Helps Against This Sort of Satan’s Temptations

    

Question. But what help have we against this sort of Satan’s temptations?

           Answer. I suppose thee a Christian, that mak­est this question; and if thou dost it in the plainness of thy heart it proves thee one.  Who, besides, will or can desire in earnest, to be eased of these guests? Even when a carnal heart prays for deliverance from them, he would be loath his prayer should be heard. ‘Not yet, Lord,’ the heart of such a one cries, as Aus­tin confessed of himself.  Sin is as truly the offspring of the soul, as children are of our bodies, and it finds as much favour in our eyes; yea more, for the sinner can slay a son to save a sin alive, Micah 6:7, and of all sins, none are made more on, than these heart sins.

1. Because they are the first-born of the sinful heart, and the chiefest strength of the soul is laid out upon them.
2. Because the heart hath more scope in them than in outward acts.  The proud man is staked down oft to a short state, and cannot ruffle it in the world, and appear to others in that pomp he would; but within his own bosom he can set up a stage, and his own foolish heart present himself as a great a prince as he pleaseth.  The malicious can kill, in his desires, as many in a few minutes, as the angel smote in a night of Sennacherib’s host.  Nero thus could slay all Rome on the block at once.
3. These sins stay with the soul when the others leave it.  When the sinner hath crippled his body with drunkenness and filthiness, and proves miles emeritus—cannot follow the devil’s camp longer in those ways —then these cursed lusts will entertain him with stories of his old pranks and pleasures.  In a word, these inward lusts of the heart, have nothing but the conscience of a Deity to quell them.  Other sins put the sinner to shame before men; and, as some that believed on Christ durst not confess him openly, because they loved the praise of men, so there are sinners who are kept from vouching their lusts openly, for the same tenderness to their reputation. But here is no fear of that, if they can but forget that heaven sees them, or persuade themselves there is no danger from thence, the coast then is clear; they may be as wicked as they please.  These make inward sins so hugged and embraced.  If thou therefore canst find thy heart set against these, I may venture to call thee a Christian.  And for thy help against them, improve the following.

           First Help. Be earnest with  God in prayer to move and order thy heart in its thoughts and desires. If the tongue be such an unruly thing that few can tame; O what is the heart, whence such a multitude of thoughts are flying forth as thick as bees from the hive, and sparks from the furnace!  It is not in man, not in the holiest on earth to do this without divine assistance.  Therefore we find David so often crying out in this respect, to order his steps in his word, to unite his heart to his fear, to incline his heart to his testimonies.  As a servant, when the child he tends is troublesome and will not be ruled by him, who no sooner speaks but all is whist with him.  No doubt holy David found his heart beyond his skill or power, that makes him so oft do his errand to God.  Indeed, God hath promised thus much to his children, to order their steps for them, Ps. 37:22, only he looks they should bring their hearts to him for that end.  ‘Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established,’ Prov. 16:3, or ordered.  Art thou setting thy face towards an ordinance, where thou art sure to meet Satan, who will be disturbing thee with worldly thoughts and may be worse?  Let God know from thy mouth whither thou art going, and what thy fears are.  Never doth the soul march in so goodly order, as when it puts itself under the conduct of God.

           Second Help. Set a strong guard about thy out­ward senses.  These are Satan’s landing places, especially the eye and ear.  Take heed what thou im­portest at them.  Vain discourse seldom passeth with­out leaving some tincture upon the heart; as un­wholesome air inclines to putrefaction things sweet in themselves, so unsavory discourse to corrupt the mind that is pure.  Look thou breathest therefore in a clean air.  And for thy eye, let it not wander. Wanton objects cause wanton thoughts.  Job knew his eye and his thoughts were like to go together, and therefore, to secure one, he covenants with the other, Job 31:1.

           Third Help. Often reflect upon thyself in a day, and observe what company is with thy heart.  A care­ful master will ever and anon will be looking into his workhouse, and seeing what his servants are doing, and a wise Christian should do the same.  We may know by the noise in the school [that] the master is not there.  Much of the misrule in our bosoms ariseth from the neglect of visiting our hearts.  Now, when thou art parleying with thy soul, make this threefold inquiry.

1. Inquire, Whether that which thy heart is thinking on, be good or evil.  If evil and wicked, such as are proud, unclean, distrustful thoughts, show thy abhorrency of them, and chide thy soul sharply for so much as holding a conference with them, of which nought can come but dishonour to God, and mischief to thy own soul; and stir up thy heart to mourn for the evil neighbourhood of them, and by this thou shalt give a testimony of faithfulness to God.  When David mourned for Abner, ‘all Israel,’ it is said, ‘understood that day that it was not of the king to slay Abner.’  Thy mourning for them will show, that these thoughts are not so much of thee as of Satan.

2. Inquire, If thy thoughts be not broadly wicked, then inquire whether they be not empty, frothy, vain imaginations, that have no subserviency to the glory of God, thy own good or others’; and if so, leave not till thou hast made thyself apprehensive of Satan’s design on thee, in them.  Though such are not for thy purpose, yet they are for his; they serve his turn to keep thee from better.  All the water is lost that runs beside the mill, and all thy thoughts are waste which help thee not to do God’s work withal, in thy general or particular calling.  The bee will not sit on a flower where no honey can be sucked, neither should the Christian.  Why sittest thou here idle —thou shouldst say to thy soul—when thou hast so much to do for God and thy soul and so little time to despatch it in?
3. Inquire, If thou findest they are good for mat­ter thy heart is busied about, then inquire whether they be good for time and manner, which being wanting they degenerate.

           (1.) Are they good for the time or the season? That is good fruit which is brought forth in its season. Christ liked the work his mother would have put him upon as well as herself, John 2:4, but his time was not come.  Good thoughts and meditations misplaced, are like some interpretations of Scripture—good truths but bad expositions; they fit not the place they are drawn from, nor these the time.  To pray when we should hear, or be musing on the sermon when we should pray, is to rob God one way so as to pay him another.

           (2.) Are they good for the manner?  Thy heart may meditate a good matter, and spoil it in the doing. Thou art, may be, musing of thy sins, and affecting thy heart into a sense of them, but so, that while thou art stirring up thy sorrow, thou weakenest thy faith on the promise.  That is thy sin.  He is a bad chirur­geon that in opening a vein goes so deep that he cuts into an artery, and lames the arm, if [he does] not kill the man.  Or thou art thinking of thy family, and pro­viding for that; this thou oughtest to do, and wert worse than an infidel if thou neglectest; but, may be, these thoughts are so distracting and distrustful, as if there were no promise, no providence to relieve thee. God takes this ill, because it reflect upon his care of thee.  O how near doth our duty here stand to our sin!  So much care, is necessary ballast to the soul; a little more sinks it under the waves of unbelief.  It is like some things [which are] very wholesome, but, one degree more of hot or cold would make them poison.

Use or Application

           Use First. Let this be for trial of thy spiritual state.  What entertainment finds Satan when he comes with these spirituals of wickedness, and solicits thee to dwell on them?  Canst thou dispense with the filthiness of thy spirit, so thy hands be clean? or dost thou wrestle against these heart sins as well as others? I do not ask, whether such guests come within thy door—for the worst of sins may be found, in the motions of them, not only passing by the door of a Christian, but looking in also, as holy motions may be found stirring in the bosom of wicked men—but I ask thee, whether thou canst find in thy heart to lodge these guests and bid them welcome?  It is like, thou wouldst not be seen to walk in the street with such company—not lead a whore by the hand through the town—not violently break open thy neighbour’s house to murder or rob him; but canst thou not under thy own roof, in the withdrawing room of thy soul, let thy thoughts hold up an unclean lust, while thy heart commits speculative folly with it? Canst thou not draw thy neighbour into thy den, and there rend him limb from limb by thy malice, and thy heart not so much as cry Murder, murder?  In a word, canst thou hide any one sin  in the vance-roof of thy heart, there to save the life of it when inquired after by the Word and Spirit, as Rahab hid the spies, and sent the king of Jericho's messengers to pursue them, as if they had been gone?  Perhaps thou canst say, ‘The adulterer, the murderer is not here,’ thou hast sent these sins away long ago; and all this while thou hidest them in the love of thy soul.  Know it, or thou shalt another day know it to thy cost, thou art stark nought.  If there were a spark of the life of God or the love of Christ in thy bosom, though thou couldst not hinder such motions in thy soul, yet thou wouldst not conceal them, much less nourish them in thy bosom; when overpowered by them, thou wouldst call in help from heaven against these destroyers of thy soul.

           Use Second. Show your loyalty, O ye saints, to God, by a vigorous resistance of, and wrestling against, these spirituals of wickedness.

1. Consider, Christian, heart sins are sins as well as any.  ‘The thought of foolishness is sin,’ Prov. 24:9. Mercury is poison in the water distilled, as well as in the gross body.  Uncleanness, covetousness, murder are such in the heart as well as in the outward act; every point of hell, is hell.
2. Consider, Thy spirit is the seat of the Holy Spirit.  He takes up the whole heart for his lodging, and it is time for him to be gone when he sees his house let over his head.  Defile not thy spirit till thou art weary of his company.
3. Consider, There may be more wickedness in a sin of the heart than of the hand and outward man; for the aggravation of these is taken from the behav­iour of the heart in the act.  The more of the heart and spirit [that] is let out, the more malignity is let in to any sinful act.  To backslide in heart, is more than to backslide.  It is the comfort of a poor soul, when tempted and troubled for his relapses, that though his foot slides back, yet his heart turns not back, but faceth heaven and Christ at the same time; so to err in the heart is worse than to have an error in the head.  Therefore God aggravates Israel’s sin with this, ‘They do always err in their heart,’ Heb. 3:10.  Their hearts run them upon the error; they liked idolatry, and so were soon made to believe what pleased them best.  As, on the contrary, the more of the heart and spirit is in any holy service, the more real goodness there is in it, though it fall short of others in the outward expression.  The widow’s two mites surpas­sed all the rest, Christ himself being judge; so in sin, though the internal acts of sin, in thoughts and affec­tions, seem light upon man’s balance, if compared with outward acts, yet these may be so circumstan­tiated that they may exceed the other in God’s ac­count.  Peter lays the accent of Magus’ sin on the wicked thought, which his words betrayed to be in his heart, ‘Pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee,’ Acts 8:22.  Saul’s sin in sparing Agag, and saving the best of the sheep and oxen, which he was commanded to destroy, was materially a far less sin than David’s adultery and murder, yet it is made equal with a greater than both, even witchcraft itself, I Sam. 15:23; and whence re­ceived his sin such a dye, but from the wickedness of his heart, that was worse than David’s when deepest in the temptation.
4. Consider, If Satan get into thy spirit and defile it, O how hard wilt thou find it to stay there? Thou hast already sipped of his broth, and now art more likely to be overcome at last to sit down and make thy full meal of that, which by tasting hath vitiated thy palate already.  It were strange, if, while thou art musing, and thy heart hot with the thought of lust, the fire should not break forth at thy lips, or worse.

Satan's Plot to Defile the Christian With Spiritual Wickedness

Satan's Plot to Defile the Christian With Spiritual Wickedness
  Doctrine Third. These wicked spirits do chiefly annoy the saints with, and provoke them to, spiritual wickedness.  Sins may be called spiritual upon a double account; either, First. From the subject wherein they are acted; or Second. From the object about which they are conversant.
First Sort of Spiritual Sins, So called from the subject wherein they are acted.
           First. Sins may be called spiritual, from the subject wherein they are acted.  When the spirit or heart is the stage whereon sin is acted, this is a spir­itual sin; such are all impure thoughts, vile affections and desires.  Though the object be fleshly lust, yet [they] are spiritual sins, because they are purely acts of the soul and spirit, and break not forth unto the outward man.
           [They are heart sins.]

           Satan labours what he can to provoke the Chris­tian to heart sins—to stir up and foment these inward motions of sin in the Christian’s bosom.  Hence it is, he can go about no duty, but these—his imps, I may call them—haunt him; one motion or other darts in to interrupt him, as Paul tells us of himself, ‘When he would do good, evil was present with him.’  If a Christian should turn back whenever these cross the way of him, he should never go on his journey to heaven.  It is the chief game the devil hath left to play against the children of God—now his field-army is broken, and his commanding power taken away which he had over them—to come out of these his holds where he lies skulking, and fall upon their rear with these suggestions.  He knows his credit now is not so great with the soul as when it was his slave.  Then no drudgery work was so base that it would not do at his command; but now the soul is out of his bondage, and he must not think to command another's servant as his own.  No, all he can do is to watch the fittest season—when the Christian least suspects—and then to present some sinful motion, handsomely dressed up, to the eye of the soul, that the Christian may, before he is aware, take this brat up and dandle it in his thoughts, till at last he makes it his own by embracing it; and this he knows will defile the soul; and, may be, this boy sent in at the window, may open the door to let in a greater thief.  Or if he should not so prevail, yet the guilt of these heart sins, yea, their very neighbourhood will be a sad vexation to a gracious heart, whose nature is so pure that it abhors all filthiness—so that to be haunted with such notions, is as if a living man should be chained to a stinking carcase, that wherever he goes he must draw that after him; and whose love is so dear to Christ, that it cannot bear the company of those thoughts without amazement and horror, which are so contrary and abusive to his beloved.  This makes Satan so de­sirous to be ever raking in the unregenerate part, that as a dunghill stirred, it may offend them both with the noisome streams which arise from it.

Application - Against The Rulers of Darkness of This World

           Use First. This may help us conceive more fully what the desperate wickedness of man’s nature is, which is so hard to be known, because it can never be seen at once—it being a fountain whose immensity consists not in the stream of actual sin—that is visible, and may seem little—but in the spring that incessantly feeds this.  But here is a glass that will give us the shape of our hearts truly like themselves.  Seest thou the monstrous pitch and height of wickedness that is in the devil?  All this there is in the heart of every man.  There is no less wickedness potentially in the tamest sinner on earth, than in the devils themselves, and that one day thou, whoever thou art, wilt show to purpose, if God prevent thee not by his renewing grace.  Thou art not yet fledged, thy wings are not grown to make thee a flying dragon; but thou art of the same brood, the seed of this ser­pent is in thee, and the devil begets a child like him­self.  Thou yet standest in a soil not so proper for the ripening of sin—which will not come to its fulness till transplanted unto hell.  Thou who art here so maid­enly and modest, as to blush at some sins out of shame, and [to] forbear the acting of others out of fear, when there thou shalt see thy case as desperate as the devil doth his, then thou wilt spit out thy blas­phemies, with which thy nature is stuffed, with the same malice that he doth.  The Indians have a con­ceit, that when they die they shall be transformed into the deformed likeness of the devil; therefore in their language they have the same word for a dead man and the devil.  Sin makes the wicked like him before they come there, but indeed they will come to their coun­tenance more fully there, when those flames shall wash off that paint which here hides their com­plexion.  The saints in heaven shall be like angels, in their alacrity, love, and constancy to serve God; and the damned like the devils, in sin as well as pun­ishment.  This one consideration might be of excel­lent use to unbottom a sinner, and abase him, so as never to have high thought of himself.  It is easy to run down a person whose life is wicked, and convince him of the evil of his actions, and make him confess what he doth is evil, but here is the thicket we lose him in.  He will say, ‘It is true, I am overseen, I do what I should not, God forgive me, but my heart is good.’  Thy heart good, sinner? and so is the devil’s. His nature is wicked, and thine [is] as bad as his.  These pimples in thy face show the heat of thy cor­rupt nature within, and without gospel physic—the blood of Christ applied to thee—thou wilt die a leper. None but Christ can give thee a new heart, till which, thou wilt every day grow worse and worse.  Sin is an hereditary disease that increaseth with age.  A young sinner will be an old devil.

           Use Second. Again, it would be of use to the saints; especially to those in whom God by his timely call forestalled the devil’s market; as sometimes the Spirit of God takes sin in its quarters before it comes into the field, in the sins of youth.  Now such a one not finding those daring sins committed by him that others have been left unto, may possibly not be so affected with his own sin or God's mercy.  O let such a one behold here the wickedness of his heart in the glass of the devil’s nature, and he will see himself as a great debtor to the mercy of God as Manasseh, or the worst of sinners—as in pardoning, so in prevent­ing the same cursed nature with theirs, before it gave fire on God with those bloody sins which they com­mitted.  That thou didst not act such outrageous sins, thou art beholden to God’s gracious surprise, and not to the goodness of thy nature, which hath the devil’s stamp on it, [and] for which God might have crushed thee, as we do the brood of serpents before they sting, knowing what they will do in time.  Who will say that Fawkes suffered unjustly, because the parliament was not blown up?  It is enough that the materials for that massacre were provided, and he taken there with match and fire about him ready to lay the train.  And canst thou say, when God first took hold on thee, that thou hadst not those weapons of rebellion about thee—a nature full charged with enmity against God, which in time would have made its own report of what for [the] present lay like unfired powder silent in thy bosom?  O Christian, think of this, and be humbled for thy villanous nature, and say, blessed be God that sent his Spirit and grace so timely to stay thy hand—as Abigail to David—while thy nature meditated nothing but war against God and his laws.

           Use Third. Again, are the devils so wickedly malicious against God himself?  O sirs, take the right notion, of sin, and you will hate it.  The reason why we are so easily persuaded to sin is, because we un­derstand not the bottom of his design in drawing a creature to sin.  It is with men in sinning as it is with armies in fighting.  Captains beat their drums for vol­unteers, and promise all that list, pay and plunder; and this makes them come trowling in.  But few con­sider what the ground of the war is, against whom, or for what.  Satan enticeth to sin, and gives golden promises [of] what they shall have in his service, with which silly souls are one.  But how few ask their souls, Whom do I sin against?  What is the devil’s design in drawing me to sin?  Shall I tell thee?  Dost thou think it is thy pleasure or profit he desires in thy sinning?  Alas, he means nothing less, he hath greater plots in his head than so.  He hath, by his apostasy, proclaimed war against God, and he brings thee, by sinning, to espouse his quarrel, and to jeopardy the life of thy soul in defence of his pride and lust; which that he may do, he cares no more for the damnation of thy soul, than the great Turk doth to see a com­pany of his slaves cut off for the carrying on of his design in a siege.  And darest thou venture to go into the field upon his quarrel against God?  O earth, tremble thou at the presence of the Lord.  This bloody Joab sets thee where never came any off alive.  O stand not where God’s bullets fly.  Throw down thy arms, or thou art a dead man.  Whatever others do, O ye saints, abhor the thoughts of sinning willingly; which when you do, you help the devil against God.  And what more unnatural than for a child to be seen in arms against his father?

The Extreme Wickedness of The Devils

 Doctrine Second. The devils are spirits extremely wicked; wicked in the abstract, as in the text, and called by way of eminency is sin, ‘the wicked one,’ Matt. 13:19.  As God is called the Holy One, because none [is] holy as the Lord; so the devil, the wicked one, because he is a none-such in sin.  In a few particulars let us endeavour to take the height of the devil’s sin, and rather that we may judge of the degrees of sins and [of] sinners among the sons of men: the nearer God in holiness, the more holy; the liker the devil, the more wicked.

           Particular First. These apostate angels are the in­ventors of sin—the first that sounded the trumpet of rebellion against their Maker, and led the dance to all that sin which since hath filled the world.  Now, what tongue can accent this sin to its full? for such a noble creature whom God hath set on the top, as it were, of all the creation, nearest to himself, [and] from whom God had kept nothing but his own royal diadem; for this peer and favourite of the court, without any cause or solicitation from any other, to make this bold and blasphemous attempt to snatch at God’s own crown, this paints the devil blacker than the thoughts of men and angels can conceive.  He is called ‘the father of lies,’ as those who found out any art are the father of it.  Jubal ‘the father of all such as handle the harp and organ,’ he invented music.  And this is a dreadful aggravation, because they sinned without a tempter.  And though man is not in such a degree capable of this aggravation, yet some men sin after the very similitude of the devil's transgression in this respect; who, as St. Paul styles them, are ‘in­ventors of evil things,’ Rom. 1:30.  Indeed sin is an old trade, found out to our hand; but as in other trades and arts, some famous men arise, who add to the in­ventions of others, and make trades and arts, as it were, new; so, there ever are some infamous in their generation,  that make old sins new by superadding to the wickedness of others.  Uncleanness is an old sin from the beginning; but the Sodomites will be filthy in a new way, and therefore it carries their name to this day.  Some invent new errors; others new oaths —such as are of their own coining—hot out of the mint; they scorn to swear after the old fashion. Others [invent] new devices of persecuting, as Julian, [who] had a way by himself different from all before him; and to the end of the world every age will exceed other in the degrees of sinning.  Ishmael and the mockers of the old world were but children and bunglers to the scoffers and cruel mockers of the last time.  Well, take heed of showing thy wit in inventing new sins, lest thou stir up God in inventing new pun­ishments.  ‘Is not destruction to the wicked? and a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity?’ Job 31:3.  Sodom sinned after a new mode, and God destroys them after a new way—sends hell from above upon them.  Some have invented new opinions, mon­strous errors, and God hath suited their monstrous errors with births as monstrous of their own body.

           Particular Second. They were not only the in­ventors of sin, but are still the chief tempters to, and promoters of sin in the world.  [They are] therefore called Ò B,4DV.T, the tempter, and sin [is] called ‘the work of the devil,’ whoever commits it; as the house goes by the name of the master-workman, though he useth his servant’s hands to build it.  O take heed of soliciting others to sin.  Thou takest the devil’s office, as I may say, out of his hand.  Let him do it himself if he will.  Make not thyself so like him. To tempt another is worse than to sin thyself.  It speaks sin to be of great growth in that man, that doth it knowingly and willingly.  Herbs and flowers shed not their seed till ripe, creatures propagate not till of stature and age.  What do these that tempt others, but diffuse their wicked opinions and prac­tices, and, as it were, raise up seed to the devil, there­by to keep up the name of their infernal father in the world?  This shows sin is mighty in them indeed. Many a man, though so cruel to his own soul as to be drunk or swear, yet will not like this in a child or servant.  What are they then but devils incarnate, who teach their children the devil’s catechism, to swear and lie, drink and drab?  If you meet such, be not afraid to call them, as Paul did Elymas, when he would have perverted the deputy, children of the devil, full of all subtilty and mischief, and enemies of all righteousness.  O do you not know what you do when you tempt?  I will tell you.  You do that which you cannot undo by your own repentance.  Thou poisonest one with error, initiatest another in the devil’s school—alehouse I mean; but afterwards may be, thou seest thy mistake, and recantest thy error, thy folly, and givest over thy drunken trade.  Art thou sure now to rectify and convert them with thyself? Alas, poor creatures! this is out of thy power.  They, may be, will say, as he—though he did it on a better account—that was solicited to turn back to Popery by him who had persuaded him to renounce the same: ‘You have given me one turn, but shall not give me another.’  And what a grief to thy spirit will it be, to see those going to hell on thy errand, and thou not able to call them back!  Thou mayest cry out as Lamech, ‘I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.’  Nay, when thou art asleep in thy grave, he whom thou seduced may have drawn in others, and thy name may be quoted to commend the opinion and practice to others; by which, as it is said, though in another sense, Abel being dead yet speak­eth.  Thou mayest, though dead, sin in those that are alive, generation after generation.  A little spark kin­dled by the error of one, hath cost the pains of many ages to quench it, and when thought to be out, hath broken forth again.

           Particular Third. They are not barely wicked, but maliciously wicked.  The devil hath his name Ò B@<,DÎH, to denote his spiteful nature—his desire to vex and mischief others.  When he draws souls to sin, it is not because he tastes any sweetness or finds any profit therein—he hath too much light to have any joy or peace in sin.  He knows his doom, and trem­bles at the thought of it; and yet his spiteful nature makes him vehemently desire and incessantly endeav­our the damnation of souls.  As you shall see a mad dog run after a flock of sheep, kill one, then another, though when dead [he is] not able to eat of their flesh, but kills to kill; so Satan is carried out with a boundless rage against man, especially the saints, and would not, if he could, leave one of Christ’s flock alive.  Such is the height of his malice against God, whom he hates with a perfect hatred; and, because he cannot reach him with a direct blow, therefore he strikes him at the second-hand through his saints; that wicked arm which reacheth not to God, is extended against these excellent on the earth—well knowing the life of God is in a manner bound up in theirs.  God cannot outlive his honour, and his hon­our speeds as his mercy is exalted or depressed; this being the attribute God means to honour in their sal­vation so highly, and therefore maligned above the rest by Satan.  And this is the worst that can be said of these wicked spirits, that they maliciously spite God, and in God the glory of his mercy.

PS: THERE ARE TWO WEIRD WORDS, I LEFT THEM THERE BECAUSE THEY ARE WRITTEN IN GREEK  BUT, COULD NOT TRANSLATE THEM OR COPY THEM PROPERLY.... I TRIED. SORRY.

What a Dreadful Enemy We Have to Grapple With

           First. As spirits, they are of vast intellectual abilities.  Sorry man, while in this dark prison of the body, hath not light enough to know what angelical perfections are.  That they excel in knowledge all other creatures, we know because, as spirits, they come nearest by creation to the nature of God who made them.  The heavens are not lift higher from the earth, than angels, by knowledge, from man while on earth.  Man, by art, hath learned to take the height of the stars of heaven, but where is he that can tell how far in knowledge angels exceed man?  It is true they have lost much of that knowledge they had, even all their knowledge as holy angels; what now they know of God hath lost its savour, and they have no power to use it for their own good.  What Jude saith of wicked men, may be said of them: What they know naturally, in these things they corrupt themselves. They know the holiness of God, but love him not for it, as the elect angels do, and themselves by creation did.  They know the evil of sin, and love it not the less; but though they are such fools for themselves, yet [they] have subtilty too much for all the saints on earth, if we had not a God to play our game for us.

           Second. As spirits, they are invisible, and their approaches also.  They come, and you see not your enemy.  Indeed, this makes him so little feared by the ignorant world, whereas it is his greatest advantage, if rightly weighed.  O, if men have an apparition of the devil, or hear a noise in the night, they cry, ‘The devil! the devil!’ and are ready to run out of their wits for fear; but they carry him in their hearts, and walk all the day long in his company, and fear him not. When thy proud heart is clambering up to the pin­nacle of honour in thy ambitious thoughts, who sets thee there but the devil?  When thy adulterous heart is big with all manner of uncleanness and filthiness, who but Satan hath been there, begetting these brats on thy whorish spirit?  When thou art raging in thy passion, throwing burning coals of wrath and fury about with thy inflamed tongue, where was it set on fire, but of hell?  When thou art hurried like the swine into the precipice, and even choked with thy own drunken vomit, who but the devil rides thee?

           Third. As spirits, they are immortal.  Of other enemies you may hear news at last, that ‘they are which sought thy life,’ as the angel told Joseph of Herod.  Persecuting men walk a turn or two upon the stage, and are called off by death, and there is an end of all their plots; but devils die not, they will hunt thee to thy grave, and when thou diest they will meet thee in another world, to accuse and torment thee there also.

           Fourth. As spirits, they are unwearied in their motions.  When the fight is over among men, the conqueror must sit down and breathe, and so loseth the chase because not able to pursue it in time.  Yea, some have given over their empires, as glutted with the blood of men, and weary of the work, when they cannot have their will as they desired.  Thus Dio­cletian, because he saw he did but mow a meadow, that grew the thicker for cutting down—as Tertullian speaks of the Christians martyred—he throws away his sceptre in a pet.  Charles V. did the like, some say, upon the same reason, because he could not root out the Lutherans.  But the devil’s spirit is never cowed, nor he weary of doing mischief, though he hath never stood still since first began his walk to and fro the world.  O what would become of us, if a God were not at our back, who is infinitely more the devil’s odds than he ours.

Against Spiritual Wickedness

           These words are the fourth branch in the des­cription, spiritual wickedness, and our contest or combat with them as such [is] expressed by the adversative particle ‘against.’   against the spirituals of wickedness, which is, say some, ‘against wicked spirits;’ that is true, but not all.  I conceive, with many interpreters, not only the spiritual nature of the devil, and the wickedness thereof, to be intended, but also, yea chiefly, the nature and kind of those sins which these wicked spirits do most usually and vigorously provoke the saints unto; and they are the spirituals of wickedness, not those gross fleshly sins, which the heard of beastly sinners, like swine, wallow in, but sin spiritualized, and this because it is not spirits, but spirituals.  The words present us with these three doctrinal conclusions.  First. The devils are spirits.  Second. the devils are spirits extremely wicked.  Third. These wicked spirits do chiefly annoy the saints with, and provoke them to, spiritual wickednesses.

[The spirituality of the devil’s nature.]

           Doctrine First. The devils are spirits.  Spirit is a word of various acceptation in Scripture. Amongst others, [it is] used often to set forth the essence and nature of angels, good and evil, both which are called spirits.  the holy angles, ‘Are they not all ministering spirits?’ Heb. 1:14.  The evil ‘And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him,’ I Kings 22:21; that spirit was a devil. How oft is the devil called the unclean spirit, foul spirit, lying spirit, &c.!  Sin did not alter their sub­stance, for then, as one saith well, that nature and substance which transgressed could not be punished.

           First. The devil is a spirit; that is, his essence is immaterial and simple, not compounded, as corporal beings are, of matter and form: ‘Handle me and see,’ saith Christ to his disciples, that thought they had seen a spirit, ‘for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have,’ Luke 24:39.  If they were not thus im­material, how could they enter into bodies and pos­sess them, as the Scripture tells us they have [done], even a legion into one man? Luke 8:30.  One body cannot thus enter into another.

           Second. The devils are spiritual substances, not qualities, or evil motions, arising from us, as some have absurdly conceived.  So the Sadducees, and others following them, deny any such being as angel, good or evil; but this is so fond a conceit, that to maintain it, we must both forfeit our reason and deny the Scriptures.  There we find their creation related, Col. 1:16; the fall of some from their first estate, Jude 6, and the standing of others, called the elect angels; the happiness of the one [class], who behold God’s face, and their employment—sent out to attend on the saints, as servants on their master’s heirs, Heb. 1:14; the misery of the other, reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgement of the great day; and their present work, which is to do mischief to the souls and bodies of men, as far as they are permitted; all which show their subsistence plain enough.  But so immersed is sorry man in flesh, that he will not easily believe what he sees not with his fleshly eyes.  Upon the same account we may deny the being of God himself, being invisible.

           Third. They are entire spiritual substances, which have, every one, proper existence.  And thus they are distinguished from the souls of men, which are made to subsist in a human body, and together with it make one perfect man;  so that the soul, though, when separated from the body, it doth exist, yet hath a tendency to union with its body again.

           Fourth. They are, though entire spiritual substances, yet finite, being but creatures.  God only is the uncreated, infinite, and absolutely simple Spirit, yea, Father of all other spirits.  Now from this spiritual nature of the devil, we may further see...