How powerful a part of his design this is, will appear from the nature of these passions: which are,
[1.] First, Violent motions of the heart; the very wings and sails of the soul, and every passion, in its own working, doth express a violence.[187] Choler is an earnest rage; voluptuousness is nothing less; fear is a desperate hurry of the soul; ‘love strong as death; jealousy cruel as the grave;’ each of them striving which should excel in violence, so that it is a question yet undetermined which passion may challenge the superiority.
[2.] Secondly, Their fury is dangerous and unbridled; like so many wild horses let loose, hurrying their rider which way they please. They move not upon the command of reason, but oft prevent it in their sudden rise; neither do they take reason’s advice for their course proportionable to the occasion, for often their humour, rather than the matter of the provocation, gives them spurs; and when they have evaporated their heat, they cease, not as following the command of reason, but as weakened by their own violence.
[3.] Thirdly, They are not easily conquered; not only because they renew their strength and onset after a defeat, and, like so many hydra’s heads, spring up as fast as cut off; but they are ourselves—we can neither run from them, nor from the love of them.
[4.] Fourthly, And consequently highly advantageous in Satan’s design and enticement when they are driven up to a fury and passionateness; for besides their inward rage, which the Scripture calls burning, 1 Cor. vii. 9; Rom. i. 27, by which men are pricked and goaded on without rest or ease, to ‘make provisions for the flesh,’ and to enjoy or act what their unbridled violence will lead to in the execution of their desires, they carry all on before them, and engage the whole man with the highest eagerness ‘to fulfil every lust,’ Eph. ii. 3, to go up to the highest degrees, and with an unsatiable greediness to yield themselves ‘servants of iniquity unto iniquity,’ Rom. vi. 19.
CHAPTER XI.
That lust darkens the mind.—Evidences thereof.—The five ways by which it doth blind men: First, By preventing the exercise of reason.—The ways of that prevention: (1.) Secrecy in tempting; Satan’s subtlety therein; (2.) Surprisal; (3.) Gradual entanglements.
That Satan doth entice us by stirring up our lust, hath been discovered; it remains that I next speak to the second thing propounded, which was,
That by this power of lust he blinds and darkens our mind. That the lusts of men are the great principle upon which Satan proceeds in drawing on so great a blindness as we have spoken of, I shall briefly evince from these few observations:—