CHAPTER X: The conclusion: seven advantages, in common, which Satan hath over us in all these his de
CHAPTER X:
The conclusion: seven advantages, in common, which Satan hath over us in all these his dealings The conclusion of this discourse about Satan.—Seven advantages, in common, Satan hath over us in all those forementioned dealings.
AND for a general conclusion to this, and all the rest of this discourse about Satan's working on us, I will but only mention some of those great and many advantages he hath in all these his false reasonings and accusations over us, for to set them on, and to fasten his slanders and false conclusions thence deduced, and to persuade the mind of them. Which I therefore bring in here, as being common to all those particulars which have been related.
1. It is no small advantage that he can familiarly and frequently suggest them again and again unto us. The frequency of any thought that comes in again and again, that lies by us and haunts us, hath secretly the force of an argument to persuade us to think it is so. We use to say, I have thought so again and again. A cunning flatterer, that is continually suggesting, and taking all hints and occasions so to do, may at last put hard to work out a near and a dear friend, and to make one jealous of him. As the judge yielded to her importunity,
Luke 18:5, so is the mind apt to yield to a suggestion that haunts it, and importunately presents itself yea, though it be to pass a false sentence against a man's self. And— 2. He can also, and doth, represent a multitude of reasonings and considerations together at once, all tending to confirm the same persuasion. He will sometimes bring in a cloud of witnesses and
instances to prove us hypocrites, and environ the mind round about with them, that, look which way it will, it sees nothing else. As he represented to Christ 'all the glory of the world in the twinkling of an eye,' so he can do a man's sins, &c.; that a man shall have a general prospect of them, and see nothing else, look which way he will. And what force this must needs have to prevail with the mind and judgment to assent, experience shews. As when a man doubting of a truth in a thing controverted, reads an opposite party, presenting all that can be said for the other side alone, it often staggers him, and for the present wins and gains his opinion to that side, till he reads and considers what is said to the contrary; yea, though a man is confirmed and settled in the truth, yet sometimes a man shall have an army of arguments on the other side come in upon him, so ranked and ordered as for the present shall shake and stagger him. And so it must needs be in the agitation of this great controversy about a man's estate, when Satan shall muster and marshal up an army of objections at once together, and not scatteredly; as he is able to do.
3. He is able to hold the intention of the mind so to them, as to keep off all that which should any way comfort: he can turn down that column in the leaves of our heart wherein grace or anything that may comfort is written, and turn over only, and hold our eyes fixed to read nothing but that other wherein our errata and sins are written; so as to cause a man's soul to 'forget all good,'—as, Lam. 3:17, the church in desertion is said to do,—and to 'forget his own mercies,' as Jonah speaks. He can multiply suggestions so fast, and come in with such a tempest, that as Job complains, chap. 9:18, he will not 'suffer them to take breath.' And therefore the Apostle calls them the 'buffetings, of Satan,' 2 Cor. 12:7; because, like unto buffeting they come in thick and threefold upon a man's spirit, so as a man's spirit cannot take breath. He rains down temptations sometimes, not by drops, as in ordinary rains, but by spouts, as mariners call them,
when a cloud melts, as in hot countries, suddenly, and falls by wholesale, and often sinks a ship. 'He breaks me with a tempest,' says Job, in the place fore-mentioned. He speaks it of God, but such like tempests Satan also raiseth.
4. He adds weight to his lying accusations and false reasonings by an imperious and obstreperous affirmation that so it is; he suggests not reasons only that are fitted to persuade, but sets them on with words of affirmation therewithal suggested. And so, like as in reasoning a weak spirit is oftentimes borne down by a stronger, not by force of argument so much as by strength and violence of spirit; for many, when the 'iron is blunt,' and their arguments 'want edge, put to the more strength,' (as Solomon speaks, Eccles. 10:10,) and so prevail; and so doth Satan, he being a spirit of greater strength than ours by creation, and guilt also further weakening us in arguing with him.
Cunning pleaders may so argue the case, with such violence and confidence, that as Socrates said when his accusers had done, that if he had not been very innocent he should have suspected himself guilty; how much more, when the accusation shall fall upon persons that are so guilty, as we all are, and the thing also impleaded be that which we are already suspicious of? What a man already fears he easily believes, as what a man hopes, quod metuunt, facile credunt.
We see that there falls out often in opinions a preconceit which exceedingly sways the mind, a giving of mind that such a thing is so or so; and in such a case Satan can strike in exceedingly to strengthen such a conceit. This I take to be implied in that phrase, 2
Thess. 2:2, where the Apostle gives warning they should not be troubled 'neither by spirit nor by word, to think the day of judgment was at hand.' By spirit he means a pretence and opinion of some revelation, concerning something which a man's own private conceit and imagination inclined him so to think; thus, 1 John 4:1, spirit is also taken. And thus oftentimes when Satan perceives the mind
inclined to think so or so, he adds weight unto the balance; and so a man is given up to the efficacy of delusion. As we see in those false prophets which the Apostle there speaks of, when he says, 'Believe not every spirit, because many false prophets are gone out into the world.' Thus likewise those false prophets in Micah became confident of the truth of their prophecies, 'that walk in the spirit and in falsehood,' says the prophet, chap. 2:11. They took up such conceits, and the devil he joined therewith and confirmed them in them. Now, as Satan by false revelations confirms enthusiasts in their opinions and conceits, so he joins with the jealousies of believers and puts weight into the balance, strongly swaying them to judge amiss of their estates.
5. In that he, as was said, backeth his false conclusions thence deduced with terrors, &c., this becomes an argument to sense; and such arguments do exceedingly carry on the judgment in our opinion of things. A conceit that comes in with joy, we are apt to conclude is true; and so in like manner what comes in with terror. Such impressions are as it were a seal to what is suggested to confirm it.
And as the Holy Ghost 'sealeth his instructions,' Job 33:16, with impressions of joy, &c., so doth Satan his temptations with impressions of fear and disquietment. If a man hath a dream with any strong impression, a man is apt to give heed to it, to think there is something in it: that which made Nebuchadnezzar think there must needs be something in that of his, Dan. 2, 4, when yet he had forgot what it was, was that it made 'him afraid, and his thoughts troubled him,' ver. 5.
6. A sixth advantage is, that he suggests and works all these impressions undiscerned at all by us to be from him, so as we know not but that they are our own thoughts, yea, sometimes think that they be from the Holy Ghost, working as the spirit of bondage in us.
This is also an exceeding great advantage; as it would be to an enemy to have gotten the opposites' own watchword, their own colours. This causeth us readily to yield and open the gates to him. And though when the temptation is over we perceive his delusion in it, yet still, because we cannot discern his suggestions from our own thoughts when upon us, when we are in the mist and eclipse, therefore he can come again and again with the same temptation, to-day, and tomorrow, and the next day, and we perceive it not: which if we did, we should not listen to it, no more than we would to one who had formerly deceived us. Thus Ahab's prophets know not that Satan was a lying spirit in them, for says one of them to Micaiah, 'When went the Spirit of God from me to you?' Those 'strong delusions,' 2 Thess.
2:11, could not have prevailed upon their minds to have 'believed a lie,' had it been discerned by them that Satan had suggested them.
Peter knew not that Satan did by him tempt his Master to spare himself: which yet Christ perceived, and therefore called him Satan.
7. Last of all, a man can no way avoid his suggestions, nor subduce himself from them; neither can any take Satan off from a man but God. He must rebuke him, none else can. A poor soul fights with Satan in this darkness like unto a man that is assaulted by one that carries a dark lantern, who can see the assaulted, and how to buffet him, and follows him wherever he goes; whereas the poor man cannot see him, nor who it is that strikes him, nor be aware how to ward the blow. Therefore the Apostle, when buffeted by Satan, 1 Cor.
12, knew not what to do, but only to have recourse to God by prayer: for he could no more avoid or run away from those suggestions than from himself. Nor could all the saints on earth any other way have freed him: none, till God should cause him to depart.