CHAPTER V.
Satan’s attempts against the peace of God’s children evidenced—(1.) By his malice; (2.) From the concernment of peace to God’s children; what these concerns are, explained. (3.) From the advantages which he hath against them by disquieting their minds—1. Confusion of mind; 2. Unfitness for duty, and how; 3. Rejection of duty; 4. A stumbling-block to others; 5. Preparation of the mind to entertain venomous impressions, and what they are; 6. Bodily weakness; 7. Our miseries Satan’s contentment.
We have viewed the ways of Satan by which he tempts to sin, by which he withdraws men from duty and service, by which he corrupts the mind through error. It only now remains that something be spoken of his attempts against the peace and comfort of the children of God.
That it is also one of Satan’s chief designs to cheat us of our spiritual peace, may be fully evinced by a consideration of his malice, the great concern of inward comfort to us, and the many advantages which he hath against us by the disquiet of our minds.
1. First, Whosoever shall seriously consider the devil’s implacable malice, will easily believe that he so envies our happiness that he will industriously rise up against all our comforts. It is his inward fret and indignation that man hath any interest in that happiness from which he irrecoverably fell, and that the Spirit of God should produce in the hearts of his people any spiritual joy or satisfaction in the belief and expectation of that felicity; and therefore must it be expected that his malice—heightened by the torment of his own guilt, which, as some think, are those ‘chains of darkness’ in which he is reserved at present ‘to the judgment of the great day,’ [2 Peter ii. 4,]—will not, cannot leave this part of our happiness unattempted. He endeavours to supplant us of our birthright, of our blessing, of our salvation, and the comfortable hopes thereof. From his common employment in this matter, the Scripture hath given him names, importing an opposition to Christ and his Spirit in the ways they take for our comfort and satisfaction. Christ is our advocate that pleads for us; Satan is διάβολος, a calumniator. The Spirit intercedes for us; Satan is κατήγορος τῶν ἀδελφῶν, ‘the accuser of the brethren, who accuseth them before God night and day,’ Rev. xii. 10. The Spirit is our comforter; Satan is our disturber, a Beelzebub who is ever raking in our wounds, as flies upon sores. The apostle Paul had his eye upon this when he was advising the Corinthians to receive again the penitent incestuous person; his caution was most serious: 2 Cor. ii. 11, ‘Lest Satan get advantage of us,’ lest he deceive and circumvent us; for his expression relates to men cunningly deceitful in trade, that do overreach and defraud the unskilful, πλεονεκτηθῶμεν; and the reason of this caution was the known and commonly experienced subtlety of Satan, ‘for we are not ignorant of his devices,’ implying that he will, and frequently doth lie at catch to take all advantages against us. Some indeed restrain these advantages to ver. 10,[317] as if Paul only meant that Satan was designing to fix the Corinthians upon an opinion, that backsliders into great sins were not to be received again, or that he laid in wait to raise a schism in the church upon the account of this Corinthian. Others[318] restrain this advantage which he waited for to ver. 7, where the apostle expresseth his fear lest the excommunicated person should ‘be swallowed up of too much sorrow;’ but the caution being not expressly bound up to any one of these, seems to point at them all, and to tell us that Satan drives on many designs at once, and that in this man’s case Satan would endeavour to put the Corinthians upon a pharisaical rigour, or to rend the church by a division about him, and to oppress the penitent by bereaving him of his due comfort; so that it appears still that it is one of his designs to hinder the comfort and molest the hearts of God’s children.
2. Secondly, Of such concern is inward spiritual peace to us, that it is but an easy conjecture to conclude from thence that so great an adversary will make it his design to rob us of such a jewel; for,
[1.] Spiritual comfort is the sweet fruit of holiness, by which God adorns and beautifies the ways of religious service, to render them amiable and pleasant to the undertakers: ‘Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace,’ Prov. iii. 17; and this is the present ‘rest and refreshment’ of God’s faithful servants under all their toil, that when they have ‘tribulation from the world,’ yet they have ‘peace in him,’ John xvi. 33; and that, being ‘justified by faith, they have peace with God,’ and sometimes ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory,’ 1 Peter i. 8; and this they may the more confidently expect, because ‘the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace,’ &c., Gal. v. 22.
[2.] Spiritual comfort is not only our satisfaction, but our inward strength and activity; for all holy services doth depend upon it. By this doth God strengthen our heart and gird up our loins ‘to run the ways of his commandments.’ It doth also strengthen the soul to undergo afflictions, to glory in tribulations, to triumph in persecutions. The outward man is also corroborated by the inward peace of the mind: ‘A merry heart doth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones,’ Prov. xvii. 22; all which are intended by that expression, Neh. viii. 10, ‘The joy of the Lord is your strength;’ it is strength to the body, to the mind, and that both for service and suffering; the reason whereof the apostle doth hint to us, Phil. iv. 7, ‘The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds’—that is, peace doth so guard us as with a garrison, φρουρήσει—for so much the word imports—that our affections, our hearts, being entertained with divine satisfactions, are not easily enticed by baser proffers of worldly delights, and our reasonings, our minds, being kept steady upon so noble an object, are not so easily perverted to a treacherous recommendation of vanities.
[3.] Joy and peace are propounded to our careful endeavours, for attainment and preservation, as a necessary duty of great importance to us. Rejoicings are not only recommended as seemly for the upright, but enjoined as service, and that in the constant practice: ‘Rejoice evermore;’ ‘In everything give thanks,’ 1 Thes. v. 16, 18; ‘Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say, rejoice,’ Phil. iv. 4. In the Old Testament, God commanded the observation of several feasts to the Jews. These, though they had their several respective grounds from God’s appointment, yet the general design of all seems to have been this, that ‘they might rejoice before the Lord their God,’ Lev. xxiii. 40; as if God did thereby tell them that it was the comely complexion of religion, and that which was very acceptable to himself, that his children might always serve him in cheerfulness of heart, seeing such have more cause to rejoice than all the world besides. They are then much mistaken that think mournful eyes and sad hearts be the greatest ornaments of religion, or that none are serious in the profession of it that have a cheerful countenance and a rejoicing frame of spirit. It is true, there is a joy that is devilish, and a mirth which is madness, to which Christ hath denounced a woe: ‘Woe be to them that laugh now, for they shall mourn and weep,’ [Luke vi. 25]; but this is a joy of another nature, a carnal delight in vanity and sin, by which men fatten their hearts to ruin; and whatsoever is said against this can be no prejudice to spiritual, holy joy in God, his favour and ways.
[4.] Spiritual comfort is also a badge of our heavenly Father’s kindness. As Joseph, the son of his father’s affections, had a special testimony thereof in his parti-coloured coat, so have God’s favourites a peculiar token of his good-will to them when he gives them ‘the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness,’ [Isa. lxi. 7.] If spiritual comfort be so advantageous to us, it will be no wonder to see Satan so much rage against it. It would be a satisfaction to him to tear these robes off us, to impede so needful a duty, to rob us of so much strength, and to bereave us of the sweet fruits of our labours.
3. Thirdly, It further appears that Satan’s design is against the comforts of God’s children, by the many advantages he hath against them, from the trouble and disquiet of their hearts. I shall reckon up the chief of them; as,
[1.] From the trouble of the spirit he raiseth confusions and distractions of mind; for, (1.) It is as natural to trouble to raise up a swarm of muddy thoughts as to ‘a troubled sea to cast up mire and dirt;’ and hence is that comparison, Isa. lvii. 20; a thousand fearful surmises, evil cogitations, resolves, and counsels immediately offer themselves. This disorder of thoughts Christ took notice of in his disciples when they were in danger, ‘Why do thoughts arise in your hearts?’ Luke xxiv. 38. And David considered it as matter of great anxiety, which called for speedy help: Ps. xciv. 19, ‘In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul.’ Sometimes one fear is suggested, then presently another; now this doubt perplexeth, then another question is begot by the former; they think to take this course, then by and by they are off that, and resolve upon another, and as quickly change again to a third, and so onward, one thought succeeding another, as vapours from a boiling pot. (2.) Such thoughts are vexatious and distracting, the very thoughts themselves, being the poisonous steams of their running sores, are sadly afflictive, and not unfitly called cogitationes onerosæ, burdensome thoughts. But as they wrap up a man in clouds and darkness, as they puzzle him in his resolves, nonplus him in his undertakings, distract him in his counsels, disturb and hinder him in his endeavours, &c., so do they bring the mind into a labyrinth of confusion. What advantage the devil hath against a child of God when his heart is thus divided and broken into shivers, it is easy to imagine. And David seems to be very sensible of it when he put up that request, Ps. lxxxvi. 11, ‘Unite my heart to fear thy name.’
[2.] By disquiet of heart the devil unfits men for duty or service. Fitness for duty lies in the orderly temper of body and mind, making a man willing to undertake, and able to finish his work with comfortable satisfaction. If either the body or mind be distempered, a man is unfit for such an undertaking; both must be in a suitable frame, like a well-tuned instrument, else there will be no melody. Hence, when David prepared himself for praises and worship, he tells us his ‘heart was ready and fixed,’ and then ‘his tongue was ready also,’ so was his hand with psaltery and harp; all these were awakened into a suitable posture, Ps. xlv. 1, 2, and cviii. 1, 2. That a man is or hath been in a fit order for service may be concluded from—(1.) His alacrity to undertake a duty. (2.) His activity in the prosecution. (3.) His satisfaction afterward, right grounds and principles in these things being still presupposed. This being laid as a foundation, we shall easily perceive how the troubles of the spirit do unfit us for duty. For,
First, These do take away all alacrity and forwardness of the mind, partly by diverting it from duty. Sorrows when they prevail do so fix the mind upon the present trouble, that it can think of nothing but its burden; they confine the thoughts to the pain and smart, and make a man forget all other things, as David in his trouble ‘forgot to eat his bread,’ [Ps. cii. 4]; and sick persons willingly discourse only of their diseases; partly by indisposing for action. Joy and hope are active principles, but sorrow is sullen and sluggish. As the mind in trouble is wholly employed in a contemplation of its misery, rather than in finding out a way to avoid it, so if it be at leisure at any time to entertain thoughts of using means for recovery, yet it is so tired out with its burden, so disheartened by its own fears, so discouraged with opposition and disappointment, that it hath no list to undertake anything. By this means the devil brings the soul into a spiritual catoche,[319] so congealing the spirits, that it is made stiff and deprived of motion.
Second, Disquiets of heart unfit us for duty, by hindering our activity in prosecution of duty. The whole heart, soul, and strength should be engaged in all religious services, but these troubles are as clogs and weights to hinder motion. Joy is the dilatation of the soul, and widens it for anything which it undertakes; but grief contracts the heart, and narrows all the faculties. Hence doth David beg an ‘enlarged heart,’ as the principle of activity: Ps. cxix. 32, ‘I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart;’ for what can else be expected when the mind is so distracted with fear and sorrow, but that it should be uneven, tottering, weak, and confused? so that if it do set itself to anything, it acts troublesomely, drives on heavily, and doth very little with a great deal ado; and yet, were the unfitness the less, if that little which it can do were well done, but the mind is so interrupted in its endeavours that sometimes in prayer the man begins, and then is presently at a stand, and dare not proceed, his words are ‘swallowed up, he is so troubled that he cannot speak,’ Ps. lxxvii. 4. Sometimes the mind is kept so employed and fixed on trouble, that it cannot attend in hearing or praying, but presently the thoughts are called off, and become wandering.
Third, Troubles hinder our satisfaction in duty, and by that means unfit us to present duties, and indispose us to future services of that kind. Our satisfaction in duty ariseth, (1.) Sometimes from its own lustre and sweetness, the conviction we have of its pleasantness, and the spiritual advantages to be had thereby; these render it alluring and attractive, and by such considerations are we invited to their performance, as Isa. ii. 3, ‘Come ye, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.’ Hosea vi. 1, ‘Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up;’ but trouble of spirit draws a black curtain over the excellencies of duty, and presents us with frightful thoughts about it, so that we judge of it according to our fears, and make it frightful to ourselves, as if it would be to no purpose—rather a mischief than an advantage. (2.) Sometime our satisfaction ariseth from some special token of favour which our indulgent Father lets fall upon us while we are in his work, as when he gives us more than ordinary assistance, or puts joy and comfort into our hearts. And this he often doth to make us come again, and to engage afresh in the same or other services, as having ‘tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious,’ [1 Pet. ii. 3,] and that there is a blessedness in waiting for him. As in our bodies he so orders it that the concocted juices become a successive ferment to those that succeed from our daily meat and drink: so from duties performed doth he beget and continue spiritual appetite to new undertakings. But oh how sadly is all this hindered by the disquiet of the heart! The graces of faith and love are usually obstructed, if not in their exercise, yet in their delightful fruits, and if God offer a kindness, inward sorrow hinders the perception: as when Moses told the Israelites of their deliverance, ‘they hearkened not for hard bondage,’ [Exod. vi. 9.] If a message of peace present itself in a promise, or some consideration of God’s merciful disposition, yet usually this is not credited. Job confesseth so much of himself: Job xix. 16, ‘If I had called and he had answered me, yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice.’ David also doth the like: Ps. lxxvii. 2, 3, ‘My soul refuseth to be comforted; I remembered God, and was troubled.’ Matter of greatest comfort is often so far from giving ease, that it augments the trouble. However, the heart is so hurried with its fears, and discomposed with grief, that it cannot hearken to, nor consider, nor believe any kind offer made to it.
By all these ways doth the devil, through the disquiet of mind, unfit the Lord’s people for duty; and what a sad advantage this is against us cannot easily be told. By this means he may widen the distance betwixt God and us, keep our wounds open, make us a reproach to religion; and what not? But (3.) By these disquiets he pusheth us on to reject all duties; for when he hath tired us out by wearisome endeavours, under so great indispositions and unfitness, he hath a fair advantage to tempt us to lay all aside. Our present posture doth furnish him with arguments, he forgeth his javelins upon our anvil, and they are commonly these three:—
[1.] That duties are difficult. And this is easily proved from our own experience; while we are broken or bowed down with sorrows, we make many attempts for duty, and are oft beat off with loss; our greatest toil helps us but to very inconsiderable performances; hence, he infers, it is foolishness to attempt that which is above our strength, better sit still than toil for nothing.
[2.] That they are unfruitful; and this is our own complaint, for troubled spirits have commonly great expectations from duties at first, and they run to them, as the impotent and sick people to the pool of Bethesda, with thoughts of immediate ease as soon as they shall step into them; but when they have tried, and waited a while, stretching themselves upon duty, as Elisha’s servant laid the staff upon the face of the Shunammite’s son, and yet there is no voice nor hearing, no answer from God, no peace, then are they presently dissatisfied, reflecting on the promises of God and the counsels of good men, with this, Where is all the pleasantness you speak of? what advantage is it that we have thus run and laboured, when we have got nothing? And then it is easy for the devil to add, And why do you wait on the Lord any longer?
[3.] His last and most dangerous argument is, that they are sinful. Unfitness for duty produceth many distractions, much deadness, wandering thoughts, great interruptions, and pitiful performances. Hence the troubled soul comes off from duty wounded and halting, more distressed when he hath done than when he began; upon these considerations, that all his service was sin, a mocking of God, a taking his name in vain, nay, a very blasphemous affront to a divine majesty. Upon this the devil starts the question to his heart, Whether it be not better to forbear all duty, and to do nothing? Thus doth Satan improve the trouble of the mind, and often with the designed success. For a dejected spirit doth not only afford the materials of these weapons which the devil frames against it, but is much prepared to receive them into its own bowels. The grounds of these arguments it grants, and the inferences are commonly consented to, so that ordinarily duty is neglected, either, 1. Through sottishness of heart; or, 2. Through frightful fears; or, 3. Through desperateness; bringing a man to the very precipice of that atheistical determination, ‘I have cleansed my hands in vain,’ [Ps. lxxiii. 13.]
Fourth, Satan makes use of the troubles of God’s children as a stumbling-block to others. It is no small advantage to him, that he hath hereby an occasion to render the ways of God unlovely to those that are beginning to look heavenward; he sets before them the sighs, groans, complaints, and restless outcries of the wounded in spirit, to scare them off from all seriousness in religion, and whispers this to them, ‘Will you choose a life of bitterness and sorrow? can you eat ashes for bread, and mingle your drink with tears? will you exchange the comforts and contents of life for a melancholy heart and a dejected countenance? how like you to go mourning all the day, and at night to be scared with dreams and terrified with visions? will you choose a life that is worse than death, and a condition which will make you a terror to yourselves and a burden to others? can you be in love with a heart loaden with grief, and perpetual fears almost to distraction, while you see others in the meantime enjoy themselves in a contented peace? Thus he follows young beginners with his suggestions, making them believe that they cannot be serious in religion, but at last they will be brought to this, and that it is a very dangerous thing to be religious overmuch, and the highway to despair; so that if they must have a religion, he readily directs them to use no more of it than may consist with the pleasures of sin and the world, and to make an easy business of it, not to let sin lie over-near their heart, lest it disquiet them; nor overmuch to concern themselves with study, reading, prayer, or hearing of threatening, awakening sermons, lest it make them mad; nor to affect the sublimities of communion with God, exercises of faith and divine love, lest it discompose them and dash their worldly jollities out of countenance. A counsel that is readily enough embraced by those that are almost persuaded to be Christians; and the more to confirm them in it, he sticks not sometime to asperse the poor troubled soul with dissimulation—where that accusation is proper, for the devil cares not how inconsistent he be with himself, so that he may but gain his end—affirming all his seriousness to be nothing but whining hypocrisy. So that whether they judge these troubles to be real or feigned, his conclusion is the same, and he persuades men thereby to hold off from all religious strictness, holy diligence, and careful watchfulness.
Fifth, A further use which the devil makes of these troubles of spirit is, to prepare the hearts of men thereby to give entertainment to his venomous impressions. Distress of heart usually opens the door to Satan, and lays a man naked, without armour or defence, as a fair mark for all his poisoned arrows; and it is a hundred to one but some of them do hit. I shall choose out some of the most remarkable, and they are these:—
[1.] After long acquaintance with grief he labours to fix them in it. In some cases custom doth alleviate higher griefs, and men take an odd kind of delight in them; Est quædam etiam dolendi voluptas. It is some pleasure to complain, and men settle themselves in such a course, their finger is ever upon their sore, and they go about telling their sorrows to all they converse with—though to some this is a necessity, for real sorrows, if they be not too great for vent, will constrain them to speak—yet in some that have been formerly acquainted with grief, it degenerates at last into a formality of complaining; and because they formerly had cause so to do, they think they must always do so. But besides this, Satan doth endeavour to chain men to their mourning upon two higher accounts[320]: 1. By a delusive contentment in sorrow, as if our tears paid some part of our debt to God, and made amends for the injuries done to him. 2. By an obstinate sullenness and desperate resolvedness they harden themselves in sorrow, and say as Job, chap. vii. 11, ‘I will not refrain my mouth, I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?’
[2.] Another impression that men’s hearts are apt to take, is, unthankfulness for the favours formerly bestowed upon them. Their present troubles blot out the memory of old kindnesses. They conclude they have nothing at all, because they have not peace. Though God heretofore hath sent down from on high, and taken them out of the great waters, or out of the mire and clay where they were ready to sink; though he hath sent them many tokens of love, conferred on them many blessings; yet all these are no more to them, so long as their sorrows continue, than Haman’s wealth and honour was to him, so long as Mordecai the Jew sat at the king’s gate. Thus the devil oft prevails with God’s children, to deal with God as some unthankful persons deal with their benefactors; who, if they be not humoured in every request, deny the reality of their love, and despise with great ingratitude all that was done for them before.
[3.] By inward griefs, the heart of the afflicted are prepared to entertain the worst interpretation that the devil can put upon the providences of God. The various instances of Scripture, and the gracious promises made to those that ‘walk in darkness and see no light,’ do abundantly forewarn men from making bad conclusions of God’s dealings, and do tell us that God in design, for our trial and for our profit, doth often hide his face ‘for a moment,’ when yet his purpose is to ‘bind us up with everlasting compassions.’ Now the devil labours to improve the sorrows of the mind to give a quite contrary construction. If they are afflicted, instead of saying, ‘Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy will come in the morning,’ [Ps. xxx. 5,] or that ‘for a little while God hath hidden himself,’ he puts them to say, ‘this darkness shall never pass away.’ If the grief be little, he drives them on to a fearful expectation of worse; as he did with Hezekiah, Isa. xxxviii. 13, ‘I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones; from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.’ If God purpose to teach us by inward sorrows our pride of heart, carelessness, neglect of dependence upon him, the bitterness of sin, or the like, the devil will make us believe, and we are too ready to subscribe to him, that God proclaims open war against us, and resolves never to own us more. So did Job, chap. xix. 6, ‘Know now that God hath overthrown me, and compassed me with his net;’ how often complained he, ‘thou hast made me as thy mark, thou hast broken me asunder, thou hast taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces’! So also Heman, Ps. lxxxviii. 14, ‘Why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me?’
[4.] Upon this occasion the devil is ready to envenom the soul with sinful wishes and execrations against itself. Eminent saints have been tempted in their trouble to say too much this way. Job solemnly cursed his day: Job iii. 3, ‘Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man-child conceived,’ &c. So also Jeremiah, chap. xx. 14, ‘Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man-child is born unto thee; and let that man be as the cities which God overthrew, and repented not.’ Strange rashness! what had the day deserved? or wherein was the messenger to be blamed? Violent passions hurried him beyond all bounds of reason and moderation. When troubles within are violent, a small push sets men forward; and when once they begin, they are carried headlong beyond what they first intended.
[5.] On this advantage the devil sometimes emboldens them to quarrel God himself directly. When Job and Jeremiah cursed their day, it was a contumely against God indirectly; but they durst not make bold with God at so high a rate as to quarrel him to his face. Yet even this are men brought to often when their sorrows are long-lasting and deep. The devil suggests, Can God be faithful, and never keep promise for help? can he be merciful, when he turns away his ears from the cry of the miserable? where is his pity, when he multiplies his wounds without cause? Though at first these cursed intimations do a little startle men, yet when by frequent inculcating they grow more familiar to the heart, the distressed break out in their rage with those exclamations, Where is the faithfulness of God? where are his promises? hath he not forgotten to be gracious? are not his mercies clean gone? And at last it may be Satan leads them a step higher, that is—
[6.] To a despairing desperateness. For when all passages of relief are stopped up, and the burden becomes great, men are apt to be drawn into rage and fury when they think their burden is greater than they can bear, and see no hope of ease; in a kind of revenge they express their anger against the hand that wounded them. The devil is officiously ready with his advice of ‘Curse God and die,’ [Job. ii. 9,] and they, being full of anguish, are quickly made to comply with it.
[7.] When it is at this height, the devil hath but one stage more, and that is the suggesting of irregular means for ease. Rage against God doth not quench the inward burning, blasphemies against heaven easeth not the pain, the sore runs still and ceaseth not, the trouble continues, the man cannot endure it longer, all patience and hope is gone. What shall he do in this case? The devil offers his service; he will be the physician, and commonly he prescribes one of these two things: (1.) That it is best to endeavour to break through all this trouble into a resolved profaneness; not to stand in awe of laws, not to believe that there is a God that governs in the earth, but that this is only the bitter fruit of melancholy and unnecessary seriousness, and therefore it is best ‘to eat, drink, and be merry,’ If a man can thus escape out of his trouble, the devil needs no more; but oft he cannot, the wounds of conscience will not be thus healed. Then, (2.) He hath another remedy, which will not fail, as he tells them, that is, to ‘destroy themselves,’ to end their troubles with their lives. How open are the breasts of troubled creatures to all these darts! and were it not that God secretly steps in and holds the afflicted with his right hand, it is scarce imaginable but that wounded consciences should by Satan’s subtle improvement of so fair an advantage be brought to all this misery.
[8.] Satan can afflict the body by the mind. For these two are so closely bound together that their good and bad estate is shared betwixt them. If the heart be merry the countenance is cheerful, the strength is renewed, the bones do flourish like an herb. If the heart be troubled the health is impaired, the strength is dried up, the marrow of the bones wasted, &c. Grief in the heart is like a moth in the garment, it insensibly consumeth the body and disordereth it. This advantage of weakening the body falls into Satan’s hands by necessary consequence, as the prophet’s ripe figs, that fell into the mouth of the eater. And surely he is well pleased with it, as he is an enemy both to body and soul. But it is a greater satisfaction to him in that as he can make the sorrows of the mind produce the weakness and sickness of the body, so can he make the distemper of the body, by a reciprocal requital, to augment the trouble of the mind. How little can a sickly body do! It disables a man for all services; he cannot oft pray, nor read, nor hear; sickness takes away the sweetness and comfort of religious exercises. This gives occasion for them to think the worse of themselves. They think the soul is weary of the ways of God, when the body cannot hold out. All failures which weariness and faintness produce are ascribed presently to the bad disposition of the mind, and this is like oil cast upon the flame. Thus the devil makes a double gain out of spiritual trouble.
[9.] Let it be also reckoned among the advantages which Satan hath against men from trouble of spirit, that it is a contentment to him to see them in their miseries. It is a sport to him to see them, as Job speaks, take their flesh in their teeth, and cry out in the bitterness of their souls, [Job. xiii. 14.] Their groanings are his music. When they wallow in ashes, drown themselves in tears, roar till their throat is dry, spread out their hands for help, then he gluts his heart in looking upon their woes. When they fall upon God with their unjust surmises, evil interpretations of providence, questioning his favour, denying his grace, wishing they had never been born, then he claps his hands and shouts a victory. The pleasantest sight to him is to see God hiding himself from his child, and that child broken with fears, torn in pieces with griefs, made a brother to dragons, a companion to owls, under restless anxieties, perpetual lamentations, feeble and sore broken, their strength dried like a potsherd, their throat dry, their tongue cleaving to their jaws, their bowels boiling, their bones burnt with heat, their skin black upon them, their flesh consumed, their bones sticking out, chastened with strong pain upon their bed. This is one of Satan’s delightful spectacles, and for these ends doth he all he can to bereave them of their comfort, which we may the more certainly persuade ourselves to be true, when we consider the grounds forementioned, his malicious nature, the advantages of spiritual peace, and the disadvantages of spiritual trouble.