the wasting of his strength which the Apostle takes notice of and adviseth against it Drink no longer water c. The Corinthians were so when out of a high detestation of the miscarriage of the Incestuous Person they were backward to forgive him and to receive him into the Church again Peter is another instance to us of excess Jo. 13. 8. First in a modest humility he refuseth to let Christ wash his feet but after understanding the meaning of it then he runs to the other extream and offers not only his feet but his hands and his head When the Servants of God are conscious of defects in their Services as if they would make amends for these by the length and continuance of their Services they are easily drawn into an excess every way disadvantagious to themselves and the Service Thirdly When Satans Designs do not take to spoil the Duties either by the manner of the attempt or in the Act he then seeks to play an after game and endeavours to spoil them by some after-miscarriage of ours in reference to these Services As First When he makes us proud of them we can scarce perform any Service with a tollerable suitableness but Satan is at hand to instill thoughts of Applause vain Glory and Boasting and we readily begin to think highly of our selves and performances as if we were better than others whom we are apt to censure as low and weak in comparison of our selves Though this be an apparent deceit yet 't is a wonder how much the minds even of the best are apt to be tainted with it even where there are considerable endeavours for humility and self-denial these thoughts are apt to get too much entertainment Now though we run well and attain some comfortable strength and watchfulness in the Services of God yet if they be afterward fly-blown with Pride or if we think to embalm them with Praises or reserve them as matter of Ostentation though they be Angels food yet like the Manna of the Israelites when kept too long they will putrifie and breed Worms and so be good for nothing after that we have been at the pains of gathering it Secondly When well-performed Services are perverted to security then are they also spoiled we are ready to say of them as the rich Man of his abundance Soul take thine ease thou hast much laid up for many years Satan is willing for a further advantage that we think our selves secure from him and as after a full Meal we are apt to grow drowsie so after Services we are apt to think our selves out of harms way The Church after an High Feast with Christ presently falls asleep and highly miscarries in Security and Neglect by this means do the best of Saints sometimes lose the things they have wrought and throw down what they formerly built up DAEMONOLOGIA SACRA OR A TREATISE OF Satans Temptations The Second Part. CONTAINING The manifold Subtilties and Stratagems of Satan for the corrupting of the minds of Men with Errour and for the destruction of the Peace and Comfort of the Children of God By R. G. London Printed by J. D. for Richard Randel and Peter Maplisden Booksellers in New-Castle upon Tine 1677. PART II. CHAP. I. That it is Satan's grand Design to corrupt the Minds of Men with Errour The Evidences that it is so And the Reasons of his Endeavours that way NExt to Satan's Deceits in tempting to Sin and against Duty his design of corrupting the Minds of Men by Errour calls for our search and indeed this is one of his principal endeavours which takes up a considerable part of his time and diligence He is not only called in Scripture an Vnclean Spirit but also a Lying Spirit and there are none of these cursed qualifications that lie idle in him as by his Uncleanness we may easily conjecture his attempts upon the Will and Affections to defile them by Lust so by his Lying we may conclude that he will certainly strive to blind the Understanding by Errour But a clear discovery of this we may have from these Considerations First From God's interest in Truth in reference to his great designs of Holiness and Mercy in the World Truth is a Ray and Beam of him who is the Father of Lights All revealed Truths are but Copies and Transcripts of that Essential Archetypal Truth Truth is the Rod of his Strength Psal 110. 2. the Scepter of his Kingdom by which he doth subdue the hearts of Men to his obedience and service in conversion Truth is that Rock upon which he hath built his Church the foundations are the Prophets and Apostles Eph. 2. 20. that is the Doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament Truth is that great depositum committed to the care of his Church which is therefore called the pillar of Truth because as Princes or Rulers put their Proclamations on Pillars for the better information of their Subjects so doth his Church hold out Truth to the World Holiness is maintained by Truth our ways are directed by it and by it are we forewarned of Satan's Devices Now the Prince of Darkness carrying himself in as full an opposition to the God of Truth as he can in all his ways God's interest in Truth will sufficiently discover the Devil's design to promote Errour for such is his hatred of God that though he cannot destroy Truth no more than he can tear the Sun out of the Firmament yet he will endeavour by corrupting the Copy to disgrace the Original though he cannot break Christ's Scepter yet by raising Errour he would hinder the encrease of his Subjects though he cannot remove the Rock upon which the Church is built he will endeavour to shake it or to interrupt the Building and to tear down God's Proclamation from the Pillar on which he hath set it to be read of all and if we can conceive what an hatred the Thief hath to the Light as it contradicts and hinders his Designs we may imagine there is nothing against which the Devil will use greater contrivances than against the light of Truth He neither can nor will make a league with any but upon the terms that Nahash propounded to the Men of Jabesh-Gilead that is that he may put out their right eye and so lay it for a reproach upon the Israel of God 'T is the work of the Holy Spirit to lead us into Truth and by the rule of contraries 't is the Devil's work to lead into Errour Secondly Though the Scripture doth charge the Sin and danger of Delusion and Errour upon those Men that promote it to the deception of themselves and others yet doth it chiefly blame Satan for the great Contriver of it and expressly affirms him to be the grand Deceiver Instruments and Engeniers he must make use of to do him service in that work but still it is the Devil that is a Lying Spirit in their
their own just consequences yet there are some choice principles of his which if he can but fasten upon the Mind they presently open the gap to all kind of Errours imaginable they are like the firing a Train of Gunpowder which in a Moment blows up the whole Fabrick of Truth such are the delusions of Enthusiasm Inspirations and Prophetick Raptures let these be once fixed and then there is nothing so Inhumane Irreligious Mad or Ridiculous but Satan can with ease perswade Men to it and also under the highest pretences of Religion and Certainty the experience of all Ages hath made any further proof of this altogether needless This is his way when he acts alone But if he use Instruments though he is also gradual in his procedure yet 't is in a different method for there he sometimes proceeds from the abuse of something innocent and lawful by the help of a long tract of time to introduce the grossest Falshood Thus may we conceive he brought Idolatry to its height first Men admired the wisdom or famous acts of their Progenitors or Benefactors next they erected Pillars or Images of such Persons to perpetuate the Names Honour and Memory of them and their Actions Another Age being at a greater distance from the things done and consequently greater Strangers to the true ends and reasons of such practices which being as it usually falls out in such cases abused by false reports or misrepresentations of things for Time covers things of this nature with so thick a Mist that 't is difficult to discover the true Metal of an original Constitution they in a devout ignorance gave the Images a greater respect than was at first intended then did they slide into a conceit they were not of the ordinary rank of Mortals or at least they were exalted to a condition which ordinary Mortals were not capable of thus they supposed them Deities and gave them worship of Prayers and Sacrifices hence they went further and multiplied Gods and that of several sorts according to the natures of things that were good or hurtful to them and then at last consulting how mean their offerings were and how unlikely to please their Godships they concluded Humane sacrifices most sutable especially to expiate greater provocations and in times of great calamity The burthensom heap of ceremonious Superstitions in Popery was the work of several Ages they were not brought in all at once One in a devotional heat fancied such a Ceremony as a fit testimony of Zeal or a proper incitement of his Affections Another deviseth a second and so all along as the minds of Men were best pleased with their own inventions and had so much credit or authority to recommend them to others they encreased the sum by new additions till at last they are become a burthen not to be born and still as they receeded from the primitive purity and became more careless and corrupt in their lives for from good Bishops they declined to but tollerable Arch-Bishops till at last they are become incurable Babylonians so they departed gradually from the simplicity of the Gospel and abounded in contrivances of Ceremonies Thirdly In corrupting established Truths Satan's proceedings are not by sudden and observable leaps but by lingring and slow motions as Flowers and Plants grow insensibly and as Men gradually wax old and feeble Violent and hasty alterations he knows would beget Observation Dislike and Opposition neither will he make such attempts but where he is sure of a strong prevalent Party which by force and power is able to carry all before it In this case he is willing to enforce Errour by Fire and Sword Thus he propagated Mahumetism at first and still continueth to do so by the conquering Arms of the Turks but where he hath not this advantage he betakes himself to another course and studieth to do his work so that he may not be observed The possibility of such a change with the manner of effecting it we may observe in many Churches that have declined from the Doctrine which they at first received but most of all in the Church at Rome which at first was a pure Church as the Apostle testifieth but now so changed from the Truths upon which they were bottomed in their first Constitution as if she had not been the same Church They boast indeed that as they were at first so they are now but nothing is more evident than the contrary and the possibility of their insensible corruption is as demonstrable as the alteration of Doctrine in any other Church The manifold ways that Satan takes in this matter in the abuse of Scripture by raising perverse Interpretations and unnatural Inferences and the advantages of a long succession in Authority of the negligence and ignorance of the common People of the crafty subtilty of the Teachers especially when Religion began to be abused to secular Interest is described by Acontius and others If we should single out any of their noted Errours and follow up the History of it to its first original we shall find that whatever strong current it hath now gotten it was very small and inconsiderable in the Fountain The Invocation of Saints though it be now an established Article among them yet its first rise was from the unwary Prosopopoea's of of the Ancients and the liberty of their Oratorical declamatory stile these gave occasion to some private Opinions these Opinions to some private devotional liberty in Practice and from private Opinions and Practices at last it obtained so strong a Party that it procured a publick Injunction The like method was used for the Doctrine of Transubstantiation whose beginning was from the abuse of such Sentences as this in ancient Writers That after Consecration it was no more Bread and Wine but the Body and Blood of Christ by which expression the Authors intended no more than this that the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament were relatively altered and were more than ordinary Bread and Wine because they were representatives of the Body and Blood of Christ however this gave them courage to interprect literally and strictly these words of Christ This is my Body and thus by degrees from the Opinion of a few it became the judgment of many and from the toleration of a private Opinion of some Doctors and unimposed it obtained at last a Canon to make it Authentick Publick Doctrine Fourthly This insensible proceeding is in nothing more evident than in the power of Custom and Education Custom doth by degrees take off the startling of Conscience and those Opinions or Practices which at first look affright it are by a little familiarity made more smooth and tollerable The dissents of Men by frequent seeing and hearing become tame and gentle but the force of Education is incomparably great for this makes an Errour to become as it were natural they suck it in with their Milk and draw it in with their Air. This general advantage the Devil hath
Thirdly Where the fore-mentioned Particulars of Inclination natural or acquired Humours Custom Education c. do neither divert the Understanding nor engage it to close with Errour yet often do they discover how powerfully they can byas the Mind in that these prevail with Men to modifie and mold a Truth according to the bent or form of their inclinations As a Bowl which is skilfully aimed at a Mark goes nevertheless by a Compass which its byas forceth it unto according to the risings or fallings of the ground it meets with in the way Men may arrive at real Truth in the main and yet may shape it according to their humours For instance let us consider the different modes or forms in which the same Truth is represented under the workings of different tempers A Melancholy Person conceives of all things under such reflections as Fear and Sadness do usually give if he consider God he looks upon him in the notion of greatest severity and justice if upon the ways of Duty he colours them all in black and can scarce account any thing Piety which is not accompanied with sadness and mourning if he calls his Soul to a reckoning his conclusions concerning himself are sad doleful or at best suspicious On the contrary an hilarous cheerful temper censures all sadness for fullenness and is apt to accuse those that go mourning in their way for unthankful Murmurers and unbelieving Complainers it interprets God's favourable condesentions to the weak in the greatest latitude and is easily perswaded to those things that are upon the utmost brink of Liberty to which others of a more timerous disposition dare not approach for fear of offending This puts an higher excellency upon the duties of Praise as the other upon Fasting and Mourning Those Men that are morose and severe they are apt to think that God is such an one as themselves and though they acknowledg there is such a grace as Charity yet under a pretence of strictness they cannot believe they are bound to exercise it towards any that are under any failing of which they judge themselves to be free and therefore such Men are usually very difficult in all cases wherein Condescention is to be used they are hard to be reconciled and after the miscarriage of any person are not easily satisfied of their Repentance and in cases of Dissent from their way and practice of Religion they are commonly censorious and conclude the worst They again that are naturally mild and gentle under a pretence of Charity and Meekness are apt to become remiss in their Carriages towards any Brother and because Charity thinks not evil they model their acknowledged Duty into the form of their own disposition and so think they must see and yet not perceive and instead of covering the infirmities of a Brother they have a Mantle to cast over every transgression At the same rate also do they frame their conceptions of God as if he was so merciful that he would scarce reckon any Abomination to be above the height of an ordinary infirmity these are apt to think that the mercies of God so much praised in Scripture signifie little less than an indulgence in Transgression far above what Precisians are apt to imagine and that it is as easie to obtain forgiveness from God for any offence as it is to say The Lord be merciful to me a Sinner Those that accustom themselves to the delights of the senses are apt to bend the way of their Religion to that humour and think that nothing can be solemn in Worship that is not set out with garnishings that may please the Eye or Ear. Nay 't is observable enough That Religion borrows some taint or shape from the various Studies and Sciences of Men in some as in many of the Fathers we may see Religion dipt in Platonism or Peripateticism Some introduce the distinctions and definitions of Philosophy others compel all Scriptures to submit to the Laws of strict logical Analysis Thus according to the various Mediums that Men look through are Truths discoloured and dressed up in several shapes 't is easie from these instances to imagine that Satan must have a great advantage against us in point of Errour from the byas of the Mind Fourthly Adventurous Curiosities is another general advantage by which he works This ariseth partly from a desire of Knowledge and partly from Pride and both these make way for his Design A desire after Knowledg is Natural and withal very bewitching To know hath something in it more than ordinary This is noted in Job 11. 12. Vain Man would be wise though Man be born like a wild Asse's-colt though he be foolish yet he affects Wisdome and the very delight of Knowing doth engage Men to curious prying Searches though with much labour and hazard Of this Temper were the Athenians Act. 17. 21. They spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing not barely in telling News but in inquiries after new Notions and Discoveries and this made them willing to hear Paul as a setter forth of strange Gods and a new Doctrine When this desire after Knowledg is animated with Pride as oft it is for Knowledg puffeth up then 't is more dangerous when Men are upon a Design to seem higher than others to be singular to see more than what all Men see to be admired to out-talk their Neighbours what adventures will they not make How fair do they lye open to any conceit that may serve this end That Satan labours to improve this curiosity is without doubt he carefully affords fuel to this burning and diligently blows it up into a flame The first temptation had that ingredient in it Ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evil And we see it was a great enticement to Eve That which would make one wise was therefore desirable The blame of Israels first Idolatry seems to be laid at this door Deut. 32. 17. They sacrificed to Gods whom they knew not to new Gods that came newly up implying That they were drawn aside from their old established way of Worship by a curiosity to try the new ways of the Heathens And so great an hand hath this generally in Errours That Paul 2 Tim. 4. 3. makes this itch after Novelty the great ground of that defection from Truth which he foresaw was coming They shall heap to themselves Teachers having itching ears This itch of the Ear is the usual fore-runner of a Scab in the Church because it doth dispose Men to receive any kind of Teacher God indeed doth sometimes take the advantage of our natural curiosity for our good by this means many of Johns Hearers who went out into the Wilderness to him as to a strange sight as those words imply What went ye out into the Wilderness to see were Converted By this means the Gospel afterwards made a large Progress as we see commonly new Teachers affect most at
of Men in the Air is sufficiently confirmed by what he doth frequently to Witches who are usually carried if we can give any credit to the Stories that are writ of them in the Air to places far remote from their dwellings And that this Power is permitted him upon others than such as are in compact with him is as evident from what is testifyed of those whose forward curiosity hath led to imitate Witches in their Anointings who have thereupon been conveyed after them to their Assemblies and when the Company hath been suddenly dismissed they have been found many Miles distant from their dwellings such instances we have in Bodin and among other things that of Domina Rossa mentioned by him whom Satan would sometime bind to a Tree sometime to a Table or to a Beds-foot or to a Manger sometime one hand bound to another the Devil thus molested her from eight years old a long time This Power of conveying Persons in the Air is not usual yet there are some in this place that have known one frequently molested by Satan at this rate However if we take notice of his Power to abuse the bodies of Holy Persons more generally we shall find it frequent Mary Magdelen was possessed Christ mentions a Daughter of Abraham bowed down by him many years Job was filled with Botches and Sores and there are many Diseases wherein Satan hath a greater hand than is commonly imagined Physitians frequently conclude so much while they observe some Distempers to clude such Remedies as are usually successful upon other Persons under the same Diseases From this we may infer 1. the great Power of Satan who can tell the extent of it doubtless if he were permitted 〈◊〉 should see sad instances hereof daily 2. This discovers the wonderful Care and Providence of God over us in our preservation from his fury 3. We may further note that the abuse of the bodies of Men by Satan will be no evidence that therefore God doth disregard them or that they are not precious to him Christ did undergo this abuse to give such as shall be so molested some comfort in his example The third Circumstance which is that of place is set down first in general The Holy City that is Jerusalem for so Luke speaks expresly Jerusalem was so called because of God's Worship there established and his peculier presence there but that it should be called so at this time may seem strange seeing it might now be lamented as of old How is the Faithful City become an Harlot Righteousness lodged in it but now Murtherers In answer to this we must know that God having not yet given her a Bill of Divorce He is pleased to continue her Title and Priviledg This might be profitably improved but I will not suffer my self to be diverted from the matter of Temptation which is the only thing I propound to prosecute from hence I shall here only Observe That the Holiness or Sanctity of a Place will be no Priviledg against Temptations He is not so fearful as many imagine as that he dares not approach a Church-yard or a Church neither Place nor Duty can keep him off I do not believe the Popish Fiction of their St. Bennets Vision wherein they tell of his seeing but one Devil in a Market and ten in a Monastery yet I question not the truth of this that the Devil is as busy at a Sermon or Prayer as at any other Imployment But to search a little further into this matter It seems undeniable that Satan had a design in reference to the place of which afterward and I see no reason to exclude our suspicion of a design from the Name and Title which the Evangelist here gives to Jerusalem 'T is an expression which to my remembrance we meet not with oft in the New-Testament At the Suffering of Christ when the bodies of the Saints arose out of their Graves 't is said they went into the Holy City but 't is evident that it is there so styled upon special design as if the Evangelist would by that point at the staining of their Glory and that in a little time their boast of the Temple and Holy City should cease and that all should be polluted with the Carcasses of the Slain and by the same reason may we suppose that Satan intending for Christ a Temptation of presumption and backing it with the Promise of a Guard of Angels had in his Eye the usual Confidence that the Jews had of that City as a place where the presence of Angels might be more expected than elsewhere So that it seems Satan intended to impose upon Christ a Confidence in order to presumption From the priviledg of the Place here observe That Satan is willing to gratify us with Nominal and Imaginary Priviledges and Defences against himself he will willingly allow us such defences as are altogether insignificant and delusive and his Policy here is centred upon these two things First He doth industriously prompt us to self-devised inventions such as were never appointed or blessed of God to any such use but only found out by the bold superstitions of Men. Of this we have an instance in Balack who carried Baalam from place to place in his prosecution of his design of cursing Israel neither can we imagine that a commodious prospect of Israel was all he aimed at seeing he discovers his mind in this variation of places Peradventure it will please God that thou maist curse them from thence clearly implying that he had a confidence that the place might contribute something to his design and that there was some inherent vertue in those consecrated places and therefore did he begin with the high Places of Baal and then to the Field of Zophim and then to the top of Peor Among the Papists we find too much of this what Power they Attribute to Holy-Water Blessed-Salt Sign of the Cross Hallowed-Earth Consecratrd Places Reliques Baptized-Bells Exorcisms and abundance of such Stuff may be seen in many of their Writings too tedious to be related Secondly He is also willing that Men use those real defences and helps which God hath commanded so that they use them in a formal manner which indeed deprives them of all the Life and Efficacy that might be expected from an instituted means thus he readily permits ignorant Persons without any disturbance or molestation to use the repetition of the Lords-Prayer Ten-Commandments and Creed or any other Prayer while they perswade themselves that the very saying of the words is a sufficient defence against the Devil all that day The reasons of Satan's Policy in such Gratifications are these First While we are kept doing with these we are diverted from that which might be really helpful he puts a broken Reed into our hand that we might be deprived of a Staff Experience confirms this those that with greatest devotion use these empty Inventions are usually careless in