First, That sometimes he attains his end by exchanging one heinous sin for another as heinous, only not so much out of fashion: as the customs and times and places give laws and rules for fashions, according to which the decencies or indecencies of garbs and garments are determined, so is it sometimes with sin. Men and countries have their darling sins; times and ages also have their peculiar iniquities, which, in the judgment of sinners, do clothe them with a fitness and suitableness. Sometimes men grow weary of sins, because they are everywhere spoken against; because men point at them with the finger. The devil in this case is ready to change with them. Drunkenness hath in some ages and places carried a brand of infamy in its forehead; so hath uncleanness and other sins. When sinners cannot practise these with credit and reputation, then they please themselves with an alteration. He that was a drunkard is now, it may be, grown ambitious and boasting; he that was covetous is become a prodigal or profuse waster; the heart is as vain and sottish as before, only their lusts are let out another way, and run in another channel. Sometimes lusts are changed also with the change of men’s condition in the world. Poverty and plenty, a private and a public station, have their peculiar sins. He that of poor is made rich leaves his sins of distrust, envy, or deceitful dealing, and follows the bias of his present state to other wickednesses equally remarkable, and yet may be so blinded as to apprehend that Satan is departed from him.
Secondly, We may observe that Satan exchangeth sins with men in such a secret private manner, that the change is not easily discovered; and by this shift he casts a greater mist before the eyes of men. Thus he exchangeth open profaneness into secret sins: filthiness of the flesh into filthiness of the spirit. Men seem to reform their gross impieties, abstaining from drunkenness, swearing, adulteries; and then, it may be, they are taken up with spiritual pride, and their hearts are puffed up with high conceits of themselves, their gifts and attainments; or they are entangled with error, and spend their time in ‘doting about questions that engender strife rather than edifying,’ [1 Tim. vi. 4;] or they are taken up with hypocrisies. Thus the Pharisees left their open iniquities, washing the outside of the cup and platter, Mat. xxiii. 26; and instead of these, endeavoured to varnish and paint themselves over, so that in all this change they were but as graves that appeared not, Luke xi. 44. Or they acquiesce in formality and the outwards of religion; like that proud boaster, ‘Lord, I thank thee I am not as other men are,’ &c., [Luke xviii. 11.] In all these things the devil seems cast out and men reformed, when indeed he may continue his possession; only he lurks and hides himself under ‘the stuff,’ [1 Sam. x. 22.] These ways of sinning are but finer poisons, which, though not so nauseous to the stomach, nor so quick in their despatch, yet may be as surely and certainly deadly; such fly from the iron weapon, and a bow of steel strikes them through.
Having thus explained the three ways by which Satan pretends to depart from men, I must next shew his design in making such a pretence of forsaking his habitation.
[1.] First, That all this is done by him only upon design, may be easily concluded from several things hinted to us in the fore-cited place of Luke xi. As (1.) He doth not say that the devil is ‘cast out,’ as if there were a force upon him, but that he ‘goeth out;’ it is of choice, a voluntary departure. (2.) That his going out in this sense is notwithstanding irksome and troublesome to him. The heart of man, as one observes,[197] is a palace in his estimation, and dispossession, though upon design, is as a ‘desert’ to him, that affords him little ease or rest. (3.) That his going out is not a quitting of his interest; he calls it ‘his house’ still: ‘I will return to my house,’ saith he. (4.) He takes care in going out to lock the door, that it may not be taken up with better guests; he keeps it ‘empty’ and tenantable for himself: he tempts still, though not so visibly, and strives to suppress such good thoughts and motions as he fears may quite out him of his possession. (5.) He goes out, cum animo revertendi, with a purpose of returning. (6.) His secession is so dexterously and advantageously managed, that he finds an easy admittance at his return, and his possession confirmed and enlarged: ‘they enter in and dwell there.’
[2.] Secondly, The advantages that he designs by this policy are these chiefly: (1.) By this means men are dangerously confirmed in their securities. Thus the Pharisee blessed himself, ‘Lord, I thank thee,’ &c. They please themselves with this supposition, that the devil is cast out; and upon this they cease their war and watchfulness. As Saul, when he heard that David had escaped, ‘went not out to seek after him;’ so these trouble not themselves any further to inquire Satan’s haunts in their hearts. Thus he sits securely within, whilst they think he is fled from them. (2.) By this means also he fits men as instruments to serve his turn in other works of his. He must have, in some cases, handsome tools to work withal. All men are not fit agents in persecution, either to credit it, or to carry it through with vigour and zeal; for this end he seems to go out of some, that under a smoother and profession-like behaviour, when they are stirred up to persecute, the rigour might seem just. Thus ‘devout and honourable women’ were stirred up to persecute Paul and Barnabas, Acts xiii. 50. The devil had gone out so far, that they had gained the reputation of devout, and then their zeal would easily take fire for persecution, and withal put a respect and credit upon it; for who would readily suspect that to be evil or Satan’s design, which is carried on by such instruments? Besides, if he at any time intends to blemish the good ways of God by the miscarriages of professors, he fetcheth his arrow out of this quiver usually; if he brings a refined hypocrite to a scandalous sin, then doth the mouth of wickedness open itself to blaspheme ‘the generation of the just,’ as if none were better. Such agents could not be so commonly at hand for such a service, if Satan did not in the ways aforementioned seem to go out of men. (3.) It is another part of his design, after a pretended departure, to take the advantage of their security, to return with greater strength and force. This Christ particularly notes, ‘Then taketh he seven spirits worse than himself,’ &c. Such, as Peter tells us, being ‘again entangled, are totally overcome, and their latter end is worse with them than their beginning,’ 2 Pet. ii. 20. How many might I name, if it were convenient, that I have known and observed, exactly answering this description of the apostle, that have for some years left off their wicked ways, and engaged for a profession of religion; and yet at last ‘have returned like the dog to his own vomit again’! The devil, when he fights after the Parthian manner—Terga vertentes metuendi Parthi—is most to be feared; when he turns his back, he shoots most envenomed arrows, and whom he so wounds, he commonly wounds them to the death.
The fourth and last stratagem of Satan for the keeping his possession, is to stop the way, to barricade up all passages, that there may be no possibility of escape or retreat. When he perceives that his former ways of policy are not sufficient, but that his slaves and servants are so far enlightened in the discovery of the danger that they are ready to turn back from him, then he bestirs himself to oppose their revolt; and as God sometimes ‘hedgeth up the way’ of sinners with ‘thorns,’ that they should not follow their old lovers, so doth Satan, Hosea ii. 6; to which purpose,
[1.] First, He endeavours to turn them off such resolutions, by threatening to reduce them with a strong hand. Here he boasts and vaunts of his power and sinners’ weakness; as Rabshakeh did against Hezekiah, ‘What is that confidence wherein thou trustest? have the gods of Hamath and Arpad,’ &c., ‘delivered their land out of my hand?’ [2 Kings xviii. 33, 34.] Have those that have gone before you been able to deliver themselves from me? Have they been able to rescue themselves? Did I not force those that were stronger than you? Did I not make David number the people? Did I not overcome him in the matter of Uriah? Did I not compel Peter to deny his Lord, notwithstanding his solemn profession to the contrary? And can you think to break away from me so easily? By this means he would weaken their heart, and enfeeble their resolutions, that they might sit down under their bondage, as hopeless ever to recover themselves from his snare: but if these affrightments hinder not, if, notwithstanding these brags, sinners prepare themselves to turn from sin to God; then,
[2.] Secondly, He improves all he can that distance which sin hath made betwixt God and them. Sins of ordinary infirmity and common incursion do not so break the peace of God’s children, as sins of a higher nature do. Even in the saints themselves, we may observe, after notorious transgression, (1.) That the acquaintance and familiarity betwixt God and them is immediately broken. What a speedy alteration is made! How suddenly are all things changed! God hides himself. The sun that shined but now, and did afford a very comfortable and cherishing heat, before we are aware, is now hid in a cloud. Our warmth and refreshments are turned into cold and chillness. There is also a change on our part, and that suddenly. As in the resurrection, we shall be changed ‘in the twinkling of an eye;’ so here, in a moment, our joys flag and decay, our delights grow dull, our activity is impaired, we are bound and frozen up, and it is altogether winter with the soul. (2.) It may be noted, that this begets an enstrangement in us, and we so carry it as if we had resolved not to renew our league with God; for though we are not altogether so desperate as to make formal resolutions of continuing in sin, of casting off God, and bidding an everlasting farewell to our former acquaintance; though we do not say, We will now undo ourselves quite, and harden ourselves in our rebellion; yet sin hath left us in such a maze, and filled us with so many damps and misgiving thoughts, that we do not think of returning; we are at a stand, and like a mighty man astonished that cannot find his hands. We perceive we have lost so much, and have run into such great unkindnesses, that, like broken merchants, nothing is more irksome and tedious than to review our ways, or look into our debt-books. Instead of this, we endeavour to divert our thoughts, to cast off care, as if we conceived that time would eat it out, and that then of course we might fall into the old channel of freedom and comfort. (3.) When we return at last, oh, with what bashfulness and amazedness do we appear at our next supplications! what blushing, what damps, what apology! Nay, sometimes as the man without the wedding garment, ‘we are speechless!’ [Mat. xxii. 12.] How rightly doth such a man resemble the publican confessing, and the prodigal supplicating. While consulting what to say for himself, he now begins to feel with what sense and feeling the prophets and holy men of old used to express themselves in their confessions, ‘We blush, we are ashamed, astonished, and confounded.’ This distance sin makes betwixt saints and God sometimes; but betwixt God and the unconverted it is far greater. Now, when either an unconverted sinner or a fallen saint puts himself to look to God for reconciliation, then doth the devil labour to improve this for their hindrance. That he accuseth us to God, is evident by Satan’s standing at Joshua’s right hand, Zech. iii. 1. How he accuseth God to us we know. He tells us it is in vain to seek to make up our peace after so great provocations; urging that he is ‘a jealous God,’ ‘of pure eyes,’ highly resenting the affronts we have given him, &c. Nay, he goes so high this way, that God is put to it in Scripture, of purpose to furnish us with an answer to these objections, to proclaim that he is ‘slow to anger,’ ‘not easily provoked;’ that if men return from the evil of their ways, he will ‘return to them,’ ‘accept,’ and ‘pity’ them, &c.
[3.] Thirdly, If this divert them not, but that they still persist in their resolves, then he follows after them with a high hand; sometimes, as Pharaoh did with Israel, he grows severe and imperious with them, and redoubles the tale of their bricks. He forceth them to higher and more frequent iniquities. Sometimes, as the same Pharaoh, he musters up all his chariots and horsemen to pursue after them, and in the highest diligence imaginable he brings forth his greatest power, besetting them on all sides with temptations and allurements of pleasures and delight. Where he perceives his time to be short, and his power shaken, he comes down in resolves to try his utmost strength. And hence it is that converts complain, that when they begin in earnest to look after God, they are most troubled with temptations. Besides this, whatever he can do to make them ‘drive heavily,’ [Exod. xiv. 25,] shall not be wanting. Sometimes he makes attempts upon their thoughts and affections, which are as their chariot wheels; and if these can be knocked off any way, it retards them. Sometimes he casts stumbling-blocks in their way. If any prejudice may divert them, if threatenings or penalties can hinder; if the frownings of friends or anything else can put a stop to their proceedings, he will have them ready. Sometimes he endeavours to retard them by solicitations of acquaintance, offers of former occasions and opportunities of sinning, or whatever else may be as a remora to their intentions.
[4.] Fourthly, But if none of these serve, then, as his last shift, he proclaims open war against them, pursues them as enemies and rebels. Now he begins to accuse them for that which they did by his advice and temptation. Now sins that were called little are aggravated. Now that day of repentance, which he was wont to say was long, he tells them it is quite spent, that the sun of their hope is set. Nothing now doth he suggest but hell, damnation, and wrath; he makes them, as it were, see it, hear it, and feel it in everything. That interest in their hearts which he dissembled before, now he stands upon and asserts, and will not be beat off; designing in all this either to make them weary of these new resolves by this unusual disquietment and hostility, or to precipitate them upon some desperate undertaking, or at least to avenge himself upon them, in venting his malice and rage against them; but of this more afterward.