they had before been, would be frustrated at once. The next labour therefore of our great adversary is, to secure his captive, that he may not escape out of his hands. The wiles he makes use of to accomplish this, come next under our consideration.
He will begin with misrepresenting to his captives their own character. One while he will insinuate that, though they may have transgressed in some smaller matters, yet they have never committed any great sin, and therefore have no need to disquiet them- selves with apprehensions of God's wrath. If he cannot compose their minds in that way, he will suggest, that their iniquities have been so numerous, and so heinous, as to preclude all hope of forgiveness. He will endeavour to make them believe that they have been guilty of the unpardonable sin, or that their day of grace is passed ; so that they may as well take their fill of present delights, since all attempts to secure eternal happiness will be fruitless. To such artifices as these our Lord refers, when he tells us, that the strong man armed keepeth his palace and his goods in peace q.
Next he will misrepresent to his captives the cha- racter of God. He will impress them with the idea that God is too merciful to punish any one eternally for such trifling faults as theirs. Or, if that fail to lull them asleep, he will intimate, that the insulted Majesty of heaven demands vengeance : that the justice and holiness of the Deity would be disho- noured, if pardon were vouchsafed to such offenders as they. Probably too, he will suggest that God has not elected them ; and that therefore they must perish, since they cannot alter his decrees, or save them- selves without his aid. He will, as in his assaults upon our blessed Lordr, bring the Scriptures them- selves to countenance his lies; and, by a misappli- cation of difficult and detached passages, endeavour to hide from us the perfections of our God, as har- monizing and glorified in our redemption8. It was
9 Luke xi. 21, 2G. r Matt. iv. 6. s 2 Cor. iv. 4.
2126.] MEANS OF WITHSTANDING SATAN'S WILES. 4o5
in this manner that he strove to discourage Joshua', and to detain David in his bonds11: such advantage too he sought to take of the incestuous Corinthian x: and, if this stratagem be not defeated, he will prevail over us to our eternal ruin.
But there is another stratagem which, for the subtilty of its texture, the frequency of its use, and its successfulness in destroying souls, deserves more especial notice. When effectual resistance has been made to the foregoing temptations, and in spite of all these misrepresentations, the sinner has attained a just view both of his own character, and of God's, then Satan has recourse to another wile, that pro- mises indeed to the believer a speedy growth in the divine life, but is intended really to divert him from all proper thoughts both of himself and of God. He will " transform himself into an angel of light," and make use of some popular minister, or some talkative professor, as his agent in this business. He will by means of his emissaries draw the young convert to matters of doubtful disputation : he will perplex his mind with some intricate questions respecting matters of doctrine, or of discipline in the Church. He will either controvert, and explode acknowledged truths, or carry them to an extreme, turning spirituality to mysticism, or liberty to licentiousness. Having en- tangled him in this snare, he will puff him up with a conceit of his own superior attainments, and speedily turn him from the simplicity that is in Christ. Little do his agents, who appear to be " ministers of right- eousness," imagine that they are really " ministers ol the devil ;" and little do they who are inveigled by them, consider " in what a snare they are taken :" but God himself, who sees all these secret transac- tions, and discerns their fatal tendency, has given us this very account, and thereby guarded us against this dangerous device7.