Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations / In Three Parts

by Richard Gilpin

[2.] In this he also observes his advantages; for there are some men so sadly suited to this design, that Satan comes better to speed upon them than others. Usually he fixeth his eyes,

First, Upon young persons at their first serious attendances upon, and considerations of, Scripture truths. Their hearts are then tender. Youth hath a natural tender-heartedness. We find them coupled together in Rehoboam’s character: 2 Chron. xiii. 7, ‘When Rehoboam was young and tender-hearted.’ And they are apt to receive strong impressions. When those who were formerly mindless of their spiritual concern begin to be serious, they can no sooner fall upon a consideration of those weighty doctrines, that there are sheep and goats, some saved and some damned, that the blessed are few in comparison of the many that take the broad way to destruction, and that these were from eternity ordained unto life, and these only, &c.; no sooner, I say, begin they to ponder these things, but Satan is ready with his suspicion, ‘And what dost thou know but thou art one of these excluded wretches? If but few are saved, a thousand to one thou art none of them; for why should God look upon thee more than another?’ These are his first essays[337] with young men beginning to be serious, in which afterward he proceeds with greater boldness as he seeth occasion.

Secondly, He also doth this to persons that are some way quickened to a devotional fear of God and care of their souls, but withal are ignorant, and not able distinctly to apprehend and orderly to range the doctrines of the Scriptures into a due consistency with one another. Their careful fears make them inquire into what God hath said concerning the everlasting state of men; and before they can be able to digest the principles of religion, Satan sets some truths edgeways against them, which put them into great affrightment; while, through their ignorance, other truths, appointed and declared for the satisfaction of the minds of those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, cannot come in to their relief. How startling must the truths of God’s election be when they stand forth alone, and are not accompanied with the invitations of the gospel, that promise pardon and acceptance to all that will come in and submit to Christ! Satan usually holds such kind of men to the consideration of those truths that have the most dismal aspect; and while they are stopped there, they can draw forth no other conclusions than these, that they are in hazard, and, for aught they know, utterly lost.

Third, Satan hath also this plot against those that by some grievous iniquity, or long continuance in sin, have highly provoked the Lord. Here he useth arguments from the heinousness of their iniquity: Thou art a reprobate, because thou hast committed these great evils, these are marks of damnation, &c.; which arguments, though they be of no value, and no way proving that for which they are brought, yet Satan injecting suspicions, and their own consciences in the meantime justly accusing, they so sink under their fear that they suffer Satan to make what conclusion he will, and then they subscribe to it.

Fourth, Above all, melancholy persons give the devil the greatest advantage to raise affrightments. That distemper naturally fills men with sad thoughts, and is credulous of the worst evil that can be objected against him that hath it. Of itself, it can create the blackest conceits and saddest surmises, and then believes its own fancy. When Satan strikes in with this humour—finguntque creduntque—they are the more confirmed in their suspicions; and the fright is the greater, because they are as incredulous of what is good, if it be told them, as they are apt to believe what is evil, and to believe it, because they fear it, dum timet credit,—though no other reason were offered: but much more when Satan, in a prophetic manner, foretells their misery, and assures them they must never be happy.

[3.] The suspicions which the devil hath by these advantages raised up, he doth endeavour to increase, and to root them deeply in the minds of them upon whom he hath thus begun. And indeed, by frequent inculcating the same thing, with his continued peremptoriness of asserting the certainty of their non-election, he at last brings up very many to a full persuasion that it is so; and besides other arts that he may have, or exercise in this particular, he commonly practiseth upon men by perverting the true intendment and use of the doctrine of election. That there is such a thing as election, and that of a determinate number, are truths undeniable; and the end of their discovery in the gospel is the comfort and confirmation of the converted. Here they may see God’s unchangeable love to them—how much they stand engaged for the freeness of grace, and that the foundation of God is sure, &c.; for to this purpose doth our Saviour improve these doctrines, John xvii. 6, 7, 9, 12, 15, 16. But nothing of this is spoken to discourage any man from his endeavours, neither can any man prove that he or any other is excluded out of the decree of election, except in case of the sin against the Holy Ghost; neither is it possible for the devil to prove any such thing against any man; neither ought any to suppose himself not elect; but on the contrary, if he is willing to forsake sin, and desirous to be reconciled to God, he ought to apprehend a probability that he is elected, because the proffer of Christ is made to all that will receive him. And therefore should men stop their ears against such suggestions, and not dispute that with Satan, but rather hearken to the commands, exhortations, and promises of Scripture, it being most certain that these ‘secret things belong to God,’ Deut. xxix. 29, and are no man’s rule to walk by, seeing ‘revealed things only belong to us;’ all this the devil perverts, for he endeavours to make election the immediate object of our faith, and our rule to walk by, as if it were necessary that every man knew God’s eternal purpose concerning him before he begin his endeavours. And as he argues some men into a perverse carelessness upon the ground of election, making them to conclude that if they are ordained to life, they shall be saved, though they live wickedly; if they be not, they shall be damned, though they endeavour never so much to the contrary; so he also argues some, from this doctrine, into terrible fears of damnation, because they cannot be assured aforehand that their names are written in heaven. And these dreadful suspicions he doth labour to strengthen by some men’s unwary handling of the doctrine of non-election. When some preachers unskilfully urge the dangerous signs of reprobation, or speak severely of God’s decrees, without due caution and promise of mercy to all penitent sinners; or when some, unskilful in the methods of comforting the distressed in conscience, because they are not able to shew the afflicted their condition, or to speak ‘a word in season’ to quiet their minds, and to direct them what course to take, do usually refer them to God’s decree, and tell them, If God have decreed them to salvation, they shall be saved; Satan doth industriously hold them there; by this means he leads them from their promises and their duty, and keeps them musing and poring upon election till they are bewildered, and cannot find the way out. Thus have several continued under their affrightments for many years.

[4.] We may observe, That when Satan hath brought them into this snare, he doth tyrannically domineer over them. He doth deride them under their trouble, and mock at them when their fear comes upon them. And because now the very thought or hearing of election is as a dagger to the heart, and a ‘dreadful sound in their ears,’ he delights to repeat it to them; for the very naming of the word becomes as dreadful as the sentence of condemnation to a malefactor, being always accompanied with this reflection, Oh how miserable am I that have no part nor portion in it! Besides, he doth busy their minds with imaginary representations of hell, and sets before them, as in a scheme, the day of judgment, the terrors of the damned, the sentence against the goats on the left hand, the intolerable pains of everlasting burnings, and that which is the misery of all these miseries, the eternity of all. Thus he forceth their meditations, but still with application to themselves; neither doth he suffer them to rest in the night, but they are terrified with sad dreams, and the visions of the night do disquiet them.

[5.] How grievous this affrightment is, I should next observe; but that is partly expressed in the aforegoing particulars, and may yet more fully appear by a consideration of these three things:

First, That a man hath nothing dearer to him than his soul. Alas! that cannot be counterbalanced by the gaining of the whole world, and to have no hope or expectancy of its salvation must needs be terribly affrightful!

Second, These suspicions of non-election prevailing, all promises and comforts are urged in vain, and they commonly return them back again to those that offered them with this reply, ‘They are true and useful to those unto whom they appertain, but they belong not unto me.’ Nay, all means are rejected as useless. If such be advised to pray or read, they will in their fit of affrightment refuse all; upon this reason, that they are not elected. And then to what purpose, say they, is prayer, or any endeavours? For who can alter his decree? And, indeed, if their affrightments continued at a height without intermission, they would never do anything; but this is their help, that some secret underground hopes which they espy not, do revive, at least sometimes, and put them upon endeavours which, through God’s blessing, become means of better information.