poison in sweet wine, tliey are down before he is aware, and do diffuse apace in liis affections, poisoning the Christian's spirits, but tliose of blasphemy are like poison in some bitter potion ; either it is spit out before it is down, or vomited by the Christian before it hath spread itself far into his affections. Sins are great or small by the share the will hath in the acting of them ; and blasphemous thoughts, commonly having less of the Christian's will and affections in them thaft the other, cannot be a greater sin. Faith tells the soul that God hath gracious ends in suffering him to be haunted with such troublesome guests, or they should not be quartered on him. Possibly God saw some other sin, which thou wert in great danger of, and he sends Satan to trouble thee with thesie temptations, that he may not overcome thee with the other ; and though a plaster may be very offensive and loathsome, yet it is better to endure that awhile, than a disease which will hazard thy life. Better tremble at the sight of blaspliemous thoughts, than strut thyself in the pride of thy heart at the sight of thy gifts and privileges. The first will nrake thee think thyself as vile as the devil himself in thy own eyes; but tlie other will make thee prodigiously wicked, and so like the devil in God's eyes. Faith will put the Cln-istian on some noble exploits for God, thereby to vindicate himself, and prove the devil's charge a lie, as one that is accused of some traitorous design against h's prince, to wipe off that calumny, doth undertake some notable enterprise for honour. This, indeed, is the fullest revenge the Christian can take, either of Satan for troubling him with such injections, or his own heart for issuing out such impiu'e streams. When David preferred Saul's life in the cave above a kingdom, which one hearty blow might have procured him, he proved all his enemies liars that had brought him under a suspicion at court. Thus, Chris- tian, do thou by the honour of God, when it cometh in competition with sin and self; and thou wilt stop the devil's mouth, who sometimes is ready to make thee jealous of thyself, as if thou wert a blasphemer. Such heroic acts of zeal and self-denial would speak more for thy purgation before God and thy own conscience than these sudden thoughts can do against thee,
CHAPTER XIX.
THE THIRD FIERY DART OF DESPAIR, AND THE CHIEF ARGUMENT WHICH SATAN URGETH MOST UPON SOULS, TO DRIVE THEM INTO IT, (tAKEN FROM THE GREATNESS OF SIN,) REFUTED; AS ALSO THE FIRST ANSWER WITH WHICH FAITH FURNISHETH THE SOUL FOR THIS PURPOSE.
The third fiery dart which Satan lets fly at the Christian is his temptation to despair. This cursed fiend thinks he can neither revenge himself farther on God, nor engrave his own image deeper on the creature, than by this sin, which at once casteth the greatest scorn upon God, and brings the creature nearer the complexion of devils and damned sovds ; who, by lying continually under the scorching wrath of God in hell, are black with despair. This is the sin Satan chiefly aims at: other sins are but as previous dispositions to introduce that, and make the creature more receptive for such a temptation. As the wool hath a tincture of some lighter colour given it before it can be dyed into a deep grain, so Satan hath his more lightsome and pleasant sins, which he at first entices the creature to, that he may the better dispose him for this. The devil is too cunning a fowler to lay his net in the bird's sight; despair is the net, other sins are but the bait, whereby he lures them in. This, above all sins, puts a man into a kind of actual possession of hell. Other sins bind over to wrath, but this gives fire to the threatening, and sets the soul in a flame with horror. As it is faith's excellency to give a being to the word of promise ; so it is the cruelty of despair to give an existence to the torments of hell in the conscience. This is the arrow which drinks up the spirits, and makes the creature executioner to itself. Despair puts a soid beyond all relief; the offer of a pardon comes too late to him that hath turned himself off the ladder. Other temptations have their way to escape ; faith and hope can open a window to let out the smoke that ofl'ends the Christian in any condition ; but the soul nuist needs be choked, when it is shut up within the despairing thoughts of its own sins, and no crevice of hope left, to be an outlet to any of that horror with which they fill him.
Section I.— I might here instance those many arguments which Satan useth to bring souls into despair, and how able faith, and only faith, is, to
2 K
498 ABOVE ALL, TAKING THE SHIELD OF FAITH.