_Fourthly, Ignorance and prejudice are spiritual indispositions_, which are not neglected by the devil. Knowledge is the eye and guide of the soul. If there be darkness there, all acts which depend upon better instruction must cease. The disciples’ ignorance of Scriptures brought in their unbelief. Christ notes that as the fountainhead of all their backwardness: Luke xxiv. 25, ‘O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.’ In like manner, if men are not clear or knowing in the ways and necessities of duty and service, the devil can easily prevail with them to forbear and neglect. Prejudice riseth up to justify the disregard of duty, and offers reasons which it thinks cannot be answered. (3.) Thirdly, Satan endeavours to prevent duty _by discouragements_. If he can make the ‘knees feeble,’ and the ‘hands hang down,’ he will quickly cause activity and motion to cease. The ways by which he endeavours to discourage men from the duties of service are these:— [1.] First, He sets before them _the toil and burden of duty_. If a man sets his face toward heaven, thus he endeavours to scare him off: Is not, saith he, the way of religion a dull, melancholy way? Is it not a toil—a tedious task? Are not these unreasonable injunctions: ‘Pray continually,’ ‘Pray without ceasing,’ ‘Preach in season and out of season’? This suggestion, though it be expressly contrary to command, yet being so suitable to the idle and sluggish tempers of men, they are the more apt to take notice of it, and accordingly they seek ways and shifts of accommodating the command to their inclinations. In Amos viii. 5, the toil of sabbaths and festival services, as they thought it, makes them weary of the duty, ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?’ These men thought their services tedious and entrenching upon their callings and occupations: Mal. i. 13, ‘They said, Behold, what a weariness is it!’ looking upon it as an insufferable burden, nay they proceeded so far as to snuff at it. Now when the devil had so far prevailed with them, it was easy to put them upon neglect; which, as the place cited speaks, presently followed upon it, they ‘brought the torn, and the lame, and the sick for a sacrifice.’ Satan first presented these services as a wearisome burden, then they snuffed at them; next they thought any service good enough, how mean soever, though to an open violation of the law of worship; and lastly, from a pollution of the table of the Lord they proceeded to a plain contempt of duty, ‘the table of the Lord is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even his meat is contemptible,’ ver. 12. In the management of this discouragement, the devil hath most success upon those that have not yet tasted the sweetness and easiness of the ways of the Lord, ‘his yoke is indeed easy, his burden is light;’ his service is a true freedom to those that are acquainted with God, and exercised in his service.