CHAPTER V.
Satan’s attempts against the peace of God’s children evidenced—(1.) By his malice; (2.) From the concernment of peace to God’s children; what these concerns are, explained. (3.) From the advantages which he hath against them by disquieting their minds—1. Confusion of mind; 2. Unfitness for duty, and how; 3. Rejection of duty; 4. A stumbling-block to others; 5. Preparation of the mind to entertain venomous impressions, and what they are; 6. Bodily weakness; 7. Our miseries Satan’s contentment.
We have viewed the ways of Satan by which he tempts to sin, by which he withdraws men from duty and service, by which he corrupts the mind through error. It only now remains that something be spoken of his attempts against the peace and comfort of the children of God.
That it is also one of Satan’s chief designs to cheat us of our spiritual peace, may be fully evinced by a consideration of his malice, the great concern of inward comfort to us, and the many advantages which he hath against us by the disquiet of our minds.
1. First, Whosoever shall seriously consider the devil’s implacable malice, will easily believe that he so envies our happiness that he will industriously rise up against all our comforts. It is his inward fret and indignation that man hath any interest in that happiness from which he irrecoverably fell, and that the Spirit of God should produce in the hearts of his people any spiritual joy or satisfaction in the belief and expectation of that felicity; and therefore must it be expected that his malice—heightened by the torment of his own guilt, which, as some think, are those ‘chains of darkness’ in which he is reserved at present ‘to the judgment of the great day,’ [2 Peter ii. 4,]—will not, cannot leave this part of our happiness unattempted. He endeavours to supplant us of our birthright, of our blessing, of our salvation, and the comfortable hopes thereof. From his common employment in this matter, the Scripture hath given him names, importing an opposition to Christ and his Spirit in the ways they take for our comfort and satisfaction. Christ is our advocate that pleads for us; Satan is διάβολος, a calumniator. The Spirit intercedes for us; Satan is κατήγορος τῶν ἀδελφῶν, ‘the accuser of the brethren, who accuseth them before God night and day,’ Rev. xii. 10. The Spirit is our comforter; Satan is our disturber, a Beelzebub who is ever raking in our wounds, as flies upon sores. The apostle Paul had his eye upon this when he was advising the Corinthians to receive again the penitent incestuous person; his caution was most serious: 2 Cor. ii. 11, ‘Lest Satan get advantage of us,’ lest he deceive and circumvent us; for his expression relates to men cunningly deceitful in trade, that do overreach and defraud the unskilful, πλεονεκτηθῶμεν; and the reason of this caution was the known and commonly experienced subtlety of Satan, ‘for we are not ignorant of his devices,’ implying that he will, and frequently doth lie at catch to take all advantages against us. Some indeed restrain these advantages to ver. 10,[317] as if Paul only meant that Satan was designing to fix the Corinthians upon an opinion, that backsliders into great sins were not to be received again, or that he laid in wait to raise a schism in the church upon the account of this Corinthian. Others[318] restrain this advantage which he waited for to ver. 7, where the apostle expresseth his fear lest the excommunicated person should ‘be swallowed up of too much sorrow;’ but the caution being not expressly bound up to any one of these, seems to point at them all, and to tell us that Satan drives on many designs at once, and that in this man’s case Satan would endeavour to put the Corinthians upon a pharisaical rigour, or to rend the church by a division about him, and to oppress the penitent by bereaving him of his due comfort; so that it appears still that it is one of his designs to hinder the comfort and molest the hearts of God’s children.
2. Secondly, Of such concern is inward spiritual peace to us, that it is but an easy conjecture to conclude from thence that so great an adversary will make it his design to rob us of such a jewel; for,
[1.] Spiritual comfort is the sweet fruit of holiness, by which God adorns and beautifies the ways of religious service, to render them amiable and pleasant to the undertakers: ‘Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace,’ Prov. iii. 17; and this is the present ‘rest and refreshment’ of God’s faithful servants under all their toil, that when they have ‘tribulation from the world,’ yet they have ‘peace in him,’ John xvi. 33; and that, being ‘justified by faith, they have peace with God,’ and sometimes ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory,’ 1 Peter i. 8; and this they may the more confidently expect, because ‘the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace,’ &c., Gal. v. 22.
[2.] Spiritual comfort is not only our satisfaction, but our inward strength and activity; for all holy services doth depend upon it. By this doth God strengthen our heart and gird up our loins ‘to run the ways of his commandments.’ It doth also strengthen the soul to undergo afflictions, to glory in tribulations, to triumph in persecutions. The outward man is also corroborated by the inward peace of the mind: ‘A merry heart doth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones,’ Prov. xvii. 22; all which are intended by that expression, Neh. viii. 10, ‘The joy of the Lord is your strength;’ it is strength to the body, to the mind, and that both for service and suffering; the reason whereof the apostle doth hint to us, Phil. iv. 7, ‘The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds’—that is, peace doth so guard us as with a garrison, φρουρήσει—for so much the word imports—that our affections, our hearts, being entertained with divine satisfactions, are not easily enticed by baser proffers of worldly delights, and our reasonings, our minds, being kept steady upon so noble an object, are not so easily perverted to a treacherous recommendation of vanities.
[3.] Joy and peace are propounded to our careful endeavours, for attainment and preservation, as a necessary duty of great importance to us. Rejoicings are not only recommended as seemly for the upright, but enjoined as service, and that in the constant practice: ‘Rejoice evermore;’ ‘In everything give thanks,’ 1 Thes. v. 16, 18; ‘Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say, rejoice,’ Phil. iv. 4. In the Old Testament, God commanded the observation of several feasts to the Jews. These, though they had their several respective grounds from God’s appointment, yet the general design of all seems to have been this, that ‘they might rejoice before the Lord their God,’ Lev. xxiii. 40; as if God did thereby tell them that it was the comely complexion of religion, and that which was very acceptable to himself, that his children might always serve him in cheerfulness of heart, seeing such have more cause to rejoice than all the world besides. They are then much mistaken that think mournful eyes and sad hearts be the greatest ornaments of religion, or that none are serious in the profession of it that have a cheerful countenance and a rejoicing frame of spirit. It is true, there is a joy that is devilish, and a mirth which is madness, to which Christ hath denounced a woe: ‘Woe be to them that laugh now, for they shall mourn and weep,’ [Luke vi. 25]; but this is a joy of another nature, a carnal delight in vanity and sin, by which men fatten their hearts to ruin; and whatsoever is said against this can be no prejudice to spiritual, holy joy in God, his favour and ways.