617. CONCERNING TEMPTATIONS How deceitful the devil's crew is, can never be expressed in words. In temptations they not only simulate the angels and even the Lord Himself, but counterfeit in every way according to the phantasies of man. [The devil] knows the man's phantasies in a moment, for he clothes himself with his person. Moreover, he searches out what is in the man, whilst the man is unaware of it; [and], what is wonderful, retains things in his memory [to use] when occasion arises. Further, when [the devil] is counterfeiting, he then inspires suitable affections, whether appearing good or evil, and arranges them in a wonderful manner, and by artifice bends them into evil. He sees clearly how an affection revolves itself; he is always intent upon bending it into evil. Moreover, he also inspires words into the man's thought and mouth which are conformable to his affection, and at once causes him to suppose that they are his own, so that he who does not know this can believe no otherwise than that they are his own, when yet they are the devil's - to which I can testify from manifold experience. Thus he proceeds from one artifice to another, which he does in a moment by a natural instinct acquired in the life of the body. One may wonder that their nature is that of wild beasts to whom they are compared, and in the other life they are so much the more crafty, because they then act from their nature like wild beasts, but yet in their life they acted as though they were men. To enumerate their deceits would be to fill innumerable pages. Wherefore unless the Lord Jesus holds the devil in bonds and moderates and completely changes his attempts, man cannot but succumb every moment. 1748, Feb. 1.