[1.] First, He represents it as a harmless or lawful thing in itself. Who can say it had been sinful for the Son of God to have turned stones into bread, more than to turn water into wine?
[2.] Secondly, He gives the motion a further pretext of advantage or goodness. He insinuated that it might be a useful discovery of his sonship, and a profitable supply against hunger.
[3.] Thirdly, He seems also to put a necessity upon it, that other ways of help failing, he must be constrained so to do, or to suffer further want.
[4.] Fourthly, He forgets not to tell him that to do this was but suitable to his condition, and that it was a thing well becoming the Son of God to do a miracle.
[5.] Fifthly, He doth urge it at the rate of a duty, and that being in hunger and want, it would be a sinful neglect not to do what he could and might for his preservation.
The same way doth he take in other temptations; in some cases pleading all, in some most of these things, by which the means conducing thereunto may seem plausible. If he presents to men occasions of sinning, he will tell them ordinarily that they may lawfully adventure upon them, that they are harmless, nay, of advantage, as tending to the recreating of the spirits and health of the body; yea, that it is necessary for them to take such a liberty, and that in doing so, they do but what others do that profess religion. And often he hath such advantage from the circumstances of the thing, and the inclination of our heart, that he makes bold to tell us it is no less than duty. Such did the outrage of Demetrius seem to him, when he considered how much his livelihood did depend upon the Diana of the Ephesians. Paul’s zeal made him confident that persecution of Christians was his duty; neither is there anything which can pretend to any zeal, advantage, or colourable ground, but presently it takes the denomination of duty.
If any wonder that such poor and shallow pretences are not seen through by all men, they may know that this happens from a fourfold ignorance:—
(1.) First, From an ignorance of the thing itself. How easily may they be imposed upon, who know not the nature or the usual issues of things! As children are deluded to put a value upon a useless or hurtful trifle, so are men deceived and easily imposed upon in what they do not understand. And for this cause are sinners compared to birds, who are easily enticed with the bait proposed to their view as profitable and good for them, because they know not the snare that lies laid under it. This ignorance causing the mistake mentioned, is not only a simple ignorance, but also that ignorance which owes its rise to a wilful and perverse disposition,—for there are some that are willingly ignorant,—doth often lay those open to a delusion, who, through prepossession or idleness, will not be at pains to make full inquiries.
(2.) Secondly, This also comes to pass from an ignorance of our spirits: for while we either engage in the things proposed by Satan upon the general warranty of a good intention, or that we have no evil meaning in it, we are kept from a discovery of the intended design. Hence Paul saw nothing, in his persecuting the church of God, of what Satan aimed at; or while upon the pretence of a good intention, our secret corrupt principles do indeed move us underhand to any undertaking, we are as little apt to see the ends of Satan in what he propounds to us. Jehu and the disciples, Luke ix. 55, pretending a zeal for God, but really carried on by their own furious tempers, did as little as others see what the devil was doing with them.
(3.) Thirdly, The means of a temptation are rendered less suspicious, from an ignorance of the circumstances and concomitants that do attend them.
(4.) Fourthly, As also from an ignorance of our own weakness and inclination. While we are confident of greater strength to resist than indeed we have, of a greater averseness than is in us to the evil suspected, we contemn the danger of the means as below us, and so grow bold with the occasions of iniquity, as pretending no hazard or danger to us.
Applic. This may teach us a piece of wisdom in the imitation of the devil. We see his malice appears in the bloody and destructive aims or intendments which he discovers against us, but his skill and cunning in a suitable disposal and ordering of the means. So should we learn to employ all our care and watchfulness about those plausible ways or introductions to sin that Satan puts in our hand; and as his eager desire of gaining his end makes him industrious about the offering of means fit to compass it, so our fear of his design and end should make us jealous of every overture propounded to us. They that from wilfulness or neglect shall admit the means of evil, cannot expect to avoid the evil to which they lead, or if they may, unexpectedly, be rescued from the end, while they use the means,—by grace interposing, as between the cup and the lip,—it is no thanks to them, and often they come not off so clear, but that some lameness or other sticks by them.
Quest. I may suspect this will be retorted back as an advice scarce practicable: for if all means leading to sin are to be avoided, then can we use nothing, but rather, as the apostle saith in another case, ‘we must go out of the world,’ [1 Cor. v. 10,] seeing everything may lead to evil?
Ans. I answer, We are not by any command of God put into any such strait. Things that are or may be improveable against us, may be used by us with due care and watchfulness; yet all things are not alike neither, for we must look upon things under a threefold consideration.
[1.] First, If that which is propounded or laid before us as a means to sin, be in itself sinful, the refusal of both is an undoubted duty.
[2.] Secondly, We must look upon things under the consideration of the suspiciousness which they carry with them of a further evil. Some circumstances, or postures of an opportunity and occasion offered, are of such a threatening aspect, that they fairly warn us to hold off. To keep company with a friend may be admitted, when yet that society in a suspicious place, as tavern or whore-house, is to be avoided.
[3.] Thirdly, We must further consider things as we are free or engaged to them, and accordingly where there is appearance of danger or the fear of it, we must keep at a distance, if we are engaged to such things, either by the obligation of the law of nature, or lawful calling, or command of God, or unavoidable providence, or relation. Where these ties are upon us, we cannot avoid the thing or action, but are the more concerned to take heed of being overreached or overtaken by them.
Of the temptation to distrust upon the failure of ordinary means.—Of the power of that temptation, and the reasons of its prevalency.—Of unwarrantable attempts for relief, with the causes thereof.—Of waiting on God, and keeping his way.—In what cases a particular mercy is to be expected.
I have particularly insisted upon the aims of Satan in this temptation in their variety, and also the cunning connexion and coherences of them. I have also singled out his chief design. I am now in the last place to present you with the suitableness and respects that the subordinate means carry to the principal, and that proportion which may be found in all these to the end designed by them.
The chief means in reference to the end designed, was a distrust of providence, and the subordinate means to bring on that distrust, was the failure of ordinary means of supply: for so he endeavoured to improve his hunger and want in the wilderness, as a manifest neglect of providence towards him, for which, as he tacitly suggests, there was no ground to wait or rely upon it any further, but to betake himself to another course. Hence note,
Obs. 13. That the failure of ordinary means of help is by Satan improved as his special engine to bring men to a distrust of providence, and from thence to an unwarrantable attempt for their relief in an extraordinary way.
That the failure of ordinary and usual supplies hath by the devil’s subtlety brought a distrust of providence, and run men beyond all hopes of help, is a thing commonly and notoriously known. When men are afflicted, and brought unto unusual straits, and the ordinary ways of relief are out of sight, they are soon tempted to distrust God and man; and to conclude they are cut off, and that their ‘hope is perished,’ and that ‘their eye shall no more see good.’ David distressed, proclaims ‘all men liars:’ concludes that he should at last ‘be cut off,’ Ps. cxvi. 11, xxxi. 22. Jonah, in the whale’s belly, thought that all hope was gone, and that he was cast out of God’s sight, chap. ii. 4. The church of Israel in captivity, ‘forgot prosperity,’ notwithstanding the promise of deliverance after seventy years, and thought no less than that ‘her hope and strength was perished,’ Lam. iii. 18. And from the scriptures mentioned, we may also see the strength and prevalency of the temptation, especially when it is reduced to particulars. As,
(1.) First, It is not a thing altogether of no weight that such a temptation should prevail against such persons; as David and Jonah, and the whole church of Israel, that the manifold experiences that some of them have had of God’s faithfulness in delivering, and the seasonableness of help at times of greatest hazard, the particular promises that all of them have had—how dismal and black soever things have seemed—have given the fullest assurances imaginable, that what he had spoken should certainly be performed; the gracious qualifications of such persons as eminently holy and skilled in the duties of trust, and in the ways of providence, and the special advantage which some of them, as prophets, have had above others, to enable them to improve that skill, experience, knowledge, and grace, to a firm adherence to such special promises: that all these things should not be sufficient to keep them off distrust, though at present the ways of deliverence were hid from them, seems strange.
(2.) Secondly, It is wonderful to what a height such a prevailing temptation hath carried some of them. David seems to be a little outrageous, and did upon the matter call God ‘a liar,’ when he said, ‘All men are liars;’ which however that some interpret392 as if it had been David’s trust in God, and his confident avouchment of his enemies’ prognostications of his ruin, to be but lies, and that this he spake from his firm belief of the promise, ‘I believed, therefore have I spoken;’ yet the acknowledgment of his ‘haste,’ which, compared with Ps. xxxi. 22, is declared as his weakness, will force us to conclude it an ingenuous confession of his distrust at the first, when he was greatly afflicted, though he recovered himself afterwards to a belief of the promise; and that in that distemper he plainly reflected upon Samuel, and calls the promises of God given by him ‘a very lie.’
(3.) Thirdly, It is strange also that present instances of God’s providences working out unexpected deliverances should not relieve the hearts of his saints from the power of such distrust; that when they see God is not unmindful of them, but doth hear them in what they feared, they should still retain in their minds the impression of an unbelieving apprehension; and not rather free themselves from their expectations of future ruin by concluding, that he that hath and doth deliver will also yet deliver. David had this thought in his heart, that he should ‘one day perish by the hand of Saul,’ 1 Sam. xxvii. 1, even then when God had so remarkably rescued him from Saul, and forced Saul not only to acknowledge his sin in prosecuting him, but also to declare his belief of the promise concerning David. See chap. xxvi. One would have expected that this should have been such a demonstration of the truth of what had been promised, that he should cast out all fear; and yet, contrariwise, this pledge of God’s purpose to him is received by a heart strongly prepossessed with misgiving thoughts, and he continues to think that for all this Saul would one day destroy him.
(4.) Fourthly, The pangs of this distrust are also so remarkable, that after they have been delivered, and have found that the event hath not answered their fears, they have in the review of their carriage under such fears, recounted this their weakness among other remarkable things, thereby shewing the unreasonableness of their unbelief, and their wonder that God should pass by so great a provocation, and notwithstanding so unexpectedly deliver them. David in the places before cited was upon a thankful acknowledgment of God’s love and wonderful kindness, which be thought he could not perform without leaving a record of his strange and unworthy distrust; as if he had said, ‘So greatly did I sin, and so unsuitably did I behave myself, that I then gave off, and concluded all was lost.’
To open this a little further, I shall add the reasons why Satan strikes in with such an occasion as the want of means to tempt to distrust, which are these:—
[1.] First, Such a condition doth usually transport men beside themselves; puts them, as it were, into an ecstacy, and by a sudden rapture of astonishment and fear, forceth them beyond their settled thoughts and purposes. This David notes as the ground of his inconsiderate rash speaking: ‘It was my haste,’ I was transported, &c. Now as passion does not only make men speak what otherwise they would not, but also to put bad interpretations upon actions and things beyond what they will bear, and hasten men to resolves exceedingly unreasonable; so doth this state of the heart, under an amazement and surprise of fear, give opportunity to Satan to put men to injurious and unrighteous thoughts of the providence of God, and by such ways to alienate their minds from the trust which they owe him.
[2.] Secondly, Sense is a great help to faith. Faith then must needs be much hazarded when sense is at a loss or contradicted, as usually it is in straits.
That faith doth receive an advantage by sense, cannot be denied. To believe what we see, is easier than to believe what we see not; and that in our state of weakness and infirmity God doth so far indulge us, that by his allowance we may take the help of our senses, is evident by his appointment of the two sacraments, where by outward visible signs our faith may be quickened to apprehend the spiritual benefits offered. Thomas, resolving to suspend his belief till he were satisfied that Christ was risen, by the utmost trial that sense could give, determining not to credit the testimony of the rest of the disciples till by putting his finger into his side he had made himself more certain, Christ not only condescended to him, but also pronounceth his approbation of his belief, accepting it, that he had believed because he had seen. But when outward usual helps fail us, our sense, being not able to see afar off, is wholly puzzled and overthrown. The very disappearing of probabilities gives so great a shake to our faith that it commonly staggers at it; and therefore was it given as the great commendation of Abraham’s faith, that he, notwithstanding the unlikelihood of the thing, ‘staggered not at the promise;’ noting thereby how extraordinary it was in him at that time to keep up against the contradiction of sense, and how usual it is with others to be beaten off all trust by it. It is no wonder to see that faith, which usually called sense for a supporter, to fail when it is deprived of its crutch. And he that would a little understand what disadvantage this might prove to a good man when sense altogether fails his expectation, he may consider with himself in what a case Thomas might have been if Christ had refused to let him see his side, and to thrust his finger into the print of the nails. In all appearance, had it been so, he had gone away confirmed in his unbelief.
[3.] Thirdly, Though faith can act above sense, and is employed about things not seen, yet every saint at all times doth not act his faith so high. Christ tells us that to believe where a man hath not had the help of sight and sense, is noble and blessed, John xx. 29; yet withal, he hints it to be rare and difficult: ‘he that hath not seen, and yet hath believed,’ implies that it is but one amongst many that doth so, and that it is the conquest of a more than ordinary difficulty. Hence it is, that to love God when he kills, to believe when means fail, are reckoned among the high actings of Christianity.
[4.] Fourthly, When sense is nonplussed, and faith fails, the soul of man is at a great loss. Having nothing to bear it up, it must needs sink; but having something to throw it down, besides its own propensity downward to distrust, it hath the force of so great a disappointment to push it forward; and such bitterness of spirit, heightened by the malignant influence of Satan, that with a violence like the angel’s throwing a millstone into the sea, it is cast into the bottom of such depths of unbelief, that the knowledge of former power and extraordinary providences cannot keep it from an absolute denial of the like for the future. Israel in the wilderness, when they came to the want of bread, though they acknowledged he ‘clave the rock,’ and gave them water in the like strait, yet so far did their hearts fail of that due trust in the power and mercy of God, which might have been expected, that though they confessed the one, they as distrustfully question and deny the other. ‘He clave the rock, but can he provide flesh? can he give bread?’ [Ps. lxxviii. 20.] Strange unbelief, that sees and acknowledgeth omnipotency in one thing, and yet denies it in another!
[5.] Fifthly, Providence hath been an old question. It is an atheism that some have been guilty of, to deny that God ordereth all affairs relating to his children here below, who yet have not so fully extinguished their natural impressions as to dare to deny the being of God. That God is, they confess, but withal they think that he ‘walketh in the circuit of heaven,’ and as to the smaller concerns of men, neither doth good nor evil. This being an old error, to which most are but too inclinable; and the more because such things are permitted—as the punishment of his children, and their trials, while others have all their heart can wish—as seem scarce consistent with that love and care which men look for from him to his servants, they are apt enough to renew the thoughts of that persuasion upon their minds—for which the failure of ordinary ways of help seems to be a high probability—that he keeps himself unconcerned, and therefore there seems to be no such cause of reliance upon him. The psalmist so expresseth that truth, ‘Men shall say, Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth,’ [Ps. lviii. 11;] that it is discovered to be a special retrievement of it, by many and signal convincing evidences, from that distrust of God and his providences that men usually slide into upon their observation of the many seeming failures of outward means of help.
Secondly, The other branch of the observation, that from a distrust of providence he endeavours to draw them to an unwarrantable attempt for their relief, is as clear as the former. Sarah being under a distrust of the promise for a son, because of her age, gave her handmaid to Abraham, that in that way, the promise seeming to fail, she might obtain children by her, Gen. xvi. 2. David, because of the many and violent pursuits of Saul, not only distrusted the promise, thinking he might ‘one day perish’ by him, but resolves to provide for his own safety by a speedy escape into the land of the Philistines, 1 Sam. xxvii. 1; a course which, as appears by the temptations and evils he met with there, was altogether unwarrantable. That from a distrust men are next put upon unwarrantable attempts, is clear from the following reasons:—
[1.] First, The affrightment which is bred by such distrusts of providences will not suffer men to be idle. Fear is active, and strongly prompts that something is to be done.
[2.] Secondly, Yet such is the confusion of men’s minds in such a case, that though many things are propounded, in that hurry of thoughts they are deprived usually of a true judgment and deliberation, so that they are oppressed with a multitude of thoughts, as David on the like occasion takes notice, ‘In the multitude of my thoughts within me,’ &c., [Ps. xciv. 19;] and, as he expresseth the case of seamen in a storm, ‘they are at their wits’ end.’
[3.] Thirdly, The despairing grievance of spirit makes them take that which comes next to hand, as a drowning man that grasps a twig or straw, though to no purpose.
[4.] Fourthly, Being once turned off their rock, and the true stay of the promise of God for help, whatever other course they take must needs be unwarrantable. If they once be out of the right way, they must needs wander, and every step they take must of necessity be wrong.
[5.] Fifthly, Satan is so officious in an evil thing, that seeing any in this condition, he will not fail to proffer his help; and in place of God’s providence, to set some unlawful shift before them.
[6.] Sixthly, And so much the rather do men close in with such overtures, because a sudden fit of passionate fury doth drive them, and out of a bitter kind of despite and crossness—as if they meditated a revenge against God for their disappointment—they take up a hasty wilful resolve to go that way that seems most agreeable to their passion, saying with king Joram, ‘What wait we upon the Lord any longer for?’ [2 Kings vi. 33.] We will take such a course, let come on us what will.
Applic. The service which the observation, well digested, may perform for us, is very fully contained in an advice which David gives on the like occasion, Ps. xxxvii. 34, which is this, ‘Wait on the Lord, and keep his way.’ Failures of ordinary means should not fill us with distrust, neither then should we run out of God’s way for help. He that would practise this must have these three things which are comprehended in it:—
[1.] First, He must have full persuasions of the power and promise of God. I do not mean the bare hearsay that God hath promised to help, and that he is able to deliver, but these truths must be wrought upon the heart to a full assurance of them, and then we must keep our eye upon them; for if ever we lose the sight of this, when troubles beset us, our heart will fail us, and we shall do no otherwise than Hagar, who, when her bottle of water was spent, and she saw no way of supply, sat down, gave up her son and self for lost and so falls a-weeping over her helpless condition. This was that sight of God, in regard of his power, goodness, faithfulness, and truth, which are things invisible, Heb. xi. 27, which kept up the heart of Moses, that it sunk not under the pressure of his fears, when all things threatened his ruin.
[2.] Secondly, He that would thus wait upon God had need to have an equal balance of spirit in reference to second causes. Despise or neglect them he may not, when he may have them, for that were intolerable presumption; and so to centre our hopes and expectations upon them, as if our welfare did certainly depend upon them, is a high affront to God’s omnipotency, and no less than a sinful idolizing of the creature; but the engagements of our duty must keep carefully to the first, and the consideration of an independency of an almighty power, as to any subordinate means or causes, must help us against the other miscarriage. When all means visible fail us, we must look to live upon omnipotent faithfulness and goodness, which is not tied to anything, but that without all means, and contrary to the powers of second causes, can do what he hath promised or sees fit.
[3.] Thirdly, There is no waiting upon God, and keeping his way, without a particular trust in God. To this we are not only warranted by frequent commands, ‘Trust in the Lord, I say, trust in the Lord,’ but highly encouraged to it under the greatest assurances of help: Ps. xxxvii. 5, ‘Trust in him, and he shall bring it to pass.’ ‘Trust in the Lord and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed,’ ver. 3. The Lord shall help and deliver them, because they trust in him. And this we are to do at ‘all times,’ and in the greatest hazards, and with the highest security: ‘I laid me down and slept; I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against me round about,’ Ps. iii. 5, 6.
Quest. But some, possibly, may say, Is it our duty to sit still in such a case? When all the usual ways of supply fail us, must nothing be attempted?
Ans. (1.) I answer, first, At such times greater care and diligence is necessary in outward things. That what one lawful course cannot help, another lawful course may; and as to spiritual diligence, it should be extraordinary. We should be more earnest and frequent in prayer, fastings, meditations, and the exercise of graces.
(2.) Secondly, While we are in the pursuit of duty, and where the substance of it may be preserved entire, if our straits and wants unavoidably put us out of the way, we may be satisfied to go on, though some circumstances be necessarily waived and hindered. Phinehas might kill Zimri and Cosbi upon the command of Moses, Num. xxv. 5; and consequently in prosecution of duty, though, other circumstances considered, it was in some respects extraordinary.
(3.) Thirdly, But let the strait be what it will, we must not forsake duty; for so we go out of God’s way, and do contradict that trust and hope which we are to keep up to God-ward.
Quest. But, it may be further urged, must we, when all means fail, positively trust in God for those very things which we might expect in an ordinary way?
Ans. In some cases our duty is submission to his will, and the particular mercy neither positively to be expected not yet distrusted. Thus did David behave himself when he fled from Jerusalem upon Absalom’s rebellion; ‘Let him do what seemeth him good.’
But there are other cases wherein it is our duty to fix our trust upon the particular mercy or help. I shall name four; and possibly a great many more may be added. As,
[1.] First, When mercies are expressly and particularly promised: as when the kingdom was promised to David; when a son was promised to Abraham. Whatever had been the improbabilities of their obtaining the thing promised, it was their duty positively to believe. This is indeed not a general case.
[2.] Secondly, When God leads us into straits by engaging us in his service: as when Israel followed the Lord into the wilderness, in order to an enjoyment of a further mercy, which was the possession of the land of Canaan. When they had no water to drink, nor food to eat, and saw no natural possibility of supply in that wilderness, they ought positively to have expected supplies from God in an extraordinary way; and it is reckoned up against them as their sin that they did not believe. This was the very case of Christ under this temptation; the Spirit led him into the wilderness upon the prosecution of a further design. When there was no bread there to satisfy his hunger, he refuseth to work a miracle for his supply, but leans upon an extraordinary providence.
[3.] Thirdly, When the things we want are common universal blessings, and such as we cannot subsist without. If we have nothing to eat, and nothing to put on, yet seeing the body cannot live without both, we must positively expect such supplies from providence, though we see not the way whence they should arise to us. This kind of distrust, which reflects upon the general necessary providence of God, by which he is engaged to preserve his creatures in their stations, ‘to clothe the grass of the field, to feed the birds of the air,’ &c., Christ doth severely challenge, ‘Shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?’ Mat. vi. 30. He hath little or no faith, and in that regard a very prodigy of distrust, that will not believe for necessaries. Hence, Hab. iii. 17, the prophet resolves upon a rejoicing confidence in God, when neither tree, nor field, nor flock would yield any hope in an ordinary way.
[4.] Fourthly, When God is eminently engaged for our help, and his honour lies at stake in that very matter; so that whether God will help or no, or whether he is able, is become the controversy, upon which religion in its truth or the honour of God is to be tried; then are we engaged to a certain belief of help. The three children upon this ground did not only assert that ‘God was able to deliver them,’ or that their death and martyrdom they could bear, which is all that most martyrs are able to arise up to, but they asserted positively that ‘God would deliver them,’ and that the fire should not burn them. They saw evidently that the contest, whether the Lord was God, was managed at so high a rate, that God was more concerned to vindicate his honour by their preservation, than to vindicate their grace and patience by their constancy and suffering, [Dan. iii.] Another instance we have in Mat. viii. 26, where Christ rebukes his disciples for unbelief, in their fears of shipwreck in a great storm—not that every seaman ordinarily lies under that charge, that gives himself up to the apprehensions of danger—the ground of which charge was this, that Christ was with them, and consequently it had unavoidably contradicted his design, and reflected upon his honour, if he had suffered his disciples at that time to be drowned. Their not minding how far Christ was engaged with them, and not supporting themselves against their fears by that consideration, made Christ tax them for their little faith.
Of Satan’s proceeding to infer distrust of sonship from distrust of providences.—Instances of the probability of such a design.—The reasons of this undertaking.—Of Satan’s endeavour to weaken the assurance and hopes of God’s children.—His general method to that purpose.
Lastly, we are to consider the suitableness of the means to the end. He had, as we have seen, fitly proportioned the subordinate means to the chief and principal. The failure of ordinary means of help was shrewdly proper to infer a distrust of providence. Now let it be noted how fitly he improves this distrust of providence to bring about the end he aimed at, which was a distrust of his filial interest in God, as if he should have thus reasoned: ‘He that in straits is forsaken, as to all the usual supplies that may be expected in an ordinary way, hath no reason to rely on providence; and he that hath no reason to rely on providence for the body, hath less cause to expect spiritual blessings and favours for the soul.’ Hence note,
Obs. 14. That it is Satan’s endeavour to make men proceed from a distrust of providence to a distrust of their spiritual sonship, or filial interest in God. First, I shall evidence that this is Satan’s design, and next I shall give the reasons of it. The former I shall make good by these several considerations:—
(1.) First, We see it is a usual inference that others make of men whose heart fails them, under an absence or disappearance of all means of help in their distresses. If providence doth not appear for them, they conclude God hath forsaken them. Bildad thus concludes against Job, chap. iv. 6, ‘Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?’ Which must not only be understood as an ironical scoff at the weakness of his confidence and hope, as not being able to support him against fainting in his trouble, but as a direct accusation of the falseness and hypocrisy of his supposed integrity, and all the hopes and confidence which was built upon it; and ver. 7 doth evidence, where he plainly declares himself to mean that Job could not be innocent or righteous, it being, in his apprehension, a thing never heard of, that so great calamities should overtake an upright man, ‘Who ever perished, being innocent?’ The ground of which assertion was from ver. 5, ‘It is now come upon thee, and thou faintest.’ That is, distresses are upon thee, and thou hast no visible means of help, but despairest ever to see a providence that will bring thee out; therefore surely thou hast had no real interest in God, as his child. Eliphaz also seconds his friend in this uncharitable censure, ‘If thou wert pure and upright, he would awake for thee,’ Job viii. 6; that is, because he doth thus overlook thee, therefore thou art not pure and upright.
If men do thus assault the comforts of God’s children, we have reason enough to think that Satan will; for besides that we may conclude they are set on work by the devil, and what he speaks by them, he will also by other ways promote, as being a design that is upon his heart; we may be confident, that this being a surmise so natural to the heart of man, he will not let slip so fair an advantage, for the forming of it in our own hearts against ourselves.
(2.) Secondly, The best of God’s children, in such cases, escape it very hardly, if at all; which declares not only the depth and power of that policy, but also how usual it is with Satan to urge the servants of God with it. Job, chap. xix. 25, recovered himself to a firm persuasion of sonship, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth,’ &c.; but by the way his foot had well-nigh slipped, when, ver. 10, 11, he cries out, ‘He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone; he hath also kindled his wrath against me, and he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies.’ His earnest resolve not to give up his trust in God, and the confidence of his integrity, is sufficient to discover Satan’s eager endeavours to have him bereaved of it.
(3.) Thirdly, Satan’s success in this temptation over the saints of God, who sometime have actually failed, shews how much it is his work to cast down their hopes of interest in God, by overthrowing their trust in his providences. If he attempts this, and that successfully, on such whose frequent experiences might discourage the tempter, and in probability frustrate his undertaking; we have little cause to think that he will be more sparing and gentle in this assault upon those that are more weak, and less acquainted with those clouds and darknesses that overshadow the ways of providence. David, for all the promises that he had received, and notwithstanding the manifold trials that he had of seasonable and unexpected deliverances, yet when he was distressed, he once and again falls into a fear of his soul, and a questioning of God’s favour. He complains as one utterly forsaken, ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?’ Ps. xxii. 1. In Ps. lxix., he expresseth himself, ver. 1, ‘sinking in the deep mire,’ as a man that had no firm ground to stand upon, and that his troubles had brought him to fear the state of his soul, not only as deprived of God’s favour—and therefore, ver. 17, begs that his face may be no longer hid—but also as suspecting the loss of it; ver. 18, ‘draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it.’ Ps. lxxvii., upon the occasion of outward troubles, Asaph falls into such a fit of fear about his spiritual condition, that no consideration of former mercies could relieve him, ‘He remembered God,’ ver. 3, ‘but was troubled;’ he ‘considered the days of old,’ called to remembrance his ‘songs in the night;’ but none of these were effectual to keep him from that sad outcry of distrust, ver. 7, ‘Will the Lord cast off for ever? is his mercy clean gone for ever? hath God forgotten to be gracious?’ &c. Which upon the review, in the composing of the psalm, he acknowledged an unbelieving miscarriage; I said, ‘This is mine infirmity.’
(4.) Fourthly, It is also a common and ordinary thing with most, to entertain misapprehensions of their spiritual condition, when they meet with disappointments of providence. Hence the apostle, Heb. xii. 5, 6, when he would quiet the hearts of men under the Lord’s chastening, doth of purpose make use of this encouragement, that God speaks to them in the rod as to children, and such as are under his care and love, ‘My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord;’ ‘whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth,’ &c. Which certainly tells us thus much, that it is ordinary for men to doubt their sonship because of their afflictions. We may conjecture what the malady is, when we know what is prepared as a medicine. This would not have been a common remedy, ‘that we may be children, though we be scourged,’ if the disbelief of this had not been the usual interpretation of afflictions, and a common distemper.
(5.) Fifthly, We may further take notice, that those disquiets of mind, that were only occasioned by outward things, and seem to have no affinity, either in the nature of the occasion, or present inclination of the party, with a spiritual trouble; yet if they continue long, do wholly change their nature. They that at first only troubled themselves for losses or crosses, forget these troubles and take up fears for their souls.
Sometime this ariseth from a natural softness and timorousness of spirit. Such are apt to misgive upon any occasion, and to say, Surely if I were his child, he would not thus forsake me; his fatherly compassions would some way or other work towards me.
Sometime this ariseth from melancholy, contracted or heightened by outward troubles. These, when they continue long, and pierce deep, put men into ‘a spirit of heaviness,’ which makes them refuse to be comforted. Here the devil takes his advantage. Unlawful sorrows are as delightfully improved by him as unlawful pleasures; they are Diaboli balneum, his bath in which he sports himself, as the leviathan in the waters. When for temporal losses or troubles men fall into melancholy, if they be not relieved soon, then their grief changeth its object, and presently they disquiet themselves, as being out of God’s favour, as being estranged from God, as being of the number of the damned; such against whom the door of mercy is shut, and so cry out of themselves as hopeless and miserable. The observations of physicians afford store of instances of this kind. Felix Platerus gives one, of a woman at Basle who first grieved for the death of her son, and when by this means she grew melancholy, that changed into a higher trouble; she mourns that her sins would not be pardoned, that God would not have mercy for her soul. Another, for some loss of wheat, first vexeth himself for that, and then at last despairs of the happiness of his soul; with a great many more of that kind.393
Sometimes a desperate humour doth, from the same occasion, distract men into a fury; of which Mercerus gives one instance from his own knowledge, of a person who, upon the distresses which he met with, fell into a rage against God, uttering speeches full of horror and blasphemy, not fit to be related.394
If there be such an affinity betwixt distrust of providence and distrust of sonship, that the one slides into the other naturally; if this be common to all men under troubles, to suspect their souls; if the best do here actually miscarry; if those that do not, yet hardly escape; and if bystanders commonly give this judgment of men in straits, that there is no help for them in their God; we cannot but collect from all this, that it is an advantage which Satan will not neglect, and that he doth very much employ himself to bring it about.
The reasons of it are these:—
(1.) First, Distrust of providence hath in it the very formal nature of distrust of sonship. If the object of distrust were but changed, it would without any further addition work that way. He that trusts providence acknowledgeth that God knoweth his wants, that he is of a merciful inclination to give what he sees he hath need of; that he hath manifested this by promise, that he is so faithful that this promise cannot be neglected, and that he hath power to do what he hath promised.395 He that distrusts providence disbelieves all these, consequentially at least; and he that will not believe that God takes any care of the body, or that he is of a merciful disposition toward him, or thinks either he hath made no such promise, or will not keep it, if any such were made; cannot believe, if that doubt were but once started, that God is his Father, or that he hath interest in the privilege of a son, seeing it is impossible to believe a sonship, while his care, mercy, promises, and power are distrusted. In this then Satan’s work is very easy. It is but his moving the question about the Lord’s mercy to the soul, and presently, as when new matter is ministered to a raging flame, it takes hold upon it, and with equal, nay greater, force it carries the soul to distrust spiritual mercies, as before it disbelieved temporal kindnesses.
(2.) Secondly, The same reasons, which any man doth gather from the seeming neglect or opposition of providence, upon which he grounds his distrust of the Lord’s kindness in reference to outward things, will also serve as arguments for a distrust of spiritual favours. The distresses of men seem to argue—[1.] That there is sin and provocation on their part; [2.] And that there is a manifestation of anger on God’s part; [3.] And from these apprehensions ariseth bitterness, anxiety, fear, and dejection of spirit, which intercepts all the help and consolation which might arise from other considerations of the Lord’s promise or mercy, for the quieting of the heart and fortifying it against such apprehensions. These same grounds, with the prevailing fears and perplexities arising from them, are enough to make us suspect that we are not yet under any such peculiar favours as may bespeak us his children by adoption; so that from the same premises Satan will conclude, that as he hath no care for our bodies, so no love to our souls; that we neither love God nor are beloved of him. Betwixt the one conclusion and the other there is but a step, and with a small labour he can cut the channel, and let in that very distrust to run with all its force against our spiritual interest in God.
(3.) Thirdly, To trust God for the soul is a higher act than to trust him for the body. The soul being of greater excellency than the body, and the mercy necessary for the happiness of it being more precious and less visible, it must require a higher confidence in God to assure of this than satisfy us in the other. It is more easy to believe a lesser kindness from a friend than a singular or extraordinary favour. He, then, that cannot trust God for temporal mercies, shall be more unable to believe eternal blessings. ‘If we run with footmen, and they have wearied us, shall we be able to contend with horsemen? If the shallow brooks be too strong for us, what shall we do in the swellings of Jordan?’ [Jer. xii. 5.]
(4.) Fourthly, When faith is weakened as to one object, it is so tainted and discouraged that it is generally weakened as to all other. If the hand be so weakened that it cannot hold a ring, it will be less able to grasp a crown. When we are baffled in our trust for temporal mercies, if Satan then put us to it not to believe for spiritual blessings, how can we expect but to be much more at a loss in them? So that he is sure of the victory before he fights, and he that is so sedulous to take advantage against us will not lose so considerable a conquest for want of pursuit. There is indeed one thing that may seem fit to be objected against this, which is, that men may retain their faith in one thing when yet they distrust in another, as the Israelites distrusted the power and goodness of God for bread and flesh in the wilderness, when yet they believed that as he had given water out of the rock, so he could do it again if there were need: Ps. lxxviii. 20, ‘He smote the rock, and the waters gushed out; but can he give bread?’ as if they had said, We believe he can give water, but it is impossible he should provide bread. But they that would thus object may consider that the reason of men’s confidence in one thing, while distrust is in other things prevailing, is not from any real strength of their faith, but a present want of a temptation. If such a confidence were put to it, it would quickly be seen that it were truly nothing. As confident as the Israelites were that they could believe for a supply of water, we find that neither that experience, nor the other of supplying them with manna and quails, were sufficient to keep up their trust in God, but that at the next strait all was to seek: ver. 32, ‘For all this they sinned still, and believed not for his wondrous works.’
(5.) Fifthly, Besides all the forementioned advantages that Satan hath in raising this temptation, of distrusting sonship out of a distrust of providence, we may suppose him the more earnest in this matter, because it is so provoking to God to distrust his providence, that he often, as a just chastisement of that evil, punisheth it by giving them up to distrust him for their souls. The height of the provocation may be measured by this, that it is not only a denial of God that is above, but usually a vesting some mean and contemptible thing with those attributes which only suit a God infinite and eternal. As Israel did not only forsake the Almighty by their distrust, but place their hopes upon Ashur, upon their own horses and warlike preparations, and at last upon the works of their hands, which they called their gods, Hosea xiv. 2, 3. How offensive this is to the Lord, we may observe by that notable check which the prophet gave Ahaz, Isa. vii. 8, 13, notwithstanding his compliment of refusing a sign, which God offered him for the strengthening of his hope, upon a pretence that he would trust without it,—though indeed he absolutely distrusted him, as appears by 2 Chron. xxviii. 20,—that it was a weaning396 and tiring out the patience of a long-suffering God: ‘Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also?’ God is so active and jealous of all encroachments of this kind, that they may expect he will give up such offenders to be punished by the terrors of a higher distrust. He that is not owned as a God in his providences, will not be owned as a Father for spiritual mercies; they that will not own him for the body, shall not be able to lay hold upon him or his strength to be at peace with him for their souls; and by this piece of just discipline he often cures the distrust of providence in his children, who when they see themselves plunged into terrors and fears about their everlasting welfare, do not only call God just, and accept of the punishment of their iniquity in distrusting him for smaller matters, but now wish with all their hearts that they might have no greater thing to trouble them than what relates to the body or this life.
To sum up all these reasons in one word: Satan hath from the forementioned considerations a certain expectation of prevalency. For not only in this case doth God, as it were, fight for him, by giving them up to distrust their filial interest that have provoked him by a distrust of providence, and our faith is also so weakened by the former overthrow that it is not able to maintain its ground in a higher matter; but also this distrust carries that in the nature and grounds of it that will of itself work up to a disbelief of spiritual mercies. He knows, then, that this piece of the victory is an easy consequence of the former; and we may say of it as the prophet Nahum, chap. iii. 12, of the strongholds of Nineveh, It is like ‘a fig-tree with the first ripe figs, if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater.’ This temptation of distrusting our sonship falls into Satan’s mouth with a little labour, when once he hath prevailed so far as to make us distrust the providence of God in outward matters.
Applic. This must warn and caution us against any unbeseeming unbelieving entertainment of jealousy against the Lord’s providence. We are but too apt in our straits to take a greater liberty to question his mercy and power, not foreseeing how closely this borders upon a greater evil. We may say of it, as the apostle speaks of ‘babbling in controversies,’ that they ‘lead to more ungodliness,’ and that such words ‘eat as a canker,’ [2 Tim. ii. 17;] so doth this distrust usually carry us further, and when we fall out with God for small matters, he will be angry in earnest, and withdraw from us our consolations in greater. In the depth of your distresses, when your fears are round about you, and God seems to compass you about with his net,—when lover and friend forsakes, and when there is no appearance of help, endeavour, for the keeping hold of your interest in God, to behave yourselves according to the following directions:—
[1.] First, Look upon the providences of God to be as a great deep, the bottom of whose ways and designs you cannot reach. Think of them as of a mystery, which indeed you must study, but not throw away, because you cannot at first understand it. Providences are not to be dealt with as Alexander did by Gordius his knot, who when he could not loose it he cut it. If you see not the end of the Lord, or cannot meet with a door of hope in it, yet ‘lay your hand upon your mouth,’ speak not, think not evil of things you know not, but wait till the time of their ‘bringing forth.’
[2.] Secondly, You must keep up in your hearts high and honourable thoughts of God, yea, of his mercy and goodness, and where you cannot see your way, or God’s way, before you, yet, as it were by a kind of implicit faith, must you believe that he is holy and good in all his ways.
[3.] Thirdly, Though you may read your sins or God’s displeasure in them, and accordingly endeavour to humble yourselves and call yourselves vile, yet must it be always remembered that eternal love or eternal hatred is not to be measured by them.
[4.] Fourthly, Restrain complainings. It is indeed an ease to complain; ‘I will speak,’ saith Job, ‘that I may be refreshed,’ chap. xxxii. 20; notwithstanding a vent being given, it is difficult to keep within bounds. Our complainings entice us to distrust, as may appear in Job, who took a boldness this way more than was fit, as chap. x. 3, ‘Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, and that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands?’
All this hath been said in the opening of the temptation itself. Now must I consider the motive that Satan used to bring on the temptation by, ‘If thou be the Son of God,’ &c.
The question that is here moved by some is, whether Satan really knew or truly doubted Christ to be the Son of God. Several learned men think that he was in doubt,397 and the reasons are variously conjectured. Cyprian conceives that the unity of the two natures in one person did blind him; he knew it to be impossible that the divine nature should hunger, and might think it strange that the human nature should fast so long.398 Cornelius a-Lapide thinks that Satan knew that there should be two natures united in one person, and that this occasioned Satan’s fall, while he proudly stomached the exaltation of the human nature; but he imagines Satan’s doubt arose from a doubtful sense of that phrase, ‘This is my beloved Son,’ as not knowing whether Christ were the natural or an adopted son of God.
But notwithstanding these apprehensions, others conceive that Satan knew very well who Christ was, and that being privy to so many things relating to him, as the promises which went before and directly pointed out the time, the angel’s salutation of Mary at his conception, the star that conducted the wise men to him, the testimony from heaven concerning him, with a great many things more, he could not possibly be ignorant that he was the Messias and the Son of God by nature. Neither doth that expression, ‘If thou be the Son of God,’ imply any doubting, seeing that that is usually expressive of the greatest certainty and assurance, as in the speech of Lamech, ‘If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,’ that is, as certainly he shall be avenged; so Satan might use it to this sense, ‘If, or seeing thou art the Son of God.’ Now, whereas it may seem strange that he should set upon Christ, if he knew who he was, I have answered that before, and shall here only add that though Satan did believe Christ to be the Son of God, yet so strongly did the power of malice work in him, that he would have had him to have doubted that he was not so. From all this we have this observation,
Obs. 15. That the great design of Satan is to weaken the assurance and hopes of the children of God in their adoption.
This is the masterpiece of his design, the very centre in which most of his devices meet. We may say of him as Esau said of Jacob, ‘Is he not rightly called Jacob, a supplanter?’ [Genesis xxvii. 36;] he first stole away our birthright at the creation, and now he seeks to take away our blessing in Christ the Redeemer.
The reasons of this undertaking I shall not here insist on. It is sufficiently obvious that the greatest perplexity and sorrow ariseth to the children of God from hence, and that a troop of other spiritual evils, as impatience, fury, blasphemy, and many more, doth follow it at the heels, besides all that inability for service, and at last plain neglect of all duty. All I shall further do at this time shall be to shew in a few particulars, from Satan’s carriage to Christ in this temptation, how and after what manner he doth manage that design, in which note:—
(1.) First, That it is his design to sever us from the promise, and to weaken our faith in that. When Eve was tempted, this was that he aimed at, that she should question the good earnest of the prohibition, ‘Hath God said so?’ Was he real in that command, that you should not eat at all? &c. The like he doth to Christ, ‘Is it true? or can it be so as that voice declared, that thou art the Son of God?’
(2.) Secondly, Though this be his design, yet his way to come to it is not at first to deny it, but to question and inquire; yet after such a manner as may imply and withal suggest a doubting or suspicion that it is not so. He doth not come to Christ thus, ‘Thou art not the Son of God; or that voice that gave thee that testimony was but a lie or a delusion;’ but he rather proceeds by questioning, which might seem to grant that he was so, yet withal might possibly beget a doubt in his mind.
(3.) Thirdly, Next he more plainly suggests something that may seem to argue the contrary; for thus he aggravates Christ’s present condition of want, ‘Can it be that God would leave thee to these oppressing straits, if thou wert his Son?’ At this rate he deals with us, improving the failure of outward means of help, the permission of temptation, the want of comfort, the continuance of affliction, notwithstanding prayers, &c., as probabilities that we belong not to God.
(4.) Fourthly, After this he urgeth Christ to a sinful miscarriage, to distrust providence, and to rely no longer on the care of his Father. If Christ had been prevailed with in this, he would have made use of it as an argument to prove that he was not the Son of God indeed. It is usual in his disputings with us about adoption, to put us upon something which may be as an argument out of our own mouths against us. Christ might have answered him in this as the man answered Joab, ‘If I should do so, then thou thyself wouldst set thyself against me.’
(5.) Fifthly, When at last he hath gradually ascended to that confidence as to deny our adoption, then, at a very great disadvantage, he puts us upon the proof, in which he puts by the ordinary evidences, and insists on extraordinary proofs as necessary. The servants of the Lord that are under this exercise, do find that in this case the ordinary evidences of repentance, mortification, love to the brethren, &c., do nothing for them. Satan puts their spirit upon clamouring for higher evidences. Nothing will serve except they may view the records of eternity, and read their names enrolled in the everlasting decrees, or except God will speak from heaven in an extraordinary way, to testify of them, as Thomas resolved that no less should satisfy his doubt than the feeling and seeing of the print of the nails. To this purpose some stand upon no less than a miracle for proof of sonship. Of which we have two instances of later years, the one Mrs Honywood, the other Mrs Sarah Wight,399 who in their distresses for their souls were tempted by Satan to make a hasty experiment, the one by throwing a Venice glass, the other by throwing a cup against the wall, with this or the like expression, ‘If I must be saved, then let not this glass break’—a desperate temptation! Their manner of desiring satisfaction is so provoking, that it cannot be expected God will give an answer by it, but rather the contrary; and if he should not condescend, as he is not bound—though he strangely preserved the cup and glass fore-mentioned from breaking—what a dangerous conclusion would Satan draw from it! Of this nature and design was that proposal of Satan’s to Christ, ‘Command that these stones be made bread,’ that is, do it as a proof of thy sonship.
Applic. By this we must learn this skill, not too easily to give up our hopes, or to be prodigal of our interest in Christ, so as to part with it slenderly. If Satan would chiefly rob us of this, we may learn thence to put a price upon these jewels, and to account that precious, and of singular concernment, which he useth so much cunning to bereave us of. Many of the Lord’s servants may justly blame themselves for their lavish unthriftiness in this matter, who, as if it were a necessary piece of humility or modesty, will readily conclude against themselves that they are not God’s children, that they are not yet converted, &c. Thus, at unawares, they give up to Satan without a stroke all that he seeks for.
Quest. But you will say, Must all men be confident of adoption?
Ans. No, I mean not so; yet all men must be wary how they cast away their hopes. Particularly,
[1.] First, Though it be a dangerous arrogancy for a sinful, wicked creature to bear himself up in a belief that he is converted and actually instated into the adoption of sons; yet it is as dangerous, on the other hand, for that man to cast off all hope, and to say he is reprobated, and such a one as cannot expect pardon and grace.
[2.] Secondly, Those that are converted, though they may and ought to humble themselves deeply for their sinful miscarriage, and sincerely acknowledge that they deserve not to be called his children, yet must they be careful not to renounce their filial interest. They may say they are prodigal, yet keep to this, that they are sons; though they are wandering sheep, yet must they stick here, that they are sheep still, and that God is still a Father, though a provoked Father, otherwise their folly will give more than all his fury could get, at least so quickly and easily.
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on the pinnacle of the temple.—Mat. iv. 5.
The preparation to the second temptation.—Of his nimbleness to catch advantages from our answers to temptation.—That Satan carried Christ in the air.—Of his power to molest the bodies of God’s children.—How little the supposed holiness of places privilegeth us from Satan.—Of Satan’s policy in seeming to countenance imaginary defences.—Of his pretended flight in such cases, with the reasons of that policy.—Of his improving a temptation to serve several ends.
I omit Christ’s answer to the first temptation at present, purposing to handle his answers to all the temptations together. And now the second temptation is before us, in which, first, I shall observe a few things in Satan’s preparation to the temptation, which takes in [1.] The time; [2.] The manner of his carrying him; [3.] The place where he acted it.
(1.) First, For the time. That is noted in the word ‘then,’ which [1.] Points at the immediate succession of this to the former assault. The evangelist Luke puts this temptation last, but he only had respect to the substance of the temptation in his narration; not regarding the order of them, which Matthew hath punctually observed, as appears by his close connecting of them, with the particles ‘then’ and ‘again,’ ver. 5, 8. Besides, whosoever shall consider that in the first, Satan tempted Christ to distrust, which he repelled by telling him that it was his duty, in the failure of outward means, to rely upon divine providence, seeing man lives not by bread alone, &c., he will see so much of connexion in the matter of the temptations that he will easily persuade himself that the second place belongs to this, for this is but, as it were, a fit and pertinent reply to Christ’s refusal; as if Satan had said, ‘Since thou wilt rely upon the help and providence of God in an extraordinary way of working, give an experiment of that by casting thyself down, which thou mayest with greater confidence do, because he hath promised an extraordinary help, and hath given his angels charge concerning thee,’ &c. Hence observe,
Obs. 1. That Satan is not discouraged easily, nor doth he always desist upon the first repulse, but frequently renews the assault when he is strongly and resolutely resisted.
This word, ‘then,’ doth also [2.] Tell us of Satan’s nimbleness in catching a present advantage for a new temptation from Christ’s answer. He declared his trust in providence; this he presently lays hold on as a fit opportunity to tempt him to presumption. Here note,
Obs. 2. That when Satan is upon any design, if an occasional advantage occur from our way of refusal, he will not let it slip, but improves it to what it may lead to, though it be contrary to that which he was first labouring for.
This was the policy which Benhadad’s servants used in their address to Ahab, 1 Kings xx. 33; the men did diligently observe whether anything would come from him, and did hastily catch it. If anything come from us we are under his temptation, he is diligent to observe it, and prosecutes it accordingly; which may serve to satisfy the wonder that some have concerning the contrariety in the temptations to which they are urged. They admire how it comes to pass that their temptations should so suddenly alter, that when Satan seems to be so intent upon one design, he should so quickly change, and urge them presently to a different or contrary thing; but they may know that the devil watcheth the wind, and spreads his sail according to the advantage which ariseth from our answer or repulse. So that if we would but plough with our own heifer, and observe our frame of spirit, we should easily find out this riddle. For as it is in disputings and arguings of men, replies beget new matter for answer, and so do they multiply one another; thus are temptations altered and multiplied, and out of the ashes of one assault repelled, another doth quickly spring up.
The second circumstance of preparation is, Satan’s taking him up and setting him on the temple. That this was not a visionary or an imaginary thing, hath been proved before. Yet granting it to have been real, as in truth it seems to have been, it is disputed what was the modus, the way and manner of it. Some think this was no more than Christ’s voluntary following of Satan, who guided and conducted the way;400 partly because the words παραλαμβάνειν and ἄγειν are in Scripture accommodated to a man’s taking of any as a companion under his guide and conduct of the way, and to a disposal of them in any kind of station. Thus, where it is said, ‘Joseph took Mary and the young child to go to Egypt,’ Mat. ii. 13, the same word is used; and when Christ tells his disciples that they shall bring the ass and the colt which they should find tied, the same word which expresseth Christ being set on the temple is there used, Mat. xxii. 2. Partly also, they think it below the dignity of Christ to be thus violently hurried.
Others think that Satan was permitted to take up the body of Christ, and by his power to have conveyed him in the air; and indeed the whole series of the narration, with all the circumstances thereof, are evident for it. The distances of places, the quickness and speediness of the removals, the more proper applications of the words, ‘taking’ and ‘setting,’ to Satan as the actor, and the declaration of his power therein, as able to do great things; these make the matter so clear, that it seems to be an unnatural forcing of the text to give it any other interpretation. Besides, the former opinion of Satan’s taking of Christ, as a manuductor or guide, seems every way unreasonable; for if Christ only followed Satan, then it must have been either by a land journey on foot or in the air. This latter it could not be; for if Christ had supported himself in the air by his own power, he had anticipated the temptation, and it would have been folly and madness for Satan to have urged him to fly in the air, after such an evidence of his power; and who can imagine that Christ followed Satan on foot from the wilderness to the temple, or that his access to the roof of the temple was so easy, in such a way when the temple was always so strictly guarded? Note, hence,
Obs. 3. That Satan is sometime permitted to exercise his power upon the bodies of those that are dear to God. That he hath power to carry the bodies of men in the air, is sufficiently confirmed by what he doth frequently to witches, who are usually carried, if we can give any credit to the stories that are writ of them, in the air, to places far remote from their dwellings, equitatio cum Diana aut Herodiade. And that this power is permitted him upon others, than such as are in compact with him, is as evident from what is testified of those whose forward curiosity hath led to imitate witches in their anointings, who have thereupon been conveyed after them to their assemblies, and when the company hath been suddenly dismissed, they have been found many miles distant from their dwellings; such instances we have in Bodin, and among other things that of Domina Rossa mentioned by him, whom Satan would sometime bind to a tree, sometime to a table, or to a bed’s-foot, or to a manger, sometime one hand bound to another; the devil thus molested her from eight years old, a long time.401 This power of conveying persons in the air is not usual, yet there are some in this place—Newcastle—that have known one frequently molested by Satan at this rate. However, if we take notice of his power to abuse the bodies of holy persons more generally, we shall find it frequent. Mary Magdelene was possessed; Christ mentions a daughter of Abraham bowed down by him many years; Job was filled with botches and sores; and there are many diseases wherein Satan hath a greater hand than is commonly imagined. Physicians frequently conclude so much, while they observe some distempers to elude such remedies as are usually successful upon other persons under the same diseases.
Applic. From this we may infer, [1.] The great power of Satan; who can tell the extent of it? doubtless, if he were permitted, we should see sad instances hereof daily. [2.] This discovers the wonderful care and providence of God over us in our preservation from his fury. [3.] We may further note that the abuse of the bodies of men by Satan, will be no evidence that therefore God doth disregard them, or that they are not precious to him. Christ did undergo this abuse, to give such as shall be so molested, some comfort in his example.
The third circumstance, which is that of place, is set down first in general, ‘the holy city,’ that is Jerusalem, for so Luke speaks expressly, Luke iv. 9. Jerusalem was so called, because of God’s worship there established, and his peculiar presence there; but that it should be called so at this time may seem strange, seeing it might now be lamented as of old, ‘How is the faithful city become an harlot! Righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers,’ [Isa. i. 21.] In answer to this, we must know that God having not yet given her a bill of divorce, he is pleased to continue her title and privilege. This might be profitably improved; but I will not suffer myself to be diverted from the matter of temptation, which is the only thing I propound to prosecute from hence. I shall here only observe,
Obs. 4. That the holiness or sanctity of a place will be no privilege against temptations. He is not so fearful, as many imagine, as that he dares not approach a churchyard or a church; neither place nor duty can keep him off. I do not believe the popish fiction of their St Bennet’s vision, wherein they tell of his seeing but one devil in a market, and ten in a monastery; yet I question not the truth of this, that the devil is as busy at a sermon or prayer as at any other employment.
But to search a little further into this matter, it seems undeniable that Satan had a design in reference to the place, of which afterward; and I see no reason to exclude our suspicion of a design from the name and title which the evangelist here gives to Jerusalem. It is an expression which, to my remembrance, we meet not with oft in the New Testament. At the suffering of Christ, when the bodies of the saints arose out of their graves, it is said ‘they went into the holy city,’ Mat. xxvii. 53; but it is evident that it is there so styled upon special design, as if the evangelist would by that point at the staining of their glory, and that in a little time their boast of the temple and holy city should cease, and that all should be polluted with the carcases of the slain. And by the same reason may we suppose that Satan, intending for Christ a temptation of presumption, and backing it with the promise of a guard of angels, had in his eye the usual confidence that the Jews had of that city, as a place where the presence of angels might be more expected than elsewhere. So that it seems Satan intended to impose upon Christ a confidence in order to presumption. From the privilege of the place, here observe,
Obs. 5. That Satan is willing to gratify us with nominal and imaginary privileges and defences against himself. He will willingly allow us such defences as are altogether insignificant and delusive, and his policy here is centred upon these two things:—
(1.) First, He doth industriously prompt us to self-devised inventions, such as were never appointed or blessed of God to any such use; but only found out by the bold superstitions of men. Of this we have an instance in Balak, who carried Baalam from place to place in his prosecution of his design of cursing Israel; neither can we imagine that a commodious prospect of Israel was all he aimed at, seeing he discovers his mind in this variation of places, ‘Peradventure it will please God that thou mayest curse them from thence,’ Num. xxiii. 27; clearly implying that he had a confidence that the place might contribute something to his design, and that there was some inherent virtue in those consecrated places; and therefore did he begin with the high-places of Baal, and then to the held of Zophim, and then to the top of Peor, Num. xxii. 27, xxiii. 14, 28. Among the papists we find too much of this. What power they attribute to holy water, blessed salt, sign of the cross, hallowed earth, consecrated places, relics, baptized bells, exorcisms, and abundance of such stuff, may be seen in many of their writings, too tedious to be related.402
(2.) Secondly, He is also willing that men use those real defences and helps which God hath commanded, so that they use them in a formal manner, which indeed deprives them of all the life and efficacy that might be expected from an instituted means. Thus he readily permits ignorant persons, without any disturbance or molestation, to use the repetition of the Lord’s prayer, ten commandments, and creed, or any other prayer, while they persuade themselves that the very saying of the words is a sufficient defence against the devil all that day.