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The first hinders the having, the second hinders the feeling and comfortable enjoying of peace.

It has been an old device of Satan, when he would keep any man from that which is true, to obtrude upon him that which shall seem to be true, but is false. Thus he did in the first calling of the Jews, Matt. xxiv. 5. When he saw they had an expectation of the true Christ, he, to divert and seduce them from the true Christ, sets up false Christs. Even so in the matter of peace: if he can so delude men that they shall content themselves with a false peace, he knows that they will never seek for that which is true. It is a common practice with the devil to endeavour to make all who are not in a state of grace, to presume that they are.

Also, such is his cunning and malice, that when any man is in the state of grace, he will labour by all means to distress and perplex the soul with unreasonable fears and suspicions, to make that estate doubtful and uncomfortable, to vex and to weary him, if he cannot drive him to despair, 2 Cor. ii. 7, 11. Now the heart of man, so far as it is unsanctified, being deceitful above all things, Jer. xvii. 9, is most apt to yield to Satan in both these cases. Whence it is, that there are very many who boast of much peace, and yet have none of it. And many fear they have no peace, who yet have much of it.

Wherefore the rule is, "Believe not either your deceitful heart, nor the devil, when they tell you either that you are in a state of salvation, or in a state of damnation: but believe the Scripture, what it saith in either."

You may know when these persuasions come from your deceitful heart, or from the devil, thus:

First, If the means to persuade you to either be from false grounds, or from misapplication of true grounds.

Secondly, If the conclusions, inferred from either persuasion, be to keep you in a sinful course, and to keep you, or to drive you from God, as if you need not be so strict in godliness, or that now it is in vain, or too late to turn and seek unto God; then it is from