that he clave, while he is crying for pardoning mercy with a trembling heart, block up the way to his own prayers, and harden God's heart into a denial of them, by such horrid sins as these? In a word, does it not seem strange, that all the while he was a stranger to and an enemj' against God, he durst not venture on this sin, for the prodigious nature of it; and tliat now, when he begins to love God, those blasphemies should fit his mouth which were too big and liorrid before for him to meddle with? Secondly, Tlie manner how these blas- phemies rise in the Christian's thouglits will increase the probability that they are injections from Satan rather than motions of the Christian's own heart. They are commonly violent and sudden ; they come like lightning, Hashing into the Christian's thouglits before he hath time to deliberate with hiniself what he is doing : whereas that lust which is the ebullition of oiu- own hearts is ordinarily gradual in its motion ; it moves in a way more still and suitable to man's natiu-e ; it doth entice the soul, and by degrees inveigles it into a consent, bringing first the afi'ections on its side, which then it employeth to corrupt the understanding, and take it off from appearing against it by putting its eye out with some bribe of sensual pleasure and profit, and so by these paces it comes at last to have a more easy ticcess to, and success over, the will, which, being now deprived of her guard, yields the sooner to the sunnnons which lust makes. But these sudden dartings of blasphemous thoughts make a forcible entry upon the soul without any application used to gain its good will to come in ; their driving is like the driving of that hellish Jehu, it is the devil that is got upon the box ; who else could drive so furiously ? Yea, not only their suddenness and Violence, but inco- herence with the Christian's former thoughts and com-se, do still heighten the probability that they are darts shot from the devil's bow. Peter was once known to be of Christ's company by his voice : ' Thy speech,' say they, ' betrayeth thee;' he spake like them, and therefore was judged one of them. On the contrary, we may say of these blasphemous motions, they are not the Christian's ; their language betrays them to be rather the belchings of a devil than the voice of a saint. If they were woven by the soul, they would be something like the whole piece from which they are cut off. There is ordinarily a dependency in our thoughts ; we take the hint from one thought for another ; as circle risetli out of circle in the moved water, so does thought out of thought, till they spread into a discourse. Now, may not the Christian well wonder to see, may be when he is at the worship of God, and taken up with holy and heavenly meditations, a blasphemous thought on a sudden appearing in the midst of such company, to which it is so great a stranger, and also how it could get in among them ? If a holy thought siu'priseth us on a sudden, when we stand, as it were, with ovn* back on heaven, and there be nothing in the discourse which oin- hearts at ])resent are holding to usher it in, we may take it as the pure motion of the Spirit of Christ. Who, indeed, but he could be so soon in the midst of the soul, when the door is shut, even before the creature can turn liis thoughts to open it for him? And probably these blasphemies which rush upon thee, O C'hristian, at a time when thy soul is at the farthest distance from such thoughts, yea, sailing to the contrary ]>oiut, in thy ])raying to and praising of God, are tiie eruptions of that wicked one, and tliat on purpose to interrupt thee in that work, which of all other he fears and hates most. Thirdly, The effect these blasphemous motions have on the heart may make us think they are Satan's brats, rather than the birth of the Christian's own heart; and that is a dismal horror and consternation of the Christian's spirit, which reacheth often to the discom])osure of the body; so that an apparition of the devil to their bodily eyes could not affright them more than tliese blasphemies do, who walk in their imagination. Yea, they do not only cause an horror, but stir up a vehement indignation and abhorrence in the soul at their presence. If now they be the birth of the Christian's own heart, why this horror, — whence this indignation? These motions which arise from ourselves use to please us better. It is natural for men to love the children of their own loins, though black and deformed, and as natural to like the conceptions of their own minds. Solomon found out the true mother, by her tenderness to the child. If tliesc blas])hemies were the issue of the heart, familiarity with them might be expected, rather than horror at the sight of them ; favour to them rather than abhorrence of them. Were it not more likely, poor soul, that thou wouldst kiss them, if thy own, than seek
^QQ ABOVE ALL, TAKING THE SHIELD OF FAITH.