Ans. 1. It is undoubtedly God’s prerogative to know the thoughts. He knows them intuitively, which is beyond the power of any creature: Jer. xvii. 9, ‘Who can know it?’ This is a challenge to all, implying the utter impossibility of it to any but to God alone; ‘I the Lord search the heart;’ he knows the most inward thoughts: Rev. ii. 23, ‘I am he which searcheth the reins, and the heart;’ he knows them evidently and certainly: Heb. iv. 13, ‘All things are naked and open[95] before him with whom we have to do.’ Those secret thinkings and intendments which are hid from others, and which we ourselves cannot distinctly read, because of their secret intricacy or confusedness, yet the very inside and outside of them are uncased, cut up and anatomised by his eye; in all which expressions God is careful to reserve this to himself, ‘I the Lord do it,’ or ‘I am he, &c., that searcheth;’ and signifies that none else is able to do the like.
Ans. 2. Yet Satan can do much this way; for if we consider how he can come so near to our spirits, as to communicate his injections to us, and that he often entertains a dispute with us in this secret way of access that he hath to our thoughts; if we observe his arguings, his answers and replies to our refusals, so direct, so pertinent, so continued, we shall be constrained to grant that he can do more this way than is commonly imagined. That I may explain this with a due respect to God’s prerogative of knowing the heart, I shall,
1. First, Shew that there are two things which are clearly out of Satan’s reach. [1.] Our future thoughts; he cannot tell what shall be our thoughts for time to come. He may possibly adventure to tell what suggestions he resolves to put into our hearts, but what shall be our resolves and determinations thereupon he knows not. This is singled out as one part of God’s prerogative, that he knoweth the determinate purposes and resolves of the heart aforehand, because he turneth the heart as he pleaseth, Prov. xxi. 1. [2.] Our present formed thoughts, the immediate and imminent[96] acts of the mind he cannot directly see into. He may tell what floating thinkings he hath put into our heart, but our own proper thoughts, or formed resolves, he cannot directly view. This is also particularly insisted on as proper to God alone: John ii. 24, 25, ‘Christ knew all men,’ so directly, that ‘he needed not that any should testify of man.’ This Satan stands in need of; he sometimes knows men and their thoughts, but he needs a sign or notification of these thoughts, and cannot immediately look into them. The reason why Christ needed not this, is rendered thus: ‘For he knew what was in man,’ Mat. xii. 25, that is, intuitively he knew his thoughts, and could immediately read them.
2. Secondly, I shall endeavour to explain how much, or how far he can pry into our thoughts. Several things are granted which argue Satan can go a great way toward a discovery. As,
(1.) First, That he knows the objects in our fancy or phantasms, and this as clearly as we do behold things with our eyes. And the proof given hereof is this: that there are diabolical dreams, in which the devil cannot create new species, and such as our senses were never acquainted withal, as to make a blind man dream of colours, but that he can only call forth and set in order those objects, of which our imagination doth retain the shadows or impressions; and this he could not do if he did not visibly behold them in our fancy.[97]
(2.) Secondly, It is certain he knows his own suggestions and temptations darted into our minds, upon which he can at present know what our thoughts are busied upon.
(3.) Thirdly, He knows the secret workings of our passions, as love, desire, fear, &c., because these depend upon, or are in a concomitancy of the motions of the blood and spirits, which he can easily discern, though their motions and workings may be kept secret from the observation of all bystanders.
(4.) Fourthly, Some go further, as Scotus, (referente Barthol. Sybilla,)[98] supposing that he knows what is in our thoughts at any time, only he knows not to what these thoughts incline; but I leave this to those that can determine it certainly. In the meantime I proceed,
3. Thirdly, To shew what a guessing faculty he hath of what he doth not directly know. He hath such grounds and advantages for conjecture, that he seldom fails of finding our mind. As,
(1.) First, His long experience hath taught him what usually men do think, in such cases as are commonly before them. By a cunning observation of their actions and ways he knows this.