Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
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I am aware that not everything that a Puritan writer writes will be comfortable to many modern readers due to the strong Reformed Theology embraced by them. Nevertheless, we may certainly benefit from so much of what they have written.
Satan's Devices: Part 1
Satan's first device to draw the soul to sin is:
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To present the bait, and hide the hook.
To present the golden cup, and hide the poison.
To present the sweet, the pleasure, and the profit that may flow in upon the soul by yielding to sin, and by hiding from the soul the wrath and misery that will certainly follow the committing of sin.
By this device, he took our first parents:
"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened; and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.' Your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods!"
Genesis 3: 4-5
Here is the bait, the sweet, the pleasure, the profit. Oh, but he hides the hook, the shame, the wrath, and the loss that would certainly follow!
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His second device to draw the soul to sin is:
By painting sin with virtue's colors.
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Satan knows that if he should present sin in its own nature and dress, the soul would rather fly from it than yield to it; and therefore he presents it unto us, not in its own proper colors, but painted and gilded over with the name and show of virtue, that we may the more easily be overcome by it, and take the more pleasure in committing of it. Pride, he presents to the soul under the name and notion of neatness and cleanliness, and covetousness (which the apostle condemns for idolatry) to be but good husbandry; and drunkenness to be good fellowship, and riotousness under the name and notion of liberality, and wantonness as a trick of youth, &c.
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The third device that Satan hath to draw the soul to sin is:
By extenuating and lessening of sin.
Ah! saith Satan, it is but a little pride, a little worldliness, a little uncleanness, a little drunkenness, &c. As Lot said of Zoar:
"It is but a little one, and my soul shall live,"
Genesis 19:20
Alas! saith Satan, it is but a very little sin that you stick so at. You may commit it without any danger to your soul. It is but a little one ; you may commit it, and yet your soul shall live.
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The fourth device that Satan hath to draw the soul to sin is:
By presenting to the soul the best men's sins, and by hiding from the soul their virtues.
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…as by setting before the soul the adultery of David, the pride of Hezekiah, the impatience of Job, the drunkenness of Noah, the blasphemy of Peter, etc., and by hiding from the soul the tears, the sighs, the groans, the meltings, the humblings, and repentings of these precious souls.
Satan's Devices: Part 2
The fifth device that Satan hath to draw the soul to sin is:
By presenting God to the soul as one made up all of mercy.
Oh! saith Satan, you need not make such a matter of sin, you need not be so fearful of sin, not so unwilling to sin ; for God is a God of mercy, a God full of mercy, a God that delights in mercy, a God that is ready to shew mercy, a God that is never weary of shewing mercy, a God more prone to pardon his people than to punish his people; and therefore he will not take advantage against the soul; and why then, saith Satan, should you make such a matter of sin?
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The sixth device that Satan hath to draw the soul to sin is:
By persuading the soul that the work of repentance is an easy work.
Why! Suppose you do sin, saith Satan, it is no such difficult thing to return, and confess, and be sorrowful, and beg pardon, and cry, 'Lord, have mercy upon me;' and if you do but this, God will cut the score, and pardon your sins, and save your souls, &c.
By this device, Satan draws many a soul to sin, and makes many millions of souls servants or rather slaves to sin, &c.
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The seventh device that Satan hath to draw the soul to sin is:
By making the soul bold to venture upon the occasions of sin.
Saith Satan, You may walk by the harlot's door, though you won't go into the harlot's bed; you may sit and sup with the drunkard, though you won't be drunk with the drunkard; you may look upon Jezebel's beauty, and you may play and toy with Delilah, though you do not commit wickedness with the one or the other; you may with Achan handle the golden wedge, though you do not steal the golden wedge, &c.
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The eighth device that Satan hath to draw the soul to sin is:
By presenting to the soul the outward mercies that vain men enjoy, and the outward miseries that they are freed from, whilst they have walked in the ways of sin.
Saith Satan, Dost thou see, O soul, the many mercies that such and such enjoy, that walk in those very ways that thy soul startles to think of, and the many crosses that they are delivered from, even such as makes other men, that say they dare not walk in such ways, to spend their days in sighing, weeping, groaning, and mourning 1 and therefore, saith Satan, if ever thou wouldst be freed from the dark night of adversity, and enjoy the sunshine of prosperity, thou must walk in their ways.
Satan's Devices: Part 3
The ninth device that Satan hath to draw the soul to sin is:
By presenting to the soul the crosses, the losses, reproaches, sorrows, and sufferings that daily attend those that walk in the ways of holiness.
Saith Satan, Do not you see that there are none in the world that are so vexed, afflicted, and tossed, as those that walk more circumspectly and holily than their neighbors? They are a byword at home, and a reproach abroad; their miseries come in upon them like Job's messengers, one upon the neck of another, and there is no end of their sorrows and troubles. Therefore, saith Satan, you were better to walk in ways that are less troublesome, and less afflicted, though they be more sinful; for who but a madman would spend his days in sorrow, vexation, and affliction, when it may be prevented by walking in the ways that I set before him?
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The tenth device that Satan hath to draw the souls of men to sin is:
By working in them to be frequently comparing themselves and their ways with those that are reputed to be worse than themselves.
By this device, the devil drew the proud pharisee to bless himself in a cursed condition:
"God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican,"
Luke 18:11
Why, saith Satan, you swear but pretty oaths, as ' by your faith and troth,' &c, but such and such swear by wounds and blood ; you are now and then a little wanton, but such and such do daily defile and pollute themselves by actual uncleanness and filthiness; you deceive and overreach your neighbors in things that are but as toys and trifles, but such and such deceive and overreach others in things of greatest concernment, even to their ruin and undoings; you do but sit, and chat, and sip with the drunkard, but such and such sit and drink and are drunk with the drunkard ; you are only a little proud in heart and habit, in looks and words, &c.
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The eleventh device that Satan hath to draw the soul to sin is:
By polluting and defiling the souls and judgments of men with such dangerous errors, that do in their proper tendency tend to carry the souls of men to all looseness and wickedness.
Ah, how many are there filled with these and such like Christ-dishonoring and soul-undoing opinions, viz., that ordinances are poor, low, carnal things, and not only to be lived above, but without also; that the Scriptures are full of fallacies and uncertainties, and no further to be heeded than they agree with that spirit that is in them; that it is a poor, low thing, if not idolatry too, to worship God in a Mediator; that the resurrection is already past; that there was never any such man or person as Jesus Christ, but that all is an allegory, and it signifies nothing but light and love, and such good frames born in men; that there is no God nor devil, heaven nor hell, but what is within us; that there is no sin in the saints, they are under no law but that of the Spirit, which is all freedom; that sin and grace are equally good, and agreeth to his will, — with a hundred other horrid opinions, which hath caused wickedness to break in as a flood among us, &c.
The twelfth device that Satan hath to draw the soul to sin is:
To work it to affect wicked company.
And oh! the horrid impieties and wickedness that Satan hath drawn men to sin, by working them to sit and associate themselves with vain persons.