devil's industry to have kept him from Christ, and by what means he hindered his conversion so long! Certainly, every soul that is recovered to Christ by the Gospel is fetched out of the very paws and mouth of the lion, and snatched as a brand out of the fire, and fetched as it were from the very suburbs of hell. The resistance is such, by such shifts and solicitations, that it fully discovereth the devil to be the author.

And as for the godly that are recovered, because they are yet in the way, and not at the end, in the field, and not with the • crown on their heads, it is God's will that the enemy shall have leave to assault them while they are here; and in such a manner he doth it that they can discern that it is of him. They cannot set upon a work that is pleasing to Christ, but the tempter resisteth them. When do they ever study, or preach, or exhort, but he resisteth them; when do they set upon the reformation of any faults in themselves, in their families, in the neighbourhood, or in the church, but Satan resisteth them! Christians, you have a singular advantage above all men to discern the malice of Satan against Christ, and so to be confirmed in the truth of your belief, and to repel all blasphemous temptations to the contrary. How can you ever doubt whether Satan be against Christ, who live in the combat, and have fought under Christ against him so long, and felt so many of his sharp assaults, and received so many wounds and foils by him, as you have done? Have recourse to your own experience, for it must needs be a great advantage; and, especially, note how the enmity is disclosed in these particulars following:

1. Do you not observe that the bent of Satan's temptation is against God and the Lord Jesus Christ? How doth he per-suade men to false, unworthy thoughts of God; to think of him either as unholy, to encourage them to sin, or, as cruel and unmerciful, to take off their love from him and drive them to despair; yea, where he hath opportunity, he persuadeth them that there is no God. When men fall into melancholy, which it seems doth give some advantage to his temptations, whether he were before godly or ungodly, knowing or ignorant, it is ten to one but he is violently tempted either to believe that there is no God, no Christ, no Scripture true, nor the soul immortal, or else to speak out some blasphemous words of God. Multitudes of persons have I spoken with in this case that have been so terribly assaulted with these temptations day and night, that they could not rest. Though some of them scarce ever thought be

fore of such matters, nor ever heard them from any other, and others of them never doubted of them; yet now, which way ever they go, and whatever they do, such thoughts come into their minds. Many have I known live in continual fear lest they should blaspheme God, and could hardly keep in the words, and wherever they were, they were still haunted with such solicitations to blasphemy; they could not hear or pray, but they were urged to blaspheme; and some of them have been overcome, and have let out blasphemous words, and then the tempter hath persuaded them that their sin was unpardonable such a miserable life have many under his continual, malicious buffetings. And though there be something in the melancholy disease that may cause troubles and perplexities of mind; yet why it should still work thus against God, and Christ, and Scripture, and that in almost all persons, and so violently, I cannot imagine, if the hellish enemy did not take advantage hereof for these temptations.

2. Do you not find that the bent of all temptations is against the truth and ways of Christ, and those holy works that he calls you to? What are they but to draw you from holiness to unholiness, from obedience to disobedience, from heavenliness to earthliness, from temperance to sensuality, and, in a word, from every virtue unto every vice, or at least to those where he hath most hopes to prevail? Do you not feel sometimes, if not very often, when you should be earnest with God in secret prayer, an unreasonable withdrawing and disturbance within you? It is a duty that costs you nothing, and subjecteth you to no losses or hazards in the world; and yet when you would draw so near to God, do you not find that you are drawn back; and though you have leisure and liberty, yet the tempter will draw you to be unwilling, and all the while are at it, is either taking down your affections, carrying off your thoughts, casting in distempers, or urging you to be short, make haste, and give over before you have well begun; so that you may easily feel that there is a devil that is against your communion with God, and envieth him his worship, and would have you rise and go away without the blessing? The like you may find in your meditations, if you do but set yourselves purposely and seriously to meditate of Christ or the life to come, or any necessary subject, how doth the tempter clog you, or take you off, or keep down your affections, so that you can hardly make any thing of your meditations. If you endeavour by gracious conference or counsel to win others, or to edify

you

each other; how many diversions and hinderances shall you meet with! Whereas, in vain talk, in folly and sin, you may go on without such resistance. What sin is there that you may not even feel Satan pleading for, and promoting or commending to your hearts! How often is he kindling the fire of lust, and blowing at the coal of pride and ambition, and enticing you to an esteem of the things of the world, or to venture upon some forbidden pleasures, and to account them far greater pleasures than they are! Truly, I feel that enmity to Christ, his truth, and ways, in the daily solicitations or temptations of the devil, either hindering good, or drawing to evil, that methinks should do much to convince a very infidel, if he did feel the like, that certainly the doctrine of Christ is true, and his ways are good, or else the serpent would not oppose them. I find he is fighting against Christ and his Spirit in me, day and night. Whence can all that unreasonable dissuasion and withdrawing from Christ and duty else proceed? I know the heart is bad, and may bring forth such fruits without much tillage; but as the heart would not have been so evil, but for the evil one that deceived us so as bad as it is, I can find that there is an instigator of it unto further evil than else it would of itself commit, and that when it is let alone, it is not so prone to evil, nor so backward to good, as it is under such temptations. He that hath such a fight within him, and lives himself in the continual trouble and duty of a soldier, and is fain still to stand on his watch and guard, or else be overthrown, and feel the wounds, hath less reason than any man else in the world to doubt whether Satan be an enemy to Christ, or whether it be not a good cause that hath so bad an enemy.

Thus I have manifested on Satan's part, that he is at utmost enmity with Christ, and therefore could not be the causer of his miracles, nor lend him his power for the building of his church; and so that the sin against the Holy Ghost, which the pharisees were guilty of, was a most unreasonable sin, and a rejecting of their Physician against so full a testimony of God, that it was a righteous thing that they should die in their sins.

Sect. XII.

I shall next proceed to show you, on Christ's part, that he is as great an enemy to Satan, as Satan is to him; and by his nature, interest, design, and works, to make it plain that he was

so far from being beholden to him for his help, that it is Christ alone that must utterly confound him.

And 1. For the nature of Christ, it is manifest to us by his doctrine and his works, that it was most holy; seeing so holy a doctrine and life could not else have proceeded from it. He challenged his adversaries to convince him of sin, (John viii. 46,) but never man could do it. It was his good deeds that were charged upon him as his crimes, as that he healed on the Sabbath day, that he was among sinners as a physician among the sick, that he called himself the Son of God, &c.

That he was merciful, and a lover of mankind, was as evident as light is in the sun as we shall touch anon when we come to his works. This was a nature perfectly contrary to the nature of devils, who are unclean, impure spirits, and haters of God and man. Satan was a devouring roaring lion; Christ was the Lamb of God. Satan rageth against those that hurt him not; Christ prayeth for his enemies: Satan would set all the world upon blood and revenge; Christ bids them forgive and love their enemies, and learn of him to be meek and lowly, and commandeth Peter to put up his sword.

2. And for his interest, it is perfectly contrary to that of Satan. If God be dishonoured, and man destroyed, and himself honoured, the devil hath what he would have. If God be honoured, and man saved, and Satan shamed and confounded, Christ hath what he would have. Satan's kingdom consisteth in sinfulness and contentions, divisions and revenge, and in the ruin, and misery, and calamities of mankind: Christ's kingdom consisteth in righteousness towards God and man, in peace with God and among ourselves, and in joy in the Holy Ghost. (Rom. xiv. 17; Jam. iii. 16, 17.)

3. So also was the design of Christ most perfectly contrary to the design of Satan. The design of Satan was to rob God of his due obedience and honour, and man of his grace and salvation, and to be man's idol himself: the design of Christ is to glorify his Father, (John xvii. 4, and xiii. 31, 32,) to bring man to his true obedience, (Acts xxvi. 18,) to restore him to the grace of God, and recover him to salvation, and to root out all idolatry, and especially the worship of devils from the world. I do but name these briefly, because it is his works wherein all these are manifested, and in the mention of those works we shall have occasion to review them.

Sect. XIII.

When God had created man, it was his pleasure that he should perform to him a tried obedience, and that he should have life and death propounded to his choice, and his happiness or misery should be in the hands of his own will, and that the tempter should have leave to assault him with his temptations, seeing God had given him so many helps against them, as in reason should have sufficed to hold him to God, against the persuasions of the strongest temptations; and seeing that obedience is little worth, which will be cast off as soon as men are tempted to disobey. Upon this permission the tempter makes his onset, and quickly deceiveth man, and wins the day. By this conquest he got a double power over man, the Lord in judgment leaving him to be delusively ruled and ruined by him, whom he had chosen before his Maker to believe and obey. First, he had got an interest in his mind and will, and so could rule him by his temptations. Secondly, he was made God's executioner, and so had a power to punish him. But mercy provided a remedy, and the Son of God interposed, and undertook the rescue of the sinner, and the preservation of the world, and the recovery of God's honour in the reparation of the injury, and to assume the nature of man to these ends; that so he might conquer Satan in the nature that was conquered, and might offer himself a sacrifice for the demonstration of justice in the same nature. The first declaration of this undertaking was unto the serpent himself, (Gen. iii. 15,) but doubtless in the ears of man to his comfort. Where note the first breaking out of the enmity. Satan had played the enemy to man, and deserved to be taken by him as his enemy. The promise to man is part of the condemnation of the serpent. That is man's recovery and life, which is his misery and destruction. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." By the serpent is meant both the instrumental serpent, whom the devil used (as no doubt Eve knew; it being not agreeable to the nature of spirits to be of themselves visible, but to borrow corporal instru→ ments and visors when they will sensibly converse with man,) and also here is meant the devil himself, the tempting serpent. By the enmity is meant a very natural antipathy or hatred of one another; which shall be born and bred in man and corporal serpents, and continue in Satan; and is not only, caused by