Mercy magnified on a penitent prodigal, or A brief discourse, wherein Christs parable of…

2. The reason why Satan, especially under powerful means, so much endeavours to keep men from consideration, and to divert their minds from pondering the truth; why, if he sees a soul once come to this, he is afraid that he shall lose him: Nothing more affrights this politic enemy, than to see souls begin to be serious: he knows his kingdom is maintained by fallacies, kept up by darkness; hence when a beam of light flasheth upon any conscience, ⟨p. 163⟩he labours to extinguish it, by drawing the mind off; and therefore in the house of God, and in the dispensation of the Ordinances, he seeks to stop their ears, divert their thoughts, occupy them some other way; some he lulls asleep, others he invites to private discourse, to others he presents some object on which their eyes may be fixed, and he fills others with fancies, which occasion roving thoughts, that they may not attend: And if any are touched by the word, and begin to be affected, he hurries them away, not to their closets, but either to their vain company, or secular business; he finds something or other to employ their minds, and fill them with diversion, that so (if possible) they may not have no more serious thoughts of those matters: This is Emblematized to us by our Saviour, in the high way ground, those fowls of the heaven which pick up the seed, are Satan; and by those means it is that he keeps up his authority in the hearts of men.

2. The reason why Satan, especially under powerful means, so much endeavours to keep men from consideration, and to divert their minds from pondering the truth; why, if he sees a soul once come to this, he is afraid that he shall lose him: Nothing more afrights this politick enemy, than to see souls begin to be serious: he knows his kingdom is maintained by fallacies, kept up by darkness; hence when a beam of light flasheth upon any conscience, ⟨p. 163⟩he labours to extinguish it, by drawing the mind off; and therefore in the house of God, and in the dispensation of the Ordinances, he seeks to stop their ears, divert their thoughts, occupy them some other way; some he lulls asleep, others he invites to private discourse, to others he presents some object on which their eyes may be fixed, and he fills others with fancies, which occasion roving thoughts, that they may not attend: And if any are touched by the word, and begin to be affected, he hurries them away, not to their closets, but either to their vain company, or secular business; he finds something or other to employ their minds, and fill them with diversion, that so (if possible) they may not have no more serious thoughts of those matters: This is Emblematized to us by our Saviour, in the high way ground, those fowles of the heaven which pick up the seed, are Satan; and by those means it is that he keeps up his authority in the hearts of men.