In General

First, Satan has a special inclination and a more peculiar malicious desire to vex and molest the saints with this sort of temptations — of doubts and disquietness that God is not their God. So that all his other temptations to sin are but as the laying in and barreling up of the gunpowder and making of the fuse for this great plot of blowing up all. He tempts Peter to deny his master — 'Satan has desired to sift you' — but he has a further reach, a design upon his faith, which Christ foresaw, and therefore did mainly bend his prayer against it: 'But I have prayed that your faith fail not.' Satan hoped by that gross sin to have drawn him into despair. We may likewise observe how he did place this temptation in the forefront of those three assaults which he made upon Christ, who as in his obedience so in his temptations is made a complete example to us. For he was tempted in all things — that is, with all sorts of temptations — and also like us in manner, only without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Now he tempted him not only to vain hopes, when he showed him the glory of the whole world, and to presumption to throw himself down headlong from the pinnacle; but first and primarily to jealousies and distrusts between him and his Father, and between his human nature and the divine. For when Christ had newly received that testimony from all the three persons — the Father proclaiming him to be his Son from heaven; the Spirit descending on him at his baptism (it being the special grace and institution of that ordinance to seal up adoption and regeneration) — then comes Satan and tempts him to question that voice, that it might be but a delusion. And Christ's human nature never having done any outward miracle as yet (as appears John 2:11), he would now have had him take this occasion in the extremity of his hunger, by commanding stones to become bread, to make trial whether he was the Son of God or no and hypostatically united to the second person; which if God should not do for him, then to question his sonship and think all this to be but a delusion. This was the meaning of it: 'If you be the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread,' etc., withal insinuating that God leaving him even destitute of daily bread (which parents that are evil give to their children, and not a stone instead of bread) might seem to occasion an 'if' whether he was the Son of God or no.

The reasons of this are: 1. Above all graces in us, he is the greatest enemy to faith. Therefore (1 Thessalonians 3:5) the apostle was jealous of Satan in nothing more than in this, lest he had been dealing and tampering with and perverting their faith: 'I sent to know of your faith, lest by some means the tempter has tempted you.' For faith in God is the greatest enemy to Satan — it quenches all his darts (Ephesians 6:16). By standing steadfast in which, we resist him so that he flees from us (1 Peter 5:9). As therefore faith is that chief work of God and the master-grace (John 6), so despair and doubting is the masterpiece of Satan. And in faith he is especially envious at the joy of our faith (Romans 15:13). And as comfort is the most proper work of the Spirit and most pleasing work to him: so is discomfort and distress the proper work of this evil Spirit.

And again 2. as he is most opposite to the Holy Spirit, so he delights to blaspheme his work in our hearts to us, by persuading us that all is counterfeit.

3. He is called 'that envious one,' and the main object and mark of his envy is this: that God should be our God, who has cast off him. And therefore when he sees he cannot separate between God and us really, he will endeavor to cast and raise up jealousies that he is not our God in our apprehensions. He endeavored to raise jealousies between God and our first parents: 'God knows you shall be as gods,' etc., as if God had forbidden them that fruit out of an envy toward them of a better condition. And the like he endeavored between Christ's human nature and the divine, though hypostatically united.

And likewise 4. 'That God has given us eternal life, and that life is in his Son' — this being the great truth of the gospel, so that a Christian who believes it not makes God a liar (1 John 5:10-11): therefore Satan, being that great liar (John 8:44), opposes this great truth and our faith therein above all others. His envy at the advancement of our nature in Christ, according to that truth, is thought by some to have been his fall and ruin, so understanding that in John 8: 'He abode not in the truth.' However, he does now delight to make God a liar to us in our apprehensions by questioning his promises, and especially to enforce the persuasion thereof out of God's own dealing with us, perverting his righteous ways.

And secondly, as Satan has such a desire: so God may give his child up into Satan's hand for a while, thus to afflict and terrify his spirit. His last commission over Job seems to extend thus far, for his life only was excepted (Job 2:6): 'He is in your hand, only save his life.' And therefore after that leave given, we hear Job (although never brought to question his estate, yet) crying out of terrors and of the sins of his youth; for Satan then, as he smote his body with boils, so buffeted his spirit. And though Satan has will of himself and a desire to it and physical power enough and abilities to inflict this at all times, yet he must further have moral power, or leave and commission from God. And God sometimes gives to Satan power over the sons and daughters of Abraham (Luke 13) even as well as others, and as their bodies to be vexed by him, so their spirits; and as to provoke them to sin, so much more to terrify for sin — there being more of punishment than of sin in that. Thus he left David to Satan, to provoke him to sin as well as Judas; therefore that provocation to number the people, as it is imputed to Satan and his malice (1 Chronicles 21:1), so also to God and his anger in giving leave first to Satan (2 Samuel 24:1). And as an evil spirit from the Lord troubled Saul's mind (1 Samuel 16:14), so a messenger of Satan was sent to buffet Paul's spirit (2 Corinthians 12). Wherein yet God does in no way help Satan with any further power than what as an angel he furnished him with at his creation, nor with any assistance or information of our secret sins against us to enable him the more to assault us — this I find not in Scripture — but permissive power only. Which is either 1. obtained and given at Satan's motion and request first made (so that phrase, Luke 22:31, 'Satan has requested and petitioned to sift you,' as also Job 2:3, 'You moved me against him,' does imply; and as it may seem by singling out and calling forth some one for this combat, as he did him more especially, to whom therefore Christ addresses that premonition; and the word implies as much; so also Job was singled out for this duel, both by God and Satan). Or else 2. this is done through the ordinance of excommunication and censures of the church duly administered, with the key not erring, for gross and scandalous sins. The proper inward effect that accompanies that ordinance (which casts men out of the church) being inward affliction and distress of conscience by Satan (which of all afflictions is the greatest punishment, as the apostle calls it, 2 Corinthians 2:6) — thereby to bring a man to repentance. Even as on the contrary, the special work of baptism (which admits into the church), to such as were adult believers already, was by joy in the Holy Ghost to seal up their adoption and regeneration to them, as to the eunuch (Acts 8:39). This we may see in the excommunication of the incestuous Corinthian, whose excommunication is therefore expressed to be 'a delivering him up to Satan in the name of the Lord Jesus' (1 Corinthians 5:9) — that is, he was to be cast out by a commission from Christ, which going forth in his name, when they published it on earth he signed it in heaven. Upon which rightly administered does ensue, first, that as the church does cut them off from communion with them, so God cuts them off from communion with himself and hides and withdraws the light of his countenance, the witness of his Spirit, and his comfortable presence. And not only so, but delivers them up to Satan — that being the consequence of it, which therefore, because it implies the former, is put to express the whole proceeding. Which delivery of him to Satan was not a giving him a commission to carry him on to more sin, for the end proposed by the apostle was to destroy the flesh — that is, corruption and the body of sin — and that the spirit might be saved (verse 5): that is, that contrary principle of grace which yet remained but was ready to die (as it is Revelation 3:2) might be saved and kept from death and destruction (though that often is indeed the effect of it in hypocrites, as in Alexander, 1 Timothy 1:19). But it was to terrify and afflict his conscience and to stir up in him the guilt of his sin with terrors for it, which God sanctifies to humble and to mortify the flesh. And thus when that Corinthian was excommunicated, did Satan accordingly deal with him, for in the next epistle (2 Corinthians 2:7) we find him well-nigh swallowed up of sorrow, which was Satan's doing, for verse 11: 'We are not ignorant,' says the apostle in reference partly to this, 'of his devices.' And thus Satan continued still to handle him even now when he began to be truly humbled and was a fit subject to receive forgiveness and comfort (verse 7), when though he feared God and obeyed him, yet he walked in darkness, till the church received him. Or else 3. when this ordinance is not in the case of such sins administered, then God himself (who works without an ordinance sometimes the same effects that with it) does excommunicate men's spirits from his presence and gives them up to Satan by terrors to whip them home to himself. So that God gives him leave to exercise power over both godly men and wicked men, only with this difference: wicked men God gives up to him as to their ruler and their head — they are therefore called 'the rulers of the darkness of this world' (Ephesians 6:12), who therefore 'work effectually in the children of disobedience' (Ephesians 2:2) — or else as captives to a prince, he taking them captive at his will (2 Timothy 2:26), so that they are captived and led away (1 Corinthians 12:2). But his own, God gives up to him but as prisoners to a jailer, as a magistrate may do his child to commit him; who has not a power over his prisoner to do anything with him, but only by appointment, for a time, with a limited commission, and therefore cannot put him on the rack or into the dungeon but when and how far God pleases. Even as when Satan is said to have cast them into prison (Revelation 2:10), his commission was but for ten days, and then God rebukes him.

Satan having thus obtained leave; now 3. to show how able and powerful he is to work darkness in us, I need not much insist on. His physical and natural power to work upon our spirits, by his nature as he is an angel, is exceedingly great. We are a middle sort of creatures between them and beasts — beasts being merely corporeal, they merely spiritual, man between both. He made us 'a little inferior to the angels' (Hebrews 2), though but a little, yet inferior; and in respect of that inferiority we are exposed to their working and crafty wiles. The great advantage they have hereby over us the apostle insinuates when he says, 'We have not to do with flesh and blood, but with spiritual wickednesses' (Ephesians 6:12) — that is, with spirits, in abilities transcending the power of flesh and blood. For 'flesh' is used to express weakness when it is thus compared (as here) with Spirit (so Isaiah 31:3). Therefore they are there also called 'principalities' for their authority, so 'powers' for their natural abilities — and that to work upon us, for it is spoken in that relation. All which power, how great soever in him at his first creation, is now become the power of darkness, and so called because most powerful that way, namely to cause and work darkness in us. And though he can for a need transform himself into an angel of light by deluding his deceived enthusiasts with false joys, yet therein he does but act a part; it is but forced. But to show himself an angel of darkness by terrifying and frightening weak consciences — this is natural now to him; his power lies most in this. Therefore his title further is 'the ruler of darkness'; and also he is called 'that strong man' — strong to keep peace (Luke 11:21) in those he deceives with a false peace, so to make war and commotions in us when he is cast out. We are bidden therefore to stand upon our guard, and to look that we have on the whole armor of God, that we may be able to stand against his wiles (Ephesians 6:11).

Only in the fourth place: though Satan has never so much power, yet the advantage and exercise of this his power to work those disquietments in us is by reason of that sinful darkness which is in us. We may say that as, unless he had power from above (that is, from God), so nor unless he had furtherance from beneath — even from those principles of guilt and darkness in us aforementioned — he could not disquiet us. 'Satan comes,' says Christ, 'but has nothing in me.' A commission he had, and therefore came; but he had nothing of his image or of the guilt of any of his works to work upon in Christ, and therefore could effect nothing at all upon his spirit. That therefore which gives him privilege, scope, and matter to work thus upon us, is something within us. There being even in the best something which does belong to his jurisdiction, which makes their spirits fit subjects for his temptations to take upon. In Ephesians 6:12, they are called 'the rulers of the darkness of this world'; and Colossians 1:12-13, their power is called 'the power of darkness' — so that darkness is his territories, dominion, and jurisdiction, for it is his work and his image, without which he could have no power at all with us. But by reason of this remaining darkness he has a double advantage over us.

1. An advantage of more near, intimate, and immediate access to our spirits to close with them, to suggest to them and work upon them, and to tempt not only as one man tempts another by the outward senses, but by the inward also — which is an exceeding great advantage. And though it is true that as he is an angel he has naturally by creation the ability thus to do, yet as he is now a devil and an unclean spirit, were we but perfectly holy as in innocency, he should be debarred all such near communication to us. To this purpose it may be observed that in that his temptation of Adam in innocency, he was not permitted in his first assault (till he had sinned) to come within him to work upon his fancy and affections indiscernably — but only mediately and externally by an audible voice in the body of a serpent. And likewise as touching the second Adam, we read not that he had access to his inward senses and spirit, but only by an external suggestion by voice and by visible representations — as when he showed him the glory of the world in visible landscapes of his own making which were represented to the eye. What else was the reason why he took the advantage of a mountain? If it had been by working on his inward senses, any place would have served for that. But the devil then appeared in a visible shape and so tempted him, for he would have had him fallen down to worship him. Another time we find him crept into one of his apostles to assault our Savior by him: 'Master, spare yourself,' says he (Matthew 16:23). When therefore Christ says to him, 'Get behind me, Satan: you are an offense to me' — so still Satan was kept at a distance and could come no nearer. And that he should yet come thus near to him made Christ also in that great temptation in the wilderness, with so much vehemence and indignation, at last say to him, 'Away, Satan' (Matthew 4:10), as loathing the nearness of so foul a spirit. For what fellowship — that is, such close nearness — should light have with this angel of darkness? Nor should he have such more near and inward access to our spirits, but for that darkness in us, by reason of which he thus comes within us; and as darkness mingles with darkness, so he with our spirits. So that as the light of grace in us begun does fit us for God's drawing near to us, so this darkness remaining in part unexpelled exposes us to Satan's drawing near — so near as to mingle with our spirits and as it were to become one spirit with us.

2. As hereby he has this advantage of access to get within us, so this darkness in us is also as fit fuel and as tinder to his fiery temptations, that presently kindles and enflames. So that all those effects of the principles of darkness mentioned, he can both increase and augment; and so adds blackness to that darkness in us. And darkness being his dominion, therefore so much darkness as is in us, so great a party he has in us to work upon. Hence therefore all the effects that he works in unregenerate men (who are nothing but darkness) he may work in regenerate men according to the proportion of the remainder of darkness in them, to a certain degree and for a limited season — as to delude their reason, falsely accuse, and terrify their consciences, etc. Only small despair and revenge against God — which is that sin to death — this the apostle excepts. For having occasionally mentioned that sin (1 John 5:16), he adds (verse 17) that 'he that is born of God sins not' — that is, not that sin. And he subjoins, 'But he keeps himself that that evil one touches him not' — that is, with the least infusion of the venom of that sin, which is properly his sin (John 8:44) and which he touches the spirits of those with who become the serpent's seed. And therefore all such instances as we find that show how he has worked on the spirits of carnal men by reason of their total darkness may be alleged to show in proportion what he may also work on regenerate men for a season, by reason of their darkness remaining in part. All things happening alike to all. Thus in general.

First, Satan has a special inclination and a particularly malicious desire to torment the saints with this kind of temptation — doubts and distress over whether God is truly their God. All his other temptations to sin are merely the laying in of gunpowder and setting of the fuse for this great plot to blow up everything. He tempted Peter to deny his master — 'Satan has desired to sift you' — but he had a deeper aim: an attack on Peter's faith, which Christ foresaw, and which was therefore the primary focus of His prayer: 'But I have prayed that your faith may not fail.' Satan hoped that gross sin would drag Peter into despair. We can also observe how Satan placed this very temptation at the front of his three assaults on Christ — who, in His obedience as in His temptations, is made our complete example. For He was tempted in all things — that is, with every kind of temptation — and in the same manner as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Satan tempted Him not only to vain hopes — when he showed Him the glory of the whole world — and to presumption — urging Him to throw Himself from the pinnacle. His primary and first temptation was to stir up jealousy and distrust between Christ and His Father, and between His human nature and the divine. When Christ had just received testimony from all three persons — the Father proclaiming Him His Son from heaven, the Spirit descending on Him at His baptism (it being the special purpose of that ordinance to seal adoption and regeneration) — Satan came and tempted Him to question that voice, suggesting it might have been only a delusion. Since Christ's human nature had not yet performed any outward miracle (as appears from John 2:11), Satan wanted Him to take that opportunity in the extremity of His hunger — by commanding stones to become bread — to test whether He was truly the Son of God and hypostatically united to the second person. If God would not do that for Him, he suggested, Christ should question His sonship and conclude that the whole thing had been a delusion. That was the point of it: 'If You are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread,' implying that God leaving Him without even daily bread — which even evil parents give to their children, rather than giving a stone in place of bread — might seem to call into question whether He was the Son of God at all.

The reasons for this are: 1. Above all other graces in us, Satan is the greatest enemy to faith. Therefore in 1 Thessalonians 3:5 the apostle's deepest concern about Satan was precisely this — that he had been tampering with and corrupting their faith: 'I sent to find out about your faith, fearing that the tempter had tempted you.' For faith in God is faith's greatest weapon against Satan — it extinguishes all his flaming arrows (Ephesians 6:16). By standing firm in it, we resist him so that he flees from us (1 Peter 5:9). As faith is God's chief work and the master grace (John 6), so despair and doubt are Satan's masterpiece. He is especially envious of the joy of faith (Romans 15:13). And as comfort is the Holy Spirit's most characteristic and pleasing work, so discomfort and distress are the characteristic work of this evil spirit.

2. As Satan is most opposed to the Holy Spirit, so he delights in discrediting the Spirit's work in our hearts — persuading us that all of it is counterfeit.

3. Satan is called 'that envious one,' and the main target of his envy is this: that God should be our God, having cast Satan off. Since he cannot actually separate between God and us, he will try to create the suspicion in our minds that God is not our God. He tried to plant jealousy between God and our first parents: 'God knows that when you eat of it you will be like God,' and so on — as if God had forbidden that fruit out of envy toward them, wanting to keep them from a better condition. He attempted the same between Christ's human nature and the divine, even though they were hypostatically united.

4. 'God has given us eternal life, and that life is in His Son' — this is the great truth of the gospel, so that a Christian who does not believe it makes God a liar (1 John 5:10-11). Therefore Satan, being the great liar (John 8:44), opposes this great truth and our faith in it above all others. His envy at the elevation of our nature in Christ, according to that truth, is thought by some to have been his downfall — understanding John 8 that way: 'He did not stand in the truth.' However that may be, he now delights in making God out to be a liar to us in our own perception by casting doubt on His promises — and especially by using God's own dealings with us, twisting His righteous ways against us, to enforce that persuasion.

Second, as Satan has such a desire, so God may hand His child over to Satan for a time to be afflicted and terrified in spirit. Satan's final commission over Job seems to extend this far — only Job's life was excluded (Job 2:6): 'He is in your hand; only spare his life.' After that leave was given, we hear Job — though never brought to question his standing before God — crying out about terrors and the sins of his youth; for Satan at that point buffeted his spirit as he had struck his body with boils. Though Satan has the will, desire, and raw ability to inflict this at any time, he must still have moral permission — leave and commission from God. God sometimes grants Satan power even over sons and daughters of Abraham (Luke 13) — power over their spirits as well as their bodies, to provoke them to sin but even more to terrorize them for sin, since there is more of punishment than of sin in the latter. God left David to Satan, to be provoked to sin just as Judas was. The provocation to number the people is attributed both to Satan and his malice (1 Chronicles 21:1), and to God and His anger in first granting Satan permission (2 Samuel 24:1). As an evil spirit from the Lord troubled Saul's mind (1 Samuel 16:14), so a messenger of Satan was sent to buffet Paul's spirit (2 Corinthians 12). In all of this, God does not give Satan any power beyond what He furnished him with as an angel at his creation, nor does He inform Satan of our secret sins against us to strengthen his assaults — I find no Scripture for this. It is permissive power only. This permissive power is either: 1. obtained and granted at Satan's own request (as the phrase in Luke 22:31 — 'Satan has requested to sift you' — implies, and Job 2:3, 'You moved me against him'; and as the singling out and summoning of a specific individual for this combat suggests — as Christ does here with Peter, which the wording implies; Job too was singled out for this contest by both God and Satan). Or 2. it comes through the ordinance of excommunication and church discipline rightly administered — with the key not erring — for gross and scandalous sins. The proper inward effect accompanying that ordinance, which casts a person out of the church, is inward affliction and distress of conscience through Satan (which is the greatest of all punishments, as the apostle calls it in 2 Corinthians 2:6) — intended to bring the person to repentance. Just as, by contrast, the special work of baptism (which admits into the church) for adult believers was to seal up their adoption and regeneration with joy in the Holy Spirit, as in the case of the eunuch (Acts 8:39). We see this in the excommunication of the immoral Corinthian, where the excommunication is expressed as 'delivering him up to Satan in the name of the Lord Jesus' (1 Corinthians 5:9) — that is, he was to be cast out by a commission from Christ, who signed it in heaven when they published it on earth. When this is rightly administered, first, as the church cuts him off from fellowship with them, so God cuts him off from communion with Himself, hiding and withdrawing the light of His countenance, the witness of His Spirit, and His comforting presence. And not only this, but He delivers them up to Satan — a consequence that is therefore named to express the whole proceeding. This delivery to Satan was not a commission for Satan to lead him further into sin; the purpose the apostle stated was to destroy the flesh — that is, corruption and the body of sin — so that the spirit might be saved (verse 5): meaning, that contrary principle of grace that remained but was near death (as in Revelation 3:2) might be preserved from destruction. Though that often is indeed the outcome in hypocrites, as in Alexander (1 Timothy 1:19). Rather, it was to terrify and afflict his conscience and stir up in him the guilt of his sin with terror — which God uses to humble and mortify the flesh. This is exactly how Satan dealt with the excommunicated Corinthian: in the next letter (2 Corinthians 2:7) we find him nearly swallowed up with sorrow, which was Satan's doing, as verse 11 implies: 'We are not ignorant,' says the apostle, partly in reference to this, 'of his devices.' Satan continued to handle him even when he had become truly humbled and was a fit person to receive forgiveness and comfort (verse 7) — when, though he feared God and obeyed Him, he walked in darkness. This continued until the church received him back. Or 3. where this ordinance is not administered for such sins, God Himself — who sometimes works without an ordinance the same effects that He works with it — excommunicates men's spirits from His presence and gives them up to Satan with terrors, to drive them back to Himself. So God gives Satan leave to exercise power over both the godly and the wicked, but with this distinction: the wicked He gives up to Satan as their ruler and head — they are therefore called 'the rulers of the darkness of this world' (Ephesians 6:12), who 'work powerfully in the children of disobedience' (Ephesians 2:2) — or else as captives to a prince, Satan taking them captive at his will (2 Timothy 2:26) so that they are led away (1 Corinthians 12:2). But His own people God gives up to Satan only as prisoners to a jailer, as a magistrate might hand over even his own child to custody — not giving the jailer unlimited authority, but only by appointment, for a set time, with a limited commission. Satan therefore cannot put them on the rack or throw them in the dungeon except when and as far as God permits. As when Satan is said to have cast the believers into prison in Revelation 2:10, his commission lasted only ten days, and then God rebuked him.

Satan having obtained this leave, third: his natural power to work darkness in us hardly needs extensive comment. His physical and natural power to work upon our spirits — by virtue of his nature as an angel — is exceedingly great. We are a middle kind of creature between angels and beasts: beasts are purely physical, angels are purely spiritual, and humanity stands between them. God made us 'a little lower than the angels' (Hebrews 2) — just a little, but still lower; and because of that inferiority we are exposed to their workings and crafty schemes. The great advantage this gives them over us the apostle points to when he says, 'We do not wrestle with flesh and blood, but with spiritual wickednesses' (Ephesians 6:12) — that is, with spirits whose abilities far exceed the power of flesh and blood. 'Flesh' in such a comparison expresses weakness (as in Isaiah 31:3). They are also called 'principalities' for their authority, and 'powers' for their natural abilities — abilities directed at working on us, as the context there implies. Whatever power Satan had at his creation, it has now become the power of darkness — he is most powerful precisely in causing and producing darkness in us. Though he can, when needed, transform himself into an angel of light by filling his deceived followers with false joys, that is only a performance — a forced disguise. But showing himself an angel of darkness by terrifying and frightening weak consciences — that is now natural to him; it is where his power truly lies. He is therefore also titled 'the ruler of darkness,' and called 'that strong man' — strong to keep peace (Luke 11:21) in those he deceives with a false peace, and strong to make war and upheaval in us when he is cast out. We are therefore commanded to stand guard and put on the whole armor of God, so that we may be able to stand against his schemes (Ephesians 6:11).

Fourth: although Satan has great power, the exercise of that power to produce disquiet in us depends on the sinful darkness within us. We may say that just as he must have power from above — from God — to act, so he must also have fuel from below — from those principles of guilt and darkness in us already described — or he cannot disquiet us. 'Satan comes,' says Christ, 'but he has nothing in Me.' Satan had a commission and therefore came; but he found nothing of his own image in Christ, no guilt of any of his works to work upon, and therefore could accomplish nothing against Christ's spirit. What gives Satan scope, opportunity, and material to work on us is therefore something within us. Even in the best of us there is something that falls within his jurisdiction, making our spirits fit subjects for his temptations to take hold. In Ephesians 6:12 they are called 'the rulers of the darkness of this world,' and in Colossians 1:12-13 their power is called 'the power of darkness' — so darkness is his territory, domain, and jurisdiction, for it is his work and his image, and without it he would have no power over us at all. Because of the darkness that remains in us, he has a twofold advantage.

1. He has the advantage of closer, more intimate, and more immediate access to our spirits — able to close in on them, suggest things to them, and work on them — tempting us not only as one person tempts another through the outward senses, but through the inward senses as well. This is an enormous advantage. Though it is true that as an angel he has the natural ability to do this by creation, yet as a devil and an unclean spirit, if we were perfectly holy as in innocency, he would be barred from any such near communication with us. We can observe this in his temptation of Adam in innocency: in his first assault he was not permitted — until after Adam sinned — to come inside him and work on his imagination and affections invisibly. He could only approach mediately and externally, through an audible voice in the body of a serpent. Likewise regarding the second Adam: we do not read that Satan had access to Christ's inward senses and spirit, but only through external suggestion — by voice and by visible representations — as when he showed Him the glory of the world in visible scenes of his own making presented to the eye. Why else would he take the advantage of a mountain? If he had been working on Christ's inward senses, any location would have served. The devil appeared in a visible shape and tempted Christ visibly — he wanted Christ to fall down and worship him. At another point we find Satan working through one of Christ's apostles: 'Lord, spare Yourself,' he said (Matthew 16:23). When Christ replied, 'Get behind Me, Satan; you are a stumbling block to Me,' even then Satan was kept at a distance and could come no nearer. That he came even that close made Christ, in the great temptation in the wilderness, finally say with such force and indignation, 'Away, Satan!' (Matthew 4:10) — as though recoiling from the closeness of so foul a spirit. For what fellowship — meaning such close nearness — should light have with this angel of darkness? Satan would not have such close and inward access to our spirits were it not for the darkness in us, through which he enters. As darkness mingles with darkness, so he mingles with our spirits. So just as the light of grace begun in us fits us for God's drawing near, the darkness that remains in part unexpelled exposes us to Satan's drawing near — so near as to mingle with our spirits and become, as it were, one spirit with us.

2. Just as this darkness gives him access to get inside us, so that same darkness in us serves as perfect fuel for his fiery temptations — it catches and blazes immediately. He can take all those effects of the principles of darkness already described, amplify and intensify them, and add blackness to what is already dark in us. Since darkness is his domain, the more darkness there is in us, the greater a foothold he has to work with. Therefore, all the effects he works in unregenerate people — who are nothing but darkness — he may also work in regenerate people, proportionate to the degree of darkness remaining in them, to a certain extent and for a limited time. This includes deluding their reason, falsely accusing them, terrorizing their consciences, and so on. Only one thing is excepted: the small despair and hatred toward God that constitutes the sin unto death. Having mentioned that sin incidentally (1 John 5:16), the apostle adds in verse 17 that 'he who is born of God does not sin' — meaning, not that sin. He continues: 'But he who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him' — that is, does not infuse the least drop of the venom of that sin, which is properly Satan's sin (John 8:44) and which he injects into the spirits of those who become the serpent's seed. Therefore, all the examples of how Satan has worked on the spirits of unregenerate people through their total darkness may be cited to show — in proportion — what he may also work on regenerate people for a season through their remaining partial darkness. All things happen alike to all, in their measure. So much in general.