[3.] When the passions are up, Satan can by his suggestions make them more heady and violent. He can suggest to the mind motives and arguments to forward it, and can stir up our natural corruption, with all its powers, to strike in with the opportunity. Thus he not only kindles the fire, but blows the flame.
[4.] And he can further fix the mind upon these thoughts, and keep them still upon the hearts of men. And then they eat in the deeper, and like poison diffuse their malignity the further. We see that men, who are at first but in an ordinary fret, if they continue to meditate upon their provocation, they increase their vexation; and if they give themselves to vent their passions by their tongues, though they begin in some moderation, yet as motion causeth heat, so their own words whet their rage, according to Eccles. x. 13, ‘The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, but the latter end of his talk is mischievous madness.’ The same advantage hath Satan against men by holding down their thoughts to these occasions of discomposure.
If occasions be so much in Satan’s power, and he have also so great a hand over men’s passions, it is too evident that he can do very much to discompose the spirits of men that are naturally obnoxious to these troubles, except God restrain him, and grace oppose him. Thus have I spoken my thoughts of the first sort of troubles, by which Satan doth undermine the peace of men’s hearts.
CHAPTER VII.
Of the second way to hinder peace.—Affrightments, the general nature and burden of them, in several particulars.—What are the ways by which he affrights: 1. Atheistical injections. Observations of his proceeding in them; 2. Blasphemous thoughts; 3. Affrightful suggestions of reprobation. Observations of his proceedings in that course; 4. Frightful motions to sin; 5. Strong immediate impressions of fear; 6. Affrightful scrupulosity of conscience.
The next rank of troubles by which the devil doth endeavour to molest us, I call affrightments. It is usual for those that speak of temptations, to distinguish them thus: Some are, they say, enticements, some are affrightments; but then they extend these affrightments further than I intend, comprehending under them all those temptations of sadness and terror, of which I am next to speak. But by affrightments, I mean only those perplexities of spirit into which Satan casts men, by overacting their fears, or astonishing their minds, by injecting unusual and horrid thoughts against their consents.[327] Some there are that have thought those temptations, of which the apostle complains, 2 Cor. xii. 7, ‘There was given me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me,’ were of this kind—that is, horrid injections frequently repeated, as men deal their blows in fighting. Gerson, speaking of these, tells us they sometime come from the sole suggestion of Satan troubling the fancy, and saying, Deny God, curse God; and then adds, such was the thorn in the flesh given to the apostle.[328] But whether this was the trouble of the apostle, or some other thing—for several things are conjectured, and nothing can be positively proved—we are sure, from the sad experience of many, that such troubles he doth often give; which I shall first explain in the general, and then give a particular of these frightful injections.
1. To explain the nature and burden of this kind of trouble, I shall present you with a few observations about them. As,
[1.] These astonishing thoughts are purely injections, such as Satan casts into the mind, and not what the mind of itself doth produce; as one expresseth it, they are more darting than reflecting. Not but that our natural corruption could of itself beget blasphemous or atheistical thoughts; but when they have their rise from ourselves solely, they do not so startle us. Having some share at least of our consent going along with them, they appear not so strange. But in this case in hand, Satan is the agent, and men are the sufferers, their understandings and souls being busied all the while to repel them, with the utmost of their reluctances. And to those that do thus strive against them, making resistance with all their strength, with tears and prayers, they are only their afflictions, but not their sins. For the thoughts are not polluted by the simple apprehension of a sinful object, no more than the eye is defiled by beholding loathsome and filthy things; for then should the mind of Christ have been defiled, when Satan propounded himself blasphemously as the object of his worship; his mind as truly apprehended the meaning of that saying, ‘fall down and worship me,’ as ours can do, when he casts such a thing immediately into our thoughts. Which is a consideration to be observed diligently by those that meet with such sad exercise. If they do truly apprehend that they are but their sufferings, and that God will not charge the sin upon them, they will more easily bear and overcome the trouble.
These injections are commonly impetuous and sudden, frequently compared to lightning; and this is usually made a note of distinction betwixt wicked, blasphemous thoughts rising from our natural corruption, and darted in by Satan; the former being more leisurely, orderly, and moderate, according to the usual course of the procedure of human thoughts, the latter usually accompanied with a hasty violence, subtly and incoherently shooting into our understandings, as lightning into a house; so that all the strength we have can neither prevent them nor expel them, nor so much as mitigate the violence of them.