And I shall begin with that of Gal. iii. 1, ‘O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth?’ &c. The word which the apostle here useth for bewitching, as grammarians and critics note,[221] is borrowed from the practice of witches and sorcerers, who use by secret powers to bind the senses, and to effect mischiefs. It is true he speaks of false apostles, but he intends Satan as the chief workman; and this he transfers to signify Satan’s power upon the mind, in blinding the understanding for the entertainment of error. Neither can anything be objected why this place should not prove a fascinating power in Satan, such as we have been speaking of, but this, that it may be supposed to intend no more than an ordinary powerful persuasion by arguments. Yet this may be answered, not only from the authority of learned interpreters, who apprehend the apostle and his expression to intend more, but also from some concomitant particulars in the text. He calls them ‘foolish Galatians,’ as we translate it, but the original goes a little higher, to signify a madness; and withal he seems to be surprised with wonder at the power of Satan upon them, which had not only prevailed against the truth, but against such evident manifestations of it as they had when they were so plainly, fully, and efficaciously instructed; for ‘before their eyes Jesus Christ had been evidently set forth;’ which expressions and carriage cannot rationally be thought to befit a common ordinary case.[222]
Next to this, let us a little consider that famous scripture in 2 Thes. ii. 9-11, ‘Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power ... and for this cause, God shall send them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie.’ I shall from this place observe a few things, which if put together will clear the truth we speak of: As, first, In this delusion here mentioned, the apostle doth not only set down extraordinary outward means, as signs and lying wonders, but also suits these extraordinary means with a suitable concomitant inward power; for by ‘power’ I do not understand, as some, [Piscator and Sclater,] a power of shewing signs and doing wonders, as if the apostle had said, ἐν δυνάμει σημέιων καὶ τεράτων, with the power of signs and wonders—for the words will not well bear that without some unnatural straining; but I understand by it a power, distinct from the signs and wonders, by which he moves their hearts to believe, by an inward working upon their minds, striking in with the outward means of lying miracles propounded to their senses. And we may the better satisfy ourselves in this interpretation, if we compare it with Rom. xv. 19,[223] where not only the power of doing wonders is expressed by a phrase, proper and different from this of the text in hand, ‘through mighty signs and wonders,’ or in the power of signs and wonders, but it is also clearly distinguished from the power of the Spirit of God, in working upon the hearts, to make those wonders efficacious and persuasive; so that, as in the Spirit of God we observe a power to do wonders, and a power to work upon the heart by these wonders, we may conclude that this wicked spirit hath also, in order to sin and delusion, this twofold power. But secondly, I note further, That this power is called a special energy of peculiar force and efficacy in its working—κατ’ ἔνέργειαν τοῦ Σατανᾶ. The strange inexpressible strength of it seems to stand in need of many words for explanation. He calls it ‘all power’—ἐν πάσῃ δυνάμει—which as well notes the degree and height, as the variety of its operations, and then the energy, the virtue, operativeness, and strength of power. Thirdly, It is also to be observed that Satan’s success and exercise of this power of delusion depends upon the commission of God, and that therefore it is extraordinary, and not permitted to him but upon special occasions and provocation, ‘for this cause God shall send,’ &c. Fourthly, The success of this power when exercised is certain. They are not only strong delusions, in regard of the power from whence they come, but also in regard of the event; those upon whom they come cannot but believe. Infatuation and pertinaciousness are the certain fruits of it.[224] Fifthly, The proof of all is manifest in the quality of the errors entertained, for they are palpable gross lies, and yet believed as the very truths of God, and they are in such weighty points as do evidently determine the soul to ruin, ‘lies to be damned,’ which two things are sufficient proofs of spiritual fascination; it being unimaginable that rational men, and especially such as were instructed to a belief of a contrary truth, should so far degenerate from the light of reason as to be deluded by gross and apparent lies, and of such high importance, except their minds had been blinded in some extraordinary way. Some further confirmation may be added to this truth from 1 Kings xxii. 21, ‘And there came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him.... I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also.’ I might here take notice of Satan’s readiness in this work, as wanting neither skill nor will, if he were but always furnished with a commission; as also the powerful efficacy of spiritual witchcraft, where it pleaseth the Lord to permit to Satan the exercise of his power, ‘Thou shalt persuade, and prevail also.’ But that which I would observe here, is something relating to the manner of his proceeding in these delusions. He attempted to deceive the false prophets, and by them to delude Ahab; and both, by being a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets, which necessarily, as Peter Martyr observes, implies, (1.) That Satan had a power so strongly to fix upon their imaginary[225] faculty the species, images, or characters of what was to be suggested, that he could not only make them apprehend what he presented to their minds, but also make them believe that it was a divine inspiration, and consequently true; for these false prophets did not speak hypocritically what they knew to be false, but what they confidently apprehended to be true, as appears by the whole story. (2.) He could irritate and inflame their desires to publish these their persuasions to the king, after the manner of divine prophecies. (3.) He had a further power of persuading Ahab that his prophets spake truth.[226]
That passage of Rom. i. 28, ‘God gave them over to a reprobate mind,’ doth give some account how men are brought by the devil into these false persuasions. A reprobate mind is a mind injudicious, a mind that hath lost its power of discerning—Νοῦς ἀδοκιμός. It is plain then that he can so besot and blind the mind that it shall not be startled at things of greatest absurdity or inconveniency.
If any yet further inquire how he can do these things; we must answer, that his particular ways and methods in this case we know not: only it may be added, that, Eph. iv. 17, Paul tells us he can make their ‘minds vain, and darken their understandings.’ By mind, Νοὸς, the seat of principles is commonly understood. By understanding, Διάνοια, the reasoning or discursive faculty, which is the seat of conclusions: so that his power seems to extend to the obliterating of principles, and can also disable them to make right inferences, insomuch that he wants nothing that may be necessary to the begetting of strong persuasions of any falsehood which he suggests, according to what is intimated, Gal. v. 3, ‘This persuasion cometh not of him that called you’—that is, not of God, but of the devil.
From all these scriptures then it appears that this spiritual fascination is a power in Satan, which he exerts, by special commission, upon those that receive not the truth in the love of it, by which he can so strongly imprint falsehoods upon their minds, that they become unable to discern betwixt truth and a lie, and so by darkening their understanding, they are effectually persuaded to believe an error.
(2.) Secondly, There is yet another proof of this spiritual witchcraft, from the consideration of the effects of it upon the deluded, and the uncouth, strange, unnatural way of its proceeding. Let all particulars of this kind be put together, and it will not be found possible to give any other rational account of some errors than that of extraordinary delusion.
[1.] First, Let us take notice of the vileness and odiousness of some errors that have prevailed upon men. Some have been plainly sottish, so evidently foolish that it cannot be imagined that men that entertained them had at that time the use of reason, or any competent understanding. This very consideration the prophet Isaiah insists upon largely, chap. xliv. 9-21, where he taxeth them smartly for the senseless doltishness of their error in worshipping idols. He tells them the matter of it is the work of nature, a cedar, oak, or ash, that they themselves possibly had planted, and the rain did nourish it, ver. 14. He tells them also that the form of it was from the art of the workman, the smith, or carpenter: ver. 12, 13, ‘The smith with the tongs both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and worketh it with the strength of his arms.... The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with a compass.’ He further minds them, that without any reverence they make use of the residue of the materials out of which they formed their idol to common services of dressing their meat and warming themselves. ‘He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied; yea, warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire,’ ver. 16. Then he accuseth them of sottishness, in that the ‘residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down to it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god,’ ver. 17. And from all this he concludes, that seeing this is so directly contrary to common reason and understanding—which in the ordinary exercise of it would easily have freed them from such a dotage; for if they had but ‘knowledge or understanding to say, I have burnt part of it in the fire; I have baked bread, and shall I make the residue an abomination?’ ver. 19, they could not have been so foolish. It must, then, of necessity be a spiritual infatuation. ‘Their eyes were shut that they cannot see, and their hearts, that they cannot understand,’ ver. 18. ‘A deceived heart hath turned him aside,’ ver. 20. Other errors there are that lead to beastly and unnatural villanies, such as directly cross all the sober principles of mankind, the natural principles of modesty, the most general and undoubted principles of religion and holiness, as when adulteries, swearing, ranting, going naked, cruelties, murders, outrageous confusions and madness, are clothed with pretences of spirit, revelation, freedom in the use of the creature, exercise of love, and having all things common, &c.: of which sad instances have been given more than once. Let any sober man consider how it could come to pass, that men that have reason enough to defend them against such furies, and the knowledge of Scripture, which everywhere—with the greatest happiness imaginable and highest earnestness—doth prohibit such practices as most abominable, and doth direct to a sober, just, modest, humble, inoffensive life, should entertain notwithstanding, such errors as transform men into beasts, monsters, or rather devils, and religion into the grossest impieties; and all this as the perfection and top of religious attainment commanded in the word of God or by his Spirit, and well-pleasing to most holy and pure divine majesty! Let it, I say, be left to the consideration of men how it should be, without some such extraordinary cause as hath been mentioned.
[2.] Secondly, Let it be observed also, that some errors bring with them some extraordinary, strange, unnatural, unusual actions, and put men into such odd garbs, postures, and behaviours, that it is easy to see they are acted by a force or power not human. Some have been carried to do things beyond whatsoever might have been expected from the age and capacities of the parties; as ecstasies, trances, and quakings of little children; their prophesying and speaking Scripture threatenings after such fits. Some have been acted in a way of ecstatical fury; as Montanus, of whom Eusebius witnesseth,[227] that ‘sometimes he would be seized upon by a kind of malignant spirit, and would suddenly break forth into a rage and madness, and presently utter rash and bold speeches, strange, unusual voices, with prophesyings; insomuch that he was judged by those that saw him to be acted by the devil.’ Others have been as in a more sober spiritual rapture; an instance whereof I shall give you from Mr Baxter in these words: ‘I have heard from an ancient godly man that knew Arthington and Coppinger, that they were possessed with the spirit of the Grundletonians. The same man affirmed that he went but once among them himself, and after prayer they breathed on him as giving him the Holy Ghost; and he was so strangely transported for three days that he was not the same man, and his family wondered what was the matter with him: he had no confession of sin, but an elevated strain in prayer, as if he had been in strange raptures; and after three days he was as before, and came no more at them.’[228] Some have been carried into childish and ridiculous actions: such was the behaviour of Jo. Gilpin in his delusion at Kendal in Westmoreland; as his going to the fiddler’s house, playing upon a bass viol in token of spiritual melody; his creeping up the streets upon hands and knees in token of bearing his cross; his making marks on the ground, and beating it, as his mortification of sin; and a great many more things of like nature.[229]
Such things as these are as spiritual marks and characters engraven upon errors, by which a diabolical power, moving and acting such deluded creatures, like so many puppets, is evidently discovered.
[3.] Thirdly, When we see not only idiots, and those whose defect of understanding might put them under the power of an ordinary cheat, thus imposed upon, but men otherwise intelligent, rational, and serious, blinded with follies, taken with apparent dotages, admiring trifles, and carried away with things which common reason would teach them to abhor, it is more than suspicious that it is not any probability of truth or excellency in the error that prevails with them, but a spiritual power that doth bewitch them. When we consider that such a learned man as Tertullian begins to admire such a wretch as Montanus; or such a one as Arthington led away with Hacket and Coppinger; or such a man as Kneperdollin seduced by John of Leyden; and especially such numbers of wise and seemingly sober and religious persons, going down the stream after irrational and plainly irreligious errors,—what else can be apprehended to be the cause but a powerful satanical delusion?