Richard Gilpin

“ What we do in the duties of worship, requires a choice frame of spirit. Our hearts should be awed with the most serious apprehensions of divine majesty, filled with reverence, animated with love and delight, quickened by faith, clothed with humility and self-abhorrency, and in all the procedure of duties there must be a steady and firm prosecution under the strictest watchfulness. Of this nature is our work, which at the first view would put a man to a stand, and out of amazement force him to say, ‘Who is sufficient for these things? ”

“ They sit alone and keep silence, they flee the company and society of men, they labour after solitary places where they may weep with freedom, if their tears be not yet dried up, or at least where they may pour out their complaints against themselves. They meditate nothing but their misery, they can fix their thoughts upon nothing else, they ‘chatter as a crane or swallow, they mourn as a dove,’ they are as ‘a pelican in the wilderness, as an owl in the desert,’ but still without ease. ”

“ Thus by objects, employments, discourse, or company, that shew not any direct tendency to evil, doth he insensibly occasion pride, passion, or lust. How slyly and secretly doth he put us upon what he intends as a further snare! How unawares, while we think of no such thing, are we carried sometime upon the borders of sin, and into the enemy’s quarters! Satan in this acts like a fowler, who useth a stalking-horse, as if he were upon some other employment, when yet his design is the destruction of the bird. ”

“ Yet even this are men brought to often when their sorrows are long-lasting and deep. The devil suggests, Can God be faithful, and never keep promise for help? can he be merciful, when he turns away his ears from the cry of the miserable? where is his pity, when he multiplies his wounds without cause? Though at first these cursed intimations do a little startle men, yet when by frequent inculcating they grow more familiar to the heart, the distressed break out in their rage with those exclamations, Where is the faithfulness of God? where are his promises? hath he not forgotten to be gracious? ”

“ Thus was Saul vexed by ‘an evil spirit from the Lord,’ which as most conceive was the devil working in his melancholy humour. That the devil should take possession of the bodies of men, and thus act, drive, trouble, and distress them, so distort, distend, and rack their members; so seat himself in their tongues and minds that a man cannot command his own faculties and powers, but seems to be rather changed into the nature of a devil than to retain anything of a man, this shews a power in him to be trembled at. ”

“ An occasion exactly fitted is more than half a temptation. This often makes a thief, an adulterer, &c., where the acts of these sins have their rise from a sudden fit of humour, which occasion puts them in, rather than from design or premeditation. Cunningly contrived occasions are like the danger of a precipice. If a man be so foolish as to take up a stand there, a small push will throw him over, though a far greater might not harm him if he were upon a level. It is Satan’s cunning to draw a man within the reach of an occasion. ”

“ Eighthly, In this design of false doctrine Satan is never altogether out; if he cannot thus defile their lives, yet it is a thousand to one but he obstructs their graces by it. What greater hindrance can there be to conversion than error! The word of truth is the means by which God, through his Spirit, doth beget us; it is part of that image of God that is implanted in us: it is God’s voice to the soul to awaken it. It cannot then be imagined that God will give the honour of that work to any error ”

“ How little can a sickly body do! It disables a man for all services; he cannot oft pray, nor read, nor hear; sickness takes away the sweetness and comfort of religious exercises. This gives occasion for them to think the worse of themselves. They think the soul is weary of the ways of God, when the body cannot hold out. All failures which weariness and faintness produce are ascribed presently to the bad disposition of the mind, and this is like oil cast upon the flame. Thus the devil makes a double gain out of spiritual trouble. ”

“ That man, then, that will not concern himself in his inquiries, how the matter goes in his own heart, what ground is got or lost, what forts are taken or defended, what mines are sprung, what ambuscados laid, or how the battle proceeds, must needs lie under a just imputation of the greatest folly; neither can he be excused in his neglect by the most pressing solicitations of other things that seem to require his attendance upon the highest imaginable pretences of necessity: ‘For what is he profited, that gains the whole world, if he loses his soul?’ [Mark viii. 36.] ”

“ Thirdly, The blinding power of lust is yet more remarkable, when we see men glorying in their shame, and mounting their triumphal chariots to expose themselves a spectacle to all, in that garb of deformity which their lusts have put them in. It is a blindness to do any act against the rules of reason, but it is a far greater blindness for men to pride themselves in them. ”

“ Joy and hope are active principles, but sorrow is sullen and sluggish. As the mind in trouble is wholly employed in a contemplation of its misery, rather than in finding out a way to avoid it, so if it be at leisure at any time to entertain thoughts of using means for recovery, yet it is so tired out with its burden, so disheartened by its own fears, so discouraged with opposition and disappointment, that it hath no list to undertake anything. ”

“ We perceive we have lost so much, and have run into such great unkindnesses, that, like broken merchants, nothing is more irksome and tedious than to review our ways, or look into our debt-books. Instead of this, we endeavour to divert our thoughts, to cast off care, as if we conceived that time would eat it out, and that then of course we might fall into the old channel of freedom and comfort. ”

“ The pleasantest sight to him is to see God hiding himself from his child, and that child broken with fears, torn in pieces with griefs, made a brother to dragons, a companion to owls, under restless anxieties, perpetual lamentations, feeble and sore broken, their strength dried like a potsherd, their throat dry, their tongue cleaving to their jaws, their bowels boiling, their bones burnt with heat, their skin black upon them, their flesh consumed, their bones sticking out, chastened with strong pain upon their bed. ”

“ Evil society doth insensibly dead the heart, and quench the heat of the affections to the things of God. It hath a kind of bewitching power to eat out the fear of the Lord in our hearts, and to take off the weight and power of religious duty. It not only stops our tongues, and retards them in speaking of good things, but influenceth the very heart, and poisons it into a kind of deadness and lethargy, so that our thoughts run low, and we begin to think that severe watchfulness of thoughts and the guard of our minds to be a needless and melancholy self-imposition. ”

“ They are like the firing a train of gunpowder, which in a moment blows up the whole fabric of truth. Such are the delusions of enthusiasm, inspirations, and prophetic raptures. Let these be once fixed, and then there is nothing so inhuman, irreligious, mad, or ridiculous, but Satan can with ease persuade 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. ”

“ The world is not so desirable a thing as many dream. Did but men consider how great a snare it is, and what dangers attend the fulness of it, they would not so earnestly covet it, nor so passionately lament when it flies from them. If thou hast so much godliness as can quiet thy heart in a contented enjoyment of thy little, that little which thou hast is better than great riches of the wicked. Thou little knowest from what pride, insolency, contempt of God and men, and many other temptations and lusts, God doth preserve thee, by denying thee earthly things. ”

“ We see those that have skill to work upon the humours of men place a great part of it in the right circumstantiating a motion, and in taking the tempers and inclinations of men at a right time. And they observe that the missing of the right season is the hazard of the design, even there where the object and inclination ordinarily are suitable. There is much in placing a picture in a right position, to give it its proper grace and lustre in the eyes of the beholders. When a man is out of humour he nauseates his usual delights, and grows sullen to things of frequent practice. ”

“ Time was when we thought we had assurance, and our hearts rejoiced in us; sometimes we have thought our hearts had as much of peace and comfort as they could hold, now all is vanished, and we are under sad fears; if God had had a favour to us, would he have dealt thus with us? Thus are they cheated into a belief that they never had any grace; they take all for granted that is urged against them; they cannot consider God’s design in hiding his face, nor yet can they see how grace acts in them under these complainings ”

“ To discover the intrigues of Satan’s policy, to espy his haunts and lurking-places in our hearts, to note his subtle contrivances in taking advantages against us, and to observe how the pulse of the soul beats under his provocations and deceitful allurements, how far we comply or dissent, requires so much attendance and laborious skilfulness, that it cannot be expected that such men who design no more than to be Christians at the easiest rate, and content themselves with a formal superficiality of religion ”

“ Nothing will work more of care, watchfulness, diligence, and fear in a gracious heart, than a sense of Satan’s designment against it. Nothing puts a man more to prayer, breathing after God, desiring to be dissolved, and running to Christ, than the troublesome and afflictive pursuits of Satan. Nothing brings men more from the love of the world, and to a delight in the ordinances of God, than the trouble which here abides them unavoidably from Satan. ”

“ This insolency of Satan may inform us, First, Of the great patience of God, that sees these outrageous mockings, and yet doth not by a strong hand put a stop to them. Secondly, Of the great power and pride of Satan, that he both can—though not without permission from God—and dare attempt things of this nature. Thirdly, The great power of delusion, that can so blind men, that they not only are drawn to act a part in such designs, but believe confidently a divine impulse and heavenly warrant for their so doing. ”

“ Hence are they possessed with no other thoughts but that they are remediless wretches, desperate miscreants, utterly forsaken of God. They are brought into such a woeful partiality against their own peace, that they cannot judge aright of any accusation, plea, or argument that Satan brings for a proof of their unhappiness; but being filled with strong prejudices of hell, they think every sophism a strong argument, every supposition a truth, and every accusation conclusive of no less than their eternal damnation; insomuch that their fears do more to discomfit them than all Satan’s forces. ”

“ When this desire after knowledge is animated with pride, as oft it is, for ‘knowledge puffeth up,’ then it 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 lie 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. ”

“ If we withal consider what inventions and devices of cruelty and torture he hath found out, and what endless variety of pains and miseries he hath prepared, a catalogue whereof would fill a great deal of paper, we can do no less than wonder at the merciless fury and implacable rage of him that contrived them. Satan, the great engineer, doth but give us the picture of his mind in all those instruments of destruction. ”

“ Satan knows that peace is the thing to which a man sacrificeth all his labours and travail. This he seeks, though often in a wrong way, and by wrong means. He knows also that true peace is only the daughter of truth, ‘the ways whereof are pleasantness, and the paths whereof are peace;’ neither is he ignorant of the delights which a man hath, by enjoying himself in the sweet repose of a contented mind, that he may charm the hearts of the erroneous into a confidence and assurance that they have taken a right course ”

“ Fifthly, They are also guilty that design an adventure unto the utmost bounds of lawful liberty. Those that have a mind to try conclusions, how near they may make their approaches to sin, and yet keep off from the defilement, such as would divide a hair betwixt good and evil, have at best but a hair’s breadth betwixt them and sin; but how easily are they brought over that. Like a man that walks upon the utmost verge of a river’s brink, ofttimes meets with hollow ground and a dangerous slip before he is aware. ”

“ That Satan, for the better management of this design, doth not only inject these suspicions in the most dreadful language—as, ‘Thou art a lost and damned wretch, hopelessly miserable to all eternity; God hath not elected thee to life, but prepared for thee, as a vessel of wrath, the lake of fire and brimstone for ever,’ &c.—but also he doth assert them with the highest peremptoriness imaginable, as if he had authority from God to pronounce a sentence of condemnation against a man. ”