When this desire after knowledge is animated with pride, as oft it is, for ‘knowledge puffeth up,’ then it is more dangerous. When men are upon a design to seem higher than others, to be singular, to see more than what all men see, to be admired, to out-talk their neighbours, what adventures will they not make! How fair do they lie open to any conceit that may serve this end!
That Satan labours to improve this curiosity is without doubt; he carefully affords fuel to this burning, and diligently blows it up into a flame. The first temptation had that ingredient in it, ‘Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil,’ [Gen. iii. 5.] And we see it was a great enticement to Eve: that which would make ‘one wise’ was therefore desirable. The blame of Israel’s first idolatry seems to be laid at this door: Deut. xxxii. 17, ‘They sacrificed to gods whom they knew not,’ to new gods that came newly up; implying that they were drawn aside from their old established way of worship by a curiosity to try the new ways of the heathens. And so great a hand hath this generally in errors, that Paul, 2 Tim. iv. 3, makes this itch after novelty the great ground of that defection from truth which he foresaw was coming, ‘They shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears,’ Pruritus aurium est scabies ecclesiarum. This itch of the ear is the usual forerunner of a scab in the church, because it doth dispose men to receive any kind of teacher. God indeed doth sometimes take the advantage of our natural curiosity for our good. By this means many of John’s hearers, who went out into the wilderness to him, as to a ‘strange sight,’ as those words imply, ‘What went ye out into the wilderness to see?’ [Mat. xi. 7,] were converted. By this means, the gospel afterwards made a large progress, as we see commonly new teachers affect most at first; for when men grow acquainted with their gifts, their admiration decays, and the success of their labours is not so great many times. The devil also observing the prevalency of curiosity, and that men are more pleased with new notions than with old truths, he endeavours also to plough with this heifer, and oft makes a great harvest by it. There is yet another advantage more that he sometimes useth, and that is,
5. Fifthly, Atheistical debauchery. When men by long custom in sinning have arrived to habitual carelessness and presumption, then they become practical atheists. Their vicious habits work upon their understandings to obliterate all principles. When men are gone so far, they are fit engineers for Satan; for while they disbelieve all things, they can, to serve a design or to head a party, take up any opinion, and pretend the greatest seriousness in the propagating it, though in the meantime they secretly laugh at the credulity of the vulgar.
These men let out themselves and all their parts to the devil, and he knows how to make use of them, to bring on the delusion and deception of others. Many ages have given examples of such. Those seducers mentioned in the New Testament were, some of them, of this rank, and therefore called ‘deceitful workers,’ [2 Cor. xi. 13.] Such as were not really under those persuasions which they thought to fix upon others, but upon design, transformed themselves into the apostles of Christ; such as served not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own bellies, and yet by good words and fair speeches deceived the hearts of the simple: Rom. xvi. 18, ‘Who, through covetousness, with feigned words, made merchandize of men,’ 2 Pet. ii. 3. Balaam was such, and the woman Jezebel, that called herself a prophetess, Rev. ii. 20. Such was the Archbishop of Spalato,[234] who for advantage could at pleasure take up and lay down his religion. Such a one was the false Jew, not so long since discovered in this place, who being a Romish emissary, pretended to be a Jew converted; and seeking a pure church, under that vizor, designing to overthrow, by private insinuations, the faith of the simple, uncautious admirers![235] By such instruments Satan works where he hath opportunity.
CHAPTER III.
Of Satan’s improving these advantages for error: 1. By deluding the understanding directly: which he doth—(1.) By countenancing error from Scripture. Of his cunning therein. (2.) By specious pretences of mysteries; and what these are. Of personal flatteries. (3.) By affected expressions. Reason of their prevalency. (4.) By bold assertions. The reasons of that policy. (5.) By the excellency of the persons appearing for it, either for gifts or holiness. His method of managing that design. (6.) By pretended inspiration. (7.) By pretended miracles. His cunning herein. (8.) By peace and prosperity in ways of error. (9.) By lies against truth, and the professors of it.
What are the general advantages which Satan hath to forward his design of error we have seen. It now remains that we take an account of the various ways by which he improves those advantages, and those may be referred to two heads: (1.) They are such stratagems as more directly work upon the understanding to delude and blind it. Or, (2.) They are such as indirectly by the power of the will and affections do influence it.
1. First, Those stratagems that more immediately concern the understanding are the use of such arguments, which carry in them a probability to confirm an error, though indeed they are but fallacies, sophisms, or paralogisms, of which the apostle speaks, Col. ii. 4, ‘Lest any beguile you,’—that is, lest they impose upon you by ‘false reasonings.’ His usual way of proceeding in this case is:
(1.) First, When he hath to do with men that are brought up with profession and belief of Scripture, he is then careful to give an error some countenance or pretence from Scripture. It is not his course to decry the Scriptures with such men, but to suppose their truth and authority, as the most plausible way to his design; for by this means he doth not only prevent a great many startling objections which would otherwise rise up against him—seeing men brought up with Scripture cannot easily be brought to call them false—but with considerable advantage lie doth thereby authorise and justify his error, for nothing can give more boldness or confidence to a mistake than a belief that it is backed with Scripture.