanding of 
 this scripture, which is not difficult, we shall evidently know the mind 
 of the temptation, to which this is a direct answer. 
 
 Tiiesc words are cited out of Deut. viii. 3, which some interpret to 
 this sense,! as if Christ had said, Man hath not only a life of the body 
 — which is mentioned^ by bread — to look after, but another life of the 
 soul, which is of so groat concernment, that the bodily life is to be 
 neglected, rather than that of the soul to be endangered. This is a 
 truth in itself, but is apparently besides the moaning of Deut. viii. 
 Neither doth it afford so full and particular an answer as doubtless 
 Christ intended. But let us consider the text, and we shall find more 
 in it ; for Moses first sets down God's dealing with Israel in tJie wilder- 
 ness, in that he suffered them to hunger, and took from them the 
 ordinary means of life, which, as the latter part of the verse shews, is 
 to be understood of ordinary bread ; and then to supply that want, he 
 fed them by an extraordinary means, such as they had never heard of 
 before ; this was by manna. Next he makes an inf'ei-encc from this 
 way of God's proceecUng, improving this particular to a general rule, 
 ' That he miglit make thee know that man lives not by bread only, 
 but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth 
 man live ;' which is clearly of this import, that man lives not by ordi- 
 nary means only, but that God can provide for his life in an extraor- 
 dinary way, by appointing anytliing to that end, through liis mighty 
 and powerful word and good pleasure. So that things never so un- 
 usual, or unfit in themselves for nourishment, will become strengthen- 
 ing to us, if he shall give out his command. Christ then applpng 
 this in this sense, did, as it were, thus say to Satan, ' Though I want 
 ordinary means of life, which is bread, yet I know God can make any- 
 thing which he pleaseth to noiu-ish me instead of it. So that I will 
 not cast off a dependence upon the providence of God in this strait, 
 and without warrant run to an extraordinary course for supply.' 
 Hence it is evident that to bring about his main end, which 
 was to distrust of his relation to God, he used this means, that by 
 reason of his strait in the failure of ordinary supply, he should 
 distrust providence, and without warrant provide for himself 
 Observe, 
 
 Obs. 12. That ivJiere Satan cames on a main design and end, he 
 htstows most of his pains and skill in rendering the means to that end 
 
 ' Vide Lightfoot, Harmon, in Mat. iv. Pool Synopsis, in Deut. viii. 
 
 - Query, ' Maintained '? — Ed. 
 
Chap. lO.J satan's temptations. 357 
 
 plausible and taking. The end is least in mention, and the .means in 
 their fit contrivance takes up most of his art and care. The reasons 
 whereof are these : — 
 
 (1.) First, The end is apparently had, so that it icould he a contra- 
 diction to his design to mention it. It is the snare and trap itself, 
 which his wisdom and policy du-ects him to cover. His ultimate end 
 is the destruction of the soul. This he dare not openly avouch to the 
 vilest of men ; he doth not say to them, ' Destroy your souls,' ' Bring 
 eternal miseries upon yourselves,' but only tempts them to that which 
 will bring this misery upon them ; and as for those intermediate ends, 
 which are the formal acts of sin, he useth also a kind of modesty in 
 their concealment. He doth not usually say. Go and murder, or. Com- 
 mit adultery ; but rather puts them upon ways or means that will 
 bring them up to those iniquities, except that he sometime have to 
 deal with those that are so hardened in sin, that they make a sport to 
 do wickedly, and then he can more freely discover his ends to such in 
 the temptation. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, The means to such wicked ends have not only an 
 innate and natural tendency in themselves, which are apt to sway and 
 bias men that way, but are also capable of artificial improvement, to 
 a further enticement to the evils secretly intended; and these require 
 the art and skill for the exact suiting and fitting of them. The end 
 cannot be reached without the means, and means so ordered, without 
 the aid of grace, will scarce miss of the end. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, The means are capable of a varnish and paint. He 
 can make a shift to set them ofl:' and colour them over, that the proper 
 drift of them cannot easily be discovered ; whereas the ends to which 
 these lead cannot receive, at least so easily with some, such fair shows. 
 It is far easier to set off company-keeping, with the pleasurable pre- 
 tences of necessity or refreshing divertisement, than to propound direct 
 drunkenness, the thing to which company-keeping tends, under such 
 a dress. 
 
 Query. If it be demanded. How and by what arts he renders the 
 means so plausible ? I shall endeavom- a satisfaction to that query, 
 by shewing the way that Satan took to render the means he made use 
 of in this temptation, plausible to Christ, which were these: — 
 
 [1.] First, He represents it as a harmless or lawful thing in itself. 
 Who can say it had been sinful for the Son of God to have turned 
 stones into bread, more than to turn water into wine ? 
 
 [2.] Secondly, He gives the motion a further pretext of advantage 
 or goodness. He insinuated that it might be a usefid discovery of his 
 sonship, and a profitable supply against hunger. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, He seems also to put a necessity upon it, that other 
 ways of help failing, he must be constrained so to do, or to suffer 
 further want. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, He forgets not to tell him that to do this was but 
 suitable to his condition, and that it was a thing well becoming the 
 Son of God to do a miracle. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, He doth urge it at the rate of a duty, and that being 
 in hunger and want, it would be a sinful neglect not to do what he 
 could and might for his preservation. 
 
358 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 The same way doth he take in other temptations ; in some cases 
 pleading all, in some most of these things, by which the means con- 
 ducing thereunto may seem plausible. If he presents to men occasions 
 of sinning, he will tell them ordinarily that they may lawfully adven- 
 ture upon them, that they are harmless, nay, of advantage, as tending 
 to the recreating of the spu'its and health of the body ; yea, that it is 
 necessary for them to take such a liberty, and that in doing so, they 
 do but what others do that profess religion. And often he hath such 
 advantage from the circumstances of the thing, and the inclination 
 of our heart, that he makes bold to tell us it is no less than duty. 
 Such did the outrage of Demetrius seem to him, when he considered 
 how much liis livelihood did depend upon the Diana of tlie Ephesians. 
 Paul's zeal made him confident tliat persecution of Christians was his 
 duty ; neither is there anytliing which can pretend to any zeal, advan- 
 tage, or colourable ground, but presently it takes the denomination 
 of duty. 
 
 If any wonder that such poor and shallow pretences are not seen 
 through by all men, they may know that this happens from a fourfold 
 ignorance : — 
 
 (1.) First, From an ignorance of the thing itself. How easily may 
 they be imposed upon, who know not tlie nature or the usual issues of 
 things ! As children are deluded to put a value upon a useless or 
 Imrtful trifle, so are men deceived and easily imposed upon in what 
 they do not understand. And for this cause are sinners compared to 
 birds, who are easily enticed with tlie bait proposed to their view as 
 profitable and good for them, becau.se they know not the snare that 
 lies hid under it. This ignorance causing the mistake mentioned, is 
 not only a simple ignorance, but also that ignorance which owes its 
 rise to a wilful and perverse disposition, — for there are some that are 
 willingly ignorant, — doth often lay those open to a delusion, who, 
 through prepossession or idleness, will not be at pains to make full 
 inquiries. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, This also comes to pass from an ignorance of our 
 spirits : for while we either engage in the things ijroposed by Satan 
 upon the general warranty of a good intention, or that we have no 
 evU meaning in it, we are kept from a discovery of the intended design. 
 Hence Paul saw nothing, in liis persecuting the cluirch of God, of 
 what Satan aimed at ; or whUe upon the pretence of a good inten- 
 tion, our secret corrupt principles do indeed move us underliand to 
 any undertaking, we are as httlc apt to see the ends of Satan in 
 what he propounds to us. Jehu and the disciples, Lulce ix. 55, 
 pretending a zeal for God, but really carried on by their own furious 
 tempers, did as little as others sec what the devil was doing with 
 them. 
 
 (3.) Thu'dly, The means of a temptation are rendered less suspi- 
 cious, from an ignorance of the circumstances and concomitants that 
 do attend them. 
 
 (4.) Fom-thly, As aho froia an ignorance of our own tvcakness and 
 inclination. While we are confident of gi-eater strength to resist than 
 indeed we have, of a greater averseuess than is in us to the evil sus. 
 pected, we contemn the danger of the means as below us, and so grow 
 
Chap. 10.] satan's temptations. 359 
 
 bold with the occasions of iniquity, as pretentling no hazard or danger 
 to us. 
 
 Applic. This may teach us a piece of tvisdom in the imitation of 
 the devil. We see his malice appears in the bloody and destructive 
 aims or intendments which lie discovers against us, but liis skill and 
 cunning in a suitable disposal and ordering of the means. So should 
 we learn to employ all our care and watchfulness about those plausible 
 ways or introductions to sin that Satan puts in our hand ; and as his 
 eager desire of gaining his end makes him industrious about the 
 offering of means fit to compass it, so our fear of his design and end 
 should make us jealous of every overture propounded to us. They 
 that from wilfulness or neglect shall admit the means of evil, cannot 
 expect to avoid the evil to wliich they lead, or if they may, unex- 
 pectedly, be rescued from the end, while they use the means, — by 
 grace interposing, as between the cup and the lip, — it is no thanks 
 to them, and often they come not off so clear, but that some lameness 
 or other sticks by them. 
 
 Quest. I may suspect this will be retorted back as an advice scarce 
 practicable : for if all means leading to sin are to be avoided, then 
 can we use nothing, but rather, as the apostle saith in another case, 
 ' we must go out of the world,' [1 Cor. v. 10,] seeing everything may 
 lead to evil ? 
 
 Ans. I answer. We are not by any command of God put into any 
 such strait. Things that are or may be improveable against us, may 
 be used by us with due care and watchfulness ; yet all things are not 
 alike neither, for we must look upon things under a threefold con- 
 sideration. 
 
 [1.] First, If that which is propounded or laid before us as a 
 means to sin, be in itself sinful, the refusal of both is an undoubted 
 duty. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, We must look upon things under the consideration 
 of the suspiciousness which they carry with them of a further evil. 
 Some circumstances, or postures of an opportunity and occasion offered, 
 are of such a threatening aspect, that they fairly warn us to hold off. 
 To keep company with a friend may be admitted, when yet that 
 society in a suspicious place, as tavern or whore-house, is to be 
 avoided. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, We must further consider things as we are free or 
 engaged to them, and accordingly where there is appearance of 
 danger or the fear of it, we must keep at a distance, if we are en- 
 gaged to such things, either by the obligation of the law of nature, or 
 lawful calling, or command of God, or unavoidable providence, _ or 
 relation. Where these ties are upon us, we cannot avoid the thing 
 or action, but are the more concerned to take heed of being over- 
 reached or overtaken by them. 
 
360 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 Of the temptation to distrust upon the failure of ordinary means.— Of 
 the power of tlmt temptation, and the reasons of its prevalency. — 
 Of umcarrantahle attempts for relief with the causes thereof. — 
 Of loaiting on God, and keeping his loay. — In what cases a par- 
 ticular mercy is to he expected. 
 
 I have particularly insisted upon the aims of Satan in this tempta- 
 tion in their variety, and also the cunning connexion and coherences of 
 them. I have also singled out his chief design. I am now in the 
 last place to present you with the suitableness and respects that the 
 subordinate means carry to the principal, and that proportion which 
 may be found in all these to the end designed by them. 
 
 The chief means in reference to the end designed, was a distrust of 
 providence, and the subordinate means to bring on that distrust, was 
 the failure of ordinary means of supply : for so he endeavoured to 
 improve his hunger and want in the wilderness, as a manifest neglect 
 of providence towards him, for which, as he tacitly suggests, there 
 was no ground to wait or rely upon it any further, but to betake him- 
 self to another course. Hence note, 
 
 Ohs. 13. That the failure of ordinary means of help is by Satan 
 improved as his special engine to britig men to a distrust of provi- 
 dence, ami from thence to an unwan-antaLle attempt for their relief in 
 an extraordinary tvay. 
 
 That the failure of ordinary and usual supplies hath by the devil's 
 subtlety brought a distrust of providence, and run men beyond all 
 hopes of help, is a thing commonly and notoriously known. When 
 men are afflicted, and brought unto unusual straits, and the ordinary 
 ways of relief are out of sight, they are soon tempted to distrust God 
 and man ; and to conclude they arc cut off, and that their ' hope is 
 perished,' and that ' their eye shall no more see good.' David dis- 
 tressed, proclaims ' all men liars : ' concludes that he should at last 
 'be cut off,' Ps. cxvi. 11, xxxi. 22. Jonah, in the whale's belly, 
 thought that all hope was gone, and that he was cast out of God's 
 sight, chap. ii. 4. The church of Israel in capti\'ity, ' forgot pros- 
 perity,' notwithstanding the promise of deliverance after seventy years, 
 and thought no less than that ' her hope and strength was perished/ 
 Lam. iii. 18. And from the scriptures mentioned, we may also see 
 the strength and prevalency of the temptation, especially when it is 
 reduced to particulars. As, 
 
 (1.) First, It is not a thing altogether of no weight that such a 
 temptaiion should prevail against SKch persons; as David and Jonah, 
 and the whole church of Israel, that the manifold experiences that 
 some of them have had of God's faitlifulness in delivering, and the 
 seasonableness of help at times of greatest hazard, the particular pro- 
 mises that all of them have had — how dismal and black soever things 
 have seemed — have given the fullest assurances imaginable, that what 
 he had spoken should certainly be performed ; the gracious qualifica- 
 tions of such persons as eminently holy and skilled in the duties of 
 
Chap. 11.] satan's temptations. 361 
 
 trust, and in the ways of providence, and the special advantage which 
 some of them, as prophets, have had above others, to enable them to 
 improve that skill, experience, knowledge, and grace, to a firm ad- 
 herence to such special promises : that all these things should not be 
 sufficient to keep them off distrust, though at present the ways of de- 
 liverehce were hid from them, seems strange. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, It is wonderful to ivhat a height such a prevailing 
 temptation hath carried some of them. David seems to be a little 
 outrageous, and did upon the matter call God ' a liar,' when he said, 
 ' All men are liars ;' which however that some interpret i as if it had 
 been David's trust in God, and his confident avouchment of his 
 enemies' prognostications of his ruin, to be but lies, and that this he 
 spake from his firm belief of the promise, ' I believed, therefore have 
 I spoken ;' yet the acknowledgment of his ' haste,' which, compared 
 with Ps. xxxi. 22, is declared as his weakness, will force us to con- 
 clude it an ingenuous confession of his distrust at the first, when 
 he was greatly affiicted, though he recovered himself afterwards 
 to a belief of the promise ; and that in that distemper he plainly re- 
 flected upon Samuel, and calls the promises of God given by him ' a 
 very lie.' 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, It is strange also that present instances of God's pro- 
 vidences luorhing out unexpected deliverances shoidd not relieve the 
 hearts of his saints from the poiver of such distrust ; that when they 
 see God is not unmindful of them, but doth hear them in what they 
 feared, they should still retain in their minds the impression of an 
 unbelieving apprehension ; and not rather fi'ee themselves from their 
 expectations of future ruin by concluding, that he that hath and doth 
 deliver will also yet deliver. David had this thought in his heart, 
 that he should ' one day perish by the hand of Saul,' 1 Sam. xxvii. 1, 
 even then when God had so remarkably rescued him from Saul, and 
 forced Saul not only to acknowledge his sin in prosecuting him, but 
 also to declare his belief of the promise concerning David. See chap, 
 xxvi. One would have expected that this should have been such a 
 demonstration of the truth of what had been promised, that he should 
 cast out all fear ; and yet, contrariwise, this pledge of God's purpose 
 to hun is received by a heart strongly prepossessed with misgiving 
 thoughts, and he continues to think that for all this Saul would one 
 day destroy him. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, The pangs of this distrust are cdso so remarkable, 
 that after they have been delivered, and have found that the event hath 
 not ansiuered their fears, they have in the r-evieiu of their carriage 
 under such fears, recounted this their iveahness among other remarkable 
 things, thereby shewing the unreasonableness of then- unbeKef, and 
 their wonder that God should pass by so great a provocation, and 
 notwithstanding so unexpectedly deliver them. David in the places 
 before cited was upon a thankful acknowledgment of God's love and 
 wonderful kindness, which be thought he could not perform without 
 leaA'ing a record of his strange and unworthy distrust ; as if he had 
 said, ' So greatly did I sin, and so unsuitably did I " ' 
 that I then gave off, and concluded all was lost.' 
 
 ' Ps. cxvi. 11. Poolj Synopsis, in loc. 
 
362 A TREATISE OF [PaUT III. 
 
 To open this a little further, I shall add the reasons why Satan 
 strikes in with such an occasion as the want of means to tempt to 
 distrust, which are these: — 
 
 [1.] First, Such a condition doth usually transport men beside them- 
 selves; puts them, as it were, into an ecstacy, and by a sudden rapture 
 of astonishment and fear, forceth them beyond their settled thoughts 
 and purposes. This David notes as the ground of his inconsiderate 
 rash speaking : ' It was my haste,' I was transported, &c. Now as 
 passion does not only make men speak what otherwise they would 
 not, but also to put bad interpretations upon actions and things 
 beyond what they will bear, and hasten men to resolves exceedingly 
 unreasonable ; so doth this state of the heart, imder an amazement 
 and surprise of fear, give opportunity to Satan to put men to injurious 
 and unrighteous thoughts of the providence of God, and by such ways 
 to alienate theh minds from the trust which they owe him. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Sc7ise is a great help to faith. Faith then must 
 needs be much hazarded when sense is at a loss or contradicted, as 
 usually it is in sti-aits. 
 
 Tliat faith doth receive an advantage by sense, cannot be denied. 
 To believe what we see, is easier than to believe what we see not ; and 
 that in om' state of weakness and infirmity God doth so far indulge 
 us, that by his allowance we may take the help of our senses, is evident 
 by his appointment of the two sacraments, where by outward visible 
 signs our faith may be quickened to api)rehend the spiritual benefits 
 offered. Thomas, resolving to suspend iiis belief till he were satisfied 
 that Christ was risen, by the utmost trial that sense could give, 
 determining not to credit the testimony of the rest of the disciples till 
 by putting his finger into his side he had made himself more certain, 
 Christ not only condescended to him, but also pronounceth his appro- 
 bation of his belief, accepting it, that he had believed because he had 
 seen. But when outward usual helps fail us, our sense, being not 
 able to see afar off, is wholly jjuzzled and overthrown. The very 
 disappearing of probabilities gives so great a shake to our faith that it 
 commonly staggers at it ; and therefore was it given as the great com- 
 mendation of Abraham's faith, that he, notwithstanding the unlikeli- 
 hood of the thmg, ' staggered not at the promise ;' noting thereby how 
 extraordinary it was in him at that time to kec]) up against the con- 
 tradiction of sense, and how usual it is with others to be beaten off 
 all trust by it. It is no wonder to see that faith, which usually called 
 sense for a supporter, to fail when it is deprived of its crutch. And 
 he that would a little understand what disadvantage this might prove 
 to a good man when sense altogether fails his expectation, he may 
 consider wdth himself in what a case Thomas might have been if 
 Clu-ist had refused to let him see his side, and to thrust his finger into 
 the print of the nails. In all appearance, had it been so, he had gone 
 away confirmed in liis mibclief. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Though faith can act above sense, and in employed 
 about things not seen, yet every saint ed all times doth not act his 
 faith so high. Christ tells us that to believe where a man hath not 
 liiid the help of sight and sense, is noble and blessed, Johnxx. 29 ; }'et 
 
CnAr. 11.] Satan's temptations. 363 
 
 withal, ho hints it to he rare and difficult: 'he that hath not seen, 
 and yet hath believed,' implies that it is but one amongst many that 
 doth so, and that it is the conquest of a more than orcUnary difficulty. 
 Hence it is, that to love God when he kills, to believe when means faO, 
 are reckoned among the liigh actings of Christianity. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, When sense is nonplussed, and faith fails, the soul 
 of man is at a great loss. Having nothing to bear it up, it must needs 
 sink ; but having something to tlu-ow it down, besides its own pro- 
 pensity downward to distrust, it hath the force of so great a disapjjoint- 
 ment to push it forward ; and such bitterness of sphit, heightened by 
 the malignant influence of Satan, that with a violence like the angel's 
 throwing a millstone into the sea, it is cast into the bottom of such 
 depths of unbelief, that the knowledge of former jDOwer and extra- 
 ordinary providences cannot keep it from an absolute denial of the 
 like for the future. Israel in the wilderness, when they came to the 
 want of bread, though they acknowledged he ' clave the rock,' and gave 
 them water in the like strait, yet so far did their hearts fail of that due 
 trust in the power and mercy of God, which might have been expected, 
 that though they confessed the one, they as distrustfully question and 
 deny the other. ' He clave the rock, but can he provide flesh ? can ho 
 give bread ?' [Ps. Ixxviii. 20.] Strange unbelief, that sees and acknow- 
 ledgeth omnipotency in one thing, and yet denies it in another ! 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, Providence hafh been an old question. It is an atheism 
 that some have been guilty of, to deny that God ordereth all affairs 
 relating to his children here below, who yet have not so fully extinguished 
 their uatural impressions as to dare to deny the being of God. That 
 God is, they confess, but withal they think that he ' walketh in the 
 circuit of heaven,' and as to the smaller concerns of men, neither doth 
 good nor evil. This being an old error, to which most are but too 
 inclinable ; and the more because such things are permitted — as the 
 punishment of his chikh'cn, and their trials, while others have all 
 then' heart can wish — as seem scarce consistent with that love and 
 care which men look for from liim to his servants, they are apt enough 
 to renew the thoughts of that persuasion upon their mmds — for which 
 the failure of ordinary ways of help seems to be a high probability — 
 that he keeps himself unconcerned, and therefore there seems to be no 
 such cause of reliance upon him. The psalmist so expresseth that 
 truth, ' ileu shall say. Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth,' 
 [Ps. Iviii. 11 ;] that it is discovered to be a special retrievement of it, 
 by many and signal convincing evidences, from that distrust of God 
 and liis providences that men usually slide into upon their observation 
 of the many seeming failures of outward means of help. 
 
 Secondly, The other branch of the observation, that from a distrust 
 of providence he endeavours to draw them to an untcarrcmtctble attempt 
 for their relief, is as clear as the former. Sarah being under a ths- 
 trust of the promise for a son, because of her age, gave her handmaid 
 to Abraham, that in that way, the promise seeming to fail, she might 
 obtain children by her. Gen. xvi. 2. David, because of the many and 
 violent pursuits of Saul, not only distrusted the promise, thinking he 
 might ' one day perish' by him, but resolves to provide for his own 
 
364 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 safety by a speedy escape into the land of the Philistines, 1 Sam. xxvii. 
 1 ; a course which, as appears by the temptations and evils he met 
 with there, was altogether unwarrantable. That from a distrust men 
 are next put upon unwarrantable attempts, is clear from the following 
 reasons : — 
 
 [1.] First, Tlie afrightment lohich is bred by such dlMrusts of pro- 
 vidences ivill not suffer men to be idle. Fear is active, and strongly 
 prompts that something is to be done. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Yet such is the confusicm of_ men's minds in such a 
 case, that though many things are propounded, in that hurry of thoughts 
 tlvey are deprived usually of a true judgment and deliberation, so that 
 they are oppressed with a multitude of thoughts, as David on the like 
 occasion takes notice, ' In the multitude of my thoughts within me,' 
 &c., [Ps. xciv. 19 ;] and, as he expresseth the case of seamen in a 
 storm, ' they are at their wits' end.' 
 
 [3.] Thu-dly, The despairing grievance of spirit makes them take 
 that which comes next to hand, as a drowning man that grasps a twig 
 or straw, though to no purpose. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Being once turned off their rock, and the true stay of 
 the promise of God for help, whatever other course they take must 
 needs be unioarranlable. If they once be out of the right way, they 
 must needs wander, and every step they take must of necessity be 
 wrong. 
 
 [6.] Fifthly, Satan is so officious in an evil thing, that seemg any m 
 this condition, he will not 'fail to proffer his help ; and in place of 
 God's providence, to set some unlawful shift before them. _ 
 
 [6.] SixtUy, And so much the rather do men close in with such 
 overtures, because a sudden fit of passionate fury doth drive them, and 
 Old of a bitter kind of despite and crossness — as if they meditated a re- 
 venge against God "for their disappointment — they take up a Imsty 
 tvilful resolve to go that way that seems most agreeable to their passion, 
 saying with king Joram, ' What wait we upon the Lord any longer 
 for ?'°[2 Kings vi. 33.] We will take such a course, let come on us 
 what will. 
 
 Applic. The service which the observation, well digested, may per- 
 form for us, is very fully contained in an advice which David gives on 
 the like occasion, Ps. xxxvii. 34, which is this, ' Wait on the Lord, 
 and keep his way.' Failures of ordmary means should not fiU us with 
 distrust, neither then should we run out of God's way for help. He 
 that would practise this must have these three things which ai-e com- 
 prehended in it : — 
 
 [1.] First, He must have fuU persuasions of the powe^- and promise 
 of God. I do not mean the bare hearsay that God hath promised 
 to help, and that he is able to deliver, but these truths must be 
 wrought upon the heart to a fidl assurance of them, and then we 
 must keep our eye upon them ; for if ever we lose the sight of this, 
 when troubles beset us, our heart will fail us, and we shall do no 
 otherwise than Hagar, who, when her bottle of water was spent, and 
 she saw no way of supply, sat down, gave up her son and seh for lost 
 and so falls a-weeping over her helpless condition. This was that 
 sight of God, in regard of his power, goodness, faithfulness, and truth,. 
 
Chap. 11.] satan's temptations. 365 
 
 which are things invisihle, Heb. xi. 27, whicli kept up the heart of 
 Moses, that it sunk not under the pressure of his fears, when all things 
 threatened his ruin. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, He that would thus wait upon God had need to 
 have an equal balance of spirit in reference to second causes. De- 
 spise or neglect them he may not, when he may have them, for 
 that were intolerable presumption ; and so to centre our hopes and 
 expectations upon them, as if our welfare did certainly depend upon 
 them, is a liigh affront to God's omnipotency, and no less than a 
 sinful idolizing of the creature ; but the engagements of our duty must 
 keep carefully to the first, and the consideration of an independency 
 of an almighty power, as to any subordinate means or causes, must help 
 us against the other miscarriage. When all means visible fail us, we 
 must look to live upon omnipotent faithfulness and goodness, which 
 is not tied to anything, but that without all means, and contrary 
 to the powers of second causes, can do what he hath promised or 
 sees fit. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, There is no waiting upon God, and keeping his way, 
 without a particular trust in God. To this we are not only warranted 
 by frequent commands, ' Trust in the Lord, I say, ti-ust in the Lord,' 
 but highly encouraged to it under the greatest assurances of help : 
 Ps. xxxvii. 5, ' Trust in him, and he shall bring it to pass.' ' Trust 
 in the Lord and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed,' ver. 3. The 
 Lord shall help and deliver them, because tliey trust in him. And 
 this we are to do at ' all times,' and in the greatest hazards, and with 
 the highest security : ' I laid me down and slept ; I will not be afraid 
 of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against me round 
 about,' Ps. iii. 5, 6. 
 
 Quest. But some, possibly, may say, Is it our duty to sit still in 
 such a case ? When all the usual ways of supply fail us, must nothing 
 be attempted ? 
 
 Ans. (1.) I answer, first. At such times greater care and diligence 
 is necessary in outward things. That what one lawful course cannot 
 help, another lawful course may ; and as to spiritual diligence, it 
 should be extraordinary. We should be more earnest and frequent in 
 prayer, fastings, meditations, and the exercise of graces. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, While we are in the piusuit of duty, and where the 
 substance of it may be preserved entire, if our straits and wants un- 
 avoidably put us out of the way, ive may he satisfied to go on, though 
 some circumstances be necessarily ivaived and hindered. Phinehas 
 might kill Zimri and Cosbi upon the command of Moses, Num. xxv. 
 5 ; and consequently in prosecution of duty, though, other circum- 
 stances considered, it was in some respects extraordinary. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, But let the strait be what it will, toe must not forsake 
 duty ; for so we go out of God's way, and do contradict that trust and 
 hope which we are to keep up to God-ward. 
 
 Quest. But, it may be further urged, must we, when all means fail, 
 positively trust in God for those very things which we might expect 
 in an ordinary way ? 
 
 Ans. In some cases our duty is submission to his ivill, and the par- 
 ticular mercy neither positively to be expected not yet distrusted. 
 
366 A TREATISE OF [PaRTIII. 
 
 Thus did David behave himself when he fled from Jerusalem upon 
 Absalom's rebellion ; ' Let him do what seemeth him good.' 
 
 But there are other cases wherein it is our duty to fix our trust 
 upon the particular mercy or help. I shall name four ; and possibly a 
 great many more may be added. As, 
 
 [1.] First, When mercies are exiircsshj and particularly promised: 
 as when the kingdom was promised to David ; when a son was pro- 
 mised to Abraham. Whatever had been the improbabilities of their 
 obtaining the thing promised, it was their duty positively to believe. 
 This is indeed not a general case. _ , 
 
 [2.] Secondly, IVJien God leads us into straits by engaging us in his 
 service: as when Israel followed the Lord into the wilderness, in order 
 to an enioyment of a further mercy, which was the possession of the 
 land of Canaan. Wiien they had no water to drink, nor food to eat, 
 and saw no natural possibility of supply in that wilderness, they ought 
 positively to have expected supplies from God in an extraordinary 
 way ; and it is reckoned up against them as their sin that they did 
 not believe. This was the very case of Christ under this temptation ; 
 the Spirit led him into the wilderness upon the prosecution of a fur- 
 ther design. When there was no bread there to satisfy his hunger, he 
 refuseth to work a miracle for his supply, but leans upon an extra- 
 ordinary providence. 
 
 [3.] Thirtlly, When the things tec want are common miiversal bless- 
 ings, ami such as ice cannot subsist loilhout. If we have nothing to 
 cat, and nothing to put on, yet seeing the body cannot live without 
 both, we must positively expect such supplies from providence, though 
 we see not the way whence they should arise to us. This kind of dis- 
 trust, which reflects upon the general necessary providence of God, by 
 which he is engaged to preserve his creatures in their stations, ' to 
 clothe the grass of the field, to feed the birds of the air,' &c., Christ 
 doth severely challenge, ' Shall he not much more clothe you, yc 
 of little faith?' Mat. vi. 30. He hath little or no faith, and in that 
 regard a very prodigy of distrust, that will not believe for necessaries. 
 Hence, Hab. iii. 17, the prophet resolves upon a rejoicing confidence 
 in God, when neither tree, nor field, nor flock would yield any hope in 
 an ordinary way. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Wlien God is eminently engaged for our help, and 
 his honour lies at stake in that very matter; so that whether God will 
 help or no, or whether he is able, is become the controversy, upon 
 which religion in its truth or the honour of God is to be tried ; then 
 are we engaged to a certain belief of help. The tlu-ee chikh-en upon 
 this ground did not only assert that ' God was able to deliver them,' 
 or that their death and "martp-dom they could bear, wliichis all that 
 most martyrs are able to arise up to, but they asserted positively that 
 ' God would deliver them,' and that the fire should not burn them. 
 They saw evidently that the contest, whether the Lord was God,_ was 
 managed at so high a rate, that God was more concerned^ to ^dndicate 
 his honour by their preservation, than to ^indicate their grace and 
 patience by their constancy and suflering, [Dan. iii.] Another 
 instance we have in Mat. viii. 26, where Christ rebukes his disciples 
 for unbelief in their fears of shipwTCck in a great storm— not that 
 
Chap. 12.] satan's temptations. 367 
 
 every seaman ordinarily lies under that charge, that gives himself up 
 to the apprehensions of danger — the ground of which charge was this, 
 that Christ was with them, and consequently it had unavoidably con- 
 tradicted his design, and reflected upon his honour, if he had suffered 
 his disciples at that time to be drowned. Their not minding how far 
 Christ was engaged with them, and not supporting themselves against 
 their fears by that consideration, made Cluist tax them for their little 
 faith. 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 Of Satan's proceeding to infer distrust of sonship from distrust of 
 providences. — Instances of the probcdiility of such a design. — The 
 reasons of this undertaking. — Of Satan's endeavour to loealcen 
 the assurance and hopes of God's children. — His general method to 
 that purpose. 
 
 Lastly, we are to consider the suitableness of the means to the end. 
 He had, as we have seen, fitly proportioned the subordinate means to 
 the chief and principal. The failure of ordinary means of help was 
 shrewdly j^roper to infer a distrust of providence. Now let it be noted 
 how fitly he improves this distrust of providence to bring about the 
 end he aimed at, which was a distrust of his filial interest in God, as 
 if he should have thus reasoned : ' He that in straits is forsaken, as to 
 all the usual supplies that may be expected in an ordinary way, hath 
 no reason to rely on providence ; and he that hath no reason to rely 
 on providence for the body, hath less cause to expect spiritual bless- 
 ings and favours for the soul' Hence note, 
 
 Obs. 14. That it is Satan's endeavour to make men proceed from 
 a distrust of providence to a distmst of their spiritual sonship, or 
 filial interest in God. First, I shall evidence that this is Satan's 
 design, and next I shall give the reasons of it. The former I shall 
 make good by these several considerations : — 
 
 (1.) First, We see it is a usual inference tJmt others make of men 
 whose heart fails them, under an absence or disapioearance of cdl' means 
 of help in their distresses. If providence doth not appear for them, 
 they conclude God hath forsaken them. Bildad thus concludes against 
 Job, chap. iv. 6, ' Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the 
 uprightness of thy ways?' Which must not only be understood as 
 an ii'onical scoff at the weakness of his confidence and hojie, as not 
 being able to support him against fainting in his trouble, but as a 
 direct accusation of the falseness and hypocrisy of his supposed integ- 
 rity, and all the hopes and confidence which was built upon it ; and 
 ver. 7 doth e\'idence, where he plainly declares himself to mean that 
 Job could not be innocent or righteous, it being, in his ai^prehension, 
 a thing never heard of, that so great calamities should overtake an 
 upright man, ' Who ever perished, being innocent ?' The ground of 
 which assertion was from ver. 5, ' It is now come upon thee, and thou 
 faintest.' That is, distresses are upon thee, and thou hast no visible 
 
368 A TREATISE OF [PaUT III. 
 
 means of help, but despairest ever to see a providence tliat will bring 
 thee out ; therefore surely thou hast had no real interest in God, as his 
 child. Eliphaz also seconds his friend in this uncharitable censure, 
 ' If thou wert pure and upright, he woidd awake for thee,' Job viii. 6 ; 
 that is, because he doth thus overlook thee, therefore thou art not pure 
 and upright. 
 
 If men do thus assault the comforts of God's children, we have 
 reason enough to think that Satan will ; for besides that we may con- 
 clude they are set on work by the devil, and what he speaks by them, 
 he will also by other ways promote, as being a design that is ujion his 
 heart ; we may be confident, that this being a surmise so natural to 
 the heart of man, he will not let slip so fair an advantage, for the 
 forming of it in our own hearts against ourselves. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, The best of God's children, in such cases, escape it 
 very hardly, if at all; which declares not only the depth and jjower of 
 that policy, but also how usual it is with Satan to urge the servants of 
 God with it. Job, chap. xix. 25, recovered himself to a firm per- 
 suasion of sonship, ' I know that my Kedeemer liveth,' <tc.; but by 
 the way his foot had well-nigh slipped, when, ver. 10, 11, he cries 
 out, ' He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone ; he hath 
 also kindled his wratli against me, and he counteth me unto him as 
 one of his enemies.' His earnest resolve not to give up his trust in 
 God, and the confidence of his integrity, is suflficient to discover Satan's 
 eager endeavours to have him bereaved of it. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Satan's success in this temptaiion over (he saints of 
 God, tvho sometime have actually failed, shews how much it is his 
 work to cast down their hopes of interest in God, by overthrowing 
 their trust in his providences. If he attempts this, and tliat .'success- 
 fully, on such wliose frequent experiences might discourage the tempter, 
 and in probability frustrate his undertaking ; we have little cause to 
 think that he will be more sjiaring and gentle in this assault upon 
 those that are more weak, and less acquainted with those clouds and 
 darknesses that over.shadow the ways of providence. David, for all 
 the promises that he had received, and notwithstanding the manifold 
 trials that he had of seasonable and unexpected deliverances, j'ct when 
 he was distressed, he once and again falls into a fear of his soul, and 
 a questioning of God's favour. He complains as one utterly for.saken, 
 ' Why ha.st thou forsaken me?' Ps. xxii. 1. In Ps. Ixix., he expres.seth 
 himself, ver. 1, 'sinking in the deep mire,' as a man that had no 
 firm ground to stand upon, and that his troubles liad brought him to 
 fear the state of his soul, not only as dejirivcd of God's favour — and 
 therefore, ver. 17, begs that his face may be no longer hid — but also as 
 suspecting the loss of it ; ver. 18, ' draw nigh unto my soul, and re- 
 deem it.' Ps. Ixxvii., upon the occasion of outward troubles, Asaph falls 
 into such a fit of fear about his spiritual condition, that no considera- 
 tion of former mercies could relieve him, ' He remembered God,' ver. 
 3, ' but was troubled ;' he ' considered the days of old,' called to 
 remembrance liis ' songs in the night;' but none of these were effectual 
 to keep him from that sad outcry of distrust, ver. 7, ' Will the Lord 
 cast ofl' for ever ? is his mercy clean gone for ever ? hath God forgotten 
 to be gracious?' &c. Which upon the review, in the composing of 
 
Chap. 12.] satan's temptations. 369 
 
 the psalm, he acknowledgeth an unbelieving miscarriage; I said, ' This 
 is mine infirmity.' 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, It is also a common and ordinary thing with most, 
 to entertain misapprehensions of their spiritual condition, lohen they 
 meet tvith disappointments of providence. Hence the apostle, Heb. 
 xii. 5, 6, when he would quiet the hearts of men under the Lord's 
 chastening, doth of purpose make use of this encouragement, that God 
 speaks to them in the rod as to children, and such as are under his 
 care and love, 'My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord;' 
 ' whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth,' &c. Which certainly tells us 
 thus much, that it is ordinary for men to doubt their sonship because 
 of theu' afHictions. We may conjecture wliat the malady is, when we 
 know what is prepared as a medicine. This would not have been a 
 common remedy, ' that we may be children, though we be scourged,' 
 if the disbelief of this had not been the usual interpretation of afHic- 
 tions, and a common distemper. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, We may further take notice, that those disquiets of 
 mind, fJiat luere only occasioned by outward things, and seem to have 
 no affinity, either in the nature of the occasion, or present inclination 
 of the party, with a spiritual trouble ; yet if they continue long, do 
 wholly change their nature. They that at first only troubled them- 
 selves for losses or crosses, forget these troubles and take up fears for 
 their souls. 
 
 Sometime this ariseth from a natural softness and timorousness of 
 spirit. Such are apt to misgive upon any occasion, and to say, Surely 
 if I were liis cliild, he would not thus forsake me ; his fatherly com- 
 passions would some way or other work towards me. 
 
 Sometime this ariseth from melancholy, contracted or heightened 
 by outward troubles. These, when they continue long, and pierce 
 deep, put men into ' a spirit of heaviness,' which makes them refuse 
 to be comforted. Here the devil takes liis advantage. Unlawful 
 sorrows are as delightfully improved by him as unlawfid pleasures ; 
 they are Diaboli balneum, his bath in which he sports himself, as the 
 leviathan in the waters. When for temporal losses or troubles men 
 fall into melancholy, if they be not relieved soon, then their grief 
 changetli its object, and presently they disquiet themselves, as being 
 out of Grod's favour, as being estranged from God, as being of the 
 number of the damned ; such against whom the door of mercy is shut, 
 and so cry out of themselves as hopeless and miserable. The observa- 
 tions of physicians afford store of instances of this kind. Felix Platerus 
 gives one, of a woman at Basle who fii'st grieved for the death of her 
 son, and when by this means she grew melancholy, that changed into 
 a higher trouble ; she mourns that her sins would not be pardoned, 
 that God would not have mercy for her soul. Another, for some loss 
 of wheat, first vexeth liimself for that, and then at last despairs of the 
 happiness of his soul ; with a great many more of that kind.l 
 
 Sometimes a desperate humour doth, from the same occasion, dis- 
 tract men into a fury ; of which Mercerus gives one instance from liis 
 own knowledge, of a person who, upon the distresses which he met 
 
 * Alii damnatos se piitant, et quod Deo curEe non aunt— Platerus Tract. Melan., 
 cap. 33. 
 
 2a 
 
370 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 with, fell into a rage against God, uttering speeches full of horror and 
 blasphemy, not fit to be related, i 
 
 If there be such an affinity betwixt distrust of providence and dis- 
 trust of sonship, that the one slides into the other naturally ; if this 
 be common to all men under troubles, to suspect their souls ; if the 
 best do here actually miscarry; if those that do not, yet hardly escape ; 
 and if bystanders commonly give this judgment of men in straits, that 
 there is no help for them in their God ; we cannot but collect from 
 all this, that it is an advantage which Satan will not neglect, and that 
 he doth very much employ himself to bring it about. 
 
 The reasons of it are these :— 
 
 (1.) First, Distrust of •providence liath in it the very formal nature 
 of distrust of sonship. If the object of distrust were but changed, it 
 would without any further addition work that way. He that trusts 
 providence aclniowledgeth that God knoweth his wants, that he is of 
 a merciful inclination to give what he sees he hath need of ; that he 
 hath manifested tliis by i>romise, that he is so faithful that this promise 
 cannot be neglected, and that he hath power to do what he hath pro- 
 mised. 2 He that distrusts providence disbelieves all these, conse- 
 quentially at least ; and he that will not believe that God takes any 
 care of the body, or that he is of a merciful disposition toward him, 
 or thinks either he hath made no such jn-omise, or will not keep it, if 
 any such were made ; cannot believe, if that doubt were but once 
 started, that God is his Father, or that he hath interest in the privilege 
 of a son, seeing it is impossible to believe a sonship, while his care, 
 mercy, promises, and power are distrusted. In this then Satan's work 
 is very easy. It is but his moving the question about the Lord's 
 mercy to the soul, and presently, as when new matter is ministered to 
 a raging flame, it takes hold upon it, and with equal, nay greater, 
 force it carries the soul to distrust spiritual mercies, as before it dis- 
 believed temporal kindnesses. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, The same reasons, ichich any man doth gather from 
 the seeming Jiegleci or opposition of providence, upon which he grounds 
 his distrust of the Lord's kindness in reference to outward things, ivill 
 also serve as arguments for a distrust of spiritual favours. The dis- 
 tresses of men seem to argue — [1.] That there is sin and provocation 
 on their part ; [2.] And that there is a manifestation of anger on God's 
 part; [3.] And from these apprehensions ariseth bitterness, anxiety, 
 fear, and dejection of spirit, which intercepts all the help and consola- 
 tion which might arise from other considerations of the Lord's pro- 
 mise or mercy, for the quieting of the heart and fortifying it against 
 Buch apprehensions. These same gi-ounds, with the prevailing fears 
 and perplexities arisuig from them, are enough to make us suspect 
 that we are not yet under any such peculiar favours as may bespeak 
 us his children by adoption ; so that from the same premises Satan 
 will conclude, that as he hath no care for our bodies, so no love to 
 our souls ; that we neither love God nor are beloved of him. Betwixt 
 
 ' Quis est ille Deus, ut serviam illi ? quid proderit si oraverim ? si prscsens est, cur non 
 Buccurrit? our non me earccre, inedia, squalore confectum liberal ?&c. Ahsit a me 
 liujusmodi Deus. — .Vercerus ad Gen. cap. xi. fol. 230. [Misprinted in text and note 
 ' .Mercennus.' M.'s ' Commentary' on Genesis was a postliumous work, edited by Beza, 
 1598, folio. — G.] ' Dr Keynolds, Serm. on Hosea xiv., ser. 4. 
 
Chap. 12.] satan's temptations. 371 
 
 the one conclusion and the other there is liut a step, and with a 
 small labour he can cut the channel, and let in that very distrust to 
 run with all its force against our spiritual interest in God. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, To tnist God for the soul is a higher act than to trust 
 him for the body. The soul being of greater excellency than the body, 
 and the mercy necessary for the happiness of it being more precious 
 and less visible, it must require a higher confidence in God to assure 
 of this than satisfy us in the other. It is more easy to believe a lesser 
 kindness from a friend than a singular or extraorclinary favour. He, 
 then, that cannot trust God for temporal mercies, shall be more un- 
 able to believe eternal blessmgs. ' If we run with footmen, and they 
 have wearied us, shall we be able to contend with horsemen ? If the 
 shallow brooks be too strong for us, what shall we do in the swellings 
 of Jordan ? ' [Jer. xii. 5.] 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, Wlien faith is loeakened as to one object, it is so 
 tainted and discouraged that it is generally luealcened as to all other. 
 If the hand be so weakened that it cannot hold a ring, it wiU be less 
 able to grasp a crown. When we are baffled in our trust for temporal 
 mercies, if Satan then put us to it not to believe for spiritual blessings, 
 how can we expect but to be much more at a loss in them ? So that 
 he is sure of the victory before he fights, and he that is so sedulous to 
 take advantage against us will not lose so considerable a conquest for 
 want of pursuit. There is indeed one thing that may seem fit to be 
 objected against this, which is, that men may retain their faith in one 
 thing when yet they distrust in another, as the Israelites distrusted the 
 power and goodness of God for bread and flesh in the wilderness, when 
 yet they believed that as he had given water out of the rock, so he 
 could do it again if there were need : Ps. Ixxviii. 20, ' He smote the 
 rock, and the waters gushed out ; but can he give bread ? ' as ii they 
 had said. We believe he can give water, but it is impossible he should 
 provide bread. But they that would thus object may consider that 
 the reason of men's confidence in one thing, while distrust is in other 
 things prevailing, is not from any real strength of their faith, but a 
 present want of a temptation. If such a confidence were put to it, it 
 would quickly be seen that it were truly nothing. As confident as 
 the Israelites were that they could believe for a supply of water, we 
 find that neither that experience, nor the other of supplying them with 
 manna and quails, were sufficient to keep up their trust in God, but 
 that at the next strait all was to seek : ver. 32, ' For all this they 
 sinned stiU, and believed not for his wondrous works.' 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, Besides all the forementioned advantages that Satan 
 hath in raising this temptation, of distrusting sonship out of a distrust 
 of providence, we may suppose him the more earnest in this matter, 
 because it is so provoking to God to distrust his providence, that he 
 often, as a just ciiastisement of that evil, p>unishetJi it by giving them 
 up to distrust him for their souls. The height of the provocation may 
 be measured by this, that it is not only a denial of God that is above, 
 but usually a vesting some mean and contemptible thing with those 
 attributes which only suit a God mfinite and eternal. As Israel did 
 not only forsake the Almighty by their distrust, but place their hopes 
 upon Ashur, upon their own horses and warlike preparations, and at 
 
372 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 last upon the works of their hands, which they called their gods, 
 Hosea xiv. 2, 3. How oifensive this is to the Lord, we may observe 
 by that notable check which the prophet gave Ahaz, Isa. vii. 8, 13, 
 notwithstanding his compliment of refusing a sign, which God offered 
 him for the strengthening of his hope, upon a pretence that he would 
 trust without it, — though indeed he absolutely distrusted him, as ap- 
 pears by 2 Chron. xxviii. 20, — that it was a weaningi and tiring out 
 the patience of a long-suffering God : ' Is it a small thing for you to 
 weary men, but will you weary my God also ? ' God is so active and 
 jealous of all encroachments of this kind, that they may expect he will 
 give up such offenders to be punished by the terrors of a higher dis- 
 trust. He that is not owned as a God in his providences, will not be 
 owned as a Father for spiritual mercies ; they that will not own him 
 for the body, shall not be able to lay hold upon him or his strength to 
 be at peace with him for their souls ; and by this piece of just dis- 
 cipline he often cures the distrust of providence in his children, who 
 when they see themselves plunged into terrors and fears about their 
 everlasting welfare, do not only call God just, and accept of the 
 punishment of their iniquity in distrusting him for smaller matters, 
 but now wish with all tlieir hearts that they might have no greater 
 thing to trouble them than what relates to the body or this life. 
 
 To sum up all tliese reasons in one word : Satan hath from the fore- 
 mentioned considerations a certain expectation of ]yrcvalency. For 
 not only in this case doth God, as it were, fight for him, by gvnng 
 them up to distrust their filial interest that have provoked Mm by a 
 distrust of providence, and our faith is also so weakened by the former 
 overthrow that it is not able to maintain its ground in a higher 
 matter ; but also this distrust carries that in the nature and grounds 
 of it that will of itself work up to a disbelief of spiritual mercies. He 
 knows, then, that this piece of the victory is an easy consequence of 
 the former ; and we may say of it as the prophet Nahum, chap. iii. 
 12,of the strongholds of Nineveh, It is like ' a fig-tree with the first 
 ripe figs, if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the 
 eater.' This temptation of distrusting our sonship falls into Satan's 
 mouth with a little labour, when once he hath prevailed so far as to 
 make us distrust the providence of God in outward matters. 
 
 Ajjplic. This must ivani and caution us against any unbeseeming 
 unbelieving entertainment of jealousy against the LorcTs providence. 
 We are but too apt in our straits to take a greater liberty to question 
 his mercy and power, not foreseeing how closely this borders upona 
 greater evil. We may say of it, as the apostle speaks of ' babbling in 
 controversies,' that they ' lead to more ungodliness,' and that such 
 words ' eat as a canker,' [2 Tim. ii. 17;] so doth this distrust usually 
 carry us further, and when we fall out with God for small matters, he 
 will be angry in earnest, and withdraw from us our consolations in 
 greater. In the depth of your distresses, when your fears are round 
 about you, and God seems to compass you about with his net,— when 
 lover and friend forsakes, and when there is no appearance of help, 
 endeavour, for the keeping hold of your interest in God, to behave 
 yourselves according to the following directions : — 
 1 Query, ' Weaning'?— G. 
 
Chap. 12.] satan's temptations. 373 
 
 [1.] First, Look upon the providences of God to be as a greed deep, 
 the bottom of zvhose icays and desigtis you cannot reach. Think of 
 them as of a mj'stery, which indeed you must study, but not throw- 
 away, because you cannot at first understand it. Providences are not 
 to be dealt with as Alexander did by Gordius his knot, who when he 
 could not loose it he cut it. If you see not the end of the Lord, or 
 cannot meet with a door of hoi3e in it, yet ' lay your liand upon your 
 mouth,' speak not, think not evil of things you know not, but wait till 
 the time of their ' bringing forth.' 
 
 [2.] Secondly, You must keep tqj in your hearts high and lionourahle 
 thoughts of God, yea, of his mercy and goodness, and where you can- 
 not see your way, or God's way, before you, yet, as it were by a kind 
 of implicit faith, must you believe that he is holy and good in all his 
 ways. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Though you may read your sins or God's displeasm-e 
 in them, and accordingly endeavour to humble yourselves and call 
 yourselves vile, yet must it be always remembered that eteriial love 
 or eternal hcdred is not to be measured by them. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Bestrain complainings. It is indeed an ease to com- 
 plain ; ' I will speak,' saith Job, ' that I may be refreshed,' chap, xxxii. 
 20 ; notwithstanding a vent being given, it is difficult to keep within 
 bounds. Our complainings entice us to distrust, as may appear in 
 Job, who took a boldness this way more than was fit, as chap. x. 3, ' Is 
 it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, and that thou shouldest 
 despise the work of thine hands ? ' 
 
 AH this hath been said in the opening of the temptation itself. Now 
 must I consider the motive that Satan used to bring on the temptation 
 by, ' If thou be the Son of God,' <fec. 
 
 The question that is here moved by some is, whether Satan really 
 knew or truly doubted Christ to be the Son of God. Several learned men 
 think that he was in doubt, ^ and the reasons are variously conjectm-ed. 
 Cyprian conceives that the unity of the two natures in one person did 
 blind him ; he knew it to be impossible that the divine nature should 
 hunger, and might think it strange that the human nature should fast 
 so long.2 Cornelius a-Lapide thinlvs that Satan knew that there 
 should be two natures united in one person, and that this occasioned 
 Satan's fall, while he proudly stomached the exaltation of the human 
 nature ; but he imagines Satan's doubt arose from a doubtful sense of 
 that phrase, ' This is my beloved Son,' as not knowing whether Christ 
 were the natm-al or an adopted son of God. 
 
 But notwithstanclmg these apprehensions, others conceive that Satan 
 knew very well who Christ was, and that being privy to so manj 
 things relating to him, as the promises which went before and directly 
 pointed out the time, the angel's salutation of Mary at liis conception, 
 the star that conducted the wise men to him, the testimony from 
 heaven concerning him, with a great many things more, he could not 
 possibly be ignorant that he was the Messias and the Son of God by 
 nature. Neither doth that expression, ' If thou be the Son of God,' 
 imply any doubting, seeing that that is usually expressive of the 
 
 ' Beza, CUemnitius. 
 
 '' Serm. de jejunio et tempt. Christi. Unitas naturarum excjecavit Satauam. 
 
374 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 greatest certainty and assurance, as in the speech of Lamech, ' If Cain 
 shall be avenged sevenfold,' that is, as certainly he shall be avenged ; 
 so Satan might use it to this sense, ' If, or seeing thou art the Sou of 
 God.' Now, whereas it may seem strange that he should set upon 
 Christ, if he knew who he was, I have answered that before, and shall 
 here only add that though Satan did believe Christ to be the Son of 
 God, yet so strongly did the power of malice work in him, that he 
 would' have had him to have doubted that he was not so. From all 
 this we have this observation, 
 
 Ohs. 15. That the great design of Satan is to weaken tJie assurance 
 and hojjes of the children of God in their adoption. 
 
 This is the masterpiece of his design, the very centre in which 
 most of his devices meet. We may say of liim as Esau said of Jacob, 
 ' Is he not rightly called Jacob, a supplanter?' [Genesis xxvii. 36;] 
 he first stole away our birthright at the creation, and now he seeks to 
 take away our blessing in Christ the Kedeemer. 
 
 The reasons of this undertaking I shall not here insist on. It is 
 sufficiently obvious that the greatest perplexity and sorrow ariseth to 
 the children of God from hence, and that a troop of other sphitual 
 evils, as impatience, fury, blasphemy, and many more, doth follow it 
 at the heels, besides all that inability for service, and at last i)lain 
 neglect of all duty. All I shall further do at tliis time sliall be to 
 shew in a few particulars, from Satan's carriage to Christ in this 
 temptation, how and after what manner he doth manage that design, 
 in which note : — 
 
 (1.) First, That it is his design to sever vs from the promise, and 
 to weaken our faith in that. When Eve was tempted, this was that 
 he aimed at, that she should question the good earnest of the prohibi- 
 tion, ' Hath God said so?' Was he real in that command, that you 
 should not eat at all ? &c. The like he doth to Clirist, ' Is it true ? 
 or can it be so as that voice declared, that thou art the Son of God ?' 
 (2.) Secondly, Though this he his design, yet his way to come to it 
 is not at first to deny it, hut to question and inquire; yet after such a 
 manner as may imply and withal suggest a doubting or suspicion that 
 it is not so. He doth not come to Clirist thus, ' Thou art not the 
 Son of God ; or that voice that gave thee that testimony was but a lie 
 or a delusion ;' but he rather ju'oceeds by questioning, which might 
 seem to grant that he was so, yet withal might possibly beget a doubt 
 in his mind. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Next he more plainly suggests something that may 
 seem to argu« the contrary ; for thus he aggravates Christ's present 
 condition of want, ' Can it be that God would leave thee to these 
 oppressing straits, if thou wert his Son?' At this rate he deals with 
 lis, improving the failure of outward means of help, the permission of 
 temptation, the want of comfort, the continuance of afhiction, not- 
 withstanding iirayers, &c., as probabilities that we belong not to God. 
 (4.) Fourthly, After this he urgeth Christ to a sinful miscarriage, 
 to distrust p>'>'ovidencc, and to rely no longer on the care of Ms Father. 
 If Christ had been prevailed with in this, he would have made use of 
 it as an argument to prove that he was not the Son of God indeed. 
 It is usual in his disputings with us about adoption, to put us upon 
 
Chap. 12.] satan's temptations. 375 
 
 something which may be as an argument out of our own mouths 
 against us. Christ might have answered huu in this as the man 
 answered Joab, ' If I should do so, then thou thyself wouldst set thy- 
 self against me.' 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, When at last he hath gradually ascended to that con- 
 fidence as to deny our adoption, then, at a very great disadvantage, he 
 puts ics upon the proof, in which he puts hy the ordinary evidences, a)id 
 insists on extraordinary proofs as necessary. The servants of the 
 Lord that are imder this exercise, do find that in this case the ordi- 
 nary evidences of repentance, mortification, love to the brethren, &c., 
 do nothing for them. Satan puts their spirit upon clamouring for 
 higher evidences. Notliing ^vill serve except they may view the 
 records of eternity, and read their names enrolled in the everlasting 
 decrees, or except God will speak from heaven in an extraordinary 
 way, to testify of them, as Thomas resolved that no less should satisfy 
 his doubt than the feelmg and seeing of the print of the nails. To 
 this 23urpose some stand upon no less than a miracle for proof of son- 
 ship. Of which we have two instances of later years, the one Mrs 
 Honywood, the other Mrs Sarah Wight,i who in their distresses for 
 their souls were tempted by Satan to make a hasty experiment, the 
 one by throwing a Venice glass, the other by throwing a cup against 
 the wall, with this or the like expression, ' If I must be saved, then 
 let not this glass break ' — a desperate temptation I Their manner of 
 desiring satisfaction is so provoking, that it caimot be expected God 
 will give an answer by it, but rather the contrary ; and if he should 
 not condescend, as he is not bound — though he strangely preserved the 
 cup and glass fore-mentioned from breaking — what a dangerous con- 
 clusion would Satan draw from it ! Of this nature and design was 
 that proposal of Satan's to Christ, ' Command that these stones be 
 made bread,' that is, do it as a proof of thy sonship. 
 
 Applic. By this we must learn this skill, not too easily to give up 
 our hopes, or to be prodigal of our interest in Ch-isf, so as to part toiih 
 it slenderly. If Satan would chiefly rob us of this, we may learn 
 thence to put a price upon these jewels, and to account that precious, 
 and of singular concernment, which he useth so much cunning to bereave 
 us of. Many of the Lord's servants may justly blame themselves for 
 their lavish unthriftiness in this matter, who, as if it were a necessary 
 piece of humility or modesty, wiU readily conclude against themselves 
 that they are not God's children, that they are not yet converted, &c. 
 Thus, at unawares, they give up to Satan without a stroke all that he 
 seeks for. 
 
 Quest. But you will say, Must all men be confident of adoption ? 
 
 Ans. No, I mean not so ; yet all men must be wary how they cast 
 away their hopes. Particularly, 
 
 [1.] First, Though it be a dangerous arrogancy for a sinful, wicked 
 creature to bear himself up in a belief that he is converted and actually 
 instated into the adoption of sons ; yet it is as dangerous, on the other 
 hand, for that man to cast off all hope, and to say he is reprobated, 
 and such a one as cannot expect pardon and grace. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Those that are converted, though they may and 
 ' See their relations in print. [Brooks, j. n. — G.] 
 
37G A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 ought to humble themselves deeply for their sinful miscarriage, and 
 sincerely acknowledge that they deserve not to he called his children, 
 yet must they be careful not to renounce their fiUal interest. They 
 may say they are prodigal, yet keep to this, that they are sons ; though 
 they are wandering sheep, yet must they stick here, that they are sheep 
 still, and that God is still a Father, though a provoked Father, other- 
 wise their folly will give more than all his fury could get, at least 
 so quickly and easily. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Then the devil taJcefh him vp into the holy city, and seticth him on the 
 jiinnacle of the temple. — Mat. iv. 5. 
 
 The preparation to the second temptation.— 0/ ?iis nimhleness to catch 
 advantages from our ansivers to temjitation. — Tliat Satan carried 
 Christ in tlie air. — Ofhispoiver to molest the bodies of God's chil- 
 dren. — Eoto little the supjMsed holiness of places privilcgeth us 
 from Satan. —Of Satan's policy in seeming to countenance imaginary 
 defences.— Of his 2>rete}ided flight in such cases, with the reasons 
 of that policy. — Of his improving a temptation to sei-ve several 
 ends. 
 
 I omit Clirist's answer to the first temptation at present, purposing 
 to handle his answers to all the temi)tations together. And now the 
 second temptation is before us, in which, first, I sliall observe a few 
 things in Satan's preparation to the temptation, which takes in [1.] 
 The time; [2.] The manner of his carrying him ; [3.] The place where 
 he acted it. 
 
 (1.) First, For the time. That is noted in the word ' then,' which 
 [1.] Points at the immediate succession of this to the former assault. 
 The evangelist Luke puts this temptation last, but he only had respect 
 to the substance of the temptation in his narration ; not regarding 
 the order of them, which Matthew hatli punctually observed, as appears 
 by his close connecting of them, with the particles ' then' and ' again,' 
 ver. 5, 8. Besides, whosoever shall consider that in the first, Satan 
 tempted Christ to distrust, which he repelled by telling him that 
 it was his duty, in the failure of outward means, to rely upon divine 
 providence, seeing man lives not by bread alone, &c., he will see so 
 much of connexion in the matter of the temptations that he will easily 
 persuade himself that the second place belongs to tliis, for this is but, 
 as it were, a fit and pertinent reply to Christ's refusal ; as if Satan had 
 said, ' Since thou wilt rely upon the help and providence of God in an 
 extraordinary way of working, give an experiment of that by casting 
 thyself down, which thou mayest with greater confidence do, because 
 he hath promised an extraordinary help, and hath given his angels 
 charge concerning thee,' <fec. Hence observe, 
 
 Obs. 1. TJiat Satan is not discouraged easily, nor doth he always 
 desist upon the first repulse, but frequently reneics the assault lohen he 
 is strongly and resolutely resisted. 
 
Chap. 13.] satan's temptations. 377 
 
 This word, ' then,' cloth also [2.] Tell us of Satan's nimbleness 
 in catching a present advantage for a new temptation from Christ's 
 answer. He declared his trust in providence ; this he presently lays 
 hold on as a fit opportunity to tempt him to presumption. Here 
 note, 
 
 Obs. 2. TJiat token Sata7i is upon any design, if an occasional advan- 
 tage occur from our ivay of refusal, he will not let it slip, hut improves 
 it to what it may lead to, though it he contrary to that which he toas 
 first lahouring for. 
 
 This was the policy which Benhadad's servants used in their addi'ess 
 to Ahab, 1 Kings xx. 33 ; the men did diligently observe whether 
 anything would come from him, and did hastily catch it. If anything 
 come from us we are under his temptation, he is diligent to observe 
 it, and prosecutes it accordingly; which may serve to satisfy the wonder 
 that some have concerning the contrariety in the temptations to which 
 they are urged. They admire how it comes to pass that their 
 temptations should so suddenly alter, that wlien Satan seems to be 
 so intent upon one design, he should so quickly change, and urge 
 them presently to a different or contrary thing ; but they may know 
 that the devil watcheth the wind, and spreads his sail according to the 
 advantage which ariseth from our answer or repulse. So that if we 
 would but plough with our o\\'n heifer, and observe our frame of 
 spirit, we should easily find out this riddle. For as it is in disputings 
 and ai-guings of men, replies beget new matter for answer, and so do 
 they multiply one another ; thus are temptations altered and multi- 
 plied, and out of the ashes of one assault repelled, another doth quickly 
 spring up. 
 
 The second circumstance of preparation is, Satan's taking him up 
 and setting him on the temple. That this was not a visionary or an 
 imaginary thing, hath been proved before. Yet granting it to have 
 been real, as in truth it seems to have been, it is disjjuted what 
 was the modus, the way and manner of it. Some thinli this was no 
 more than Christ's voluntary following of Satan, who guided and 
 conducted the way ; ^ partly because the words TrapaXafi/Bdveip and 
 dyeiv are in Scriptm-e accommodated to a man's taking of any as a 
 companion under his guide and conduct of the way, and to a disposal 
 of them in any kind of station. Thus, where it is said, ' Joseph took 
 Mary and the yoimg child to go to Egyjjt,' Mat. ii. 13, the same word 
 is \ised ; and when Christ teUs his disciples that they shall bring the 
 ass and the colt which they should find tied, the same word which 
 expresseth Christ being set on the temple is there used. Mat. xxii. 2. 
 Partly also, they think it below the dignity of Christ to be thus vio- 
 lently hurried. 
 
 Others think that Satan was permitted to take up the body of 
 Christ, and by his power to have conveyed him in the air ; and indeed 
 the whole series of the narration, with all the circumstances thereof, 
 are evident for it. The distances of places, the quickness and speedi- 
 ness of the removals, the more proj^er appHcations of the words, ' tak- 
 ing ' and ' setting,' to Satan as the actor, and the declaration of his 
 power therein, as able to do great things ; these make the matter so 
 ' Spanheim, Dub. Evan, in luc. 
 
378 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 clear, that it seems to be an unnatural forcing of the text to give it 
 ^?y ^''¥^" interijretation. Besides, the former opinion of Satan's taking 
 of Christ, as a manuductor or guide, seems every way unreasonable • 
 for if Chi-ist only followed Satan, then it must have been either by a 
 land journey on foot or in the air. This latter it could not be ; for if 
 Christ had supijorted himself in the air by his omti power, he had 
 anticipated the temptation, and it would have been folly and madness 
 for Satan to have urged him to fly in the air, after such an evidence 
 of his power ; and who can imagine that Clu-ist followed Satan on foot 
 from the M'ilderness to the temple, or that liis access to the roof of the 
 temple was so easy, in such a way when the temple was always so 
 strictly guarded ? Note, hence, 
 
 Ohs. 3. 21mt Satan is sometime permitted to exercise his power 
 upon the bodies of those that are dear to God. That he hath power 
 to carry the bodies of men in the aii-, is sufficiently confirmed by what 
 he doth frequently to witches, who are usually carried, if we can o-ive 
 any credit to the stories that are writ of them, in the air, to places 
 far remote from their dwellings, cquitafio cum Diana aut Eerodiade. 
 And that this power is permitted hmi upon others, than such as are in 
 compact with him, is as evident from what is testified of those whose 
 forward curiosity hath led to imitate witches in their anointings, who 
 have thereupon been conveyed after them to their assemblies, and 
 when the company hath been suddenly dismissed, thev have 'been 
 found many miles distant from their dwellings ; such instances we have 
 in Bodin, and among other things (hat of Domina Eossa mentioned by 
 him, whom Satan would sometime bind to a tree, sometime to a table, 
 or to a bed's-foot, or to a manger, sometime one hand bound to an- 
 other ; the devil thus molested her from eight years old, a lougtime.i 
 This power of conveying persons in the air is not usual, yet there are 
 some in this place— Newcastle— that have known one frequently 
 molested by Satan at this rate. However, if we take notice of his 
 power to abuse the bodies of holy persons more generally, we shall 
 find it frequent. JIary Magdeleue was possessed ; Christ mentions a 
 daughter of Abraham bowed down by him many years ; Job was filled 
 with botches and sores ; and there are many diseases wherein Satan 
 hath a greater hand than is commonly imagined. Physicians fre- 
 quently conclude so much, wliile they observe some distempers to elude 
 such remedies as are usually successful upon other persons under the 
 same diseases. 
 
 Applic. From this we may infer, [1.] The great power of Satan ; 
 who can tell the extent of it ? doubtless, if he were permitted, we 
 should see sad instances hereof daily. [2.] Tliis discovers the won- 
 derful care and providence of God over us in our preservation from 
 his fury. [3.] We may further note that the abuse of the bodies of 
 men by Satan, ^\\\\ be no evidence that therefore God doth disregard 
 them, or that they are not precious to him. Christ did undergo 
 this abuse, to give such as shall be so molested, some comfort in his 
 example. 
 
 The third circumstance, which is that of place, is set down first in 
 general, ' the holy city," that is Jerusalem, for so Luke speaks expressly, 
 ' Bodin, p. 147. 
 
Chap. 13.] satan's temptations. 379 
 
 Luke iv. 9. Jerusalem was so called, because of God's worship there 
 established, and his peculiar presence there ; but that it should be 
 called so at this time maj' seem strange, seeing it might now bo 
 lamented as of old, ' How is the faithful city become an harlot ! 
 Righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers,' [Isa. i. 21.] In answer 
 to this, we must know that God ha^-ing not yet given her a bill of 
 divorce, he is pleased to continue her title and privilege. This might 
 be profitably improved ; but I will not suffer myself to be diverted from 
 the matter of temptation, which is the only thing I propound to pro- 
 secute from hence. I shall here only observe, 
 
 Obs. 4. TJiat the holi?iess or sanctity of a place tvill be no privilege 
 against temptations. He is not so fearful, as many imagine, as that 
 he dares not approach a clim'chyard or a church ; neither place uor 
 duty can keep him off. I do not believe the popish fiction of their 
 St Bennet's vision, wherein they tell of his seeing but one devil in a 
 market, and ten in a monastery ; yet I question not the truth of this, 
 that the devil is as busy at a sermon or prayer as at any other 
 employment. 
 
 But to search a little further into this matter, it seems undeniable 
 that Satan had a design in reference to the place, of which afterward ; 
 and I see no reason to exclude our suspicion of a design from the name 
 and title which the evangelist here gives to Jerusalem. It is an ex- 
 pression which, to my remembrance, we meet not with oft in the New 
 Testament. At the suffering of Christ, when the bocUes of the saints 
 arose out of their graves, it is said ' they went into the holy city,' Mat. 
 xxvii. 53 ; but it is evident that it is there so styled upon special 
 design, as if the evangelist would by that point at the staining of their 
 glory, and that in a Uttle time their boast of the temple and holy city 
 should cease, and that all should be polluted with the carcases of the 
 slain. And by the same reason may we supjDose that Satan, intending 
 for Christ a temptation of presumption, and backing it with the pro- 
 mise of a guard of angels, had in his eye the usual confidence that the 
 Jews had of that city, as a place where the presence of angels might be 
 more expected than elsewhere. So that it seems Satan intended to 
 impose upon Clu-ist a confidence in order to presumption. From the 
 privilege of the place, here observe, 
 
 Obs. 5. That Satan is toilling to gratify us with nominal and 
 imaginary 2^rivileges and defe^iccs against himself. He will willingly 
 allow us such defences as are altogether insignificant and delusive, and 
 his policy here is centred upon these two things : — 
 
 (1.) First, He doth industriously prompt us to self-devised inven- 
 tions, such as were never appointed or blessed of God to any such use ; 
 but only found out by the bold superstitions of men. Of this we have 
 an instance in Balak, who carried Baalam from place to place in his 
 prosecution of his design of cursing Israel ; neither can we imagine 
 that a commodious prospect of Israel was all he aimed at, seeing he 
 discovers his mind in this variation of places, ' Peradventure it will 
 please God that thou mayest curse them from tlience,' Num. xxiii. 27 ; 
 clearly implying that he had a confidence that the place might con- 
 tribute something to his design, and that there was some inherent 
 vurtue in those consecrated places ; and therefore did he begin with the 
 
380 A TREATISE OF [PaRT 111. 
 
 high-places of Baal, and then to the field of Zophim, and then to the 
 top of Peor, Num. xxii. 27, xxiii. 14, 28. Among the papists we find 
 too much of this. What power they attribute to holy water, blessed 
 salt, sign of the cross, hallowed earth, consecrated places, relics, bap- 
 tized bells, exorcisms, and abundance of such stuff, may be seen in 
 many of their writings, too tedious to be related.i 
 
 (2.) Secondly, He is also wilUng that men use those real defences and 
 helps ivhich God hath commanded, so that tlmj use them in a formal 
 »«CMi?ier, which indeed deprives them of all the life and efficacythat might 
 be expected from an instituted means. Thus he readily permits igno- 
 rant persons, without any disturbance or molestation, to use the repe- 
 tition of the Lord's prayer, ten commandments, and creed, or any other 
 prayer, while they persuade themselves that the very saying of the words 
 is a sufficient defence against the devil all that day. 
 
 The reasons of Satan's policy in such gratifications are these : — 
 
 [1.] First, While tee are kept doing ivith these, tee arc diverted from 
 that ivhich might he realhj helpful. He puts a broken reed into our 
 hand, that we might be deprived of a staff. Experience confirms this. 
 Those that, with greatest devotion, use these empty inventions, are 
 usually careless in the use of God's own appointments. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Besides that he thus betrays them by these lying helps, 
 he doth by this meaJis cast them on a further iniquity of idolising these 
 foolish calves of their oivn invention. In this case men have a pre- 
 sumptuous expectation from such usages of that which God never 
 promised to do by them, neither ever entered into his heart so to do, 
 seeing he answers them all with this, ' Who hath required these things 
 at your hands ? ' [Isa. i. 12.] And accordingly their consciences are more 
 concerned for tiie omission of one of these fooleries, than for the neglect of 
 the greater things of the law. Such are more troubled for the neglect 
 of the sign of the cross or holy water, than for their constant careless- 
 ness and want of faith, by which their hearts should be guarded against 
 their enemy. 
 
 [3.] Thii-dly, In the meantime he makes work for his own triumph 
 over them thai dote upon these sottish inventions. If we can suppose 
 Satan to have pleasiu-e or mirth at anything, we may be sure he will 
 laugh at such preparations for a spiritual welfare,^ it being as truly 
 ridiculous for any man to go out with these weapons against Satan, as 
 for a combatant to assail a giant with a paper helmet, a wicker shield, 
 and a wooden dagger. And indeed when Satan counterfeits a flight or 
 fear of such matters, as for his advantage he sometimes doth, it is but 
 in design to beget or confirm in men a confidence of a virtue or strength 
 in these usages against his power, that so they may fix upon them to 
 the neglect of God's own institutions, which he most dreads. Thus we 
 read that he cunningly ceased his oracle at Daphne upon a pretence of 
 
 ' Plurimum sunt prsservativa locorum, hominum, et jumentorum, verba tituli triiim- 
 phalis nostri salvatoris. dum scilicet per quatuor partes loci, in modum crucis inscribuntur, 
 Jesus t Nazarenus + Rex f Judeorum +, ritibus ecclesise servatis et veneratis, ut per 
 aquse beuedictas aspersionem, salis consecrati sumptionem, et eandelarum in die purifica- 
 tionis et frondium in die palmarum consecratorum, usum licitum vires daemonis imminu- 
 unt, se lauuiaMt.—Sjtrenycr, Malleus Mahficarum, part 2, quest. 1. Licitum est aqua 
 benedieta, qusecunque honesta loea, hominum etjumeatorum, in salvationem hominum et 
 jumentorum aspergere.— /rf. ibid. ' Query, ' warfare '?— Ed. 
 
Chap. 13.] katan's temptations. 381 
 
 the silencing power of the hones of the martyr Babilas, which were 
 buried near tire place, on purpose to lead unwary Christians to the 
 adoration of saints and their relics, i Many such instances we have in 
 Sprenger, of the devil's feigned flight at the sign of the cross, the 
 sprinkling of holy water, the angelical salutation, St Bernard's staff, 
 or certain words and verses hung about the neck. 2 And a great deal 
 of such stuff we may meet with in most of their writers, all which are 
 but cunning contrivances of Satan, to advance a belief of the virtue of 
 these things ; and so to stop men there, to the neglect of those sphitual 
 weapons which the Scripture recommends. 
 
 These we have observed from the place in general, ' the holy city.' 
 Let us go on to the place in particular where Satan acted all this, ' the 
 pinnacle of the temple.' Various are the conjectures of men about 
 this, whether it were some fane, or the top of some spire, or the place 
 whence the apostle James was thrown down, or the top of the Jung's 
 porch, which was erected to a great height over a deep valley, or some 
 battlement, &c. But we are not concerned in such inquiries ; only 
 here shall I take notice of Scultetus, who, supposing the place to be 
 the top of a fane or spire, and reading in Josephus that the points of 
 such broaches were so sharp that a bu-d could not rest upon them 
 without piercing its foot, was therefore willing to conclude that these 
 temptations were not really and historically acted, but in vision only.3 
 All this ariseth from a wrong interpretation of TTTepvyiov, which our 
 English renders 2nnnacle, whereas it properly signifies any battlement 
 or angular prominency, jutting out over the rest like a wing, which 
 would afford a sufficient footing and support.^ 
 
 It is more profitable to inquire after Satan's reason for the choice 
 of such a place. No question but it was upon design, for else he might 
 with equal convenience have tempted Christ to cast himself down from 
 some tree or precipice in the wilderness ; but then what that design 
 was, is not so easy to determine. It seems plain that he might suppose 
 that Christ might be the rather animated to the iindertaking of flying 
 in the air by the hopes of glory which might be expected from such a 
 performance before so many spectators. But some think that he had 
 a design also upon the men of Jerusalem, and intended some delusion 
 to the Jews,5 which I am not unwilling to close with, partly because 
 the experiences that we have of his devices assure us that in one temp- 
 tation his ends are oft manifold ; and I cannot but think that Satan 
 would make all things sure, and provide, in his projecting mind, against 
 all events. For if Christ should have yielded and evidenced so great 
 a power in the sight of all the people, it might have been a conviction 
 general that he_was the Messiah, about that time universally expected; 
 and partly I am ready to think so, because, in case Cluist had done so, 
 it lay so fair to confirm the Jews in a misapprehension of the personal 
 coming of Elias, of whom they understood the prophecy of Mai. 
 iii. 1, 'Behold, I will send my messenger; and he shall prepai-e the 
 way before me ; and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to 
 his temple, even the messenger of the covenant.' 6 If the Jews ex- 
 
 1 Sozomen, Eccles. Hist., lib. v. cap. 18. ' Mai. Malefic, part 2, quest. 11, cap. 1, 3. 
 » In Delic. Evang. " Spanheim, Dub. Evan, iti loc. 
 
 * LigUtfoot, Harm, in loc. " Dr Kimchi, in loc. 
 
382 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 pected Elias to come from heaven to the temple, how strongly would 
 they have been confirmed in this opinion if they had seen a man fly 
 from the temple in the air ; and by this means John the Baptist, who 
 was the Elias that was to come, should have been neglected, and Christ 
 loimself, though honoured as Ehas, not owned for the Messiah. 
 
 Obs. 6. Observe then, That Sedan's designs are hrge, and that he 
 projects the ensnarimj or deluding of others by such temptations as 
 seem only to concern those that are under the immediate trouble of 
 them. He tempts Christ to cast himself down, and also by it, at least, 
 intends a delusion to the Jews. He tempts one man upon the back 
 of another. One is tempted to error ; another by that man's tempta- 
 tion is tempted to atheism and rejecting of all religion. One man is 
 tempted to profaneness, another is" tempted by that to an uncharitable 
 disrespect of him. It is easy to multiply instance of this. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TJiat presumption was the chief design of this temptation.— Of tempt- 
 ing to extremes. — What pres^impt ion is. — The several ways of pre- 
 suming. — The frequency of this temptation, in the generality of 
 professors, in hypocrites, despairing persons, and in the children 
 of God. — The reasons of Satan's industry in this design. — His 
 deceitful contrivance in bringing about this sin. — Presei-vatives 
 against it. 
 
 Next to the preparation which Satan made for the second conflict, 
 already explained, the temptation intended offers itself to our view, 
 which is this, ' Cast thyself down.' What Satan chiefly intended by 
 it, we may collect from Christ's answer, as well as from the thing 
 itself ; for he thus replies, ' It is written. Thou shalt not tempt the 
 Lord thy God.' Christ doth not use this scripture to any such sense 
 as this, that he should liereby proMbit Satan to tempt him because he 
 was Satan's Lord and God ; but he mentioned this scripture as a rule 
 of obedience : as if he should say, ' I may not cast myself down, and 
 so rely on extraordinary help, seeing I can go down another way;' for 
 the neglect of ordinary means, when we have them, is a tempting of 
 God, wliich may not be done. So tluat it appears by this, that Satan 
 here tempted Christ to presumption. There is only this objection in 
 our way, that Deut. vi. 16, the place by Christ cited, refers to the 
 temptation of the Israelites in Massah, mentioned Exod. xvii. 2, 
 where they chide with Moses for water ; and there it would seem their 
 tempting the Lord was rather in despairing of liis power and help 
 than presuming in the neglect of the ordinary means. I answer, 
 though the occasion and matter of that temptation be different from 
 this of Christ's, yet the presumptuous experiment that they there made 
 of God's presence and power was the same with this wliich Satan 
 designed ; for ver. 7, where the account of that tempting is given, it 
 is said, ' because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among 
 us or not ? ' they put it to this issue, that the being and power of God 
 should be tried by the giving or not giving of water. The manner. 
 
Chap. 14.] satan's temptations. 383 
 
 then, of that temptation being so agreeable to this, Christ very per- 
 tinently applies that command to it, presumption being the thing 
 which Christ was tempted to. It might occasion some wonder in us 
 to see Satan take such strange steps. He was before tenipting him to 
 despair, now to presumption ; but it is no argument of his lightness or 
 uncertain roving in his way of tempting, but rather of his depth and 
 subtlety. Note then, 
 
 Ohs. 7. Tlmt it is Satan's policy in tempting, to run from one ex- 
 treme to another. The Corinthians were first tempted to a sinful 
 compliance with the adulterous person, and were averse to his excom- 
 munication ; afterwards they were tempted to the contrary severity, 
 and were as backward to receive him again. The same men that 
 have been overcome by prodigality and excess, when they begin to see 
 the evil of that, are oft tempted to worldliness or covetousness, the 
 contrary chsposition. Reasons of this policy are : — 
 
 (1.) First, The avoiding of one extreme give^ the soul such a siving, 
 if care he not used to prevent it, that they are cast more than halfway 
 upon the other. Peter, in an extreme of modesty, refused the washing 
 of his feet by Christ ; but when he understood the danger, then he 
 runs as far wrong another way — ' Not my feet only, but my hands 
 and my head,' John xiii. 9. Thus some are so for purity of churches, 
 that they exclude the weak ; others so for unity, that they admit the 
 open scandalous and profane. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Wliile men avoid one extreme ly running into 
 another, they carry loith them such strong impressions of the evil 
 they ivould avoid, and such fierce prejudices, that it is not cm ordi- 
 nary conviction luill bring them right, but they are apt to be confident 
 of the goodness of the way they take, and so are the mm-e hold arid fixed 
 in their miscarriage. 
 
 Presumption being the great design of Satan in this temptation, we 
 may further observe : — 
 
 Ohs. 8. That as distrust on the one hand, so preemption on the 
 other, is one of his grand designs. Of these two, we may say as it was 
 said of the sword of Hazael and Jehu, that of all those that are slain 
 by the devil, whosoever hath escaped the sword of distrust and de- 
 spair, the sword of presumption hath slam. To explain tliis I shall, 
 
 1. First, Sheiv tohat pi-esumption is. It is in the general a confi- 
 dence tvithout a ground. [1.] First, It is made up of audacity — which 
 is a bold and daring imdertaking of a thmg — and security. [2.] 
 Secondly, The ground of it is an error of Judgment. A blind or a 
 misled judgment doth always nourish it ; and this is either a mistake 
 of the nature of such means on which we rely for assistance, as when 
 a man lays as much stress upon a tlu-ead as upon a cable, or expects 
 as much nourishment from a stone as from bread ; i or a mistake of 
 the wiU of others, from whom we expect aid and help, without a war- 
 rant for such a confidence. [3.] Thirdly, In its way of working it is 
 directly oppo.site to distrust, and is a kind of excessive though irregu- 
 lar hope; not that in this case a man believes or hopes overmuch, for 
 there can be no excess properly in the exercise of divine graces, but 
 that he hopes too rashly or lightly, without a solid foundation or rea- 
 ' Reynolds on Passions, chap. 23, p. 238. 
 
384 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 son.l Hope hath for its object that which is good under the con- 
 siderations of futurity, possibility, and difficulty. On the one side, 
 desperation looks upon that good as future, but under so great a diffi- 
 culty that it forgets the possibility of it, and thereupon surceaseth all 
 endeavours. Presumption, on the other hand, is so keenly apprehen- 
 sive of the possibility, that it never regards the difficulty, and so 
 thrusts forward into irregidar endeavours or expectations. The nature 
 of this will be better understood when the particular instances of pre- 
 sumption are before us. 
 
 (1.) First, Then it is jiresumption, when from external or suhordi- 
 tiate means men expect that for which they wei~e never designed 
 nor ajypointed of God. To expect 'grapes of thorns or figs of 
 thistles,' would be a presumption, because God never designed them 
 for such fruits ; and no less is it when in any other case men look for 
 high and extraordinary things from any created good above what God 
 hath put into it by the law of creation. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, When men do expect those fruits and effects from 
 anything unto lohich it is appointed, in neglect or opposition to the 
 supreme cause, loilhout ichose concurrent influence they cannot reach 
 their ptroper ends — that is, our hopes are wholly centred upon means, 
 when in the meantime our eye is not upon God. Thus ' to make gold 
 our hope,' Job xxxi. 24, ' to make flesh our arm,' Jer. xvii. 5, ' to make 
 Ashur a saviour,' Hosea xiv. 3, or to trust to any creatures whatso- 
 ever, is in Scriptm-e condemned as a presumptuous reliance, and, in 
 regard of the necessary disajipointment, ' a trusting in a lie ; ' in which 
 sense it is said that ' every man is a liar,' Ps. Ixii. 9. The like pre- 
 sumption it is when we boast great things of ourselves, and, as Peter, 
 make confident engagements, in our own strength, that we will avoid 
 such a sin or perform such a duty ; for we are but frail, and all our 
 sufficiency is from the Lord, so that it can be no less than intolerable 
 arrogance to promise anything of ourselves without him ; neither can 
 men promise to themselves the continuance of that good or advantage 
 which they have already received from second causes, if their confi- 
 dence builds itself upon that sole consideration, without a just blame. 
 Job had said he should ' die in his nest,' [chap. xxix. 18,] and David 
 that ' he should never be moved,' [Ps. xvi. 8,] but both of them after- 
 ward noted these confidences to have been no other than deceitful 
 presumptions. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, It is a presumption to expect things above the reach of 
 our jyresent state and condition; as for a mean man to beg of God 
 authority and rule, or to expect to be set with princes ; or for ordi- 
 nary Christians to look for miracles, signs from heaven, visions, 
 revelations, extraordinary answers to prayers, and the hke, all which 
 expectations are grouncUess, and the issue of a presumptuous pride : 
 sperare non spera7ida. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, When men expect things contrary to the rxdes that 
 God hath set for his dispoisations of mercy, they boldly presume njwn 
 his will. God hath promised preservation to his children while they 
 are in God's way, but if any shall go out of that way, and sinfully put 
 
 ' Non ideo peccatur, quia nimis sperat in Deum ; sed quia nimis leviterac tcmere.sine 
 ullo fundamento.— .4?nes, Medid., lib. ii. cap. 6, sec. 33. 
 
 J 
 
Chap. 14.] satan's TE5IPTAT^o^'s. 385 
 
 himself into dangers and hazards, it would be presumption in him to 
 expect a preservation. It is the same in spiritual things. God pro- 
 miseth eternal life and the blessings of his covenant to such as give 
 up themselves to him and his laws ; will it not be intolerable presump- 
 tion for men ' to bless themselves in their heart ' with expectations of 
 reigning with him in glorj% while in the meantime they contradict his 
 own rule and neglect his order, walking in profaneness and living to 
 themselves ? This is a high presumption of mercy against his express 
 will. Hence are such courses called ' presumptous sins,' Ps. xis. 13, 
 and such sinners transgress ' with a high hand.' 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, It is also a presumption to expect any mercy, though 
 commoji and usual, ivithout the ordinary means by tvMch God in pro- 
 vidence hath settled the usual di^ensations of such favours ; as when 
 men look for his aid and help for supply of corporal wants, while they 
 throw off all care, and refuse their own endeavours, which are the ways 
 of God's appointment, in the conscientious use whereof such mercies 
 are to be expected. The heathen, upon the consideration of the neces- 
 sary connexion of means and the end, have usually judged such 
 sluggish expectations to be no better than solemn mockings of a 
 deity : admotd manu invocanda est Minerva. In spmtual things it 
 is no less presumptuous to expect conversion, and an interest in Christ 
 and heaven, while they refuse the careful use of his ordinances ; and 
 therefore we are commanded to pray for such blessings, ' to cry after 
 knowledge, and to lift up the voice for understanding,' Prov. ii. 3-5, 
 and to second these prayers with our own utmost endeavours ' to seek 
 for it as for silver, and to search for it as for hid treasures,' and in so 
 doing to expect the finding of the knowledge of God. 
 
 (6.) Sixthly, When ordinary or extraordinary mercies are expected 
 for an unlawful end ; as when the Israelites at Massali called for water, 
 • — which they ought to believe God would supply them withal, their con- 
 dition considered, — but for a test and proof of the being of God ; for 
 they said, ' Is God among us, or not ? ' Exod. xvii. 7. It is by James 
 made a piece of spiritual unfaithfulness and adultery to ask anything 
 of God with a design ' to spend it upon a lust,' [chap. iv. 3.] Ahaz 
 his refusing a sign when God offered it, however he made a show of 
 modesty and believing, argued no other tiling but that he was con- 
 scious ^to himself that, in case he had accepted it, he should have 
 abused that favour to an unlawful end, and have tempted God by it, 
 as putting it upon this experiment whether there was a God or not. 
 This is also another act of presumption. When a man becomes 
 guilty of any of these miscarriages, he is presumptuous. 
 
 2. Secondly, I further add to this discovery of the nature and kinds 
 of presumption, that this is one of Satan's grand engines ; which I 
 prove by two demonstrations : — 
 
 (1.) First, By Sata7i's common practice iji this kind upon all so?is 
 of men, in most occasions. That which is his frequent practice upon 
 most men, and on most occasions, must of necessity be understood to 
 be chiefly designed. Some men may possibly be free from the trouble 
 of some particular temptations, as Hieronimus Wallerus saith of 
 Luther his master, that he heard him often report of himself that he 
 had been assaulted and vexed with all kind of temptations, saving only 
 
 2 B 
 
3S6 A TREATISE UF [PaRT III. 
 
 tliat of covetousness ; but none can say they have not been assaulted 
 with this. I shall make it out by an induction of particulars : — 
 
 [1.] First, The generality of men that live in the profession of re- 
 ligion are presumptuous, nay, the greatest part of the blind luorld are 
 so. They presume of mercy and salvation. The devil preacheth 
 nothing else but all hope, no fear, and in these golden dreams they 
 slide down to hell. If we look into their way of sinning, and then 
 into their hopes, we can judge no less of them. They stick not at the 
 most grievous abominations, the works of the flesh, and in these they 
 continue. It is their trade, their life ; they make provisions for them, 
 they cannot sleep except they do wickedly ; he that reprovcth is de- 
 rided by them; they make but a mock and sport of those things 
 wliich, as the shame and reproach of mankind, should rather fly the 
 light and hide themselves as things of dai-kness. These things they 
 practise without regret or sorrow of heart, without smiting upon tlio 
 thigh, and in all tliis they have the confidence to say, ' Is not the Lord 
 among us?' They can call themselves Chri.stians, and have as bold 
 expectations of eternal happiness, as if tlie committing of these evils 
 were made by God the necessary qualifications to everlasting happi- 
 ness. What is more common, and yet what more presumptuous? 
 For (1.) These men audaciously hope and expect mercy, expressly 
 contrary to the peremptory thrcatenings of God. God saith, ' There is 
 no peace to the wicked ;' they say, ' We shall have peace.' (2.) These 
 run upon the greatest hazards of ruin and woe, with tlie least fear, in 
 the contempt of all danger, ' its the hori5e rusheth into the battle, who 
 mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted, neither turueth his back from 
 the sword,' Job xxxix. 22. (3.) They dare God to do his worst, they 
 provoke God to jealousy, and that to his face ; hence was it that 
 Nimrod was said to be a mighty hunter before the Lord, [Gen. x. 9 ;] 
 and Er, the son of Judah, that he was wicked ' before the Lord,' 
 [Gen. xxsviii. 7,] because such audacious sinners will not, as we may 
 say, go beliind his back to sin. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Hypiocrites whose carriage is more smooth, they also 
 are prcsumjotuotis ; for while they hide their sin, they do against dic- 
 tates of conscience presume ' that he that made the eye doth not sec,' 
 and that there is a possibility to cheat God as well as men : besides, 
 their boastings and hopes have a special mark set upon them in Scrip- 
 ture as audaciously false ; ' the hope of the hypocrite shall be cut off,' 
 [Job viii. 13;] their confidence of the temple of the Lord is but a lie, 
 and so tenned expressly by the jirophet. 
 
 [3.] Tliirdly, Even despairing persons are not always free of pre- 
 sumption. The act of self-murder is a terrible presuming upon in- 
 finite justice. Spira's desire to know the worst was of the same kind. 
 These are indeed extraordinary ; but there are some other kinds of 
 despair that come nearer to presumption, as that sensual despair which 
 ariseth out of an excessive love of carnal delights, and a secure con- 
 tempt of spiritual things ; for when sensuality prompts them to eat 
 and drink while they may, despairing and hopeless of a future happi- 
 ness, ' for to-morrow they shall die,' [Isa. xxii. 13,] and their pleasure 
 cease, they higlily presume against the patience and goodness of God. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, The best of men are too frequently overcome by it. 
 
OiiAP. 14.J satan's temptations. 387 
 
 (1.) Not oiily while they are overtaken with sins more grievous, and 
 above the rate of sins of infirmity, to which how liable the holiest saint 
 may be upon temptation, may be gathered from David's prayer, ' Keep 
 thy servant from presumptuous sins, that they have not dominion over 
 me,' [Ps. xix. 13.] (2.) But by their earnest prosecutions of their 
 own wills when contradicted by providence. It is by the prophet, 
 Isaiah ix. 9, called ' a pride and stoutness of heart,' to contend with 
 providence, to attempt to build with ' hewn stone when the bricks are 
 fallen,' or to ' strive for cedars when divine ^vrath hath cut down the 
 sycamores.' (3.) How frequently are they guilty of presuming upon 
 then.- privileges, their strength, their graces, and upon that score ven- 
 ture themselves upon occasions of sin, or bear high above others upon 
 a conceit of their liigher attainments, or when they boldly put them- 
 selves upon suffering, or upon doing, while they want that due humi- 
 lity and care that should balance them. (4.) There is also a pre- 
 sumptuous rashness, upon which the zeal and good intentions of holy 
 men may sometimes precipitate them. Such was Uzziah's putting 
 forth liis hand to hold the ark, for which the Lord smote him. All 
 these instances put together will suiSciently demonstrate that pre- 
 sumption is one of Satan's master designs. 
 
 The second demonstration of this truth is from the general subser- 
 viency of other things to this. Most of Satan's endeavom-s and temp- 
 tations aim at this point, and this is the result and consequence of 
 most sins. That must needs be chief, to which so many things do but 
 serve and minister. In this centre do most of the lines of his policy 
 meet, — pride, vainglory, conceited privileges, supposed advantages, 
 and many things more were but under-agents to this temptation whicli 
 the devil attempted upon Christ, as hath in part, and presently shall 
 be further, evidenced. 
 
 3. Thirdly, Having thus proved that presumption is one of the great 
 things he aims at, I shall next discover the reasons of his earnestness 
 and industry in his design, which are these : — 
 
 (1.) First, It is a sin vu-i/ mihiml, in ivhich he haih the advantage 
 of our oicn readiness und imAinaiion. However that some from a 
 melancholy temper are inclinable to fears and distrust at some time, 
 when these black apprehensions are exalted, yet, these excepted, hopes 
 are more predominant than fears ; and self-love, which provides fuel 
 to these hopes, is a natural principle in all. When so many things 
 give him such advantages and promise him a success, we may well 
 suppose he will not miss such an opportunity. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, As it is easy fur Satan s attempt, so it is remote from 
 conviction, ami not rooted out without great difficidty. It is a sin that 
 is covered with a pretext of a higher degree of hope. Men in many 
 ways of this iniquity are under persuasions of duty, and by reason of 
 that confidence, fear, which is the soul's sentinel, is asleep. Hence 
 do they not lie so fairly open to counsel or reproof. The Israelites, 
 Dent. i. 27, 28, being under discouragement, refuse to go up to 
 Canaan, when they were upon the border of the land ; but being con- 
 vinced of their sin in distrusting the arm of the Lord, by God's 
 declared -nTath and threatening against them, they fall upon the con- 
 trary extreme of presumption, and then, ver. 41, 'they would go up 
 
388 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 and fight ;' and tlic conviction of their former sin made them so con- 
 fident that this was tlieir present duty — for thiis they argue, ' We have 
 sinned against the Lord, we will go up and fight, according to all that 
 the Lord our God commanded us ' — that though they were expressly 
 forbidden from God, ver. 42, ' Go not up, neither fight, for I am not 
 among you ;' yet were they so strangely carried l)y their former per- 
 suasion, that they refused to be convinced, ' and went presumptuously 
 into the hill.' By which instance we see what great pretences lead on 
 presumption, and how difficultly they are removed, which two tilings 
 do no less than tempt Satan to lay out himself to the uttermost in that 
 design. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Tlie greatness of the sin lolien it is committed, is an- 
 other reason of his diligence in the 2yurstiit of it. It is not only from a 
 simple error or mistake, but that error ariseth from intolerable pride ; 
 they say and do such things from the pride and stoutness of their 
 heart, Isa. ix. i). He that is presumptuous is self-willed, 2 Pet. ii. 
 10. Hence these sins, which we translate presumptuous, are in the 
 original called prides or arrogancics, Ps. xix. 13 ; Deut. xvii. 12. Be- 
 sides, they arc contradictions to God's order, separating those things 
 that God hath joined together, as the means from the end, or the 
 end from the means, as if the ' earth should be turned out of its place' 
 for us. And in some cases it is no less than the open affronting of 
 God by abusing his own favours against himself ; for thus they deal 
 with him, who arc opinionated in sin because of his mercy, concluding, 
 by an irrational consequence, that they ought to be wicked because 
 God is good, or tiiat tiiey may freely oflfend because he doth not punish. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, The dangerous issues and consequences of (his way of 
 mnning, do not a little animate Satan to tempt to it. In some cases it 
 was to be punished by death : Deut. xvii. 12, ' The man that doth 
 jiresumptuously, even that man shall die ;' and most usually it is 
 plagued with sad disappointments, by a severe engagement of God's 
 displeasure against it. ' The hypocrite's hope shall perish, it shall be 
 as tiie giving up of the ghost,' Job ^aii. 13, and xi. 20. And gene- 
 rally, ' He that thus blesseth himself in his heart, when he heareth the 
 words of the curse,' Deut. xxix. 19, 20, ' the Ijord will not spare 
 him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke 
 against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall 
 lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven.' 
 
 4. Fourthly and lastly, I shall lay before you the deceitful contriv- 
 ance of Satan in bringing this sin about, by shewing the particulars of 
 his craft against Christ herein. As, 
 
 (1.) First, He takes advantage from his resolve to rely upon p^v- 
 vidence, contrary to the former temptation of turning stones to bread. 
 Christ had refused that, telling him it was duty to trust him, who not 
 only by the ordinary means of bread could feed him, but also by any 
 other appointment. To this Satan rejoins, by offering an irregular 
 opportunity of such a trust, in casting himself from the pinnacle of the 
 temple : as if he should say, ' If thou wilt thus rely upon providence, 
 do it in this.' Wherein we may note, that from an obediential depend- 
 ence, he would draw Christ to an irregular presumption. He retorts 
 Christ's argument back again upon him thus, ' If God is to be relied 
 
Chap. 14.] satan's temptations. 38.9 
 
 upon by a certain trust for food, by the like trust he is to he relied 
 upon for preservation ; if the belief of supply of bread can consist with 
 a neglect or refusal of ordinary means for the procurement thereof, 
 then may the belief of preservation in casting thyself from the pinnacle 
 of the temple consist also with a neglect of the ordinary means.' Thus, 
 like a cunning sophister, he endeavours to conclude sin from duty, 
 from a seeming jiarity betwixt them, though indeed the cases were 
 vastly different. For, though it be duty to depend upon pro\'idence, 
 when God, in the pursuit of service and duty, brings us out of the 
 sight and hopes of outward means, yet it can be no less than sinful 
 presumption for us to make such experiments of providences, when 
 we need not, and when ordinary means are at hand. After the same 
 manner doth he endeavour to put fallacies upon us, and to cheat us 
 into presumptuous undertakings, by arguing from a necessary trust, 
 in some cases, a necessity of presuming in others, upon a seeming- 
 likeness and proportion. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, It was no small piece of Satan's craft to take this 
 advantage, tvhtle the impression of trust in the ivant of outward means 
 luas warm upon the heart of Christ. He hoped thereby the more easily 
 to draw him to an excess. For he knows that a zealous earnestness to 
 avoid a sin, and to keep to a duty, doth often too much incline us to 
 an extreme, and he well hoped that when Christ had declared himself 
 so positively to depend upon God, he might have prevailed to have 
 stretched that dependence beyond its due bounds, taking the oppor- 
 tunity of his sway that way, which, as a ship before wind and tide, 
 might soon be overdriven. And this was the design of his haste in 
 this second temptation, because he would strike while the iron was 
 hot, and closely pursue his advantage, while the strength and forward- 
 ness of these resolves were upon him. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, He endeavours to animate him to this presumption by 
 popidar apjylause, and to ticJde him into a humour of affecting the glory 
 and admiration, lultich by such a strange imdertaking might be raised 
 in the minds of the spectators ; and therefore did he bring him to the 
 most conspicuous place of a great and populous city, not thinking the 
 matter so feasible if he had tempted him to it in a solitary desert. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, He propounds to him a 2^lausible end, and a seeming 
 advantage, viz., the clear and undoubted discovery of his divine nature 
 and near interest in God ; urging tliis as a necessary duty, for his 
 own satisfaction, and the manifestation of his sonship to others. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, To drive out of his mind those fears of miscarrying in 
 his attempt, which otherwise might have been a block in his way, he 
 is officious in s(rengthe7iing his confidence by propoiinding treacherous 
 helps and preservatives, suggesting a safety to him from the privilege 
 of the place where this was to be acted, a holy city and temple, pro- 
 ducing more of a divine presence for his safety than other places. 
 
 (6.) Sixthly, To make all sure, he backs cdl this tvith a promise of 
 preservation, that nothing might be wanting to his security. 
 
 By this method applied to other things and cases, he endeavours 
 to bring us to presumption. 
 
 ApjMc. The consideration of this should put us upon a special care 
 and watchfulness against presumption. It is more designed, and hath 
 
390 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III 
 
 a greater pre valency than men are aware of. Two things I shall only 
 at present propound for our preservation, out of Ps. xix. 12, 13. 
 
 [1.] First, He tJiat luould hekept from prcsiimptuotis sim mtist imike 
 conscience of secret sins, to search for them, to mortify them, to beg 
 pardon for them. With what face or hope can we expect from God 
 help against these, when we provoke him to leave us to ourselves, by 
 ' indulging ourselves in the other ? 
 
 [2.] Secondly, He that would avoid them mtist be under tJie awe and 
 fear of being overcome by them. He that slights and contemns such 
 ^asible hazards shall not long be innocent. David here first shews his 
 conscience to be concerned with secret sins, and then begs to be kept 
 from presumptuous sins, and by such earnest begging he next shews 
 how much he dreaded such miscarriages. [Dickson, in loc.] 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Self-murder another- of his designs in this temptation. — Hoio he tempts 
 to sclfmurdei' directly, and upon what advantage he urgelh it. — Hoto 
 he tempts to it indirectly, and the tvays thereof— Of necessary 2>re- 
 servatives against this temptation. 
 
 Wc have seen and considered the main cud of Satan in this tempta- 
 tion. Let us further consider whether this was tlie sole end tiiat he 
 projiounded to himself We have little reason to think that he would 
 confine himself to one, when the thing itself doth so clearly suggest 
 another, which might possibly liave followed. In most cases, the ends 
 of the de-\il are manifold. "We may therefore easily suppose— and 
 several have noted iti — that the devil, that great murderer, had herein 
 a secret design against the life of Christ, and that he tempted him 
 here indirectly to self-murder. And indeed, supposing that Christ 
 had attempted to fly in the air, and had failed in the enterprise, what 
 else could have followed but death and ruin ? Hence let us note, 
 
 Obs. 9. lliat Satan seeks the ruin of our bodies as xvell as of our 
 soids, and tempts men often to self-murder. That the devil goes about 
 seeking how he may destroy men, by putting them upon attempts 
 against their own Uves, is evident, not only from the experience and 
 confessions of such as have suffered under Satan's suggestions to that 
 end — and it is a temptation more common than we think of, because 
 most men are unwilling to lay open themselves to others in this mat- 
 ter — but also from those many sad instances of men over whom Satan 
 so far prevails, that they execute upon themselves tliis design by de- 
 stroying themselves. Yet by the way we may note, that such thoughts 
 are often in the minds of men where Satan is not industriously design- 
 ing their destruction ; for he often casts in such thoughts, not only to 
 try how men take with them, but to affright and cUsquiet them ; and 
 it is usual with men of sad and melancholy temjiers to mistake their 
 own fears of such a temptation, for Satan's endeavours against them, 
 wlien indeed their fear and trouble lest they should be so tempted, 
 makes them think they arc tempted indeed. 
 
 ' Dickson, in loc; Capcl, Tempt., part 2, cap. P. 
 
Chai'. 15.] Satan's temptations. 391 
 
 Satan drives on the design of self-murder two wa}'s : — 
 1. First, Directly, lohen in plain terms he urgeth ntcii to destroy 
 themselves. This because it is directly repugnant to the law of nature, 
 which vehemently urgeth them to self-preservation, he cannot effect 
 but by the help of some advantages ; yet some ways and methods by 
 experience he hath found to be so available to such an unnatural resolve, 
 that he frequently puts them in practice. As, (1.) fii'st, He works 
 upon the discontents of men, and improves the disquiet of their minds, 
 upon the occasion of any loss, vexation, disappointment, or disgrace, 
 to as great a height as he can, and when their lives are made bitter to 
 them, and they are sufficiently prepared by the uneasiness of their 
 condition, then he propounds death as the only remedy to set them at 
 quiet ; wherein, besides his officiousness to provide them with instru- 
 ments of cruelty and opportunity for their use, he follows them with 
 arguments drawn from the sense of their present condition ; the great 
 intendment whereof is to aggravate their smart, and to make their 
 burden seem intolerable, and then self-ruin is but a natural conse- 
 quence. We may see enough of this in the discontents of good men, 
 and that they naturally work this way. Job speaks the general appre- 
 hensions of men in trouble, chap. iii. 20, 21, ' The bitter in soul value 
 not life ; they long for death, and dig for it more than for hid trea- 
 sures ; they rejoice exceedingly, and aie glad when they can find the 
 grave.' Jonah in his discontent prefers death before life : ' It is better 
 for me to die than to live,' [chap. iv. 3.] Elias doth the like ; and 
 Job seems impatient for it. All this is from the power and working 
 of this temptation, though God held their hand that it did not fully 
 prevail. In Ahithophel the ground of discontent was more a fancied 
 than a real disgrace ; his counsel was rejected — which was in itself no 
 great dishonour — and this works up such a perplexing resentment in 
 his mind, that Satan prevails with him to hang liimself very delibe- 
 rately. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, He most frequently draius on men to destroy themselves 
 by terrors and despairing troubles of conscience. These, as they afford 
 greater disquiet and distress of mind than other kind of discontent- 
 ments, so doth he more prevail by them ; for a wounded spirit is above 
 ordinary strength, and hard to bear ; only it may seem strange that 
 those who so experimentally feel how ' fearful a thing it is to fall into 
 the hands of the living God,' [Heb. x. 31,] should entertain such a 
 temptation as, to their apprehensions and knowledge, will certainly 
 plunge them into the very ocean of everlasting vengeance. This no 
 doubt Satan finds to be no small obstruction to his design ; but here 
 he useth his skill to open a way for them that would outrun their 
 lives on the one hand, as he labours to pursue them with sense of 
 wrath and indignation on the other hand. To this purpose he tells 
 them, [1.] That all the hell they are to meet with is in their consciences, 
 and that death will free them from all, or at least that death will give 
 a present ease, and that till the resurrection they shall be in quiet. 
 Those that are willing to receive these apprehensions may easily be 
 prevailed with to hasten their own death, seeing they have already 
 fixed this conclusion with themselves, that there is no hojie nor pardon 
 for them, that tlicy are reprobates and cut off; for their thoughts can 
 
392 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 meditate nothing but the terrors of such conclusions. [2.] He some- 
 times endeavours to persuade them, that by executing this revenge 
 upon themselves, they may make some kind of satisfaction and amends 
 for the sins they have committed ; which though most false, yet it is 
 a wonder how far such ungrounded surmises may possess the minds 
 of the desperate. That Judas might have some such thought when 
 he destroyed himself, is conjectured by some ;i but that must be but a 
 conjecture, seeing none can pretend to know his thoughts; but we 
 may sj^eak with greater freedom of those who have declared the work- 
 ing of such apprehensions upon their minds. [3.] A more plausible 
 pretext he uscth when he endeavours to persuade them that they may 
 kill themselves, and yet go to heaven for all that. To this purpose 
 the subtle adversary is not backward to tell them what have been the 
 charitable expressions of some men who have supposed a possibility of 
 repentance infer pontem ct fontem, as we say, betwixt the stroke or 
 halter and the death. Capel is so apprehensive of the mischievous 
 improvement of this charity, for an encouragement to self-murder, 
 that he with great earnestness cautions all ministers against such 
 liberal expressions.^ I have known some, and heard of others, that 
 have been so possessed with this imagination of being saved, notwith- 
 standing that having ])ur])osed to destroy themselves — though God 
 prevented them that they did it not— they have first by prayer recom- 
 mended themselves to God, and so prepared themselves to die. [4.] 
 Sometime, tliough such afflicted ones liave no such persuasion but 
 that from death tliey go immediately to hell, yet are they pushed 
 forward by a certain fearful curiosity of knowing tlie worst. At that 
 rate did Spira exi)ress himself, when he desired to be freed of his life 
 that he miglit know the utmost of those torments which he feared ; 
 as if the alfrightments of his fearful expectations were worse than 
 the real feeling of them. [5.] But most of all dotli lie prevail against 
 that objection of greater misery after death, by running men up to a 
 desperate distraction in their terrors. Their present anguish is made 
 insupportable, so that they hasten out of life, without care or consider- 
 ation of what shall follow. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, He tempts men directly to destroy themselves from a 
 prinnple of heroic boldness and seeming forfiiude of mind — a thing 
 very common among the Eomans, who impatient of injuries, and from 
 pride of heart, not willing to subject themselves to affronts, choosed 
 rather to tear their own bowels than to live to see themselves abused. 
 Lucretia being forced by Tarquinius, and not willing to outlive her 
 disgrace, stabbed herself. Cato, not being able to endure the victory 
 of Caesar, puts an end to his days. Innumerable instances of this 
 kind histories do everywhere afford. These, though they consulted 
 their own passions, and knew of nothing that prompted them but 
 their own generosity or magnanimity, yet were they not without a 
 tempter to such cruel actions. Satan undoubtedly pleased himself by 
 exercising his cruelty upon them so easily, by the help of such a 
 humour, which passed among these blind heathens for the highest 
 proof of virtue and, fortitude. To this height it came, insomuch that 
 
 ' Capel, Tempt., part 9, cap. 9, citing Augustine for if. 
 ' Capel, Tempt., ibid. 
 
Chap. 15.] satan's temptations. 393 
 
 we find Seneca highly applauding Catoi for procuring his liberty by 
 his own death ; and setting forth that fact as the most delightful spec- 
 tacle to the gods. Though indeed, as Augustine notes,'-^ it is not forti- 
 tude but weakness, and a clear evidence of impatience, which cannot 
 bear other men's in.solencies or then- own hardships. And if we 
 examine the matter to the bottom, though there be audacity in it to 
 imdertake their own death, yet is this led on by no better principles 
 than pride, impatience, and despair : which may the better be dis- 
 covered if we consider such kind of attempts as they arise from more 
 ignoble and base occasions. Paterculus tells us of a Tuscan sooth- 
 sayer, who being carried to prison with his friend Fulvius Flaccus, 
 and despairing of pardon, desperately runs his head against the prison 
 door and dashed out his brains ; and yet this man was moved to 
 attempt his destruction upon the same general principles by which 
 Cato destroyed himself. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, It is also sufficiently known that Satan by the force 
 of custom in several countries, doth cw it ivere necessitate men to cut off 
 their oiun lives. In some barbarous places, at the death of the hus- 
 band, the wife, in a brutal affection of the praise of love and loyalty, 
 casts herself to be devoured by the same flame in which the dead body 
 of her husband is consumed.^ And there are found in other places 
 customs of self-destruction for the avoiding the tedious inconveniences 
 of old age, where it is usual for old persons with joy to prepare their 
 own funeral pile, and to make a quick despatch of their Uves, and 
 rather to die at once than by piecemeal, as Seneca expresseth it.* 
 Calanus, an Indian philosopher, being dysenterical, obtained leave of 
 Alexander to burn himself for more quick despatch. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, There is yet another way by which men are tempted 
 sometmie, though rarely, to hasten themselves out of the world, and 
 that is by o pretence of an earnest atid impatient desire of happiness 
 to come. That longings for such enjoyments do become the best of 
 saints, and is indeed their excellency, cannot be denied ; but to make 
 such a preposterous haste must be a cheat of Satan. That there is a 
 possibility of this, may appear in the story of Cleombrotns, mentioned 
 also by Augustine, who reading Plato's ' Phsedo, of the Immortality of 
 the Soul,' that he might hasten thither, threw himself headlong from 
 a wall, and died.° Now, though it be hard to find such an instance 
 among Christians, yet we have reason to believe that where Satan 
 perceives such a temptation may take place, he will not be wanting in 
 the prosecution. And if we may conjecture Augustine's thoughts by 
 that question which he propounds — viz.. Whether it be lawful for a 
 man to kill himself for the avoiding of sin, which he solidly con- 
 
 ' Seneca, De Providen. cap. 2. Ijiquet mihi cum magno spectasse gaudio deos — dum 
 gladium sacro pectore inligit. Non fuit diis immortalibus satis spectare Catouem 
 semel. 
 
 ' Aug., De Civit. Dei, P. 1, cap. 22. Major animua merito dicendus eat, qui vitam 
 ierumnosam magis potest ferre quam fugere. Et huinanum judicium prse conscieutise 
 luce ac puritate coiitemnere. 
 
 3 As in the Icingdoms of Biznagar — Purchas, Pilc/r. lib. v. cap. 11— and in the Philip- 
 pian islands. —/6jrf., cap. 16. 
 
 •■ Perire membratim et toties per stillicidia amittere auimam. — Sen., epist. 101. 
 
 ^ Cicero, 1 Tus. quest. Nihil urgebat aut calamitatis aut criminis — sed ad capcsscu- 
 dam mortem— Sola afifuit animi magnitudo. — De Civ. Dei, lib. i. cap. 22. 
 
394 A TREATISE OI'" [PaRT III. 
 
 i'utes,! we may conclude that such thoughts were the usual tempta- 
 tions of good men in his time, and the rather because in the close of 
 that chapter he applies that discourse particularly to the servants of 
 Christ, that they should not think their lives a burden. Noii itaque 
 vobis, fidelcs Chrisli, sit tcedio vita vestra. 
 
 2. Secondly, Satan promotes the design of self-murder, not only 
 directly, as we have heard, but also by some indirect loays lie under- 
 mines the life of man. That is, when he doth not formally say to 
 them. Destroy yourselves, but tempts them to such things as he 
 knows will let in upon death. This way of subtle malice I shall 
 explain under these heads : — 
 
 (1.) First, UjJon highest pretexts of zeal for GocTs (/lory, he some- 
 limes lays a snare for our lives. I cannot believe but Satan had a 
 hand in that forwardness of ancient Christians, who by an open pro- 
 fession of their faith before persecuting judicatures, did as it were court 
 amartjTdom; and I have the same persuasion of the painful earnest- 
 ness of many holy preachers, who lavish out their strength in a pro- 
 digality of pains for the good of souls, which, like a thief in the candle, 
 wastes them immediately ; whereas a better husbanded strength might 
 be truly more advantageous, as continuing the liglit the longer ; and 
 yet so sincere are their ends, so pleasant is their work, that tliey seldom 
 observe, as they ought, that Satan, when he can do no bettor, is glad 
 of the opportunity to destroy them with their own weapon ; and there- 
 fore in this case they may expect he will do all he can to heighten 
 and forward their zeal, not only by adding all the fuel he can to their 
 inward propensity of laboriousness, but also by outward encourage- 
 ment of the declared acceptations and expectations of then- hearers.2 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Upon baser pretences of the full enjoyment of sensual 
 pleasures and carnal delights, he doth uiunvares puJih men forward to 
 death and dangers. Thus the voluptuous, the glutton, the drunkai-d, 
 dig their own graves, and invite death to cut them oif before they 
 have lived out half their time. While Satan tempts men to such 
 excesses of riot, he laboiu-s not only the destruction of the soul, but 
 also of the body ; not only that they be miserable, but that they may 
 be so with all expedition. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Besides all these, he hath other subtle loays of con- 
 triving the death of men, by putting them upon ways and actions that 
 are attended icith hazard. Thus he sought the death of Christ, not 
 directly but indirectly, by urging him to an action which he thought 
 would unavoidably bring him to death, for a fall from so great a pre- 
 cipice would easily have bereaved any man of life. And sometimes 
 when men are besotted with enthusiastical delusions, he can more 
 easily beguile them with such stratagems. That instance of Stuker^ 
 is famous, who cut off his brother's head upon a foolish persuasion 
 that God would magnify liis great power in giving him life again. If 
 Satan can befool such bewitched slaves into such absurd and unrea- 
 sonable apprehensions in regard of others, what hinders but that he 
 may so far impose upon them, that they may be willing to practise 
 upon themselves ? I remember something to this purpose, of one whom 
 
 ' De Civit. Dei, lib. i. cap. 27. " i'i'l': Boyle's Rellections, sec. 2, med. 10. 
 
 ^ Query, ' Stukeley ' ?— G. 
 
Chap. 15.J satan's temptations. 
 
 the devil had well-nigh prevailed with to make a hole in his 
 which of necessity must have let out his life, upon a pretended promise 
 of giving liim eternal life, and was accordingly forced to take up a 
 knife and to carry it to his throat.i In anno 1647, in Yorkshire, a 
 company of peojile were seduced to sacrifice certain creatures to God, 
 among the rest they sacrificed their aged mother, persuading her she 
 should rise the tliird day, and for this they were executed at York. 
 
 Applic. This may awaken all to he aware of this temptation. Some 
 are sadly concerned in it. Many are the complaints which some of 
 us have met withal about it in private, and the apprehensions of such 
 hazards are sadly disquieting. Through such fears thousands of God's 
 dear children have passed, and many, too many, have been ovei'come 
 by this weapon. Those of us that have not yet known temptations of 
 this nature, do not know how soon we may be assaulted in this kind. 
 It is necessary for all to stand upon their- guard, and for that end it 
 behoves us to have at hand these defences against it : — 
 
 [1.] First, It is useful to consider that this is one of Satan's great 
 plots ; and when we meet with it clothed with never so many pretexts, 
 enforced with never so many seeming necessities, yet must we look upon 
 it as the counsel of an enemy, who certainly intends us no kindness, 
 let him pretend what he will ; and therefore may we be sure it will be 
 our sad inconvenience and disadvantage. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, It must be fixed in our minds tlmt the thing in itself 
 is a high iniquity, a most g7~ievous provocation. No instance of self- 
 murder, properly such, can be met withal in Scripture, as practised by 
 any holy person. The command is directly against it, ' Thou shalt 
 not kill.' If we may not murder another, as Austin ai'gues, we may 
 not murder ourselves ; for he that kills himself kills no other than a 
 man ; nay, we may much less lay hand upon our own life,2 It is a 
 greater violation of the law of nature and of love. Every man is 
 nearest to himself ; and his love to himself is the pattern of liis love to 
 another. Self-murder must then be a sin of higher aggravations by 
 far than the murder of another person. And the wiser heathens were 
 far from countenancing any such cruelty. If Plato had thought it 
 best, for an immediate enjoyment of immortality, which is the highest 
 pretence of self-murder imaginable, to make an end of life violently, 
 he would certainly have practised it himself, or recommended it to 
 others, but he is so far from this, that he speaks against it as a great 
 wickedness. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, It is necessary that men keep in mind the danger that 
 folloios such an act. Death brings God's unalterable mittimus, and 
 seals up the condition of every man, so that in the same posture he 
 comes to judgment, it puts an end to all hopes and endeavours. Sup- 
 pose then such tempted creatures to have fears and terrors as great as 
 you can imagine them to be, yet there is a possibility that they may 
 be deceived in them, that their case is not so bad as they fear, or if it 
 be bad enough at present, that it may be better afterwards ; for many 
 
 1 See the Narrative of Jo. Gilpin, called ' The Quakers Shaken.' 
 
 " De Civit. Dei, lib. i. cap. 20. Non occides, non alterum, ergo uec to ; nequc cnim 
 
 qui se occidit, aliud quam hominem oncidil.— A ufj. Dc Civil. Dei, lib. i. cap. '22. Et 
 
 Comment. Lod. Viv. Ibid. 
 
396 A TREATISE OF [PaET III. 
 
 that have in their anguish resolved against themselves, have l»«en pre- 
 vented of the execution of their resolves, and have lived to see the Lord 
 and his salvation. And who is able to determine that secret, that their 
 name is not in the book of life ? Who can say he is certainly excluded 
 out of God's decree ? What madness is it then to rush mto certain 
 ruin, when our fears that distress us may be but mistakes I It is not 
 so certain that men shall be damned, because of what they feel or feai- 
 at present, as it may be if they destroy themselves. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, To prevent occasions to this temptation, it must he 
 our care not to give luay to discontents fw outward things, nor to dis- 
 tressing fears, such as are despairing and hopeless, for our spiritual 
 estate ; or if we have a burden either way upon our mind, we must 
 avoid as much as may be impatient fretfulness, ' lest Satan get 
 advantage of us.' Discontented moods and casting away hope are 
 sad occasions for this temptation. If we find ourselves thus burdened,^ 
 we must look to it betimes, and not suffer it to go too far. And if 
 tliis temptation come, we must take heed we keep not the devil's 
 counsel, but discover the matter to some that are wise and faithful, 
 able to advise and pray for us; remembering still that if only outward 
 things trouble us^ we have a better way of ease and remedy, by sub- 
 mitting to a chastising providence. If spiritual troubles move this 
 way, we should not run from him, but rather resolve to perish at bis 
 foot as humble suppliants for mercy and pardon. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, The temptation must also be opposed with fasting 
 and prayer. If this be sincerely practised, it will go away at last. 
 
 [6.] Sixthly, Something may also be said for caution against wn- 
 neccssary thrusting ourselves, while tnider such temptations, into places 
 of danger, or into a converse with instruments of death. This may be 
 too great a daring of the temptation, and in the consequence a mis- 
 chief. Yet on the other hand, we must not be so cowardly as to be 
 afraid of such places and things, unto which our callings and lawful 
 employments do engage us ; not to dare to go over a bridge, or to 
 walk by a river or a pit, if it be our necessary way, is but to give an 
 advantage to Satan to keep us under continual affrightments ; and 
 therefore I subscribe to Capel's advice, ' We must abide by it, and 
 fight it out by faith ; we must not fly the way, the place, the employ- 
 ment, but go on and look to God, and at last we shall make Satan 
 fly.'i 
 
 ObJ. But if some object to this, that their weakness is great, and 
 their fears are strong, and Satan never idle, and that therefore they 
 have little ground to expect an escape, I shall desire they would con- 
 sider scriouslv the instance of Christ in this particular. When he 
 was upon the' pinnacle of the temple, a small push might have over- 
 thrown him, and yet it was not in Satan's power to do it himself, 
 though he tempted Christ to cast himself down: which may suiH- 
 ciently satisfy us, that there is a sure hedge of providence about us, 
 and that Satan cannot do us the least hurt by pushing us into a pit 
 or river, or any such danger. 
 
 1 Tempt., part 2, cap. 9. 
 
CiiAP. IG.] Satan's temptations. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Of pride, Satan's chief engine to bring on jiresumption. — What pride 
 is, and hoio it prepares men for sinning presumjituoushj. — Con- 
 siderations against pride. — The remedies for its cure. — Pride 
 kindled by a confidence of privileges and popular applause. 
 
 The aims of Satan ia this temptation being thus explained, I must 
 now offer to your consideration the means by which he sought to 
 bring his end about, which we have noted ah'eady, was pride : this he 
 endeavoured to raise up in him two ways : — 
 
 (1.) First, By urging to him the privileges of his condition, as 
 taking himself to be the Son of God. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, By offering him the occasion of popular applause ; 
 to which purpose he brought him into the holy city, where he might 
 be sure of many spectators. I shall hence note, 
 
 Ohs. 10. That pride is Satan's proper engme to bring meti on to 
 pyresumption. 
 
 If we should trace the history of presumptuous sins, we shall ever 
 find it to have been so. Adam's fii-st sin was a high presumption 
 against God's express command, but pride was the stair by which he 
 knew they, must ascend to it ; and therefore he used this argument 
 to corrupt the hearts of our first parents, ' Ye shall be as gods.' The 
 presumption of Uzziah in burning incense upon the altar, was from 
 his pride, 2 Chron. xxvi. 16, ' His heart was lifted up, because he was 
 become strong.' David's presumption in numbering the people was 
 from hence. Thus might we run through many instances. But 
 Satan's own case may be instead of all. His first sin, though we 
 have but conjecture what it was particularly, is concluded by all to 
 have been highly presumptuous, and the Scripture expressly asserts 
 that it was his pride that brought him to it. 1 Tim. iii. 6, ' He that 
 is lifted up with pride, falls into the condemnation of the devil.' And 
 in the general we are told by the prophet, Hab. ii. 4, ' that the soul 
 that is lifted up,' cannot be so upright as patiently to wait upon God 
 in a way of believing, but it will be presuming to evade a trouble by 
 indirect contrivances. 
 
 To explain the observation, I shall do no more but shew what pride 
 is, and how fit it is to beget presumption. 
 
 Pride is a self-idolising, an over-valuation or admiration of our- 
 selves, upon a real or supposed excellency, inward or ouftoard, apjxr- 
 taining to us. It is in Scripture frequently expressed by the lifting 
 up or exaltation of the soiil. And this is done, upon the considera- 
 tion of any kind of thing, which we apprehend makes us excel others ; 
 so that inward gifts of mind, as knowledge, humility, courage, &c., 
 or outward gifts of the body, as beauty, strength, activity, &c., or 
 additional advantages of riches, honour, authority, &c., or anything 
 well done by us, &c., may all be abused to beget and nourish pride, 
 and to fill us with high and lofty thoughts concerning ourselves; and 
 being thus blown up, we are fitted for any presumptuous undertaking. 
 For, 
 
398 A TREATISE OF [PaKT III. 
 
 (1.) First, The mind thus corrupted begct.s to itself apiyreltcnsions 
 of a self-sufficiency : and therefore, as it is not apt to remember from 
 what foimtain all those excellencies come, and to what ends they are 
 to serve ; so it brings them to a contempt of others, and to a confi- 
 dence of themselves. Thus are men by degrees so intoxicated by theii" 
 own humour, that they mount up to irrational and absurd conceits, 
 fancying that they are more than they are, and that they can do far 
 more than is possible for them to accomplish, till at last they become 
 apparently foohsh in the pursuit of their imaginations. I need not 
 instance in the follies of Alexander, who being elated in mind, would 
 be Jupiter's son, and go like Hercules in a lion's skin. Or in the mad 
 frenzies of Caius, who as he would need fancy himself a god, so would 
 he change his godship when he pleased : to-day he would wear a lion's 
 skin and club, and then he must be Hercules ; to-morrow in another 
 garb he conceits himself Apollo ; a caduceus made him Mercury, a 
 sword and helmet made him Mars, &c. Or in Xerxes, who would 
 wiiip the seas, and fetter Ne]itime. The Scripture aftbrds enough of 
 this nature, as the boast of Nebuchadnezzar ; ' Is not tliis great Babel 
 that I have built?' In the insolency of Nineveh, Zeph. ii. 15, 'I 
 am, and there is none besides me.' The blasphemy of Tyre, Ezek. 
 xxviii. 2, who set her heart ' as the heart of God, saying, I am a 
 god, I sit in the seat of God.' The arrogancy of Sennacherib, Isa. 
 xxxvi. 19, 20, 'Where are the gods of Hamath .... that the Lord 
 should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand ? ' Though all pride in all 
 men ariseth not to so great a lieight of madness, yet it is the nature 
 of it, and none have any of it without this humour of conceiting 
 themselves above themselves, which strangely prepares them for any 
 ])resumption. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, He that is proud, as he looks tipon himself in a 
 flattering glass, and measures himself by the le7igth of his shadow ; so 
 doth he contemn and undervaJuc tliinx/s that lie before his attempts as 
 easy a^id snuill. Hence doth he put himself upon things that are far 
 beyond him. David notes the working of a proud heart, Ps. cxxxi. 1, 
 in this particular, ' Neither do I exercise myself in great matters, 
 or in things too high for me,' shewing that it is the guise of pride to 
 outbid itself in its attempts. 
 
 (3.) Thirdl_y, It is not only forward to attempt, but also desperate 
 to execute un'thout consideration of hazard. Difficulty and danger, 
 when they stand in the way, should usually deter men from their 
 enterprise ; but pride hardens the heart, and, in a blind rage, engageth 
 it to contemn aU inconveniencies. If sin and the breach of God's law 
 be set before a person, who.se pride engageth liim to an unlawful 
 undertaking, he overlooks it as a thing of nought : ' Through the 
 pride of his countenance he will not seek after God : God is not in all 
 his thoughts,' Ps. x. 4. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, Pride ariseth up to a scornful competition with any- 
 thing that opposeth it ; and the more it is opposed, the more it rageth, 
 for the contest is for having its wQl. Tiiis was the voice of pride 
 in Pharaoh, ' Who is the Lord, that I should serve him ? ' [Exod. 
 V. 2.] Hence men are said to ' despise the commandments of God,' 
 [Lev. xxvi. 15,] when in the strength of their pride they are carried 
 
OuAP. 1(J.] Satan's temi'tations. 3911 
 
 on to an open contest for their own ways and desires against peremp- 
 tory commands and threatenings. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, All this is done by a pleasing allurement. It is a 
 witchcraft that strongly holds men, Amahilis iiisania mentis graiis- 
 simm error ; and they think they are sufficiently rewarded if they be 
 but gratified. Though other things go to wreck, yet they apprehend, 
 if credit and honour be kept up, it is enough. Saul, when Samuel had 
 declared that God would fors.'ike him, yet sought to please himself by 
 keeping up his esteem and authority ; ' Honour me,' saith he, ' before 
 the people,' [1 Sam. xv. 30.] 
 
 If all these particulars be weighed, what presumptuous act can be 
 propounded by Satan wliich pride may not lead to ? He that swells 
 himself to a conceit of absoluteness, that will needs be attempting 
 things too high, that contemneth all hazards, and is made more 
 forward by opposition, and yet please th himself in all, as in a golden 
 dream, he is as much prepared for any figure or shape that Satan 
 is ready to impress upon hun, as melted metals for their mould or 
 stamp. 
 
 Applic. Hence must ive be loarned against pride, as we ivould avoid 
 p)-esumption. If we admit this, we cannot well escape the other. 
 And we are the more concerned to resist pride, 
 
 [1.] First, Because it is a natural sin. It was the first sin, and 
 our natm'es are so deeply tainted with it, that it is a sin that first 
 shews itself in our infancy ; for children will exju'ess a jiride in their 
 clothes very early, and it is a general infection, from which none arc 
 exempted in some degree or other. The apostle's j)hrase, 1 John ii. 16, 
 shews that our whole life, and all the concerns thereof, is but the 
 sphere in which pride acts ; and therefore, whereas he restrains other 
 lusts to some particular ends or peculiar instruments, he calls this 
 iniquity the ' pride of life,' implying how impossible it is to confine it 
 in a narrow compass. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, It is a subtle siti, and often lies luhere it is least sus- 
 pected. Every man sees it, as it is expressed in ' haughty looks,' in 
 ' boasting speeches,' in ' gorgeous apparel,' in ' insolent behaviour ;' 
 but often men are insensibly possessed with this sin and know not 
 of it. Under an afiected contemiit of honours and fine clothes they 
 secretly hug themselves in their private conceits, and raise iqj in their 
 own thoughts imaginary trophies of honour and victory, for despising 
 what others so much dote upon. It was observed of Diogenes that he 
 did intus gloriari, inwardly boast, and with greater pride contemned 
 honour, riches, plenty, &c., thau they were troubled with that enjoyed 
 them. Some decry pride in others, vehemently declare against it as a 
 sin, recommend humility as an ornament of great price in the sight of 
 God, and yet are proud that they are above others in a fancied 
 humility ; and, in the management of themselves in their reproofs and 
 exhortations, express such sad symptoms of an insulting humour, that 
 the latent pride of their heart doth appear by it. It is possible for 
 men to give thanks to the Almighty for all they have, and yet to 
 be proud of what is in them. The Pharisee was proud, for so Christ 
 calls him, that ' he was not as other men,' and yet he could ' thank 
 God,' as ascribing all to him ; nay, he that is truly sensible of the 
 
400 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 working of this pride in himself, and dares not approve it, yet he 
 shall find in his heart such a delight when he is stroked or praised ; 
 and when some actions, praiseworthy, are not taken notice of, the best 
 shall find that, without great watchfulness, they shall not be able to 
 hold from giving some hints to others, as a memorial to them, of 
 observing their excellency, or from some insinuations of their own 
 commendation. 
 
 [3.] Tliirdly, Pride is a sin no less dangerous than subtle. There 
 are no attempts so strange, unreasonable, monstrous, or absurd, but it 
 may prompt to them. It was a strange arrogancy in Herod to deify 
 himself in his own tlioughts, and yet the acclamations of the people 
 swelled him into such a blasphemous imagination, that God thought 
 fit to chastise him, and instruct others by so dreadful a judgment, 
 as clearly baffled his insolency, and made him and his flatterers confess 
 he was but a poor, frail man. Ordinarily pride is attended with 
 a judgment, it is the very prognostic of ruin : ' Pride goeth before 
 destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,' Prov. xvi. 18. But 
 these judgments have something in them peculiar, which other judg- 
 ments for other sins do not always express, to a manifestation of a 
 special abhorrency in God against pride ; as, (1.) He commonly 
 smites the thing for which they are proud. Staupitius boasted of his 
 memory, and God smote it ; Hezekiah boasted of his treasure, and for 
 that God designed them lor captivity; David glorified [himself] in 
 the multitude of his people, but God lessened them by pestilence ; 
 Nebuchadnezzar is proud of his Babel, and God drove him from the 
 enjoyment of it. Men are proud of children or relations, and God oft 
 removes them, or makes them a shame and sorrow. (2.) He doth 
 not only this, but also orders the judgment so that it shall bring a 
 shame and contempt upon men in that tiling wherein they i)rided 
 themselves. He wLU not only punish, but also stain thcu- pride. 
 The haughty daughters of Ziou were not only plagued by removing 
 their ornaments, bracelets, and the rest of their bravery, but over and 
 above he ' smites with a scab the crown of their head, and discovers 
 their secret parts, and brings a stink and baldness upon them instead 
 of a sweet smell and well-set hair, and burning instead of beauty,' 
 Isa. iii. 17, 24. 
 
 So sad a distemper stands in need of a special care ; and for that 
 end we should, 
 
 [1.] First, l7i all things loe have or do, not so much consider wJtat is 
 excellent, or tchereiti we excel, as tvhat we have not, and tuhei-ein ive 
 come short. We should be strange to ourselves, and design that the 
 ' right hand should not know what the left hand doth,' whicli must be 
 by having our eye upon the imjierfections that attend us at the best. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, It must he our care to be suspicious of the tvorking 
 ofj^ride in us; and also by an industrious watchfulness to give a stop 
 or check to thoughts of this nature when they arise. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, The conquest of this cannot be expected ivithout a 
 serious and constant labour herein. A humble soul is compared by 
 David to a weaned child, Ps. cxxxi. 2. But a child is not weaned 
 easily. Wormwood must be laid on the breast, and time allowed, 
 before the child will forget it. He only that is content to exercise a 
 
Chap. 1(J.] watan's temptatioxs. 401 
 
 discipline upon himself, and by frequent practices to habituate himself 
 to low and careful thoughts, is likely to overcome it. 
 
 Pride, we have seen, was Satan's great engine to bring on pre- 
 sumption. Tlie means by which he endeavoureth to beget pride, as 
 was before noted, were, 
 
 [1.] First, The consideration of 2'>rivileges, as being 'the Son of 
 God.' For this expression, 'If thou art the Son of God,' is now urged 
 in a sense chfferent from that which it had in the first temptation. 
 There he propounded it as unlikely that he should be the Son of God, 
 and yet be under such a disregard of providence. In this sense it 
 notably suited his design of drawing him to a distrust of God's care, 
 and consequently of his sonship. Here he is upon a contrary tempta- 
 tion, and therefore propounds this as a thing of which Christ was 
 assured, and from that assurance he thus disputes : ' Thou believest 
 thou art the Son of God, and dost well depend on his care ; therefore 
 needest thou not to distrust thy preservation, if thou castest thyself 
 down.' 
 
 [2.] Secondly, To help his confidence forward to the undertaking, 
 he suggests tvhat credit and honoiir it ivmdd he to him, in the sight of 
 all the 2xople, to he so miracidously kept from. hurt. Hence note, 
 
 Ohs. 11. That Satan doth usually kindle and nourish pride, hy a 
 perverse confidence of our privileges. 
 
 It is very hard for Christians to carry their assurance even : not 
 but that grace in its proper working begets humibty, and a watchful 
 care against sin and folly ; but such is our infirmity that we are easily 
 drawn to be proud of our mercies, and to persuade ourselves that we 
 may make bold with God because we are his children. Hence was 
 that paradox of Mr Foxe, ' That his sins did him most good, and his 
 graces most hurt;' he means, sins occasioned his humility, whereas 
 his graces were apt, through his weakness, to make him proud. And 
 to hide this pride from man, God is forced to keep them sometime 
 from the sight of their assurance, or to discipline them by other 
 temptations, as he did with Paul, lest they should be ' exalted above 
 measure.' 
 
 Note fiu'ther, Ohs. 12. That pop^dar applause Satan finds, and useth 
 accordingly, to he a great instigalor to pride. 
 
 The great thing that moved the Pharisees in their often fastings 
 and large charity, was that they might have praise of men, and there- 
 fore took they care to be seen of men.i The heathens noted this to 
 be the gi-eat feeder of that humour which animated them, as a drum 
 or trumpet animates soldiers to adventurous acts.2 And some good 
 men have found no small difSculty to carry steadily, when they have 
 been hoisted up by the breath of men's praise ; which hath also occa- 
 sioned those serious cautions against the danger of flattery and high 
 commendations, ' A flattering mouth worketh ruin,' Prov. xxvi. 28. 
 
 ' Digito monstrari, et dicier, Hie est.— [//oroce.— G,] 
 
 - Quis vero tarn bene modulo suo metiri se novit, ut eiim assiduse et immodicK; lauda- 
 tiones non moveant ? — //. Stephens. 
 
402 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Of Satan's subtlety in urging that ofPs. xci. 11, 12, to Christ— Of his 
 ' imitating the Spirit of God in various tvays of teaching.— Of his 
 pretending Scripture to further temptation. — The reasons of such 
 pretendings, and the ends to which he doth abuse it. — Of Satan's 
 unfaithfulness in managing of scriptures. — Cautions against that 
 deceit. — The loays by ivhich it may be discovered. 
 
 The ways of Satan, hitherto insisted on, to engage Christ in this act 
 of presumption, were secret insinuations and underhand contrivances : 
 but that which he openly and expressly irrged to this purpose, was 
 an argument drawn from the promise of God, though sadly abused 
 and misrepresented, ' He shall give his angels charge concerning thee,' 
 &c. This we are next to consider, in which, as cited by him, we may 
 easily see, (1.) That Satan affected an imitation of Christ, in the way 
 of his resistance. Christ had urged Scripture before, and now Satan 
 endeavours to manage the same weapon against him. (2.) It is 
 observable that Scripture is the weapon that Satan doth desire to 
 wield against him. In his other ways of dealing he was shy, and did 
 but lay them in Christ's way, offering only the occasion, and leaving 
 him to take them up ; but in this he is more confident, and indus- 
 triously pleads it, as a thing which he could better stand to and more 
 confidently avouch. (3.) The care of his subtlety herein, lay in the 
 misrepresentation and abuse of it, as may be seen in these particulars : 
 [l.J In that he urged this promise to promote a sinful thing, contrary 
 to the general end of all Scripture, which was therefore written ' that 
 we sin not.' [2.] But more especially in his clipping and mutilating 
 of it. He indu.striously leaves out that part of it which doth limit 
 and confine the promise of protection to lawful undertakings, such as 
 this was not, and renders it as a general promise of absolute safety, 
 be the action what it will. It is a citation from Ps. xci. 11, 12, 
 which there runs thus, ' He shall give his angels charge over thee, to 
 keep thee in all thy ways.' These last words, ' in all thy ways,' which 
 doth direct to a true understanding of God's intention in that promise, 
 he deceitfully leaves out, as if they were needless and unnecessary 
 parts of the promise, when indeed they were on purpose put there by 
 the Spirit of God, to give a descrijition of those persons and actions, 
 unto whom, in such cases, the accomplishment of the promise might 
 be expected ; for albeit the word in the original, which is translated 
 ' ways' — DOII — doth signify any kind of way or action in the general, 
 yet in this place it doth not ; for then God were engaged to an absolute 
 protection of men, not only when they unnecessarily thrust themselves 
 into dangers, but in the most abominably sinful actions whatsoever ; 
 which would have been a dij-ect contradiction to those many scriptures 
 wherein God threatens to withdraw his hand and leave sinners to 
 the danger of their iniquities ; but it is evident that the sense of it is 
 no more than this, ' God is with you, while you are with him.' We 
 have a paraphrase of this text, to this purpose, in Prov. iii. 23, ' Then 
 shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble : ' 
 
Chap. 17.] satan's temptations. 403 
 
 where the condition of this safety, pointed to in the word ' then,' which 
 leads the jiromise, is expressly mentioned in the foregoing verses, ' My 
 son, let them' — that is, the precepts of wisdom — 'not depart from thine 
 
 eyes Then' — not upon other terms — ' shalt thou walk in thy way 
 
 safely.' The ways then in this promise, cited by Satan, are the ways 
 of duty, or the ways of our lawful callings. The fallacy of Satan in 
 this dealing with Scripture is obvious, and Christ might have given 
 this answer, as Bernard hath it, That God promiseth to keep him in 
 his ways, but not in self-created dangers, for that was not his way, but 
 his ruin ; or if a way, it was Satan's way, but not his.i (3.) To these 
 two, some add another abuse, in a subtle concealment of the following 
 verse in Ps. xci., ' Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder.' This 
 concerned Satan, whose cruelty and poisonous deceits were fitly repre- 
 sented by the lion and the adder, and there the promise is also 
 explained to have a respect to Satan's temptations — that is, God 
 would so manage his protection, that his children should not be led 
 into a snare. 
 
 Hence observe, Ohs. 13. That Satan sometimes imitates the Spirit of 
 God by an officious p-etence of teaching the mind of God to men. 
 _ This our adversary doth not always appear in one shape. Some- 
 time he acts as a lion or dragon, in ways of cruelty and fierceness; 
 sometimes as a filthy swine, in temptations to bestial uncleanness and 
 sensual lusts ; sometime he puts on the garb of holiness, and makes as 
 if he were not a spiritual adversary, but a spiritual friend and counsel- 
 lor. That this is frequent with liim, the apostle tells us : 2 Cor. xi. 
 14, ' Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.' Angels of 
 light are those blessed spirits sent forth to minister for the good of the 
 elect, whose ministry God useth not only for our preservation from 
 bodily hurts, but also for prevention of sin and furtherance of duty. 
 Satan, as wicked as he is, doth counterfeit that employment, and takes 
 upon him to give advice for our good, pretending to teach us in the 
 truth, or to direct and further us in our endeavours.- 
 
 That he designs an imitation of God and his Spirit, may be dis- 
 covered by expressing a great many particulars of God's ways and 
 appointments, wherein Satan, as God's ape, partly out of mockery and 
 scorn, partly upon other grounds of advantage to his intendments, doth 
 counterfeit the current coin of the Lord's establishments by a very 
 close imitation. But I shall here confine myself to the point of teach- 
 ing and instruction, wherein how he proceeds, we shall the better 
 imderstand by considering how many ways God hath of old, and now 
 still doth use in declaring his mind to his people. The sum of all we 
 have, Heb. i. 12. Heretofore he signified his mind in ' divers man- 
 ners ' by the prophets, and ' in these last days by his Son,' in all which 
 we shall trace the steps of Satan. 
 
 (1.) Fu-st, God revealed himself sometime by voice; as to Abraham, 
 Moses, and others. The devil hath dared to imitate this. There 
 
 ' In Ps. xiv., In viis, nunquid in prsecipitiis ? Non est via hsec sed ruina, et si via, tua 
 est, non illius. — Bernard. 
 
 ' Antliores se vitse scelestse immundacque testantur, perliibentur tamen in adytis suis 
 secretisque penetralibus dare qusedam bona priBcepta de moribus, quibusdam velut 
 electis sacratis suis ; quod si ita est, hoc ipso callidior aduertenda est et convincenda 
 malitia spirituum noxiorum. — Aug. Civit. Dei, lib. ii. cap. 26. 
 
404 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 want not instances of it; in the temptation, which is now under expla- 
 nation, he did so ; and his confessing Christ, ' I know thee who thou 
 art,' [Mat. i. 24,] &c. , doth shew that he is ready enough to do it at any 
 time for advantage. Sprenger tells us a story of the devil's preaching 
 to a congregation in the hahit and likeness of a priest, wherein he re- 
 proved sin, and urged truth, and seemed no way culpable for false 
 doctrine ; but I suspect this for a fabidous tale. However, it is un- 
 deniable that he sometime hath appeared to men with godly exhorta- 
 tions in his mouth, of living justly, and doing no man wrong, &c.,i 
 except we resolve to discredit all history, and the narrations of persons, 
 and some such are known to some in this auditory, who solemnly 
 affirm they have met with such dealing from him. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, God hath sometime revealed himself to men in ecstasies 
 aiid trances; such as was that of Paul: Acts xxii. 17, ' I was in an 
 ecstasy or trance,' •yeveaOai, /ne ev (Karaaei. This also hath the devil 
 imitated. Mohammed made this advantage of his disease, the epi- 
 lepsy or falling-sickness, pretending that at such times he was in an 
 ecstasy, and had converse with the angel Gabriel. But what he only 
 in knavery pretended, others have really felt. The stories of Fa- 
 milists and deluded Quakers are full of such things. They frequently 
 have fallen dowii and liave lain as in a swoon, and when they have 
 awaked, told wonderful stories of wliat they have heard and seen. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Visions and dreams were usual things in the Old 
 Testament, and famous ways of divine revelation; but Satan was not 
 behind in this matter. His instruments had their visions too. In 
 Ezek. xiii. 7 we have mention of vain visions and lying divinations ; 
 and such satanical dreams are also noted. Dent. xiii. 1, ' If there arise 
 among you a dreamer of dreams.' Those days of confusion, that are 
 not yet out of memory, afforded store of these. While un.stablc, 
 giddy-headed people began to dote on novelties and questions in re- 
 ligion, they gave opportunity to Satan to beguile them ; for he taking 
 advantage of their nauseating of old truths, and their expectation of 
 sublime discoveries, which had sufficiently prepared them for any im- 
 pression, did so overwork their fancies that they easily conceited 
 themselves to have had divine revelations, and nothing was more ordi- 
 nary than to hear stories of visions and dreams. And this spread 
 further by a kind of infection, for it grew into a religious fashion ; and 
 he was not esteemed that had not something of this nature to ex- 
 perience. And though the folly and impertinences of such things 
 generallj', and sometime the apparent wickedness of them, as contra- 
 dicting truth and the divine rules of holiness, were sufficient discoveries 
 that Satan's hand was in them, yet until time, experience, and the 
 power of God had cooled the intemperate heat of tliis raving humour, 
 it continued in the good liking and admiration of the more incon- 
 siderate vulgar. And sometime those from whom more seriousness 
 and consideration might have been expected fell into a reverence for 
 these pretences in others, and helped forward tliis spiritual witchcraft 
 by their countenance and arguings, often abusing that text in Acts ii. 
 17, ' Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream 
 dreams,' by applying it to a justification of these apparently foolish 
 •■ llal. Malefic, part 2, Q. 1, cap. 9. 
 
Chap. 17.] satan's temptations. 405 
 
 And indeed the effect hath discovered they were no better, 
 for many of those things which with great confidence were avouched 
 as certain, were by time proved to be false. Many things were useless, 
 vain, ridiculous, and some were brought to lament and confess their 
 folly after they proceeded far in these ways ; and at last, when the for- 
 mer opportunities were worn out, Satan grew weary of that design as 
 being no longer proper to be insisted on. There is now a great calm, 
 so that it is but seldom that we hear of such things talked of. It 
 were needless to give particular instances, when you may at your 
 leisure fetch them from hundreds of pam^jhlets commonly known. 
 
 _ (4.) Fourthly, One of the most noted ways by which God discovered 
 his mind was that of inspiration, by which some eminent persons, 
 called therefore prophets, spake the will of God ' as they were moved 
 or acted by the Spirit of God,' [2 Peter i. 21.] The devil had also his 
 false prophets. Such are frequently taxed in the Old Testament, and 
 foretold in the New: 'False Christs, and false prophets shall arise,' 
 Mat. sxiv. 24 ; ' There were false prophets among the people, as there 
 shall be false teachers among you,' 2 Peter ii. 1. Many false teachers 
 are gone out into the world. Such a one was Montanus in Tertullian's 
 time, David George, John of Leyden, Hacket, our countryman, were 
 such, _ and a great many such there have been in all ages. It is 
 notoriously kno-s\Ti that Satan hath thus inspired poor, possessed 
 wretches, who have uttered threatenings against sin and woe to sin- 
 ners. The sayings of such possessed creatures have not long since 
 been gathered into a volume and published, as containing very per- 
 suasive arguments to repentance and amendment of life.^ Besides 
 these, our own times afford too many examples of this kind. Many 
 have_ put on the guise of the old prophets in a foolish though adventur- 
 ous imitation of their actions and prophecies. Some have in our 
 streets resembled Jonah in Nineveh, 'Yet forty days,' &c. Some 
 fancied to walk naked like Isaiah; others have come with their 
 earthen pitchers and broken them, imitating these and other tj-jies by 
 which God in his true prophets foresignitied his judgments to come ; 
 in all which actions and garbs, with much earnestness, and in an 
 affected tone, they have called out for repentance in a confident de- 
 nunciation of woes and miseries, with a bold limiting of the time of 
 forty days, that the same might carry a parallel to Jonah's prophecy, 
 and sometime giving — which is the surest way — an unlimited, uncer- 
 tain time. How the devil acts in these matters, and by what ways he 
 seduceth them to believe they are inspired of God, or have real visions 
 and revelations, it is not my business now to inquire ; only let those 
 that think such things strange, consider that the devil hath the ad- 
 vantage of deep fanciful apprehensions and a working melancholy in 
 such persons, by which he can easily work them to conceit anything, 
 and confidently believe what they have conceited. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, Sometime God notified his mind hy signs and 
 miracles. Satan hath also his ' lying signs and wonders ; ' a power 
 God hath permitted him this way, which is very great, and the de- 
 lusions wrought thereby are strong, hazarding the deception of the 
 elect. This power of doing wonders the devil usually applies to false 
 * Jeau D'Espagne, ' Popular Errors,' p. 7(5. [As before.— G.] 
 
406 A TREATISE OF [PaKT III. 
 
 doctrines, to strengthen and countenance errors. The apostle testi- 
 fies, 2 Thes. ii. 9, that Satan shall employ this power forthe ad- 
 vancement of the ' man of sm, whose coming shall be with signs and 
 lying wonders.' The beast arising out of the earth, Rev. xiii. 14, ' he 
 shall deceive by the means of those miracles which he hath power to 
 do.' And accordingly the popish legends are full of stories of miracles, 
 whereof, though most be lies, forgeries, and the false contrivements of 
 those who sought to bring the people to receive their doctrines, the 
 credit and advancement of which they sought by such ways ; some 
 notwithstanding, though not true miracles, yet were truly acted, to 
 countenance those errors which are pretended to be established by 
 them. 
 
 ((5.) Sixthly, God doth teach and lead his people hy impulses. 
 Clirist was thus ' led of the Spirit into the wilderness ;' and Paul was 
 ' bound in spirit to go to Jerusalem,' [Acts xx. 22.] It is common 
 for Satan to imitate such impulses. We have clear instances of 
 diabolical impulses to sin in Scripture. A strong impulse was on 
 Ananias, 'Satan filled his heart,' [Acts v. 3;] a strong impulse on 
 Judas, ' Satan entered into his heart,' [Luke xxii. 3 ;] and what then 
 more easy to apprehend, than that Satan can counterfeit better im- 
 pulses, and violently stir up tiie hearts of men to actions seemingly 
 good or indifi'erent ? Some hypocrites are moved strongly to pray or 
 preach,— Satan therein aiming at an increase of pride or presumption 
 in them ; — and they Imow no other, but that it is the Spirit of God. 
 God's children may have impulses from Satan, upon pretences of zeal, 
 as the disciples had, when they called for fire from heaven. In these 
 impulses Satan doth not so act the heart of man as the Spirit of God 
 doth, whose commands in this case are irresistible ; but he only works 
 by altering the disposition of our bodies in a natural way ; and then 
 having fitted us all he can for an imjiression, he endeavours to set it 
 on by strong persuasions. Some memorable instances of these im- 
 pulses might profitably illustrate this. Math. Parisieusis takes notice 
 of a boy, in anno 1213, of whom also Fuller makes mention,! who, 
 after some loss which the Christians had received in the war against 
 the Turks, went up and dowTi, singing this rhyme — 
 
 ' Jesus Lord, redeem our loss : 
 Restore to us thy holy cross.' 
 
 And by tliis means he gathered a multitude of boys together, who 
 could not by the severest menaces of their parents be hindered from 
 following him to their own ruin. Another instance of a strange im- 
 pulse we have in Josephus : ~ one Jesus, the son of Ananus, about 
 four years before the destruction of Jerusalem, at the feast of taber- 
 nacles, begins to cry out, ' Woe, woe, to the east and west, to men 
 and women,' &c., and could by no means be restrained night or day ; 
 and when his flesh was beaten ofl' his bones, he begged no pity nor 
 ease, but still continued his usual crying. 
 
 (7.) Seventhly, God doth also by his Spirit teach his people in 
 bringing things to their remembrance, John xiv. 26. Satan also in 
 imitation of this, can put into the minds of men, with great readiness 
 ' Holy War, lib. iii. cap. 24. ' Wars of the Jews, lib. vii. cap. 13. 
 
Chap. 17.] satan's temptations. 407 
 
 and dexterity, promises or sentences of Scripture, insomuch that they 
 coucUide that all such actings are from the Spirit of God, who, as 
 they conclude, set such a scrij^ture upon their heart. Thus dealt 
 Satan with Christ. He urgeth the promise upon him, wherein upon 
 the matter he doth as much, as when he secretly suggests such things 
 to the heart without an audible voice. In this way of craft Satan 
 doth very much resemble the true work of the Sj^irit ; [1.] In the 
 readiness and quickness of suggesting ; [2.] In seeming exact-suiting 
 scripture suggested, with the present occasion ; and [3.] In the 
 earnestness of his urging it upon the fancies of men. Yet when all 
 this is done, they that shall seriously consider all ends, matter and 
 circumstances, will easily observe it is but the cunning work of a 
 tempter, and not from the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Obs. 14. Observe also, That lohatever be the various luays of Satan's 
 imitation, yet the matter ivhich he luorks and practiseth upon is still 
 Scripture. To this he confines himself : — 
 
 [1.] First, Because the Scriptures are generally, among Christians, 
 received as the undoubted oracles of God, the ride of our lives and 
 duties, and the grounds of our hope. It would be a vain and bootless 
 labour to impose upon those that retain this belief, the sayings of the 
 Turkish Alcoran, the precepts of heathen philosophers, or any other 
 thing that may carry a visible estrangement from or contradiction to 
 Scriptiu-e. He could not then possibly pretend to a chvine instruc- 
 tion, nor could he so ' transform himself into an angel of light : ' but 
 by usmg this covert of divine command, promise, or discovery, he can 
 more easily beget a belief that God hath said it, and that there is 
 neither sin nor danger in the thing propounded, but duty and advan- 
 tage to be expected ; and this is the very thing that makes way for an 
 easy entertainment of such delusions. Poor creatures believe that is 
 all from God, and that they are acted by liis Spirit, and that with such 
 confidence that they contemn and descry those, as ignorant of divine 
 mysteries, and of the power of God, who are not so besotted as them- 
 selves. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, The Scriptures have a glorious irresistible majesty in 
 them, pecidiar to themselves, ivhich cannot be found in all that art or 
 eloquence can contribute to other authors. It is not play-book lan- 
 guage, nor scraps of romances that Satan can effect these cheats 
 withal ; and therefore we may observe that in the highest delusions 
 men have had pretences of Scripture ; and their strong persuasions of 
 extraordinary discoveries have stricken men into a reverence of their 
 profession, because of the Scripture words and phrases with which 
 their boldest follies are woven up. For let but men inquire into the 
 reason of the prevalency of Familism of old, upon so vast a number o» 
 people as were carried away with it, and they shall find that the great 
 artifice lay in the words they used, a language abstracted from Scrip- 
 ture, to signify such conceits as the Scripture never intended. Hence 
 were their expressions always high, soaring, and relating to a more 
 excellent and mystical interpretation of those divine writings. This 
 may be observed in David George, Hen. Nicholas, and others, who 
 usually talk of being consubstantiated with God, taken up into his 
 love, of the angelical life, and a great deal more of the same kind. 
 
4U8 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 The Kanters at first had the like language, aad the Quakers after 
 them affected such a canting expression. And we may be the more 
 certain of the truth of this observation, that such a kind of speaking, 
 which borrows its majesty from the style of the Scripture, is of moment 
 to Satan's design ; because we find the Scripture itself gives particular 
 notice of it. The ftilse teachers iu 2 Pet. ii. 18, are described, among 
 other things, by theu- ' swelling words of vanity,' which the Syriac 
 renders to be ' a proud and lofty way of speaking.' The original 
 signifies no less — vTrepojKa, — they were words swelled like bladders, 
 though being pricked, they be found to be empty sounds, and no sub- 
 stance. There are indeed swelling words of atheistical contempt of 
 those who, as the psalmist speaks, ' set their mouths against heaven,' 
 Ps. Ixxiii. 9, 11 ; but this passage of Peter, as also the like in Jude 
 16, signify big swollen words, from high pretensions and fancies 
 of knowing the mind of God more perfectly ; for they that use them 
 pretend themselves prophets of God, ver. 1, and as to their height in 
 l)rofession, are compared to clouds highly soaring ; and in 2 Cor. xi. 
 14, they are said to be ' transformed into the apostles of Christ,' and 
 to the garb of the ' ministers of righteousness.' And that which is 
 more, this particular design of Satan is noted as the rise of all ; ' No 
 marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.' 
 
 Having seen the reasons why Satnn chooseth Scripture as his tool^to 
 work by, I shall next shew to what base designs he makes it subserve. 
 
 [1.] First, He useth this artifice fo beget aiid propagate erroneous 
 doctrines. Hence no opinion is so vile, but pretends to Scripture as 
 its patron. The Arians pretend Scripture against the divinity of 
 Christ. The Socinians, Pelagians, Papists, yea, and those that pre- 
 tend to inspirations for their rule, and disclaim the binding force of 
 those antiquated declarations of the saints' conditions, as they call 
 them, yet conform all their sayings to the Scripture expression, and 
 endeavour to prove their mistakes by its authority. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, He makes ahusal Scrijiture to encourage sinful 
 actions. He can cite passages of God's patience and long-suffering, of 
 his pardoning grace and reachness to forgive, and a thousand more, 
 upon no other design than the ' turning of the grace of God into wan- 
 tonness,' [Jude 4.] When professors turn loose and negligent, when they 
 adventure too far upon sinful pleasures, they lick themselves whole by 
 an overforward grasping at such passages of Scripture, which Satan 
 will with great readiness set upon their hearts; and then they pretend 
 ix> themselves that their peace is made up with God, and that they 
 have no less than a sealed pardon in their bosoms ; which notwith- 
 standing may be known to have only Satan's hand and seal at it, by 
 their overly and formal sorrow for such miscarriages, and their readi- 
 ness to return to the same follies again. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, By this imitation of the commands and promises of 
 God, he doth strangely engage such as he can thus delude unto desperate 
 undertakings.^ The Familists of Germany were persuaded by this 
 delusion, to expose themselves unarmed to the greatest hazards, 
 
 > Funcius in his Cliionol. tells the like of one iu Crete, that calleJ himself Moses, 
 anno 434, who pcrsuadeil the Jews to follow him for the repossessing of Canaan. 
 ['Funckius.' — G.] 
 
Chap. 17.] satan's temptations. 409 
 
 upon vain pretences of promises set home upon them, as that God 
 would fight for them, that they must ' stand still and see the salvation 
 of God,' [Exod. xiv. 13.] Some of later times have paid their lives 
 for their bold misapplication of that promise, ' One shall chase a 
 thousand,' [Dent, xxxii. 30.] Judas of Galilee and Theudas were 
 prompted by Satan to gather multitudes together, though to their own 
 ruin, upon a vain persuasion that they were raised up of God, and 
 that God would be with them.i 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, He sometimes procures groundless peace and assur- 
 ance hi (he hearts of careless ones by Scripture misapplied. Many you 
 may meet with who will roundly tell you a long story how they were 
 cast down and comforted by such a scripture brought to their minds, 
 when, it may be much feared, they are but deceived, and that as yet 
 God hath not spoken peace to them. 
 
 Lastly, This way of Satan's setting home scriptures proves sadly 
 effectual to beget or heighten the imoard distresses and fears of the 
 children of God. It is a wonder to hear some dispute against them- 
 selves, so nimble they be to object a scripture against their peace, 
 above their reading or ability, that you would easily conclude there is 
 one at hand that prompts them, and suggests these things to their 
 own prejudice. And sometime a scriptm-e will be set so cross or 
 edgeway to their good and comfort, that many pleadings, much time, 
 prayers, and discourses cannot remove it. I have known some that 
 have seriously professed scriptures have been thrown into their hearts 
 like arrows, and have with such violence fixed a false apprehension 
 upon their minds, as that God had cut them off, that they were repro- 
 bate, damned, &c., that they have borne the tedious, restless affright- 
 ments of it for many days, and yet the thing itself, as well as the 
 issue of it, doth declare that this was not the fi'uit of the Spirit of 
 God, Avhich is a spirit of truth, and cannot suggest a falsehood, but 
 of Satan, who hath been a liar from the beginning. 
 
 Observe lastly, Ois. 15. Though Satan useth Scripture in these de- 
 ceitful ivorkings, yet he never doth it faithfully. 
 
 (1.) First, Because it is against his oiature, as it is noiu corrupted 
 by hisfcdl. There is no truth in him: ' When he sjieaketh a lie he 
 speaketh of his own, for he is a liar,' John viii. 44 ; not that he 
 cannot speak a truth, but that he usually is a liar, and that he never 
 speaks truth but with a purpose to deceive. ^ 
 
 (2.) Secondly, To deal faithfully in urging scriptures upon the 
 consciences of men, is also contrary to his interest. He hath a king- 
 dom which he endeavours to uphold. This kingdom, being directly 
 contrary to that of Christ's, which is a kingdom of light, is therefore 
 called a kiugdom of darkness, being maintained and propagated only 
 by lies and deceits. He cannot then be supposed to use Scripture 
 faithfully, because that is the true sceptre of Christ's kingdom, for 
 then should Satan, as Christ argues. Mat. xii. 26, ' cast out Satan, 
 and be divided against himself.' 
 
 This unfaithful dealing with Scripture is threefold. 
 
 (1.) First, The unfaithfulness of his design. Though he speaks 
 
 ' Josephus, Anti. Jud., lib. .x.\. cap. 2^ 
 
 ' Etai semcl videatur verax, millies est rneuJax, et semper fallax. 
 
410 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 what is true, yet he doth it with an evil mind, aiming at one of these 
 three things: — 
 
 [1.] First, To deceive and delude. If he apphes promises, or insists 
 upon the privileges of God's children, it is to make them proud or 
 presumptuous. If he urge threatenings, or stir up the conscience to 
 accuse for sin, it is to bring them to despair ; if he object the law, it 
 is to enrage lust ; and that ' sin by the commandment might become 
 exceeding sinful,' [Rom. vii. 13.] 
 
 [2.] Secondly, His design is sometime to bring the Sa-ipture under 
 suspicion or contempt. He puts some weak Christians upon unseason- 
 able or imprudent use of Scripture, and then tempts others to laugh 
 at them, and to despise in their hearts those ways of religion which 
 some zealots with too much weakness do manage. Men are apt 
 enough to scoff at the most serious and weighty duties of holiness, 
 even when performed in a most serious manner. If David put on 
 sackcloth, and afflict himself with fasting, it is presently turned to his 
 reproach, ' and the drunkards make a song of it,' [Ps. Ixix. 12;] but 
 nmch more advantage hath the devil to raise up scorn and loathing in 
 the minds of debauched persons, by the affected and unskilful use of 
 Scripture. Some by a narrow confinement of the words brother and 
 sister to those of their own fellowship, as if none else were to be 
 owned by them, have occasioned the scoff of holy brethren — a phrase 
 notwithstanding used with a grave seriousness by the apostle— in the 
 usual discourses of those who wait all occasions to harden themselves 
 against the power of religion. The like observations they make of 
 other ways and forms of speaking, which some have accustomed them- 
 selves unto, in a conscientious conformity to Scripture phrase : in all 
 which the devil observing the weakness and injudiciousness of some 
 on the one hand, and the scornful pride of others on the other hand, 
 is willing to provide matter for their atheistical jeers, by putting all 
 the obligations he can upon the consciences of the weak, to continue 
 in the use of these expressions. For some proof of this matter we 
 may note the secret deceit of Satan, in that liberal profession of Christ 
 to be ' the Son of God,' Mark i. 24 ; Luke iv. 34, ' I know thee who 
 thou art ; the Holy One of God.' Here was truth spoken by him, and 
 one would have thought with great ingenuity ;i but yet he cunningly 
 insinuated into the minds of the hearers a ground of suspicion that he 
 was not the Son of God ; and for that end calls him Jesus of Nazareth, 
 as if Christ had been born there. He knew well that the Jews 
 expected no Messiah from Nazareth, and therefore on set purpose 
 used he that expression, that he ^ight draw liim into contempt. And 
 accordingly we find this very mistake, that Christ was born at 
 Nazareth, became an argument against him : John vii. 41 , while some 
 were convinced, and said, ' This is the Christ,' others said, ' Shall 
 Christ come out of Galilee?' 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Another part of his design in the use of scriptures is 
 to put a varnish upon hypocrisy. He is ready to serve men by put- 
 ing Scripture expressions in their mouths, and inuring them to a con- 
 stant use of the phrases of those divine writings, that they may less 
 suspect themselves of the pride, formality, and secret wickedness of 
 ' ' Ingenuousness.' — G. 
 
Chap. 17.] satan's temptations. 411 
 
 their hearts ; and to help on their mistakes concerning their spiritual 
 condition, he can urge upon their consciences those scriptures that 
 serve to engage them in external observances of religion. It may 
 appear by the Pharisee's boast of fasting ' twice a week,' of ' paying 
 tithes,' of ' giving alms,' Luke xviii. 11, that their consciences were 
 someway concerned in these things, so that though they were left 
 without check of conscience ' to devour widows' houses,' yet were they 
 lU'ged to make ' long prayers.' Suitable to this is that which Solomon 
 speaks of the harlot, who, to colour over her wickedness, had her offer- 
 ings and vows ; and when her conscience is appeased with these per- 
 formances, she can excuse herself in her way of sinning, ' She eats 
 and wipes her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness,' Prov. 
 XXX. 20, Satan doth but hereby help to paint a sepulchi-e, or gild 
 a potsherd, and to furnish men with excuses and pretexts in their 
 way of sinning. Not unlike to this was that service which the devil 
 with great readiness performed — as I was informed from some of good 
 crecUt — to a young student who had fallen upon some books of magic 
 in a college library, into which having stolen privately one night in 
 jDursuit of that study, was almost surprised by the president, who, 
 seeing a candle there at an unseasonable time, suddenly opens the 
 door to know who was up so late, in which strait the devil — to gratify 
 his pupil with a ready excuse — snatcheth away his book, and in a 
 moment lays Montanus his Bible before him, that he might pretend 
 that for his employment. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Another point of Satan's unfaithful dealing with 
 Scripture is his false citation of it. It is nothing with him to alter, 
 change, or leave out such a part as may make against him. If he 
 urge promises upon men, in order to their security and negligence, he 
 conceals the concUtion of them, and banisheth the threatening far 
 from their minds, representing the mercy of God in a false glass, as 
 if he had promised to save and bring to heaven every nian upon the 
 common and easy terms of being called a Christian. If it be his 
 purpose to disquiet the hearts of God's children, to promote their 
 fears, or to lead them to despair, then he sets home the commands 
 and threatenings, but hides the promises that might relieve them, 
 and, which is remarkable, he hath so puzzled some by setting on their 
 hearts a piece of Scripture, that when the next words, or next verse, 
 might have eased them of their fears, and answered the sad objec- 
 tions which they raised against themselves from thence, as if their 
 eyes had been holden, or as if a mist had been cast over them, they 
 have not for a long time been able to consider the relief which they 
 might' have had. This hiding of Scripture from their eyes, setting 
 aside what God may do for the just chastisement of his children's 
 folly, is effected by the strong impression which Satan sets upon 
 their hearts, and by holding their minds down to a fixed meditation 
 of the dreadful inferences which he presents to them from thence, 
 not suffering them o divert their thoughts by his incessant clamours 
 against them. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, He unfaithfidly handleth scriptures, hy loresting the 
 true import and sense of them. We read of some, 2 Pet. iii. 16, who 
 ' wrest the Scripture.' The word in the original— crT/3e/3\ou<rt— signifies 
 
412 A TUEATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 a racking or torturing of it, as men upon a rack are stretched beyond 
 their due length, to a. dislocation of their joints, and sometimes forced 
 to speak what they never did nor intended ; so are the Scriptures 
 used. Those that do so are Satan's scholars, and taught of him, 
 though in regard of the Spu-it's true teaching, they are called u"n- 
 learned, which is sufficient to shew Satan's deceitful dealing. He 
 often lays his dead and corrupt sense — as the harlot did with her 
 dead child in the room of the living infant — in the place of the living 
 meaning of the scripture. This may be seen e^adently : — 
 
 [1.] First, In heresies or errors. These are Satan's brood, and 
 there are none so vile, that pretend to Christian religion, but they 
 claim a kincbed to Scripture, and are confident on its authority for 
 them. Now seeing truth is but one, and these errors not only con- 
 tradictory to truth, but to each other, Satan could never spin out such 
 conclusions from the divine oracles, but by wi-esting them from their 
 true intendments ; and he that would contemplate the great sublety 
 of Satan in this his art, need but consider what different strange and 
 monstrous shapes are put upon the Scripture by the several heresies 
 which march under its colours. The Quakers in their way represent 
 it like an old almanack out of date, and withal, in the use they make 
 of it, they render it as a piece of nonsensical furious raving. Tlie 
 Socinians take down the sublime mysteries of Christ's satisfaction and 
 justification by faith, with external rewards and punishments, to a 
 strain as low as the Turkish Alcoran. The papists make it like a 
 few leaves of an imperfect book, wanting beginning and end, and so 
 not fit to be set up as a suflicient rule. The Ranters make it seem 
 rather like language from hell than the commands of the pure and 
 lioly God Some will have it to countenance most ridiculous inven- 
 tions in worship ; others will have it to discharge all outward observa- 
 tions and ordinances, as chikUsh rudiments. Some raise it all to the 
 pitch of enigmatical unintelligible mysteries ; others can find no more 
 in the precepts of it than in Aristotle's ethics. Thus by distorting 
 and wresting, Satan hath learned these unskilful ones to make it serve 
 their vilest lusts and humours. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, The same art of wresting Scripture is observable in 
 his secret sMjgestimjs. If he would encourage any in sin, he can 
 wrest Scripture for that, and tell him that God is merciful, that Christ 
 died for smners, that tliere is hope of pardon, that saints have done 
 the like : things very true in themselves, but perverted by him to an- 
 other sense than ever they were intended to by God, who hath spoken 
 these things that we sin not. If he would discourage a saint, he can 
 tell him when he finds him doubting his estate, that the ' fearful and 
 unbelieving have their part in the lake which burns with fire and 
 brimstone,' Eev. xxi. 8 ; when he finds him under a Imown sin, he 
 tells that of the apostle, ' If we sin wilfully after we have receivedthe 
 knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins,' 
 [Heb. X. 26.] When he observes them discomposed and wandering 
 in duty, then he objects, ' They draw nigh me with their lips, but 
 their heart is far from me,' [Isa. xxix. 13.] If he sees them dull and 
 without consolation at the Lord's supper, then to be sure they hear of 
 him, ' He that eats and drinks unworthily, eateth and drinketh damna- 
 
Chap. 17.] satan's temptations, 413 
 
 tion to himself,' 1 Cor. xi. 29. If he find him bemoaning that he is 
 not so apprehensive of mercies or judgments as he would be, then he 
 sets home some such scripture as this, ' This people's heart is waxed 
 gross, and their ears are dull of hearing,' Mat. xiii. 15, &c. These 
 scriptures are frequently perverted by Satan from the true and proper 
 meaning of them. I have had complaints from several dejected 
 Christians of these very scriptures urged upon them to their great 
 trouble, when yet it was evident that none of these were truly applied, 
 by Satan's temptation against them. 
 
 Applic. These things give us warning not to take anything of this 
 nature upon trust. If Satan can so imitate the Spirit of God in appli- 
 cations of Scripture, and bringing it to our remembrance, we have 
 great reason to beware lest we be imposed upon by Satan's design 
 clothed in Scripture phi-ase ; not that I would have men esteem the 
 secret setting of Scripture upon their minds, to be in all cases a delu- 
 sion, and to be disregarded as such. Some indeed there are that 
 so severely remark the weaknesses of professors of religion, that they 
 raise up a scorn to that which is of most necessary and serious use. 
 Because the devil prevails with some hypocrites to gild themselves 
 with Scripture phrase, and others through imprudent inadvei-tency are, 
 unknown to themselves, beguiled by Satan, to misapplications of Scrip- 
 ture to their own estate, or to other things ;. they therefore decry all 
 the inward workings of the heart, as fancy or affected singularity; 
 these do but the devil's work. But that the Spirit of God, whom Satan 
 treacherously endeavours to imitate, doth set home Scriptm-e com- 
 mands, threatenings, and promises upon the hearts of his people, is 
 not only attested by the experience of all that are inwardly acquainted 
 with the ways of God, but is one of the great promises which Clirist 
 hath given for the comfort of his people in his absence : John xiv. 26, 
 ' But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father shall 
 send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things 
 to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.' This then 
 being granted as a firm unshaken truth, our care must be in discover- 
 ing and avoiding Satan's counterfeit using of Scripture, and in this 
 we should be more wary ; 
 
 [1.] First, Because loe are not so apt to suspect tvhat ice meet with 
 in such a ivay, tvhen it is brought to us in the language ofScriptxire. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, And those that are not exercised in the Scripture, will 
 be at a sad loss, as not knoiving hoiu to extricate themselves from such 
 difficidties as may arise to them from Satan's sophistry. 
 
 J3.] Thirdly, Wariness is also more necessaiy, because we are in- 
 clinable to believe what splits our desires, aiid conscience awakened is 
 averse to the rejecting of that tchich answers its fears. 
 
 Quest. You may say. What is there of direction for us in this case ? 
 
 Ans. The answer is ready. Two things are given us in charge. 
 (1.) That we be wisely suspicious. A facile hasty credulity is treach- 
 erous. _ Christ forbids, when he foretells the rising of false Christs, 
 Mat. xxiv. 26, the forwardness of a sudden belief, taxing thereby those 
 that are presently taken with every new appearance. It is childish 
 to be carried with every wind. We are warned also of this : 1 John 
 iv. 1, ' Believe not every spirit.' (2.) We are commanded to bring 
 
414 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 all pretences whatsoever to trial. Though immediate revelation or 
 vision be pretended, or extraordinary commission, yet must all be 
 brought to the touchstone. ' We must prove all things,' 1 Thes. v. 
 21, ' and try those that say they are apostles,' Eev. ii. 2; nay, 'the 
 spirits are to be tried whether they be of God,' 1 John iv. 1. 
 
 Qv£st. You will say, How must we try ? 
 
 Ans. I answer, God hath given a public, sufficient, and certain rule, 
 which is the Scripture, and all must he tried by that; so that if there 
 be impulses or discoveries or remembrances of Scripture upon any, it 
 must not be taken for granted that they are of God, because they pre- 
 tend so high, for so we shall make Satan judge in his owncaiise ; but 
 lay all to the line and plummet of the written word, and if it answer 
 not that, call it confidently a delusion, and reject it as accursed, though 
 it might seem in other regards to have been suggested by an angel 
 from heaven. 
 
 Ohj. But it will be said, Satan pretends to this rule, and it is Scrip- 
 ture that is urged by liim. 
 
 Alls. I answer. Though it be so, yet he useth not Scripture in its own 
 intendment and sense. For the discovery of his unfaithful dealing ;— 
 
 [1.] First, Compare the {n/crence of the suggestion with other scrip- 
 tures. If it be from a dark scripture, compare it with those that are 
 more plain, and in every case see whether the general current of the 
 Scriptures speak the same thing ; for if it be from Satan, he either plays 
 witli the words and phrases, from doubtful and equivalent terms 
 making his conclusion, or liis citation will be found impertinent, or, 
 which is most usual, contrary to truth or holiness. If any of_ these 
 appear by a true examination of the import of the scripture wliich he 
 seeks to abuse, or by comparing it with the scope and genius of other 
 scriptures, you may certainly pronounce that it is not of God, but 
 Satan's deceit.^ 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Consider the taidcncy of such suggestions. Let no 
 man say that this will come too late, or that it is an after-game. I 
 do not mean that we should stay so long as to see the effects, though 
 this is also a certain discovery of Satan's knavery in his highest pre- 
 tences. The fanatic furies of the German enthusiasts do now appear 
 plain to all the world to have been delusions, by their end, fruits, and 
 issue. But that wliile these conclusions are obtruded upon us, we 
 should observe to what they tend, which we shall the better know if 
 all circumstances round about be considered. Sometimes^ Satan doth 
 covertly liint his mind, and send it along with the suggestions ; some- 
 times om- condition will enough declare it, and there is no case but it 
 will afford something of discovery if seriously pondered. If he either 
 prompt us to pride, vainglory, or presumption, or that our condition 
 sway us that way, it will be sufficient ground of suspicion that it is 
 Satan that then urgeth promises or pri\ileges upon us. If we are of 
 a wounded spirit, inclined to distrust, or if we be put on to despair, it 
 is past denial that it is Satan that urgeth the threatenings, and presseth 
 the accusations of the law against us. He that gathers stones, tunber, 
 lime, and such materials together, as are usually employed in building, 
 
 » Though it was Scripture that Satan urged to Christ, yet he rejects his inference as 
 false, because contrary to other plain scriptures prohibiting not to tempt the Lord. 
 
Chap. 18.] sa tan's temptations. 415 
 
 doth discover his iatention before he actually build his house, and thus 
 may Satan's end be known by his preparations, compared with the 
 sway and inclination of our present temper. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, It must be remembered that with these endeavours, we 
 often seek the face of the Lord for help and cowisel ; and that we apply 
 ourselves to such of the servants of God, as being more knowing than 
 ourselves, and less prepossessed in their judgments, because not con- 
 cerned, are better able to see into the nature of our straits, and to help 
 us by their advices. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Again the devil taJceth him up into an exceeding high mountain,' and 
 sheiveth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glwy of them. — 
 Mat. iv. 8. 
 
 The manner of Satan's shelving the kingdoms of the world. — Of Satan's 
 preparations before the motion of sin. — Of his confronting the 
 Almighty by j^resumptuous imitation, and in what cases he doth so. 
 — Of his beautifying the object of a temptation, and hoiv he doth it. 
 — His way ofeiujaging the affections by the senses. — Of his seeming 
 shyness. 
 
 This is the preparation to the third temptation ; in which we have, 
 (1.) The place where it was acted; (2.) The object set before him 
 there. 
 
 1. First, The place was an ' exceeding high mountain.' What 
 mountain it was, Nebo, Pisgah, or any other, it is needless to inquire. 
 It is of more use to ask after the reasons of Satan's choice of such a 
 place. The text doth clearly imply one ; that was the commodiousness 
 of prospect. Satan intending to give him a view of the kingdoms of 
 the world, chooseth a mountain as fittest for that end. But that this 
 was not all the reason, is not only intimated by some,i but positively 
 affirmed by others,^ who think that Satan in this imitated the like m 
 God to Moses, who was called up to Mount Nebo to view the land 
 which God promised to Israel. Whether these circumstances of the 
 mountain, and the view of the kingdoms of the world, were of purpose 
 contrived to affront God by such an imitation, I will not be positive 
 in it ; but we may with greater evidence affirm that in offering the 
 kingdoms of the world as things altogether in his disposal, he doth 
 directly outbrave God by an insolent comparison of his power with 
 that of the Almighty's, whose is ' the earth and the fulness of it,' [Ps. 
 xxiv. 1,] and to whom the sovereignty of the disposal of it' doth 
 belong. 
 
 2. Secondly, That which Satan sheweth Christ from the moimtain 
 is .said to be ' the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.' 
 Here some busy themselves to conjecture what kingdoms were thus 
 pointed at. Some keep so strictly to the word ' all,' that they are 
 forced to take up with that opinion, that all these temptations were 
 
 ' I^ightfoot, Harm, in loc. ^ Perkins, Com. in loc. Deut. xxxii. 49, and xxxiv. 1. 
 
416 A TREATISE OF [PaUT III. 
 
 only in vision/ for they consider that no one mountain in the world 
 can give a prospect over one whole hemisphere, or if it could, yet no 
 eye would be able to discern at so great a distance. But the incon- 
 veniences of this surmise have been pointed at before, and it is enough 
 to shew that the text may admit of an interpretation which shall not 
 be encmubered with this supposed impossibility. 
 
 Others restrain this to the land of Canaan, as if Satan only shewed 
 this as a famous instance of the glory of all kingdoms. Some think 
 the Koman empire, which was then most flourishing, and lifted up its 
 head above other kingdoms, was the great bait laid before Christ, as 
 if he had a design to divert Chi'ist from the business of his office, by 
 offering him the seat and power of Antichrist." But the text runs 
 not so favourably for any of these opinions as to constrain us to stay 
 upon them. ' Kingdoms of the world ' seem to intend more than 
 Canaan or the Koman empire ; the word koctho^ used here, and 
 oLKovfiivi] in Luke, which we translate ' the world,' do so apply to one 
 another in a mutual accommodation, that we cannot stretch the 'world' 
 to the largest scn.se of the whole globe of the earth, because it is ex- 
 pressed in Luke by otKovfievrj, which signifies such a part of the world 
 which is more cultivated and honoured by inhabitants ; nor canwe so 
 restrain it to the Roman empire— though when they spake their ap- 
 prehensions of their own empire, they seem to engross all, Luke ii. 1 — 
 because Matthew useth the word Koafio^;, a word of greater freedom. 
 It seems then that many kingdoms, or the most considerable kingdoms 
 of the then known world, were here exposed to hia sight. But then 
 the difficulty still remains, how the devil could shew them to his eye. 
 That it was not a visionary discovery to liis mind, hath been said. 
 Some think he shewed these partly by ocular prospect of those cities, 
 castles, towns, vineyards, and fields that were near, as a compend of 
 the whole, and partly by a discourse of the glory, power, and extent 
 of other kingdoms that were out of the reach of the eye ; but because 
 the expression which Luke adds, ' in a moment of time '—iv crri'y fj.fi 
 ;;^wov— intimates that the way which Satan took was different from 
 common prospecting or beholding, others are not satisfied with that 
 solution of the difficulty, but fly to this supposition, that Satan used 
 only juggling and delusion, by framing an airy horizon before the eyes 
 of Christ, shewing not the kingdoms themselves, but a phantasm of 
 his own making. But seeing this might have been done in any place, 
 and that a high mountain was chosen for fm'thering the pro.spect, I 
 think it is safest to conclude that the prospect was ocular, and not 
 fantastical but real, only helped and assisted by Satan's skill and art, 
 as a great naturalist and as a prince of the power of the air, by which 
 means, in reflections or extraordinary prospectives, he might discover 
 things at vast distances ; which we may the rather fix upon, because 
 we know what helps for prospect art hath discovered by glasses and 
 s, by which the bodies of the sun, moon, and planets, at such 
 
 unspeakable' distance from us, have in this latter age been discovered 
 to us beyond ordinary belief.^ And we have reason to think that 
 Satan's skill this way far exceeds anything that we have come to the 
 
 1 Hobbes's Leviath., cap. 4.'!, p. 354. " Lightfoot, Harm, in he. 
 
 5 So also Lucas Brugeiiais thinks in loc. 
 
Chap. 18.] satax's temptatioxs. 417 
 
 knowledge of, and so might make real discoveries of countries far re- 
 mote, more than we can well imagine. 
 
 These things thus explained, I shall note several observations. 
 Obs. 1. First, If we consider this great preparation that Satan makes 
 as introductory to the temptation to follow, we may observe, that ivhere 
 Satan hath a special design, he jwojects and makes ready all things 
 relating to the tem^^tation be/ore he plainly utter his mind. He pro- 
 vides his materials before he builds, and lays his train before he gives 
 fire. What is his method we may learn from the practice of those 
 that are trained up in his service. They, in Eom. xiii. 14, are said 
 to ' make provision for the flesh ' — irpovoia — to fore-contrive their sins, 
 and to project all circumstances of time, place, occasion, and advan- 
 tage for their accomplishment. This is not to be imderstood of all 
 sins, for in some that are inward in the mind, as vain thoughts, pride 
 of heart, <fec., there needs not such provisions. We may say of them 
 their times are always, and in many cases ' the house is swept and 
 garnished ' [Mat. xii. 44] to his hand ; he finds all things ready by 
 the forwardness of those who are free in his service, and the sudden 
 accidental concurrence of things. But where the temptation is solemn, 
 and where the thing designed, in the perfecting of it, relates to exterior 
 acts, there he useth this policy, to have all in readiness, though it cost 
 him the labour of ' compassing sea and land' for it, before he expressly 
 speak his purposes. His reasons are these : — 
 
 (1.) First, If things necessary for the encouragement and accom- 
 plishment of a temptation lay out of the ivay, and were not at hand, 
 his suggestions ivould perish as soon as they ivere born, and tcoidd be 
 rejected as impossible or inconvenient. To tempt a man to steal when 
 he knows not where nor how, or to revenge when he hath no enemy 
 nor provocation, seem to be no other than if they should be commanded 
 to remove a mountain or to fly in the an-, which would quickly be de- 
 clined as motions afiording no ground of entertainment. And there- 
 fore that his temptations may not bring a reason of refusal with them 
 as being unseasonable, he takes care to fit his servants with all things 
 requisite for the work he puts them upon. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, As temptations of this kind would be no temptations, 
 because not feasible, without their pi-eparations, so must tve not think 
 that it is the bare suggestion of Satan that makes a temptation to pierce. 
 The reason of its prevalency is not barely because Satan breaks such a 
 motion to us, but because such a motion comes accomplished with all 
 suitable preparations. When it prevails, it is the sinful motion that 
 wounds ; but preparations are as the feathers that wing his arrows, 
 without which they would neither fly nor pierce. 
 
 Applic. Let this, (1.) First, Eenew our caution and suspicion in 
 everything and every place that Satan is at tvork agaiiistus, though 
 we see no visible snare. 
 
 Let it put us upon such a watchful carefulness in every of our ways, 
 that we may resolve to undertake nothing for which we have not a 
 good and warrantable reason at hand, that if our conscience say to us. 
 What dost thou here ? we may be able to give a good account. 
 
 (2.) Secondly. If we mind the behaviour of Satan in these prepara- 
 tions and offers, loe see him act after the pattern of highest sovereignty, 
 
 2d 
 
418 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 disposijig of earthly kmgdoim at such a rate as if all power were in 
 his hand. Hence we may observe, 
 
 Ohs. 2. That lohen Satan tempts to sin of highest contempt and 
 insolency against God, he then thinks it concerns him to hear him- 
 self out by confronting the Almighty in imitating his authority and 
 power. 
 
 This carriage of Satan is not to be found in all his temptations. 
 For in most cases he acts with greatest secrecy ; and as a thief that is 
 afraid of discovery, he useth all ways possible for concealment ; but 
 when he sets up himself as ' the god of the world,' and stands in com- 
 petition with the Lord, claiming an interest in the fear and devotion 
 of men, then he boldly avoucheth liimself, and labours to outvie God 
 in i)oint of greatness, that he might possess them with a belief that he 
 only ought to be feared. This arrogancy of Satan against God may 
 be seen in three things : — 
 
 [1.] First, In imitating divine ordinaivces and institutions. There 
 is not any part of divine worship, the observation whereof God hath 
 enjoined to men, but Satan hath set up something like it for himself. 
 As God appointed his temple, priests, altars, sacrifices, offerings, tithes, 
 sanctuaries, sacraments, &c., so hath Satan had his temples, priests, 
 altars, sacrifices, offerings, sanctuaries, sacraments, &c. This is suffi- 
 ciently known to any that read his histories ; and 1 could give a full 
 account of it from heathen authors, but that 1 have done already when 
 I spoke of Satan's subtlety in promoting idolatry in the world. I shall 
 only add here that which Varro relates i of the books of Numa Pom- 
 piUus, which were casually cast up by the plough of one Terentius 
 coming too near the sepulclire of Numa, where these books had been 
 buried. This Nmna was the second king of the Romans, who insti- 
 tuted the rites and ceremonies of pagan worship for his subjects, 
 and in these hooks, which he thought fit to conceal by burjang them 
 with him, he had laid open the bottom of these devilish mysteries, so 
 that when they were brought to the senate, they, judging them unfit 
 to be known, adjudged them to the fire ; which is a clear ground of 
 suspicion that he had there discovered so much of the causes of these 
 rites, or of the way whereby he came to be instructed in them, that 
 the public knowledge thereof consisted not witli the interest of their 
 heathenish religion. This conjecture Austin hath of the matter,^ who 
 also notes that Numa pretended familiar converse with the nymph 
 iEgeria as a plausible cover to that devilish art of Hydromaiitia, by 
 which he was instructed in ordering the ceremonies of idolatry which 
 he established. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Satan, with no less arrogancy, takes upon hun to 
 imitate God in his acts of power for the countenancing of his icorship 
 in the ivorld. He had his miracles frequently, of which I have spoken 
 elsewhere ; so had he his oracles, as at Delphos and other places. 
 Here it shall suffice to note that, as the sending the Lord Jesus into 
 the world, furnished with such power of doing miracles for the con- 
 firmation of that office and authority which he had received from 
 God for the redemption of man, was the highest instance that can be 
 given of the mighty power, wisdom, and goodness of God ; so Satan 
 1 Varro, De Cultu Deonim. - De Civit. Dei, lib. vii. cap. 34, 35. 
 
Chap. 18.] satan's temptatioxs. 419 
 
 set liimself with gi-eatest industry to imitate that. Christ was ahnost 
 no sooner ascended to the Father, but we hear of Simon Magus, Acts 
 viii. 9, who was cried up as an instance of ' the great power of God ; ' 
 and after that at Rome he gave out that he was God, confirming the 
 people in such a belief, by the strange things which he there did 
 among them, that a statue was erected for his honour, with this 
 inscription, ' To Simon, a great god.' i Long after this the devil 
 raised up Apollonius Tyanaaus, a man of an abstemious and commend- 
 able life. Him the devil did design to match Christ in his miracles, 
 which were so many and so strange, that Philosti'atus doth not only 
 compare him to Clirist, but prefer him as the more honourable person. 
 Christ himself foretold this stratagem of Satan, that he should raise 
 up 'false Christs' with 'lying signs and wonders.' And to omit 
 instances of former days, it is not beyond the memory of most of you, 
 that the de\dl renewed this policy in James Nayler, who, in a blas- 
 phemous imitation of Christ's riding to Jerusalem, rode to Bristol with 
 a great company before him, crying, ' Holy, holy,' and ' Hosanna 
 to the son of David,' and strewing the way with branches of trees. The 
 authority that was then, taking notice of this and other blasphemous 
 outrages, sentenced him to exemplary punishment ; but here also the 
 devil renewed his mockery, for a certain citizen of London of good 
 note, being overcome with delusion, printed a book of Nayler's suffer- 
 ings, wherein the devil had opportunity to vent his malice more fully, 
 for he compared all the parts of his punishment to the sufferings of 
 Clmst ; his whipping, he said, was that it might be fulfilled which was 
 spoken by Matthew, ' And Pilate delivered him to be scourged ;' hia 
 stigmatizing, he said, was that it might be fulfilled which was spoken 
 by the prophet, ' His visage was marred more than any man's ;' the 
 boring of his tongue with a hot iron, he said, was the fulfilling of that, 
 and they ' crucified him ;' and after other particulars of comparison, 
 in all wliich he equalled him to Christ, he at last takes notice that the 
 multitude of spectators held ofi' their hats while his tongue was 
 bored through, a thing common in a crowd to give opportunity of 
 sight to those that are behind, and to this act he applies that of the 
 evangelists, ' The vail of the temple was rent from the top to the 
 bottom.' 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, In acts of empire and sovereignty he imitates God, 
 that is, as God propounds himself as the only Lord God, and enjoins 
 himself to be worshipped accordingly by promises of advantage in 
 case of obedience, and threatenings of miseries and j^lagues in case 
 of disobedience ; so doth Satan set up himself in the world as god to 
 be adored and worshijjped, and him do all idolaters worship, as God 
 testifies: Dent, xxxii. 17, ' They sacrificed unto devils, not to God :' 
 Ps. cvi. 37, ' They sacrificed their sons and daughters unto devils : ' 1 
 Cor. X. 20, ' The tilings which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice 
 to devils, and not to God.' And though it be true that many of these 
 blind worshippers did not formally worship the devil, but thought 
 they had worshipped God, yet by such cunning did he engage them 
 to take up with ways of worship of his prescribing, that it was in reality 
 a service done to him. But, besides this, in those places of the world 
 ' A long-exposed mistake, from a misreading of an inscription.— G. 
 
420 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 where he hath greater power, he formally propounds liimself to be 
 worshipped, and doth accordingly often appear to them in a visible 
 shape ; so that many of these blind heathens acknowledge two gods, 
 one good and another cruel and hurtful, which latter they say they 
 must worship, lest he destroy or harm them. By this Satan contests 
 with God for an empire in the world ; and to promote it the more 
 he sometimes deals by fair promises of riches, advancement, pleasure, 
 and such other baits, to allure men to his professed service. Thus 
 are witches drawn to a compact with Mm. Thus Sylvester the Second 
 gave up himself to the devil for -the popedom, and so did several 
 others. When this is not enough to prevail, he adds menacings, and 
 breathes forth cruel threatenings, by which means many heathens are 
 kept in awe by him and worship him, ne noceat, for no other reason 
 but to preserve themselves from hurt by him. In this temptation he 
 propounds himself to Christ as the object of divine worship, and boasts 
 of the kingdoms of the world as things of his disposal ; by which he 
 seeks to draw him to fall down before him. 
 This course Satan takes for these reasons : — 
 
 First, As this }n-oud and malicmis ostentation of his poiver is some 
 kind of sat is/act ion to h is revengeful humour against God; so, Secondly, 
 He doth hereby raise vp himself and his ivicked institutions of idolatry 
 into credit and esteem icith men. Thirdly, As this is a mockery to true 
 religion, and a scorn cast tqwn the tvays of Gods service, to bring it 
 into disgrace and discredit; so, Fourtlily, By this means he hardens 
 the hearts of men against God. This was the consideration by which 
 Pharaoh hardened his lieart. When Moses turned bis rod into a 
 serpent, changed waters to blood, and did so many signs before him, 
 his magicians did the like ; upon which the king miglit thus reason 
 witli himself, that Moses had no other power but what his magicians 
 had, though he might think him a more skilful magician ; and there- 
 fore there was no reason to believe his message as being from God, 
 seeing his Piracies might be no other than the effect of his art to 
 countenance a pretended command from heaven. 
 
 Applic. This insolency of Satan may inform us. First, Of the great 
 patience of God, that sees these outrageous mockings, and yet doth not 
 by a strong hand put a stop to them. Secondly, Of the great poiver 
 and pride of Satan, that he both can— though not without permission 
 from God— and dare attempt things of this nature. Tliirdly, The 
 great power of delusion, that can so blind men, that they not only are 
 drawn to act a part in such designs, but believe confidently a divine 
 impulse and heavenly warrant for their so doing. Fourthly, The 
 miserable slavery of such vassals of Satan that are thus led by him, 
 who are therefore sadly to be pitied and lamented, as being under 
 such strong chains of captivity. 
 
 Obs. 3. Thirdly, We cannot pass by the art which the devil here 
 useth to set off 'the temptation, and to make it plausible. He sets 
 before him the world in aU its glory. Here observe, That Satan, in 
 his temptations to worldly pleasures, doth usually paint the object with 
 all its utmost beauty. 
 
 When I have sometime observed a mountebank upon a stage, giv- 
 ing excessive commendations of a trivial medicine, asserting it good 
 
Chap. 18.] satan's temptations. 421 
 
 almost for every disease, and with a great many lies and boastings 
 enforcing it upon the credulous multitude, it hath put me in mind of 
 this spiritual mountehankery of the devil. How doth he gull and 
 delude the foolish by laying out the pleasures of sin ! and no other- 
 wise doth he keep them at a gazing admiration of worldly pomp, 
 delights, and satisfaction, which he promiseth them from iniquity, 
 than the serpent Scytale doth with passengers, whom she stays, by 
 amazing them with her beautiful colours, till she have stung them.i 
 The art of Satan in this matter Hes in four things : — 
 
 [1.] First, If there he anything that can be called a delight, or may 
 any way conduce to a satisfaction in any sin, he zvill be sure to speak 
 of it in its highest praises. He not only stretcheth his rhetoric to the 
 height in giving commendations to the most noted pleasures that 
 inen propound to themselves, but he seeks out the hidden things of 
 delight, and raiseth in men an itch of desire after the improvement of 
 delight, by the contrivances of wit or art. Thus he tells them of 
 jollity, ravishing mirth, high satisfaction, and, if they will believe him, 
 of unspeakable delight to be had by giving themselves up to the 
 world and the course of it. Nay, he hides nothing that will bear any 
 praise ; the least advantage, the smallest gratification that any sin can 
 afford to human desire, he will be sure to speak of it. 
 
 [2.] Secondlj^, He carries on this design by lying. He promiseth 
 more than ever sin can give, and he sends his proselytes out after sin 
 under the highest expectations, and when they come to enjoy it, they 
 often find the pleasure falls shcu't of his boast. He whispers honours, 
 preferments, and riches, in the ear of their hearts, and often pays 
 them ^vith poverty and disgraces, and gives them pro thesauro carbones, 
 stones for bread, a serpent loi' a fish. Witches give frequent accounts 
 of Satan's lying promises ; he tells them of feasts, of gold, of riches, 
 but they find themselvt s leluded ; he sends them oft hungry away 
 from those banquets, so that they have no more than when a man 
 dreams he eats. He n-ives that which seems gold in apjiearance, but 
 at last they find it tci be slates or shells. We find in this temptation 
 he is liberal and large in his offers to Christ, and what he requires he 
 will have in present payment, but the reward for the ser^ace is future. 
 It is his business to engage men in sin by his promise of advantage, 
 but being once engaged, he takes not himself concerned in honour or 
 ingenuity for performance. Hence doth the Scripture fitly call the 
 pleasures of sin 'lying vanities,' a 'vain show,' a 'dream;' thereby 
 warning men fi'om a forward belief of Satan's promises, in that 
 they find by esperience they shall be at last but lies and disappoint- 
 ments. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, To make his bait more taking, he conceals all the in- 
 conveniences that may attend these ivorldly delights. He offers here 
 the kingdoms of the world to Christ, as if all were made up of plea- 
 sure. Those cares, troubles, and vexations that attend greatness 
 and rule, he mentions not ; their bm-den, hazard, and disquiet, he 
 passeth over. Thus in common temptations he is careful to hide from 
 men the miseries that follow these empty pleasures. So that often 
 men d ) not consider the mischief, till ' a dart strike through their 
 ' Solinus, cap. .xxvii. and xl. — G. 
 
422 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 liver,' Prov. vii. 23, and till a dear-bought experience doth inform 
 them of their mistakes. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Hispoioei- and tvork upon the fancies of men, is none 
 of the least of his ways whereby he advanceth the pleasures of sin. 
 That he hath such a power, hath been discoursed before, and that a 
 fancy raised to a great expectation makes things appear otherwise 
 than what they are, is evident from common experience. The value 
 of most things depends rather upon fancy than the internal worth of 
 them, and men are more engaged to a pursuit of things by the estima- 
 tion which fancy hath begat in their minds, than by certain principles 
 of knowledge. Children by fancy have a value of their toys, and are 
 so powerfully swayed by it, that things of far greater price cannot stay 
 their designs, nor divert their course. Satan knows that the best_ of 
 men are sometimes childish, apt to be led about by their conceits, 
 and apt in their conceits to apprehend things far otherwise than what 
 they are in truth. Hence is it, as one observes,! that of thousands of 
 men that return from Jerusalem, or from Mount Sion, or from the 
 river Jordan, scarce can we find one which brings back the admira- 
 tion which he had conceived before he had seen them. Fancy doth 
 pre-occupate the mind with a liigh opinion of things; and these 
 exorbitant imaginations pass to sucli an excess, that men think to 
 find a satisfaction beyond the nature of these pleasures they aim at, 
 which hath these two inconveniences : the one, that this affects and 
 draws as powerfully as if they were all as real and high as they are 
 conceited to be ; the otlicr, that sight and fruition takes away the esti- 
 mation, and by a disappointment doth deaden and dull the affections 
 to what may be really found there. Thus Satan by one deceit makes 
 men believe that sin hath pleasure, which indeed it hath not, and by 
 that belief leads them on powerfully to endeavour an embracement of 
 them, and at last urgeth them with a delusion. 
 
 Applic. In opposition to this deceit of the devil, we must learn to 
 esteem worldly delights as low as he would value them high. And 
 to this purpose the Scriptm-e speaks of them in undervaluing lan- 
 guage, calling worldly pomp an opinion, a fantasy, a fashion or 
 figure, an imagination rather than a reality ; and further enjoins us 
 not to admire these things in others, not to envy them that enjoyment 
 of them, nor to fret at our want of them, much less to be transported 
 with any angry passion about them, nor to concern ourselves in any 
 earnest pursuit of them. 2 
 
 Ohs. 4. Fourthly, Satan in this temptation did not bravely qxak 
 of these things, nor only make an offer in discourse,^ but he thought it 
 most condiKible to his design to jireseni them to his sight. He knew 
 full well that the heart is more affected by sensible discoveries than 
 by rational discourses. 
 
 Note here, That Satan in temptations of worldly 2yleasicre, endea- 
 vours to engage the affections by the senses. 
 
 That it is Satan's great business to work upon the affections, I have 
 shewed at large. Here he endeavoured to prepare the affections of 
 Christ, that so the motion, when it came, might not die, as a spark 
 
 1 D'Espagne's Popular Errors, sec. 1, cap. 4. [As before. — G.] 
 ' AAJa, (pavTOLcia, axniM, Vs. xxxvii. 1, and xlix. 16 ; Jer. xlv. 5. 
 
Chap. IS.] satan's temptations. 423 
 
 falling upon wet tinder, but that the affections being stirred up might 
 cherish the offer, and that the offer by a mutual warmth might more 
 inflame the affections that were heated before. 
 
 To this end he works by the senses, and would have Christ's eye to 
 raise his affections of love, desire, hope, and whatever else might wing 
 his soul to activity. There is a great connexion betwixt the senses 
 and the affections. The senses bring intelligence unavoidably, and 
 are apt to stir up our powers to action. As the jackal is said to hunt 
 the prey for the lion, so do the senses for the affections, and both for 
 Satan. 
 
 It is also remarkable that Satan, endeavouring to make the eyes of 
 Christ traitors to his affections, and that he thinking it necessary to 
 give him a view of what he proffered him, should not give him time 
 to take a fuU survey of these kingdoms, but should huddle it up in 
 such a haste, that all, as Luke tells us, was done in ' a moment of 
 time.' Was Satan in haste ? or was he unwilling to part with what 
 he so liberally proffered ? Surely no, but this transient view was his 
 subtlety, to entice him the more, and to inflame his heart with greater 
 
 Obs. 5. Observe then, TJial tvJiere Satan is most liberal in his 
 proffers, he there managethhis overtures of advantage luith a seeming 
 shyness. And this he doth. First, To heighten the worth of them in 
 our estimation, as if they were jewels not to be gazed at, or curious 
 pieces not fit to be exposed to common view. Secondly, By this art 
 he makes men more eager in the pursuit. Our natural curiosity 
 presseth us with great earnestness after things of difficult access, and 
 we have also strange desires kindled in us from a prohibition, so that 
 what we list not to choose if we have a liberty of enjoyment, when we 
 are forbidden, we are troubled with impatient longings for it, and 
 cannot be at quiet till we do enjoy it : nitimur in vetitum. 
 
 When Satan makes nice with men, offering the pleasures of the 
 world, and yet hedging up the way with difficulties, they should 
 make no other construction of it, but that Satan doth, so far as he is 
 concerned, more strongly entice them. He plays at peep with them, 
 that he may make them more earnest to follow him, and to bid high 
 for the possession of these delights. 
 
 Malo me Galatea petit, .... 
 
 Et fugit ad Bailees, et se cupit ante viJeri. 
 
424 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Satan's ends in tempting Christ to fall down and worship Mm. — Of 
 blasphemous injections. — What blasphemy is. — The ways of Satan 
 in that temptation, ivith the advantages he takes therein, and the 
 reason of urging blasphemies upon men. — Consolations to such as 
 are concerned in such temptations. — Advice to such as are so 
 
 These observations, which the preparation to the temptation hath 
 afforded us, being despatched, the temptation itself follows, which is 
 this, ' fall down and worship me.' 
 
 This motion, from such a one as Satan, to such a one as Christ, 
 who was holy and undefiled, God and man, seems to be an incredible 
 piece of arrogancy, pride, and malice ; for to projiound himself as the 
 object of divine worsliip, was certainly a desperate assault. It includes, 
 (1.) the highest blasj)hcmy ; [2.] the grossest idolatry imaginable. 
 Both these are frequently noted as the design of this temptation.i 
 But [3.] the comprehension of this motion takes in the whole with- 
 drawing of the mind from God and religion, or the care of the soul 
 and eternal life ; in which sense Satan doth frequently practise this 
 temptation uiion men by the motive of worldly pleasures. I shall 
 consider the temptation first, as blasphemous, and so it will give us 
 this observation: — 
 
 Obs. 6. Tliat the best of God's children may be troubled toith most 
 vile and hideous blasphemous injections. 
 
 Blasphemy, in the largest sense, is anything spoken or done, by 
 •which the honour and fame of God may be wounded or prejudiced ; 
 but the formality of blasphemy lies in the purpose or intendment of 
 reproaching God. Such was the blasphemy of the Israelitish woman's 
 son, recorded in Lev. xxiv. 11, where blaspheming- is explained by the 
 addition of the word cursing, which in the original — '^'^p— comes from 
 a word that signifies to ' set light by one.' 2 So that hence, and from 
 the circumstances of the story, we may safely conjecture that this man 
 having an Egyptian to his father, which probably might in scorn be 
 objected to him by his contending adversary, he more readily might 
 be drawn out to vilify the true God ; but, be it what it will, it was cer- 
 tainly more than that blasphemy which tlie Rabbins fancy to be in the 
 repetition of naming the word Jehovah, which in reverence they either 
 leave out, as when they say, ' the arm of the Almighty,' or change it 
 into some other, as Adonai, or the like; and accordingly we may 
 observe, that reproaching God and blaspheming God are joined to- 
 gether, as Ps. xliv. 16 ; Isa. xsxvii. 23. 
 
 In blasphemy, as the matter, there must be thoughts, words, or 
 actions that may aptly express a contempt or reproach of God ; so also, 
 as to the form of it, there must be an intendment of reproaching. 
 Now though this be a sin which the heart of a servant of God would 
 
 ' Perkins s ' Combate,' in he. Musculus, in loc. 
 
 • Levis, nullius pondei-is; levitcr de aliquo sentire. — Jackson, in loc. Pool, Synopsis, 
 Crit. in loc. 
 
Chap. 19.] satan's temptations. 425 
 
 most abhor, yet Satan doth sometimes trouble the best with it. We 
 have an instance in Job. His design was to bring him to curse God, 
 for so he professeth in express terms; chap. i. 11, ii. 5, 'Lay thine 
 hand upon him, and he will curse thee to thy face.' And in pro- 
 secution of this his boast, he breaks the matter plainly to him by his 
 wife, chap. ii. 9, ' Cm'se God and die.' Whatever may be spoken of 
 the word as signifying blessing, though some affirm the word "I"I3, 
 in the proper idiom of that language, and not by an antiphrasis or 
 euphemismus,as some think,^ signifies as properly to 'curse' as to 'bless,' 
 and is determinable to its signification either way by the circumstances 
 of the place, or whatever men endeavour to excuse his wife, it is plain, 
 not only by Job's answer, that it was evil counsel, but also by Satan's 
 avowed design, that it was directly for cursing God. Besides this 
 instance, if we consider the expression of 'fiery darts,' Eph. vi. 16, we 
 shall find that this temptation is more common to all sorts of Chris- 
 tians than we would imagine. It is plain that these words allude to 
 the poisoned arrows which Scythians and others used. These not 
 only wounded but poisoned, and the venom inflamed with a fiery heat 
 the part or member pierced. By this similitude, it must be granted 
 that not common temptations are hereby understood, but such as were 
 more than ordinarily hurtful, vexing, and dangerous. It may be 
 persecutions are one of these darts, but all reckon temptations of 
 spiritual terrors, and blasphemy, to be undoubtedly pointed at.2 
 The ways of Satan in this temptation are three : — 
 (1.) First, He endeavours to bring men to blaspheme, hy secret and 
 subtle ivai/s of ensnaring them; and this is most- what practised in 
 consequential and covert blasphemies, when, though men do not 
 directly intend an open outrage against God, yet Satan brings them 
 to that which might be so interpreted. This seems to have been the 
 case of Job's sons, according to his jealousy of them ; ' It may be my 
 sons have sinned, and cursed God in their heart,' Job i. 5 ; not that 
 they were open blasphemers, for they were surely better educated, 
 neither doth Job express such a fear of them ; but that in their mirth 
 their hearts might have been so loosened from the fear of God, that 
 they might be tempted to undue thoughts of God, slighting his 
 threatenings or goodness. To this purpose Broughton translates, 
 ' They have little blessed God in their hearts.' ^ The same thing we 
 may observe in Job himself. When the de^^l could not prevail with 
 him to ' charge God foolishly,' chap. i. 22, yet he pressed him so hard 
 by his miseries, that he hoped at last to bring him to utter the anguish 
 of his mind in impatient and reflecting expressions, and so far pre- 
 vailed, that he bitterly ' Curseth the day wherein he was born,' chap, 
 ii. 3, and wisheth that he had ' given up the ghost when he came out 
 of the belly;' wliich though it came far short of what Satan had boasted 
 of in his achievement against him, yet it had such an unwarrantable 
 tendency that way, that when his friend Eliphaz took notice of his 
 expressions, as savouring of too much distrust, he is forced to make 
 apology for himself, and to excuse it by the desperateness of his con- 
 
 ' Selden and Leigh, ' Critica Sacra.' [As before.— G.] 
 - Bayne, in loc. Arrowsmith, Tactica Sacra, lib. ii. cap 8. 
 3 Caryl, in loc. 
 
426 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 dition; chap. vi. 26, 'Do you imagine to reprove words and the speeches 
 of one that is desperate?' In such cases, the devil provokes men 
 beyond their intentions, to speak in their haste so inconsiderately, that 
 they know not or mind not, the just consequence of their speeches. 
 It was a degree of blasphemy in David to say, though in his haste, 
 that ' all men were liars ;' it was an unbelieving reflection on the 
 promise given him by Samuel. In ]\Ial. iii. 13, the people did not 
 believe that they had ' spoken so much against God,' when yet their 
 words had been ' stout against him.' 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Satan endeavours this hy violent injections of blas- 
 phemous thoughts that are directly such. In this I shall note to you, 
 
 [1.] First, That the vilest thoughts of God, of his ways and provi- 
 dences, of Scripture, and of Christ, are frequently suggested. Things 
 of greatest outrage against heaven, and contempt of the Almighty, 
 as Bernard expresseth it, Terrihilia de fide, horribilia de divinitate; 
 as, there is no God, or that he is not just, or not faithful to his pro- 
 mises ; or that Christ was but an impostor. He sticks at nothing in 
 tliis kind, though never so contrary to the hope and persuasion of those 
 wliom he thus molests. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, These are frequently reiterated upon them, and their 
 minds so troubled by them, that tliey cannot free themselves from such 
 thoughts, but he follows on and clamoins in their ears, as Gerson^ 
 observes, Nega JDeum, maledic Deo — Deny God, curse God. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, And this with so great a force and impetuosity, that 
 they are compelled to form these thoughts in their minds, and to speak 
 contrary to tchat they toould, as if their thoughts and tongues were 
 not under their own government, the devil not satisfying himself to 
 bear in these thoughts upon them, but he endeavours, as it were, to 
 make them say after him, and to cast his suggestions into their own 
 mould, that so they might seem properly to be their own ; and this 
 they are forced to whether they will or no, even then when their 
 minds are filled with horror, their heart with grief, and their body 
 with trembling. I have discoursed with some who have bitterly com- 
 plained that their tongues and their thoughts seemed not to be their 
 own, but that Satan ruled them at his pleasure ; and that when in 
 opposition to the temptation they would have formed their tongues to 
 speak blessing of God, they have sjioken cursing instead of blessing ; 
 and that when a blasphemous thought had been cast into their mind, 
 they could not be at rest till they had thought it again. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, These troublesome temptations are oft of long con- 
 tinuance. Joannes Clmiacus tells us- of a monk that was troubled 
 with blasphemous thoughts for twenty years together, and could not 
 quit liimself of them, though he had macerated his body with watch- 
 ings and fastings. Some have them going away and returning again 
 by fits, according as the prevalency and ferment of theu* melancholy 
 gives Satan the advantage of dealing thus with them. For if we 
 inquire why it is thus, especially with the children of God, we must 
 partly resolve it into the ' unsearchable ■ftdsdom of God,' who for holy 
 ends of teaching and disciplining his servants, permits Satan thus to 
 molest them ; and partly into those particular advantages which Satan 
 ' Tom. iv. col. 973. ' Scala Paradisi, gradu 23. 
 
 I 
 
Chap. 19.] satan's temptations. 427 
 
 hath against them according to the variety of their conditions, which 
 usually are these : — 
 
 First, He takes advantage of such hodily distempers as do deprive 
 men of the use of their reason, as fevers, frenzies, madness. In these 
 he oft forms the tongues of men to horrid blasphemous speeches. 
 
 Secondly, A pressure of outward afflictions gives him his desired 
 opportunity ; and this he knows to be generally so successful, that he 
 promised himself by this means a victory over Job. Ordinarily, straits 
 and miseries do produce blaspheming. Isa. viii. 21, the prophet notes 
 that when the people should be ' hardly bestead and himgry,' they 
 should ' fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look 
 upward,' as avouching what they had done. 
 
 Thirdly, Worldly 2)Je7ity, fulness, and pleasure lay often foundations 
 of this temptation. When their cups are full, and their hearts high, 
 Satan can easily make them ' set their mouth against heaven.' A 
 proud heart will readily say, ' Our tongue is our own, or, Who is the 
 Lord ?' [Ps. xii. 4.] This was the engine which the devil managed, 
 if it were as Job suspected, against the sons and daughters of Job, to 
 make them curse God in their hearts ; and by this did he seek to 
 prevail upon Christ in this blasphemous temptation. 
 
 Fourthly, A melancholy distemper doth usually invite Satan to give 
 blasphemous suggestions. The disturbed and pliable fancies of such, 
 ai-e the advantages which he improves agamst them. 
 
 Fifthly, Imvard terrors and distresses of conscience are also an occa- 
 sion to Satan to move them, as by a desperate humour, to utter hard 
 things of God and against themselves. 
 
 But there is yet a third way by which Satan tempts men to blas- 
 pheming, by sudden glances of blasphemotis imaginatio7is, which hke 
 lightnings do astonish the heart and then suddenly vanish. These are 
 very common, and the best of men observe them frequently. Satan 
 seems as it were rather to frolic and sport himself in these suggestions, 
 than to intend a serious temptation. Their danger is not so much, 
 yet are they not to be despised, lest these often visits, carelessly enter- 
 tained, and not dismissed with just abhorrency, do secretly envenom 
 the soul, and prepare it for stronger assaults. 
 
 I shall next inquire into the reasons of this trouble which Satan 
 gives the children of God. 
 
 [1.] First, These temptations are very affrighting; though they prevail 
 not, yet they are full of perplexing annoyance. Corrupt nature startles 
 at them, and receives them not without dread and horror. It is sadly 
 troublesome to hear others blaspheme God. ' The reproaches of those 
 that reproached thee,' saith David, ' fell upon me.' It was as ' a sword 
 in his bones' to hear the blasphemous scoffs of the wicked, when they 
 said to him, 'Where is thy God?' And if it were confusion and 
 shame to him to hear ' the enemy reproach and blaspheme,' as he 
 professeth it was, Ps. xliv. 15, 16, how sadly afflicting would it be for 
 any child of God to observe such things in his own imaginations ! If 
 there were no more in it than this, it is enough to put Satan upon 
 that design, because it is a troublesome kind of martyrdom.! 
 
 ^ Spiritus blasphemise, scaturigo est cogitationum adeo horribilium adcoque molestarum, 
 ut ejus tentatio plerumque quasi martyrium est. — Guil. Paris, lib. de tenta. et resist. 
 
428 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, This is also a spiteful revenge against God. All he 
 can do is to blaspheme and rage, and it is a kind of dehght to put this 
 force upon those that carry his own image. He would do all he can 
 to make his own children to vilify and reproach their heavenly Father, 
 and to render cursing for blessing. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, This temptation, though it have not the consent or 
 compliance of God's children, yet it opens a wai/ to many other sins, 
 as murmuring, distrust, despair, weariness of God's ways and ser\'ices. 
 When we find Satan thus to run upon us, it is apt to breed ' strange 
 thoughts of God,' that thus permits Satan to take us by the throat, or 
 to make us judge of ourselves as rejected of God, and given up to 
 Satan's power ; and if it do this, his labour is not in vain ; we are, as 
 one observes,! more to fear his subtlety in bringing us by this into 
 other snares, than the violence of the adversary in this suggestion. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, This is a stratagem fur lay ing the foumlaiion of dire- 
 ful accusations. The denl in this doth as the Kussians are2 reported 
 to do. They, when they have a spite against any of their neighbours, 
 hide secretly some of their goods in their houses, and then accuse 
 them of theft. When blasphemous thoughts are injected, and men 
 refuse to consent, then Satan raiseth an accusation against them, as 
 Joseph's mistress did, as if they were guilty of all that blasplicmy that 
 he tempted them unto ; and it is a difficult task to persuade them that 
 these things should be in their minds, and that they should not be the 
 proper issues of their own heart. And very often doth he from hence 
 accuse them of sinning against the Holy Ghost, because of the hideous 
 blasphemies which he liad first suggested to them. 
 
 Ajtplic. First, This will give us considerations of consolation, and 
 that — (1.) In regard of others. We observe often our sick friends 
 speak what we would not willingly hear, and it cannot choose but be 
 sadly afllictive to hear their curses and blasphemous speeches ; but 
 when we consider the advantage that Satan takes of their distemper, 
 if their lives heretofore have been pious and religious, we comfort our- 
 selves in this, that it is more his malice than their own inclinations ; 
 neither should we suffer our hope or charity to be distressed on their 
 behalf. (2.) It is the like ground of consolation for ourselves or others 
 that are violently afflicted with blasphemous thoughts. For, 
 
 [1.] First, If ice call to mind that our Lord and Master suffered 
 such things, ice that are of his household need not think we receive a 
 strange or unusual measure in that tee arc molested as he teas. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, If we consider that Christ was tempted ivithout sin 
 on his part, then may we fetch this conclusion from it, that it is 
 possible that such thoughts shoidd he cast %tpon us, and yet tlmt we may 
 not be chargeable Kith them as our iniquities. 
 
 Thirdly, We may hence see that such temptations are more 
 frightful' than hurtful. These, as one observes,^ seldom take, they 
 carry with them so much horror, to those that believe and love the 
 true God, that it keeps them from a participation with Satan in the 
 
 ' Magls a dolo metuendum est quam a violentia adversarii, caveat seger ab impatientia, 
 infidelitate, murmuratione aliisque peccatis qu;e clam insinuantur. — Diclson, Thcrapeut. 
 Sacra, lib. ii. cap. 29. ' Heylin, ' Cosmogr.' 
 
 ' Capel ' Tempt.,' part 2, cap. S. 
 
Chap. 19.] satan's temptatioxs. 429 
 
 sin itself, nay, it iills them with fear and striving against it ; they 
 rather, as bugbears, scare and disquiet them, than produce the real 
 effects of compliauce with them. 
 
 Applic. Secondly, The consideration of this kind of temptation may 
 Jill the hearts and mouths of those of us as have not hitherto been 
 troubled with it, icith praise for so merciful a presei'vation. If we 
 have not been under this kind of exercise, it is not from any good wiU 
 that Satan hath to us, but because our God withholds a coumission 
 from Mm. A poor weak Clu'istian wonders that Satan hath not 
 made him a mark for this arrow, that he hath not broken him with 
 this tempest. To answer that wonder, he may know that the same 
 tenderness in God, that will not put ' new wine into old crazy bottles,' 
 nor a ' new stiff piece of cloth into an old tender garment,' nor that 
 will oppress the weak and infirm with strong exercise or burdens ; 
 that same tenderness of a compassionate Father doth keep off such 
 trials, because he will not suffer them ' to be tempted above what 
 they are able.' 
 
 Applic. Thirdly, This temptation calls for advice to those that are 
 iinder it, to whom I shall direct a few things. 
 
 [1.] First, When any are troubled with blasphemous thoughts, let 
 it be considered in what state and temper their body is. If it be dis- 
 tempered with melancholy, as is most usual, then the prescription of 
 an able physician is necessary in the first place, without which he 
 that would spiritually advise or counsel shall but beat the air, and his 
 words be so far from the fastness of nails that they shall be as wind. 
 I have known many under great complaints and fears by reason 
 hereof, that have been cured by physic alone ; for when, in this case, 
 the fuel is withdrawn, the fire goes out. Correct the melancholy 
 temper that gives the devil tliis advantage, and the trouble will 
 cease. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, It is of great consequence to understand the nature 
 of these temiJtations. If the tempted could see these to be their 
 sufferings rather than their sins, they would with greater ease bear it 
 as an afHiction. And to those that complain, abhor, resist, and pray 
 against them, they are not sins, no more than when a harlot layetli her 
 child at an honest woman's door, that child is to be reckoned as the 
 fruit of her wickedness. A giant may dash the son against his father, 
 but so far will the father be from imputing it as rebellious insolence 
 in his chUd, that he will pity him the more, as suffering by a double 
 injury ; for it is not only against his natural affection and reverence to 
 his parent, but it is a bodily hurt beside. Thus will God much more 
 pity liis children under these sufferings. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, We must not suffer such thoughts to lodge in us, but 
 before they settle, if possible, we must repel them ; as Abraham 
 drove away the fowls that came down upon his sacrifice. I know the 
 tempted will say this advice is not practicable ; they find these 
 thoughts swarm about them as bees, and when one is driven back 
 another straight comes in its place. But to them I answer, that 
 blasphemous thoughts are repelled two ways. (1.) By stout and 
 resolute resistance. This, though it do not extinguish them, nor free 
 us of the trouble, yet it keeps them from settling upon us, and us 
 
430 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 from the guilt of them. (2.) By diversion, which the work of a 
 lawful employment, or good society, and other discourses may do. 
 This may give some ease from the molestation, and the other preserves 
 us innocent. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, In temptations to blasphemy confident refusals do 
 hetter than disputingsA Here we are to resist with courage and a 
 holy contempt of Satan. If we be too timorous and fearful, he insults 
 the more upon us ; as dogs when they are observed follow the pas- 
 senger with greater eagerness and noise. Abhorrences and positive 
 discharges, like that of Christ in the same case, ' Get thee hence, 
 Satan,' do more for us than to debate the matter with him. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The imture of idolatry. — Satan's design to corrupt the worship of 
 God. — The evidences thereof loith the reasons of such endeavours. 
 — His general design of ivithdratving the hearts of men from God 
 to his service. — The proof that this is his design. — Upo9i tohom he 
 prevails. — That professions and confidences are no evidences to the 
 contrary. — His deceit of propounding sin as a small matter. — The 
 evidences of that method, and the reason tho'eof 
 
 Thus have I considered the temptation as blasphemous. I pro- 
 ceed next to consider it as idolatrous. The M'ords eav ■jreaiav 
 7rpoffKvv7']a-r]<f, if thou wilt fall down and worshij), do give us the true 
 notion of idolatry. The word which we call loorship comes from kvo}, 
 which signifies to kiss, or from Kvmv, which signifies a dog, both being 
 to the same purpose, and signifying any action of reverence by which 
 we signify the respect of our minds. To kiss the hand, or to fawn as 
 a dog, are gestures which express the honour we would give, and 
 being applied to divine worship before, or with respect unto, an undue 
 object, is idolatry ; and as such doth Christ reject it in his answer, 
 ' Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou 
 serve.' We worship God, when in ways and actions commanded or 
 prescribed, we testify our belief and resentment of his incommunicable 
 attributes. It is idolatry when either we use the same actions of 
 prescribed worship to that which is not God, or when we testify our 
 respects to the true God in an undue way of our own devising. Here 
 might I take occasion to shew the vanity of the popish subterfuges ; 
 their distinction of latria and dulm is, as Dr [Henry] More observes, 
 hereby overthrown.^ Satan doth not here set himself up as the 
 omnipotent God, for he acknowledgeth one superior to himself, in 
 that he confesseth that the power he had of the kingdoms of the 
 world was given to him, Luke iv. 6, and therefore not the latria but 
 the dulia is required of him ; and yet this, Christ denies him as being 
 idolatry, in that no religious worship — for that must needs be the 
 sense of his answer — is due to any but God alone. Their other dis- 
 tinction of worshipping an idol, saint, angel, cross, &c., and before 
 
 ' Fseda tentatio magis vincitur fugiendo quam aggrediendo. — Gerson, torn. ix. col. 976. 
 ^ Mystery of Iniquity, lib. i. cap. 9. 
 
Chap. 20.] satan's temptations. 431 
 
 such a creatiire, is also hereby crushed, as is commonly observed : i for 
 what the evangelist Matthew expresseth by 7rpoaKvvijarj<; fioi, Luke 
 calls ivco-jriov fiov, before me ; so that the Scripture makes no difference 
 betwixt these two, shewing it to be idolatry to use religious worship 
 to that which is not God, or before it. But these things I shall not 
 prosecute ; keeping therefore to my design, I shall observe, 
 
 Ohs. 7. That it is one of Satan's great designs to con-upt the loorship 
 of God. That this is so will appear, 
 
 (1.) First, If lue consider ivhat varieties of worship hath been in 
 the xvorld. God gave a fixed and stable law, and yet this so little 
 prevailed, that men were upon new inventions presently. I shall not 
 need to reckon up the almost numberless varieties of this kind among 
 the heathen. The instance is plain enough in those that professed 
 the name of the true God ; they were still changing for new fashions 
 in religion, borrowing patterns from their neighbours, so that if there 
 were but a new altar at Damascus, or a new idol in any strange city, 
 they must presently have the like, till, as the prophet tells them, 
 ' according to their cities so were their gods,' [Jer. ii. 28.] He that 
 will call to mind that the husbandman did first ' sow good seed in his 
 field,' and that there is such variety of tares and false worship, not- 
 withstanding the plain and positive command of God, fixing and 
 determining liis worship, must needs conclude that an enemy, Satan, 
 hath done it. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, If we call to mind hoiu in all ages there hath been a 
 constancy in this inconstant variety. We hear of it among the 
 heathens. We read enough of it among the Jews, and when they 
 were out of the humour of more shameful idolatries, they yet corrupted 
 the worship of God by their traditions ; and of these they were so fond, 
 that they caused the law of God itself to give place to them, and made 
 it void by them. The times of the gospel were not free. Though 
 Christ came to seek such worsliippers as should ' worship him in 
 spirit and in truth,' yet before the apostles' deaths, while yet they were 
 persuading to the contrary, there arose up some that corrupted the 
 worship, by leading the people back again to the Jewish ceremonies, 
 and others labom-ed to bring in ' worshipping of angels,' and at last 
 to ' eat things offered to idols,' with greater defilements. Since the 
 apostles' days the same design hath been carried on in the churches. 
 Kome hath patched together a great deal of Jewish and heathenish 
 ceremonies ; and when the man of sin shall be revealed, yet a higher 
 flood of such abominations is to be expected. Who hath wrought all 
 this, but Satan ? This is still the same design, and though the work 
 be not in all parts like itself, yet the whole of it evidenceth the work- 
 ing of the same spirit in all. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Let us observe how early this began. We cannot say 
 but that in the days of Adam, who doubtless had received particular 
 commands from God, in which he would not fail to instruct his 
 children, they were seeking to themselves ' many inventions,' Gen. iv. 26. 
 At the bii'th of Enos, as some conjecture, there were such defilements 
 brought into use in worship, that Seth had respect to it when he 
 called his son Enos, Sorrowful, as lamenting that profanation which 
 ^ Musculus, in loc, and Perkins, in loc. 
 
432 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 was then begun in ' calling upon the name of the Lord,' for so do 
 many interpret that passage, which in our English we read thus, 
 ' Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.' The word in 
 the original is ^niH, which signifieth both to profane and to hegjn, 
 and may be as properly translated, then ' profaned they in calling 
 upon the name of the Lord.' And there are several reasons that move 
 learned men^ to fix upon this translation. As (1.) That it is not 
 probable that men began then to call upon God, or publicly to do so, 
 as some would interpret, and not before, as the present English would 
 imply. (2. ) That age was noted as corrupt, and therefore it is noted 
 as a rai-ity that Enoch walked with God. (3.) The Kabbins generally 
 translate 'i^u io irrofane; but if we should grant the present English, 
 ' Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord,' it would im- 
 ply that the worship practised by Adam and Abel had been corrupted, 
 and now it was restored again and reformed ; which will make the cor- 
 ruption of worship to be yet more early. And after that we read of 
 corruption crept into tlie family of Seth, as well as now in the family 
 of Cain, Gen. vi. 2 ; so that the worship of God stood not long in its 
 honour, though Adam and Seth were alive to instruct them ; which 
 shews that it was a rebellious departure from the way, fomented and 
 brought on by tlie malignant spirit Satan. 
 
 (4.) Fourtldy, But to make all sure, the Scripture lays all these 
 kinds of corrupt 1071 of worship at Sata7is door. The defilements of 
 worship taught in Thyatira, by Jezebel, are called ' tlie deptli of 
 Satan,' Rev. ii. 24 ; tlie corruptions introduced by anticlirist, are from 
 ' the workings of Satan,' 2 Thes. ii. 9. What was promoted by false 
 apostles to that purpose, they had it from their gi'cat teacher Satan, 
 who ' transforms himself for such ends into an angel of light,' 2 Cor. 
 xi. 13, 14 ; so that nothing can be more plain than that this is an old 
 and constant design of Satan. 
 
 The particular ways by which Satan effects this design I shall not 
 now touch, but shall in lieu of that give you the reasons of his endea- 
 vours this way. 
 
 [1.] First, He hmvs that this is a sin of a high provocation. 
 Worship is the proper tribute that is due to God, and it is peculiarly 
 his prerogative to prescribe the way and manner of it. Neither of 
 these honoiu-s will he give to any other, but will express his jealousy 
 when any invasion is made upon these his sole prerogatives.^ Now his 
 worship cannot be corrupted, but one of these at least will in some 
 degree or other be touched. If we set up another object of worship, 
 we deny him to be God ; if we worship him in a way of our own in- 
 vention, we deny his wisdom, and set up our.>ielves above him, as if we 
 could order his worsliip better than he hath done in his word. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, //' the tcorship he corrupted, all the exercise of the 
 affections of the heart, and all the service itself is lost, and become un- 
 acceptable. He knows that such worshippers shall meet with this 
 answer, ' Who hath required this at your hands ?' [Isa. i. 12.] 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Corruption in toorship, Satan by long experience 
 knows to have been the ground of those hatreds, quarrels, persecutions, 
 and troubles under which the church hath groaned in all ages, every 
 1 DrusiuB, Lightfoot, Tremelliua, &c. 
 
Chap. 20.] satan's temptatiox.s. 433 
 
 difference imposing their way and persuasion upon all dissenters, to 
 the disturbance of peace, breach and decay of love, hindrance of the 
 growth of piety, to the biting and devouring of one another. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Besides God is provoked by this to leave his sanctiuxry, 
 to remove his glory and his candlestick, to make his vineyard a desola- 
 tion, and his churches as Shiloh. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, Satan is the more industrious in this, because Ms ways 
 are capable of many advantages to further his design, and many 
 specious pretences to cover it. In Col. ii. 8, he made use of philosophy 
 to corrupt religion, and by unsound principles of some heathens famous 
 for that learning, introduced ' worshipping of angels.' What that 
 could not effect he laboured to perform by ' the traditions of men,' 
 and where that came short, ' the rudiments of the world' — the Mosaical 
 ceremonies were so called here, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews — 
 were his engine by which he battered the plain worship of the New 
 Testament. And as to pretences, the apostle doth there and elsewhere 
 note that decency and order, humility, wisdom, and self-denial, are 
 tilings very taking, and yet usually pretended for such bold innova- 
 tions as may corrupt the pure streams of the sanctuary. 
 
 Applic. Hence may I leave with you a few memorials. 
 
 [l.J First, This may make us jealous of any alterations in the way 
 of God's tvorshi]}. We have reason under the most plausible pretexts 
 to suspect the hand of Satan, because it is one of his main businesses 
 to corrupt the worship. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, This may Justify those that out of a conscientious 
 fear of complying xoith Satan's design, dare not admit of a pin in the 
 tabernacle beside lohat God hath prescribed, nor leave behind a shoe- 
 latchet oftvhat he liath enjoiyied. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, ThisiviU tell us that that icorship is best and safest 
 that hath least of mixture of human invention. We cannot offend in 
 keeping close to the rule, though the worship thereby become more 
 plain, and not so gorgeous in outward appearance. We may soon 
 overdo it by the least addition, and cannot be so certain of God's 
 acceptation, as we are of pleasing the senses of men, by such intro- 
 ducements. 
 
 This motion of Satan, ' Fall down and worship me,' is now in the 
 last place to be considered as a particular instance of Satan's general 
 design of drawing the hearts of men from God his service and icays, 
 to the pleasures of sin; as if he should say to him, follow my advice, 
 give up thyself to my service, and thou shalt be gratified with all the 
 delights that the world can give thee. To this doth the bait here 
 offered most fitly agree. Hence observe, 
 
 06s. 8. That it is Satan's genercd design to luithdraiu the hearts of 
 men from God, that they may be enslaved to him in the service of sin. 
 
 That the devil doth level all his endeavours to this, cannot be 
 doubted ; for, 
 
 (1.) First, He hath a kingdom in this world, from which he is de- 
 nominated ' the prince of this world.' And this is not only a rule of 
 exterior force, such as conquerors have over their captivated slaves, 
 who are compelled to subject their bodies, while yet their minds are 
 full of hatred against him who hath thus forced them to subjection ; 
 
 2e 
 
434 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 but it is a rule over the hearts and affections of men, working in ' the 
 children of disobedience ' a love and liking of these ways, and begetting 
 in them the image of Satan ; so that what work he imposeth they are 
 pleased withal, and ' love to have it so.' Therefore he is not only 
 caUed their prince, but their god and their father : ' Ye are of your 
 father the devil,' in that with a kind of inward devotion they will and 
 endeavour to perform the lusts which he propounds to them. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, This kingdom is contrary to God's spiritual kingdom, 
 that being of darkness, this of light ; and it is managed by Satan with 
 an envious competition and co-rivalshiji to that of God ; so that as 
 God invites men to the happiness of his kingdom, and sends his Spirit 
 in his word and ordinances to persuade them, Satan doth the like. 
 He sends out his spirit, which the apostle calls 'the spirit of the 
 world,' 1 Cor. ii. 12, and employs all his agents to engage men for 
 him. He requires the heart as God doth, he promiseth his rewards 
 of pleasure, honour, riches, if they will fall down and worship him. 
 Now it is so natural to prosecute an interest thus espoused in a way 
 of opposition, especially to any other that set up for themselves in a 
 contradictory competitorship, that the very natural laws of Satan's 
 kingdom will engage him to stand up for it, and to enlarge it all he 
 can. 
 
 Those upon whom he prevails are of two sorts — 
 (1.) First, So7ne are visihhj in his service. These answer the 
 character which was given of Ahab, 1 Kings xxi. 20, ' who sold him- 
 self to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord.' The first expres- 
 sion shews that such are wholly in Satan's power and disposal — as 
 things sold are in the possession and power of the buyer— tliey are at 
 Satan's will. If he say to them, ' Go, they go,' and if he say, ' Come, 
 they come.' Tiieir bodies and spirits are Satan's, they are not their 
 own ; and they are his for the ends of sin, for that emjiloyment only, 
 60 that they are ' wholly corrupt and abominable.' The latter ex- 
 pression, that he did so ' in the siglit of the Lord,' manifests their 
 shameless impudency in sin, that they ' declare their sin as Sodom, 
 and hide it not,' that they do not blush, but openly wear the devil's 
 livery and avouch his service. As the works of the flesh are manifest, 
 so these in their practice of such works are manifestly Satan's sub- 
 jects. These kind of men are frequently in the Old Testament styled 
 ' sons of Belial,' i a name very significant, shewing either their devoting 
 of themselves to the devil's service, in that they reject the yoke of 
 God's law, in that they ' break his bonds, and cast his cords from 
 them,' or their pride that they will have none above them, not con- 
 sidering that there is a God, or that tlie Most High rules, or their 
 averseness to what is good, being ' wholly unprofitable, and to every 
 good work reprobate.' [Titus i. 16.] 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Some are secretly his servants. They come to the 
 devil, as Nicodemus did to Christ, by night. They will not openly 
 profess him, but yet their heaits are wholly his. Such are called by 
 the name of hypocrites. The pharisees and scribes seemed to declare 
 for God, called themselves Abraham's seed, fasted, gave alms, made 
 
 1 bybl vel a "h^. -non ct b'']} jugcm, absque jugo; vel a "hi non et ^V s'ipra, vel a 
 ^^3 non, ct '^j;' profuit, homo inutilis. 
 
Chap. 2U.J satan's temptations. 435 
 
 long prayers, and yet were a ' generation of vipers,' and ' of their 
 father the devil.' The secrecy of this underhand engagement to hell 
 is such, that many who are in a league with the devil, and at an 
 agreement with death, do neither know nor believe it concerning 
 themselves. For, 
 
 [1.] First, This private covenant may he ivliere there are the greatest 
 seeming defilements of Satan and high professions of service to God. 
 The pharisees, as have been said, were the devil's servants, under all 
 the fair show they made of religion and zeal for the law, and yet 
 when Christ plainly told them that they were not Abraham's seed 
 but the devil's seed, they with high indignation and scorn throw back 
 the accusation to Christ, ' Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil ; we 
 are Abraham's children,' [John viii. 48,] so little believed they the 
 truth when it was told them. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, This may consist with some designment and intention 
 to give God glory. The Jews, though they submitted not to the 
 righteousness of God, yet, by the testimony of Paul, they had a zeal to 
 God. The very heathens that sacrifice to devils had not formal in- 
 tentions so to do, as appears by their inscription on the altar at 
 Athens, Acts xvii. 23, ' To the unknown God.' The true God, 
 though unknown, they propounded as the object of their worship ; yet 
 falling into those ways of devotion which the devil had prescribed, 
 these intentions could not hinder but that they became his servants. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Men Tnay be servants to Satan under great assurances 
 and confidences of their interest in God. Many go to hell that have 
 lived with Lord, Lord in their mouths. Those mentioned in Isa. 
 xlviii. 2, that had no interest in truth and righteousness when they 
 solemnly sware by the name of the Lord, ' yet they called themselves 
 of the holy city, and stayed themselves upon the God of Israel,' [Isa. 
 xlviii. 2.] 
 
 Obj. If it seem strange to any that these professions, intentions, and 
 confidences are not enough to secure men from this charge, but that 
 they may be secretly slaves to hell, I answer, 
 
 Ans. 1. First, Thcd those do not necessarily conclude that the heart 
 of such men is right ivith God. Formality, natural conscience, and the 
 power of education may do much of this ; for though we grant that 
 such are not conscious to themselves of any real design of serving Satan, 
 yet they may either so far miss it in the way of their service, offering 
 that as well-pleasing to God, which indeed he hates, and that through 
 wilful and affected ignorance, as those of whom Christ speaks, John 
 xvi. 2, that should think the killing of God's children a piece of ac- 
 ceptable service ; or they may be so mistaken as to the sincerity of 
 their hearts that they may think they have a design to please God in 
 doing of what he requires in order thereunto, when indeed it may not 
 be singly for God but for themselves that they work, in a self-gratifi- 
 cation of their natural zeal for their way ; or their esteem, credit, and 
 advantage may privately influence them, rather than a spirit of life 
 and power. 
 
 Ans. 2. Secondly, The ivork ivhich they do, and the ends they serve, 
 will be evidence against professions and intentions. It is a sure rule, 
 that the work shews to whom men are related as servants, and it is 
 
436 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 laid ilo-mi as a certain standard to measure the hearts of men by, 
 when pretences and persuasions seem to carry all before them : Eom. 
 vi. 16, ' His servants ye are to whom ye obey ; ' 1 John iii. 8, 10, ' He 
 that committeth sin is of the devil : in this the children of God are 
 manifest, and the children of the devil ' — that is, when it becomes a 
 question to whom a man belongs, whose child and servant he is, it 
 must be determined by the works he doth. If he engage in the ways 
 of sin, he is of the devil, let him profess what he will to the contrary. 
 This same balance Christ useth to try the truth of the Jews' pretences 
 to God : John viii. 34, ' Whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of 
 sin ; ' they boasted high, but he shews them that seeing their designs 
 and works were hatred, envy, murder, &c., which are apparently from 
 Satan, it was evident they had learned these of him ; and he concludes 
 by this proof, vcr. 44, ' that they were of their father the devil.' 
 Thus may we say of those that pretend they honour God, they deify 
 the devil, they intend well, if yet they give themselves up to the 
 pleasing of the flesh, if worldly-minded, if they live in pride, strife, 
 envy, maliciousness, &c., — which are works of the devil, — it is not all 
 their pretences that will entitle them to God, but they are, for all 
 this, the devil's servants, as doing his works. 
 
 Applic. This may put men u|)on inquiries. Who are ye for? ichose 
 servants are yc f There are but two that can lay claim to you, and 
 these two divide the whole world betwixt them. There is no state of 
 neutrality : you are either Gwl's servants or the devil's. Ye cannot 
 serve them both ; ' now if the Lord be God, serve him.' Satan's 
 service is base, dishonourable, slavish ; the service of God, freedom, 
 honour, life, and peace ; there is indeed no comparison betwixt them. 
 Happy, then, is that man that can say the Lord is his lot and portion ; 
 that can come into God's presence, and there in his integi-ity avouch 
 the Lord for his God — that can stand upon it. ' My soul hath said 
 imto the Lord, Tliou art my God, and I have none besides thee ; other 
 lords have had dominion over us, but we will make mention of thy 
 name only,' [Isa. xxvi. 13.] 
 
 This temptation, though it were in itself horrid, and as a brood of 
 vipers knotted together, which at once could send out several stings, 
 and make many wounds, — as hath been noted, — yet in the way of 
 propounding, Satan seems to insinuate the largeness of his proffer, and 
 the smallness and inconsiderablencss of the service requu-ed, as if he 
 should say, ' See how free I am in my kindness ; I will not stick to 
 give thee the kingdoms of th<? world, and the glory of them, and all 
 this for so small a matter as bowing before me, or doing me a little 
 reverence.' This gives us to ob.serve, 
 
 Obs. 9. That iclien Satan doth design no less than to enslave men to 
 his sei-vice, yet he xc ill propound sin as a small thing, or but one act of 
 sin, as a thing not valuable, to engage them to him. Not but that he 
 desires to run men to excess in wickedness, and delights to see them 
 with both hands earnestly work iniquity with greediness ; yet where 
 he sees the consciences of men squeamish, and that they cannot bear 
 temptations to open and common profaneuess without danger of revolt 
 from him, there he seems modest, and requires but some small thing, 
 at least at first, till the ways of sin become more familiar to them, and 
 
Chap. 20.] satan's temptations. 437 
 
 then when they can better bear it, he doubles the tale of briuks, and 
 with greater confidence can urge them to things of greater shame and 
 enormity. That this is his way appears, 
 
 [l.J First, From the common argument wMcli he useth at first to 
 those ichom he ivould draw of from a m.ore careful conversation, 
 which is this : Do such a thing, it is but for once, and but little ; 
 others do the like, and demur not, or the best do as great matters as 
 this comes to. It is but a small thing, considering the strait, or the 
 advantage that may accrue. This is Iris usual note to candidate ini- 
 quity, as experience of all doth testify. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, That this is so is also evident from a consideration of 
 the several tuays and courses of sinners. Some are tempted and over- 
 come by one kind of sin, and not at all urged to others. Some go to 
 hell- in a way of covetousness ; others are pretty unblam cable in most 
 of their carriages, but are overcome by a proud humour ; others are 
 given to drink, and yet wiU not steal nor deal falsely ; others take a 
 more cleanly way to hell, rely upon their own righteousness, or are 
 engaged in error, and their life otherwise smooth and fair. The Jews 
 in Christ's time were only engaged against Christ, and for their tra- 
 ditions, but not molested with temptations to open idolatry as for- 
 merly. Those who are ignorant are not troubled with temptations to 
 despair, or inward terrors. The reasons of his dealing thus are these : — 
 
 [1.] First, He sees that one sin heartily prosecuted is enough to sig- 
 nify homage to him, and to give him possession. As we take posses- 
 sion of land by a turf or a twig, so by one sin admitted with full pur- 
 pose of mind, Satan is let into the heart. As a penny will be sufficient 
 earnest for a bargain of a thousand pounds, so may one sin be a pledge 
 or earnest for the whole soul in a league with hell. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, He knoius that one sin persisted in may he enough to 
 destroy the soul; as one wound may kill, one leak may sink a ship. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, He knoivs that one sin breaks the covenant of God, and 
 turns the heart from him, if men give up themselves to it. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, One sin luilfully pursued makes a man guilty of the 
 breach of the lohole laiv. It destroys love and respect to God, under- 
 values his authority, contemns his threatenings and promises. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, One sin is enough to make ivay for more. Where 
 Satan would have more, yet at first he is pleased with it as a hopeful 
 beginning. It makes room enough for the serpent's head, and then 
 he will afterwards easily wind in his whole body. 
 
 Applic. This may warn us not to be emboldened to any sin by the 
 plea of dimiimt'ion ; not to venture because it may seem little, or be 
 but for once. A true Christian should be a perfect universalist ; he 
 should be universally against all sin, and universally for all duty. 
 
438 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Of worldly pleasure.— Proofs that this is Satan's great engine. — What 
 there is in worldly delights tJtat make them so. — Counsels and 
 cautions against tJuit snare. 
 
 I come now to the argument which Satan used for all this, ' All 
 these thmgs wiU I give thee.' He casts a golden apple before him, 
 and seeks to entangle him by worldly greatness and delight. I shall 
 not examine how true or false Satan spake when he called all these 
 things his, and that he could give them to whom he would. It is 
 enough for our purpose to take notice of his pretence, so far as might 
 make his offer probable ; and then observe, 
 
 Obs. 10. That the great engine which Satan useth to draw away the 
 heart from God to his service is loorldly pleasures and delights. 
 
 I shall first shew that this is Satan's great engine, and then explain 
 what is in it that fits it so much for his purpose. The first of these 
 is evidenced by these particulars : — 
 
 1. First, The Scripture doth particularly note to us a deceit or guile 
 to be in worldly pleasures. Christ, in Mat. xiii. 22, speaks of ' the 
 deceitfulness of riches ;' and that deceit is expressed by such a word 
 as signifies 'a drawing out of the way,' a misleading ; ^ so that he 
 means not the uncertainty of these delights, in which sense it is said 
 ' that riches take themselves wings and fly away,' [Prov. xxiii. 5,] 
 which often disappoint and deceive the expectations of those that do 
 most hug them. Nor can this be understood of riches in an active 
 sense, as we attribute deceit to men, who as rational agents can con- 
 trive and devise snares ; but it only means that these are so objective 
 as things that are abused by Satan to delude and betray the sons of 
 men : and these are so frequently made use of by him for such piir- 
 poses, and with such advantages of power and provocation, that Christ 
 elsewhere, Mat. xix. 23, speaks of it as a thing almost impossible, to 
 have riches and not to be ensnared by them : ' A rich man shall hardly 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven,' [Mat. xix. 23,] which Mark and 
 Luke express by an affectionate amazement, ' Oh, how hardly can a 
 rich man be saved ! ' [Mark x. 23-25, and Luke xviii. 24, 25.] 
 
 2. Secondly, These are Satayi's great net tvhich encloseth multitudes; 
 a general bait, by which most are hooked into the service of sin. 
 Most temptations come from this ocean as springs from the sea. ' The 
 lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life,' have their 
 original from the world, 1 John ii. 16. Christ speaks of this ' mammon 
 of unrighteousness ' as the only thing that stands up in competition 
 for the hearts of men against God, Mat. vi. 24 ; and the apostle, 
 2 Tim. iii. 4, reckoning np the various ways of particular lusts, as 
 covetousness, boasting, pride, blaspheming, &c., concludes them all 
 under this, that they 'are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of 
 God ; ' shewing us thereby, that though the lusts of men might run 
 out diverse ways, and be exercised upon diverse particular objects, yet 
 they all borrow their original from worldly pleasures, and their design 
 
 ' aTrdrri, ab d priv. et ttot-os, via. 
 
Chap. 21.] satan's temptations. 439 
 
 is nothing but that in the general. Hence it is that some make the 
 world the great traitor to God ; for though they reckon up three great 
 enemies to God and man, ' the world, the flesh, and the devil,' yet 
 ' these three agree in one ;' the pleasing of the flesh is the great end 
 and desire of natural men ; the world is the storehouse, from which 
 men draw out several pleasures, according to the several ways they 
 take in gratifying their lusts and humours, and the devil is only 
 ofHcious to help all this forward, by enticing and persuading them to 
 ' make these provisions for the flesh.' And who can think other, but 
 that this must be Satan's great engine, when, as hath been said, _firsf, 
 the world, and the pleasures of it, is the sum of all iniquity, containing 
 in it virtually or actually the transgression of the whole law. The 
 root it is of all evil, 1 Tim. vi. 10 ; all profaneness against God, all 
 neglect of duty, all outrage, wi-ong, or injustice to man, may, and 
 usually doth, spring from hence, insomuch that some have particularly 
 traced it through every command of the decalogue, and found it guilty, 
 either as principal or accessary, of every iniquity. Second, Our 
 thoughts may be the more confirmed in this when we see all men 
 entangled by it ; for albeit that some temptations seem directly to 
 carry men from a love or care of the world, as despair, terrors of mind, 
 voluntary humility, neglecting of the body, and others of the same 
 kind ; yet if the matter be considered, the truth in hand cannot be 
 prejudiced by such an objection. For, [1.] Those who seem in dis- 
 tress of conscience most to loathe the world were yet first entangled 
 by it, and the consideration of that guilt, whether at present justly or 
 unjustly charged upon them, is the usual occasion of these troubles. 
 And, [2.] Those who seem to undervalue money, riches, plenty, &c., 
 are, it may be, no less slaves to other worldly lusts ; for pleasures 
 of the world comprehend whatsoever may arise from anything that ia 
 in the world to the delight of life. Honom-, pride, ambition, prodigality, 
 are ' worldly lusts,' as well as covetousness and desire of power or 
 rule. And those that seem to deny themselves of ' faring deliciously,' 
 or ' wearing soft raiment,' may be as much distressed with an inward 
 desire of applause and honour, as those that would gratify their senses 
 are by sensual lusts. 
 
 3. Thirdly, How much the world stands Satan in stead may be 
 observed from the force of that temptation upon those that have very 
 much engaged in their lyrofession of the ivays of God. It hath often 
 fetched off those that seemed to have given up themselves to God. 
 Demas was once commended by Paul as his fellow-labourer, Philem. 
 24 ; yet at last it so prevailed upon him that he complained, 2 Tim. 
 iv. 10, that ' Demas had forsaken him,' and turned his back upon his 
 profession, and so far, if Dorotheus do him right, that he became 
 an idol-priest in Thessalonica, the cause of which horrid apostasy was 
 his ' love to the present world.' Balaam seemed resolute not to act 
 anything against Israel, yet 'the ways of unrighteousness' so far 
 blinded him, that he taught Balak ' to cast a stumbling-block before 
 the children of Israel.' "The highest of nominal professors, noted by 
 the ' thorny ground ' in Mat. xiii. 22, — who seemed to differ from 
 the good ground only in this, that their fruit was green and not ripe, 
 as Luke expresseth it, ' They brought not fruit to perfection,' — they 
 
440 A TREATISE Of [PaKT III. 
 
 were choked iu these fair beginnings and offers for holiness by the 
 ' cares and pleasures of the world.' All ages abound with instances 
 of this kind, ^neas Sylvius preached against the pope, set up the 
 council above him, commended the Germans for opposing him ; but 
 preferment made him alter his note, and at last he became pope him- 
 self. Bonner, the persecutor, seemed at first a good man, a favourer 
 of Luther's doctrine, but advancement changed him to a bloody wolf, 
 a cruel tiger. Spalato forsook popery, but, missing those dignities 
 which he aimed at in England, was, upon hopes of greater preferment, 
 induced to lick up his vomit, and to own popery again. How many 
 examples have we of those who, the higher they grew in the world, 
 became more careless of religion ; as Sixtus Quintus, who went as fast 
 back in religion as he went forward in promotion ; so that he that at 
 first entering into orders, had a good hope of his salvation, by that time 
 he came to be pope, he became so wicked that he despaired of happiness. 
 4. Fourthly, Tim temptation is one of Satan's last refuges, and often 
 prevails where persecution cannot. The thorny-ground hearers were 
 above those of the stony ground iu this, that they stood out the storm, 
 and bore the scorching heat of persecution, but then the woi'ld choked 
 them. Sad experience tells us that churches that did thrive and grow 
 as the palm-tree under their pressures, were spoiled by ease and plenty, 
 which so cherished the seeds of pride, vanity, and contention, that 
 they grew up amain, and did more to tlieir desolation than the cruelty 
 of all their fiercest enemies. Julian, who, by the greatest art and 
 policy, studied to overthrow the Christian's name, so observed this, 
 that he made it his rule ratlier to corrujit men by honours than to 
 compel them by torments.! We have also found that tliough the 
 Koman synagogue join force to subtlety in the advancement of their 
 dagon, yet they iiave still looked upon this temjjtation of the world as 
 most likely to gain the hearts of their rational opposers. Cruelty could 
 overawe the senseless multitude, and could take out of the way those 
 of whose opposition they were afraid, but it seldom with success wrought 
 upon persons guided by light and conscience, to a compliance that 
 would hold long ; for though at first some good men were overawed to 
 make subscription and to recant, as it did with Bilney, Bainham, 
 Cranmer, and several others,'^ yet upon the working of conscience, 
 after the stound and dazzle of the temptation was over, they recoiled 
 so resolutely upon them, that they lost more than they gained that 
 way. But those that were willing to nibble at preferments became 
 theirs wholly. Thus they set upon Luther, G-aleaceus, Carracciolus, 
 Dr Taylor, and a great many more, though to no purpose, for they 
 were ready to bid their money ' perish with them,' and to bid defiance 
 to their favour as well as to their frowns. Notwithstanding they have 
 made many real conquests by this weapon, and accordingly this is 
 reckoned among the temptations of greatest force : Heb. xi. 37, ' They 
 were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted,' that is, by 
 the pleasures and preferments of the world. It seems the Holy Ghost 
 would point at this, how fair and plausible soever it be, as one, of the 
 devil's most powerful engines. 
 
 • Honoribus magis homines provocare quam tormeutis cogere eti 
 » Foxe, Acts and Mon; [Sub nominibus.— G ] 
 
 AaiL — Nazlame 
 
Chat. 21. J satan's temptations. 441 
 
 Next, I promised to discover what it is in the world which makes it 
 so fit for Satan's designs. 
 
 (1.) First, The ivorld brings or affords fit matter to he made the 
 fuel of lust. For this reason the apostle in the place afore-cited, 1 John 
 ii. 16, forbids us so earnestly to love the world, or the tilings of the 
 world, because there is nothing in it which is not improveable, as an 
 occasion or provocation to lust. Whatsoever is in the world is lust of 
 flesh, or eyes, or heart; and there is no lust but it may be furnished 
 with a proper object from hence. The appetite, senses, or affections 
 fetch all their delights from hence. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Besides the common materials of sin that are digged 
 out of this mine, the world hath something of an aptitude in it to 
 tempt. Not that it hath properly and formally, insidiationis animum, 
 an active subtlety to lay snares for men, but yet it is not so purely 
 passive as to make it altogether innocent. There is something of a 
 curse upon it ever since, by the fall of man. It was loosened from its 
 proper, primitive ends ; and as the devil spake by the serpent, so doth 
 he urge, speak, tempt, and insinuate hj the world, so that it is still an 
 occasion of danger to us, and hath a special advantage over our affec- 
 tions, upon several accounts. As, [1.] In that it is in itself lawful to 
 be used. [2.] In that it is suitable to our desires and tempers. [3.] 
 In some respects it might be necessary and advantageous for the com- 
 fort of life, for the support of families, and to enable us to be helpful 
 to others. [4.] It is near to us, under our eye ; we have familiar con- 
 verse with it, it is still with us. [5.] We have a natural propensity 
 to be in love with it ; the flesh would fain be pleased, and nothing is 
 more answerable to it than the pleasures of the world. We need not 
 wonder then, when we see it so highly captivating the affections of 
 men, and leading them bound in chains and fetters. Some make it 
 their god ; gain is all their godliness and religion ; they seek their 
 ' portion in this life,' Ps. xvii. 14 ; this is their treasure, and here is 
 their heart ; and it would be no less wonder if Satan should be guilty 
 of so much oversight, as to neglect the use of an instrument which is 
 every way so fitted for his purpose. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Besides this fair prospect which it gives to sin, it hath 
 an enmity to God and his ways, ivhich is no less advantageous to the 
 devil. This is positively affirmed, James iv. 4, ' The friendship of this 
 world is enmity with God ;' not only is this true in a lower sense, as 
 a hindrance, being backward and averse to it, but it is a direct opposi- 
 tion and contrariety to God and his service. Its drawing back and 
 hindering is charge enough against it: for it [1.] withdraws those 
 thoughts, affections, time, care, and endeavours, which should be laid 
 out upon better things, so that holiness must needs be obstructed, 
 dwindle, and decay by it. [2.] It hinders the influence of heaven ; it 
 shuts out the light casually, quencheth and resisteth the Spirit, and, 
 meritoriously also, it provokes God to withdraw, to remove his glory, 
 and to give over his striving with them ; but the contrariety that it 
 hath to all the parts of holiness is yet more : Christ notes it, Mat. vi. 24. 
 These two masters, God and the world, are contrary in their designs, 
 in their commands, in their natures, so that it is impossible for any 
 man to serve them both. They both require the heart, and they both 
 
442 A TREATISE OF [PaHT III. 
 
 require it to contrary and incompatible services and ends. These, then, 
 are such masters as would be domini in soliduin, masters of the whole.i 
 Now there cannot be two masters of one thing in that sense ; neither, 
 if there were, could the hearts of men serve these different commands, 
 but their work would necessarily engage their affections to one only ; 
 they would either ' love the one and hate the other, or hold to the one 
 and despise the other.' This very consideration, if there were no more, 
 doth render the world a desirable instriunent for Satan. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, In aU this the world hath so many cunning disguises, 
 and ]]lausible shifts, that it becomes therebi/ ivonderfidlij serviceable to 
 Satan. It is the perfection of wicked policy to manage wicked designs 
 under plausible pretences. These the world hath in readiness when 
 it is accused of rebellion and treachery against God. The pleas of 
 necessity, of prosecution of a lawful calling, of providing for a family, 
 of not neglecting the benefits of God, of cheering the heart, and taking 
 the comforts of the labours of their hands, and a great many more, 
 are ready excuses to ward off the foi'ce of the convincing word. These 
 the devil drives home, and fastens them into such strong persuasions, 
 that the deluded sinner cannot see the danger that is before him, nor 
 the spiritual adultery or idolatry of his soul, in his excessive love to 
 worldly pleasures. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, The world hath also a spiritual fascination and witch- 
 craft, by which, where it hath once prevailed, men are enchanted to 
 an utter forgetfulness of themselves and God, and being drunk with 
 pleasures, they are easily engaged to a madness and height of folly. 
 Some, like foolish children, are made to keep a great stir in the world 
 for very trifles, for a vain show ; they think themselves great, honour- 
 able, excellent, and for this make a great bustle, when the world hath 
 not added ' one cubit to their stature ' of real worth. Others are by 
 this Circe transformed into savage creatures, and act the part of lions 
 and tigers. Others, like swine, wallow in the lusts of uncleaimess. 
 Others are unmanned, putting off all natural affections, care not who 
 they ride over, so they may rule or be made great. Others are taken 
 with ridiculous frenzies, so that a man that stands in the cool shade 
 of a sedate composure would judge them out of their wits. It would 
 make a man admire to read of the frisks of Caius Caligula, Xerxes, 
 Alexander, and many others, who because they were above many men, 
 thought themselves above human nature. Tliey forgot they were 
 born, and must die, and did such things as would have made them, 
 but that their greatness overawed it, a laughing-stock and common 
 scorn to children. Neither must we think that these were but some 
 few or rare instances of worldly intoxication, when the Scripture notes 
 it as a general distemper of all that bow down to worship this idol. 
 They live 'without God in the world,' saith the apostle, [Eph. ii. 12,] 
 that is, they so carry it as if there were no God to take notice of them, 
 to check them for their madness. ' God is not in all his thoughts,' 
 saith Davdd, Ps. x. 4, 5. 'The judgments of God are far above out 
 of their sight;' he puffs at his enemies, and saith in his heart, 'he 
 shall never be moved,' &c. The whole psalm describes the worldling 
 ns a man that hath lost all understanding, and were acting the part of 
 
 ' Grotius, in loc. 
 
Chap. 21.] satan's temptations. 443 
 
 a frantic bedJam. What then can be a more fit engine for the devil 
 to work with than the pleasures of the world ? 
 
 Applic. I shall briefly apply this to two sorts of men, those that are 
 straitened with want and necessities, and those whose ' cups run over,' 
 having all ' that their heart can wish.' 
 
 (1.) First, To those that think their measure of outward comforts 
 little, I would from the doctrine now explained tell them that they 
 have not so much cause to vex and disquiet themselves for their poverty 
 or troubles as they apprehend. The world is not so desirable a 
 thing as many dream. Did but men consider how great a snare it is, 
 and what dangers attend the fulness of it, they would not so earnestly 
 covet it, nor so passionately lament when it flies from them. If thou 
 hast so much godliness as can quiet thy heart in a contented enjoy- 
 ment of thy little, that little which thou hast is better than great 
 riches of the wicked. Thou little knowest from what pride, insolency, 
 contempt of God and men, and many other temptations and lusts, God 
 doth preserve thee, by denying thee earthly things. Thou art now, it 
 may be, often looking up to God, striving to believe his word, often 
 examining thy heart, labouring to live upon God and his all-suf- 
 ficiency, looking after the bread that endures to eternal life ; when if 
 thou hadst the temptations of plenty, it may be feared thou wouldst 
 be another man, and be carried away to forget God, to be careless of 
 holy walking, and so make way for bitterness and sorrow at last. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, I would also caution poor men not to enlarge their 
 desires too much after the ivorld, hut to fear the temptations of the 
 world. It is not only a snare to those that enjoy it, but to those that 
 want it : for while they admire it, and engage their affections for it, it 
 ensnares them in sinful undertakings ; they are tempted to lie, cheat, 
 dissemble, to use unla\\'ful shifts, to rob, steal, overreach in bargain- 
 ing, and to neglect the care of the soul in all. Let such call to mind, 
 [1.] That often the providence of God doth of purpose thwart and 
 cross the designs of such, so that though they toil and sweat, running 
 from market to market, ' rising early and sitting up late,' yet he blows 
 upon their gettings, and they wither to nothing, ' while it is yet in 
 their hand ; ' or if they seem to keep them longer, yet all the end 
 they make with them is but to put them into a ' bag with holes,' 
 [Haggai i. 6,] they 'perish by evil travail,' Eccles. v. 14. [2.] They 
 often are at a great deal of labour in pursuit, and then when the 
 desired object is within their reach, they are overwhelmed with their 
 disappointment, as if j^rovidence designed to mock them for their 
 folly. This is excellently set forth, in the emblem of a man climbing 
 up a rock, \vith great labour, to reach a crown that hung upon the 
 precipice, who when he had stretched himself to grasjj it, falls down 
 and breaks his neck. [3.] And when they do by great toil rake to- 
 gether a heap of riches, they are starved frequently in their plenty, 
 and so cursed that they have no more than ' the beholding of their 
 goods with their eyes,' in that God denies them a ' heart to use them,' 
 Eccles. V. 11. [4.] "Their gettings allay not their thirst for more, ' He 
 that loveth silver, shall not be satisfied with silver,' Eccles. v. 10. 
 [5.] Often they are given as a scourge and plague; as the quails 
 given to the Israelites ' came out of their nostrils.' The wise man 
 
444 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 notes it, Eccles. v. 13, ' Riches are kept for the owners thereof to their 
 hurt.' 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, To those that have the delights of the world, plenti- 
 ful estates, full tables, beautiful houses, rich tradings, honours, and 
 dignities, I would desire to give the greatest caution, that they take 
 heed to themselves, because they ivalk in the midst of snares. They 
 should consider, [1.] That the great God hath laid most serious 
 charges upon them, ' not to love the world,' but to withdraw their 
 affections from it, nay, to be crucified to it, as to any captivating de- 
 light, and to use it with such an indifferency of mind, that they 
 should be in their deportments towards it as ' if they used it not.' 
 [2.] They should have their danger in their eye. How careful is he 
 of his steps that knows he walks in the midst of serpents which are 
 ready to sting liim ; the thoughts of this should blunt the edge of our 
 delights. If you were at a feast where you knew there were poisoned 
 dishes, you would be afraid to eat anything. Do yon think that 
 Captain Smith ^ when he was taken by the savages of America, and 
 had plenty of meat set before him, which he knew was given to fatten 
 Imu that he might be better meat when he was killed, had any 
 stomach to eat or to drink ? Was that feast pleasing to him that sat 
 under a sharp sword hung over his head in a horse hair, when he ex- 
 pected every moment it should fall upon him and kill him ?'^ Such 
 are great men, rich men. With what fear and care shoidd they use 
 these things, when they know there is hazard of mischief from them 
 upon every occasion ! How much doth Christ speak in that one 
 sentence, ' It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, 
 than for a rich man to cuter into the kingdom of heaven ' ! [Mat. xix. 
 24.] He means not that it is absolutely impossible, but extremely 
 difficult, and the difficulty lies in the hindrances which their riches 
 casts before them. [3.] They should carefully consider for what ends 
 God gives these, and to what use they are to be put. Rich men are 
 but God's pursers ; they do but ' carry the bag,' and what is put there- 
 in, for public uses. If accordingly, as faithful stewards, they lay it 
 out upon those that have need, they shall ' make friends of the un- 
 righteous mammon,' and it will turn to a spiritual account : but if 
 they think that all is for themselves, and so shut their bowels and 
 purses from others, then they carry the bag no otherwise than as Judas 
 did, and will be easily persuaded to sell Christ and heaven for a little 
 more of earth. 
 
 ' The famous Captain John Smith, the Founder of Virginia.— G. 
 ' Damocles —G. 
 
Chap. 22.] satan's temptations. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Of Christ's answer in the general. — That these temptations loere upon 
 desigyi for our instruction. — Of the agreement betwixt Eph. vi. and 
 Mat. iv. — The first direction. — Of courageous resolves in resisting 
 temptations. — Its consistency iviih some kind of fear. — The neces- 
 sity of this courage. — Wherein it consists ; and that there is a 
 courage in mourning spirits. 
 
 of Christ to the several temptations, which are now 
 to be explained, are different as to their matter, yet the general pur- 
 port of them being the same, I shall therefore handle them together. 
 They may be considered two ways : — 
 
 1. First, As they are fit and pertinent ansiuers to particular tempta- 
 tions, of distrust, of presumption, of debauching the heart by loorldly 
 delights to the service of Satan ; and thus may they be useful in their 
 consideration, to those who are directly moved by Satan to such sins. 
 And when at any time we are tempted in straits to cast away our 
 reliance upon the careful providence of God, we may look upon 
 Christ's answer, that man's life doth not so depend upon the usual 
 means, but that any other thing blessed by divine appointment may 
 be useful to that end. When we are enticed to presume of extraor- 
 dinary supports, then by Christ's example the temptation may be 
 resisted, by considering, that however God be to be trusted, yet he is 
 at no time to be tempted by unnecessary expectations in the neglect of 
 the ordinary means. If our hearts be wooed by worldly delights to 
 cast off our care of God and religion, we may then call to mind that 
 this is abominable idolatry, and so may we turn off our hearts from 
 sinful compliance by charging our souls with the opposite duties, upon 
 a true discovery of the vileness and inconvenience of the transgressions 
 urged upon us. 
 
 2. But, secondly, They may be considered as they give instruction 
 for the management of our spiritual armour against all Satan's wiles 
 in the general ; and in this sense I shall endeavour to open them, lay- 
 ing down first these two conclusions : — 
 
 (1.) First, That the ivhole business of these temptations, as permitted 
 to Satan, and submitted unto by Christ, ivas certainly upon design. 
 The same wisdom that contrived the wonderful method of the salva- 
 tion of men by a Redeemer, did also order these temptations ; for else 
 Christ could have prevented them, or by a divine authority commanded 
 silence to the tempter, and by his power might have chased him away. 
 As Christ told Pilate, ' Thou couldst have no power at all against me, 
 except it were given thee from above,' [John xix. 11;] thereby mani- 
 festing that his suffering was from a higher design than he was aware 
 of; so might he have said to the devil, ' Except this had been designed 
 by an eternal counsel, thou couldst not have made this attempt.' So 
 that we must look further for the spring and rise of this, than to any 
 supposed occasional outbreaking of satanical malice upon him. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, That this design, however it touched upon the per- 
 son and offices of Christ, as mediator and second Adam, for thus it 
 
446 A TREATISE OF [PaUT III. 
 
 became him to overcome the enemy at the same weapon by which he 
 overcame our first parents, and by this personal experience, to be fitted 
 with feeling compassions to the tempted, yet was it ivholly for our 
 salces, as may appear by two things : — 
 
 [1.] First, In that Christ, if his answers had only concerned him- 
 self, might have given other fit replies to the first temptation, of turn- 
 ing stones to bread. He could have retorted the argument upon Satan, 
 as Jerome and others observe.! If I am not the Son of God, it is in 
 vain to require a miracle of me. If I am, it is in vain to tempt me. 
 Or he might have answered, ' That as the Father hath life in himself, 
 80 hath he given to the Son to have life in himself, and that by this 
 divine power he could sustain himself without bread.' 2 To the 
 second it might have been a sufficient answer to have excepted against 
 his unfaitlifulness in citing that testimony out of Ps. xci., where, by 
 discovering his wilful omission of the clause, ' in all thy ways;' ' He 
 shall keep thee in all thy ways;' his temptation might have fallen to 
 the ground, as no way encouraged from that promise. To the third 
 might have been returned such answers as these : that Satan's ofl'er was 
 a lie ; that it was not in his power to dispose of the kingdoms of the 
 world— that these were Clirist's already ; that these were vain argu- 
 ments to draw him from the glory of a heavenly kingdom ; and finally, 
 that of all creatures Satan, being God's sworn enemy, had least reason 
 to expect divine honour. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, In that all Christ's answers were from Scripture, 
 which is properly a ' light to the steps of men,' and all these scriptures 
 cited shew man's duty. He saith not, ' the Son of God shall not live 
 by bread alone,' but ' man lives not by bread alone;' he saith not, 
 Christ must not temjit, but thou, man, shalt not tempt the Lord thy 
 God, (fee. By all which we may discern that Christ answered not by 
 arguments peculiarly agreeable to his jierson and nature, but by such 
 as suit the general state of God's children. And this certainly was 
 for our advantage. He conquered with such weapons, not for any 
 necessity that he had to take that course, but for the need that we had 
 of such instruction ; for hereby we see that Satan is conquerable, and 
 also how we must use our weapons.3 In this also he left us ' an 
 example, that we should follow his steps;' as Gideon said to his 
 soldiers, 'As you see me do, so do you likewise,' [Judges vii. 17.] Thus, 
 as it were, doth our Lord speak to us : For your sakes suffered I these 
 temptations, that I might teach your hands to war, and your fingers to 
 fight ; for your sakes I used these weapons of yours, rather than my 
 own, that I might shew you the use of your sword and shield, and how 
 your adversary "may be overcome by them ; dealing herein witli us as 
 a master at arms,— it is Musculus's comparison, — who, for the better 
 instructing and animating of his tyro, takes rather his disciple's sword 
 than his own, to beat his adversary ^sathal, minding not only the con- 
 quest of an enemy, but also the encouragement of a young soldier.* 
 
 1 Si ad imperium ejus lapides possunt fieri panes, ergo frnstra tentas ; si autem non 
 frustra, filium Dei suspicarie. ' Mugculus, in loc. 
 
 ^ Vide arma quibus tibi non sibi vicit. — Ambrose. 
 
 ♦ Hsec armatura non tarn Christo Filio Dei quam nobis illius tyrunculiB convenit, uti 
 tamen ille voluit, ut noa suo doceret exemplo, perinde atque si fortis quidam Gygas 
 hostem non suis, sed tyrunculi sui armis feriat et prosternat.— J/hscu/us. 
 
Chap. 22.] satan's temptations. 447 
 
 If any carry a suspicion in their mind that Christ had not our in- 
 struction so much in his eye as hath been said, because he gives not 
 such particular instructions for our spiritual welfare i as the apostle in 
 Eph. vi., expecting that our Saviour should have been more punctual 
 in making particular applications from every part of his carriage to 
 our use, and drawing out from thence some positive conclusions or 
 draughts of the way and manner of resistance, they may know that 
 there is no other difference betwixt Eph. vi. and Mat. iv. than there 
 is betwixt precejit and example. What the apostle there prescribed 
 in the theory, here Christ teacheth in the practice ; here we have in 
 their use the girdle of truth, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit, 
 the helmet of salvation, and all the other parts of that armour ; and 
 withal we may know that this is a far more advantageous way of teach- 
 ing young beginners, to let them see things in a plain example, than 
 only to give general precepts. But besides, we are to consider that 
 Christ did many things, the meaning whereof the disciples then pre- 
 sent with him did not know as yet, neither was it expected from them 
 that they should ; like to what he said to Peter, John xiii. 7, ' What 
 I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter ;' but were 
 intended to be laid up in store to be more fully made use of, as after- 
 directions should come in to give them information. He therefore 
 that had pui-posed to give further light in this matter by his apostle 
 and servant, was now doing that which his design led him to in his 
 personal actings, with a secret respect also to those instructions which 
 he intended after to communicate. We have then no reason to be 
 jealous that these temptations were not intended for our use, but the 
 more to assure ourselves that it was even so, because we find that those 
 very weapons which here Christ in his own person wielded against 
 Satan, are afterwards recommended to us. 
 
 Having thus laid the foundation, we must then, if we will imitate 
 our captain, carefully observe his deportment from point to point, that 
 we may draw out those instructions which he intended for us. 
 
 And the first thing that I shall take notice of, shall be the courage 
 and magnanimity of our leader. He had endured temptations forty 
 days and nights before, and yet he keeps the field without any appear- 
 ance of shrinking or rimning away. Satan no sooner tempts than he 
 is repelled. From this consideration we have tliis instruction : — 
 
 Direct. 1. That he that luould successfully resist temptations, must 
 not fly, hut luith a couracjeous resolve set himself to oppose. 
 
 Christians are apt to fear, when Satan comes up against them, and 
 ready to turn their backs : as the Israelites were dismayed at the 
 appearance of Goliath, and fled before him. But if we would conquer, 
 we must, as David, go out against him in ' the name of the Lord.' 
 To this we are called, 1 Cor. xvi. 13, ' Stand fast in the faith, quit 
 yourselves like men, be strong ;' and Eph. vi. 14, ' Stand, having your 
 loins girt with truth,' &c. This courage recommended is not a con- 
 tempt and negligent slighting of danger, nor is it a bold adventurous- 
 ness upon occasions of sin ; it is a holy, humble courage, and doth 
 admit of a threefold fear. 
 
 (1.) First, Of a fear of sin, that is, a hatred of it. We must fear 
 ' Query, ' warfare ' ? — Ed. 
 
448 A TREATISE OF [PART III. 
 
 sin as the greatest evil. This is no cowardice, but tends to the 
 strongest resolutioa and highest endeavours against it. From this 
 principle is it that men oppose sin as their mortal enemy, and excite 
 their utmost courage to fight against it. As the Philistines being 
 afraid of Israel, and yet hating to serve the Hebrews, mutually en- 
 couraged one another, ' Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, 
 ye Philistines.' A fear of hatred begets boldness. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Courage admits of a jyrevefnting fear aiid a provident 
 avoidance. Occasions of sin are to be fled. We are not with greater 
 earnestness called upon to stand, than we are warned in this case ' to 
 fly.' So the apostle often, ' fly fornication,' ' fly idolatry,' ' fly youth- 
 ful lusts.' Occasions are be.st opposed by flying, where calling and 
 duty doth not engage : Prov. iv. 14, ' Enter not into the path of the 
 wicked, and go not in the way of evil men.' He fights best that flies 
 most, where necessity doth not bid him stay, 1 Cor. vi. 18, x. 14, 
 and 2 Tim. ii. 22. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, It also admits of the fear of a holy jealousy; such a 
 distrust of ourselves, as puts us to seek to ' the rock which is higher 
 than we ' for shelter. God calls us to ' turn into our stronghold,' 
 Nahum i. 7, and to ' lay hold upon his strength,' [Isa. xxvii. 5.] It 
 is rashness or desperateness, and not true courage, to adventure our- 
 selves without our guard or shield. But however we must fear sin, 
 suspect our strength, and fly occasions, yet Satan we must not fly. 
 Here we are bid to stsmd, for these reasons : — 
 
 [1.] First, It is impossible to fly from him. He can follow us 
 wherever we go. If we go to holy assemblies, he can come thither. 
 If we shut up ourselves in our closets, he can meet us there. If we 
 betake ourselves to a wilderness or to a crowd, to be sure he will find 
 us out. 
 - [2.] Secondly, We are expressly cJiarged to make resistance : James 
 iv. 7, ' Resist the devil ;' 1 Peter v. 9, ' whom resist.' This plainly 
 speaks positive endeavours and opposition on our part. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, A fainting fear is an unbelieving distrust of Gods 
 power, as if he were not ' able to save to the uttermost,' [Heb. vii. 25,] 
 and of Christ's compassionate tenderness, as if he would not ' succour 
 those that are tempted,' [Heb. ii. 18.] 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, Our fainting makes Satan insult. He triumphs 
 when we tm-n our backs, and besides hath the greater advantage to 
 wound us or to tread us down at pleasure. It is observed that God 
 provides armour for head and breast, and all the fore parts, by a shield 
 in case of resistance ; but if we fly, so little encouragement is there for 
 cowardice, there is no armour for the back. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, It is most suitable to Christian courage to die in the 
 place, and to put it to the tdmost hazard rather than to yield. 
 According to Vespasian's motto, Oportet imperatwem stantem mori. 
 Every Christian should say, 'Shall such a one as I fly?' [Neh. vi. 
 11 ;] one that hath given up my name to God ; one that hath 
 professed holiness afore men ; one that hath so many advantages for 
 resistance, and such sweet encouragements from a victorious general ! 
 
 Quest. But the great question is. What is this fear that is forbidden, 
 and the courage which is enjoined ? 
 
Chap. 22.] satan's temptatioxs. 449 
 
 Ans. The fear forbidden is an unbelieving weakness and pusilla- 
 nimity, through which, as hopeless of success, men throw down their 
 weapons and yield themselves up to Satan, when the hearts of men 
 fail them to the giving up of the victory. 
 
 Spiritual courage, on the contrary, is a serious resolve of fighting it 
 out in the strength of the Lord, and it consists of these two parts: — 
 
 First, A sincere resolution to he on Christ's side against all iniquity, 
 a deKberate unfeigned determination to stand for God and his holy 
 ways, against Satan and sin. [1.] The ground of this determination 
 is a conviction of the evil of siu, even to a hatred of it. He that hath 
 not thoroughly weighed the misery of living in sin, and fully purposed 
 within himself to forsake it, can have no true Christian courage when 
 it comes to a pinch. [2.] From this ground he lays himself under 
 solemn engagements to Christ his general, as soldiers list themselves 
 under their captains, that he will follow him and ob.serve his com- 
 mands ; he gives up himself to God by covenant. So that now he is 
 no longer his own, but Chri.st's servant, bound for his work. [3.] And 
 this with such or so much belief of his promises for aid and victory, 
 that he hath some hopes or expectations at least, that God may at 
 last so assist him that he may attain to some real degree of the 
 mortification of the ' flesh, with the affections and lusts thereof,' [Gal. 
 V. 24.] 
 
 Secondly, The second part of this courage consists in a suitable 
 management of this undertaking. Courage is not only seen in the 
 first onset, but in the prosecution of the warfare ; and this lies in two 
 things. [1.] When there are real endeavours against sin, answerable 
 to this undertaking, in all ways of striving to oppose it. When men 
 do not engage against sin with big words only ; or as the children of 
 EphraLm — who, arming themselves and carrying bows, seemed to liave 
 stout resolves, but then ' turned back in the day of battle ; ' but with 
 real and conscientious wrestlings, setting themselves with all their 
 might and care against every temptation, and studying to pursue the 
 victory, where in any degree it is obtained, to a greater height. [2.] 
 When these endeavoiu's are sincerely persisted in, without being quite 
 wearied out or utter fainting, so that it never comes to this, though 
 they may be sometime under Satan's feet, that they relinquish their 
 first solemn engagement, or repent of their undertaking, and then 
 turn their backs upon God, listing themselves imder Satan's colours. 
 Such a fainting as this would bereave men of their crown ; ' Ye shall 
 reap in due time if ye faint not,' Gal. vi. 9. Upon this hazard are 
 the childien of God cautioned, Heb. xii. 3, ' Lest ye be wearied and 
 faint in your mind.' [3.] There is also a particular Idnd of courage 
 expressed in a holy and humble contempt of Satan's suggestions, 
 when after all means used they cease not to be troublesome. This is 
 not to slight sin but to slight Satan, who, though he is resisted, ceaseth 
 not to molest. 1 
 
 Applic. I shall particularly apply this first direction, [1.] To 
 those that propound ease to themselves in their race or warfare, which 
 is a thing impossible to one that doth the work of a soldier, not con- 
 sidering that work and courageous endeavours do abide them. [2.] 
 ' C'apel, Tempt., part 2, cap. 9; Ames, Cas. Consc, lib. ii. cap. IS, sec. 14. 
 
450 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 To those that pretend themselves Christ's soldiers, courage and Clu'is- 
 tian magnanimity is your cognizance. By this must you be known. 
 How do ye stand? what are your resolutions and undertakings? 
 Those Christians that have ' joy and peace in believing ' can more 
 easily satisfy themselves in this ; but those that fight in tears and 
 grief, in disquiets and troubled thoughts, are apt to conclude them- 
 selves unbelieving, because they are fearful; or to think that they 
 look not up to Jesus, the ' author and finisher of theu- faith,' because 
 they apprehend themselves weary and ' faint in their minds.' For the 
 ease and help of such, I shall shew in a few things that there is as 
 real a Christian courage in such mourners as in some that sing songs 
 of triumph. 
 
 [1.] First, It is a real courage and undertaking against sin for any 
 to resolve his utmost, out of detestation of it, be/ore he can satisfy 
 himself that God icill accept of it. To oppose sin under such a dis- 
 couragement, or at such a venture, is a comageous hatred ; and yet 
 60 do these mourners. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, To be nndei- continual grievings because, of mis- 
 can-iages, so that other things ofoidicard enjoyment cease to be pleasing, 
 is a courageous hatred ; but this is their case. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, 2o icrestle against sin under high discouragements, 
 when aftlicted and tossed, when Satan runs upon them and shakes 
 them by the neck, and yet tliey continue their wrestling and with- 
 standing as they are able ; this is ihitliful resistance, ' a resistance 
 unto blood, striving against sin,' Heb. xii. 4 ; that is, if that expres- 
 sion be proverbial, like that, ad sanguincm usque, they resist sin faith- 
 fully, under great hazards and inconveniencies, even to wounds and 
 blood, till they have broken heads and broken faces ; and can say to 
 God, though wc have been ' broken in the place of dragons,' and have 
 these wounds to shew, yet ' have we not departed from thee,' [Ps. 
 xliv. 19,] nor quitted our desires after thee and holiness, for all 
 these buffetings of Satan ; but this is the character of these dejected 
 ones. 
 
 [4.] Fourtlily, It is a courageous hatred that cannot suffer a sinful 
 motion to fall ujion the soid, but it j)ids all into a combustion loithin, 
 and raiseth disquiet ; for it is an argument that there is a contrariety 
 bet\N'ixt the heart and sin ; but this is their case also. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, It is courage and constancy to hold on in gracious 
 endeavours and strivings; so that when they fall, as soon as they can 
 re-collect their strength they set on where they left, and renew the 
 battle, never changing their first resolve for hohness against sin. This 
 is implied in the apostle's phrase of ' standing,' — Eph. vi., ' That j'e 
 may withstand, and when ye have done all, to stand.' He is accounted 
 to stand that runs not out of the field, but stands to his holy resolve 
 to the last, though the battle go sore against him by fits ; but such are 
 these mourners. 
 
 There is true courage under mourning and disquiet of heart, so that 
 we may say to such, ' thou afflicted and tossed,' fear not, ' the glory 
 of the Lord shall shine upon thee,' [Isa. Ix. 1.] They that are weak 
 in this sense shall be strong as David. 
 
Chap. 23.] satan's temptations. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The second direction, ihat temptations are not to he disputed. — The 
 several ways of disputing a temptation. — In what cases it is con- 
 venient and necessary to dispute toith Satan. — In lulmt cases incon- 
 venient, and the reasons of it. 
 
 The next thing observable in Christ's carriage to Satan is this, that 
 Christ, though he rejected every temptation by giving a reason of his 
 refusal from the command of God, did not suffer Satan to dispute liis 
 temptations further than the first proposal, and in his answers he 
 takes no notice of the reasons or motives by which he laboured to 
 make his temptations prevailing. In the two first temptations he 
 gives no reply to what Satan insinuated by his supposition, ' If thou 
 be the Son of God,' neither by affirming that he was so, nor discover- 
 ing to liim his knowledge of the secret subtlety which he liad wr-apped 
 up under these plausible pretences. In the third he answers not a 
 word to the vanity and falsehood of his deceitful offer of ' the king- 
 doms of the world,' though, as hath been observed, he might have 
 opposed strong reasons against them all; and besides, when Satan 
 became insolent and impudent in tempting Christ ' to fall down and 
 worship him,' he chaseth him away with a severe abomination, ' Get 
 thee hence, Satan ; ' from which we have a second direction, which is 
 this : — 
 
 Direct. 2. That temptations to sin are to be opposed hy perempt(yry 
 denials rather than hy disputings. 
 
 This is a note which most commentators have on this place ; but it 
 stands in need of a distinct application, because it is not a rule so gene- 
 ral but that tlie practice of God's children have made exception against 
 it. For the clearer explanation of it, I shall, 
 
 1. First, Give you the several Icinds of disputings, hy whichioe may 
 see that all are not alike ; for, 
 
 (1.) First, The serious tvorking of the thotights in a quick denial of 
 a temptation zvith a reason implied or expressed, though it admit not 
 Satan to any further dispute or argument, may in some sense be called 
 a disputing; for the Scripture useth 8iaXoyi(Tfj.6<; for any inward, 
 serious thought. Such a kind of disputing as this is necessary. It 
 cannot be wanting to any that refuse a sinful motion, this being, as 
 we shall see afterward, one of those directions which Christ intended 
 us by his example, and the very thing which Clirist practised in every 
 temptation ; for he contented not himself to give a naked denial, but 
 still adds a reason of such refusal. Those who in general terms urge 
 that temptations are not to be disputed, do not reckon this as any dis- 
 puting ; and others that do, taking disputing for the refusal of a thing 
 with a reason assigned, think that his procedure in the two first 
 temptations is not imitable by us, but only that of the third, wherein 
 he chased away the devil with angry denial ; but the mistake is 
 obvious. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, There is a disputing of zmnecessary curiosity and 
 conference. This is when a sinful motion injected into our hearts is 
 
452 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 not directly consented to, but then instead of a full denial men begin 
 to raise questions and make objections of lesser moment, or some im- 
 pertinent queries which strike not at the root ; as one observed of him- 
 self, that instead of denying a sinful motion, he began to dispute 
 whether it came from Satan or his own inclination; and so, instead of 
 quenching the fire, he busied himself to inquire whence it came. Men 
 deal with temptations in this case as they who being asked whether 
 they will buy such a commodity, haslily answer no, but yet call back 
 the party again and ask whence it came, or what it must cost, and by 
 such entanglements of curiosity engage themselves at last to buy it. 
 Eve failed by such an inconsiderate conference with Satan, for the 
 abrupt beginning of the serpent's speech, ' Yea, hath God said ye shall 
 not eat,' &c., and the summing up of the arguments which prevailed 
 with her to eat, ' When the woman saw that the tree was good for 
 food, and pleasant to the eyes,' &c., [Gen. iii. 6,] do clearly evidence 
 that there was more discourse than is there expressed, and that also 
 tending to ascertain the goodness, jileasantness, and profit of thefruit. 
 Tliis kind of disputing is always unlawful and dangerous, for it is but 
 a wanton dalliance with a temptation, a jilaying upon the hole of the 
 asp, and commonly ends in a sinful compliance. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, There is a disputinfj of a deliberating and parleijing 
 indifferency. Tiiis is when the devil puts a thought of sin into their 
 minds, and, while tlicy seem not to be forward to embrace it, leaves it 
 to further consideration, and then they float betwixt resolved and un- 
 resolved, betwixt 2i^'0 and con, being at a great dispute witliin them- 
 selves what is best to be done, whether the conveniences on the one 
 hand will weigh down the inconveniences on the other. This, in 
 cases of apparent sin, is a wicked halting betwixt two, always un- 
 lawful. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, Thax are also treacherous partial argxiings,ivherein 
 the heart takes part with Satan. Tliese are those debates that are to 
 be found in natural men, about the doing or not doing of sinful things. 
 This looks so lOce the combat betwixt the flesh and the Spirit, that it 
 hath occasioned an inquiry how they may be distinguished each from 
 other. It is generally concluded that in that strife of the natural man, 
 the light of the imderstanding and conscience gives opposition to the 
 bent of the affections, and the same facidties, though sanctified in 
 part in the regenerate, are the parties that give opposition each to 
 other ; but with this principal ditference, that in this strife of the flesh 
 and Spirit the man takes part with God, whereas in the other the affec- 
 tions take the devil's part, and in a malignant averseness to tlie light, 
 strive to put it out and to get over tlie conviction of conscience, so that 
 the man strives to sin, and to stop the mouth of such objections as 
 come in to the contrary ; this kind of disputing is always sinful. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, There is yet a disputing in a strict sense, luhich is a 
 fuU and solemn debating of a satanical injection, by giving il tlie full 
 hearing, and admitting Satan to be a respondent to our objections. 
 Of this it is queried how far it may be convenient and hotv far incon- 
 venient, because we see Christ in this place did not thus dispute with 
 Satan, and yet we find instances in Scripture of some holy men that 
 have been unavoidably engaged to dispute a temptation to the utmost. 
 
Chap. 23.] satan's temptations. 453 
 
 To answer this query, I shall, secondly, shew in what cases it may be 
 necessary or convenient to enter the lists with Satan in a holy arguing, 
 and in what cases it is inconvenient and dangerous. There are four 
 cases in which we may dispute a temptation :— 
 
 [1.] First, When the motion is of things doubtful and disputable, 
 ivhether they be lawful or not. Here it cannot be avoided ; for albeit, 
 as the apostle adviseth, Kom. xiv. 1, ' doubtful disputations' are not 
 to be imposed upon others, so as to tie them up to our persuasions, 
 yet in these things every man, before he can act clearly, is to endeavour 
 his own satisfaction in the lawfulness or imlawfulness of the tiling, 
 that so he may be ' fully persuaded in his own mind,' ver. 5. And 
 he gives two strong reasons of this, ver. 22, 23: (1.) From the rack 
 and trouble which otherwise the man may be put upon, while his 
 conscience, unsatisfied, ' condemneth him in that which,' by a contrary 
 practice, 'he alloweth.' (2.) In that this condemnation of conscience, 
 while he doth that, the lawfulness whereof he believeth not, is an evi- 
 dence of his sin, as well as an occasion of liis trouble. 
 
 [2.J Secondly, Disputings have place, when a temptation hath taken 
 hold upon the thoughts, and so far possessed itself, that our corruption 
 riseth up in the defence of the suggestion. Satan will not quit that 
 hold, though he be an intruder without our leave, till he be beat out 
 of his quarters. The apostle, Eph. vi. 16, implies so much by that ex- 
 pression, of ' quenching the fiery darts ' of Satan. It is not proper to 
 understand it of a refusal of the first motion of sin— though interpreters 
 do usually make it comprehensive both of the keeping out of the dart, 
 and the plucking it out — because this evidently supposeth that the 
 dart hath pierced the soul, and now begins to burn and inflame, which 
 wdl require more labom- for the quenching of it, than a refusal of the 
 first motion would put us to. As when fire hath taken hold upon our 
 houses, we shall be forced to bring water for the extinguishing of the 
 flame, which before it had broke out upon the building, an ordinary 
 care might have prevented. And this we [are] further taught by a 
 distinction which the same apostle useth in the same place, of arfpat 
 and avTL(7Tp]vai., standing and withstanding. We must keep off the 
 temptation, that it enter not, by standing against the assault in 
 a peremptory refusal ; but if it do enter, then we must be put to 
 it, by a force of holy arguing, to pull out the arrow, and to with- 
 stand it. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Much more need have we of disputing, when the 
 present temptation is a motion of such a sin lohich we are habituated 
 unto, and have long practised ; for these kind of sinful motions are 
 not cast out easily. In this case, David adviseth his enemies, Ps. iv. 
 2—4, who had for a long tune, ' loved vanity, and sought after leasing,' 
 that by ' communing with their own heart,' and by disirating against 
 their sinful practices, they should bring themselves under a holy awe, 
 and by that means stop the course of their sinning, ver. 4. This, 
 indeed, is the great thing that sinners are called to by God, to ponder 
 their estate, to consider their ways, to study the evil and danger of 
 sin, to examine themselves, and to reason together with God about 
 the wickedness and ingratitude of their actions, and about the contrary 
 blessedness, and happiness of the ways of God, that so they 
 
454 A TREATISE OF [PaKT III. 
 
 may be brought to repentance ; all which are done only by a serious 
 arguing of their case and hazard. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, It is convenient, and in some cases necessary, to 
 dispute a temptation which Satan offers to us, by the moufJis of men, 
 loho entice us to share wifh them in their wickedness; for here, by 
 arguing, we may not only discourage their further sohcitation, and so 
 free ourselves from the like temptation for the future, but we also, 
 by the exercise of a holy charity, endeavour to ' pull them out of the 
 fire,' Jude 23. When Joseph's mistress tempted him, he considered 
 that he had to deal botla with the devil and his mistress, G-en. xxxix. 
 7, 8, and therefore that he might ' resist the devil,' he peremptorily 
 refused the temptation ; but that he might take off his mistress from 
 her unlawful prosecution, he argues with her about the ingratitude, 
 danger, and unlawfulness of such an act, ' My master wotteth not what 
 is with me in the house, and he hatli committed all that he hath to 
 my hand: there is none greater in this house than I, neither hath he 
 kept anything back from me but thee, because thou art his wife : how 
 then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?' When 
 sinners do entice us to cast in our lot amongst them, pity to them, 
 and care of ourselves, will engage us to argue the folly and danger of 
 their ways with them, except they behave themselves as dogs and 
 swine ; their carriage giving us just ground to conclude, that they are 
 80 set on wickedness, that it may endanger us, ratlier than profit them, 
 to debate with them. And so was it likelj- — and the text seems to 
 hint so much — that when Joseph jjerceived liis mistress was resolved 
 upon the pursuit, and that his reasonings were not miuded, he persisted 
 in his denial, but forbore his arguings. 
 
 But however it may be convenient to dispute, in the last mentioned 
 sense, in these four cases — and others may probably be added — yet 
 there are cases in which it will be inconvenient and hazardous to dis- 
 pute or argue, and of this order I shall reckon four. 
 
 [1.] First, It is not safe to dispute tlie matter in vile, infectious 
 temptations, such as are either suitable to our inclinations, or may 
 receive a favourable aspect and conntemmce from the posture of our 
 affairs and condition. These temjjtations, even in our debating 
 against them, are like the opening of a sepulclire, which sends forth a 
 poisonous stream! which may infect those that loathe and resist it. It 
 is dangerous to admit fire into the same room where there is gun- 
 powder, though there be no intention to kindle it. It hath been 
 an old observation, that the very confession of infectious sins, though 
 designed to beget shame, and resolution against them for the future, 
 have kindled a new flame, by the unnecessary declaration of the manner 
 and circumstances, so that they have returned from the confessor more 
 infected than when they went ; and those very persons whose care it 
 should have been to have put the liighest disgrace upon sins so con- 
 fessed, to the begetting of loathing and abhorrency in the parties and 
 themselves, have by too curious an inquiry received such poison at the 
 ear, that the heart hath been forth-nath infected. The like hazard 
 remains to those that are willing to debate such sins with Satan ; for 
 though they begin upon the score of resistance, yet the very dwelling 
 ' Query, 'steam'?— Ed. 
 
Chap. 23.] satan's temptations. 455 
 
 on such a subject, when admitted to lay itself open, doth convey such 
 amorous looks unto the treacherous afifections, that the heart is in 
 danger of a secret poison. There is no better way in such cases than 
 to command all such thoughts and considerations out of our coasts, 
 and, as we do when the city or town we live in is infected, to with- 
 draw ourselves from the air of such a temptation. We may observe 
 the like care in Joseph, though he thought himself concerned at first, 
 as hath been said, to oppose the unlawful suit of his mistress, yet see- 
 ing her desperately set upon her folly, he declined all communication 
 with her, and would not be with her. Gen. xxxix. 10 ; and at last, 
 when she caught him by his garment, ' he left it in her hand and 
 fled,' ver. 12. He might easily have rescued his garment from her, 
 had he not been aware that his contesting against her might have 
 been an occasion of ensnarement to himself. Christ himself, when he 
 was tempted by Peter to spare himself, [Mat xvi. 22,] — which was a 
 temptation very taking to human nature, especially when suffering 
 and death is in view, — is more short and sparing in his reasoning 
 against it, than he was when the devil tempted him. He gives no 
 positive reasons agaiust it, as he did when he was tempted to ' fall 
 down and worship the devil,' but dischargeth himself from any further 
 consideration of the matter by a declai-ed abhorrency of the thing, ' Get 
 thee behind me, Satan, for thou savourest not the things that be of 
 God, but the things which be of men.' Which is as if he had plainly 
 said. This is so apparently from the devil, and so much abhorred by 
 me, because so suitable to my conchtion, that I will not so much as 
 discourse of it or consider it. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, Generally in all temptations, though they have not 
 the advantage of our present special estate or inclination, as hath been 
 noted, of an apparent loithdraioment from obedience, or of things un- 
 questionably sinful, it is not convenient to dispute them, but to dismiss 
 them by a denial, except some of the foremenfioned considerations do 
 alter the case. In known cases we need not parley, but stoutly deny. 
 Om- resolutions for duty, and against sin, should not be to seek. We 
 are certain that sin is to be avoided, and duty to be practised ; here 
 we should be peremptory. Abraham being certain of duty, when God 
 called him to ' a place which he should afterward receive for an in- 
 heritance,' he disputed not the uncertainty, the danger or inconvenience 
 that possibly might attend his removal, but went out, ' not knowing 
 whither he went,' Heb. xi. 8. Paul being called by God to preach 
 among the heathen, though ' flesh and blood' were ready with argu- 
 ments against it, yet he would not so much as confer with them, but 
 immediately obeyed. Gal. i. 16. Like instances I might fetch from 
 other holy men. Cyprian, when the president gave it to his own 
 choice whether he would obey or be put to death, commanchng him 
 to take it into consideration, he readily replied, In re tarn sancta non 
 est deliberandum, that it was not to deliberate in so plain a case. Mrs 
 Ann Askew, when at the stake ready to be burnt, a pardon was offered 
 by the Lord Chancellor ; she would not so much as look on it, but 
 returned this answer, that she came not thither ' to deny her Lord 
 and Master.' Bishop Hooker,^ in the same condition, had a box laid 
 ' Hooper ? — G. 
 
456 A TREATISE OF [PaKT III. 
 
 before him with a pardon in it, which when he understood — he was 
 so afraid of tampering with a temptation — he cried out, ' If ye love 
 my soul, away with it ; if ye love my soul, away with it.' And many 
 others there were in all ages, so far from accepting such ' unlawful 
 deliverances,' that they would not take into consideration the unright- 
 eous terms upon which they might have escaped. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, When a temptation, after all means used, continues to 
 eh troublesome, and is rather an annoyance than an infection, then 
 must we not dispute it, but by a holy contempt despise it. Tempta- 
 tions to blasphemy are oft of this nature, as hath been noted in its 
 place, and there are other things by which Satan creates to God's 
 cliildren great cUsquiet, while they in the meantime ablior the sin, 
 and cry out of the trial. Here when the ' messenger of Satan' will 
 not depart, it is an advice that hath tlie general approbation of holy 
 experienced men,i that we sliould despise the temptation, as an ap- 
 proved way to our quiet and ease ; for while we think to repel such 
 assaults by struggling with arguments, we do but inci'ease the force 
 of them ; as he that thinks to shelter himself against the wind, by 
 holding up his cloak before him, doth but derive upon himself a 
 stronger blast. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, In temptations of inward trouble and tenvr, it is not 
 convenient to dispute the matter ivith Satan. David in Ps. xlii. 11, 
 seems to correct liimsclf for liis mistake ; his siiul was ' cast down 
 witliin him,' and lor the cure of that temptation, he liad prepared 
 himself by arguments for a dispute ; but perceiving liimsclf in a wrong 
 course, he calls ofl' his soul fiom disquiet to an inimediate application 
 to God and the promises, ' Ti'ust still in God, for I shall yet praise 
 him ;' but in Ps. xi. 1, he is more aforehand with his work, for while 
 his enemies were acted by Satan to discourage him, he rejects the 
 tem})tation at first, before it settled upon his thoughts, and chaseth it 
 away as a thing that he would not give ear to : ' In thee, Lord, do I 
 put my trust ; how say ye then to my soul, Flee as a bird to your moun- 
 tain?' And there are weighty reasons that should dissuade us from 
 entering the lists with Satan in temptations of inward trouble. As, 
 
 [1.] First, The determination of the sincerity of the soul and its 
 converted state is a question of no small diffiL-ulty — a knotty contro- 
 versy, more intricate and abstruse than those controversies that in the 
 schools are of greatest name for difficulty ; for this is liable to more 
 weighty objections, and stands in need of nicer distinction. As Dr 
 Goodwin observes,- ' They that converse with dejected spirits, find so 
 much quickness and uimbleness of reasoning, turning every way to 
 ward oil" the force of an argument brought for their consolation, that 
 even wise and able heads are oft put to a stand, and know not what 
 to answer.' Would it then be fit to give Satan this advantage ? or to 
 admit him so far into om- reasoning ? He that will invite Satan to 
 such a contest, shall be sure to have his hands full. 
 
 ' Tentatus a Satana cum nullum evadendi modum sentis, simpliciter claude oculos, 
 ct nihil responde, et comuienda causam Deo. — Luther, torn. iii. f. 396. .Sicuttutiasimum 
 est canem latrautcm contemnere, et praeterire, ita una vincendi ratio est contemnere 
 rationcs .Satanae, ncque cum iis disputare. Satan nihil minus ferre potest quam sui 
 coutemptum. — Id., t 376 ; Ames, Cases of Come, lib. i. cap. 6. 
 
 2 Child of Light, cap 1, p. 41. [As before.— G.] 
 
CuAP. -23.] Satan's temptations. 457 
 
 [2.] Secondly, This kind of temptation doth usually disable men 
 for arguing ; it oftentimes confounds the brain, stupiiies the under- 
 standing, and weakens the memory. He man complains of himself as 
 ' distracted by terrors,' [Ps. Ixxxviii. 15.] Job calls himself desperate, 
 [chap. vi. 2G.] Such persons are not surely in a fit case to manage a 
 temptation with so cunning a sopliister as Satan. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, If they descend into the battle, he is not only too strong 
 for them, hut commonly after a ivldle they take Satan's part against 
 themselves, and comply luith him, concluding against their own peace. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, There is also a better tvay at hand than to enter into 
 a dispute; and that is, by going to God by a present faith, love or 
 repentance, when the truth of any of these is questioned. It is a 
 difficult task to prove sometime that former acts of faith, love, or 
 other gi-aces were sincere. This may admit of such objections from a 
 wounded spirit, that it will be hard to answer them ; but in this case 
 it is a nearer way to see if there be not in all these complainings 
 some present acts of these graces ; whether such complainants are not 
 willing to embrace Christ upon any terms, whether they do not hate 
 sin, whether they would not unfeignedly be reconciled to God, &c. It 
 oft falls out that this doth stay the trouble when examinations of 
 former acts do nothing for them. Some men are at more pains, as 
 one saith, to repair and fit an old building, than would serve to rear a 
 new one. Yet must it be remembered that though it were the best 
 course to resist temptations of this nature at first, by avoiding unne- 
 cessary disputings, notwithstanding when this — as I noted before of 
 other temptations — hath seized upon the heart and taken possession, 
 then shall we be forced to ' fill our mouths with arguments,' and whe- 
 ther we will or no, must we undergo a contest. As we see in David, 
 who when his troubles had prevailed upon him, was forced to plead 
 with God, with himself, with the temptation, and to have recourse to 
 former experience, ' the days of old, and the years of the right hand 
 of the Most High,' [Ps. Ixxvii. 10,] and all little enough. 
 
 All that I shall further say concerning the inconveniences of dis- 
 puting with Satan, shall be to give you the reasons manifesting these 
 unnecessary communings ivith him to he every way hazardous and 
 unsuitable. As, 
 
 (1.) Fii-st, It is an honotcr to Satan, and a disgrace to ourselves. 
 Men are loath to be seen contesting with persons of a far inferior 
 rank, especially in such things which have procured to such a noted 
 infamy. It is a usual piece of generosity in men of spirit that they 
 scorn to strive ^vith a scold, or contend with a beggar, or be found 
 in company of those that are under an evil name deservedly ; and in 
 matters that are vile and base, it is highly disgraceful to admit them 
 to a debate. Such things will either get more credit than they 
 deserve, while they seem to be countenanced by a disj^ute, or else shall 
 communicate their discredit to those that shall shew such familiarity 
 with them. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, By refusing to dispute temptations, toe raise up in 
 our hearts an active abhorrency of them, and by that abhorrency ice are 
 cautio7ied and strengthened against them. It must needs awaken our 
 hatred into a present activity against that sin, which our consideration 
 
458 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 at first view presents to us so abominable, that it deserves no other 
 answer but to be whipped out of our sight. And when our heart 
 is thus alarmed, it canuot but stand upon its guard. It is a course 
 that holy men have taken to keep men at a greater distance from sin, 
 to present it as a thing of greatest abhorrency ; and that is the intend- 
 ment of that expression, Eom. vi. 1, ' Shall we sin, that gi-ace may 
 abound ? God forbid.' The vileness of that abuse of gospel grace he 
 shews by setting it below the merit of any serious thought ; he sharpens 
 their apprehensions against it by an outcry of detestation. The like 
 he doth, Eph. v. 3, where he endeavours to set their hearts against 
 uncleanness and coveteousness, by telling them that it was unbecoming 
 saintship that such things should be ' so much as once named by 
 them.' 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Disputing is a secret invitation to the devil to urge the 
 temptation further. We do but toy with him, and give him occasion 
 to follow us. Eve found the truth of this by sad experience ; she 
 so managed herself, that she plainly intimated she l)ad a mind to hear 
 wliat the devil could say for tiie eating of the forbidden fruit ; and so 
 urged the prohibition of God, and the throatciiing, that slie sought 
 from Satan a confirmation of her secret unbelief rather than faithfully 
 endeavoured a repulse of the temptation, and mentioned the tlu-eaten- 
 ing under such terms of uncertainty and peradventure, as an objection 
 which she desired might be removed, ratlierthan from a firm belief of 
 that death spoken of, fortifying herself in lier duty ; by all which 
 Satan was so encouraged to proceed, that he presently confirmed her 
 in her distrust. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, Tlicse dispiitings usiialbj retwn nothing of advan- 
 tage to our account, but to Satan's. Wo unnecessarily enter the lists 
 with him, and that upon very unequal terms, he being, as Saul said 
 of Goliath and David, a ' man of war from his youth,' and we but 
 weak, unskilful striplings. We go out of our trenches and leave our 
 weapons behind us. We expose our naked breasts to all his darts, 
 and by discoursing with him lie gains time wherein the poison may 
 more powerfully work upon our affections. If he was too hard for oiu: 
 first parents at this weapon, we, whose hearts are not so faithful to 
 God as theirs in innocency, but corrupted by Satan, who hath also 
 a party in us, are not likely to come off witii triumph. 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, Tlicsc presage, conxequently, an over throxv. A parleying 
 city holds not long out. It implies in itself an inclination to yield, 
 when armies are willing to treat. Daily examples and experience of 
 those that give up themselves to sin after communication with Satan 
 sadly witness tliis truth. 
 
 The sum of this direction is this, that when a motion of sin is put 
 into our heart, instead of disputing where it may be avoided, we should 
 peremptorily deny it and send it away with an angry rebuke or severe 
 abomination': I may not do it ; How can 1 do this wickedness? Get 
 thee hence ; or, ' The Lord rebuke thee, Satan.' 
 
 I 
 
Chap. 24.] sat^vn's temptations. 459 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The third direction, of repelling a temptation toithout delay. — The 
 necessity of so doing. — What a speedy denial doth contain. 
 
 The magnanimity of Christ, and the peremptoriness of his denial, 
 we have noted. We must further observe the immediateness of his 
 answer ; he suffered not any of these motions to stay long with liim ; 
 here was not a Cras tibi respondeho, Come again to-morrow and I will 
 answer. He would not take time with the devil, but had his answer 
 ready. No sooner was he tempted, but the temptation was repelled ; 
 for these expressions — 'But he answered and said;' 'Jesus said 
 unto him ; ' ' Then saith Jesus unto him,' — shew the quickness and 
 speediness of these returns, that he answered presently, forthwith. 
 Hence we have a third direction in our resisting of Satan, which 
 is this : — 
 
 Direct. 3. Temptations are best ansiuered lohen they are presently 
 denied and forthivith repelled. The direction is of great importance ; 
 it is not for us to pass by a temptation with silence, or to defer an 
 answer. For these reasons : — 
 
 (1.) First, The nature of temptations, as dangerous or infectious, 
 doth sufficiently enforce a necessity of their speedy removal. Things 
 of danger require a sudden stop. If poison be taken into the body, we 
 speedily labour to cast it up, or to overcome it by antidotes. We 
 labour to stay the spreading of a gangrene presently. Who thinks it fit 
 to delay when fire hath taken hold upon a house ? The very oppor- 
 tunity of help is in the speediness of the endeavour. It is too late 
 to bring water when the house is consumed, too late to apply a remedy 
 when the disease hath conquered. They that consider what a tempta- 
 tion is, will see no reason to move slowly in opposing.^ 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Silence encourageth Satan. It is not with him as it 
 is with men ; it is the policy of some to overlook their petitioners, and 
 by silence to scare them from any further address ; but Satan hath 
 more impudence than to be put out of countenance by delay, and 
 more active malice than to be discouraged by silence ; nay, it doth on 
 the contrary embolden him. Modest requests are disheartened by 
 silence, but such motions which, by their nature, imply a disgrace, 
 aud carry no reason for their acceptance but what they expect to find 
 in the consent of those to whom they are made, if they be not presently 
 refused, they give encouragement to hope for entertainment. An 
 immodest request to a chaste matron, if not forthwith expressly 
 abominated, encourageth to further attempts. Sin being so great an 
 alirout to a holy heart, the motion of it cannot be entertained with 
 silence, but Satan is emboldened to expect consent in time, and follows 
 his advantage accordingly. He usually fhes at a valiant peremptory 
 resistance ; but if the pulse of the soul beat slowly upon the motion, 
 he grounds his hope upon that, and is animated to a further pro- 
 cedure. 
 
 ' Sero medicina paratur, 
 Cum mala per longas convaluere moras. 
 
460 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, Our loills are apt to be inclined by delay. Though 
 grace have made straight our crooked natures, yet we still carry such 
 a sway to our former dispositions, that a small thing, having the ad- 
 vantage of our natural bias and inclination, makes us, like a deceitful 
 bow, turn to our old stand. For the understanding and will of the 
 regenerate are but imperfectly good, the faculties that should obey 
 are unruly. In such a case how dangerous may delays prove ! Who 
 will suffer a seditious incendiary in an army, formerly inclined to 
 nmtiny ? Who will permit leaven to remain in that mass, which he 
 desires may not be leavened, and not quickly remove it ? Who wiU 
 neglect a spark upon dry tinder, that would not have it consumed, 
 and not instantly put it out ? If it was so great a mischief to Eve in 
 innocency, as hath been said, to delay her peremptory denial, of how 
 much greater hazard is it to us! Delays are dangerous to a very 
 proverb, and silence may end in consent. 
 
 (4.) Yovixi\\\y, Silence is also some degree of consent. It is strange 
 to find a man delaying an answer to temptation, and yet no way guilty 
 of consenting. In tilings tliat are to be opposed with care and hatred, 
 no man can withhold his liand without blame. He that is not against 
 Satan, who is to be perpetually resisted, is so far- for him as he is not 
 against him. He that delays justice which is due, denies it. The 
 judge in the parable was called unjust, not because he had devoured 
 the widow's house, but because be deferred to do her right, i He that 
 hinders not evil when and as soon as he can, doth command and 
 approve it. These are received axioms amongst men, and have the 
 same truth in them if applied to resistance of temptations. And this 
 may further appear by considering, [1.] The weakness of the wiU in 
 the regenerate. \Yhcn our wills are really set upon good and against 
 evil, yet we cannot say they are perfectly for the one and against the 
 other, but that there is still some degree of averscncss to good, and of 
 inclination to evil in our wills, or else we should not meet with com- 
 plainings of imperfections under sincere resistances ; as in the apostle, 
 ' The evil that I would not, that do I,' [Rom. vii. 19.] [2.] The acts 
 of the will in consenting may be so sudden, short, and quick, that 
 they may be ahnost insensible, and as forward and ready as the 
 motion. [3.] Tiie will may be interpretatively voluntary and con- 
 senting, when yet it forms not in itseU" any positive approbation. It 
 may be guilty, in that it doth not more strongly and speedily dissent: 
 for the suspension or negation of the will's act, where it ought to act, 
 cannot avoid the charge of coming short of duty. 
 
 (5.) Fiftidy, Not to answer presently, is to lose tlie best opportunity 
 of answering. It is less dangerous, more ea.sy, more comfortable to 
 be speedy in denial. The sooner fire is put out, or the disease is 
 stayeJ, the less hurt is done; and it is far less labour to quench a 
 spark than a flame ; to pluck up a young plant than an old standard ; 
 to kill the cockatrice in the egg. A temptation opposed speedily, is 
 with o-reater ease overcome, than after it hath settled though but a 
 little r for it presently makes a party within us ; our affections are 
 soon engaged, our understanding soon bribed, and then we have not 
 only Satan but oiu-selves to oppose ; and this self so divided, that 
 
 ' Differre justitiam est negare justitiam. Qui non probibet cum potest, juliet. 
 
CUAP. 24.] SATAN'S TEMPTATIONS. 461 
 
 when we come to fight, our wills are against our wills, our afFcctions 
 against our affections, our wishes and prayers clash and contradict 
 each other. As Austin confesseth of himself : ' I prayed,' said he, 
 ' and then feared lest thou shouldst hear me too soon ; I desired to 
 satisfy, rather than to extinguish lust.' i At the first assault the soul 
 is oft in a better postm-e, more unanimous and consistent with itself; 
 then is the golden opportunity of resistance. For, as one saith,^ it is 
 better to do it while reason is on our side, than when both reason and 
 affection conspire against us. And, lastly, it would be more honour 
 and satisfaction to us, rather not to have admitted such a guest, than 
 after such admittance into our thoughts to be forced to cast him out.^ 
 In the review of our actions we shall have more comfort to have been 
 resolute against any sin than to hold our peace. 
 
 The necessity of a quick and speedy rejection of a sinful motion is 
 then beyond dispute, and there needs no more to be said for the ex- 
 planation of this direction, but an account of what is implied in a 
 speedy denial. It contains these four tilings : — 
 
 _ [1.] First, That it must issue from a fixed determination against 
 sin. Some refuse a temptation with the same mind that carried 
 Lot's wife out of Sodom, and are forced beyond then- own inclination, 
 but these go not far till they ' look back ; ' and no wonder : for if he 
 that is sincerely peremptory against sin at the fii-st motion, may by 
 the solicitation of the flesh be inclined afterward, there is little ex- 
 pectation that he whom the first motion finds indifferent and but 
 coldly denying, should hold out long. But that refusal that must 
 give any encouragement to hopes of success, must be an answer of 
 holy mdignation against the offer of temptation, and that confirmed 
 into a serious resolve of heart not to yield. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, This positive denial must be also loisely jealous of 
 Satan, in motions that are unlikely, or that may seem light, little, and 
 not directly intended. Though it may be but a transient glance, or a 
 thing that is out of our road, yet must nothing be contemned or 
 undervalued. Jealousy will take notice of small actions or circum- 
 stances, and no less suspicious must we be of every proffer made to us, 
 lest Satan by any means get an advantage against us. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, The refusal must he so quick, that it may he ready to 
 take the temptation hy the throat. At the first motion or rising of it 
 in our mind, we must endeavour to stifle it in the birth, that it may 
 be as tlie ' untimely fruit of a woman that never sees the sun,' [Job 
 iii. 16 ;] we must not give it time to grow up to a rod of wickedness, 
 but must nip it in the earliest buddings of it. It is the nature of 
 grace, if we do but faithfully pursue the inclinations of it, to be quick 
 in its opposition. So doth the apostle's phrase teach us, Gal. v. 17, 
 ' The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh : ' 
 the spuit is as ready to repel, as the flesh to suggest. No sooner doth 
 the one stir, but the other is ready with an opposition, and the reason 
 of it is from the active contrariety that is betwixt them ; for so the 
 
 petieram a te castitatem, et djxeram ; da mihi castitatem, sed noli 
 modo ; timebam en'im ne me cito exaudires et cito sanares, malebam e.xpleri quam 
 extingui. — Confes., lib. viii. cap. 7. 
 
 - Greenham on Pa. cxix. 101. * Turpius ejicitur quam non admittitur hospes. 
 
462 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 word, avTiKeoTut, there used, would express it ; they are sworn enemies, 
 animated by principles of constant opposition, as water and fire are, 
 which cannot meet in peace together, but a present noise and combat 
 is raised from this conjunction. 
 
 [4.] Fourthly, When tliis is done, tve mtist endeavour to maintain 
 and stick to our first disalloiuance. A child of God, I know, in sinful 
 yieldings of infirmity, may say as the apostle, ' What I do, I allow 
 not,' — that is, [1.] What he then consents to, he did not allow at the 
 first, till importunity prevailed. [2.] Though his affections incline to 
 sin, yet his constant settled judgment is against it ; and though he do 
 it, he cannot say he approves it. Neither of these are the things I 
 aim at ; but this, that as the first motions of sins are disallowed, we 
 should endeavour to keep at that, to stand our ground, to withhold the 
 least after- delight or approbation. Not but that we must be forced 
 sadly to acknowledge the real truth of what the apostle speaks in the 
 place last cited, that these different jirinciples, which of them soever 
 carry the victory, do so impede one another, that when grace carries 
 it, yet it cannot do the utmost it would or aims at ; so that in the 
 stoutest oppositions, there may be some secret degrees of allowance 
 unavoidably ; notwithstanding we must so manage our denial, that, if 
 it were possible, we should not afford the smallest inclination toward 
 
 possu 
 least, 
 
 it ; the least, the better and nobler conquest. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The'/ourth direction, of repelling a tempiation hy Scripture argu- 
 ments. — Of several things implied in the direeiion. — Tite necessity of 
 answering hy Scripture arguments. — The excellency of the remedy. 
 — Hoio Scripture arguments are to be managed. 
 
 The next particular in Christ's answers to be observed by us is his 
 citations of Scripture as an invincible reason against all the devil's 
 temptations ; he beats them all back with this weapon, ' It is written.' 
 That this was written for our learning, and that, otherwise than for 
 our instruction, he lay not under any necessity of using this method, 
 hath been evidenced before, and it is a thing wliich all commentators i 
 do take notice of. From this we have another direction for the right 
 way and order of resisting temptations, which is. 
 
 Direct. 4. Tliat temptations are best repelled by arguments draion 
 from the ivord of God. 
 
 For the explanation of this, it may be considered what is first 
 presupposed in this direction; for when it is affirmed that we must 
 answer by reasons from Scripture, this implies — 
 
 (1.) First, That temptations are not to be opposed by groundless 
 refusals. It is no way safe to say we will not, because we will not, 
 nor to insist upon om- own bare resolve ; for this woidd be wilfulness, 
 rather than an obediential refusal, and unwarrantable self-confidence, 
 
 ■ Ideo Jesus omnes illas tentationes solis sacris Scripturis vicit, ut doceret nos sic 
 pugnare et vincere. — Cajelan, in loc; Jansenius, &c. 
 
 I 
 
Chap. 25.] satan's temptations. 463 
 
 rather than a humble wrestling. There are some, of whom it may 
 be said, as the prophet once charged the Jews, Isa. xxii. 11, that when 
 Satan comes up against them, they look in that day ' to tlie armour of 
 the house of the forest,' they ' repair the wall,' and ' cast ditches for 
 fortification ; ' they prepare themselves to the battle ' in their own 
 strength, but they look not unto the maker thereof,' to him who by 
 his mighty power must fashion our hearts to resistance. The vanity 
 of such undertakings is enough manifested in the event, for commonly 
 such men go on in a bravado of resolution, but are so altered at the 
 first appearance of the enemy, that they yield without a stroke. Who 
 could be more confident than Peter that he would not deny his Master, 
 whatever others did ? and yet how soon did his heart fail him. We 
 may warrantably deny a sinful motion, without being explicit in our 
 reason against it, especially in usual temptations, and when they thrust 
 themselves into our minds at such times when our thoughts are charged 
 with an attendance upon other duties, in which nevertheless the heart 
 hath a secret and implicit regai'd to the command of God ; but in no 
 case must we go down to the battle in the strength of a wilfulness, 
 lest it go against us. And thus do they who, when they are reproved 
 for some miscarriage, as of drinking, will presently with great con- 
 fidence make engagements not to drink wine or strong drink, not 
 to go into a tavern or alehouse, without any humble respect to duty, 
 or the power of God for the conquest of the sin ; and accordingly 
 we see that usually such promises and obligations do not hold ; 
 either they wilfully break them, or they become sinfully witty to 
 make evasions for the practice of sin, without the breach of the oath 
 or promise. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, The direction supposeth that loe must deny the sin 
 tvith the arguments of greatest strength and authority. There were 
 occasions and hints of other answers to these temptations that offered 
 themselves in Christ's way, and yet he waives them all, fixing only upon 
 Scripture reasons as the best and strongest. It is no Christian wisdom 
 to urge those inferior considerations of shame, loss, inconvenience, &c. 
 Some have no other reason betwixt them and sin, but What luill men 
 say? or What luill become of me? But besides that, these would only 
 be a train to bring on disputings, and that it is no way safe to venture 
 our souls upon such defences, when better may be had ; for who will 
 venture his life upon a staff when he may have a sword ? It is easy for 
 Satan to break these bows, and to cut these spears in sunder. He 
 can balance such reasons with equal reasons, and presently make us 
 believe that we have as good reason to commit the sin as those urged 
 by us for the not committing of it. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, This direction of using Scripture reason doth clearly 
 imply that the force andpoioer of Scripture is not in the words or char- 
 acters, hut in the mind and reason of it ; not that Scripture used as a 
 charm or spell, as if the devil were afraid of the sound and words of it, 
 can beat back the devil, but it is the authority of its command which 
 works upon the mind the highest impressions of fear and care, and as 
 a strong argument prevails with us to forbear. Notwithstanding the 
 plainness and undeniableness of this inference, not only do ignorant 
 men bless themselves against the devil by repeating some phrases or 
 
464 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 sentences of Scripture impertinently, and such as have no direct sig- 
 nification of the matter in hand betwixt Satan and them, as if the 
 devil could not endure to hear the pafernoster, or durst not come 
 within the sound of the name Jehovah, but also papists — and of them 
 such as might be supposed more considerate than to be carried by such 
 conceits — have placed a virtue in the words and sounds of Scripture, 
 and therefore do they command, though under some limitations and 
 restrictions, the hanging of sentences of Scripture about the neck in 
 scrolls, for the di-iving away of evil spirits, though in a clear contra- 
 diction to the reason which they give in the general against this course, 
 wliich is this, that the ' power of Scripture is not in the figures and 
 characters, but in the mind and understanding of it ;' and therefore 
 profits as ' pondered in the heart,' not as ' hung about the neck ;' aud 
 upon as slender grounds do they place a more than ordinary virtue, in 
 the angelical salutation, in the seven words upon the cross, in the 
 triumphal title, ' Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,' &c.i Such 
 kind of oppositions are but a mock to Satan. We cannot think to 
 ' bore the jaw of this leviathan with a thorn,' or to come to him with 
 ' this bridle,' or to ' play with him as with a bird,' [Job xli. 2 ;] he 
 durst allege scripture liiraself to Christ, aad therefore it is not the 
 phrase or sound that alfrights him. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, The direction doth imply an argumentative, proper, 
 and jit use of Scripticrc commands or p)romiscs. We see Christ m-ged 
 not any scripture iudifferently, but he used fit words, and chose to 
 himself select smooth stones out of this brook to sling against this 
 spiritual Goliath. Every temptation had an answer that doth most 
 fully and properly confront it. He regarded the main of the tempta- 
 tion, and sufi'ered not liimself to be diverted from that prosecution, by 
 engaging himself in that which might have been perplexed and con- 
 troversial, though he liad a fit opportunity to reprove Satan for a 
 dishonest craft of representing scripture in a sense of his own making, 
 and so might have rejected the temptation of casting himself down, 
 as leaning upon a false foundation, in that God did not promise in 
 Ps. xci. to preserve any that should presurajituously expect a protec- 
 tion while they run out of God's ways ; yet he waived this answer, 
 and opposed the assault by a plain scripture which chargeth the con- 
 trary duty. 
 
 Secondly, Having seen what this direction doth imply in these 
 things that are to be removed from the sense and intendment of it, I 
 shall next, for ascertaming of the reality and importance of it, shew 
 that temptations are to be resisted by Scripture arguments, by these 
 two evidences: — 
 
 (1.) First, God's recommending of the cominands of Sa'ipiure for 
 such a purpose : Dent. vi. 6, ' These words which I command thee 
 this day, shall be in thine heart : and thou shalt bind them for a sign 
 ujion thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes,' 
 &c. Whether the latter part of the command is to be understood 
 literally, as the Jews apprehended and practised, though some think 
 
 ' Malleus Mallefic, part 2, quses. 11, cap. 6. Virtus evangelii est in intellectu et non 
 in figuris, ergo melius in corde posita prosunt, quam circa collum suspensa.— -BoWAo/., 
 Sibilla Pcrcgr., qutes. dec 3, c. 9, q. 9. . 
 
Chap. 25.] satan's- temptations. 465 
 
 otherwise, is not necessary to be asserted, seeing it is granted by all 
 that they were to have the commands of the law so ready in their 
 minds and memories, as if they had been wi-itten on their hands and 
 u^jon their foreheads. That God designed this precept for the resist- 
 ance of sin and temptation cannot be doubted, and that the advantage 
 which might hence arise to them was not only the information of their 
 minds, in 2:)oint of sin and duty, is as unavoidable ; for that and more 
 is intended by that part of the injunction, ' These words which I 
 command thee, shall be in thine heart ; ' but when ? Besides this 
 information, which the knowledge of the law would afford them, and 
 their humble compliance with it, as just and good, which would enable 
 them to say, ' Thy law, Lord, is within my heart ;' he further enjoins 
 them the quick and ready remembrances of these laws, as if they were 
 ' frontlets between their eyes, and signs on their hands.' It can signify 
 no less than this, that in so doing they would be able to resist those 
 motions by wliich Satan would seek to engage them to the violation 
 of these commands. Neither need we to doubt hereof, when Christ 
 himself hath so fiilly taught us, by his own example, in resisting 
 temptations, the particular use of the remembrance of the law. In 
 the New Testament the apostle is most express in this matter : Eph. 
 vi. 17, ' Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,' 
 where not only the use of Scripture commands and promises against 
 Satan's suggestions is taught, but also the high avail and potency of 
 this weapon in reference to its end. It is called a sword, and in that 
 comparison it shews the active resistance which may be made by it ; 
 and it is called, not a sword of flesh, for ' the weapons of our warfare 
 are not carnal,' but ' of the Spirit,' to shew how mighty it is in 
 repelling Satan. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, Another evidence of its usefulness is from the success 
 2vMch the children of God have had in the right management of this 
 tveajMn. It is observable that while Christ answered by Scripture, 
 Satan was silenced, and had not what to reply to the answer, but was 
 forced to betake himself to a new temptation. David in many places 
 highly magnifies the power of the command, in the success he had by 
 it ; Ps. xvii. 4, he shews how available it was to preserve him in his 
 common converse from the sinful snares laid before him, ' Concerning 
 the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me fronl the 
 paths of the destroyer.' In Ps. xviii. 22, 23, he tells us that he 
 was shielded from the sins of his inclination and love, which are 
 hardest to prevent, by the opposition that he gave to the motions of 
 them, in setting up the statutes of God against them ; ' All his judg- 
 ments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from 
 me; I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine 
 iniquity.' In Ps. cxix. 11, he puts his prohatum est upon the head of 
 this receipt, and speaks of it as his constant refuge, ' Thy word have 
 I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.' In Ps. xxxvii. 
 31, he speaks of it as a tried case of common experience to all the 
 children of God, ' The law of God is in his heart, none of his steps 
 shall slide.' I shall add to this the experience of Luther, when, 
 saith he, in Epistle to the Galatians, ' the motions of the flesh do 
 rage, the only remedy is, to take the sword of the Spirit, that is, the 
 
 2 G 
 
466 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 word of salvation, and to fight against them ; of this 1 myself have 
 good experience ; I have suffered many great passions and vehement, 
 but so soon as I laid hold of any place of Scripture, and stayed myself 
 upon it, as upon an anchor, straightway my temptations did vanish 
 away, which without the word had been impossible for me to endure, 
 though but a little space, much less to overcome.' ^ 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, The eKcellency of this remedy will further appear 
 from these following reasons : — 
 
 [1.] First, In that it is a universal remedy. There can be no tempta- 
 tion, either of seducement or of affrightment, but the Scripture will 
 afford a suitable promise or command to repel it. So that it, like the 
 flaming sword in the cherubim's liand at paradise, turns every way to 
 guard the soul. I need not give instances of its power against sinful 
 motions, having done that already, and of such temptations which war 
 against the peace of the soul. I need but say this in the general, that 
 as the nature of such temptations is to disguise God, and to render 
 him dreadful to us, in the appearances of wrath and incompassionate 
 implacableness— and this Luther sets down as a certain rule — so have 
 we in Scripture such declarations of the mind and tender inclinations 
 of God, and such fidl and clear promises to assure us of this, and those 
 so adapted to every case, to every kind of hard thought which we 
 might take up against him, that we may find enough in them to break 
 all those malicious misrepresentations of Satan, and to keep up in our 
 mind ' right thoughts of God ;' which if we will adhere to, not suffer- 
 ing such promises to be wTcsted out of om- hands, nor our hearts to 
 give way to malignant impressions of cruelty, revenge, or unmerciful- 
 ness in God, though we be cast into darkness, into the deeps, we may 
 find some bottom on which to fix such beginnings of hope, as may at 
 last grow up to a spirit of rejoicing in God our Saviour ; and in this 
 case, when our heart and Satiin dictate to us that God is our enemy, 
 we ought, as it were, to shut our eyes, to refuse to hearken to our own 
 sense and feeling, and to follow the word ; but if we once give up the 
 word of promise, it is impossible the wound of conscience should be 
 healed with any other consideration. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, This remedy is comprehensive of most other remedies 
 against Satan's temptations. In Eph. vi., there are several other 
 pieces of spiritual armour recommended, and yet there is such a mani- 
 fest mutual respect betwixt this and those, that any may conclude that 
 however they be distinguished in their names, yet they are conjoined 
 in their operation. The girdle, so far as it relates to truth of judg- 
 ment and opinion, depends on the word of Scripture for information ; 
 the shoes, which are defensive resolves to walk with a steady foot in 
 the ways of religion, notwithstanding the hardships that attend holi- 
 ness, are prepared to us, by the comfortable and peace-bringing promises 
 of the gospel ; the righteousness which is our breastjilate, is only set 
 
 ' Canon est, quod in omnibus tentationibus — alium fingimus Deum esse qnhxa sit, 
 putamus enim Deum tunc non esse Deum sod horribile spectrum. — Tom. iv. f. 147. 
 Eeclamat (Sathan) in corde tuo, te non esse dignum ista promissione — est autem opus 
 ardenti oratione, ne extorqueatur nobis promissio. — Luther in Om., cap. 21, f. 188. 
 Cor dictat Deum adversum Tcrbum Dei, sequi debeo non sensum meum. — Idem, tom. iv. 
 f. 156. Nulla alia re potest sanari hoc vulnus conscientiffi, quam verbo Divina: pro- 
 -Id. tom. iv. f. 400. 
 
Chap. 25.] satan's temptations. 467 
 
 forth and wrought out to us by the Scripture and its ordinances ; faith 
 wliich is our shield, and hope which is our helmet, they neither of 
 them act without the warrant and encouragement of it ; and whereas 
 other parts of the armour are defensive, this of the Scripture is com- 
 pared to the sword, which not only defends, but also offends and beats 
 back the enemy. If the matter be seriously considered, all these parts 
 of armour are but these two, the graces of the Spirit — faitli, hope, 
 patience in their sincere exercise, and the word of Scripture as the 
 instrument by and in which they shew theii- operations ; so that all 
 this armour being put to use, in every particvdar temptation, it amounts 
 to no more than this we are speaking of, viz., that sinful motions are 
 to be rejected by a believing, sincerely resolute opposing of them, with 
 arguments from the word of God. 
 
 [3.] Thirdly, Scripture, as it is the word and command of the great 
 King of heaven, hath a daunting and commanding authority over the 
 comciences of men. ' Where the word of a king is, there is power,' 
 Eccles. viii. 4, and such is the majesty of a divine law, that it hath 
 power over the consciences of those that are yet in their sins, and can 
 woimd, affright, constrain, and bind even the rebellious ; so that so 
 long as they retain any of their natural impressions of a divine power, 
 they have some awe for his commands, which may be seen and argued, 
 where it would be least expected, from the enragement of the hearts 
 of sinners, when ' sin by the commandment,' accidentally, ' becomes ex- 
 ceeding sinful,' Kom. vii. 13, 14. For as that outrageous fierceness doth 
 arise from the contrariety that is betwixt a carnal heart and a spiritual 
 law ; so that contrariety would never work if the authority of that 
 law, having a power to restrain, and give check to the corruption 
 of the heart, were not some way owned by the conscience ; for where 
 no countermanding law is owned, there can be no u-ritating, provoking 
 restraint. This it can do to the vilest of men ; but of how much more 
 power may we imagine the word to be with good men, whose hearts 
 tremble at the word, when they ' bind the law upon their heart,' and 
 charge their consciences with it ? It is surely ' quick and powerful, 
 sharper than a two-edged sword,' [Heb. iv. 12 ;] nor doth it only, 
 by imlovely affrightmcnts, terrify them from sin, but by commanding 
 duty make the heart in love with it, so that it becomes a delightful 
 satisfaction to be preserved from the snare, i 
 
 [4.] Fourtlily, There is no argument that can be used against 
 temptations that can be more (ifftictively discouraging to Sedan. Satan, 
 as bad as he is, cannot but believe those truths which he knows, and 
 he knows that there are many truths in Scripture which respect him, 
 as thi-eatenings of punishment and divine vengeance ; he believes these 
 things and trembles, James ii. 19. His unavoidable knowledge or 
 remembrance of these things begets horror in him, he cannot but 
 be under a dread of these truths. Wliat can be supposed so to wound 
 him as the bringing these things to memory, by urging the command 
 of God against him ? Dr Arrowsmith ^ gives two instances of this 
 kind, the one of Christopher Haas in SweecUand — from the ejiistle 
 
 ' Quam suave mihi subit5 factum est cai'cre suavitatibus nugarum, et quas amittere 
 metus fuerat, jam demittere gaudium erat.— Aug. Confes., lib. ix. cap. 1. 
 " Tact. Sacr., lib. i. cap. 3, sec. 6. 
 
468 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 dedicatory to the fire tomes of Brentius's works— the other of Daniel 
 Cramer, rector of a school at Stettin in Germany ; on both which the 
 devil made a bold attempt in a personal appearance ; from the first, 
 demanding a catalogue of his sins in writing ; from the other, demand- 
 ing a paper in which one of the students had obhged himself to Satan's 
 service ; they both referred him to that text of Gen. iii. 15, ' The seed 
 of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent.' And this was 
 retorted upon him with such a strong exercise of faith, that he pre- 
 sently desisted the suit and vanished. 
 
 [5.] Fifthly, Tliis iceajwn cannot easily he lorestedout of our hands. 
 When we m-ge a divine prohibition against a temptation, what can he 
 say in answer ? he cannot deny it to be the word of God, or to be true, 
 or that we are not obliged to it. He made none of these returns to 
 Christ, but, by his silence, O'mied that it was God's holy command 
 obliging us to duty. Neither dares he stand upon these exceptions to 
 us, except he find our fliith inclined to waver, or our minds weak and 
 wounded by inward troubles of spirit ; and when he puts on a boldness 
 to deny Scripture to be the word of God, or that it signifies God's 
 real intendments in his threatening — for by begetting unbelief of the 
 truth of Scripture, and by suggesting hojies of esca^ie and pardon, 
 notwitlistanding the violation of the commands of it, he wrests, when 
 he dotli prevail, this weapon out of our hands — yet he is forced to 
 fetch a compass, and by many previous insinuations to make his way 
 to these atheistical assertions. Thus he did with Eve, first, fincUng 
 her a little inclinable, he dropped in privily something that might 
 argue the improbability of the tlu-eatencd penalty, and then at last 
 positively denied it. But now if we hold to this, that ' the com- 
 mand is true and holy, and just and good,' he cannot \vrest our plea 
 from us. 
 
 [6.] Sixthly, Nothing doth more unde^-miiie temptations, ly render- 
 ing the reasons and motives thereof vain and emjity, than doth the 
 contrary commands of Sci-iptv.re. Temptation hath always some 
 enticement of pleasure or profit, and these only seem to be taking 
 or reasonable, while we consider not the word of God, as rotten wood 
 or fish shine only in the dark ; but when we are urged with sinful 
 pleasures, how mean, base, dangerous, and unlovely be they, when the 
 command to the contrary gives infoimation that they are snares and 
 lead to death, or the provocation of the Almighty. 
 
 [7.] Seventhly, While we resist with Scripture arguments, tve engage 
 God, whose commaml ive ivould sfaml by, to go down to the battle loith 
 us. We ' lay hold uj^on his strength,' and put obligations upon him 
 to take us out of the snare, and to deliver us from liim who is ' too 
 strong ' for us. 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, It remains that, in a word, I shew hoio the commands 
 or arguments of Scripture are to be used in resisting Satan, which 
 is thus, Wlien you have any siuful thought cast into your mind, pre- 
 sently reject the ofler, by charging your heart with duty, from some 
 opposite command ; as if yOu be urged to acts of uncleanness, pre- 
 sently refuse, thus ; No, I must not, God hath commanded the contrary, 
 he hath said, ' Thou shalt not commit adultery.' If a covetous thought 
 arise, reject it with this, God hath said, ' Thou shalt not covet.' If 
 
Chaf. 25.] Satan's temptations. 469 
 
 you be tempted to please the flesh, and follow vain delights, answer it 
 with this, ' If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die ;' and the Uke must 
 be done in other temptations. 
 
 Ohj. Some may perhaps think that this is easy work and quickly 
 done, and that it seems to attribute a virtue and power to the words of 
 Scriptm-e, as if Satan were charmed by the language or phrase. 
 
 Alls. However at the first view this may seem easy, yet he that 
 shall consider how much exercise of grace goes necessarily to the right 
 use of Scripture opposition, shall not see cause to slight it as common, 
 nor yet to think that any virtue is attributed to the words. For, 
 
 [1.] First, The Scriptm'e here is only recommended as a fit instru- 
 ment, and no further or higher praise is given. Though therefore we 
 may attribute the whole of the conquest to the instrument alone, yet 
 this hinders not, but that as an instrimient peculiarly fitted for these 
 ends, we may commend it above all other instruments, as we may justly 
 commend bread for nourishing above a stone, and expect more from it 
 than from a chip ; so have we reason to expect more by the use of 
 Scripture against Satan, than from other means of defence which God 
 hath not set up for that service. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, It is a concomitancy of divine power and aid that 
 conquers for us. The instrument is Scripture, but the power by which 
 it works is from God. 
 
 [3.] Thii-dly, Neither is it any careless formal use of Scriphire 
 expressions that luill give encouragement for expectation of a divine 
 coficurrence ; but the use of Scripture in this business implies an 
 exercise of all graces, for it is an urging of Scripture under a fourfold 
 consideration. 
 
 First, As being certainly persuaded of theu- truth, and fuUy keeping 
 to that belief. 
 
 Secondly, As being thankfully apprehensive of the holiness, good- 
 ness, and profitableness of the commands, and cheerfully adhering to 
 them as the only way and means to bring us to union with Christ, 
 and to preserve us in it. 
 
 TJiirdly, As being highly and indispensably obliged by them to per- 
 form the duty commanded therein, and to avoid the sins forbidden. 
 
 Fourthly, All this in a Immble expectation of a divine help, accord- 
 ing to the promise of God. Now he that can plead the command ' 
 or promise against a temptation in this manner, doth not do an 
 ordinary work, neither will he ascribe the success to the words and 
 phrase of Scripture. 
 
 Some may, peradventure, wonder why Christ, by his example, had 
 not recommended prayer, seeing it is of such unquestionable use in 
 our undertakings against Satan. But that inquiry may be fully satis- 
 fied, if it be considered that Chi-ist did peculiarly prepare liimself to 
 this encounter by ' solemn fasting,' ver. 2, which doth include pray- 
 ing ; for such complicated duties are often denominated by that part 
 which is extraordinary, and usually in Scripture a fast is only men- 
 tioned where prayer is chiefly intended. That this fast of Christ 
 related to the temptation, and that also as a means of preservation, 
 hath been spoken of in its place ; it remains only that from hence 
 I add a fifth direction. 
 
470 A TREATISE OF [PaRT III. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Tlie fifth direction, of prayer, and of the seriousness required of those 
 tJiat expect the advantage of prayer.— Of God^s hearing prayer 
 while the temptation is continued.— Of some that are troulled more, 
 while they pray more. 
 
 Direct. 5. Tliat in all our emJeavours of resistance, frequent and 
 earnest prayers are not to he neglected. 
 
 This is so frequently recommended, and so fully handled by most 
 authors, that I shall refer you to such authors as particularly treat of 
 it; noting only that the apostle, in Eph. vi. 18, when he recommends 
 it to us in these words, ' Praying always with all prayer and supplica- 
 tion in the Spirit, and watching thcrcuuto with all perseverance, and 
 supplication for all saints,' lie doth mind us that he that expects the 
 advantage of that duty must be peculiarly fitted, and seriously diligent 
 in that work. For, 
 
 (1.) First, He must have a praying frame of heart; he must 
 ' pray always,' or, as the apostle elsewhere, he must ' pray continually.' 
 Not as if this duty must swallow up all the rest, and that a Christian 
 had no other ser\accs to attend than prayer, but that he must be on a 
 design to wrestle with God by prayer ; and this unist be constantly 
 carried on, though the acts of prayer be intermitted ; and besides that, 
 in such cases, he may keep his usual stated times for that duty, he 
 must have his heart so nuich upon his design, that every occasion or 
 offer of temptation will presently put him upon the duty ; nay, he 
 must, in respect of the frequent intercourse of liis heart with God in 
 frequent ejaculations and breatliings of soul, be as a man wholly 
 resolved into that duty, as Paul was at his first conversion, who, as 
 that expression 'behold- he prays' [Acts ix. 11] doth intimate, seems to 
 have been all prayer, and wholly taken up with that duty. 
 
 (2.) Secondly, He must pray in the spirit, his soul must be truly in 
 the duty. A more than ordinary earnestness is necessary at solemn 
 times, he must put out all his strength, he must cry mightily, and 
 with liis whole heart. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, When his spirit grows dull, he must reinforce it, 
 watch his heart he must ; and if it be needful to quicken it up, he 
 must add fasting or meditation, or whatever other means may be 
 telpful. ., . . ^ 
 
 (4.) Fourthly, In this course he viust continue xvithout giving off 
 the duty. Though God behave himself as if he minded not his ciy, 
 or took no notice of his hazard, yet without weai-iness must our 
 supplications follow him. It must be continued with ' all persever- 
 ance.' 
 
 (5.) Fifthly, The heart that undertakes this must not be so narrow 
 as to be centred upon his own concern only. When he is melted into 
 a spirit of meekness and compassion for others, and is not so solicitous 
 for peace or ease, that he coidd hug himself in his private enjoyment 
 without concerning himself to tender and help those that are in the 
 same dangers, when his supplications are for ' all saints ' as well as for 
 
Chap. 26.] satan's temptations. 471 
 
 himself, then may he expect to receive an olive branch of peace from 
 heaven in the return of his prayer. 
 
 Ohj. It is often objected by such, that they pray but are not heard ; 
 and that temptations continue, notwithstanding many cries and wrest- 
 lings. 
 
 A')is. [1.] First, It is a great mistake to think that prayers are not 
 heard or do not prevail, becattse the temptation is not quite removed. 
 Prayers may be acceptable to God, and recorded among his remem- 
 brances, where the temjjtation, for exercise and other holy ends, may 
 be continued. 
 
 [2.] Secondly, What God hath promised to mch prayer, he fails not 
 to make good. He hath not promised to exempt us fi'om temptation, 
 but from the power and prevalency of it. If ' his grace be sufficient 
 for us,' 2 Cor. xii. 9, in the meantune, it is an answer as good as Paul 
 got when he was importunate ; ' If together with the temptation he 
 gives an issue, that we may be able to bear it,' 1 Cor. x. 13, there is 
 his faithfulness in keeping promise. He nowhere promised that 
 Satan shovdd not tempt, but that he should not prevail. While we 
 can hold up our hands in the mount to God, and our praying frame 
 will ascertain us of this ; ' for a man is never overcome by a tempta- 
 tion so long as he can pray against it ; ' for so long he delights not in 
 it so long he consents not, and tUl he do consent Satan cannot prevail. 
 Prayer will either make the temptation give way, or the temptation 
 wiU make prayer give way ; but so long as we hold out with earnest- 
 ness, the temptation cannot prevail. 
 
 Ohj. Some fm-ther object, that the more they pray they are the 
 worse, and more infested by Satan than they were before they under- 
 took that course. 
 
 Ans. 1. It may he they may have more Irouhle from Satan. David 
 ' thought on God, and his trouble was increased,' [Ps. xxxix. 3,] and 
 no wonder. Satan's spite and fury puts him upon giving greatest 
 molestations to those of whom he despau'S to subdue. 
 
 Ans. 2. Secondly, But though they may be more troubled, yet they 
 may he furthest from conquest.^ These disquiets are like the trouble 
 of the working of physic, which at first taking may make a man more 
 sick, and yet bring him nearer to a state of health and strength ; fear 
 not then, faint not, resist faithfully, and to the utmost, and ' God shall 
 bruise Satan under thy feet shortly,' [Eom. xvi. 20.] 
 
 ' That is, from being conquered.— Q. 
 
INDEXES, &c. 
 
 49. 
 Exodus 22. 
 Deut. 6. 
 
 Judges 21. 
 1 Kings 20. 
 Job 11. 
 Psalms 37. 
 91. 
 Proverbs 3. 
 Isaiah 41. 
 Jcrem. 18. 
 Ezckiel 33. 
 Daniel 10. 
 Malachi 3. 
 Matthew 4. 
 
 VEB. 
 
 PACE 
 
 23 
 
 21 
 
 1 
 
 22 
 
 11-16 
 
 288 
 
 26 
 
 431, 4.S2 
 
 4 
 
 102 
 
 17 
 
 14 
 
 18 
 
 27 
 
 16 
 
 ;J82 
 
 3 
 
 356 
 
 10 
 
 27,28 
 
 18 
 
 137 
 
 18,20 
 
 78 
 
 33 
 
 377 
 
 12 
 
 3 
 
 34 
 
 3C4 
 
 11,12 
 
 402, se^ 
 
 23 
 
 2.5 
 
 9 
 
 23 
 
 11 
 
 29S 
 
 13 
 
 20 
 
 1 
 
 381 
 
 1-11 
 
 313, SCO 
 313-328 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 328-336 
 
 3 
 
 337-341 
 
 4 
 5 
 
 341, sen 
 376-382 
 
 I.— TEXTS ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 6 382, seq 
 
 7 402. seq 
 
 8 415, seq 
 
 9 430, seq 
 24 441 
 24 91, seq. 97 
 
 .25 24 
 
 54 14 
 
 Ephes. 
 
 
 CHAP 
 
 VKB. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Ephes. 
 
 4. 
 
 27 
 
 12 
 
 
 6. 
 
 12 
 
 20 
 
 PhiJip. 
 
 4. 
 
 7 
 
 210 
 
 Col. 
 
 
 16 
 
 15,16 
 
 
 2. 
 
 8 
 
 203 
 
 1 Thes. 
 
 4. 
 
 16 
 
 20 
 
 2 Thes. 
 
 2. 
 
 9-11 
 
 142 
 
 ITini. 
 
 1. 
 
 20 
 
 17 
 
 
 6. 
 
 20 
 
 162 
 
 2 Tim. 
 
 2. 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 
 2. 
 
 26 
 
 56 
 
 Hei.'. 
 
 3. 
 
 13 
 
 53 
 
 1 Peter 
 
 2 Peter 
 1 John 
 
 Jude 
 
 26 
 
 301 
 
 37 
 
 440 
 
 14 
 
 54 
 
 29 
 
 55 
 
 4 
 
 441 
 
 8 
 16 
 
 4if:4^ 
 
 8 
 
 13 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 16 
 
 299 
 
 9 
 
 19,55 
 
 24 
 
 162 
 
 15 
 
 17 
 
 IL— GENERAL MATTERS. 
 
 Abhorrency, 457, 458. 
 
 Absconded, 163. 
 
 Accusations by Satan, 231, 232 ; direful, 428. 
 
 Acontius, 169, 193, 207. 
 
 Aoosta, 198. 
 
 Acquirements, 152. 
 
 Actions, of wonder and astonishment, by 
 
 Satan, 30 ; unreasonableness of some, 68 ; 
 
 mistake of, 188, 189; Satan uses Scripture 
 
 to promote sinful, 408. 
 Activity in duty, 212. 
 Adam, Melchior, 135, 147. 
 Additions, 124. 
 Admiration, 43. 
 Adonis, 180. 
 Adoption, Satan seeks to weaken, 374 ; are 
 
 all to maintain their? 375. 
 Adrianus, 178. 
 Advantage pursued by Satan, 45, 46, 251, 
 
 258, 259, 345, 346. 
 AdventurousnesB, rash, 320. 
 Adversary, Satan an— malice, enmity, power, 
 
 cruelty, diligence. 10. 
 iEsop, 181. 
 
 jEtius Spai-tianus, 178. 
 iEtna, 173. 
 Affections, Satan uses, 67. 
 
 Afflicted, reasons for Satan's tempting the, 
 
 335, 336. 
 Afflictions, 222, 223, 273, 274, 335, 336, 427. 
 Affright, Satan seeks not to, 86, 87. 
 Affrightments, 238, 240 ; grievous, 249, 427. 
 Afraid, be not of, Goliath, 311. 
 Agatocles, 40. 
 Aggravations, of sin, 83, 278, 279; unjust, of 
 
 sins of God's chililren, 299, 300. 
 Aims, Satan, various, in a single temptation. 
 
 Alacrity, in duty, 212. 
 
 Alexander, 26, 68. 
 
 Alexander, (heretic,) 204. 
 
 Allegorical reflections, 163. 
 
 Allurement, 399. 
 
 Alterations, be jealous of, in worship, 433. 
 
 Alvarez, 174. , 
 
 Alypius, 65. 
 
 Amazement, 303. 
 
 Ambrose, 446. 
 
 Americins, 17, 44. 
 
 Ames, or Amesius, 10, 57, 255, 288, 293, 384, 
 
 449, 456. 
 Androgens, 39. 
 Anger of Satan, 12, 206 ; angrv disposition, 
 
 220. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 473 
 
 Angel, Satan an, power of, li, 15 ; angels, 
 strength of, 16. ; Sadducees, opinions on, 
 49, 50. 
 
 Anguish and horror of Satan, 13. 
 
 Annoyance, temptation an, 456. 
 
 Answers, of Christ to Satan, 445, scq. ; fit and 
 pertinent,'445 ; best from Scripture, 462,se$. 
 
 Antichrist, 38. 
 
 Antiochus, 109. 
 
 Antony, M., 70. 
 
 Antony of Padua, 180. 
 
 Apion, 109, 110. 
 
 Apish imitation of divine things, 198. 
 
 Apochryphal adjections, 179. 
 
 ApoUonius, 173. 
 
 Apollonius Tyan^eus, 419. 
 
 Apostasy of Satan, 12. 
 
 Apostolici, 170. 
 
 Apparitions, 33. 
 
 Appearances, remarkable, of God, 279. 
 
 Applause, popular, 401. 
 
 Apprehensions, against God, 303. 
 
 Aptitude in the world to tempt, 441. 
 
 Aquinas, 31. 
 
 Arguings, faUaoious, 113, 114 ; partial, 452. 
 
 Arguments, deny sin with strongest, 463 ; of 
 Satan, 295, 296. 
 
 Arianism, 131. 
 
 Aristotle, 27, 179. 
 
 Alius, 204. 
 
 Ai'mour, management of spiritual, 445. 
 
 Arrowsmith, 19, 102, 240, 327, 425, 467. 
 
 Arrogancy, 375 ; of Satan against God, how 
 shewn, 4lS, scq. 
 
 Art, of Satan in setting forth temptations, 
 lies in four things, 421, 422. 
 
 Arthington, 146. 
 
 Askew, Ann, 455. 
 
 Assaults, of saints, by Satan, 18. 
 
 Assays, 247. 
 
 Assertions, bold, 167. 
 
 Aspersions, slanderous, 188. 
 
 Atheists, 48 ; principles of, put out light, 82 ; 
 thoughts, 242; persons troubled with 
 atheistical thoughts, 243. 
 
 Authority of Satan, 17 ; nature of, explained, 
 17, 18 ; over pei-sons and things, ib.; effi- 
 cacy of, 18, 19. 
 
 Augustine, 15, 19, 22, 32, 38, 48, 52, 65, 117, 
 129, 147, 177, 179, 180, 201, 202, 324, 328, 
 393, 394, 395, 403, 418, 461, 468. 
 
 Averrhoes, 48. 
 
 Avicenna, 30. 
 Awe of sin, 93, 94. 
 
 Baal-zebub, 36. 
 
 Bad end, evident, 3.57. 
 
 Barlow, .53. 
 
 ' Barricades' of Satan, 98. 
 
 Baxter, 29, 146, 178, 181. 
 
 Bayne, 20, 220, 425. 
 
 Belief, facile, 154. 
 
 Bellona, 39. 
 
 Benedict, St, 174. 
 
 Bernard, 328, 403. 
 
 ' Beside,' 195. 
 
 Best, of God's children hardly escape under 
 
 temptation of distrust, 368. 
 Beza, 22, 5C, 373. 
 Bias, 151 ; to error rather than truth, 151, 
 
 152; by bodily temper, 152. 
 Bisnagar, 39. 
 Blasphemous thoughts congenial to Satan ; 
 
 (1.) from his nature, 244 ; (2.) practice, 
 
 245; (3.) professed design, ib. ; (4.) sad 
 
 experience, ib. ; injections, 304, 424, 425 ; 
 how Satan works to get man to, 425 ; vio- 
 lent injections of, 426 ; sudden glances of, 
 imagination, 427 ; reasons of this tempta- 
 tion, 427, sea. ; advice to those tempted by, 
 429, 430. 
 
 Blessings, universal, 366. 
 
 EUnds, Satan, 62, 63 ; by stirring up lust, 
 proved, 68, seq.; how lust, 70, 71. 
 
 Bochart, 21. 
 
 Bodies, 66 ; afflicted by mind, 218 ; in co- 
 partnership of sorrow, 309, 310 ; Satan 
 permitted to have power over, 378. 
 
 Bodin, 4.3. 
 
 Boehmen, 166, 167. 
 
 Boldness, heroic, a snare to self-murder, 392. 
 
 Bolsecus, 187. 
 
 Boniface, Pope, 57, 58, 175; 
 
 Boyle, 394. 
 
 Bretterge, Sirs, 305, 309. 
 
 Bribes of Satan, 205. 
 
 Bridget, St, 173. 
 
 Broughton, 59. 
 
 Bucholcer, 199. 
 
 Burden of injections by Satan, 241. 
 
 Burton, 66. 
 
 Business, Satan's, to tempt, ours to resist, 
 339 ; and how, 339, 340. 
 
 Cajetan, 33, 462. 
 
 Calisthenes, 68. 
 
 Calovius, 132. 
 
 Calumnies, 186. 
 
 Calvin, 16, 20, 32, 50, 58, 65, 142, 1G7, 187, 
 
 210, 337. 
 Campian, 164. 
 Camus, 181. 
 Capel, 57, 58, 82, 326, 390, 392, 396, 428, 429, 
 
 449. 
 CappeUus, 165. 
 Cardan, 48. 
 
 Care, distressed, cease all, 310. 
 Carthaginians, 39. 
 Caryl, 57, 59, 425. 
 ' Catching away ' the word, 87, 88 ; Satan 
 
 lies at ' catch,' 243. 
 Cathari, 170. 
 Cato, 393. 
 ' Catoche,' 212. 
 Causes, Satan knows, of things, 25 ; second, 
 
 365. 
 Caution, great against Satan, 417. 
 Cedremus, 178. 
 Celestine, v. , 175. 
 Chambers, 294. 
 Chamier, 19, 20, 181. 
 Change, Satan blinds by, a temptation, 77, 
 
 95, 96 ; of nature of temptation, 369. 
 Cheats, 29. 
 Chemnitius, 203, 373. 
 ChUdren, 151. 
 
 Chokes, Satan, the word, 88. 
 Cicero, 39.3. 
 Clarke, 35, 121. 
 C'leombrotus, 393. 
 CUmacus, 426. 
 Coccius, 189. 
 ColUnges, 215. 
 Comforts, inward, extinguished, 228, 229; 
 
 disturbances, scatter thoughts of, 229 ; 
 
 stock of, wastes, 229 ; outward, little, 443. 
 Company, evil, 67. 
 ' Composition,' Satan gives a, in religious 
 
 duty, 9.5. 
 
474 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Complainings, 373. 
 
 Complies, Satan, 78 ; compliance with par- 
 ties, 199, 200; though not yet, opens way 
 
 Confederacies and contrivances, 179. 
 
 Consent, * threaped,' 80. 
 
 ' Concealing,' 70 ; concealment of wounds, 
 
 307 ; Satan tempts by, 421, 422. 
 Conclusions, direful, 334. 
 Condition, Satan takes advantage of our, in 
 
 temptation, 346, 347. 
 Confident, warning from temptations, to the 
 
 over, 325. 
 Confronting of Almighty by Satan, 418. 
 Conscience, wounded, 61 ; in man, 62 ; scared. 
 
 nying,25' 
 
 of, and melancholy, 292 ; total distress of 
 
 292, 293 ; terrors of, 39L 
 
 Consent, by silence, 460. 
 
 Consolation, for those troubled by blas- 
 phemy, 428. 
 
 Contrary commands of Scripture to tempta- 
 tions, 468. 
 
 Contrasts, between Christ and Satan, 209. 
 
 Coveting, 221. 
 
 Contempt, 221 ; of religion, 334 ; Satan seeks 
 to bring Scripture under, 410. 
 
 ' Contemidative' heads, 243. 
 
 Contentions and disputes, 149. 
 
 Continuance, troubles of long, 295 ; tempta- 
 tions of long, 426. 
 
 Contrivances, 87 ; curious, 183. 
 
 ' Conversation,' careful, 437. 
 
 Conversion, time of, temptation, 47 ; easy, 
 260 ; conscience wounded, before and after, 
 by God, 261, 262 ; false notions concern' 
 ing, 270, 271 ; not always with terror, 270 ; 
 nor able to tell exact time, ib.; nor always 
 accompanied with gifts of prayer, ib. 
 
 Coppinger, 139. 
 
 Corintluan, church, 128. 
 
 Corrupted, duties worst of all, 103 ; doctrines 
 lead to corrupt practices, 137 ; ingenuous, 
 society of those who are, 190 ; Satan seeks 
 to corrupt God's worship, 431, 432; rea- 
 sons, 432, scq. 
 
 Corruption stirred, 453. 
 
 Cortez, 41. 
 
 Courage, commanded, 448 ; what spiritual, 
 is, 449. 
 
 ' Courses' of sinners, 437. 
 
 ' Crack: 169. 
 
 Craft, (see SubUcti/.) 
 
 Cramer, 467. 
 
 Credulous, 286. 
 
 Cross, Satan tempts by things, to our tem- 
 per, why, 60. 
 
 Croy, de, 202. 
 
 Cruelty of Satan, 36-44. 
 
 Curiosity, adventurous, 156, 157, 451, 452. 
 
 Curse, o'f Satan, 12. 
 
 Curtius, Q., 68. 
 
 Custom, power of, 193, 194 ; force of, 393. 
 
 Cyprian, 373. 
 
 Dasdalus, 179. 
 
 ' Damnation' misapplied, 296. 
 
 Damocles, 444. 
 
 Darkness, Satan ruler of, 17. 
 
 Daunting, power of Scriptuie, 467. 
 
 D.ivid, temptations of, 56, 84. 
 
 Debauchery, atheistical, 157. 
 
 Deceits, 58 ; in use of Scripture, 410. 
 
 Deceptions, 31 ; all the devil's qualifications 
 for 'deceit,' 52, 53. 
 
 Degrees, of misery, 310. 
 
 Delay, 459. 
 
 ' Deliberate ' determinations, 81, 82. 
 
 Deliberating, 452. 
 
 Deluded, 144. 
 
 Demons, 201. 
 
 Demoniacs, diseases, 50 ; Mede on, 51. 
 
 Demonstrated, things, 153. 
 
 Denims and delays, 89. 
 
 Denials, not disputing, in temptation, 451, 
 scq. ; best, and why, 459, seq. 
 
 Departure, feigning, 91. 
 
 Dervises, 171. 
 
 Descartes, 64, 
 
 Designs, large, of Satan, 382 ; unfaithful, of 
 Satan in use of Scripture, 409 ; Christ's 
 temptations permitted by design, 445. 
 
 Desires, 54 ; enlarge not, 443. 
 
 Despagne, 42, 148, 151, 405, 422. 
 
 Despair, 217 ; is presumptuous, 386. 
 
 Devices, 23. 
 
 Devil, though a ' spirit,' a proper subject of 
 sin, 10, 11 ; wickedness of, capable of in- 
 crease, 11 ; has great occasions for malice, 
 ib.; fall of, 11, 12 ; power of, as a, IG, 17 ; 
 meaning of, as a word, 22 ; denial of exist- 
 ence of, 48. 
 
 Devils, large number of, 19 ; order a 
 
 ' Devotional,' 168. 
 
 Diana, 39. 
 
 Diascorides, 28. 
 
 Dickson, 141, 219, 242, 255, 390, 428. 
 
 Differences, in God's children, 114. 
 
 Dignity of God's children, a snare by Satan, 
 114. 
 
 C' , 
 ,50. 
 
 Dionvsius, 19. 
 
 Directly and indirectly, Satan blinds, 73, seq. 
 
 Disadvantage, fall of saints special, 315. 
 
 Disappointment of Satan certain, 14. 
 
 Discomposures of soul, 219 ; effects of, 229 
 devil works on, 230 ; much sin in, ib.; ob- 
 struct duties, 230, 231 ; devil accuses by, 
 231. 
 
 Discontents, 391. 
 
 Discouragements, 106 ; Satan not easily dis- 
 couraged, 376, 377 ; Scripture, afflicting dis- 
 couragement to Satan, 467, 468. 
 
 Discovery, Satan's contrivances to hinder, 
 87 ; full of notions, and ways of, 165. 
 
 Disguises, the world s, 442. 
 
 Dispensation, divine, of spiritual sadness, 
 259, 260. 
 
 Disputes, 206, 207. 
 
 Disputings, kinds of, 451, seq.; actual, 452 ; 
 when we may, a temptation, 453 ; when 
 not, 454, scq. ; a better way than, 457 ; 
 reasons why not, with Satan, 457, seq. 
 
 Disquiet, Satan sometimes seeks only to, 
 61 ; disquiets, 184 ; advantiiges to Satan 
 by, 211. 
 
 Distance between God and man by sin, Sa- 
 tan uses, 98. 
 
 Distempers, bodily, 427. 
 
 Distinctions, 78 ; of the learned, show igno- 
 rance, 150. 
 
 Dismission of thought, 78. 
 
 Disti-actions in holy seasons. 40, 47, 79, 120 ; 
 before religious services, 123 ; Satan raises, 
 211; unfits for duty, 212. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Distresses, epirituiJ, 287; complicated, ib.; 
 have a further end, ib.; consent of the 
 party, 287, 238 ; higher degree, 288 ; not 
 all from melancholy, shewn, 290, 291; 
 God's deserting, ih.; weight of, 307. 
 
 Distrust, 335, 361 ; of providence, passes to, 
 of Sonship, 307. 
 
 Disturbances, outward, 121, 122, 224; in 
 Satan's power, 233. 
 
 Diverting of reason, 77. 
 
 Divisions, 13-1, 135. 
 
 Doctrine, false, in gorgeous attire, 195 ; er- 
 roneous, 
 
 Don 
 
 179. 
 
 Domineer, Satan doth tvramiicaJly, 249. 
 
 Domiuis de, 158. 
 
 Dreams, 404. 
 
 Dury, John, 164. 
 
 Duty, burden of, 106, 107 ; want of success 
 in, 107, 108 ; dislike of, 109 ; unnecessari- 
 ness of, 115 ; suspending, 116, 117 ; vitiated, 
 123, 124 ; hmdered, 212 ; difficult, 214 ; un- 
 fruitful, ib. ; sinful, ib. 
 
 Dyke, 75. 
 
 Earnestness, take off, 117. 
 
 Ease, wrongly sought, 217. 
 
 Ecstasies, 404. 
 
 Effects, ascribed to wrong causes, 180. 
 
 Effeminacy, 221. 
 
 Egyptians; 162, 163. 
 
 Election, terrors about, 246, 247 ; suspicions 
 of non-election, 250. 
 
 Ellis, 164. 
 
 Empedocles, 173. 
 
 End, and means, 116. 
 
 Endeavours, constant course of Satan's, 129. 
 
 Endeavours, 303. 
 
 Endor, witch of, 34. 
 
 Ends, of things, used to blind, 74; base, 119. 
 
 Enemies and rebels, Satan pursues men as, 
 100. 
 
 Enemy, ' sword of an,' 305. 
 
 Engines by which Satan works : sophistry, 
 266; Scripture abused, 267, 268 ; false 
 marks a sign of unregeneracy, '269-271 ; mis- 
 representation of God, 271, seq. ; compari- 
 sons with holy lives of others, 280; lessens 
 graces of saints, ib. ; fear, 285, seq. 
 
 England, New, appearances of Satan in, 44 : 
 errors in, 160. 
 
 Enigmatical speaking of Satan, 26, 
 
 Enmity to God, 441, 442. 
 
 Enmity of Satan, 12, 13. 
 
 Ensnaring, ways of Satan, 425. 
 
 Entanglements, 71, 72. 
 
 Entice, 62. 
 
 Enticing to temptation, 454. 
 
 Entrance on special service, a time of 
 temptation, 313, 314, 
 
 Envious disposition, 220. 
 
 Epiphanius, 129, 135. 
 
 Equality and inequality of privilege and 
 duty, 115. 
 
 Error, 127 ; Satan, great contriver of, ib. ; 
 reasons of Satan in, 130; is sinful, 130, 
 131 ; of an increasing nature, 131 ; a plague, 
 t6. ;.errorists, 131, 132 ; leads to schisms, 
 &c., 132, 133; hinders reformation, 133, 
 
 . 134; fixes atheism, 135, 136; obstructs 
 graces, 139 ; punishment it brings, 140 ; 
 vileness of some, 144, 145 ; unusual actions 
 for, 145, 146 ; blind even the wise, 140 ; sud- 
 denness of prevalency, ib, ; fury in spread- 
 ing, ib.; from learned men, 149; approba- 
 
 tion given to, 1.54 ; arguments for, 158 ; 
 countenance of Scripture for, 158, 151) ; 
 foundation of, laid near truth, 160 ; pro- 
 moted by excellence of those holding, 168 ; 
 captain and ringleader in, 169 ; the ease 
 and peace it brings, 183 ; proffers of peace 
 
 Escape, possibility of, from penalty, 76. 
 
 Eusebius, 129, 145, 198, 202, 203. 
 
 Eve, temptation of, 56, 57, 82. 
 
 Evil company, 67. 
 
 Example, evil, 67. 
 
 Excess, 124, 125. 
 
 Exchange, a temptation, 95, 96 ; secret, 96. 
 
 Execrations, .against self, 216, 217. 
 
 Experience of Satan, 24. 
 
 Extenuations of sin, 76. 
 
 External things, 152. 
 
 Extreme, Satan runs from the, and why, 
 
 Extremes, 73. 
 
 Fables, lying, 181 ; instances, ib.; tradition- 
 
 ai-y, 197. 
 Failure of God's children under temptation 
 
 of distrust, 368. 
 Faith, false notions of nature of, 270; 
 
 weakened, 371. 
 False citation of Scripture, 411. 
 FamHists, 160. 
 
 Fancy, fancies, 31, 123 ; Satan works on, 422. 
 Fascin.ation, 140, 141, 442. 
 Fashion, sins out of, 96. 
 Fast of Christ, 328, seq.; why, 329, seq. 
 Favour, special, a time of temptation, 314. 
 Favourable, too, opinion of self, 285. 
 Fears, suspicious, 246 ; impressions of, 251, 
 
 2.52; come by fits, 252, 253; return, 253; 
 
 add to the weight of other troubles, ib. ; 
 
 not always accompanying conversion, 270 ; 
 
 an engine of temptation, 285; increase 
 
 of, 304 ; prepare for Satan's most dismal 
 
 suggestions, 365 ; make aU seem the sword 
 
 of an enemy, ih. ; no advice eases, 305, 
 
 306 ; lead to conclusions of misery, 306 ; 
 
 threefold, 447, 448 ; what, forbidden, 448, 
 
 seq. 
 Februation, 43. 
 Feigning departure, 91. 
 Fenner, 67, 73. 
 'Finishing' of sin, 83, seq. 
 First temptation, Christ's, .346, seq. 
 Fixes, Satan, thoughts, 237. 
 Follows, Satan, with a high hand, 99. 
 Food of the soul, Satan robs of, 101. 
 Foretell, Satan can, 26. 
 ' Formal ' use of defences, Satan allows, and 
 
 why, 380, seq. 
 Forsaie, three ways Satan seems to, designs, 
 
 91, seq. 
 ' Forty days,' 329, 330. 
 Foxe, 308, 440. 
 Frances, St, 174. 
 FratriceUi, 166. 
 
 Friends, Satan tempts by— examples, 330. 
 Fruition of peace, 184. 
 Fuel, Satan seeks his own, 13 : of lust, 441. 
 FuUer, 28, 406. 
 Funckius, 408. 
 
 Furious fits, 225 ; Bible examples, 225, 226. 
 Futuie, whether Satan knows the, 25 
 
476 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Galen, 48. 
 
 Game, after-, 242. 
 
 Garnet, 180. 
 
 GeUius, 182. 
 
 Gerson, 238, 426, 430. 
 
 Gilpin, John, 146, 395. 
 
 Glances, transient, 251. 
 
 Glanvil, 29, 30. 
 
 Glauber, 164. 
 
 Gnostics, 166. ■ 
 
 God, the source of all happiness, 3, 4 ; quar- 
 relled, 217 ; misrepresentation of God's na- 
 ture, 272; providence, 272-274; in the 
 works of his Spirit, 274, 275; misrepre- 
 sented as a tyrant, 298 ; as designing men's 
 ruin, 299. 
 
 Gods, false, 201. 
 
 Godwyn, 28, 40, 108. 
 
 ' Goeth out,' not ' cast out,' 97. 
 
 Gomesius, 164. 
 
 Good, seeming, 351, 352 ; hindrance of greater, 
 
 Goodwin, {misspelled Godwin,) 24, 57, 61, 
 
 62, 261, 456. 
 'Gospels, 'counterfeit, 189. 
 
 Grace, restraining, 93 ; growth of, not always 
 visible, 271 ; mistaken signs of, ib. ; Satan 
 lessens, of saints, 280, scq. ; tempts in 
 relation to, 281, »eq. ; extraordinaries of, 
 ih.; special assistances, ih.; eminencics, ih.; 
 Satan tempts when, is weakest, 284, 285 ; 
 hinders not temptation, and why, 323, scq. 
 
 Gradual, Satan in temptations, 341, 342; 
 reasons, 342. 
 
 'Great' temptation, what, 342; external, 
 complex, peiTilexing, iU, ; proceeded on ad- 
 vantages, greater power of Satan, to 
 abominations, professed benefits, provok- 
 ing, engagement of all natural powers, 
 some warranted as duty, 343. 
 
 Greenham, 95, 97, 115, 116, 461. 
 
 Gregory, 338, 440. 
 
 Gregory the Great, 202. 
 
 Grief fixed, contentment in, 215, 216. 
 
 Grievous sins, 295. 
 
 Grotius, 442. 
 
 Guessing of Satan, 24. 
 
 Haas, 467. 
 
 Habits, vicious, 152. 
 
 ' Habituated' sin, 24, 453, 454. 
 
 Hacket, 139. 
 
 Han, 29. 
 
 Hakluyt, 178. 
 
 Happiness, impatient desire of, 393. 
 
 Harvey, 187. 
 
 Haste in sinning, 81. 
 
 Hatred against Satan, 122. ' 
 
 Hatred of Satan, 12. 
 
 Hazard, 46 ; to life by some lusts, 09 ; and 
 disadvantage by abuse of services, 103 ; of 
 duties, 110, 111 ; ways of religion said to 
 be of intolerable, 317 ; ways of, 394, 395. 
 
 Heart, the stage of all action, 3, 4 ; God and 
 Satan meet in, 4 ; the ' deceits ' of, point 
 to Satan, 53; enticed, 62 ; sottish, 78, 79; 
 prepared for venomous impressions, 215; 
 hard and impenitent, 302, 303 ; Satan seeks 
 to withdraw, from God and to enslave to 
 sin, shewn, 433, 434; prevails, 434, 435; 
 not right with God, 435. 
 
 Heathen, 153. 
 
 "leightening o 
 fears against Satan, 
 
 tempted, 318, 409. 
 
 Heightens, Satan, grace, 280, 283. 
 Hell, 9. 
 Helmont, 30. 
 Hephsestion, 68. 
 Heresies, 412. 
 Heylin, 180, 182, 187, 428. 
 Hiding, necessity of, duty, 113. 
 Hindrances, external, 104. 
 Hobbs, 29, 50, 337, 416. 
 Hobson, P.aul, 176. 
 Honeywood, 375. 
 Honour, God's, at stake, 366. 
 Hooper, 455. 
 
 Hojie, 46 ; give not readily up, 375. 
 Hopelessness of prevailing, 80. 
 Horace, 109, 173, 401. 
 
 Huffing=hoving, or heaving, or sweUing, 77. 
 Humility, excess of, 108, 109. 
 Humours, 224. 
 Hunger of Clirist, 347. 
 Hunting of his prey, by Satan, 45. 
 Hypocrites are presumptuous, 386 ; varnish 
 on, 410, 411. 
 
 Ignorance variously shewn, 147, scq.; con- 
 version of the ignorant, results, 260. 
 
 Ignorant devout, humbled by Satan, 247, 
 
 248. 
 ' Imaginary,' 143. 
 
 Imagination, Satan's use of, 65, 66, 250. 
 
 Imitations of divine services and Bible inci- 
 dents, 102, 198, 419 ; Satan imitates God 
 by pretence of teaching, 403. 
 
 Imi>etuosity, 426. 
 
 Impressions, dismal, of Satan, 305. 
 
 Importunity, 79 ; impudent, 243, 244. 
 
 Impotent, mind rendered, 229. 
 
 Impulses, 406. 
 
 Incas, 198. 
 
 Incessant, Satan in temptation, 331 ; things 
 relating to such, 331, 332 ; encouragement 
 under, 332. 
 
 Inclinations, 66, 152, 155. 
 
 Indicia, 25. 
 
 Indignation of Satan, 12. 
 
 Indisposition of body, 104, 105 ; of soul, 105. 
 
 Indirect courses, 335. 
 
 Infectious, temptations, 459. 
 
 Infirmity, 75, 76, 188. 
 
 ' Ingenuousness,' 48 ; submissive, 120 ; feign- 
 ed, 275. 
 
 Injects, Satan's temptations, 61 ; impetuous- 
 ness of, 122 ; injections of terror, 238 ; im- 
 petuous, 239 ; inces8,ant, ib. ; odious, 239, 
 240 ; abhorrency, 240 ; difference between 
 atheistical injections and temptations, 
 242 ; of abominable sin, 250, 251. 
 
 Injury, 222. 
 
 Insight, Satan has deep, 26. 
 
 Insoleucy, 418. 
 
 ' Inspiration, ' false, 172 ; 405. 
 
 Insult = triumph, 448. 
 
 ' Intercepting ' of light by Satan, 70. 
 
 Interest, Scripture contrary to, 409. 
 
 ' Interest' shaken by light, 90. 
 
 ' Internal ' work, 114. 
 
 Inventions, self -devised, 379, 380; human, in 
 divine worship, 434. 
 
 Invisible, Satan in temptation usually, 330. 
 
 Invitation, secret, to Sitan by disputing, 458. 
 
 Invocation of saints, 201. 
 
 Inward temptations and outward distresses, 
 333 ; terrors and trouble, 456 ; reasons for 
 not dis "^" 
 
 Irenreus, 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 477 
 
 Jivckson, 424. 
 
 James, 1S9. 
 
 Jenison, 22. 24, ISO. 
 
 Job and Satan, 13. 
 
 Josephus, 27, 40, 49, 110, 179, 198, 406, 409. 
 
 Jostle, 105. 
 
 Joy not received, 229. 
 
 Jugglers' words, 166. 
 
 Julian, 104, 194, 208. 
 
 Junius, 242. 
 
 Karsten, 173. 
 
 Kent, maid of, ISO. 
 
 Kimchi, 381. 
 
 Kingdom of Satan, 433, 434. 
 
 KneperdoUin, 146. 
 
 Knowledge of Satan, 21, scq. ; measured by 
 that of Adam in innoceacy, 21 ; by names 
 given to him, 22 ; natui-e of, 22, 23 ; 
 natural, experimental, accessory, ib. ; im- 
 perfection of, 147 ; nature of, 148 ; unsuit- 
 ■ ur capacities, 148, 149. 
 
 Lacedaemonians, 39. 
 
 Lamech, 289. 
 
 Language, strange, 166. 
 
 Lapide, a-, 373. 
 
 Lathbiiry, 180. 
 
 Law, enmity and opposition of the, 85. 
 
 Lawful, seeming, 351, 352 ; to be seriously 
 
 weighed, 353. 
 Leaving, of, sins, 119. 
 Legion of temptations, 79. 
 Leigh's Critka Sacra, 10, 27, 141, 425. 
 Leyden, John of, 139. 
 Libanius, 195. 
 Light of nature, of Scripture, &e., 55 ; Satan 
 
 opposes, and how, 90, 91 ; prevailing power 
 
 of, 94. 
 Lightfoot, 40, 227, 289, 313, 329, 3.33, 351, 
 
 356, 381, 415, 417. 
 List, 294. 
 Livy, 178. 
 Loretto, 172. 
 Lorinus, 300. 
 Lucas Brugensis, 416. 
 Lucian, 48, 179. 
 
 Lust, Satan acts on, 63 ; how, 64. 
 Luther, 21, 340, 456, 466. 
 * Lying ' spirits, 87 ; downright, 189 ; Satan 
 
 carries on his designs by, 421. 
 Lyra, 22. 
 Lysimachus, 110. 
 
 Maccovius, 127. 
 Machiavel, 110. 
 Maimonides, 28. 
 Mahce, of the devil explained and evidenced, 
 
 10, 11 ; veiy gi'eat, 12, 13 ; instances of, 
 
 13, 14 ; of wicked men, 14 ; against God, 
 
 101 ; against believers, 258. 
 Manton, 54, 62. 
 
 Marks, false, of regenerate and unregenerate, 
 , 269-271. 
 Martin, St, 340. 
 Martyr, Peter, 106, 132, 143. 
 'May-be,' 2.53. 
 
 Meanness of religious service, outwardly, 111. 
 Means, abandoned, 310, 311 ; to an end, 
 
 plausible, 357 ; failure of ordinary, a stronf 
 
 gine of temptation, .360 ; example 
 1 ; why Satan uses this, 362. 
 
 360, 
 
 Mede, 51, 52, 172, 201. 
 
 Melancholy, 245, 248, 250, 265, 289, 290, 291, 
 
 Mercerus, 370. 
 
 Mercies, pai'ticularly ■ 
 
 Messahans, 170. 
 
 Minos, 39. 
 
 Sliracles, whether Satan can work, 31 ; coun- 
 terfeit, 177 ; testimony to truth, 182 ; 
 Satan's advantage to feign, ib. ; God re- 
 veals by, 405. 
 
 Misapprehensions, of state, 88, 369. 
 
 Miscarriages, 125, 188, 275, 301; used by 
 Satan, and difficult to answer, 275, 276. 
 
 Miseries, Satan delights in men's, 218 ; of 
 others, 223, 224. 
 
 Misrepresentation of God by S.atan, 298 ; 
 how, 298, 299. 
 
 Mitigation of barbarous rites, 42. 
 
 Mohammed, 179. 
 
 Mondus, 179. 
 
 Montanus, 139, 166. 
 
 Montezuma, 39, 41. 
 
 More, 29, 30, 50, 430. 
 
 Munster, 166. 
 
 Murder, self-, 390 ; Satan aims at two ways, 
 and by various means, 391, stq. ; indirectly 
 sought by Satan, and how, 394, 395 ; be 
 aware of this temptation, 395 ; defences 
 against, 395, 396 ; one of Satan's great plots, 
 395 ; a high iniquity, ib. ; danger of, 395, 396 ; 
 give no occasion for, by discontent, 396. 
 
 Murmuring, 79. 
 
 Musculus, 170, 325, 328, 424, 431, 446. 
 
 Names given to Satan, 338. 
 
 Narsinga, 39. 
 
 Nature, (see Secrets,) Satan knows opera- 
 tions of, 32, 33. 
 
 Nayler, 419. 
 
 Necessity, of sinning, 75 ; plea of, 347 ; 
 reasons, 347, 348; cheats on this plea, 
 349 ; must not be deceived by, ib. 
 
 Needful, service presently, 117. 
 
 Negligence, 117. 
 
 Nicholas, H., 160, 102, 166, 167. 
 
 Notions, hidden, 162 ; and wavs, 165. 
 
 Novatus, 106. 
 
 Nudipedales, 170. 
 
 Obedience, temptation to withdrawment 
 
 from, 455. 
 Observation and study of Satan, 24. 
 Obsessions, 35. 
 Occasions, fit, 45, 65, 81 ; extraordinary, 92 ; 
 
 much in Satan's hands, 235 ; prepares, 235, 
 
 230 ; awakens old, 236 ; aggravates, 236, 
 
 237 ; offered, 251 ; fit, 295. 
 Opinions, 'cornipt,' 74. 
 Opportunity, suitable, 92, 93 ; hindrances of, 
 
 116 ; best, for answering, 460, 461. 
 Origen, 163, 201. 
 Outbreakings against God, 334. 
 Outcries, doleful, 309. 
 Outw:ird distress and inward temptations, 333, 
 
 334,365; comforts those whoseare little, 443. 
 Outward not inward, 123, 124. 
 Ovid, 27, 197. 
 Owen, 203. 
 
 Particular trust in God, 365. 
 
 Passionateness, 67. 
 
 Passions, 62 ; nature of, 67, 68 ; discompose, 
 
 105, 100 ; stirred up, 206 ; Satan sets on 
 
 work, 236, 237. 
 Paterculus, 393. 
 Peace, inward, 183; fruition of, 184; Satan's 
 
 efforts against, 209 ; fruit of holiness, 210 ; 
 
478 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 gires inward strength, ib. ; to get, a duty, 
 210, 211 ; a badge of kindness, 211 ; dis- 
 turbed by Satan, 224. 
 
 Performance, manner of, of duty, 113. 
 
 Peripatetics, 48. 
 
 Perkins, 202, 241, 288, 293, 294, 415, 424, 431. 
 
 Persecutions, 37, 88. 
 
 Petrus, 300. 
 
 Philastratus, 178. 
 
 Phrases, Scripture, 161. 
 
 'Pickeer,' 137. 
 
 Pinnacle of temple. 381. 
 
 Piscator, 141, 142, 210, 340. 
 
 Place, sanctity of, does not hinder Satan, 
 379. 
 
 Places, holy, most dishonoured by Satan, 
 102, 
 
 Plainness, 196. 
 
 Platerus, 265, 291, 369. 
 
 Plato, 21, 27, 202, 203, 393. 
 
 Plausible, 356, 357; how Satan makes an 
 end, 357. 
 
 Pleasures, worldly, a great engine of Satan, 
 438, acq.; best overcome by, 386, 387; 
 reason why Satan uses so much, 387, 388 ; 
 deceitful contrivances for this sin, 388, 
 389 ; special watchfulness against, 389, 390; 
 how, 390; how brought about, 398, >eq. 
 
 Plenty, worldly, a temptation, 427 ; snares 
 of, 444. 
 
 Plessis du, 201. 
 
 Pliny, 32. 
 
 Plutarch, 26, 39, 44, 48, 201. 
 
 Poisonings r. witchcrafts, 27, 23. 
 
 Polanus, 31. 
 
 Polybius, 181. 
 
 Pomponatius, 48. 
 
 Pool (Matthew,) 13, 28. 34, 42, 61, 356, 361, 
 424. 
 
 Popery and paganism, 200, 202. 
 
 Poq)hyiius, 44, 48. 
 
 PoH'hyry, 104. 
 
 Porta, 31. 
 
 Possession, how Satan maintains, 83. 
 
 Possessions, 34, 35. 
 
 Power of Satan very great, 14 ; though fallen, 
 still great, proved, 16 ; instances, ib. ; ex- 
 plained, 142, 143 ; and promise of God, 364. 
 
 Prayer, a spear, 101 ; included in fasting, 
 469 ; in all resistance, is to be added, 470 ; 
 seeming not heard, 471. 
 
 Precipitancy, 80. 
 
 Precipitated, 65. 
 
 Prejudice, 90, 106. 
 
 Pre-occupate, 422. 
 
 ' Perverse ' misrepresentations, 86. 
 
 Presumption, 383 ; what it is, 383, »eq. ; In- 
 stances of,' 384, seq. ; Satan's engine, 385 ; 
 proved by his common practice, 385, 386. 
 
 Pretences, specious, 162 ; of friendship, 350 ; 
 wonder such not seen through, 358. 
 
 Prevsdency, Satan's expectation of, 372. 
 
 Pride, U4, 125, 206, 220, 397 ; what it is, 
 397 seq.; warning against, and why, 399, 
 400 ; how to guard against, 400, 401 ; Sa- 
 tan's means to excite, 401. 
 
 Prideaux, 131, 135, 173, 181, 189, 192. 
 
 Privileges, perverse confidence in, 401. 
 
 Profane dispositions, 112. 
 
 Professions, hollow, 435, 436. 
 
 ' Professors,' sins of, 112. 
 
 Proffers, Satan liberal in, 423. 
 
 Promise, Satan seeks to sepai-ate us from the, 
 374 ; he does not deny, but questions and 
 inquires, ib. ; next more plainly suggests, 
 
 ib. ; urgeth the miscarriage, 374, 375 ; puts 
 
 on proof, .375. 
 Proposal of temptation, 61. 
 Prosperity, outward, 184, 185 ; of wicked, 
 
 Providence, distrust of, the nature of dis- 
 trust of sonship, 370 ; leads to distrust of 
 spiritual favouis, 370, 371 ; provoking to 
 God to distrust him, 371, 372 ; Jealousy 
 against God's, 372, 373 ; a great deep, 373 ; 
 eternal displeasure not to be measiired by, 
 373. 
 
 Providences, worst interpretation of, 216. 
 
 Provocations, given by Satan, 235. 
 
 Provokings, 37, 90. 
 
 Proxy, 61. 
 
 'Publican,' 109. 
 
 Purchas, 39, 40, 41, 42, 171, 172, 197, 198, 
 199, 393. 
 
 Purgatory, 208. 
 
 Pursuit, Satan sometimes abates, and how, 95. 
 
 Pythagoras, 173. 
 
 Quakers, 167. 
 
 Questions to be determined for peace of tho 
 
 soul, 259. 
 'Quick,' 44. 
 
 Quickness of Satan, 19, 25. 
 Quiet, Satan keeps all, and how, 85, tcq. 
 
 Reason, overcome by lust, 69, 70 ; corrupted 
 
 and perverted by Satan, 72; how this is 
 
 done, 73, seq. 
 Rebuke, a first, does not drive Satan away, 
 
 37G. 377. 
 Recidivation, 277. 
 Recommended, use of Scripture in resisting 
 
 temptations, by God, 465. 
 Refreshment, soul, 260. 
 Itofuge, lies a, 185, 186. 
 Refusal, Satan seizes any advantage in our 
 
 way of, 377. 
 Refusals, groundless, 462, 463. 
 Regenerate and reprob.ite, 257. 
 Reiteration of sins, 83, 426. 
 Rejection, must contain four things, 461, 462. 
 Religion, what offers for study, 3; inward 
 
 and outward of, 5. 
 'Relucts,' conscience, 78. 
 Remedy, excellence of Scripture as a, shewn, 
 
 466, seq. ; includes all others, i4. 
 Remembrance, things brought to, 406, 407. 
 Representation, wrong, of duties, 113. 
 Reproaches, 109. 
 Reprobates, 288. 
 Reserves, 354 ; reasons of Satan's policy in 
 
 this, 354. 
 Resist not, fly temptations, 447 ; why, 448. 
 Resistance, 79, 80; stout, 333; objections 
 
 answered, ib. 
 Restraint on Satan, 60. 
 Retreat, Satan hinders, 98. 
 Revelation, to Satan, 25, 26 ; credulity, con- 
 cerning, 174 ; God gives, 174, 175. 
 Revenge, spiteful, of Satan, 428. 
 Reynolds, 66^ 143, 370, 383. 
 Rivetus, 33. 
 Rossa, Domina, 43. 
 Ruffiuus, 180. 
 
 Rules, of Satan, in tempting, 59, 60. 
 Rutherford, 106. 
 RuthweU, 122. 
 
 Sacriiices, set on by Satan, 41. 
 Sadducees, opinions of, 48, 49, seq. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 479 
 
 Sadness, spiritual : several degrees thereof, 
 254, 255 ; iiistances of, 258 ; provision for 
 in Scriptui'e, ib.; reasons of, 258, seq.; three 
 classes troubled with, 260 ; times of, from 
 Satan : conversion, 263 ; repentance for 
 some great sin, 264 ; discomposure of 
 spirit under affliction, ih.; prepared by 
 atheistical thoughts, ib, ; melancholy, 264, 
 265 ; sickness or deathbed, 265, 266. 
 
 Saints assaulted by Satan, 18; examples, ib.; 
 intercession of, 201, 202. 
 
 Sakes, Christ tempted for our, shewn, 445, 
 scq. 
 
 Satan and God meet in the heart, 4 ; dis- 
 covery of intrigues of, ib. ; devices and 
 deceits of, 4, 5 ; likely to oppose the ac- 
 ceptance of ' D(Bnionologia Sacra,* 4, 5; 
 subtlety and craft of, 52, scq. ; business to 
 tempt, 338 ; proofs, ib., scq. 
 
 Satisfaction in duty hindered, 213. 
 
 Savonarola, 161. 
 
 Scaliger, 198. 
 
 Scarecrows, theological, 83. 
 
 Schoolmen's classification of knowledge, 22. 
 
 Sclater, 20, 31, 142, 143, 183, 338. 
 
 Scoff not at the judgments of Satan's tempta- 
 tions, 311. 
 
 Scot, 27, 28, 34. 
 
 Screw, temptations like a, 355. 
 
 Scripture, Satan has great understanding of, 
 26 ; never faithfully, and why, 40 ; warrant 
 for error, 159; hidden notions in, 162, 163; 
 abused or perverted, 267-269 ; uses always, 
 and why, 407, 408 ; base ends he turns it to, 
 408, 409 ; unfaithful in, how, 409, 410 ; all 
 to be tried by, 414 ; compare Scripture 
 with, ib.; force of, not in mere characters, 
 463, 464 ; argumentative use of, 464 ; shewn 
 to be intended by God, 465, seq.; how, thus 
 recommended, 469. 
 
 Scultetus, 337. 
 
 Second temptation, Chi-ist's, 382, seq. 
 
 Secrecy of Satan's movings, 33; of Satan, 
 70, 71 ; assurances of, 88, 89. 
 
 Secrets of nature, searches into, 3 ; small 
 discoveries of, ib.; not to be made our 
 sole business, ib. ; more weighty matters 
 than, ib. ; made use of, 32 ; servants of 
 Satan, 434, 4.35. 
 
 Security, men huslied in, 97; 125, 314. 
 
 Seducers, women, 191. 
 
 Selden, 425. 
 
 Senarclffius, 340. 
 
 Senault, 67. 
 
 Seneca, 393. 
 
 Sennertus, 27, 29. 
 
 Senses, 64 ; Satan tempts through, 422, 423. 
 
 Sensual pleasures, 394. 
 
 Serenus, 202. 
 
 Sermons, Dcenionologi<i Sacra delivered as, 5. 
 
 Servants, men of Satan, 434, 435. 
 
 Services, religious, opposed by Satan, 100. 
 
 Severities, 170, 171, 232, 233. 
 
 Sextus, 24. 
 
 Shame, gloried in, 69. 
 
 Sickness, 223. 
 
 Side of Christ, 449. 
 
 Signs, 405, 406. 
 
 Silence, 459. 
 
 Simon Magus, 419. 
 
 Sin, deceitfulness of, charged on Satan, 53, 
 54 ; aU acts of, through Satan, 54 ; by 
 deception, ib. ; pleasures of, set forth, 74, 
 75 ; finished, 83 ; leads to more, 84 ; change 
 of heinous, for as heinous, 69 ; long con- 
 
 tinued in, tempted by Satan, 248 ; Satan 
 heightens, of the regenerate, 276, 277 ; de- 
 light in, heightened by Satan, 421 ; made 
 smaD, 436 ; reasons of this, 437. 
 
 Sincerity, determination of, difficult, 456. 
 
 Sinful, where it is not Satan's Interest to 
 tempt to things sinful, he wiU to good, 351, 
 352. 
 
 Skill of Satan, 26. 
 
 Slaves, 36. 
 
 Sluggishness, spiiitual, 105. 
 
 Small things, Satan pursues, 13, 14, 75; 
 temptiitions, 343, 344. 
 
 Socrates, 205. 
 
 Soldiers, Christ's, counsels to, 450. 
 
 Solicitation, 62, 79, 84. 
 
 Solitude, 321, 322. 
 
 Sophisms of Satan, 75. 
 
 Sophistry, 266, 267. 
 
 Soul ' precious,' 8 ; vigilance in care of, ib. ; 
 body, 371. 
 
 Sovereignty, acts of, by Satan, and why, 
 419, 420. 
 
 Sozomen, 194, 208, 381. 
 
 Spanheim, 49, 321, 329, 330, 337, 351, 377, 
 381. 
 
 Speaking, distresses force to, 307. 
 
 Speeches, fair, 165. 
 
 Spira, 308. 
 
 ' Spirit,' Satan regarded as a, 15 ; takes part 
 in temptation, 317. 
 
 Spii'its, nature of, 152. 
 
 Sprenger, 380. 
 
 ' Standard,' 461. 
 
 Statues, 177. 
 
 Stephens, 401. 
 
 Stillingfleet, 136, 166, 173. 
 
 Sting of Christ's first temptation, 351. 
 
 Stock, Richard, 164. | 
 
 Straits, 366. 
 
 ' Strange ' things, 122 ; language, 166 ; en- 
 couragements to those who think their 
 temptations, 325, scq. 
 
 Stratagems of Satan, 158. 
 
 Strength, of Satan, 10, 11, seq.: 
 our own, 118. 
 
 pr( 
 
 t less of, from Satan's tempta- 
 tions, 311. 
 
 Studies, Satan man, 59 ; why, ib. 
 
 Stumbling-block, 214, 215. 
 
 Submission to God's will, 365, 366. 
 
 Subtlety, of Satan, 47, 52, seq., 55, 56; in- 
 stances of, 56, 57 ; why Satan uses, 57, 58 ; 
 and violence, 243. 
 
 Success, less or more, of Satan, 103 ; in use 
 of Scripture, 465, 466. 
 
 Sufficiency, self-, 398. 
 
 Suggestings, secret, 412. 
 
 ■ J, Satan drops, 70, 71; 237; ton- 
 
 Superstitions, 39. 
 
 Support, secret in temptation, 318, 319 ; in 
 
 absence of ordinary means, 329. 
 Sui-prisal, sudden, 71, 194 ; strange, 251. 
 Suspect Icindness of Satan, 350. 
 Suspicious fears, 246, 248, 249; wisely, 413. 
 Swinkfieldians, 166. 
 Sylvius, ^neas, 440. 
 Sympathy, excess of, 221. 
 
 Tiuiutus, 197. 
 Tacitus, 41, 178. 
 'Taking,' 122. 
 
480 
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Takingness of certain expressions accounted 
 for, 167. 
 
 Tauler, 166. 
 
 Temper, passionate, 233 ; cool and calm, 
 tempted by Satan, 234, 235. 
 
 Temple, Christ set on, 377 ; how taken to, 
 377, 378 ; pinnacle, 381. 
 
 Temptation, time of Christ's, 313 ; why per- 
 mitted at special seasons, 315 ; use of the 
 knowledge of this, 316 ; how Christ was 
 carried to, ib. ; place of Christ's, 321, 322 ; 
 the end of, 322 ; why Christ submitted to, 
 322, seq.; what expectation of success 
 could Satan have in, 323, scq.; manner 
 of, 340 ; Christ's first, 346 ; rise of, ih. ; 
 preparation for second temptation, 376; 
 time, ib. ; place, 378, 379 ; third, of Christ, 
 415 ; place, ih.; object, 415, 416. 
 
 Temptations, management of, by Satan, 26 ; 
 in general, 58 ; above, 77, 78 ; violence of, 
 made worse than they are, 318 ; end of (Jod 
 in permitting, ib. ; harnjessness of, 278 ; 
 when the sting is taken out, 319 ; not to 
 run into, ib. ; why, ib. ; nothing will hin- 
 der Satan from any, 323, 324; may be 
 without guilt or impurity, 325, seq.; how 
 to know when, are of Satan or of ourselves, 
 ib., seq. ; specially, in extraordinary, 327, 
 teq. : the affliction of, 328 ; Christ's, com- 
 pared with ours, 344 ; the first, ib. ; Satan 
 in, usually follows a beaten path, 345 ; vile, 
 infectious, not to be disputed with, 454, 455. 
 
 Tempted, spiritual state of the, 318. 
 
 Tenison, 29, 337. 
 
 Tergiversation, 314, 315. 
 
 Terror, flashes of, 293, 294. 
 
 Terrors of cursed reprobates, 288. 
 
 Tertullian, 39, 146, 189, 203. 
 
 Texts misapplied by S.itan, 402. 
 
 Theocritus, 27. 
 
 Theodoret, 69, 115, 187, 207. 
 
 Theodosius, 68. 
 
 Third temptation, 415. 
 
 Thoughts, whether Satan knows men's, 23 ; 
 what in, out of his reach, 23, 24 ; how far 
 he can pry, 24, 25 ; distraction of, 120, 
 seq.; atheistical, 243; bLisphemous, 244; 
 keep up high and honourable, of God, 373. 
 
 ' Threaping,' 80, 168, 243, 297. 
 
 Thrusting into perilous places, 396. 
 
 Title-page, original, of Damonologia Sacra, 
 2 ; of Piirt I., 7 ; of Part II., 126 ; of Pai-t 
 ni., 312. 
 
 Tophet, 40. 
 
 Torlachs, 171. 
 
 Trances, 404, 
 
 Troubles, advantage taken of, 79 ; cause dis- 
 traction, 80 ; further, 226, 227 ; examples 
 of, 227, 228 ; doubtful inquu-ies as to grounds 
 of, 241 ; God limits, to do good by, 262 ; 
 according to truth, 262, 263. 
 
 Trust, take not things on, 413. 
 
 Truth, Satan acknowledges, for evil ends, 
 102 ; God's interest in, 127 ; modified, 155; 
 error near, 160, 161 ; Satan seeks to cor- 
 rupt the professors of, 188 ; corrupting 
 established, 192, 193; despiting of, 199; 
 ieprive, of convincing power. li. ; bribes 
 in relation to, 205 ; error clothed in, 207. 
 
 Tyrannus, 179. 
 
 T^rus, Maximus, 116. 
 
 "Unacceptable, 
 
 Uncalled-for temptations, 319; when, 319, 
 320. 
 
 Unfaithful, Satan in dealing with Scripture 
 three ways, 409, 410. 
 
 Universal, Scripture, a, remedy in tempta- 
 tion, 466. 
 
 Unpaidonable sin, 300. 
 
 Unsanctified texts describing, used by Satan, 
 275. 
 
 Unseasonable services, 119. 
 
 Unsettle, from foundation, 183. 
 
 Unsuitableness of our hearts to services, 108. 
 
 Unthankfulness, 216. 
 
 Unwarranted, relief, 363 ; men put to, shewn, 
 
 Unworthiness, 108, 109. 
 
 Valerius Maximus, 178. 
 
 Valesians, 170. 
 
 Variety in worship, shews Satan's corrup- 
 tion, 431. 
 
 Varnish on a bad end, 357. 
 
 Varro, 418. 
 
 Vergerius, 308. 
 
 Vespasian, 178. 
 
 Vexations of spirit, 233, 234. 
 
 Vilest thoughts of God, 426. 
 
 Virgil, 27, 39, 141, 254. 
 
 Virtue, name of, given to what is bad, 73. 
 
 Visible, Satan sometimes, 340 ; reasons, 341 . 
 
 Vision, Christ's temptation not a, why, 337, 
 teq. ; God reveals by, 404. 
 
 Vitzilliputzli, 198. 
 
 Vives, 32, 42, 44, 202, 395. 
 
 Voice, God revealed by, so Satan, 403, 404. 
 
 Wariness, 413. 
 
 Watchfulness, imitate Satan's, 359. 
 
 Ways, various, of Satan, 46. 
 
 Wea]>ons, Satan deprives us of, 100. 
 
 A\Tiitaker, 164, 175. 
 
 AVickcdness, of Satan capable of increase, 1.1. 
 
 Wieldy= yielding, 79. 
 
 Wierus, 44. 
 
 Wight, Mrs, 375. 
 
 Wilderness, scene of Christ's temptation, 
 
 321 ; why, 321, 322. 
 Will, 55. 
 WUlis, 237, 265. 
 Wills and shalls, 82. 
 Witchcraft, 27, 29. 
 Wonders, 31. 
 Working of thought, 451. 
 Worldly pleasure, great engine of Satan, 
 
 438, seq. ; how so, 441, 442. 
 Worship, Satan sets himself up for, 101, 102. 
 'Wounded' spirits, 36; in regenerate and 
 
 reprobate, 257, 258; conscience by God 
 
 and Satan, question on, 261. 
 Wrath, Divine, sense of, 308. 
 Wresting, import of Scripture, by Satan, 
 
 296, 411, 412 ; seen in results, 412, 413 ; 
 
 Scripture, a weapon not easily, out of our 
 
 hands, 468. 
 
 Xavier, 179. 
 
 Young persons, troubled by Satan, 247. 
 
 Zanchius, 17. 
 
 Zeal, pretences of, 394. 
 
 Zeilau, 39. 
 
 Zembla, Nova, 177, 178. 
 
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