CHAP. VI.

Of Satan's Cruelty. Inftances thereof in his dealing with wounded Spirits, in ordinary Temptations of the Wicked and Godly, in Perfecutions, Cruelties in Worfhip. His cruel handling of his Slaves.

H

that fhall confider his Malice and Power, muft unavoidably conclude him to be cruel. Malice is always fo, where it hath the advantage of a proportionable ftrength and opportunity for the effecting of its hateful Contrivances: It banilheth all pity and commiferation, and follows only the dictate of its own rage with fuch fierceness, that it is only limited by wanting power to execute. We may then fay of Satan, That according to his Malice and Power fuch is his Cruelty. The truth of this will be abundantly manifefted by Inftances: As,

Firft, From his defperate pursuits of Advantage, upon those whofe Spirits are wounded. The anguish of a diftreffed Confcience is unspeakably great, in so much, that many are (as Heman, Pfalm. 88. 15.) even diftracted, while they fuffer the Terrors of the Almighty. Thefe though they look round about them for help, and invite all that pafs by to pity them, because the hand of the Lord hath touched them; yet Satan laughs at their Calamity, and mocks at them under their Fears,and doth all he can to augment the flame: he fuggefts dreadful thoughts of an incenfed Majesty; begets terrible apprehenfions of Infinite Wrath and Damnation; he aggravates all their Sins, to make them feem unpardonable: every Action he calls a Sin, and every Sin he reprefents as a willful forfaking of God; and every deliberate Tranfgreffion he tells then is the fin against the Holy Ghost. He baffles them in their Prayers and Services, and then accufeth their Duties for intollerable prophanations of God's Name; and if they be at last affrighted from them, he then clamours that they are forfaken of God, because they have forfaken him: He (as a right Baalzebub) rakes in their Wounds, as Flies are ever fucking where there is

a Sore. Their Outcrys and Lamentations are fuch Mufick to him, that he gives them no reft; and with fuch triumph doth he tread upon those that thus lie in the Duft, that he makes them fometimes accufe themfelves for that which they never did, and in derifion he infults over them in their greatest perplexities, with this, Where is now thy God? and who shall deliver thee out of my hand? This were enough to evidence him altogether void of compaffion. But,

Secondly; He fhews no lefs cruelty in his ufage of those that are his Slaves. The Service that he exacts of thofe that are his moft willing Servants, is no lefs than the highest cruelty; and not only (1.) in regard of the mifery and deftruction which he makes them work out for themselves, (which is far greater, than where Men are forced by the moft brutish Tyrants, to buy their own Poyfon, or to cut their own Throats; because this is unfpeakably less than the endless miferies of eternal Torments): but (2.) alfo in regard of the very flavery and drudging toyl of the Service which he exacts from them; he is not pleafed that they Sin, but the vileft Iniquities, moft contrary to God, and most abominable to Man, as the highest violations of the Laws of Nature and Reason, are the things which he will put them upon, where there are no reftraints in his way: He drave the Heathens (as Paul teftifies Rom. 1.) to affections fo vile and loathfom, that in their way of finning, they feemed to act rather like Brutes than Men, their Minds becoming fo injudicious, that they loft all fenfe of what was fit and comely. Neither (3.) doth this fatisfie his cruelty that the worst of Abominations be practised, but he urgeth them to the highest defperatenefs in the manner of performance, and fo draws them out to the front of the Battel, that they might contemn and out-dare God to his face; he will have them fin with an high hand, and in the higheft bravado of madnefs to rush into Sin, as the Horfe into the Battel. This cruelty of Satan were yet the lefs, if he only brought them forth prefumptuoufly, in fome one or two fet Battels upon Special occafions: But (4.) he would have this to be their conftant work, the task of every day; upon the fame fcere that Achitophel advised Abfalom, to an open and avouched defilement of his Fathers Concubines, that fo the breach 'twixt them and God might be fixed by a refolute determinations and confequently that their hands might be frong, and their hearts hardned in rebellion against God. And

(5.) that

(5.) That Satan might not come fhort of the utmost of what Cruelty could do: We may yet further obferve, that though Sinners offer themselves willingly enough, to conflict against God in the bigh places of the Field, yet as not fatisfied with their forwardnefs, he lafheth and whips them on to their work, and fometime over-drives them in their own earneftnefs. Haman was fo hurried and overborn with violent hatred against Mordecai and Efther 5.13. the Jews, that his own advancement, and the marks of fingular favour from the King availed him not, as to any fatisfaction and prefent contentment. Ahab, though King of Ifrael, is fo vehemently urged in his defires for Naboth's Vineyard, that he covered his Face and grew fick upon it. Thus, as Gally-Slaves, were they chained to their Oar, and forced to their work beyond their own ftrength.

Thirdly, There is also a cruelty feen in his inceffant provokings and force upon the Children of God, while he urgeth his loathed Temptations upon them against their will. When I confider Paul's out-cry in this cafe, (Rom. 7. 15, 19.) That which I do,I allow not, the evil which I would not, that do I, &c.) my thoughts represent him to me, like thofe Chriftians that were tortured in the Trough, where Water was poured by a continued Stream upon their Mouths, till the Cloth that lay upon their Lips was forced down their Throats; or like thofe that had ftinking Puddlewater by a Tunnel poured into their Stomacks, till they were ready to burst; and furely he apprehended himself to be under very cruel dealing by Satan, when he cryed out, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me? If we feriously confider the mind and endeavours of thofe Children of God, that are striving against Sin, and have caft it off as the moft loathfom abominable thing, when Satan urgeth them to Evil with his inceffant Importunities; it is as if they were forced to eat their own Excrements, or to swallow down again their own Vomit; for the Devil doth but (as it were) cram thefe Temptations down their Throats against their will.

Fourthly, If we caft our Eye upon the Perfecutions of all Ages, we shall have thence enough to charge Satan withall, in point of Cruelty; for he, who is ftiled a Murtherer from the beginning, fet them all on Foot; 'tis he that hath filled the World with Blood and Fury, and hath in all Ages, in one place or other, made it Va very Shambles and Slaughter-house of Men. (1.) Can we

I 2

reckon

44

reckon how often Satan hath been at this work? that is impoffible. His moft publick and general attempts of this kind are noted by Hiftories of all Ages. The Perfecutions of Pharaoh against Ifrael, and of the prevailing Adverfaries of Ifrael and Judah, against both or either of them, are recorded for the most part in Scripture: the Perfecutions of the Roman Emperours against Christianity are fufficiently known, and what is yet to come who can tell? A great Perfecution by Antichrist was the general belief and expectation of those that lived in Austin's time, and long before; but whether this be one more, to the ten former Perfecutions De Civit. Dei (that fo the Parallel betwixt these, and Pharaoh's ruine in the lib. 18. c. 52. Red-Sea after his ten Plagues, might run even) be only to be looked for, or that others are alfo to be expected, he thinks it would be prefumption and rafhnefs to determine: But however, his particular affaults of this nature cannot be numbred: how bufie is he ftill at this work, in all Times and Places? infomuch, that be that will live Godly in this World, muft fuffer Perfecution. But (2.) if we withall confider 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 thofe Inftruments of deftruction. And when we fee amongst Tyrants, ways of torturing every Member of the Body, and Arts of multiplying deaths, that so those that perish by their hands, might not have fo much as the mercy of a speedy dif patch, but that they might feel themselves to die, we may reflect it upon Satan, in Jacob's words to Simeon and Levi, Curfed be bis Anger, for it is fierce, and bis Wrath, for it is cruel. (3.) But if we confider what Inftruments he useth, and against whom, we fhall fee cruelty in an higher exaltation: had he used fome of the Beasts of the Earth, or fome of his apoftate Affociats, to perfecute and afflict the innocent Lambs of Chrift, it might have been much excufed, from the natural instinct or cursed antipathy of such Agents or had he used only the vileft of the Children of Men to act his tragical fury, the matter had been lefs: But as not content with common revenge, he perfecutes Men by Men, though all of one Blood and Off-fpring, and fo perverts the ends of nature, making those that should be the comforts and fupport of Men, to be

the

the greatest terrour and curfe to them; a thing which Nature it felf abhors, and in regard of which, (that the impreffions of Pity might be more permanent, and efficacious) God forbad Ifrael to feeth a Kid in the Mothers Milk; nay, he hath prevailed with fome of good Inclinations, and rare Accomplishments (for such were fome of the perfecuting Emperours) to be his Deputies, for authorizing the Rack, for providing Fire and Faggot and (which is ftrange) hath prevailed fo far with them, that they have been willing to open their Ears, to the moft palpable Lyes, the groffeft Forgeries, the most unreasonable Suggeftions that known Malice could invent; and then after all, when they were drawn out to Butchery, and flaughter by multitudes, they have made fuck Spectacles (which might make impreffions upon an Iron Breast, or an Adamant Heart,) only advancements of their Follity; and as Nero upon the fight of flaming Rome, took his Harp and made Melody: fo have these tormenting Furies fired (by the help of combuftible matter) multitudes of fuch harmlefs. Creatures, and then taken the opportunity of their Light, for their night Sports. And yet (me thinks) the Devil hath discoverd a keener Fury, when he hath made thein rage against the Dead, and dig their Graves, and revenge themfelves upon their fenfleß Ashes, and when they could do no more, feek to please themselves by executing their rage against their Pictures or Statues; which Actions,though they might be condemned for Follies, yet are they evidences of highest Fury, which commonly deftroys the Judgment, and facrificeth Wit, Reason, and Honour, upon the Altar of Revenge. That the Devil fhould fo boyfon Mans Nature, that he should thus rife up against his Fellow, that carries the fame fpecifick Being with himself, fhews enough of his temper against Man, but never more than when he prevails against the engagements of Kindneß, Blond, Affinity, and Relation, to raise a Mans Enemies out of his own Houfe, the Father against the Son, and the Son against the Father; the Daughter against the Mother, and the Mother against the Daughter: for this is little lefs, than an unnatural Mutiny of the Members against the Body.

Fifthly, We have yet a more vifible inftance of his Cruelty, in his bloody and tyrannical Superftitions. Look but into the Rites and Ways of his Worship, among the Heathen in all Ages and Places, and you will find nothing but vile and ridiculous Fooleries, or infolent and defpightful ufages. In the former he hath driven

Men