[2.] But he hath another piece of cunning, which is this: He doth by a singular kind of art, threap upon men some scripture that really speaks of eternal condemnation, without any sufficient evidence in matter of fact for the due application of them, only because they cannot prove the contrary. His proceeding herein is to this purpose. First, After he hath prepared his way, by forming their minds to a fearful suspicion of their estate, he sets before them such scriptures as these: God hardened the heart of Pharaoh: he hath prepared ‘vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction.’ Christ prayed not ‘for the world:’ and that concerning the Jews, ‘He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts.’ Secondly, He confidently affirms that they are such. Thirdly, He puts them to prove the contrary, and herein he sends them to the search of God’s eternal decrees; in which art Satan, like an ignis fatuus, leads them out of the way. And though he cannot possibly determine what he affirms, he shifts off the positive proof from himself, and leaves it upon them to make out, that they are not thus determined of by God’s unchangeable purpose. And because the tempted, under so great a cloud, have no such persuasion of their present graces as may enable them to make sure their election by the fruits of their vocation, they are beaten off from their hold, and are brought to believe that the argument is unanswerable. Because they cannot say they are converted, they conclude they must be damned, overlooking the true answer that they might make, by keeping close to the possibility or probability that they may be converted, and so escape the damnation of hell. This general hope being of such high concern to the distressed, for it is the first thing that must relieve them till better evidence come in, it is Satan’s great policy to cheat them of it, which he often doth by this method now declared.
(2.) Satan doth mainly endeavour to misrepresent God to troubled souls, and from thence he draweth out arguments against them. In the former case of spiritual troubles, he misrepresents God, in that he represents only some attributes of his, not only distinct from, but in opposition to others, by which he labours to conceal the sweet and beautiful harmony that is among them; and also to make one attribute an argument against the comfortable supporting considerations which another would afford. He insists upon God’s justice without respect of mercy, upon his holiness without any regard of his gracious condescensions to the infirmities of the weak. But when it is his business to bring any under spiritual distresses, he then misrepresents God at a higher rate, and sticks not to asperse him with abominable falsehoods. There are two lies which he commonly urgeth at this time:—
[1.] He represents God as a cruel tyrant, of a rigorous, unmerciful disposition, that delights himself in the ruin and misery of men. To this purpose he rakes together the harshest passages of the Scripture, that speak of God’s just severity against the wilful obstinate sinners, that stubbornly contemn his offers of grace. God indeed hath cleared himself of this aspersion, by solemn oath, Ezek. xxxiii. 11, ‘As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.’ Yet the tempted will sooner believe Satan’s suggestion than God’s oath; partly because the sense of their vileness doth secretly sway them to think there is reason that he should be so; partly because their fears incline them to suspect the worst; and partly the uneasy tossings of their mind long continued reviveth the natural frowardness of the spirit against God. Which, how apt it is, when fretted with vexation, to entertain harsh thoughts of God, may be seen in the answer of the slothful servant to his lord, who returned his talent back again unimproved, with a reflection importing that his master was such as none could please; so severe that he was discouraged from making any attempt of serving him acceptably: Mat. xxv. 24, he said, ‘Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed.’
[2.] He belies God further, by representing him as designing the ruin and misery of the tempted person in particular. He would make him believe that God had a particular spleen, as it were, against him above other men, and that in all his dealings with, or concerning him, he is but as a ‘bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places,’ [Lam. iii. 10,] ready to take any advantage to cut him off. And accordingly he gives no other interpretation of all the ways of God but such as make them look like tokens of final rejection of those that are concerned in them. If there be upon them outward afflictions, he tells them these are but the forerunners of hell; if they lie under inward sense of wrath, he calls that the first-fruits of everlasting vengeance; if any particular threatening be impressed upon their consciences by the Spirit of God, in order to their humiliation and repentance, he represents it as God’s final sentence and absolute determination against them. If for caution God see it fit to set before them the examples of his wrath, as it is very frequent for him to do, lest we ‘should fall after the same example of unbelief,’ 1 Pet. ii. 6; 1 Cor. x. 6, Satan perverts this to that which God never intended, for he boldly asserts that these examples prognosticate their misery, and that God signifies by them a prediction of certain unavoidable unhappiness.
This must be observed here, that these misrepresentations of God are none of Satan’s primary arguments; he useth them only as fresh reserves to second others. For where he finds any wing of his battalions ready to be beaten, he comes up with these supplies to relieve them. For indeed these considerations of God’s severity in the general, or of his special resolve against any in particular, are not of force sufficient to attack a soul that is within the trenches of present peace; they are not of themselves proper mediums to produce such a conclusion. Though we suppose God severe, except we should imagine him to be a hater of mankind universally, we cannot thence infer the final ruin of this or that individual person. And besides that these are unjustifiable falsehoods, they cannot make the final damnation of any one so much as probable till the heart be first weakened in its hopes by fears or doubtings, raised up in it upon other grounds. Then indeed men are staggered, either by the deep sense of their unworthiness, or some sad continuing calamity, and the seeming neglect of their prayers. If Satan then tell them of God’s severity, or that, all his providences considered, he hath set them up as a ‘mark for the arrows of his indignation,’ they are ready to believe his report, it being so suitable to their present sense and feeling.
[3.] Satan also fetcheth arguments from the sins of God’s children, but his great art in this is by unjust aggravations to make them look like those offences which by special exception in Scripture are excluded from pardon. The apostle, 1 John v. 16, tells us of a ‘sin that is unto death;’ that is, a sin which, if a man commits, he cannot escape eternal death, and therefore he would not have such a sinner prayed for. That the popish distinction of venial and mortal sins is not here intended, some of the papists themselves do confess.[357] What he means by that sin he doth not tell us, it being a thing known sufficiently from other scriptures. The note of unpardonableness is indeed affixed to sins under several denominations; the sin against the Holy Ghost Christ pronounceth unpardonable, Mat. xii. 31. Total apostasy from the truth of the gospel hath no less said of it by the apostle when he calls it ‘a drawing back to perdition,’ Heb. x. 39. Whether these be all one, or whether there is any other species of sin irremissible besides that against the Holy Ghost, it is not to our purpose to make inquiry. Whatever they are in themselves, Satan in this matter makes use of the texts that speak of them distinctly, as we shall presently see. But, besides these, the Scriptures speak of some that were ‘given up to vile affections, and to a reprobate mind,’ Rom. i. 26, 28. And of others that were given up ‘to hardness of heart,’ Mat. xiii. 14; Acts xxviii. 26. Now whosoever they are of whom these things may be justly affirmed, they are certainly miserable, hopeless wretches. Here then is Satan’s cunning, if he can make any child of God believe that he hath done any such act, or acts of sin, as may bring him within the compass of these scriptures, then he insults over them, and tells them over and over again that they are cut off for ever.
To this purpose he aggravates all their sins. And,
First, If he find them guilty of any great iniquity, he fixeth upon that, and labours all he can to make it look most desperately, that so he may call it the sin against the Holy Ghost; and in this he hath a mighty advantage, that most men are in the dark about that sin, all men being not yet agreed whether it be a distinct species of sin, or a higher degree of wilfulness relating to any particular sin. Upon this score Satan can lay the charge of this sin upon those that apostatize from the truth, and through weakness have recanted it. Thus he dealt with Spira, with Bilney, with Bainham, and several others. There is so near a resemblance in these sins of denying truths to what is said of the unpardonable sin, that these men, though they were scholars and men of good abilities, yet they were not able to answer the argument that the devil urged against them, but it prevailed to distress them. Upon others also hath Satan the advantage to fix this accusation; for let the species of the sin be what it will, if they have anything of that notion, that the sin against the Holy Ghost is a presumptuous act of sin under temptation, they will call any notorious crime the sin against the Holy Ghost, because of the more remarkable aggravating circumstances that have accompanied such a fact.
Second, He aggravates the sins of God’s children from the wilfulness of their sinning. It is a thing often too true that a child of God may be carried by a violent impetus, or strong inclination of affection, to some particular iniquity, where the forwardness of desires that way, by a sudden haste, do stifle those reluctancies of mind which may be expected from one endowed with the Spirit of God, whose power upon them doth ordinarily sway them ‘to lust against the flesh.’ But it is more ordinary to find a temptation to prevail, notwithstanding that an enlightened mind doth make some resistance; which, because it is too feeble, is easily borne down by the strong importunities of Satan, working upon the inclinations of the flesh. Both these cases are improved against them over whom Satan hath got any advantage of doubting of their estate. If they have resisted but ineffectually, or not resisted at all, he chargeth them with the highest wilfulness, and will so aggravate the matter that they shall be put in fear, not only that there can be no grace—where sin hath so much power as either to control so much light and endeavours, or hath so subjected the heart to its dominion that it can command without a contradiction—but that they can have no hope; that they that sin with so high a hand should ever enter into God’s rest. And to this purpose he commonly sets before them that text of Heb. x. 26, ‘If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.’ Or that of Heb. vi. 4, ‘It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, ... if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance.’ Both which places speak indeed, at least, such a difficulty as in common use of speech is called an impossibility, if not an utter absolute impossibility, of repentance and pardon. But then the sinning wilfully or falling away there mentioned, is only that of total apostasy; when men that have embraced the gospel, and by it have met with such impressions of power and delight upon their hearts, which we usually call common grace, do notwithstanding reject that gospel as false and fabulous, and so rise up against it with scorn and utmost contempt, as Julian the apostate did. If now the true intendment of those scriptures were considered by those that are distressed with them, they might presently see that they were put into fear, where no such cause of fear was. But all men have not this knowledge, nor do they so duly attend to the matter of the apostle’s discourse as to be able to put a right interpretation upon it. Upon such Satan imposeth his deceitful gloss, and tells them: Wilful sinners cannot be restored to repentance; but you have sinned wilfully; when sin was before you, you rushed into it without any consideration, as the horse into the battle; or when God stood in your way with commands and advice to the contrary, when your consciences warned you not to do so great wickedness, yet you would do it. You were as those that break the yoke and burst the bonds. Upon this supposition, that these texts speak of wilful sinning in the general, how little can be said against Satan’s argument! How many have I known that have been tortured with these texts, judging their estate fearful, because of their wilfulness in sinning! who upon the breaking of the snare of Satan’s misrepresentation, have escaped as a bird unto the hill.
Third, When either of the two former ways will not serve the turn—that is, when he meets with such against whom he hath nothing of notorious wickedness to object, or such as have a better discerning of Scripture than so to be imposed upon—he labours to make a charge against them, from the number of their miscarriages. Here he takes up all the filth he can, and lays it upon one heap at their door. It is indeed an easy thing for Satan to set the sins of a child of God in order before him, and to bring to mind innumerable evils, especially to one that is already awakened with a true discovery of the corruption of nature and the vileness of sin. In which case the more a man considers, the more he will discover; and sins thus set in battle array, though they be not more than ordinary heinous, yet being many, have a very dismal appearance. Satan’s design in this is to bring men under the affrightments which seem most proper to be raised from a perverse aspect of the third rank of scriptures, which a little before I pointed at. For the word of God, speaking of the final estate of men, doth not only discover the hopeless condition of some as to eternal life from some particular acts of sin, but also the sad estate of others from the manner, degrees, and frequency of sinning. The heathens, because they improved not the knowledge of God, which they had from the works of creation, neither making those inferences in matters relating to his worship, which those discoveries did direct them unto, nor behaving themselves in full compliance to those rules of virtuous conversation which they might have drawn from these principles, and unto which in point of gratitude they were obliged: Rom. i. 21, ‘They glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; therefore God gave them to a reprobate mind.’ And generally, concerning all others, the Scripture teacheth us that a return to a profane fleshly life, after some reformation, hath a greater hazard in it than ordinary, as appears by the parable in Mat. xii. 45, ‘Seven more wicked spirits re-enter;’ where one that was cast out is received again; and ‘the last state of that man is worse than the first.’ So also 2 Pet. ii. 20. To this purpose is that of Solomon concerning the danger of continuance in sin, after many reproofs: Prov. xxix. 1, ‘He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.’ These, and many such like scriptures, Satan hath in readiness, which he plies home upon the consciences of those that are troubled with the sense of sin; telling them that their hearts and ways being continually evil, notwithstanding all the courses that God hath taken to reclaim them; that they having so long neglected so great salvation, or that after having seemed to entertain it, became more sinful than before—which they will easily believe, because they are now more sensible of sin, and more observant of their miscarriages than formerly—there can be no question but they are given up to vile affections; and like the ground that bears nothing but ‘briars and thorns, they are rejected, and nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned,’ [Heb. vi. 8.] The wound that is made with this weapon is not so easily healed as some others already mentioned; because though Satan do unduly wrest these passages to such failures in the children of God as have little or no affinity with them, for they only speak of falling into open profaneness with contumacy, yet they that have deep convictions, accompanied with great fears, do usually think that there are none worse than they are. And though they will grant that some others have more flagitious lives, yet they think they have hearts so desperately wicked, that they must needs be under as great hazards as those whose lives seem to be worse.