[1.] First, This may make us jealous of any alterations in the way of Gods worship. We have reason under the most plausible pretexts to suspect the hand of Satan, because it is one of his main businesses to corrupt the worship.
[2.] Secondly, This may justify those that out of a conscientious fear of complying with Satan’s design, dare not admit of a pin in the tabernacle beside what God hath prescribed, nor leave behind a shoe-latchet of what he hath enjoined.
[3.] Thirdly, This will tell us that that worship is best and safest that hath least of mixture of human invention. We cannot offend in keeping close to the rule, though the worship thereby become more plain, and not so gorgeous in outward appearance. We may soon overdo it by the least addition, and cannot be so certain of God’s acceptation, as we are of pleasing the senses of men, by such introducements.
This motion of Satan, ‘Fall down and worship me,’ is now in the last place to be considered as a particular instance of Satan’s general design of drawing the hearts of men from God his service and ways, to the pleasures of sin; as if he should say to him, follow my advice, give up thyself to my service, and thou shalt be gratified with all the delights that the world can give thee. To this doth the bait here offered most fitly agree. Hence observe,
Obs. 8. That it is Satan’s general design to withdraw the hearts of men from God, that they may be enslaved to him in the service of sin.
That the devil doth level all his endeavours to this, cannot be doubted; for,
(1.) First, He hath a kingdom in this world, from which he is denominated ‘the prince of this world.’ And this is not only a rule of exterior force, such as conquerors have over their captivated slaves, who are compelled to subject their bodies, while yet their minds are full of hatred against him who hath thus forced them to subjection; but it is a rule over the hearts and affections of men, working in ‘the children of disobedience’ a love and liking of these ways, and begetting in them the image of Satan; so that what work he imposeth they are pleased withal, and ‘love to have it so.’ Therefore he is not only called their prince, but their god and their father: ‘Ye are of your father the devil,’ in that with a kind of inward devotion they will and endeavour to perform the lusts which he propounds to them.
(2.) Secondly, This kingdom is contrary to Gods spiritual kingdom, that being of darkness, this of light; and it is managed by Satan with an envious competition and co-rivalship to that of God; so that as God invites men to the happiness of his kingdom, and sends his Spirit in his word and ordinances to persuade them, Satan doth the like. He sends out his spirit, which the apostle calls ‘the spirit of the world,’ 1 Cor. ii. 12, and employs all his agents to engage men for him. He requires the heart as God doth, he promiseth his rewards of pleasure, honour, riches, if they will fall down and worship him. Now it is so natural to prosecute an interest thus espoused in a way of opposition, especially to any other that set up for themselves in a contradictory competitorship, that the very natural laws of Satan’s kingdom will engage him to stand up for it, and to enlarge it all he can.
Those upon whom he prevails are of two sorts—
(1.) First, Some are visibly in his service. These answer the character which was given of Ahab, 1 Kings xxi. 20, ‘who sold himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord.’ The first expression shews that such are wholly in Satan’s power and disposal—as things sold are in the possession and power of the buyer—they are at Satan’s will. If he say to them, ‘Go, they go,’ and if he say, ‘Come, they come.’ Their bodies and spirits are Satan’s, they are not their own; and they are his for the ends of sin, for that employment only, so that they are ‘wholly corrupt and abominable.’ The latter expression, that he did so ‘in the sight of the Lord,’ manifests their shameless impudency in sin, that they ‘declare their sin as Sodom, and hide it not,’ that they do not blush, but openly wear the devil’s livery and avouch his service. As the works of the flesh are manifest, so these in their practice of such works are manifestly Satan’s subjects. These kind of men are frequently in the Old Testament styled ‘sons of Belial,’[465] a name very significant, shewing either their devoting of themselves to the devil’s service, in that they reject the yoke of God’s law, in that they ‘break his bonds, and cast his cords from them,’ or their pride that they will have none above them, not considering that there is a God, or that the Most High rules, or their averseness to what is good, being ‘wholly unprofitable, and to every good work reprobate.’ [Titus i. 16.]