CHAPTER IX: How able Satan is to work upon that third principle, the passions and corrupt affections
skill to move and stir those spirits and humours electively, wherein these passions are seated. And herein their power of discerning us exceeds that in us men in discerning other men, as that of communicating their minds to us also doth. For as they can communicate secretly by fancy itself, we but by outward words and signs to the outward senses of others, so they can discern more secretly what is in the fancy, and not only what appears in the outward parts, which is yet but a room further that they get into, which we men cannot come to. So in like manner their power over our passions doth exceed also. They can see into the passions and discern the least rising of the tide, the least turn of the stream of affections in our veins, and in the corporal heart. Satan can discern those lesser aguish fits of passion that accompany any act of the will which men discern not. As also, they can stir those passions by working upon the humours and spirits they float in, which men cannot come to do. But of this great and necessary query, as also how by means of this he communicates all his temptations to us, more largely in an Appendix to be annexed to this treatise.
CHAPTER IX:
How able Satan is to work upon that third principle, the passions and corrupt affections How able Satan is to work upon that third principle, the passions and corrupt affections, and bring home his false conclusions with terrors.
THUS we have seen how able Satan is to work upon those two fore mentioned principles, of carnal reason, and abuse it with false majors; and also upon conscience, in laying our sins to our charge, with misrepresentations of our states. It remains now only, that we shew how he can stir and work upon the passions and corrupt affections in us, and make use of them; and so set on all those false conclusions—that we are hypocrites—thence deduced, with hideous and horrid fears and terrors.
1. And in respect to these terrors, as he is called a serpent, as was said, for sleights, and cunning reasonings, and wiles; so likewise a lion, of all beasts the strongest, Isa. 38:13.* A roaring lion, of all the terriblest, and most terrible in his roaring; whose roaring is therefore often in Scripture put to express the working of dreadfulness and horror: 'The lion roars, who will not tremble?' Amos 3:8. And, as some have observed, and the Psalmist seems to intimate it, Ps.
104:21, by his roaring he strikes such horror and amazement into all other beasts, as they stand still as exanimated, and so he seizeth and preys upon them as he pleaseth. And in this respect also of his working on the passions is it that those darts beforementioned are principally called fiery; namely, for that dolour, and anguish, and inflammation, and combustion they cause through the distempering the affections. Those fears which our own hearts engendered within us were but as smoke; these darts of his put a fire into them, and do cause them to flame and blaze. The allusion is to the poisoned darts which the Scythians of old, and other nations now, use in war, dipped in the blood and gall of asps and vipers; the venomous heat of which, like a fire in their flesh, killed the wounded by them, with torments the likest hell of any other. Which Job also alludes to, chap.
6:4, 'The arrows of the Almighty are within me: the poison,' or, as others read it, the heat and fervour; we may use both, and read, 'the hot poison thereof drinks up my spirit,' even as fire preying upon
moisture. And what were those arrows he speaks of there but terrors? So it follows, 'the terrors of God,' &c. In the same phrase of which that Corinthian is said to have been in danger to have been drunk up—καταποθῇ—as the word signifies, with over-much sorrow, when Satan had to do with him, 2 Cor. 2:7; and the same word is again used of the devil, 1 Pet. 5:8, 'seeking whom to drink up.' So that as Satan inflames other members, and the inordinate lusts in them, with a superadded natural vehemency and violence; as the tongue, which, though of itself full of poison, is said to be 'set on fire from hell,' James 3:16, that is, from Satan, (who is called hell, as in that speech, 'the gates of hell;' as the good angels, the noblest creatures, are called heavens, Heb. 7:26,) he inflaming men's tongues with an overplus of venom and malice, to wound men's names with; even as on the contrary the Holy Ghost did set on fire the apostles' tongues with zeal. As, I say, he doth thus inflame other members, so in like manner he can and doth put fire into those darts he wounds the conscience with; and thereby augments our fears and griefs, and causeth such disquietments and pangs, as that hellfire, as it were, begins to flame in a man's conscience. As Christ is that 'brazen serpent,' so Satan is that 'fiery serpent' that can sting us by the guilt of sin.
And here I must bring in the like caution as I used in the former chapter; namely, that he works not these terrors by immediate impressions upon the conscience, which in that respect is subject to God's stroke alone, as to his knowledge alone. Which, as I intimated,
I take to be that other principal part of the drift of those words, Heb.
4:11, 12, 'The word of God is quick and powerful,' &c. For there he sets forth Christ to us, as was shewed, as a judge completely enabled, for vengeance against us, not only in respect of an omnisciency to find us out in all our shiftings, but also, because a judge would not be much feared if he had only skill and knowledge, though never so
much, to search and find out the guile and guilt of malefactors, if he were not armed with power to avenge and torture them; therefore withal, the Apostle's scope is to strike terror into their hearts in respect of that vengeance he can execute. And therefore his aim is to exhort them not to dally with God, or with his word; in which he had sworn, of those that believed not, 'they should not enter into his rest,' in the former verse. So as the purport of the words must necessarily also be supposed to be to shew the dreadful power of God, and of his word, in avenging itself upon the contemners of him and it, and not merely to describe his conscience, and knowing of the heart, but as joined also with power to pierce as deep in wounding of the soul as in knowing of it. Yea, and that so large an illustration of his knowledge is brought in but as a clearer demonstration of his power to punish, who can dive so deep into our hearts. As from whence we might argue and fear the stroke of that sword in his hand whose eyes are so piercing. And accordingly to set forth the dreadfulness of this his power, all those his expressions there used do as fully tend, as to set forth the other; and he likewise useth such a comparison as, both in the nature of the things and according to the more usual phrase of Scripture, doth more properly and abundantly intimate this slaying and wounding of men's souls that should be disobedient, by this his sword, than that other of searching the soul and spirit. As—
(1.) This word, says he, is quick and lively; so called not in respect of duration only, as abiding ever, but in respect to working and execution. Things that are exceeding operative, though inanimate, we call quick; so quick-silver, which runs through a man's bowels like hail-shot: and so oppositely, drugs and drinks that have lost their virtue, and are ineffectual, we call dead. And in respect to this energy and power to work upon men's hearts, is that in John 6:63 to be understood. 'The words I speak,' says Christ, 'are spirit and life:' that is, are fall of an operative principle. For an active working principle
we use to call the spirit, as the spirit of wine, &c. In that therefore he says the word is quick, he notes out that that word is inspired with a principle, most quick, spiritual, and active, and fit to work as occasion is; that is, even with the Holy Spirit, who is as the internal form of it. And therefore— (2.) Having thus intimated this internal form of working, he adds ἐνεργὴς, powerful and mighty in operation, as noting out that power which flows from thence—that ability to produce strange effects upon the soul. These expressions carry report of more than of a skill and dexterity to search and know the heart only. And then—
(3.) He further instanceth in such operations of it, as the effects of that power, which are most dreadful, as the comparisons he useth do import: 'more piercing than any two-edged sword.' Now, as elsewhere the word is compared to an armoury of all sorts of weapons, and engines for war and vengeance,—'The weapons of our warfare are mighty,' &c., 2 Cor. 10:4,—in like manner here he more particularly resembles it to a sword, the most usual and most terrible of all the instruments of death which were then in use; the brandishing of which strikes paleness and horror into a man are the stroke comes at him; which is usually put in Scripture to express vengeance, and more especially in the prophecy of Ezekiel. And also
Ps. 7:13, 'If he turn not, God hath whet his sword, and prepared his instruments of death;' that is, to inflict torments, and eternal torments also, as Deut. 32:42. And indeed, whatsoever doth torment, or cause dolour and anguish, is in Scripture called a sword; and the 'piercing with a sword' is used to express the most exquisite dolours: as Luke 2:35, 'Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy soul also;' speaking to the blessed mother of Christ, and of that her anguish and grief, wherewith she should be cut even to the heart, when she should behold her Son upon the cross. Of whose dolours upon the
cross likewise, the same expression is used, Ps. 22:20, when he prays, 'Deliver my soul from the sword.' And in this respect the word in Christ's hand is still, when he is spoken of as a judge, compared to a sword, Ps. 45:3; Rev. 19:15; Isa. 49:2, and so here.
And we may further observe, how, thus to strike the more terror into their hearts in respect of the wounds and torments it inflicts, he goes further on to exaggerate the dread thereof. He says not only that it is as sharp, but more sharp, not than a sword of one edge, but than a two-edged sword; not than some, but than any two-edged sword.
And further, to shew that he speaks it in relation unto wounding, and anguish, and torment it causeth in the soul, he mentioneth the division of such parts as are not only most hid and inward, in relation to discovery,—for such the marrow is, being covered with the bones, and the ligaments covered with flesh,—but which are also of most exquisite sense, and the wounding of which causeth the greatest dolour. He saith, it pierceth to the dividing the marrow, and therefore cuts through the bones; for so it must needs be supposed to do, when it is said to reach unto the marrow. Now the 'breaking of the bones' is still put to express those exquisite and unsupportable terrors and dolours of conscience, and woundings of the spirit, which a man cannot bear or sustain; for when the bones are broken, a man cannot stand nor support himself. And the like is also the cutting of the ligaments, the nerves, sinews, and arteries,* those ἁρμοὶ that knit the joints, which are the organs of sense and motion. Again, he says, it divideth not only the soul,—that is, the sensual part, the passions of the mind, as wounding them,—but τε καὶ πνεύματος, that is, the spirit also, which is with an emphasis expressed; and his meaning is not so much that it divideth the soul from the spirit, as some have understood it, but the soul and spirit also. It is a two-edged sword, and can at one blow strike through both; this 'axe strikes at the root,' at the spirit, which, when 'wounded, who can bear?' says Solomon.
And then he concludes, ver. 13, that, as 'before him all things are naked;' so also τετραχηλισμένα, that is, they lie with their throats cut, if he but strike them dead and speechless at his feet, as Theodoret expounds that word, which is translated 'opened.' Now thus far—that is, to this spirit in man—no created sword can reach; they turn edge at it: but even this the word reacheth, and that alone.
So as the summary drift of all herein is the same which Christ expressed elsewhere in other words, to exhort them to fear that God, whose sword and powerful word is able thus alone to wound; and 'not to fear those who can only' wound and 'kill the body,' and but reach to the sensual soul that is drenched in it, but cannot wound or kill the spirit, which God alone can do, and no mere creature whatsoever. And therefore, in all our thoughts and fears of Satan's power of knowing our sins, or troubling or disquieting our spirits, as also throughout this discourse, we are to set such bounds as that this incommunicable royalty of God, and of his word, may be reserved unentrenched upon; namely, that he alone knows, and can immediately wound the spirit and conscience. Both which at once this place held out unto us, which made me the largelier to insist upon the opening of it.
2. But yet although Satan cannot immediately wound the conscience, and make impressions of God's wrath upon it; for as no creature can shed abroad God's love, and cause the creature to taste the sweetness of it, so nor the bitterness of his wrath, but God is his own reporter of both; yet— (1.) When the Holy Ghost hath lashed and whipped the conscience, and made it tender once and fetched off the skin, Satan then may fret it more and more, and be still rubbing upon the sore, by his horrid suggestions and false fears cast in. And—
(2.) He can, by renewing the experimental remembrance of those lashes which the soul hath had from the Spirit, amaze the soul with fears of an infinitely sorer vengeance yet to come; and flash representations of hell-fire in their consciences, from those real glimpses they have already felt, in such a manner as to wilder the soul into vast and unthought of horrors. And then—
(3.) He can bring home all the threatenings that are thundered forth in the word against hypocrites and men unregenerate, and discharge them all with much violence and noise upon a poor doubting soul.
He can and doth present and shew his prisoners those terrible chains, and racks, and other 'instruments of death,' as the Psalmist calls them, Ps. 7:13, which God hath prepared against sinners, and hath stored up in that great armoury of his word, which he 'hath in a readiness to revenge all disobedience,' 2 Cor. 10:6. With the rattling of which chains, &c., Satan can make a noise in the conscience of a poor sinner, to affright him. Which he is the more enabled to do, out of experience of such terrors in himself; 'being bound up in chains everlasting, under darkness, to the judgment of the great day,' Jude
6. And as a son of consolation and child of light is enabled 'to comfort others the more, by the comfort wherewith he hath been comforted of God;' so this prince of darkness is the more powerful to terrify weak consciences that are ensnared with the cords of their own sins, by reason of the terrors which he hath received from the Lord. And therefore in Scripture, as a power in sin is attributed to him, so the 'power of death,' as Heb. 2:14; where by death is meant not so much that bodily as that eternal death, to which, as the proper punishment of sin, the guilt of it doth bind us over. Which power of his is not that of the judge in sentencing to death, or casting men to hell, which is a special flower of Christ's crown; who, Rev. 1:18, 'hath the keys of hell and death' at his girdle; and of God's, who is therefore only to be feared, because 'he only can cast body and soul
into hell.' Nor is it as if he were the main tormentor and executioner of men's souls, after that great day, seeing that they are to be tormented by that fire which in common 'was prepared for the devils' themselves. And who is it that doth torment them? It is therefore principally meant, [1.] of that power and advantage he obtained over sinners when he had seduced them; so as to come boldly as a pleader against them, enabled with authority to urge God's righteous law and word, and to call upon, and to provoke his justice to condemn poor sinners, and adjudge them unto death: until Christ, that righteous advocate, despoiled him of those his pleas and power, by that satisfaction of his, which before the law had put into his hands; and so he 'destroyed him that had the power of death,' enervating all his pleas and terrors. And, [2.] the meaning is, that as he hath this power in God's court over the sentence of death upon poor sinners, so also in our consciences, to urge the law upon us, and to plead all that the law says against them that are under the law, and to put us into the fears of that death threatened therein; and to increase in us the fears of that death, by presenting to us the terrors of the law, unto which, in respect of natural conscience, men of themselves are subject all their life long, And unto this latter power hath that 'power of death' there especial reference; for those words, 'and deliver them who through fear of death were subject to bondage all their life long.' follow in the next verse, ver. 15. And because the children of God, whilst in this life, as they 'know but in part,' so they love but in part, and so far as love remains imperfect, so far 'fear, which hath torment,' keeps possession; for it is 'perfect love only that casts out all fear,' 1 John 4:18: hence therefore, so far as slavish fear remains, so far they may be subject to be terrified by him that hath power of death; and that over all those that are in any degree subject to the fear of it whilst in this life. And—
(4.) He can immediately, by his own power, stir the passions of fear and grief, &c., excite them beyond nature, as the winds can raise the billows in the sea, and make the floods to make a noise; so can he a tumult in the affections, and put all the soul into a hurry and violent perturbation. He is the prince of the airy part of the little world in man, as well as of that elementary region in the great world; and so can raise unnatural storms and vapours that shall darken reason, and cause such thunders and lightnings as shall hurl all into a black confusion, such as if hell and the soul would presently come together. And though it is true that he cannot turn the stream and current of our affections back,—God only can turn this Jordan back,
—yet he can drive them faster, and cause them to swell above their natural channels; that as a man possessed hath the strength of ten men in him, (as that man, Luke 8:29,) so shall the affections have that are blown up by him, as we may see in David. What a strong mind do we find in him, so needlessly to number the people, 2 Sam.
24, against all reason as well as religion, and the persuasion, yea, opposition, not of Joab only, but others also of his counsellors, 'the captains of the host!' A man would wonder that a man so holy and wise should be so transported to do an act so foolish, as himself saw afterwards: 'I have done very foolishly,' says he, ver. 10; yea, and so grossly sinful, as that it was abominable in the eyes of Joab, 1 Chron.
21:6, one that seemeth by his other carriages to have had but nature in him. But the devil was in it; so ver. 1, 'Satan provoked David to number the people,' by raising up such an affection and inclination in him.
The like appears in the affection of love; which how strongly hath Satan drawn forth in some, even to madness, towards such as before, and also after his fascination was overpast, they have loathed and hated above all others, is evident in stories by many instances. And as he can raise up other passions in us, so also fears and terrors,
jealousies and distrusts; to 'fear where no fear is.' And thus he handled Saul, when God left him to him: 'An evil spirit from the Lord troubled him,' or, as most read it, and our margin varies it, 'terrified him,' 1 Sam. 16:15. And in the raising up of these affections of fear, and the like, he works more than simply morally,—that is, than by bare propounding such objects as shall move them, which men can only do,—but, further also, physically, by stirring such humours in the body, which such passions do act and stir in. And so those humours in the body, which shall put a man into a timorous and trembling disposition, he can electively work upon as he pleaseth.
And then also, be can disturb the phantasms in the head, the organs of the understanding; as in him, Luke 8:35, who, through Satan's working, is intimated not to have been 'in his right mind.' And when he hath thus distempered and disordered all in a man, and put a man to such dispositions, to fears, &c., then he comes with his suggestions, and speaks nothing but of wrath and terrors, and of the threatenings, and of the heinousness of a man's sins, the tearfulness of God's wrath, unto that conscience that is troubled. And then look, as when a man's choler is up, every small thing provokes him; so now, when fear and melancholy are excited, every suggestion, every surmise doth strike the soul through and through with horrid fears and jealousies. And thus, though not immediately, yet through the means of these mists and vapours, and fogs raised, which environ and darken this sun, he works upon the conscience; and therefore we see, by experience, that he prevails most in this sort of temptations with melancholy tempers, whom, dwelling in dark shops, he much deceives with false colours and glosses. And when once affections are up and do cloud the mind, then multitudes of troublesome thoughts arise, and every suggestion suitable to that passion takes and prevails with a man's spirit; as appears by that speech of Christ, Luke 24:38,
'Why are ye troubled,' or afraid, 'and why do thoughts arise in your
hearts?' Passions, like to heavy weights hung upon a clock, do not only make the wheels, the thoughts, move faster, but also pervert them and wrest them the wrong way; so as to a heart thus distempered all things come to be presented amiss, even as to a bloodshot eye all things seem red. In a word, as he deludes his enthusiasts by setting on and backing their false opinions and illusions with joys and ravishments of spirits, which differ as much from the joys of the Holy Ghost, which are unspeakable and glorious, as heaven from earth; so he can and doth back his false reasonings and accusations to holy men about their estates with abundance of terror and disturbance, which also differs as much from the impressions of God's wrath made immediately by the Spirit upon the conscience, as those joys are found to do.