[2.] Secondly, These are frequently reiterated upon them, and their minds so troubled by them, that they cannot free themselves from such thoughts, but he follows on and clamours in their ears, as Gerson[455] observes, Nega Deum, maledic Deo—Deny God, curse God.
[3.] Thirdly, And this with so great a force and impetuosity, that they are compelled to form these thoughts in their minds, and to speak contrary to what they would, as if their thoughts and tongues were not under their own government, the devil not satisfying himself to bear in these thoughts upon them, but he endeavours, as it were, to make them say after him, and to cast his suggestions into their own mould, that so they might seem properly to be their own; and this they are forced to whether they will or no, even then when their minds are filled with horror, their heart with grief, and their body with trembling. I have discoursed with some who have bitterly complained that their tongues and their thoughts seemed not to be their own, but that Satan ruled them at his pleasure; and that when in opposition to the temptation they would have formed their tongues to speak blessing of God, they have spoken cursing instead of blessing; and that when a blasphemous thought had been cast into their mind, they could not be at rest till they had thought it again.
[4.] Fourthly, These troublesome temptations are oft of long continuance. Joannes Climacus tells us[456] of a monk that was troubled with blasphemous thoughts for twenty years together, and could not quit himself of them, though he had macerated his body with watchings and fastings. Some have them going away and returning again by fits, according as the prevalency and ferment of their melancholy gives Satan the advantage of dealing thus with them. For if we inquire why it is thus, especially with the children of God, we must partly resolve it into the ‘unsearchable wisdom of God,’ who for holy ends of teaching and disciplining his servants, permits Satan thus to molest them; and partly into those particular advantages which Satan hath against them according to the variety of their conditions, which usually are these:—
First, He takes advantage of such bodily distempers as do deprive men of the use of their reason, as fevers, frenzies, madness. In these he oft forms the tongues of men to horrid blasphemous speeches.
Secondly, A pressure of outward afflictions gives him his desired opportunity; and this he knows to be generally so successful, that he promised himself by this means a victory over Job. Ordinarily, straits and miseries do produce blaspheming. Isa. viii. 21, the prophet notes that when the people should be ‘hardly bestead and hungry,’ they should ‘fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward,’ as avouching what they had done.
Thirdly, Worldly plenty, fulness, and pleasure lay often foundations of this temptation. When their cups are full, and their hearts high, Satan can easily make them ‘set their mouth against heaven.’ A proud heart will readily say, ‘Our tongue is our own, or, Who is the Lord?’ [Ps. xii. 4.] This was the engine which the devil managed, if it were as Job suspected, against the sons and daughters of Job, to make them curse God in their hearts; and by this did he seek to prevail upon Christ in this blasphemous temptation.
Fourthly, A melancholy distemper doth usually invite Satan to give blasphemous suggestions. The disturbed and pliable fancies of such, are the advantages which he improves against them.
Fifthly, Inward terrors and distresses of conscience are also an occasion to Satan to move them, as by a desperate humour, to utter hard things of God and against themselves.
But there is yet a third way by which Satan tempts men to blaspheming, by sudden glances of blasphemous imaginations, which like lightnings do astonish the heart and then suddenly vanish. These are very common, and the best of men observe them frequently. Satan seems as it were rather to frolic and sport himself in these suggestions, than to intend a serious temptation. Their danger is not so much, yet are they not to be despised, lest these often visits, carelessly entertained, and not dismissed with just abhorrency, do secretly envenom the soul, and prepare it for stronger assaults.
I shall next inquire into the reasons of this trouble which Satan gives the children of God.