Sermon 5

Vexed with a Devil. [illegible] She is devilled, that is, fully possessed: The malice of the Devil is a natural agent, and works as intently and bent as he can, as agens maximum quod sic, the fire puts forth all its strength in burning, the Sun heats and enlightens as vehemently as it can: A millstone fallen from the sphere of the Moon down to the earth, uses no moderation or abatement in its motion: The malice of Hell being let loose, it works mischief by nature, not by will. Satan's possession is full, Peter says to Ananias (Acts 5:3), Why has Satan filled your heart to lie against the Holy Ghost? As there is a fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19), so there's a fullness of the Devil, as (Romans 1:29) being filled with all unrighteousness. It is no wonder that Cavaliers and Malignants work as their Father, the nature of the Father is in the son, modus operandi sequitur modum essendi, the manner of working, is suitable to the nature of the worker, hell works like Hell (Jeremiah 3:5). Behold you have spoken, and done evil as you could (Isaiah 5:18). They draw sin and iniquity, not with a rush or a thread, but with [reconstructed: cords] of vanity, and with a cart rope (Micah 7:3). They do evil with both hands earnestly. All that malice and Hell could do of cruelty to young and old, to women and sucking infants, has been done in Ireland and England: The Devil in his element is twice a Devil, he is in his own when he forms and actuates bloody instruments, and he abounds in his own sphere; Satan's malice, alone, is great, and a sinner's wrath is heavier than stones and sand: but when they are conjoined (as united force is stronger) who can stand before them? Christ's Lambs have been preserved amidst Devils and men, since the Creation, among Wolves, by no human power and strength.

Observe, That all that came to Christ have been forced through some one necessity or other, either a leprous body, blind eyes, a palsy, a bloody issue, a withered arm, or a dying son, and that some have been brought to Christ, at least their Parents or Friends have come to Christ through reason of bodily possession by the Devil; but we read of none that came through reason of the Devil's spiritual possessing of them, either by themselves or others. 1. There is much flesh and much nature in us, and so much sense and little spirit, and little of God; a blind eye will chase you to Christ, a soul under the Prince of darkness will not. 2. We are all body, and life, and time; but we are not all Soul, and Spirit, and Eternity: Heaven is far from being the master element in us. 3. Misplaced love is much (John 8:44). You are of your Father the Devil, says Christ to the Jews; every child loves the Father. Why? And men love not the Devil; does not every wretch through nature's instinct, abhor the Devil? Is not this the mother-devotion of any wretch that knows nothing of God from the womb? God save me from the Devil, and all his works, I have nothing to do with that foul spirit. It's true, There's a physical hatred of the Devil; as he is a spirit, an Angel and the Pursuivant of divine justice, inflicting evil of punishment on all men naturally; but there's in all men an inbred moral love of the Devil, as he is a fallen spirit, tempting to sin; here every prisoner loves this keeper, like loves like, broken men and bankrupts flee together to Woods and Mountains; an outlaw loves an outlaw, Fowls of a feather flock together, the Devil and sinful men are both broken men, and outlaws of Heaven, and of one blood; wicked men are (1 John 3:10) the children of the Devil, they have that natural relation of Father and Son: There's of the Devil's seed in sinners, there's a spiritual concupiscence in Devils, to lust against God's Image and Glory, and Satan finds his own seed in us by nature, to wit, concupiscence, a stem, a sprouting, and child of the house of Hell. It were good we knew our own misery, the man resolves a prisoner has a sweet life, who loves his own chains because made of gold, and hates them not because chains, and falls to paint the walls of his Dungeon, and to put up Hangings in his Prison, and will but over-gild with gold his Iron Fetters: Oh! are we not in love with our own Dungeon of sin? And do we not bear a kind love to our Father the Devil? We bring in provision for the flesh, and nourish the Old man, as old as since Adam first sinned: Alas, we never saw our Father in the face, we love the Devil as the Devil fallen in sin, but we see him not as a Devil, but only under the embroideries of golden and silken temptations, we sow to the flesh, we store our crop for the Devil, but we know not our landlord; and because sense and flesh is nearer to us than God, we desire more the liberties of State, free commerce, and peace with the King, than Christ's liberties, the power, and purity of the Gospel, that we may negotiate with Heaven, and have peace with God.

Unclean spirit] This is the quality of this Devil: An unclean Devil. Now whether he be called so, because he tempted the Maid to some prodigious acts of uncleanness, or because in general he tempts to uncleanness of sins; so as uncleanness is but a general epithet of all the Devils; I profess my ignorance, however all devils have this general name, unclean spirits, because of their spiritual uncleanness: It's certain, Devils are, 1. Black, now they being fallen in a smoky Hell, and kept under the power and chains of darkness, they are but lumps of black Hell, and darkness, whereas they are created fair Angels: 1. Truth is the fairest thing that is, obedience to God is truth (John 3:21). Sin is the most ugly, and deformed thing in the world: and therefore sinners can have no communion with God, while they be washed: 2. Devils were once pure and clean spirits, their understandings were made clear, to see God and his beauty; now these fair spirits are darkened, for their fellow-Angels who sinned not, are yet Seraphim, and Lamps of light, and these Angels (says Christ, Matthew 18:10) do always behold the face of my Father which is in Heaven.

Then the more grace of Christ, the more clearness of saving knowledge and sound reason; grace makes more solid wisdom than Art or Learning; by this David excelled all his teachers, and the ancient ones: In Satan's fools the right principle of wisdom is extinguished; the Prophet spoke it of statesmen, or rather state fools, (Jeremiah 8:9). Lo they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what wisdom is in them? As there be pollutions of the flesh, so are there pollutions of the mind and spirit (2 Timothy 3:8). Men of corrupt mind, are men of rotten minds; false opinions of God are rottenness in the understanding. (1 Timothy 1:7). The spirit of a sound mind, verse 13. Hold fast the form of sound words: There are some words that come from a sick mind, as (Titus 1:13). The Apostle holds forth, that there be some sick of the faith, as there be some sound of the faith, (Proverbs 2:7). The Lord gives sound wisdom [〈in non-Latin alphabet〉] its essence and being: Tushija, Pagnin, Substantiam: R. Levi, reservabit rectis id quod est; Ra. David says, Because wisdom and the Law of God is an abiding, and (as Aben Ezra says) a living thing that endures to eternity; whereas indeed human wisdom, and false opinions of God, are passing-away things, the lie does not live a long age: wisdom is a Tree of Life, (Psalm 119:80). Let my heart be sound in your statutes: [〈in non-Latin alphabet〉] perfect, wanting nothing, a fool lacks the best part of his heart: State-wisdom, not lying level to Christ's ends, but commensurate with carnal projects, is but folly.

Hearing of him] What had she heard? That Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah of Israel, and could, and was willing to heal her daughter: two things are here observable, hearing of Christ drew her to Christ: 2. It's good to border with Christ, and to be near hand to him: There is a necessity that we hear of Christ, before we come to him. This is God's way, (Romans 10). Faith comes by hearing: Christ is not in us from the womb, faith is not a flower that grows out of such a sour and cold ground as nature; it's a stem and a birth of heaven: 2. None can come to Christ, except they hear a good report of him. How shall they believe in him, of whom they have not heard? Those who come aright to Christ, must have noble, high, long, deep, and broad thoughts of Jesus, and know the Gospel. Now what is the Gospel? Nothing but a good report of Christ; you must hear a Gospel-report of Christ, before you come to him: Ill-principled thoughts of Christ keeps many from him, (1 Kings 8:42). Strangers shall hear of your great name, and of your strong hand. Christ was to be heard by the deaf Gentiles, (Isaiah 29:18). In that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book: We hear, and we hear not, because the Lord does not awaken the ear, morning by morning, that we may hear as the learned: Many hear, but they have not the learned ear, nor the ear of such as have heard and learned of the Father: Many hear of Christ, a voice, and no more but a voice, they know not that prophecy, (Isaiah 30:21). Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way walk in it: There's another vice in our hearing men do not hear, that they may hear, (Isaiah 42:18). Hear you deaf, and behold you blind, that you may see: That is, hear that you may hear, see that you may see: the Lord gives grace, that he may give grace, and we are to receive grace, that we may receive grace: grace is the only reward of grace: 3. We hear, and we hear not; we see, but we have no reflect-act upon our seeing: Many open their ears to Christ, but they hear not, they lack a spiritual faculty of observing, (Isaiah 42:20). Seeing many things, but you observe not; opening the ear, but he hears not. 4. Many put Christ in an ear without a bottom, or in ear with a hole in its bottom; we hear of Christ, (Hebrews 2). but we are as leaking and running-out vessels, (Isaiah 42:23). Who among you will give ear to this, and hear for the time to come? Physicians give their three causes of deafness: 1. When there's a carnosity on the Tympanum auris, the drum, this is Extrinsic, the world is another lover, and the care of it, and that hinders hearing. 2. When the organ of hearing is hurt and distempered, as a lame hand cannot apprehend: now when there be false fancies, and principles contrary to the Gospel in the heart, the ear cannot hear. 3. When there is abundance of humors in the brain, and they raise a noise, and tumult in tympano, in the drum, and hinder sounds to be heard. When Pride, and principles of Sensuality and vain pleasures make a noise within, that neither Christ knocking, nor his voice without can be heard, men are deaf.

But why do we not hear and see Christ revealing himself in his ways and works? Reason would say, If hell and judgment were before our eyes, we should hear and come to Christ: Suppose we saw with our eyes for twenty or thirty years together, a great furnace of fire, of the quantity of the whole earth, and saw there, Cain, Judas, Ahithophel, Saul, and all the damned, as lumps of red fire, and they boiling and leaping for pain in a dungeon of everlasting brimstone, and the black and terrible devils with long and sharp-toothed whips of scorpions, lashing out scourges on them; and if we saw there our neighbors, brothers, sisters, indeed our dear children, wives, fathers and mothers, swimming and sinking in that black lake, and heard the yelling, shouting, crying of our young ones and fathers, blaspheming the spotless justice of God; if we saw this, while we are living here on earth, we should not dare to offend the majesty of God, but should hear, come to Christ, and believe and be saved. But the truth is, If we believe not Moses and the Prophets, neither should we believe for this, because we see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, even while we are in this life daily, pieces and little parcels of hell, for we see and hear daily some tumbling in their blood, thousands cut down of our brothers, children, fathers, malefactors hanged and quartered, death in every house: These, these be little hells, and little coals and sparkles of the great fire of hell, and certain documents to us, that there is a hell. Yet we neither hear nor come to Christ.

In fact, suppose a preacher come from Hell to the rich glutton's five brethren (Luke 16), and should bring with him all the lashes, and print of the whips of Satan's scorpions, on back and side, on thighs, arms and legs; and though he should bring up to us out of hell, ten thousand damned, and bring with him the fire, the red coals of the fury of God, every coal as great as a mountain, and offer them all to our eyes and ears & senses, such is the power of our deafness and blindness, that we should not believe: for when many little hells work so little by length of time, this one great hell should never bring us to hear, and come to Christ. See how little we are affected with the blood of so many thousands of our own flesh in the three kingdoms: Alas! Our senses are confined within time.

The other thing observable, is, that it is good to be near the place where Christ is. It was advantage, that the woman dwelt upon the borders of the land where Christ was. It is good for the poor to be a neighbor beside the rich, and for the thirsty to take up house and dwell at the fountain, and for the sick to border with the physician. O love the ground that Christ walks on. To be born in Zion is an honor (Psalm 87:6), because there the Lord dwells. It is a blessing to hear and see Christ (Matthew 13:16). We do not weigh, nor duly esteem what a favor it is, that Christ walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks, that the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. It is ours, to build him a palace of silver.

For the sixth article, which is, her adoring of Christ; it shall be spoken of in another place: I hasten therefore to her prayer.