Satan’s second affrighting temptation —THE FIERY DART OF BLASPHEMY 4/7

4. Faith quenches this fiery dart, by purifying the heart of that enmity against Godwhich, in man’s cor­rupt nature, is fuel for such a temptation.  ‘Back­biters, haters of God, and despiteful,’ are joined together, Rom. 1:30.  No wonder that a man whose spirit is full of rancour against another, should be easily persuaded to revile him he hates so much. Every unbeliever is a hater of God, and so is in a dis­position to blaspheme God when his will or lust is crossed by God.  But faith slays this enmity of the heart; yea, it works love in the soul to God, and then works by this love.  Now it is one property of love ‘to think no evil,’ I Cor. 13:5.  That is, a man will neither plot any evil against him he loves, nor easily suspect any evil to be plotted by him against himself.  Love reads the actions of a friend through such clear glasses of candour and ingenuity, as will make a dark print seem a fair character.  It interprets all he doth with so much sweetness and simplicity, that those passages in his behaviour towards her, which to another would seem intricate and suspicious, are plain and pleasing to her; because she ever puts the most favourable sense upon all he doth that is possible.  The believer dares not himself plot any evil of sin against God, whom, from the report that faith hath made of him to his soul, he loves so dearly.  And, as love will not suf­fer him to turn traitor against a good God, so neither will it suffer him to harbour any jealous thoughts of God's heart towards him, as if he, who was the first lover, and taught the soul to love him by making love to her, could, after all this, frame any plot of real un­kindness against it.  No, this thought, though Satan may force it in a manner upon the Christian, and violently press for its entertainment, under the advan­tage of some frowning providence, which seems to countenance such a suspicion, yet it can never find welcome, so far as to be credited in the soul where love to God hath anything to do.  And surely there is no fear that soul will be persuaded wickedly to belch out blasphemies against God, who so abominates but the surmising the least suspicion of God in her most secret thoughts.

           Second Design.  Satan aims by these blasphe­mous temptations to effect the Christian’s trouble and vexation.  Though he doth not find the Christian so kind as to take these his guests in and give them lodging for his sake, yet he knows it will not a little disturb and break his rest to have them continually knocking and rapping at his door; yea, when he can­not pollute the Christian by obtaining his consent to them, even then he hopes to create him no little disquiet and distraction, by accusing him for what he will not commit; and so of a defiler—which rather he would have been—he is forced to turn slanderous reviler and false accuser.  Thus the harlot sometimes accuseth the honest man, merely to be avenged on him because he will not yield to satisfy her lust. Joseph would not lie with his mistress and she raiseth a horrible lie on him.  The devil is the blasphemer, but the poor Christian, because he will not join with him in the fact, shall have the name and bear the blame of it.  As the Jews compelled Simon of Cyrene to carry Christ’s cross, so Satan would compel the tempted Christian to carry the guilt of his sin for him. And many time he doth so handsomely, and with such sleight of hand, shift it from himself to the Christian’s back, that he, poor creature, perceives not the juggler's art of conveying it unto him, but goes complaining only of the baseness of his own heart. And as it sometimes so falls out, that a true man in whose house stolen goods are found suffers, because he cannot find out the thief that left them there; so the Christian suffers many sad terrors from the mere presence of these horrid thoughts in his bosom, because he is not able to say whose they are—whether shot in by Satan, or the steaming forth of his own naughty heart.  The humble Christian is prone to fear the worst of himself, even where he is not conscious to himself; like the patriarchs, who, when the cup was found in Benjamin's sack, took the blame to them­selves, though they were innocent in the fact.  And such is the confusion sometimes in the Christian’s thoughts, that he is ready to charge himself with those brats that should be laid at another door—Satan’s, I mean.  Now here I shall show you how faith defeateth this second design of the devil in these blasphemous motions.  And this it doth two ways.  1. By helping the Christian to discern Satan’s injections from the motions of his own heart.  2. By succouring him, though they rise of his own heart