3. Thirdly, There is also a cruelty seen in _his incessant provokings and force upon the children of God_, while he urgeth his loathed temptations upon them against their will. When I consider Paul’s outcry in this case, Rom. vii. 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 those Christians 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 those that had stinking puddle-water by a tunnel poured into their stomachs, till they were ready to burst; and surely he apprehended himself to be under very cruel dealing by Satan when he cried out, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?’ If we seriously consider the mind and endeavours of those children of God that are striving against sin, and have cast it off as the most loathsome abominable thing, when Satan urgeth them to evil with his incessant 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 these temptations down their throats against their will. 4. Fourthly, If we cast our eye upon _the persecutions of all ages_, we shall have thence enough to charge Satan withal in point of cruelty, for he who is styled ‘a murderer from the beginning,’ [John viii. 44,] set them all on foot. It is he that hath filled the world with blood and fury, and hath in all ages, in one place or other, made it a very shambles and slaughter-house of men. [1.] Can we reckon how often Satan hath been at this work? That is impossible. His most public and general attempts of this kind are noted by histories of all ages. The persecutions of Pharaoh against Israel, and of the prevailing adversaries of Israel and Judah against both or either of them, are recorded for the most part in Scripture. The persecutions of the Roman emperors against Christianity are sufficiently known, and what is yet to come who can tell? A great persecution 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 persecutions, that so the parallel betwixt these and Pharaoh’s ruin in the Red Sea after his ten plagues might run even, be only to be looked for, or that others are also to be expected, he thinks it would be presumption and rashness to determine.[133] But, however, his particular assaults of this nature cannot be numbered: how busy is he still at this work in all times and places! insomuch that ‘He that will live godly in this world must suffer persecution,’ 2 Tim. iii. 12. But [2.] If we withal consider 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