Remedy (5). The fifth remedy against this device of Satan is, solemnly to consider, Of the reasons why the Lord is pleased to have his people exercised, troubled, and vexed with the operations of sinful corrup- tions; and they are these : partly to keep them humble and low in their own eyes ;2 and partly to put them upon the use of all divine helps, whereby sin may be subdued and mortified ; and partly, that they may live upon Christ for the perfecting the work of sanctification ; and partly, to wean them from things below, and to make them heart-sick of their absence from Christ, and to maintain in them bowels of com- passion towards others that are subject to the same infirmities with them ; and that they may distinguish between a state of grace and a state of glory, and that heaven may be more sweet to them in the close. Now doth the Lord upon these weighty reasons suffer his people to be exercised and molested with the operations of sinful corruptions ? Oh then, let no believer speak, write, or conclude bitter things against his own soul and comforts, because that sin troubles and vexes his righteous soul, &c. ; but lay his hand upon his mouth and be silent, because the Lord will have it so, upon such weighty grounds as the soul is not able to withstand.3
Remedy (6). The sixth remedy against this device of Satan is, solemnly to consider, That believers must repent for their being discouraged by their sins. Their being discouraged by their sins will cost them many a prayer, many a tear, and many a groan ; and that because their dis- couragements under sin flow from ignorance and unbelief. It springs from their ignorance of the richness, freeness, fulness, and everlasting- ness of God's love ; and from their ignorance of the power, glory, suffi- ciency, and efficacy of the death and sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and from their ignorance of the worth, glory, fulness, largeness, and completeness of the righteousness of Jesus Christ ; and from their ignor- ance of that real, close, spiritual, glorious, and inseparable union that is between Christ and their precious souls. Ah ! did precious souls know and believe the truth of these things as they should, they would not sit down dejected and overwhelmed under the sense and operation of sin, &c.4
1 The bloods of Abel, for so the Hebrew hath it, as if the blood of one Abel had so many tongues as drops, cried for vengeance against sin ; but the blood of Christ cries louder for the pardon of sin.
* Augustine saith, that the first, second, and third virtue of a Christian is humility. [Cf. under Humilitas in Conf., aud De C. D. Epist. 56 ad Diosc. — G.]
3 Lilme Blelammed, we therefore learn, that we may teach, is a proverb among the Rabbins. After the Trojans had been wandering aud tossing up and down the Mediter- ranean sea, as soon as they espied Italy, they cried out with exulting joy, Italy, Italy ! Ho will saints when they come to heaven.
* God never gave a believer a new heart that it should always lie a-bleeding, and that it should always be rent and torn in pieces with discouragements.
2 COR. II. 11.] AGAINST SATAN'S DEVICES. 95
The second device that Satan hath to keep souls in a sad, doubting, and questioning condition is,
Device (2). By working them to make false definitions of their graces. Satan knows, that as false definitions of sin wrong the soul one way, so false definitions of grace wrong the soul another way.
I will instance only in faith : Oh how doth Satan labour might and main to work men to make false definitions of faith ! Some he works to define faith too high, as that it is a full assurance of the love of God to a man's soul in particular, or a full persuasion of the pardon and remis- sion of a man's own sins in particular. Saith Satan, What dost thou talk of faith ? Faith is an assurance of the love of God, and of the pardon of sin ; and this thou hast not ; thou knowest thou art far off from this ; therefore thou hast no faith. And by drawing men to make such a false definition of faith, he keeps them in a sad, doubting, and questioning condition, and makes them spend their days in sorrow and sighing, so that tears are their drink, and sorrow is their meat, and sighing is their work all the day long, &c.
The philosophers say there are eight degrees of heat ; we discern three. Now, if a man should define heat only b}? the highest degree, then all other degrees will be cast out from being heat. So if men shall define faith only by the highest degrees, by assurance of the love of God, and of the pardon of his sins in particular, what will become of lesser degrees of faith ?
If a man should define a man. to be a living man, only by the highest and strongest demonstrations of life, as laughing, leaping, running, working, walking, &c, would not many thousands that groan under in- ternal and external weaknesses, and that cannot laugh, nor leap, nor run, nor work, nor walk, be found dead men by such a definition, that yet we know to be alive ? It is so here, and you know how to apply it, &c.
Now the remedies against this device are these :
Remedy (1). The first remedy against this device of Satan is, solemnly to consider, That there may be true faith, yea, great measures of faith, where there is no assurance. The Canaanite woman in the Gospel had strong faith, yet no assurance that we read of. ' These things have I written unto you,' saith John, ' that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God,' 1 John v. ] 3. In these words you see that they^did believe, and had eternal life, in respect of the pur- pose and promise of God, and in respect of the seeds and beginnings of it in their souls, and in respect of Christ their head, who sits in heaven as a public person, representing all his chosen ones, ' Who hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus,' Eph. ii. 6 ; and yet they did not know that they had eternal life. It is one thing to have a right to heaven, and another thing to know it; it is one thing to be beloved, and another thing for a man to know that he is beloved. It is one thing for God to write a man's name in the book of life, and another thing for God to tell a man that his name is written in the book of life ; and to say to him, Luke x. 20, ' Rejoice, be- cause thy name is written in heaven.' So Paul, ' In whom ye also trusted, after ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation :
96 PRECIOUS REMEDIES [2 COR. II. 11.