(5.) Fifthly, Sometime God notified his mind by signs and miracles. Satan hath also his ‘lying signs and wonders;’ a power God hath permitted him this way, which is very great, and the delusions wrought thereby are strong, hazarding the deception of the elect. This power of doing wonders the devil usually applies to false doctrines, to strengthen and countenance errors. The apostle testifies, 2 Thes. ii. 9, that Satan shall employ this power for the advancement of the ‘man of sin, whose coming shall be with signs and lying wonders.’ The beast arising out of the earth, Rev. xiii. 14, ‘he shall deceive by the means of those miracles which he hath power to do.’ And accordingly the popish legends are full of stories of miracles, whereof, though most be lies, forgeries, and the false contrivements of those who sought to bring the people to receive their doctrines, the credit and advancement of which they sought by such ways; some notwithstanding, though not true miracles, yet were truly acted, to countenance those errors which are pretended to be established by them.
(6.) Sixthly, God doth teach and lead his people by impulses. Christ was thus ‘led of the Spirit into the wilderness;’ and Paul was ‘bound in spirit to go to Jerusalem,’ [Acts xx. 22.] It is common for Satan to imitate such impulses. We have clear instances of diabolical impulses to sin in Scripture. A strong impulse was on Ananias, ‘Satan filled his heart,’ [Acts v. 3;] a strong impulse on Judas, ‘Satan entered into his heart,’ [Luke xxii. 3;] and what then more easy to apprehend, than that Satan can counterfeit better impulses, and violently stir up the hearts of men to actions seemingly good or indifferent? Some hypocrites are moved strongly to pray or preach,—Satan therein aiming at an increase of pride or presumption in them;—and they know no other, but that it is the Spirit of God. God’s children may have impulses from Satan, upon pretences of zeal, as the disciples had, when they called for fire from heaven. In these impulses Satan doth not so act the heart of man as the Spirit of God doth, whose commands in this case are irresistible; but he only works by altering the disposition of our bodies in a natural way; and then having fitted us all he can for an impression, he endeavours to set it on by strong persuasions. Some memorable instances of these impulses might profitably illustrate this. Math. Parisiensis takes notice of a boy, in anno 1213, of whom also Fuller makes mention,[432] who, after some loss which the Christians had received in the war against the Turks, went up and down, singing this rhyme—
‘Jesus Lord, redeem our loss:
Restore to us thy holy cross.’
And by this means he gathered a multitude of boys together, who could not by the severest menaces of their parents be hindered from following him to their own ruin. Another instance of a strange impulse we have in Josephus:[433] one Jesus, the son of Ananus, about four years before the destruction of Jerusalem, at the feast of tabernacles, begins to cry out, ‘Woe, woe, to the east and west, to men and women,’ &c., and could by no means be restrained night or day; and when his flesh was beaten off his bones, he begged no pity nor ease, but still continued his usual crying.
(7.) Seventhly, God doth also by his Spirit teach his people in bringing things to their remembrance, John xiv. 26. Satan also in imitation of this, can put into the minds of men, with great readiness and dexterity, promises or sentences of Scripture, insomuch that they conclude that all such actings are from the Spirit of God, who, as they conclude, set such a scripture upon their heart. Thus dealt Satan with Christ. He urgeth the promise upon him, wherein upon the matter he doth as much, as when he secretly suggests such things to the heart without an audible voice. In this way of craft Satan doth very much resemble the true work of the Spirit; [1.] In the readiness and quickness of suggesting; [2.] In seeming exact-suiting scripture suggested, with the present occasion; and [3.] In the earnestness of his urging it upon the fancies of men. Yet when all this is done, they that shall seriously consider all ends, matter and circumstances, will easily observe it is but the cunning work of a tempter, and not from the Holy Spirit.
Obs. 14. Observe also, That whatever be the various ways of Satan’s imitation, yet the matter which he works and practiseth upon is still Scripture. To this he confines himself:—
[1.] First, Because the Scriptures are generally, among Christians, received as the undoubted oracles of God, the rule of our lives and duties, and the grounds of our hope. It would be a vain and bootless labour to impose upon those that retain this belief, the sayings of the Turkish Alcoran, the precepts of heathen philosophers, or any other thing that may carry a visible estrangement from or contradiction to Scripture. He could not then possibly pretend to a divine instruction, nor could he so ‘transform himself into an angel of light:’ but by using this covert of divine command, promise, or discovery, he can more easily beget a belief that God hath said it, and that there is neither sin nor danger in the thing propounded, but duty and advantage to be expected; and this is the very thing that makes way for an easy entertainment of such delusions. Poor creatures believe that is all from God, and that they are acted by his Spirit, and that with such confidence that they contemn and descry those, as ignorant of divine mysteries, and of the power of God, who are not so besotted as themselves.
[2.] Secondly, The Scriptures have a glorious irresistible majesty in them, peculiar to themselves, which cannot be found in all that art or eloquence can contribute to other authors. It is not play-book language, nor scraps of romances that Satan can effect these cheats withal; and therefore we may observe that in the highest delusions men have had pretences of Scripture; and their strong persuasions of extraordinary discoveries have stricken men into a reverence of their profession, because of the Scripture words and phrases with which their boldest follies are woven up. For let but men inquire into the reason of the prevalency of Familism of old, upon so vast a number of people as were carried away with it, and they shall find that the great artifice lay in the words they used, a language abstracted from Scripture, to signify such conceits as the Scripture never intended. Hence were their expressions always high, soaring, and relating to a more excellent and mystical interpretation of those divine writings. This may be observed in David George, Hen. Nicholas, and others, who usually talk of being consubstantiated with God, taken up into his love, of the angelical life, and a great deal more of the same kind. The Ranters at first had the like language, and the Quakers after them affected such a canting expression. And we may be the more certain of the truth of this observation, that such a kind of speaking, which borrows its majesty from the style of the Scripture, is of moment to Satan’s design; because we find the Scripture itself gives particular notice of it. The false teachers in 2 Pet. ii. 18, are described, among other things, by their ‘swelling words of vanity,’ which the Syriac renders to be ‘a proud and lofty way of speaking.’ The original signifies no less—ὑπέρογκα,—they were words swelled like bladders, though being pricked, they be found to be empty sounds, and no substance. There are indeed swelling words of atheistical contempt of those who, as the psalmist speaks, ‘set their mouths against heaven,’ Ps. lxxiii. 9, 11; but this passage of Peter, as also the like in Jude 16, signify big swollen words, from high pretensions and fancies of knowing the mind of God more perfectly; for they that use them pretend themselves prophets of God, ver. 1, and as to their height in profession, are compared to clouds highly soaring; and in 2 Cor. xi. 14, they are said to be ‘transformed into the apostles of Christ,’ and to the garb of the ‘ministers of righteousness.’ And that which is more, this particular design of Satan is noted as the rise of all; ‘No marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.’
Having seen the reasons why Satan chooseth Scripture as his tool to work by, I shall next shew to what base designs he makes it subserve.