1. Atheistical thoughts. By injecting these into the mind he doth exceedingly affright men, and frequently for that end doth he suggest that there is no God, and that the Scriptures are but delusive contrivances, &c. Concerning these I shall note a few things; as,
[1.] Though there be an observable difference betwixt atheistical injections and temptations to atheism, not only in the design—Satan chiefly intending seduction in the latter, and affrightment by the former—but also in the manner of proceeding—(for when he designs chiefly to tempt to atheism, he first prepares his way by debauching the conscience with vicious or negligent living,—according to Ps. xiv. 1, that which makes men ‘say in their hearts there is no God,’ is this, that ‘they are corrupt, and have done abominable works’—and in this method was famous Junius tempted to atheism: but when he chiefly intends to affright, he sets upon men that by a watchful and strict conversation cut off from him that advantage)—yet he doth so manage himself that he can turn his course either way, as he finds probability of success after trial; for he presseth on upon men most where he finds them most to yield, so that those who were but at first affrighted may at last be solemnly persuaded and urged to believe the suggestion to be true if they give him any encouragement for such a procedure.[333]
[2.] Contemplative heads and great searchers are usually most troubled in this manner, partly because they see more difficulties than other men, and are more sensible of human inability to resolve them, and partly because God, who will not suffer his children to be tempted ‘above what they are able,’ doth not permit Satan to molest the weaker sort of Christians with such dangerous assaults.
[3.] Persons of eminent and singular holiness may be, and often are, troubled with atheistical thoughts, and have sad conflicts about them, Satan labouring, where he cannot prevail for a positive entertainment of atheism, at least to disquiet their minds by haunting them with his injections, if not to weaken their assent to these fundamental truths, in which he sometimes so prevails, that good men have publicly professed that they have found it a harder matter to believe that there is a God than most do imagine.
[4.] Satan lies at the catch in this design, and usually takes men at the advantage, suddenly setting upon them, either in the height of their meditations and inquiries into fundamental truths—for when they soar aloft, and puzzle themselves with a difficulty, then is he at hand to advise them to cut the knot which they cannot unloose—or in the depth of their troubles—for when men cannot reconcile the daily afflictions and sufferings which they undergo, with the love and care of God toward his children, then it is Satan’s season to tell them that there is no supreme disposer of things. In both these cases the devil leaps upon them unawares, like a robber out of a thicket, who, if he do not wound them by the dart of atheistical injection, at least he is sure to astonish them, and to confound them with amazement. For,
[5.] Sometimes he pursues with wonderful violence, and will dispute with admirable subtlety, urging the inequality of providence, the seeming contradictions of Scripture, the unsuitableness of ordinances to an infinite wisdom and goodness, with many more arguments of like kind; and this with such unexpected acuteness and seeming demonstration, that the most holy hearts and wisest heads shall not readily know what to answer, but shall be forced to betake themselves to their knees, and to beg of God that he would rebuke Satan, and uphold them that their faith fail not. Nay, he doth not only dispute, but by urging, and with unspeakable earnestness threaping,[334] the conclusion upon men, doth almost force them to a persuasion, so that they are almost carried off their feet whether they will or no; which was the very case of David when the devil pursued him with atheistical thoughts on the occasion of the prosperity of wicked men, and his daily troubles: Ps. lxxiii. 2, ‘My feet were almost gone, my steps had well-nigh slipped.’
[6.] Yet for all this he sometimes lays aside his sophistical subtlety, and betakes himself to an impudent importunity; for sometimes he insists only on one argument, not changing that which he first took up, nor strengthening his suggestion with variety of arguments, but by frequent repetition of the same reason persists to urge his injected atheism. This gives no discovery of any deep reach if he designed to persuade—for it is scarce rational to imagine that serious men, who by many arguments are fully persuaded there is a God, should readily lose their hold upon the appearance of one objection—but it shews that he purposeth only to molest. And this appears more evidently, when he contents himself with weak and trivial arguments, which the afflicted party can answer fully, and yet cannot for all that quit themselves of the trouble; for instance, it is not very many years since a serious and pious person came to me, and complained that he could not be at rest for atheistical thoughts that perpetually haunted him; and upon a particular inquiry into the cause and manner of his trouble, he told me the first rise of it was from his observation, that I had interpreted some scriptures otherwise than he had heard some others to have done; but withal he added that he knew the reason of his perplexity was but silly, and that which he could easily answer; this being no just charge against the Scripture, whose sense and truth might for all that be one, and uniform to itself, but only an implication of human weakness appearing in the different apprehensions of expositors; yet notwithstanding he affirmed he could not shake off the trouble, and that his thoughts were ever urged with the same thing for a long time together. Nay, such is his impudency in this kind of trouble, that those who know it is the best way not to dispute fundamentals with Satan, but with abhorrency to reject him—after the example of Christ, with a ‘get thee behind me, Satan’—and accordingly do with their utmost strength reject them, yet they find that he doth not readily desist.
How sad is this trouble! how are pious persons affrighted to see the face of their thoughts made abominably ugly and deformed by these violent and unavoidable injections! It is not only wearisome to those that know it to be solely Satan’s malice, but it often proves to be an astonishing surprisal—like that of a traveller who, while he passeth on his way without foresight or thought of danger, is suddenly brought to the top of a great precipice, where, when he looks down to the vast deep below, his head swims, his heart pants, his knees tremble, and the very fear of the sudden danger so confounds him that he is through excessive dread ready to fall into that which he would avoid; so are these amazed at so great hazards before them. Satan could not by all his art prevail with them to abandon the holy ways of God in exchange for the pleasures of sin, and now they seem to be in danger to lose all at once; and yet it is more affrightful by far to those that charge, through Satan’s cunning, all this atheism upon themselves.
2. Another affrightful injection is that of blasphemous thoughts, as that God is not just, not compassionate; that scriptures and ordinances are but low and sorry things, &c.
That Satan doth delight to force such thoughts upon men, is evident,