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Of Satan’s maintaining his possession.—His first engine for that purpose is his finishing of sin, in its reiteration and aggravation.—His policies herein.

Having explained the five ways by which Satan through the power of lust causeth blindness of mind in tempting to sin, I shall next lay open Satan’s devices for the keeping and maintaining his possession, which are these:—

1. First, He endeavours, after he hath prevailed with any man to commit an iniquity, to finish sin: James i. 15, ‘After if is conceived and brought forth, then it is finished;’ which notes its growth and increase. This compriseth these two things, its reiteration and its aggravation.

(1.) First, Its reiteration is, when by frequent acts it is strengthened and confirmed into a habit. There are various steps, by which men ascend into the seat of the scornful. Nemo repentè turpissimus, It is not one act that doth denominate men ‘wise to do evil.’ In Ps. i. 1 seq., David shews there are gradations and degrees of sin: some walk in the counsel of the ungodly; some by progress and continuance of sin ‘stand in the way of sinners;’ some, by a hardness of heart and fixedness in wicked purposes, ‘sit in the seat of the scornful.’ To this height doth he labour to bring his proselytes; yet he further designs,

(2.) Secondly, That sin may have its utmost accomplishments in all the aggravations whereof it may be capable. He strives to put men upon such a course of sinning as may be most scandalous to the gospel, most ensnaring and offensive to others, most hardening and desperate to ourselves, most offensive and provoking to God. In this he imitates the counsel of Ahithophel to Absalom, when he advised him to go in unto his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel, that so the breach betwixt him and his father might be widened to an impossibility of reconciliation. Thus he labours that sinners should act at such a rate of open defiance against heaven, as if they resolved to lie down in their iniquity, and were purposed never to think of returning and making up their peace with God. That sin may be finished in both these respects, he useth these policies:—

[1.] First, After sin is once committed, he renews his motions and solicitations to act it again, and then again, and so onward till they be perfect and habituated to it. In this case he acts over again the former method by which he first ensnared them, only with such alterations as the present case doth necessitate him unto. Before, he urged for the committing of it but once. How little is he to be trusted in these promises! Now, he urgeth them by the very act they have already done, Is it not a pleasant or profitable sin, to thy very experience? hast thou not tasted and seen? hast thou not already consented? Taste and try again, and yet further; withdraw not thy hand. A little temptation served before, but a less serves now; for by yielding to the first temptation our hearts are secretly inclined to the sin, and we carry a greater affection to it than before; for this is the stain and defilement of sin, that when once committed it leaves impressions of delight and love behind, which are still the more augmented by a further progress and frequent commission, till at last by a strong power of fascination it bewitches men that they cannot forbear; all the entreaties of friends, all their own promises, all their resolves and purposes, though never so strong and serious, except God strike in to rescue by an omnipotent hand, can no more restrain them than fetters of straw can hold a giant. God himself owns it as a natural impossibility, ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin? no more can ye do good,’ [Jer. xiii. 23;] and the reason of that impossibility is from hence, that they are ‘accustomed to do evil.’ Such strong and powerful inclinations to the same sin again are begot in us by a sin already committed, that sometime one act of sin fills some men with as vehement and passionate desires for a further enjoyment, as custom and continuance doth others. Austin reports that Alypius, when once he gave way to the temptation of beholding the gladiators, was bewitched with such a delight, that he not only desired to come again with others, but also before others. Neither is it any great wonder it should be so, when, besides the inclinations that are begot in us by any act of sin to recommit it, sin puts us out of God’s protection, debilitates and weakens our graces, strengthens Satan’s arm, and often procures him further power and commission against us.

[2.] Secondly, Satan endeavours to make one sin an engagement to another, and to force men to draw iniquity with cords of vanity. Agur notes a concatenation in sins, ‘Lest I steal, and take the name of God in vain,’ Prov. xxx. 9. Adam sinning in the forbidden fruit, and proclaimed guilty by his conscience, runs into another sin for the excuse of the former, ‘the woman that thou gavest me,’ &c. David affords a sad instance of this, the sin with Bathsheba being committed, and she with child upon it, David to hide the shame of his offence, (1.) Hypocritically pretends great kindness to Uriah. (2.) When that served not, next he makes him drunk, and, it may be, he involved many others in that sin as accessories. (3.) When this course failed, his heart conceives a purpose and resolution to murder him. (4.) He cruelly makes him the messenger of his own destruction. (5.) He engageth Joab in it. (6.) And the death of many of his soldiers. (7.) By this puts the whole army upon a hazard. (8.) Excuseth the bloody contrivance by providence. (9.) In all using still the height of dissimulation. Satan knows how natural it is for men to hide the shame of their iniquity, and accordingly provides occasions and provocations to drive them on to a kind of necessity.

[3.] Thirdly, By a perverse representation of the state of godly and wicked men, he draws on sin to a higher completement. How often doth he set before us the misery, affliction, contempt, crosses, and sadnesses of the one, and the jollity, delights, plenty, peace, honours, and power of the other! It was a temptation that had almost brought David to an atheistical resolve against all religious duty, and that which he observed had prevailed altogether with many professors, Ps. lxxiii. When they observed ‘they were not in trouble like other men,’ and that their mouth and tongue had been insolent against God, without any rebuke or check from him; when in the meantime the godly were ‘plagued all the day, and chastened every morning:’ some that were, in profession or estimation at least, God’s people, returned to take up these thoughts, and to resolve upon such practices, ver. 10; as if God, who sees all these with so much silence, must be supposed knowingly to give some countenance to such actions. This, indeed, when it is prosecuted upon our hearts in its full strength with those ugly surmises, jealousies, and misapprehensions that are wont to accompany it, is a sad step to a desperate neglect of duty and a carelessness in sinning, in that it insensibly introduceth atheistical impressions upon the hearts of men, and such are apt to catch hold even upon good men, who are but too ready to say as David, ‘I have cleansed my hands in vain,’ [ver. 13.]

[4.] Fourthly, Satan hath yet another piece of policy for the multiplication and aggravation of sin, which is the enmity and opposition of the law. Of this the apostle Paul sadly complains from his own experience: Rom. vii. 8, ‘Sin taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence.’ What he laments is this, that such is the perverseness of our natures, that the law, instead of restraining us, doth the more enrage us, so that accidentally the law doth multiply sin; for when the restraint of the law is before us, lust burns not only more inwardly, but when it cannot be kept in and smothered, then it breaks out with greater violence, ‘Let us break their bonds asunder,’ &c., [Ps. ii. 3.] When the law condemns our lusts, they grow surly and desperate: ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,’ &c., [Isa. xxii. 13.] If any wonder that the law, which was given of purpose to repress sin, and which is of so great use in its authority to kill it in us, and to hinder temptations, should thus be used by Satan to increase and enrage it, they may consider that it is but still an accidental occasion, and not a cause, and sin takes this occasion without any fault of the law. Satan to this end watcheth the time195 when our hearts are most earnestly set upon our lusts, when our desires are most highly engaged, and then by a subtle art so opposeth the law, letting in its contradictions in way and measure suitable, that our hearts conceive a grudge at restraint, which together with its earnestness to satisfy the flesh, ariseth up to a furious madness, and violent striving to maintain a liberty and freedom to do according to the desires of their heart; whereas this same law, if it be applied to the heart when it is more cooled and not so highly engaged upon a design of lust, will break, terrify, and restrain the heart, and put such a damp upon temptations that they shall not be able to stand before it. So great a difference is there in the various seasons of the application of this law; in which art for the enflaming of the heart to iniquity, Satan shews a wonderful dexterity.