CHAPTER VIII: That Satan is able to work upon that other corrupt principle in us
reason with a dumb man that can hear, but his answers cannot be known, and so he knows no way what reply to make. Therefore surely Satan hath often some way, more or less, a guess and inkling what may be the answers of the heart again: which, were it otherwise, the glory also which God hath by the victory gotten over Satan in these temptations were much obscured, and Satan's confusion less; for the victory of our faith in these disputes, and the resistance it makes, lies chiefly in those replies which are made, whereby it quencheth all his darts: whereof the devil, when he is once sensible and perceives it, he is confounded; for then, when he is once sensible and apprehensive that he is resisted, doth he fly from us, as the Apostle speaks, James 4:7, and that of his own accord, as the expression there imports; even as a foiled and disgraced soldier. And this we may see in his carriage in those his temptations of Christ, which were managed by mutual disputes, and wherein the foiling of Satan was by the answers out of Scripture which Christ gave; by which being confounded, 'he left him,' as the text says, Matt. 4:11, as out of pride, ashamed that he was foiled. So that Satan, some way or other, is able to guess at, and discerns the replies in our hearts to his objections, as well as to make and cast in objections.
CHAPTER VIII:
That Satan is able to work upon that other corrupt principle in us That Satan is able to work upon that other corrupt principle in us: guilt of conscience.—Both how many ways Satan is able to know matter by us to object against us; as also, to set it on, and work upon the guilt and erroneousness of the conscience.
THUS we see how able Satan is to join with and assist carnal reason in us against ourselves. We will now further consider what power and working he may exercise upon that other principle in us, our consciences; in joining with the filth and defilement thereof, in accusing us and laying particulars to our charge; in which consisteth the greatest of his strength, even in an army of accusations of us to ourselves, which in this warfare he musters up against us. This sort of temptations we have in hand consists either of false majors or false minors, which are like the two wings of an army. His false majors, they are such as, misapprehensions of the ways and of the work of grace, or misunderstanding of sayings of Scripture, &c., which by reason of that darkness of ignorance that is in us, he puts upon us wrested and perverted. As, that to relapse into the same sin again and again is not compatible with grace; and many the like. For the opinions whereby some do measure what strictness is essential to the being in the state of grace are often too severe and rigid; as in others, too loose. The measure of some is too scant, not giving allowance to failings; as of others, too large, taking in such gross corruptions, and the constant practice of them, as cannot stand with grace. And Satan deceives with both: as the one sort, of profane men, to flatter themselves to be in a good condition when they are not, so the other, of weak and tender consciences, that they are not in a good estate when they are. And in like manner places of Scripture misunderstood do oft prove matter of great temptation to many; as that Heb. 6, unto one who, having fallen from his first love, concluded he could never be saved, because it is there said, that 'they which are once enlightened, if they fall away, it is impossible they should be renewed to repentance;' whereas it is only to be understood of a revengeful total apostasy. Thus, as Elymas 'perverted the right ways of the Lord,' Acts 13:10, so doth Satan also; Elymas being therefore there called 'child of the devil,' because he did the work of his father therein.
Now, all such false reasonings as are founded upon such mistakes of the things, and of the rule itself whereby we should judge of our estates—false majors—do properly belong to the former head of carnal reason. But he hath another wing of forces to join to these; and they are false accusations of a man to himself. from the guilt of his own heart and ways, misconceits of a man's self, and misapplications to a man's self: another sort of arguments, wherein the minors are false. So, although a man be full of knowledge, and through the light thereof hath a right judgment both of the Scriptures and of the ways of the work of grace by which men's estates are to be judged, and so therein Satan cannot be too hard for him with all his sophistry; yet by misrepresenting a man to himself, and by perverting his own ways to him, making that which is straight seem crooked, and all in him to be hypocrisy, a man is brought to pass a false sentence upon himself. So as if this subtle pleader cannot deceive the judge, as I may so speak, with false rules and mistakes in the law itself, then he endeavours it by misrepresenting the case of the party, and puts in a false bill of accusation, so ordered and coloured as to procure a judgment against him; laying before the eyes of men's consciences their by-ends, deadness, and hardness of heart, and falseness in such and such turnings of their lives; excepting against what is good in them, aggravating what is evil, and all to enforce from thence a false conclusion. To instance in some one false reasoning of this latter sort, Satan oft argueth and chargeth the conscience of one distressed in this or the like manner:—
'Those in whom any sin reigneth, or in whose hearts hypocrisy and self-love is the predominant principle, are not in the state of grace.'
'But such a one art thou,' &c. For the proof of which minor he musters up and sets in order, in the view of conscience, a multitude of instances of sins committed, thus heinously, thus oft; of duties
omitted, and if performed, yet with such and such pride of heart, self-aims, &c. In which sort of reasoning the major and first proposition is true; but the minor, the assumption, such a one art thou, that is most false. And although there be a truth in the instances alleged to prove it, that such sins have been committed, and that in performance of duties such particular by-ends, &c., do arise and are found in the heart; yet not in that manner as he would lay the charge, not as reigning, not as the swaying and prevailing principle in a man's whole course. That hypocrisy is there cannot be denied; but that hypocrisy rules there and is predominant, and that nothing but hypocrisy, is false, which yet Satan amazeth the conscience with, to bring forth this conclusion out of all, 'Therefore thou art a hypocrite.' Which conclusion likewise, how able he is to set on with terrors and affrightments, we shall shew anon. That which we have now in hand is to shew how able he is for those kind of false reasonings, the deceit of which lies chiefly in the assumption and minor proposition; that is, in misapplications to a man's self. In which he hath principally to deal with conscience; for the guilt of a man's particular ways, actions, and corruptions, the seat whereof is the conscience, is made the matter of the evidence and the proofs of those minors; and the defilement and erroneousness of the conscience is that principle in us which he works upon when he enforceth such a misapprehension from those evidences.
Wherein, by the way, we may take notice of a difference between the Holy Ghost's dealing with a believer, when at any time he comes with the word, and searcheth and tries his heart, and discovers corruptions to us,—to wit, such a searching as David prayed for,
'Examine me, O Lord, and try my heart,' &c., Ps. 26:2, 139:23,— convincing and reproving us, and that sometimes with some sharpness, for our by-ends, hypocrisies, &c.; when also he 'bores the ear, and shews wherein we have exceeded,' as Elihu speaks, Job 36:9,
10;—and between these other siftings and winnowings of Satan, as Christ's phrase is, Luke 22:31. The difference is, that the Holy Ghost dealeth sweetly herein, but as a father that rebukes and convinceth his child of his misdemeanours; but without putting in any such sting in the conclusion, that therefore we are hypocrites; nor to any such meaning or purpose thence inferred, that therefore sin reigns in us,
&c.: but in these of Satan, that is the issue he mainly drives all to, and it is made the foot, the burden of all those his accusations, and is as the scope and argument that runs through the whole of that his charge against us.
And in respect to this his misrepresenting our estates, and false aggravations of our sins unto us, he is called, as the tempter, which is in a general relation to all sorts of temptations, so the accuser, κατήγορος, Rev. 12:10, or impleader against us; and as the accuser of us to God, in God's court, and before his tribunal, (for to accuse in a court the word may seem to import,) so in the court of our own consciences. And as he tempts us unto sin, so also for sin and by sin,
—that is, the guilt of it,—to draw us to despair. He that accused Job unto God, would sure accuse Job unto himself much more.
And though it may be truly affirmed that neither Satan nor our own consciences can ever aggravate unto us too much the intrinsical sinfulness, the heinousness and vileness of our sins in their due and proper colours, and true aggravations of them, which we can never come to see enough, as not to hate nor loathe and mourn for as we ought; yet Satan and our own consciences may, in the representation of our sins, put such false apprehensions and such aggravations upon them as may make us apprehend too much about them; as when it is suggested that they are such as are not compatible with the state of grace, or that they are utterly unpardonable. He may likewise use them as inductions to prove a false conclusion. And also, although
our sins, if truly, can never be enough represented, if it be in order to drive a man more to God's grace and unto Christ: yet to present them singly and alone, and to hold the mind and intention of it so to them as to cause us to forget our own mercies, and in such a manner as thereby God's mercies and all comforts are hidden and concealed from us; this is that is Satan's practice, and is the cause of this deep bondage we thus here speak of. And in this respect that name, κατήγορος, the accuser, is given this evil spirit in a direct and full opposition to that special name and office of the Holy Ghost, παράκλητος, the comforter or pleader for us: because as the Holy
Ghost maketh intercession in our own hearts unto God for us, and upon true repentance helpeth us to make 'apologies' for ourselves, as the word is, 2 Cor. 7:11, and comforteth us by discovering 'our graces given us of God,' as 1 Cor. 2:12, and by pleading our evidences, and witnessing with our spirits that we are the sons of God; so on the contrary, Satan is κατήγορος, an accuser, by laying to our charge the guilt of our sins, by impleading our evidences, misrepresenting our estates, thereby to deject us and 'swallow us up with sorrow,' as 2
Cor. 2:7.
And further; because in these accusations his scope is to misrepresent our estates to us, and falsely to disquiet us, therefore he is yet more especially called διάβολος, a slanderer, as one that falsely and lyingly calumniateth and slandereth all our graces, all God's dealings towards us, all our dealings towards him; slandering our persons, our estates to us, charging us to be hypocrites, unsound, and carnal, and counterfeit Christians, still misconstruing all unto the worst. Which false calumnies and charges of his, I take most properly to be those 'darts' mentioned Eph. 6:11, which are there said more especially to oppose our faith; and therefore faith is there said to quench them. From which trade of his forging darts of calumnies, he hath his name διάβολος, a slanderer, from διαβάλλω; a metaphor
it is, from casting darts, (for the slanderous calumnies of the tongue are 'as a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow,' as Solomon speaks,
Prov. 25:18; their teeth spears and arrows, Ps. 57:4;) and such are these kind of Satan's temptations and accusations against us, even as darts and arrows that wound and pierce, and run through the passions and affections, that strike the soul through and through with fears. His name, πειράζων, the tempter, is from πειρω, to pierce; because such are his darts, so sharpened, and flung with that force, as they are fitted to pierce, and enabled to run through. And besides the sharpness of the darts themselves, they are said to be fiery, as making double way for themselves; for a piece of iron, though blunt, yet if fired red-hot, it runs through without resistance.
Satan, he is that great general of the whole powers of darkness in us; and therefore even the forces of the guilt of sin, the proper seat of which is the conscience, he hath some command over, as well as of the power of sin in other members: and therefore as he can muster up and set on fleshly lusts which fight against the soul, and provoke and back them in their assaults upon us, so he can clap on the chains of guilt and bondage upon our consciences.
And as he can stir up that guilt that is in us, so also work upon that in judiciousness and erroneous defilement that is in the conscience, to judge of a man's own estate; this Satan works upon and abuseth. For as he hath a power to work upon the corruption in the rest of the faculties, so also over the defilement and pollution of the conscience; misleading it in its verdict of our estates, as cunning pleaders do a silly jury. The wards of conscience are of themselves loose, and naturally misplaced, but he with his false keys wrings and perverts them much more; it naturally gives an uncertain sound, but he by his false alarms and panic fears cast in doth much more confound the testimony of it. And how easy is it to trouble a soul disquieted
already, and to work upon jealousies which are raised! We see how far a cunning man can insinuate with jealous natures, to increase suspicions and surmises. When a humour is stirred, how easily is it wrought on! And thus often when the Spirit hath already read us a sharp lecture, and examined our consciences, then Satan he strikes in, and descants upon it all to deeper terrors and distress.
But the more fall and distinct explication of Satan's work of accusation of us herein requires a further search and inquiry, and a larger demonstration: how Satan should come, and how far, to know matter by us thus to accuse us of. For if he doth accuse, he must, as is said Acts 28, 'have aught against us whereof to accuse;' else it were in vain. And there is this difference between these kinds of temptations wherein we are exercised about the guilt of sin, and those other unto sin: that the object-matter of other temptations is what is without ourselves; but in these, that which is in us and from us, and hath been committed by us, is made matter of objection against, and disquietment unto us. That which is from within the man disquiets the man.
But ere I enter upon this inquiry I must premise a general caution, to set limits to our discourse therein.
And the caution is this: That we are to reserve and maintain this, both as an undoubted truth and as God's sole and royal prerogative, that he can alone both search and know the heart and conscience. As in like manner, That he can only by his wrath immediately make those deep and killing wounds and gashes with which men's souls are often here and hereafter externally wounded: (of which by way of caution also in the next chapter.) Which two glorious and incommunicable attributes of his, that eulogium of the word of God,
Heb. 4:12, 13, seems fully to hold forth unto us: where, as at the gate
of Paradise was set a cherubim with a flaming sword to keep our fallen parents from ever entering in again, so there Christ is represented as that supreme judge with whom, as at the 13th verse, we are eternally to have to do, (or, as the original, πρὸς ὃν ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος, to whom we are to give an account, for so λόγος is, Rom.
14:12, and elsewhere, taken;) and he there stands with that dreadful sword of his word ready drawn and brandished,—that word by which he will judge men at the latter day, John 12:48, and which therefore is called κριτικὸς, ver. 12, a judger of the thoughts, &c.,—and this to the end that by the awful terror thereof he might compel and drive those that hear the gospel to 'enter into that rest,' to which he had exhorted, ver. 11, which is set open by him for men now fallen to come into.
Which sword, as it hath a double edge, as there, so in his hand, who alone can wield it, it serves to a double use. That whereas in a judge two things are requisite to the complete performance of his office,—
(1.) skill and knowledge to find out and examine the fact; (2.) power to execute and torture the malefactor when found guilty,—he shews how both these do transcendently and solely meet in him, by relating what power is found to be in his word, (which is the ensign of his justice and instrument of his power in judging,) which is said to be a 'discerner of the thoughts,' and a sword that pierceth and woundeth the soul and spirit with unutterable anguish. Which wounding power of the word is distinctly set forth (as some) from the beginning of the 12th verse to those last words, 'and is a discerner of the thoughts;' from whence, to the end of the 13th verse, that other, the searching and all-judging property of God and his word, is laid forth to us: but rather, as I conceive, the Apostle, in one continued metaphor, carries along the expression of both throughout the whole, though more eminently the one in that former part of the words, and the other in
the latter; yet so as both are alike made the royalty of God, which is the thing we have in hand.
Neither needs it stumble any that this is there attributed only to the word of God, of which he only seems to speak, for that is all one as to ascribe it unto God; for as 'where the word of a king is, there is power,' says Solomon, Eccles. 8:4, so, where the word of God is, there is the power of God, and so is it here to be understood: and therefore, as in other scriptures, his word is said to create, and by it the heavens to be established, &c., and also, Gal. 3:8, in the like phrase of speech, the Scripture is said to foresee, that is, God foresaw, who writ the Scripture, so also here, to know and wound the heart. Which to be the Apostle's express intention here appears by the connexion of the 12th and 13th verses. For whereas, ver. 12, he begins with attributing this power unto the word, yet in the end he closeth his speech with transferring all that was said thereof upon God himself, ver. 13, 'with whom we have to do.'
To open the words a little more largely, so as to clear this assertion out of them, which it is necessary to premise. The words are, 'For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart: neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are naked and opened to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.'
And, first, of that sole searching power of the soul in this chapter, and of that other, the sole wounding power of the conscience, in the next chapter, we shall have the like occasion to premise.
For the present; that searching, examining, and judging power of the word now in hand, he expresseth by an allusion to the anatomy of
bodies; which then, though not so frequently as now, was yet in use; or else to the cutting up of the sacrifices, whether those of the Jews or as it was used among the heathen, especially by the soothsayers, who curiously searched into every inward part, as we find in the prophet Ezekiel, chap. 21:21: and his similitude stands then, that look, what the entrails are to a sharp sword, or sacrificer's knife, or the like instruments of anatomy in a strong and skilful hand, such are all the most inward and secret parts of the heart, even those which are most difficult to be divided, unto this sword in God's hand, when he is pleased to use it to search heart and reins, and to discover and bring forth to judgment the secrets thereof. He can use this sword not only to unrip and strip off the outward clothes of outward and formal actions, and so present the soul naked, as his expression is, ver. 13; nor only to flay off all the skin, to excoriate, and so to see what lies under it, as the next word there, τετραχηλισμένα, which is translated 'opened,' doth sometimes signify; but, further, to cleave and cut up to the back-bone, for even so deep doth the signification of that word reach, that so all the inwards may appear, and this so curiously divided and laid asunder, as to see and view apart what is in each. 'It pierceth to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.' By which, grace and corruption are not so properly here to be understood, for then he would have rather said flesh and spirit; and besides, the persons he speaks this of are principally those who shall be found secret unbelievers, who have not spirit in that sense at all in them; but they are here used to express those two main powers of the heart: the soul,—that is, the inferior part, that more sensual part, wherein the affections are, as 1 Thess. 5:23 it is also used,—which it divides by discovering how close and inordinately all those affections cleave to sin; and then of the spirit,—that is, the superior part, of the understanding, conscience, &c.,—which it rips up by discovering how these plot and contrive the accomplishment of sin. 'Dividing;' that is, discovering apart, with difference, how things are carried severally in
each: and withal, what correspondency and intercourse there is between these; how sin and all our actions pass through them from the one to the other, even as blood and spirits do through the veins and arteries, in all the parts from each to other. And as in the body there are several regions, as anatomists call them, divided by partitions: the vital parts in the upper loft next the neck, in which are lodged the heart and lungs; the natural parts in that lower, and these divided by the midriff, as by a floor between them: so in the soul—to which haply Solomon alludes, when he calls the several powers of it
'the chambers of the belly,' Prov. 18:8, as some read it—there is the sensual part of the affections, the soul, &c., which is, as it were, in a distinct room from that more sublime and spiritual part, the spirit.
And as the 'spirit of man'—that is, the conscience and understanding of a man—'searcheth all those chambers,' as it is there, (that is,
'knows what is in man,' as the Apostle speaks, 1 Cor. 2:11; which yet when it doth so it is not by an innate light, but with God's candle, as Solomon's expression there is; that is, by the word and the light thereof set up by him in it:) so here, the word, under another similitude,—namely, of a sword,—is said to cut up and to discover all within those several regions. And in the spirit it is said to discover what can be imagined, most retired and withdrawn, and so locked up as no eye could find it out, which he expresseth by mentioning such parts as are most inwardly seated of all other: the marrow, which we know is enclosed within the bones; and the joints, or ligaments by which the joints are knit and move; these it unbares and discovers also. Both which he interprets in the next words, 'and is a discoverer of the thoughts and intentions of the heart,' which are a more plain interpretation of what he had expressed by those two metaphors. The utmost intention and end, in all our actions, that is as the marrow; because as the marrow gives moisture to the bones, so by these our ends, all our purposes and resolutions, by which we are supported in all our actions, are strengthened and confirmed. And then our
devising thoughts or plottings, our contrivements and machinations, those by which we artificially do connect and hang together many joints of means to accomplish and bring to pass our intentions,— which thoughts of all others we strive to hide and conceal,—these are as the joints, or (as the word ἃρμοι rather implies) as the ligaments, and the sinews, and the tendons by which the joints do move; so these are they upon which our designs do move and turn: even all those cogitationes compaginatæ, plotting thoughts, the word it discovers and cuts up, and also judgeth and examineth, and passeth sentence upon them; yea, and that so exactly, as not the smallest fault can pass uncensured by it. It is as a curious critic in this review: κριτικὸς, it judgeth exactly, as critics use to do. So as by this anatomy which the word make, all things in man, every creature, even the least fibra, the smallest sting in the heart, which would escape the sight of the most exact anatomist, are all 'naked and opened,' and cut up, 'before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.'
The reasons why God hath reserved this to himself are:— 1. It was for the glory of God that he should have one private cabinet among the creatures, which he alone should know and keep the key of, which might argue his omniscience; as also one place to be sanctified in, whither no creature's eye could pierce: that so the greatness of his glory might appear, namely, in this, that he is not worshipped outwardly only, as great ones are, but inwardly, 'in spirit and truth;' and that his glory is such as commands the inward parts, which no eye seeth but his own: so as a man will respect God so much as to sanctify him in secret when no creature looks upon him.
2. That God alone might be the judge and rewarder of men's ways, and so looked at by them, to whom alone men must give an account; which would draw the creature's eye alone upon him, when the
strength and firstborn of all our actions are his subjects alone, and do come under his eye and view. Therefore it is said that he 'rewards men according to their works, whose heart he knows.' It was fit that he only should take upon him to reward who only could know the principles of all actions; in which the chief of the good or evil in the action lies. This is the great glory of God and Christ at the day of judgment, that 'they will discover the secrets of all hearts,' 1 Cor. 4:5.
It is not said so much of men's actions, that they shall be then discovered, as that the secrets of their hearts; for therein lies God's glory, which he will not give to any other.
This premised as a most necessary caution, I come to the disquisition of that query mentioned: How, and how far, Satan may come to know so much matter against us whereof to accuse us?
1. In general, it may be considered— (1.) That he knows what ends, and intentions, and thoughts, and lusts such corrupt hearts as ours usually produce and bring forth in all men; and therefore can imagine what by-ends, &c., may be stirring in such and such actions, and so lay them to our charge; and so often hit right therein, and speak a man's heart thus at random.
For our natures are apt to bring forth 'all concupiscence,' as the apostle says, Rom. 7:8. Therefore if there were no more than he knows all temptations common to man's nature, he might go far in accusing every man; he having keys of all sorts, sorted to all men's spirits, tries with every one which will enter. And as David's elder brother charged David, when he came into the wars, 'This is the pride and the naughtiness of thy heart,' guessing at his by-ends in it, so doth Satan; he often in like manner charges us by guess. Thus he did Job; 'Doth Job serve God for nought?' He knew such by-ends
were in men's hearts, and so ventures to lay them to Job's charge also.
(2.) Though he should know very little of us, yet he may from some one particular which he doth know or suspect, cast in a suspicious thought about a man's estate; and so set the jealous heart a-work itself to search out more matter against itself. As in case of treason, the least hint given by some one sets the state a-work to examine the bottom of the business, and so to get all out. So as Satan often gives and casts in but a scruple, which proves as a theme for the heart itself to dilate upon, and the conscience upon inquiry finds matter against itself to prove and increase that surmise.—Thus in general. But—
2. He may more particularly know much against us to accuse us of, and so frame bills against us out of what he knows, and this first supposing he had no access to our inward parts, and that he had no further way of knowing of us than men have one of another, it being made the limits of man's knowledge, by God to Samuel, to 'judge by outward appearance;' yet all those advantages which men have to know one another by, he hath over us, more than any man can have, and all more eminently. For— (1.) Those spirits can discern all corporeal actions, though not of all men at once,—for then why should Satan travel up and down the earth to review all in it?—yet in that distance is proportioned unto them. They understand not only by innate inbred species, but some things per species acceptas a rebus. They learn daily. Thus 'by the church,' the good angels are said to 'learn' what they never knew before of the mysteries of the gospel, Eph. 3:10. And though those species in them, and their manner of knowing corporeal things differs from ours, yet they are analogical with ours, and we no more know the manner how they should receive species a rebus corporeis,
the images of all things done by bodily substances, than a blind man can imagine how men that see should receive in colours. Yet this we may be sure of, that all that the senses or mind of man can know, that they can also, for natural things are all debita objecta, due objects made for them: for they were therefore made to be discerned by intelligent creatures; and if by any, then by the most supreme and intellectual natures.
(2.) They make it their business to study men; it is their trade to go up and down and consider men: 'Hast thou not considered,' says God to Satan, 'my servant Job?' Satan useth to consider and study men; and as the Apostle exhorts to 'consider one another to provoke to love,' so Satan considers men to provoke to sin, and to tempt for sin unto despair.
(3.) He may be privy to our vocal confessions of sins to God or men; unto our laying open our own hearts to God in private prayers, or to others in trouble of conscience: therefore so much of the heart as is this way discovered he can and doth know. And why may not God permit him, and give him the liberty and advantage to accuse us, even of that which he comes, to know by this means? It being for the trial of his servants, especially in case they have returned again to those sins which they confessed, and yet have not forsaken; it is just that then as the guilt of former sins returns upon us in such a case, so that Satan should be permitted afresh to charge us with them; and that, in this case, a man should lose the privilege of sigillum confessionis, of the secresy and seal of confession, as I may so speak.
And if God may permit a man to whom we have confessed, according to God's own ordinance, yet to tell things confessed, and to cast them in our teeth, as sometimes it hath fallen out; why may not Satan, the accuser of the brethren, sometimes be permitted to lay that to our charge which he only knew this way?
(4.) He is and can be present at all our more retired actions, and is privy to them, being with us at bed, board, in all companies. By means of this he can accuse us— [1.] Of all gross actions done that are obvious to sense; which, indeed, are usually the greatest matter of accusation, and do lie upon us most heavily in such temptations, as David's murder and adultery did on him. 'My sin,' says he, 'is ever before me.' And these having pulled a man down, and put him into prison and clapped him up, our own consciences then may come in, with all our more privy corruptions, as lesser creditors use to do. And when once the soul hath, by means of the accusing of one foul act, given way to doubting, then all other privy corruptions join and offer themselves to accuse us also; for they 'lie at the door,' as God told Cain, ready for such an occasion.
[2.] Also he may by this be able to accuse us of all deadness, and drowsiness, and neglect in the performance of holy duties, as want of attention and quickness in them, for these are easily discerned by any one that is observant; and of the want of stirring affections, and also of neglect of holy conference in all companies, and the like. If a godly man were to follow a man up and down in all companies, how much might he know of a man and be able to accuse him of!
[3.] By such observations he may know a man's bosom sins. So he knew and observed Judas's bosom sin to be covetousness, and accordingly sorted his temptation to it.
(5.) By what he sees outwardly of our actions, he can many ways guess at inward corruptions, which are the principles of them. He hath all the ways which a wise discerning man hath, who should always watch a man, and set himself to study a man, and that hath opportunity to suggest when he pleaseth, on purpose for trial and
discovery; all the ways such a man hath to know the heart Satan hath. And that which Solomon says of a wise man, that though 'the heart of man be deep, yet a man of understanding will fetch it out,'
Prov. 20:5, holds true of Satan much more. As, [1.] by comparing one action with another, one speech with another; so wise men guess at men's ends in things, and their respects that move them. [2.] By gestures. By a cast of a man's countenance and behaviour, men are often discerned; by the like may Satan see into us. Thus Joab discerned David's pride in his command for numbering the people, so as it was loathsome in his eyes. And if Joab discerned this by the outward carriage of the matter, how much more might Satan, that put in the motives to persuade him to it! The Jesuits bid those of their followers who are to deal with men, when they talk with any whose minds they would discern, still to observe their eyes, to see what alterations are in their countenances, as through which the mind is transparent; now Satan he is a good physiognomist, and he eyes a man. [3.] Further, he himself suggesting many motives and reasons in businesses, this way and that way, casting in many byends and motives to be considered by us, he observes how the heart comes off at such and such suggestions, or where it stuck, and what suggestion it was that turned a man this way or that way, and fetched him off. The Jews might see what moved Pilate to crucify Christ, because at that saying, as the text notes, that 'else he was an enemy to Cæsar,' he gave sentence. So Satan, when he stirred up David by proud arguments to number the people, he must needs know what pride was in his heart. Now— (6.) Besides all this, how far he may have an insight into the fancy and the images therein, which follow and imitate the inward thoughts of the mind, as the shadow doth the body; and also into the passions, which are but the flowing and reflowing of corporal spirits, and in which the affections of the will discover themselves; this I
leave to others to determine. For the present, this is certain, that although all the powers of the reasonable soul be fast locked up from him, as we shall shew, and the immediate acts which are immanent in the soul itself utterly hidden from him; and that, take the soul as it is the immediate subject and root of them, so intuitive no devil can discern them, no more than one angel can discern the thoughts of another; yet arguitivè, and as they do transire, and appear, and are put forth in the body and corporal organs, outwardly in actions, or inwardly in the images of the fancy or the passions, and so, quasi in alios, and mediately, they may be very far discerned and looked into by angels. Which yet will nothing at all prejudge that prerogative which is given to God, when he is said alone to know and search the heart, but give its full allowance; nor that privilege which is given to the soul itself to enjoy, namely, that 'none should know the things of a man, but the spirit that is in man,' 1 Cor. 2:11; as we shall have occasion to shew in the Appendix to this discourse.
Besides, therefore, these advantages and ways of knowledge, somewhat common to us men, each of other, they have a further and more near way of knowing the acts of the reasonable powers, the understanding and will, than we men can have; even as they have also a way of communicating their thoughts to us in a more intimate, close, secret manner, yet still such as falls short of an intuitive knowledge of them. They can go into a room further then we; and into a room which is next the privy chamber, which yet remains fast locked up unto them. As their power in all other things reacheth a degree higher than ours, so in this also. To open this a little:—
Those reasonable powers and faculties in us, the understanding and the will, the immediate immanent acts of which are thus in themselves fast locked up, being yet in this life drenched in the body and bodily organs, upon which their working doth depend: as, the
understanding is joined to the fancy, which makes parhelii, and resemblances, and shadows of those thoughts the mind secretly conceives and forms, so as scarce any thoughts do stir but the fancy imitates them, and acts them as far as it is able; and the will also is conjoined with the affections, which are drenched and shew themselves in bodily organs and spirits, so as not any motion of the will puts itself forth, but more or less some affections of the body do stir with it; and therefore affections are as well defined by their motion in the body as by their seat in the will itself. As when anger is defined, ira est ebullitio sanguinis circa cor, a boiling of blood about the heart; and affections are but the flowings and reflowings of spirits to and from the heart.
Now both these, both phantasms and passions, all divines do grant that the devils may know, and that to know them they have a nearer access to us than men can have each to other; yea, and that they may discern them intuitive, as we do things which are present before us: how else should they work upon fancy? And otherwise, there were no diabolical dreams; nor angelical neither, caused by good angels. But we find that a good angel dictated to Joseph a great article of faith—
Christ's divinity and nativity. It was done in a dream, and therefore to his fancy. So they inspired the Sibyls, and dictated prophecies, as was said. And so the evil angels prompted Saul's fancy. And this they do, not by creating new species and images, but evocando, calling forth the images there already. For the images of things in the fancy being corporal species, they can no more beget a new corporal image than they car make a body anew. And therefore, all the power of the angels cannot cause a blind man to dream of colours.
And therefore, their way in communicating their suggestions to us herein must be by discerning the species, to wit, of all words heard or read that lie in the fancy already; and so by ordering and composing
them, even as a compositor in printing doth his letters that lie confused before him, into words and sentences, to represent to the reader's eye what he would have read by him: so he to the understanding, which doth naturally print off and take the impression off from the fancy of whatever is in it as fast as he doth set them. And by the like reason, that he can call these phantasms forth, and so view the species and images laid up there already, to set them that as he pleaseth; by the same reason it must be supposed that he is as able to discern any of them in the fancy at any time, then when reason itself calls upon any of them, and maketh use of them, as it doth whenever it sets itself to think or muse. And these and all other operations of the sensitive powers they may view and see as truly, for aught I know, and as intuitively even, as we see colours and species of things in the eye of a man. So as these evil angels may, when God permits, get into the head, and see all the images and species in the fancy, and those that are in direct conjunction with the understanding, which it is then thinking and musing of; even as a man doth what images are in the apple of the eye of another man; and so by discerning those phantasms, which the understanding actually then vieweth and maketh use of, he may then judge what the mind is musing of. And again— 2. As we discern men's passions when they dye and affect the outward parts, as if shame dyes the face red, or fear paints it white; so may the angels more secretly discern the motion of them within us, which is the cause of this alteration without. They can go further than we men can; they can see the inward commotion of the spirits in our inward parts, even in their channels and springs, as in that bodily heart we carry within us, and in the veins and arteries, and so know what affections are stirring. And this is evident by this, in that they are able to work upon the passions also. Now, their power of working upon these affections ariseth from their knowing them, and