Chapter XI
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 interpret[392] 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.
Chapter XII
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 weaning[396] 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.
Chapter XIII
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.
The reasons of Satan’s policy in such gratifications are these:—
[1.] First, While we are kept doing with these, we are diverted from that which might be really helpful. He puts a broken reed into our hand, that we might be deprived of a staff. Experience confirms this. Those that, with greatest devotion, use these empty inventions, are usually careless in the use of God’s own appointments.
[2.] Secondly, Besides that he thus betrays them by these lying helps, he doth by this means cast them on a further iniquity of idolising these foolish calves of their own invention. In this case men have a presumptuous expectation from such usages of that which God never promised to do by them, neither ever entered into his heart so to do, seeing he answers them all with this, ‘Who hath required these things at your hands?’ [Isa. i. 12.] And accordingly their consciences are more concerned for the omission of one of these fooleries, than for the neglect of the greater things of the law. Such are more troubled for the neglect of the sign of the cross or holy water, than for their constant carelessness and want of faith, by which their hearts should be guarded against their enemy.
[3.] Thirdly, In the meantime he makes work for his own triumph over them that dote upon these sottish inventions. If we can suppose Satan to have pleasure or mirth at anything, we may be sure he will laugh at such preparations for a spiritual welfare,[403] it being as truly ridiculous for any man to go out with these weapons against Satan, as for a combatant to assail a giant with a paper helmet, a wicker shield, and a wooden dagger. And indeed when Satan counterfeits a flight or fear of such matters, as for his advantage he sometimes doth, it is but in design to beget or confirm in men a confidence of a virtue or strength in these usages against his power, that so they may fix upon them to the neglect of God’s own institutions, which he most dreads. Thus we read that he cunningly ceased his oracle at Daphne upon a pretence of the silencing power of the bones of the martyr Babilas, which were buried near the place, on purpose to lead unwary Christians to the adoration of saints and their relics.[404] Many such instances we have in Sprenger, of the devil’s feigned flight at the sign of the cross, the sprinkling of holy water, the angelical salutation, St Bernard’s staff, or certain words and verses hung about the neck.[405] And a great deal of such stuff we may meet with in most of their writers, all which are but cunning contrivances of Satan, to advance a belief of the virtue of these things; and so to stop men there, to the neglect of those spiritual weapons which the Scripture recommends.
These we have observed from the place in general, ‘the holy city.’ Let us go on to the place in particular where Satan acted all this, ‘the pinnacle of the temple.’ Various are the conjectures of men about this, whether it were some fane, or the top of some spire, or the place whence the apostle James was thrown down, or the top of the king’s porch, which was erected to a great height over a deep valley, or some battlement, &c. But we are not concerned in such inquiries; only here shall I take notice of Scultetus, who, supposing the place to be the top of a fane or spire, and reading in Josephus that the points of such broaches were so sharp that a bird could not rest upon them without piercing its foot, was therefore willing to conclude that these temptations were not really and historically acted, but in vision only.[406] All this ariseth from a wrong interpretation of πτερύγιον, which our English renders pinnacle, whereas it properly signifies any battlement or angular prominency, jutting out over the rest like a wing, which would afford a sufficient footing and support.[407]
It is more profitable to inquire after Satan’s reason for the choice of such a place. No question but it was upon design, for else he might with equal convenience have tempted Christ to cast himself down from some tree or precipice in the wilderness; but then what that design was, is not so easy to determine. It seems plain that he might suppose that Christ might be the rather animated to the undertaking of flying in the air by the hopes of glory which might be expected from such a performance before so many spectators. But some think that he had a design also upon the men of Jerusalem, and intended some delusion to the Jews,[408] which I am not unwilling to close with, partly because the experiences that we have of his devices assure us that in one temptation his ends are oft manifold; and I cannot but think that Satan would make all things sure, and provide, in his projecting mind, against all events. For if Christ should have yielded and evidenced so great a power in the sight of all the people, it might have been a conviction general that he was the Messiah, about that time universally expected; and partly I am ready to think so, because, in case Christ had done so, it lay so fair to confirm the Jews in a misapprehension of the personal coming of Elias, of whom they understood the prophecy of Mal. iii. 1, ‘Behold, I will send my messenger; and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant.’[409] If the Jews expected Elias to come from heaven to the temple, how strongly would they have been confirmed in this opinion if they had seen a man fly from the temple in the air; and by this means John the Baptist, who was the Elias that was to come, should have been neglected, and Christ himself, though honoured as Elias, not owned for the Messiah.
Obs. 6. Observe then, That Satan’s designs are large, and that he projects the ensnaring or deluding of others by such temptations as seem only to concern those that are under the immediate trouble of them. He tempts Christ to cast himself down, and also by it, at least, intends a delusion to the Jews. He tempts one man upon the back of another. One is tempted to error; another by that man’s temptation is tempted to atheism and rejecting of all religion. One man is tempted to profaneness, another is tempted by that to an uncharitable disrespect of him. It is easy to multiply instance of this.
Chapter XIV
That presumption was the chief design of this temptation.—Of tempting to extremes.—What presumption is.—The several ways of presuming.—The frequency of this temptation, in the generality of professors, in hypocrites, despairing persons, and in the children of God.—The reasons of Satan’s industry in this design.—His deceitful contrivance in bringing about this sin.—Preservatives against it.
Next to the preparation which Satan made for the second conflict, already explained, the temptation intended offers itself to our view, which is this, ‘Cast thyself down.’ What Satan chiefly intended by it, we may collect from Christ’s answer, as well as from the thing itself; for he thus replies, ‘It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ Christ doth not use this scripture to any such sense as this, that he should hereby prohibit Satan to tempt him because he was Satan’s Lord and God; but he mentioned this scripture as a rule of obedience: as if he should say, ‘I may not cast myself down, and so rely on extraordinary help, seeing I can go down another way;’ for the neglect of ordinary means, when we have them, is a tempting of God, which may not be done. So that it appears by this, that Satan here tempted Christ to presumption. There is only this objection in our way, that Deut. vi. 16, the place by Christ cited, refers to the temptation of the Israelites in Massah, mentioned Exod. xvii. 2, where they chide with Moses for water; and there it would seem their tempting the Lord was rather in despairing of his power and help than presuming in the neglect of the ordinary means. I answer, though the occasion and matter of that temptation be different from this of Christ’s, yet the presumptuous experiment that they there made of God’s presence and power was the same with this which Satan designed; for ver. 7, where the account of that tempting is given, it is said, ‘because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not?’ they put it to this issue, that the being and power of God should be tried by the giving or not giving of water. The manner, then, of that temptation being so agreeable to this, Christ very pertinently applies that command to it, presumption being the thing which Christ was tempted to. It might occasion some wonder in us to see Satan take such strange steps. He was before tempting him to despair, now to presumption; but it is no argument of his lightness or uncertain roving in his way of tempting, but rather of his depth and subtlety. Note then,
Obs. 7. That it is Satan’s policy in tempting, to run from one extreme to another. The Corinthians were first tempted to a sinful compliance with the adulterous person, and were averse to his excommunication; afterwards they were tempted to the contrary severity, and were as backward to receive him again. The same men that have been overcome by prodigality and excess, when they begin to see the evil of that, are oft tempted to worldliness or covetousness, the contrary disposition. Reasons of this policy are:—
(1.) First, The avoiding of one extreme gives the soul such a swing, if care be not used to prevent it, that they are cast more than half way upon the other. Peter, in an extreme of modesty, refused the washing of his feet by Christ; but when he understood the danger, then he runs as far wrong another way—‘Not my feet only, but my hands and my head,’ John xiii. 9. Thus some are so for purity of churches, that they exclude the weak; others so for unity, that they admit the open scandalous and profane.
(2.) Secondly, While men avoid one extreme by running into another, they carry with them such strong impressions of the evil they would avoid, and such fierce prejudices, that it is not an ordinary conviction will bring them right, but they are apt to be confident of the goodness of the way they take, and so are the more bold and fixed in their miscarriage.
Presumption being the great design of Satan in this temptation, we may further observe:—
Obs. 8. That as distrust on the one hand, so presumption on the other, is one of his grand designs. Of these two, we may say as it was said of the sword of Hazael and Jehu, that of all those that are slain by the devil, whosoever hath escaped the sword of distrust and despair, the sword of presumption hath slain. To explain this I shall,
1. First, Shew what presumption is. It is in the general a confidence without a ground. [1.] First, It is made up of audacity—which is a bold and daring undertaking of a thing—and security. [2.] Secondly, The ground of it is an error of judgment. A blind or a misled judgment doth always nourish it; and this is either a mistake of the nature of such means on which we rely for assistance, as when a man lays as much stress upon a thread as upon a cable, or expects as much nourishment from a stone as from bread;[410] or a mistake of the will of others, from whom we expect aid and help, without a warrant for such a confidence. [3.] Thirdly, In its way of working it is directly opposite to distrust, and is a kind of excessive though irregular hope; not that in this case a man believes or hopes overmuch, for there can be no excess properly in the exercise of divine graces, but that he hopes too rashly or lightly, without a solid foundation or reason.[411] Hope hath for its object that which is good under the considerations of futurity, possibility, and difficulty. On the one side, desperation looks upon that good as future, but under so great a difficulty that it forgets the possibility of it, and thereupon surceaseth all endeavours. Presumption, on the other hand, is so keenly apprehensive of the possibility, that it never regards the difficulty, and so thrusts forward into irregular endeavours or expectations. The nature of this will be better understood when the particular instances of presumption are before us.
(1.) First, Then it is presumption, when from external or subordinate means men expect that for which they were never designed nor appointed of God. To expect ‘grapes of thorns or figs of thistles,’ would be a presumption, because God never designed them for such fruits; and no less is it when in any other case men look for high and extraordinary things from any created good above what God hath put into it by the law of creation.
(2.) Secondly, When men do expect those fruits and effects from anything unto which it is appointed, in neglect or opposition to the supreme cause, without whose concurrent influence they cannot reach their proper ends—that is, our hopes are wholly centred upon means, when in the meantime our eye is not upon God. Thus ‘to make gold our hope,’ Job xxxi. 24, ‘to make flesh our arm,’ Jer. xvii. 5, ‘to make Ashur a saviour,’ Hosea xiv. 3, or to trust to any creatures whatsoever, is in Scripture condemned as a presumptuous reliance, and, in regard of the necessary disappointment, ‘a trusting in a lie;’ in which sense it is said that ‘every man is a liar,’ Ps. lxii. 9. The like presumption it is when we boast great things of ourselves, and, as Peter, make confident engagements, in our own strength, that we will avoid such a sin or perform such a duty; for we are but frail, and all our sufficiency is from the Lord, so that it can be no less than intolerable arrogance to promise anything of ourselves without him; neither can men promise to themselves the continuance of that good or advantage which they have already received from second causes, if their confidence builds itself upon that sole consideration, without a just blame. Job had said he should ‘die in his nest,’ [chap. xxix. 18,] and David that ‘he should never be moved,’ [Ps. xvi. 8,] but both of them afterward noted these confidences to have been no other than deceitful presumptions.
(3.) Thirdly, It is a presumption to expect things above the reach of our present state and condition; as for a mean man to beg of God authority and rule, or to expect to be set with princes; or for ordinary Christians to look for miracles, signs from heaven, visions, revelations, extraordinary answers to prayers, and the like, all which expectations are groundless, and the issue of a presumptuous pride: sperare non speranda.
(4.) Fourthly, When men expect things contrary to the rules that God hath set for his dispensations of mercy, they boldly presume upon his will. God hath promised preservation to his children while they are in God’s way, but if any shall go out of that way, and sinfully put himself into dangers and hazards, it would be presumption in him to expect a preservation. It is the same in spiritual things. God promiseth eternal life and the blessings of his covenant to such as give up themselves to him and his laws; will it not be intolerable presumption for men ‘to bless themselves in their heart’ with expectations of reigning with him in glory, while in the meantime they contradict his own rule and neglect his order, walking in profaneness and living to themselves? This is a high presumption of mercy against his express will. Hence are such courses called ‘presumptuous sins,’ Ps. xix. 13, and such sinners transgress ‘with a high hand.’
(5.) Fifthly, It is also a presumption to expect any mercy, though common and usual, without the ordinary means by which God in providence hath settled the usual dispensations of such favours; as when men look for his aid and help for supply of corporal wants, while they throw off all care, and refuse their own endeavours, which are the ways of God’s appointment, in the conscientious use whereof such mercies are to be expected. The heathen, upon the consideration of the necessary connexion of means and the end, have usually judged such sluggish expectations to be no better than solemn mockings of a deity: admotâ manu invocanda est Minerva. In spiritual things it is no less presumptuous to expect conversion, and an interest in Christ and heaven, while they refuse the careful use of his ordinances; and therefore we are commanded to pray for such blessings, ‘to cry after knowledge, and to lift up the voice for understanding,’ Prov. ii. 3-5, and to second these prayers with our own utmost endeavours ‘to seek for it as for silver, and to search for it as for hid treasures,’ and in so doing to expect the finding of the knowledge of God.
(6.) Sixthly, When ordinary or extraordinary mercies are expected for an unlawful end; as when the Israelites at Massah called for water,—which they ought to believe God would supply them withal, their condition considered,—but for a test and proof of the being of God; for they said, ‘Is God among us, or not?’ Exod. xvii. 7. It is by James made a piece of spiritual unfaithfulness and adultery to ask anything of God with a design ‘to spend it upon a lust,’ [chap. iv. 3.] Ahaz his refusing a sign when God offered it, however he made a show of modesty and believing, argued no other thing but that he was conscious to himself that, in case he had accepted it, he should have abused that favour to an unlawful end, and have tempted God by it, as putting it upon this experiment whether there was a God or not. This is also another act of presumption. When a man becomes guilty of any of these miscarriages, he is presumptuous.
2. Secondly, I further add to this discovery of the nature and kinds of presumption, that this is one of Satan’s grand engines; which I prove by two demonstrations:—
(1.) First, By Satan’s common practice in this kind upon all sorts of men, in most occasions. That which is his frequent practice upon most men, and on most occasions, must of necessity be understood to be chiefly designed. Some men may possibly be free from the trouble of some particular temptations, as Hieronimus Wallerus saith of Luther his master, that he heard him often report of himself that he had been assaulted and vexed with all kind of temptations, saving only that of covetousness; but none can say they have not been assaulted with this. I shall make it out by an induction of particulars:—
[1.] First, The generality of men that live in the profession of religion are presumptuous, nay, the greatest part of the blind world are so. They presume of mercy and salvation. The devil preacheth nothing else but all hope, no fear, and in these golden dreams they slide down to hell. If we look into their way of sinning, and then into their hopes, we can judge no less of them. They stick not at the most grievous abominations, the works of the flesh, and in these they continue. It is their trade, their life; they make provisions for them, they cannot sleep except they do wickedly; he that reproveth is derided by them; they make but a mock and sport of those things which, as the shame and reproach of mankind, should rather fly the light and hide themselves as things of darkness. These things they practise without regret or sorrow of heart, without smiting upon the thigh, and in all this they have the confidence to say, ‘Is not the Lord among us?’ They can call themselves Christians, and have as bold expectations of eternal happiness, as if the committing of these evils were made by God the necessary qualifications to everlasting happiness. What is more common, and yet what more presumptuous? For (1.) These men audaciously hope and expect mercy, expressly contrary to the peremptory threatenings of God. God saith, ‘There is no peace to the wicked;’ they say, ‘We shall have peace.’ (2.) These run upon the greatest hazards of ruin and woe, with the least fear, in the contempt of all danger, ‘as the horse rusheth into the battle, who mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted, neither turneth his back from the sword,’ Job xxxix. 22. (3.) They dare God to do his worst, they provoke God to jealousy, and that to his face; hence was it that Nimrod was said to be a mighty hunter before the Lord, [Gen. x. 9;] and Er, the son of Judah, that he was wicked ‘before the Lord,’ [Gen. xxxviii. 7,] because such audacious sinners will not, as we may say, go behind his back to sin.
[2.] Secondly, Hypocrites whose carnage is more smooth, they also are presumptuous; for while they hide their sin, they do against dictates of conscience presume ‘that he that made the eye doth not see,’ and that there is a possibility to cheat God as well as men: besides, their boastings and hopes have a special mark set upon them in Scripture as audaciously false; ‘the hope of the hypocrite shall be cut off,’ [Job viii. 13;] their confidence of the temple of the Lord is but a lie, and so termed expressly by the prophet.
[3.] Thirdly, Even despairing persons are not always free of presumption. The act of self-murder is a terrible presuming upon infinite justice. Spira’s desire to know the worst was of the same kind. These are indeed extraordinary; but there are some other kinds of despair that come nearer to presumption, as that sensual despair which ariseth out of an excessive love of carnal delights, and a secure contempt of spiritual things; for when sensuality prompts them to eat and drink while they may, despairing and hopeless of a future happiness, ‘for to-morrow they shall die,’ [Isa. xxii. 13,] and their pleasure cease, they highly presume against the patience and goodness of God.
[4.] Fourthly, The best of men are too frequently overcome by it. (1.) Not only while they are overtaken with sins more grievous, and above the rate of sins of infirmity, to which how liable the holiest saint may be upon temptation, may be gathered from David’s prayer, ‘Keep thy servant from presumptuous sins, that they have not dominion over me,’ [Ps. xix. 13.] (2.) But by their earnest prosecutions of their own wills when contradicted by providence. It is by the prophet, Isaiah ix. 9, called ‘a pride and stoutness of heart,’ to contend with providence, to attempt to build with ‘hewn stone when the bricks are fallen,’ or to ‘strive for cedars when divine wrath hath cut down the sycamores.’ (3.) How frequently are they guilty of presuming upon their privileges, their strength, their graces, and upon that score venture themselves upon occasions of sin, or bear high above others upon a conceit of their higher attainments, or when they boldly put themselves upon suffering, or upon doing, while they want that due humility and care that should balance them. (4.) There is also a presumptuous rashness, upon which the zeal and good intentions of holy men may sometimes precipitate them. Such was Uzziah’s putting forth his hand to hold the ark, for which the Lord smote him. All these instances put together will sufficiently demonstrate that presumption is one of Satan’s master designs.
The second demonstration of this truth is from the general subserviency of other things to this. Most of Satan’s endeavours and temptations aim at this point, and this is the result and consequence of most sins. That must needs be chief, to which so many things do but serve and minister. In this centre do most of the lines of his policy meet,—pride, vainglory, conceited privileges, supposed advantages, and many things more were but under-agents to this temptation which the devil attempted upon Christ, as hath in part, and presently shall be further, evidenced.
3. Thirdly, Having thus proved that presumption is one of the great things he aims at, I shall next discover the reasons of his earnestness and industry in his design, which are these:—
(1.) First, It is a sin very natural, in which he hath the advantage of our own readiness and inclination. However that some from a melancholy temper are inclinable to fears and distrust at some time, when these black apprehensions are exalted, yet, these excepted, hopes are more predominant than fears; and self-love, which provides fuel to these hopes, is a natural principle in all. When so many things give him such advantages and promise him a success, we may well suppose he will not miss such an opportunity.
(2.) Secondly, As it is easy for Satan’s attempt, so it is remote from conviction, and not rooted out without great difficulty. It is a sin that is covered with a pretext of a higher degree of hope. Men in many ways of this iniquity are under persuasions of duty, and by reason of that confidence, fear, which is the soul’s sentinel, is asleep. Hence do they not lie so fairly open to counsel or reproof. The Israelites, Deut. i. 27, 28, being under discouragement, refuse to go up to Canaan, when they were upon the border of the land; but being convinced of their sin in distrusting the arm of the Lord, by God’s declared wrath and threatening against them, they fall upon the contrary extreme of presumption, and then, ver. 41, ‘they would go up and fight;’ and the conviction of their former sin made them so confident that this was their present duty—for thus they argue, ‘We have sinned against the Lord, we will go up and fight, according to all that the Lord our God commanded us’—that though they were expressly forbidden from God, ver. 42, ‘Go not up, neither fight, for I am not among you;’ yet were they so strangely carried by their former persuasion, that they refused to be convinced, ‘and went presumptuously into the hill.’ By which instance we see what great pretences lead on presumption, and how difficultly they are removed, which two things do no less than tempt Satan to lay out himself to the uttermost in that design.
(3.) Thirdly, The greatness of the sin when it is committed, is another reason of his diligence in the pursuit of it. It is not only from a simple error or mistake, but that error ariseth from intolerable pride; they say and do such things from the pride and stoutness of their heart, Isa. ix. 9. He that is presumptuous is self-willed, 2 Pet. ii. 10. Hence these sins, which we translate presumptuous, are in the original called prides or arrogancies, Ps. xix. 13; Deut. xvii. 12. Besides, they are contradictions to Gods order, separating those things that God hath joined together, as the means from the end, or the end from the means, as if the ‘earth should be turned out of its place’ for us. And in some cases it is no less than the open affronting of God by abusing his own favours against himself; for thus they deal with him, who are opinionated in sin because of his mercy, concluding, by an irrational consequence, that they ought to be wicked because God is good, or that they may freely offend because he doth not punish.
(4.) Fourthly, The dangerous issues and consequences of this way of sinning, do not a little animate Satan to tempt to it. In some cases it was to be punished by death: Deut. xvii. 12, ‘The man that doth presumptuously, even that man shall die;’ and most usually it is plagued with sad disappointments, by a severe engagement of God’s displeasure against it. ‘The hypocrite’s hope shall perish, it shall be as the giving up of the ghost,’ Job viii. 13, and xi. 20. And generally, ‘He that thus blesseth himself in his heart, when he heareth the words of the curse,’ Deut. xxix. 19, 20, ‘the Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven.’
4. Fourthly and lastly, I shall lay before you the deceitful contrivance of Satan in bringing this sin about, by shewing the particulars of his craft against Christ herein. As,
(1.) First, He takes advantage from his resolve to rely upon providence, contrary to the former temptation of turning stones to bread. Christ had refused that, telling him it was duty to trust him, who not only by the ordinary means of bread could feed him, but also by any other appointment. To this Satan rejoins, by offering an irregular opportunity of such a trust, in casting himself from the pinnacle of the temple: as if he should say, ‘If thou wilt thus rely upon providence, do it in this.’ Wherein we may note, that from an obediential dependence, he would draw Christ to an irregular presumption. He retorts Christ’s argument back again upon him thus, ‘If God is to be relied upon by a certain trust for food, by the like trust he is to be relied upon for preservation; if the belief of supply of bread can consist with a neglect or refusal of ordinary means for the procurement thereof, then may the belief of preservation in casting thyself from the pinnacle of the temple consist also with a neglect of the ordinary means.’ Thus, like a cunning sophister, he endeavours to conclude sin from duty, from a seeming parity betwixt them, though indeed the cases were vastly different. For, though it be duty to depend upon providence, when God, in the pursuit of service and duty, brings us out of the sight and hopes of outward means, yet it can be no less than sinful presumption for us to make such experiments of providences, when we need not, and when ordinary means are at hand. After the same manner doth he endeavour to put fallacies upon us, and to cheat us into presumptuous undertakings, by arguing from a necessary trust, in some cases, a necessity of presuming in others, upon a seeming likeness and proportion.
(2.) Secondly, It was no small piece of Satan’s craft to take this advantage, while the impression of trust in the want of outward means was warm upon the heart of Christ. He hoped thereby the more easily to draw him to an excess. For he knows that a zealous earnestness to avoid a sin, and to keep to a duty, doth often too much incline us to an extreme, and he well hoped that when Christ had declared himself so positively to depend upon God, he might have prevailed to have stretched that dependence beyond its due bounds, taking the opportunity of his sway that way, which, as a ship before wind and tide, might soon be overdriven. And this was the design of his haste in this second temptation, because he would strike while the iron was hot, and closely pursue his advantage, while the strength and forwardness of these resolves were upon him.
(3.) Thirdly, He endeavours to animate him to this presumption by popular applause, and to tickle him into a humour of affecting the glory and admiration, which by such a strange undertaking might be raised in the minds of the spectators; and therefore did he bring him to the most conspicuous place of a great and populous city, not thinking the matter so feasible if he had tempted him to it in a solitary desert.
(4.) Fourthly, He propounds to him a plausible end, and a seeming advantage, viz., the clear and undoubted discovery of his divine nature and near interest in God; urging this as a necessary duty, for his own satisfaction, and the manifestation of his sonship to others.
(5.) Fifthly, To drive out of his mind those fears of miscarrying in his attempt, which otherwise might have been a block in his way, he is officious in strengthening his confidence by propounding treacherous helps and preservatives, suggesting a safety to him from the privilege of the place where this was to be acted, a holy city and temple, producing more of a divine presence for his safety than other places.
(6.) Sixthly, To make all sure, he backs all this with a promise of preservation, that nothing might be wanting to his security.
By this method applied to other things and cases, he endeavours to bring us to presumption.
Applic. The consideration of this should put us upon a special care and watchfulness against presumption. It is more designed, and hath a greater prevalency than men are aware of. Two things I shall only at present propound for our preservation, out of Ps. xix. 12, 13.
[1.] First, He that would be kept from presumptuous sins must make conscience of secret sins, to search for them, to mortify them, to beg pardon for them. With what face or hope can we expect from God help against these, when we provoke him to leave us to ourselves, by indulging ourselves in the other?
[2.] Secondly, He that would avoid them must be under the awe and fear of being overcome by them. He that slights and contemns such visible hazards shall not long be innocent. David here first shews his conscience to be concerned with secret sins, and then begs to be kept from presumptuous sins, and by such earnest begging he next shews how much he dreaded such miscarriages. [Dickson, in loc.]
Chapter XV
Self-murder another of his designs in this temptation.—How he tempts to self-murder directly, and upon what advantage he urgeth it.—How he tempts to it indirectly, and the ways thereof.—Of necessary preservatives against this temptation.
We have seen and considered the main end of Satan in this temptation. Let us further consider whether this was the sole end that he propounded to himself. We have little reason to think that he would confine himself to one, when the thing itself doth so clearly suggest another, which might possibly have followed. In most cases, the ends of the devil are manifold. We may therefore easily suppose—and several have noted it[412]—that the devil, that great murderer, had herein a secret design against the life of Christ, and that he tempted him here indirectly to self-murder. And indeed, supposing that Christ had attempted to fly in the air, and had failed in the enterprise, what else could have followed but death and ruin? Hence let us note,
Obs. 9. That Satan seeks the ruin of our bodies as well as of our souls, and tempts men often to self-murder. That the devil goes about seeking how he may destroy men, by putting them upon attempts against their own lives, is evident, not only from the experience and confessions of such as have suffered under Satan’s suggestions to that end—and it is a temptation more common than we think of, because most men are unwilling to lay open themselves to others in this matter—but also from those many sad instances of men over whom Satan so far prevails, that they execute upon themselves this design by destroying themselves. Yet by the way we may note, that such thoughts are often in the minds of men where Satan is not industriously designing their destruction; for he often casts in such thoughts, not only to try how men take with them, but to affright and disquiet them; and it is usual with men of sad and melancholy tempers to mistake their own fears of such a temptation, for Satan’s endeavours against them, when indeed their fear and trouble lest they should be so tempted, makes them think they are tempted indeed.
Satan drives on the design of self-murder two ways:—
1. First, Directly, when in plain terms he urgeth men to destroy themselves. This because it is directly repugnant to the law of nature, which vehemently urgeth them to self-preservation, he cannot effect but by the help of some advantages; yet some ways and methods by experience he hath found to be so available to such an unnatural resolve, that he frequently puts them in practice. As, (1.) first, He works upon the discontents of men, and improves the disquiet of their minds, upon the occasion of any loss, vexation, disappointment, or disgrace, to as great a height as he can, and when their lives are made bitter to them, and they are sufficiently prepared by the uneasiness of their condition, then he propounds death as the only remedy to set them at quiet; wherein, besides his officiousness to provide them with instruments of cruelty and opportunity for their use, he follows them with arguments drawn from the sense of their present condition; the great intendment whereof is to aggravate their smart, and to make their burden seem intolerable, and then self-ruin is but a natural consequence. We may see enough of this in the discontents of good men, and that they naturally work this way. Job speaks the general apprehensions of men in trouble, chap. iii. 20, 21, ‘The bitter in soul value not life; they long for death, and dig for it more than for hid treasures; they rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they can find the grave.’ Jonah in his discontent prefers death before life: ‘It is better for me to die than to live,’ [chap. iv. 3.] Elias doth the like; and Job seems impatient for it. All this is from the power and working of this temptation, though God held their hand that it did not fully prevail. In Ahithophel the ground of discontent was more a fancied than a real disgrace; his counsel was rejected—which was in itself no great dishonour—and this works up such a perplexing resentment in his mind, that Satan prevails with him to hang himself very deliberately.
(2.) Secondly, He most frequently draws on men to destroy themselves by terrors and despairing troubles of conscience. These, as they afford greater disquiet and distress of mind than other kind of discontentments, so doth he more prevail by them; for a wounded spirit is above ordinary strength, and hard to bear; only it may seem strange that those who so experimentally feel how ‘fearful a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God,’ [Heb. x. 31,] should entertain such a temptation as, to their apprehensions and knowledge, will certainly plunge them into the very ocean of everlasting vengeance. This no doubt Satan finds to be no small obstruction to his design; but here he useth his skill to open a way for them that would outrun their lives on the one hand, as he labours to pursue them with sense of wrath and indignation on the other hand. To this purpose he tells them, [1.] That all the hell they are to meet with is in their consciences, and that death will free them from all, or at least that death will give a present ease, and that till the resurrection they shall be in quiet. Those that are willing to receive these apprehensions may easily be prevailed with to hasten their own death, seeing they have already fixed this conclusion with themselves, that there is no hope nor pardon for them, that they are reprobates and cut off; for their thoughts can meditate nothing but the terrors of such conclusions. [2.] He sometimes endeavours to persuade them, that by executing this revenge upon themselves, they may make some kind of satisfaction and amends for the sins they have committed; which though most false, yet it is a wonder how far such ungrounded surmises may possess the minds of the desperate. That Judas might have some such thought when he destroyed himself, is conjectured by some;[413] but that must be but a conjecture, seeing none can pretend to know his thoughts; but we may speak with greater freedom of those who have declared the working of such apprehensions upon their minds. [3.] A more plausible pretext he useth when he endeavours to persuade them that they may kill themselves, and yet go to heaven for all that. To this purpose the subtle adversary is not backward to tell them what have been the charitable expressions of some men who have supposed a possibility of repentance inter pontem et fontem, as we say, betwixt the stroke or halter and the death. Capel is so apprehensive of the mischievous improvement of this charity, for an encouragement to self-murder, that he with great earnestness cautions all ministers against such liberal expressions.[414] I have known some, and heard of others, that have been so possessed with this imagination of being saved, notwithstanding that having purposed to destroy themselves—though God prevented them that they did it not—they have first by prayer recommended themselves to God, and so prepared themselves to die. [4.] Sometime, though such afflicted ones have no such persuasion but that from death they go immediately to hell, yet are they pushed forward by a certain fearful curiosity of knowing the worst. At that rate did Spira express himself, when he desired to be freed of his life that he might know the utmost of those torments which he feared; as if the affrightments of his fearful expectations were worse than the real feeling of them. [5.] But most of all doth he prevail against that objection of greater misery after death, by running men up to a desperate distraction in their terrors. Their present anguish is made insupportable, so that they hasten out of life, without care or consideration of what shall follow.
(3.) Thirdly, He tempts men directly to destroy themselves from a principle of heroic boldness and seeming fortitude of mind—a thing very common among the Romans, who impatient of injuries, and from pride of heart, not willing to subject themselves to affronts, chose rather to tear their own bowels than to live to see themselves abused. Lucretia being forced by Tarquinius, and not willing to outlive her disgrace, stabbed herself. Cato, not being able to endure the victory of Cæsar, puts an end to his days. Innumerable instances of this kind histories do everywhere afford. These, though they consulted their own passions, and knew of nothing that prompted them but their own generosity or magnanimity, yet were they not without a tempter to such cruel actions. Satan undoubtedly pleased himself by exercising his cruelty upon them so easily, by the help of such a humour, which passed among these blind heathens for the highest proof of virtue and fortitude. To this height it came, insomuch that we find Seneca highly applauding Cato[415] for procuring his liberty by his own death; and setting forth that fact as the most delightful spectacle to the gods. Though indeed, as Augustine notes,[416] it is not fortitude but weakness, and a clear evidence of impatience, which cannot bear other men’s insolencies or their own hardships. And if we examine the matter to the bottom, though there be audacity in it to undertake their own death, yet is this led on by no better principles than pride, impatience, and despair: which may the better be discovered if we consider such kind of attempts as they arise from more ignoble and base occasions. Paterculus tells us of a Tuscan soothsayer, who being carried to prison with his friend Fulvius Flaccus, and despairing of pardon, desperately runs his head against the prison door and dashed out his brains; and yet this man was moved to attempt his destruction upon the same general principles by which Cato destroyed himself.
(4.) Fourthly, It is also sufficiently known that Satan by the force of custom in several countries, doth as it were necessitate men to cut off their own lives. In some barbarous places, at the death of the husband, the wife, in a brutal affection of the praise of love and loyalty, casts herself to be devoured by the same flame in which the dead body of her husband is consumed.[417] And there are found in other places customs of self-destruction for the avoiding the tedious inconveniences of old age, where it is usual for old persons with joy to prepare their own funeral pile, and to make a quick despatch of their lives, and rather to die at once than by piecemeal, as Seneca expresseth it.[418] Calanus, an Indian philosopher, being dysenterical, obtained leave of Alexander to burn himself for more quick despatch.
(5.) Fifthly, There is yet another way by which men are tempted sometime, though rarely, to hasten themselves out of the world, and that is by a pretence of an earnest and impatient desire of happiness to come. That longings for such enjoyments do become the best of saints, and is indeed their excellency, cannot be denied; but to make such a preposterous haste must be a cheat of Satan. That there is a possibility of this, may appear in the story of Cleombrotus, mentioned also by Augustine, who reading Plato’s ‘Phædo, of the Immortality of the Soul,’ that he might hasten thither, threw himself headlong from a wall, and died.[419] Now, though it be hard to find such an instance among Christians, yet we have reason to believe that where Satan perceives such a temptation may take place, he will not be wanting in the prosecution. And if we may conjecture Augustine’s thoughts by that question which he propounds—viz., Whether it be lawful for a man to kill himself for the avoiding of sin, which he solidly confutes,[420] we may conclude that such thoughts were the usual temptations of good men in his time, and the rather because in the close of that chapter he applies that discourse particularly to the servants of Christ, that they should not think their lives a burden. Non itaque vobis, O fideles Christi, sit tœdio vita vestra.
2. Secondly, Satan promotes the design of self-murder, not only directly, as we have heard, but also by some indirect ways he undermines the life of man. That is, when he doth not formally say to them, Destroy yourselves, but tempts them to such things as he knows will let in upon death. This way of subtle malice I shall explain under these heads:—
(1.) First, Upon highest pretexts of zeal for Gods glory, he sometimes lays a snare for our lives. I cannot believe but Satan had a hand in that forwardness of ancient Christians, who by an open profession of their faith before persecuting judicatures, did as it were court a martyrdom; and I have the same persuasion of the painful earnestness of many holy preachers, who lavish out their strength in a prodigality of pains for the good of souls, which, like a thief in the candle, wastes them immediately; whereas a better husbanded strength might be truly more advantageous, as continuing the light the longer; and yet so sincere are their ends, so pleasant is their work, that they seldom observe, as they ought, that Satan, when he can do no better, is glad of the opportunity to destroy them with their own weapon; and therefore in this case they may expect he will do all he can to heighten and forward their zeal, not only by adding all the fuel he can to their inward propensity of laboriousness, but also by outward encouragement of the declared acceptations and expectations of their hearers.[421]
(2.) Secondly, Upon baser pretences of the full enjoyment of sensual pleasures and carnal delights, he doth unawares push men forward to death and dangers. Thus the voluptuous, the glutton, the drunkard, dig their own graves, and invite death to cut them off before they have lived out half their time. While Satan tempts men to such excesses of riot, he labours not only the destruction of the soul, but also of the body; not only that they be miserable, but that they may be so with all expedition.
(3.) Thirdly, Besides all these, he hath other subtle ways of contriving the death of men, by putting them upon ways and actions that are attended with hazard. Thus he sought the death of Christ, not directly but indirectly, by urging him to an action which he thought would unavoidably bring him to death, for a fall from so great a precipice would easily have bereaved any man of life. And sometimes when men are besotted with enthusiastical delusions, he can more easily beguile them with such stratagems. That instance of Stuker[422] is famous, who cut off his brother’s head upon a foolish persuasion that God would magnify his great power in giving him life again. If Satan can befool such bewitched slaves into such absurd and unreasonable apprehensions in regard of others, what hinders but that he may so far impose upon them, that they may be willing to practise upon themselves? I remember something to this purpose, of one whom the devil had well-nigh prevailed with to make a hole in his breast, which of necessity must have let out his life, upon a pretended promise of giving him eternal life, and was accordingly forced to take up a knife and to carry it to his throat.[423] In anno 1647, in Yorkshire, a company of people were seduced to sacrifice certain creatures to God, among the rest they sacrificed their aged mother, persuading her she should rise the third day, and for this they were executed at York.
Applic. This may awaken all to be aware of this temptation. Some are sadly concerned in it. Many are the complaints which some of us have met withal about it in private, and the apprehensions of such hazards are sadly disquieting. Through such fears thousands of God’s dear children have passed, and many, too many, have been overcome by this weapon. Those of us that have not yet known temptations of this nature, do not know how soon we may be assaulted in this kind. It is necessary for all to stand upon their guard, and for that end it behoves us to have at hand these defences against it:—
[1.] First, It is useful to consider that this is one of Satan’s great plots; and when we meet with it clothed with never so many pretexts, enforced with never so many seeming necessities, yet must we look upon it as the counsel of an enemy, who certainly intends us no kindness, let him pretend what he will; and therefore may we be sure it will be our sad inconvenience and disadvantage.
[2.] Secondly, It must be fixed in our minds that the thing in itself is a high iniquity, a most grievous provocation. No instance of self-murder, properly such, can be met withal in Scripture, as practised by any holy person. The command is directly against it, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ If we may not murder another, as Austin argues, we may not murder ourselves; for he that kills himself kills no other than a man; nay, we may much less lay hand upon our own life.[424] It is a greater violation of the law of nature and of love. Every man is nearest to himself; and his love to himself is the pattern of his love to another. Self-murder must then be a sin of higher aggravations by far than the murder of another person. And the wiser heathens were far from countenancing any such cruelty. If Plato had thought it best, for an immediate enjoyment of immortality, which is the highest pretence of self-murder imaginable, to make an end of life violently, he would certainly have practised it himself, or recommended it to others, but he is so far from this, that he speaks against it as a great wickedness.
[3.] Thirdly, It is necessary that men keep in mind the danger that follows such an act. Death brings God’s unalterable mittimus, and seals up the condition of every man, so that in the same posture he comes to judgment, it puts an end to all hopes and endeavours. Suppose then such tempted creatures to have fears and terrors as great as you can imagine them to be, yet there is a possibility that they may be deceived in them, that their case is not so bad as they fear, or if it be bad enough at present, that it may be better afterwards; for many that have in their anguish resolved against themselves, have been prevented of the execution of their resolves, and have lived to see the Lord and his salvation. And who is able to determine that secret, that their name is not in the book of life? Who can say he is certainly excluded out of God’s decree? What madness is it then to rush into certain ruin, when our fears that distress us may be but mistakes! It is not so certain that men shall be damned, because of what they feel or fear at present, as it may be if they destroy themselves.
[4.] Fourthly, To prevent occasions to this temptation, it must be our care not to give way to discontents for outward things, nor to distressing fears, such as are despairing and hopeless, for our spiritual estate; or if we have a burden either way upon our mind, we must avoid as much as may be impatient fretfulness, ‘lest Satan get advantage of us.’ Discontented moods and casting away hope are sad occasions for this temptation. If we find ourselves thus burdened, we must look to it betimes, and not suffer it to go too far. And if this temptation come, we must take heed we keep not the devil’s counsel, but discover the matter to some that are wise and faithful, able to advise and pray for us; remembering still that if only outward things trouble us, we have a better way of ease and remedy, by submitting to a chastising providence. If spiritual troubles move this way, we should not run from him, but rather resolve to perish at his foot as humble suppliants for mercy and pardon.
[5.] Fifthly, The temptation must also be opposed with fasting and prayer. If this be sincerely practised, it will go away at last.
[6.] Sixthly, Something may also be said for caution against unnecessary thrusting ourselves, while under such temptations, into places of danger, or into a converse with instruments of death. This may be too great a daring of the temptation, and in the consequence a mischief. Yet on the other hand, we must not be so cowardly as to be afraid of such places and things, unto which our callings and lawful employments do engage us; not to dare to go over a bridge, or to walk by a river or a pit, if it be our necessary way, is but to give an advantage to Satan to keep us under continual affrightments; and therefore I subscribe to Capel’s advice, ‘We must abide by it, and fight it out by faith; we must not fly the way, the place, the employment, but go on and look to God, and at last we shall make Satan fly.’[425]
Obj. But if some object to this, that their weakness is great, and their fears are strong, and Satan never idle, and that therefore they have little ground to expect an escape, I shall desire they would consider seriously the instance of Christ in this particular. When he was upon the pinnacle of the temple, a small push might have overthrown him, and yet it was not in Satan’s power to do it himself, though he tempted Christ to cast himself down: which may sufficiently satisfy us, that there is a sure hedge of providence about us, and that Satan cannot do us the least hurt by pushing us into a pit or river, or any such danger.
Chapter XVI
Of pride, Satan’s chief engine to bring on presumption.—What pride is, and how it prepares men for sinning presumptuously.—Considerations against pride.—The remedies for its cure.—Pride kindled by a confidence of privileges and popular applause.
The aims of Satan in this temptation being thus explained, I must now offer to your consideration the means by which he sought to bring his end about, which we have noted already, was pride: this he endeavoured to raise up in him two ways:—
(1.) First, By urging to him the privileges of his condition, as taking himself to be the Son of God.
(2.) Secondly, By offering him the occasion of popular applause; to which purpose he brought him into the holy city, where he might be sure of many spectators. I shall hence note,
Obs. 10. That pride is Satan’s proper engine to bring men on to presumption.
If we should trace the history of presumptuous sins, we shall ever find it to have been so. Adam’s first sin was a high presumption against God’s express command, but pride was the stair by which he knew they must ascend to it; and therefore he used this argument to corrupt the hearts of our first parents, ‘Ye shall be as gods.’ The presumption of Uzziah in burning incense upon the altar, was from his pride, 2 Chron. xxvi. 16, ‘His heart was lifted up, because he was become strong.’ David’s presumption in numbering the people was from hence. Thus might we run through many instances. But Satan’s own case may be instead of all. His first sin, though we have but conjecture what it was particularly, is concluded by all to have been highly presumptuous, and the Scripture expressly asserts that it was his pride that brought him to it. 1 Tim. iii. 6, ‘He that is lifted up with pride, falls into the condemnation of the devil.’ And in the general we are told by the prophet, Hab. ii. 4, ‘that the soul that is lifted up,’ cannot be so upright as patiently to wait upon God in a way of believing, but it will be presuming to evade a trouble by indirect contrivances.
To explain the observation, I shall do no more but shew what pride is, and how fit it is to beget presumption.
Pride is a self-idolising, an over-valuation or admiration of ourselves, upon a real or supposed excellency, inward or outward, appertaining to us. It is in Scripture frequently expressed by the lifting up or exaltation of the soul. And this is done, upon the consideration of any kind of thing, which we apprehend makes us excel others; so that inward gifts of mind, as knowledge, humility, courage, &c., or outward gifts of the body, as beauty, strength, activity, &c., or additional advantages of riches, honour, authority, &c., or anything well done by us, &c., may all be abused to beget and nourish pride, and to fill us with high and lofty thoughts concerning ourselves; and being thus blown up, we are fitted for any presumptuous undertaking. For,
(1.) First, The mind thus corrupted begets to itself apprehensions of a self-sufficiency: and therefore, as it is not apt to remember from what fountain all those excellencies come, and to what ends they are to serve; so it brings them to a contempt of others, and to a confidence of themselves. Thus are men by degrees so intoxicated by their own humour, that they mount up to irrational and absurd conceits, fancying that they are more than they are, and that they can do far more than is possible for them to accomplish, till at last they become apparently foolish in the pursuit of their imaginations. I need not instance in the follies of Alexander, who being elated in mind, would be Jupiter’s son, and go like Hercules in a lion’s skin. Or in the mad frenzies of Caius, who as he would need fancy himself a god, so would he change his godship when he pleased: to-day he would wear a lion’s skin and club, and then he must be Hercules; to-morrow in another garb he conceits himself Apollo; a caduceus made him Mercury, a sword and helmet made him Mars, &c. Or in Xerxes, who would whip the seas, and fetter Neptune. The Scripture affords enough of this nature, as the boast of Nebuchadnezzar; ‘Is not this great Babel that I have built?’ In the insolency of Nineveh, Zeph. ii. 15, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’ The blasphemy of Tyre, Ezek. xxviii. 2, who set her heart ‘as the heart of God, saying, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God.’ The arrogancy of Sennacherib, Isa. xxxvi. 19, 20, ‘Where are the gods of Hamath ... that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’ Though all pride in all men ariseth not to so great a height of madness, yet it is the nature of it, and none have any of it without this humour of conceiting themselves above themselves, which strangely prepares them for any presumption.
(2.) Secondly, He that is proud, as he looks upon himself in a flattering glass, and measures himself by the length of his shadow; so doth he contemn and undervalue things that lie before his attempts as easy and small. Hence doth he put himself upon things that are far beyond him. David notes the working of a proud heart, Ps. cxxxi. 1, in this particular, ‘Neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me,’ shewing that it is the guise of pride to outbid itself in its attempts.
(3.) Thirdly, It is not only forward to attempt, but also desperate to execute without consideration of hazard. Difficulty and danger, when they stand in the way, should usually deter men from their enterprise; but pride hardens the heart, and, in a blind rage, engageth it to contemn all inconveniencies. If sin and the breach of God’s law be set before a person, whose pride engageth him to an unlawful undertaking, he overlooks it as a thing of nought: ‘Through the pride of his countenance he will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts,’ Ps. x. 4.
(4.) Fourthly, Pride ariseth up to a scornful competition with anything that opposeth it; and the more it is opposed, the more it rageth, for the contest is for having its will. This was the voice of pride in Pharaoh, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should serve him?’ [Exod. v. 2.] Hence men are said to ‘despise the commandments of God,’ [Lev. xxvi. 15,] when in the strength of their pride they are carried on to an open contest for their own ways and desires against peremptory commands and threatenings.
(5.) Fifthly, All this is done by a pleasing allurement. It is a witchcraft that strongly holds men, Amabilis insania mentis gratissimus error; and they think they are sufficiently rewarded if they be but gratified. Though other things go to wreck, yet they apprehend, if credit and honour be kept up, it is enough. Saul, when Samuel had declared that God would forsake him, yet sought to please himself by keeping up his esteem and authority; ‘Honour me,’ saith he, ‘before the people,’ [1 Sam. xv. 30.]
If all these particulars be weighed, what presumptuous act can be propounded by Satan which pride may not lead to? He that swells himself to a conceit of absoluteness, that will needs be attempting things too high, that contemneth all hazards, and is made more forward by opposition, and yet pleaseth himself in all, as in a golden dream, he is as much prepared for any figure or shape that Satan is ready to impress upon him, as melted metals for their mould or stamp.
Applic. Hence must we be warned against pride, as we would avoid presumption. If we admit this, we cannot well escape the other. And we are the more concerned to resist pride,
[1.] First, Because it is a natural sin. It was the first sin, and our natures are so deeply tainted with it, that it is a sin that first shews itself in our infancy; for children will express a pride in their clothes very early, and it is a general infection, from which none are exempted in some degree or other. The apostle’s phrase, 1 John ii. 16, shews that our whole life, and all the concerns thereof, is but the sphere in which pride acts; and therefore, whereas he restrains other lusts to some particular ends or peculiar instruments, he calls this iniquity the ‘pride of life,’ implying how impossible it is to confine it in a narrow compass.
[2.] Secondly, It is a subtle sin, and often lies where it is least suspected. Every man sees it, as it is expressed in ‘haughty looks,’ in ‘boasting speeches,’ in ‘gorgeous apparel,’ in ‘insolent behaviour;’ but often men are insensibly possessed with this sin and know not of it. Under an affected contempt of honours and fine clothes they secretly hug themselves in their private conceits, and raise up in their own thoughts imaginary trophies of honour and victory, for despising what others so much dote upon. It was observed of Diogenes that he did intus gloriari, inwardly boast, and with greater pride contemned honour, riches, plenty, &c., than they were troubled with that enjoyed them. Some decry pride in others, vehemently declare against it as a sin, recommend humility as an ornament of great price in the sight of God, and yet are proud that they are above others in a fancied humility; and, in the management of themselves in their reproofs and exhortations, express such sad symptoms of an insulting humour, that the latent pride of their heart doth appear by it. It is possible for men to give thanks to the Almighty for all they have, and yet to be proud of what is in them. The Pharisee was proud, for so Christ calls him, that ‘he was not as other men,’ and yet he could ‘thank God,’ as ascribing all to him; nay, he that is truly sensible of the working of this pride in himself, and dares not approve it, yet he shall find in his heart such a delight when he is stroked or praised; and when some actions, praiseworthy, are not taken notice of, the best shall find that, without great watchfulness, they shall not be able to hold from giving some hints to others, as a memorial to them, of observing their excellency, or from some insinuations of their own commendation.
[3.] Thirdly, Pride is a sin no less dangerous than subtle. There are no attempts so strange, unreasonable, monstrous, or absurd, but it may prompt to them. It was a strange arrogancy in Herod to deify himself in his own thoughts, and yet the acclamations of the people swelled him into such a blasphemous imagination, that God thought fit to chastise him, and instruct others by so dreadful a judgment, as clearly baffled his insolency, and made him and his flatterers confess he was but a poor, frail man. Ordinarily pride is attended with a judgment, it is the very prognostic of ruin: ‘Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,’ Prov. xvi. 18. But these judgments have something in them peculiar, which other judgments for other sins do not always express, to a manifestation of a special abhorrency in God against pride; as, (1.) He commonly smites the thing for which they are proud. Staupitius boasted of his memory, and God smote it; Hezekiah boasted of his treasure, and for that God designed them for captivity; David glorified [himself] in the multitude of his people, but God lessened them by pestilence; Nebuchadnezzar is proud of his Babel, and God drove him from the enjoyment of it. Men are proud of children or relations, and God oft removes them, or makes them a shame and sorrow. (2.) He doth not only this, but also orders the judgment so that it shall bring a shame and contempt upon men in that thing wherein they prided themselves. He will not only punish, but also stain their pride. The haughty daughters of Zion were not only plagued by removing their ornaments, bracelets, and the rest of their bravery, but over and above he ‘smites with a scab the crown of their head, and discovers their secret parts, and brings a stink and baldness upon them instead of a sweet smell and well-set hair, and burning instead of beauty,’ Isa. iii. 17, 24.
So sad a distemper stands in need of a special care; and for that end we should,
[1.] First, In all things we have or do, not so much consider what is excellent, or wherein we excel, as what we have not, and wherein we come short. We should be strange to ourselves, and design that the ‘right hand should not know what the left hand doth,’ which must be by having our eye upon the imperfections that attend us at the best.
[2.] Secondly, It must be our care to be suspicious of the working of pride in us; and also by an industrious watchfulness to give a stop or check to thoughts of this nature when they arise.
[3.] Thirdly, The conquest of this cannot be expected without a serious and constant labour herein. A humble soul is compared by David to a weaned child, Ps. cxxxi. 2. But a child is not weaned easily. Wormwood must be laid on the breast, and time allowed, before the child will forget it. He only that is content to exercise a discipline upon himself, and by frequent practices to habituate himself to low and careful thoughts, is likely to overcome it.
Pride, we have seen, was Satan’s great engine to bring on presumption. The means by which he endeavoureth to beget pride, as was before noted, were,
[1.] First, The consideration of privileges, as being ‘the Son of God.’ For this expression, ‘If thou art the Son of God,’ is now urged in a sense different from that which it had in the first temptation. There he propounded it as unlikely that he should be the Son of God, and yet be under such a disregard of providence. In this sense it notably suited his design of drawing him to a distrust of God’s care, and consequently of his sonship. Here he is upon a contrary temptation, and therefore propounds this as a thing of which Christ was assured, and from that assurance he thus disputes: ‘Thou believest thou art the Son of God, and dost well depend on his care; therefore needest thou not to distrust thy preservation, if thou castest thyself down.’
[2.] Secondly, To help his confidence forward to the undertaking, he suggests what credit and honour it would be to him, in the sight of all the people, to be so miraculously kept from hurt. Hence note,
Obs. 11. That Satan doth usually kindle and nourish pride, by a perverse confidence of our privileges.
It is very hard for Christians to carry their assurance even: not but that grace in its proper working begets humility, and a watchful care against sin and folly; but such is our infirmity that we are easily drawn to be proud of our mercies, and to persuade ourselves that we may make bold with God because we are his children. Hence was that paradox of Mr Foxe, ‘That his sins did him most good, and his graces most hurt;’ he means, sins occasioned his humility, whereas his graces were apt, through his weakness, to make him proud. And to hide this pride from man, God is forced to keep them sometime from the sight of their assurance, or to discipline them by other temptations, as he did with Paul, lest they should be ‘exalted above measure.’
Note further, Obs. 12. That popular applause Satan finds, and useth accordingly, to be a great instigator to pride.
The great thing that moved the Pharisees in their often fastings and large charity, was that they might have praise of men, and therefore took they care to be seen of men.[426] The heathens noted this to be the great feeder of that humour which animated them, as a drum or trumpet animates soldiers to adventurous acts.[427] And some good men have found no small difficulty to carry steadily, when they have been hoisted up by the breath of men’s praise; which hath also occasioned those serious cautions against the danger of flattery and high commendations, ‘A flattering mouth worketh ruin,’ Prov. xxvi. 28.
Chapter XVII
Of Satan’s subtlety in urging that of Ps. xci. 11, 12, to Christ.—Of his imitating the Spirit of God in various ways of teaching.—Of his pretending Scripture to further temptation.—The reasons of such pretendings, and the ends to which he doth abuse it.—Of Satan’s unfaithfulness in managing of scriptures.—Cautions against that deceit.—The ways by which it may be discovered.
The ways of Satan, hitherto insisted on, to engage Christ in this act of presumption, were secret insinuations and underhand contrivances: but that which he openly and expressly urged to this purpose, was an argument drawn from the promise of God, though sadly abused and misrepresented, ‘He shall give his angels charge concerning thee,’ &c. This we are next to consider, in which, as cited by him, we may easily see, (1.) That Satan affected an imitation of Christ, in the way of his resistance. Christ had urged Scripture before, and now Satan endeavours to manage the same weapon against him. (2.) It is observable that Scripture is the weapon that Satan doth desire to wield against him. In his other ways of dealing he was shy, and did but lay them in Christ’s way, offering only the occasion, and leaving him to take them up; but in this he is more confident, and industriously pleads it, as a thing which he could better stand to and more confidently avouch. (3.) The care of his subtlety herein, lay in the misrepresentation and abuse of it, as may be seen in these particulars: [1.] In that he urged this promise to promote a sinful thing, contrary to the general end of all Scripture, which was therefore written ‘that we sin not.’ [2.] But more especially in his clipping and mutilating of it. He industriously leaves out that part of it which doth limit and confine the promise of protection to lawful undertakings, such as this was not, and renders it as a general promise of absolute safety, be the action what it will. It is a citation from Ps. xci. 11, 12, which there runs thus, ‘He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.’ These last words, ‘in all thy ways,’ which doth direct to a true understanding of God’s intention in that promise, he deceitfully leaves out, as if they were needless and unnecessary parts of the promise, when indeed they were on purpose put there by the Spirit of God, to give a description of those persons and actions, unto whom, in such cases, the accomplishment of the promise might be expected; for albeit the word in the original, which is translated ‘ways’—דרכים—doth signify any kind of way or action in the general, yet in this place it doth not; for then God were engaged to an absolute protection of men, not only when they unnecessarily thrust themselves into dangers, but in the most abominably sinful actions whatsoever; which would have been a direct contradiction to those many scriptures wherein God threatens to withdraw his hand and leave sinners to the danger of their iniquities; but it is evident that the sense of it is no more than this, ‘God is with you, while you are with him.’ We have a paraphrase of this text, to this purpose, in Prov. iii. 23, ‘Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble:’ where the condition of this safety, pointed to in the word ‘then,’ which leads the promise, is expressly mentioned in the foregoing verses, ‘My son, let them’—that is, the precepts of wisdom—‘not depart from thine eyes.... Then’—not upon other terms—‘shalt thou walk in thy way safely.’ The ways then in this promise, cited by Satan, are the ways of duty, or the ways of our lawful callings. The fallacy of Satan in this dealing with Scripture is obvious, and Christ might have given this answer, as Bernard hath it, That God promiseth to keep him in his ways, but not in self-created dangers, for that was not his way, but his ruin; or if a way, it was Satan’s way, but not his.[428] (3.) To these two, some add another abuse, in a subtle concealment of the following verse in Ps. xci., ‘Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder.’ This concerned Satan, whose cruelty and poisonous deceits were fitly represented by the lion and the adder, and there the promise is also explained to have a respect to Satan’s temptations—that is, God would so manage his protection, that his children should not be led into a snare.
Hence observe, Obs. 13. That Satan sometimes imitates the Spirit of God by an officious pretence of teaching the mind of God to men.
This our adversary doth not always appear in one shape. Sometime he acts as a lion or dragon, in ways of cruelty and fierceness; sometimes as a filthy swine, in temptations to bestial uncleanness and sensual lusts; sometime he puts on the garb of holiness, and makes as if he were not a spiritual adversary, but a spiritual friend and counsellor. That this is frequent with him, the apostle tells us: 2 Cor. xi. 14, ‘Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.’ Angels of light are those blessed spirits sent forth to minister for the good of the elect, whose ministry God useth not only for our preservation from bodily hurts, but also for prevention of sin and furtherance of duty. Satan, as wicked as he is, doth counterfeit that employment, and takes upon him to give advice for our good, pretending to teach us in the truth, or to direct and further us in our endeavours.[429]
That he designs an imitation of God and his Spirit, may be discovered by expressing a great many particulars of God’s ways and appointments, wherein Satan, as God’s ape, partly out of mockery and scorn, partly upon other grounds of advantage to his intendments, doth counterfeit the current coin of the Lord’s establishments by a very close imitation. But I shall here confine myself to the point of teaching and instruction, wherein how he proceeds, we shall the better understand by considering how many ways God hath of old, and now still doth use in declaring his mind to his people. The sum of all we have, Heb. i. 12. Heretofore he signified his mind in ‘divers manners’ by the prophets, and ‘in these last days by his Son,’ in all which we shall trace the steps of Satan.
(1.) First, God revealed himself sometime by voice; as to Abraham, Moses, and others. The devil hath dared to imitate this. There want not instances of it; in the temptation, which is now under explanation, he did so; and his confessing Christ, ‘I know thee who thou art,’ [Mat. i. 24,] &c., doth shew that he is ready enough to do it at any time for advantage. Sprenger tells us a story of the devil’s preaching to a congregation in the habit and likeness of a priest, wherein he reproved sin, and urged truth, and seemed no way culpable for false doctrine; but I suspect this for a fabulous tale. However, it is undeniable that he sometime hath appeared to men with godly exhortations in his mouth, of living justly, and doing no man wrong, &c.,[430] except we resolve to discredit all history, and the narrations of persons, and some such are known to some in this auditory, who solemnly affirm they have met with such dealing from him.
(2.) Secondly, God hath sometime revealed himself to men in ecstasies and trances; such as was that of Paul: Acts xxii. 17, ‘I was in an ecstasy or trance,’ γενέσθαι με ἐν ἐκστάσει. This also hath the devil imitated. Mohammed made this advantage of his disease, the epilepsy or falling-sickness, pretending that at such times he was in an ecstasy, and had converse with the angel Gabriel. But what he only in knavery pretended, others have really felt. The stories of Familists and deluded Quakers are full of such things. They frequently have fallen down and have lain as in a swoon, and when they have awaked, told wonderful stories of what they have heard and seen.
(3.) Thirdly, Visions and dreams were usual things in the Old Testament, and famous ways of divine revelation; but Satan was not behind in this matter. His instruments had their visions too. In Ezek. xiii. 7 we have mention of vain visions and lying divinations; and such satanical dreams are also noted, Deut. xiii. 1, ‘If there arise among you a dreamer of dreams.’ Those days of confusion, that are not yet out of memory, afforded store of these. While unstable, giddy-headed people began to dote on novelties and questions in religion, they gave opportunity to Satan to beguile them; for he taking advantage of their nauseating of old truths, and their expectation of sublime discoveries, which had sufficiently prepared them for any impression, did so overwork their fancies that they easily conceited themselves to have had divine revelations, and nothing was more ordinary than to hear stories of visions and dreams. And this spread further by a kind of infection, for it grew into a religious fashion; and he was not esteemed that had not something of this nature to experience. And though the folly and impertinences of such things generally, and sometime the apparent wickedness of them, as contradicting truth and the divine rules of holiness, were sufficient discoveries that Satan’s hand was in them, yet until time, experience, and the power of God had cooled the intemperate heat of this raving humour, it continued in the good liking and admiration of the more inconsiderate vulgar. And sometime those from whom more seriousness and consideration might have been expected fell into a reverence for these pretences in others, and helped forward this spiritual witchcraft by their countenance and arguings, often abusing that text in Acts ii. 17, ‘Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams,’ by applying it to a justification of these apparently foolish dotages. And indeed the effect hath discovered they were no better, for many of those things which with great confidence were avouched as certain, were by time proved to be false. Many things were useless, vain, ridiculous, and some were brought to lament and confess their folly after they proceeded far in these ways; and at last, when the former opportunities were worn out, Satan grew weary of that design as being no longer proper to be insisted on. There is now a great calm, so that it is but seldom that we hear of such things talked of. It were needless to give particular instances, when you may at your leisure fetch them from hundreds of pamphlets commonly known.
(4.) Fourthly, One of the most noted ways by which God discovered his mind was that of inspiration, by which some eminent persons, called therefore prophets, spake the will of God ‘as they were moved or acted by the Spirit of God,’ [2 Peter i. 21.] The devil had also his false prophets. Such are frequently taxed in the Old Testament, and foretold in the New: ‘False Christs, and false prophets shall arise,’ Mat. xxiv. 24; ‘There were false prophets among the people, as there shall be false teachers among you,’ 2 Peter ii. 1. Many false teachers are gone out into the world. Such a one was Montanus in Tertullian’s time, David George, John of Leyden, Hacket, our countryman, were such, and a great many such there have been in all ages. It is notoriously known that Satan hath thus inspired poor, possessed wretches, who have uttered threatenings against sin and woe to sinners. The sayings of such possessed creatures have not long since been gathered into a volume and published, as containing very persuasive arguments to repentance and amendment of life.[431] Besides these, our own times afford too many examples of this kind. Many have put on the guise of the old prophets in a foolish though adventurous imitation of their actions and prophecies. Some have in our streets resembled Jonah in Nineveh, ‘Yet forty days,’ &c. Some fancied to walk naked like Isaiah; others have come with their earthen pitchers and broken them, imitating these and other types by which God in his true prophets foresignified his judgments to come; in all which actions and garbs, with much earnestness, and in an affected tone, they have called out for repentance in a confident denunciation of woes and miseries, with a bold limiting of the time of forty days, that the same might carry a parallel to Jonah’s prophecy, and sometime giving—which is the surest way—an unlimited, uncertain time. How the devil acts in these matters, and by what ways he seduceth them to believe they are inspired of God, or have real visions and revelations, it is not my business now to inquire; only let those that think such things strange, consider that the devil hath the advantage of deep fanciful apprehensions and a working melancholy in such persons, by which he can easily work them to conceit anything, and confidently believe what they have conceited.
(5.) Fifthly, Sometime God notified his mind by signs and miracles. Satan hath also his ‘lying signs and wonders;’ a power God hath permitted him this way, which is very great, and the delusions wrought thereby are strong, hazarding the deception of the elect. This power of doing wonders the devil usually applies to false doctrines, to strengthen and countenance errors. The apostle testifies, 2 Thes. ii. 9, that Satan shall employ this power for the advancement of the ‘man of sin, whose coming shall be with signs and lying wonders.’ The beast arising out of the earth, Rev. xiii. 14, ‘he shall deceive by the means of those miracles which he hath power to do.’ And accordingly the popish legends are full of stories of miracles, whereof, though most be lies, forgeries, and the false contrivements of those who sought to bring the people to receive their doctrines, the credit and advancement of which they sought by such ways; some notwithstanding, though not true miracles, yet were truly acted, to countenance those errors which are pretended to be established by them.
(6.) Sixthly, God doth teach and lead his people by impulses. Christ was thus ‘led of the Spirit into the wilderness;’ and Paul was ‘bound in spirit to go to Jerusalem,’ [Acts xx. 22.] It is common for Satan to imitate such impulses. We have clear instances of diabolical impulses to sin in Scripture. A strong impulse was on Ananias, ‘Satan filled his heart,’ [Acts v. 3;] a strong impulse on Judas, ‘Satan entered into his heart,’ [Luke xxii. 3;] and what then more easy to apprehend, than that Satan can counterfeit better impulses, and violently stir up the hearts of men to actions seemingly good or indifferent? Some hypocrites are moved strongly to pray or preach,—Satan therein aiming at an increase of pride or presumption in them;—and they know no other, but that it is the Spirit of God. God’s children may have impulses from Satan, upon pretences of zeal, as the disciples had, when they called for fire from heaven. In these impulses Satan doth not so act the heart of man as the Spirit of God doth, whose commands in this case are irresistible; but he only works by altering the disposition of our bodies in a natural way; and then having fitted us all he can for an impression, he endeavours to set it on by strong persuasions. Some memorable instances of these impulses might profitably illustrate this. Math. Parisiensis takes notice of a boy, in anno 1213, of whom also Fuller makes mention,[432] who, after some loss which the Christians had received in the war against the Turks, went up and down, singing this rhyme—
‘Jesus Lord, redeem our loss: Restore to us thy holy cross.’
And by this means he gathered a multitude of boys together, who could not by the severest menaces of their parents be hindered from following him to their own ruin. Another instance of a strange impulse we have in Josephus:[433] one Jesus, the son of Ananus, about four years before the destruction of Jerusalem, at the feast of tabernacles, begins to cry out, ‘Woe, woe, to the east and west, to men and women,’ &c., and could by no means be restrained night or day; and when his flesh was beaten off his bones, he begged no pity nor ease, but still continued his usual crying.
(7.) Seventhly, God doth also by his Spirit teach his people in bringing things to their remembrance, John xiv. 26. Satan also in imitation of this, can put into the minds of men, with great readiness and dexterity, promises or sentences of Scripture, insomuch that they conclude that all such actings are from the Spirit of God, who, as they conclude, set such a scripture upon their heart. Thus dealt Satan with Christ. He urgeth the promise upon him, wherein upon the matter he doth as much, as when he secretly suggests such things to the heart without an audible voice. In this way of craft Satan doth very much resemble the true work of the Spirit; [1.] In the readiness and quickness of suggesting; [2.] In seeming exact-suiting scripture suggested, with the present occasion; and [3.] In the earnestness of his urging it upon the fancies of men. Yet when all this is done, they that shall seriously consider all ends, matter and circumstances, will easily observe it is but the cunning work of a tempter, and not from the Holy Spirit.
Obs. 14. Observe also, That whatever be the various ways of Satan’s imitation, yet the matter which he works and practiseth upon is still Scripture. To this he confines himself:—
[1.] First, Because the Scriptures are generally, among Christians, received as the undoubted oracles of God, the rule of our lives and duties, and the grounds of our hope. It would be a vain and bootless labour to impose upon those that retain this belief, the sayings of the Turkish Alcoran, the precepts of heathen philosophers, or any other thing that may carry a visible estrangement from or contradiction to Scripture. He could not then possibly pretend to a divine instruction, nor could he so ‘transform himself into an angel of light:’ but by using this covert of divine command, promise, or discovery, he can more easily beget a belief that God hath said it, and that there is neither sin nor danger in the thing propounded, but duty and advantage to be expected; and this is the very thing that makes way for an easy entertainment of such delusions. Poor creatures believe that is all from God, and that they are acted by his Spirit, and that with such confidence that they contemn and descry those, as ignorant of divine mysteries, and of the power of God, who are not so besotted as themselves.
[2.] Secondly, The Scriptures have a glorious irresistible majesty in them, peculiar to themselves, which cannot be found in all that art or eloquence can contribute to other authors. It is not play-book language, nor scraps of romances that Satan can effect these cheats withal; and therefore we may observe that in the highest delusions men have had pretences of Scripture; and their strong persuasions of extraordinary discoveries have stricken men into a reverence of their profession, because of the Scripture words and phrases with which their boldest follies are woven up. For let but men inquire into the reason of the prevalency of Familism of old, upon so vast a number of people as were carried away with it, and they shall find that the great artifice lay in the words they used, a language abstracted from Scripture, to signify such conceits as the Scripture never intended. Hence were their expressions always high, soaring, and relating to a more excellent and mystical interpretation of those divine writings. This may be observed in David George, Hen. Nicholas, and others, who usually talk of being consubstantiated with God, taken up into his love, of the angelical life, and a great deal more of the same kind. The Ranters at first had the like language, and the Quakers after them affected such a canting expression. And we may be the more certain of the truth of this observation, that such a kind of speaking, which borrows its majesty from the style of the Scripture, is of moment to Satan’s design; because we find the Scripture itself gives particular notice of it. The false teachers in 2 Pet. ii. 18, are described, among other things, by their ‘swelling words of vanity,’ which the Syriac renders to be ‘a proud and lofty way of speaking.’ The original signifies no less—ὑπέρογκα,—they were words swelled like bladders, though being pricked, they be found to be empty sounds, and no substance. There are indeed swelling words of atheistical contempt of those who, as the psalmist speaks, ‘set their mouths against heaven,’ Ps. lxxiii. 9, 11; but this passage of Peter, as also the like in Jude 16, signify big swollen words, from high pretensions and fancies of knowing the mind of God more perfectly; for they that use them pretend themselves prophets of God, ver. 1, and as to their height in profession, are compared to clouds highly soaring; and in 2 Cor. xi. 14, they are said to be ‘transformed into the apostles of Christ,’ and to the garb of the ‘ministers of righteousness.’ And that which is more, this particular design of Satan is noted as the rise of all; ‘No marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.’
Having seen the reasons why Satan chooseth Scripture as his tool to work by, I shall next shew to what base designs he makes it subserve.
[1.] First, He useth this artifice to beget and propagate erroneous doctrines. Hence no opinion is so vile, but pretends to Scripture as its patron. The Arians pretend Scripture against the divinity of Christ. The Socinians, Pelagians, Papists, yea, and those that pretend to inspirations for their rule, and disclaim the binding force of those antiquated declarations of the saints’ conditions, as they call them, yet conform all their sayings to the Scripture expression, and endeavour to prove their mistakes by its authority.
[2.] Secondly, He makes abused Scripture to encourage sinful actions. He can cite passages of God’s patience and long-suffering, of his pardoning grace and readiness to forgive, and a thousand more, upon no other design than the ‘turning of the grace of God into wantonness,’ [Jude 4.] When professors turn loose and negligent, when they adventure too far upon sinful pleasures, they lick themselves whole by an overforward grasping at such passages of Scripture, which Satan will with great readiness set upon their hearts; and then they pretend to themselves that their peace is made up with God, and that they have no less than a sealed pardon in their bosoms; which notwithstanding may be known to have only Satan’s hand and seal at it, by their overly and formal sorrow for such miscarriages, and their readiness to return to the same follies again.
[3.] Thirdly, By this imitation of the commands and promises of God, he doth strangely engage such as he can thus delude unto desperate undertakings.[434] The Familists of Germany were persuaded by this delusion, to expose themselves unarmed to the greatest hazards, upon vain pretences of promises set home upon them, as that God would fight for them, that they must ‘stand still and see the salvation of God,’ [Exod. xiv. 13.] Some of later times have paid their lives for their bold misapplication of that promise, ‘One shall chase a thousand,’ [Deut. xxxii. 30.] Judas of Galilee and Theudas were prompted by Satan to gather multitudes together, though to their own ruin, upon a vain persuasion that they were raised up of God, and that God would be with them.[435]
[4.] Fourthly, He sometimes procures groundless peace and assurance in the hearts of careless ones by Scripture misapplied. Many you may meet with who will roundly tell you a long story how they were cast down and comforted by such a scripture brought to their minds, when, it may be much feared, they are but deceived, and that as yet God hath not spoken peace to them.
Lastly, This way of Satan’s setting home scriptures proves sadly effectual to beget or heighten the inward distresses and fears of the children of God. It is a wonder to hear some dispute against themselves, so nimble they be to object a scripture against their peace, above their reading or ability, that you would easily conclude there is one at hand that prompts them, and suggests these things to their own prejudice. And sometime a scripture will be set so cross or edgeway to their good and comfort, that many pleadings, much time, prayers, and discourses cannot remove it. I have known some that have seriously professed scriptures have been thrown into their hearts like arrows, and have with such violence fixed a false apprehension upon their minds, as that God had cut them off, that they were reprobate, damned, &c., that they have borne the tedious, restless affrightments of it for many days, and yet the thing itself, as well as the issue of it, doth declare that this was not the fruit of the Spirit of God, which is a spirit of truth, and cannot suggest a falsehood, but of Satan, who hath been a liar from the beginning.
Observe lastly, Obs. 15. Though Satan useth Scripture in these deceitful workings, yet he never doth it faithfully.
(1.) First, Because it is against his nature, as it is now corrupted by his fall. There is no truth in him: ‘When he speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar,’ John viii. 44; not that he cannot speak a truth, but that he usually is a liar, and that he never speaks truth but with a purpose to deceive.[436]
(2.) Secondly, To deal faithfully in urging scriptures upon the consciences of men, is also contrary to his interest. He hath a kingdom which he endeavours to uphold. This kingdom, being directly contrary to that of Christ’s, which is a kingdom of light, is therefore called a kingdom of darkness, being maintained and propagated only by lies and deceits. He cannot then be supposed to use Scripture faithfully, because that is the true sceptre of Christ’s kingdom, for then should Satan, as Christ argues, Mat. xii. 26, ‘cast out Satan, and be divided against himself.’
This unfaithful dealing with Scripture is threefold.
(1.) First, The unfaithfulness of his design. Though he speaks what is true, yet he doth it with an evil mind, aiming at one of these three things:—
[1.] First, To deceive and delude. If he applies promises, or insists upon the privileges of God’s children, it is to make them proud or presumptuous. If he urge threatenings, or stir up the conscience to accuse for sin, it is to bring them to despair; if he object the law, it is to enrage lust; and that ‘sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful,’ [Rom. vii. 13.]
[2.] Secondly, His design is sometime to bring the Scripture under suspicion or contempt. He puts some weak Christians upon unseasonable or imprudent use of Scripture, and then tempts others to laugh at them, and to despise in their hearts those ways of religion which some zealots with too much weakness do manage. Men are apt enough to scoff at the most serious and weighty duties of holiness, even when performed in a most serious manner. If David put on sackcloth, and afflict himself with fasting, it is presently turned to his reproach, ‘and the drunkards make a song of it,’ [Ps. lxix. 12;] but much more advantage hath the devil to raise up scorn and loathing in the minds of debauched persons, by the affected and unskilful use of Scripture. Some by a narrow confinement of the words brother and sister to those of their own fellowship, as if none else were to be owned by them, have occasioned the scoff of holy brethren—a phrase notwithstanding used with a grave seriousness by the apostle—in the usual discourses of those who wait all occasions to harden themselves against the power of religion. The like observations they make of other ways and forms of speaking, which some have accustomed themselves unto, in a conscientious conformity to Scripture phrase: in all which the devil observing the weakness and injudiciousness of some on the one hand, and the scornful pride of others on the other hand, is willing to provide matter for their atheistical jeers, by putting all the obligations he can upon the consciences of the weak, to continue in the use of these expressions. For some proof of this matter we may note the secret deceit of Satan, in that liberal profession of Christ to be ‘the Son of God,’ [Mark i. 24; Luke iv. 34], ‘I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.’ Here was truth spoken by him, and one would have thought with great ingenuity;[437] but yet he cunningly insinuated into the minds of the hearers a ground of suspicion that he was not the Son of God; and for that end calls him Jesus of Nazareth, as if Christ had been born there. He knew well that the Jews expected no Messiah from Nazareth, and therefore on set purpose used he that expression, that he might draw him into contempt. And accordingly we find this very mistake, that Christ was born at Nazareth, became an argument against him: John vii. 41, while some were convinced, and said, ‘This is the Christ,’ others said, ‘Shall Christ come out of Galilee?’
[3.] Thirdly, Another part of his design in the use of scriptures is to put a varnish upon hypocrisy. He is ready to serve men by putting Scripture expressions in their mouths, and inuring them to a constant use of the phrases of those divine writings, that they may less suspect themselves of the pride, formality, and secret wickedness of their hearts; and to help on their mistakes concerning their spiritual condition, he can urge upon their consciences those scriptures that serve to engage them in external observances of religion. It may appear by the Pharisee’s boast of fasting ‘twice a week,’ of ‘paying tithes,’ of ‘giving alms,’ Luke xviii. 11, that their consciences were someway concerned in these things, so that though they were left without check of conscience ‘to devour widows’ houses,’ yet were they urged to make ‘long prayers.’ Suitable to this is that which Solomon speaks of the harlot, who, to colour over her wickedness, had her offerings and vows; and when her conscience is appeased with these performances, she can excuse herself in her way of sinning, ‘She eats and wipes her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness,’ Prov. xxx. 20. Satan doth but hereby help to paint a sepulchre, or gild a potsherd, and to furnish men with excuses and pretexts in their way of sinning. Not unlike to this was that service which the devil with great readiness performed—as I was informed from some of good credit—to a young student who had fallen upon some books of magic in a college library, into which having stolen privately one night in pursuit of that study, was almost surprised by the president, who, seeing a candle there at an unseasonable time, suddenly opens the door to know who was up so late, in which strait the devil—to gratify his pupil with a ready excuse—snatcheth away his book, and in a moment lays Montanus his Bible before him, that he might pretend that for his employment.
(2.) Secondly, Another point of Satan’s unfaithful dealing with Scripture is his false citation of it. It is nothing with him to alter, change, or leave out such a part as may make against him. If he urge promises upon men, in order to their security and negligence, he conceals the condition of them, and banisheth the threatening far from their minds, representing the mercy of God in a false glass, as if he had promised to save and bring to heaven every man upon the common and easy terms of being called a Christian. If it be his purpose to disquiet the hearts of God’s children, to promote their fears, or to lead them to despair, then he sets home the commands and threatenings, but hides the promises that might relieve them, and, which is remarkable, he hath so puzzled some by setting on their hearts a piece of Scripture, that when the next words, or next verse, might have eased them of their fears, and answered the sad objections which they raised against themselves from thence, as if their eyes had been holden, or as if a mist had been cast over them, they have not for a long time been able to consider the relief which they might have had. This hiding of Scripture from their eyes, setting aside what God may do for the just chastisement of his children’s folly, is effected by the strong impression which Satan sets upon their hearts, and by holding their minds down to a fixed meditation of the dreadful inferences which he presents to them from thence, not suffering them to divert their thoughts by his incessant clamours against them.
(3.) Thirdly, He unfaithfully handleth scriptures, by wresting the true import and sense of them. We read of some, 2 Pet. iii. 16, who ‘wrest the Scripture.’ The word in the original—στρεβλοῦσι—signifies a racking or torturing of it, as men upon a rack are stretched beyond their due length, to a dislocation of their joints, and sometimes forced to speak what they never did nor intended; so are the Scriptures used. Those that do so are Satan’s scholars, and taught of him, though in regard of the Spirit’s true teaching, they are called unlearned, which is sufficient to shew Satan’s deceitful dealing. He often lays his dead and corrupt sense—as the harlot did with her dead child in the room of the living infant—in the place of the living meaning of the scripture. This may be seen evidently:—
[1.] First, In heresies or errors. These are Satan’s brood, and there are none so vile, that pretend to Christian religion, but they claim a kindred to Scripture, and are confident on its authority for them. Now seeing truth is but one, and these errors not only contradictory to truth, but to each other, Satan could never spin out such conclusions from the divine oracles, but by wresting them from their true intendments; and he that would contemplate the great subtlety of Satan in this his art, need but consider what different strange and monstrous shapes are put upon the Scripture by the several heresies which march under its colours. The Quakers in their way represent it like an old almanack out of date, and withal, in the use they make of it, they render it as a piece of nonsensical furious raving. The Socinians take down the sublime mysteries of Christ’s satisfaction and justification by faith, with external rewards and punishments, to a strain as low as the Turkish Alcoran. The papists make it like a few leaves of an imperfect book, wanting beginning and end, and so not fit to be set up as a sufficient rule. The Ranters make it seem rather like language from hell than the commands of the pure and holy God. Some will have it to countenance most ridiculous inventions in worship; others will have it to discharge all outward observations and ordinances, as childish rudiments. Some raise it all to the pitch of enigmatical unintelligible mysteries; others can find no more in the precepts of it than in Aristotle’s ethics. Thus by distorting and wresting, Satan hath learned these unskilful ones to make it serve their vilest lusts and humours.
[2.] Secondly, The same art of wresting Scripture is observable in his secret suggestings. If he would encourage any in sin, he can wrest Scripture for that, and tell him that God is merciful, that Christ died for sinners, that there is hope of pardon, that saints have done the like: things very true in themselves, but perverted by him to another sense than ever they were intended to by God, who hath spoken these things that we sin not. If he would discourage a saint, he can tell him when he finds him doubting his estate, that the ‘fearful and unbelieving have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone,’ Rev. xxi. 8; when he finds him under a known sin, he tells that of the apostle, ‘If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins,’ [Heb. x. 26.] When he observes them discomposed and wandering in duty, then he objects, ‘They draw nigh me with their lips, but their heart is far from me,’ [Isa. xxix. 13.] If he sees them dull and without consolation at the Lord’s supper, then to be sure they hear of him, ‘He that eats and drinks unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself,’ 1 Cor. xi. 29. If he find him bemoaning that he is not so apprehensive of mercies or judgments as he would be, then he sets home some such scripture as this, ‘This people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing,’ Mat. xiii. 15, &c. These scriptures are frequently perverted by Satan from the true and proper meaning of them. I have had complaints from several dejected Christians of these very scriptures urged upon them to their great trouble, when yet it was evident that none of these were truly applied, by Satan’s temptation against them.
Applic. These things give us warning not to take anything of this nature upon trust. If Satan can so imitate the Spirit of God in applications of Scripture, and bringing it to our remembrance, we have great reason to beware lest we be imposed upon by Satan’s design clothed in Scripture phrase; not that I would have men esteem the secret setting of Scripture upon their minds, to be in all cases a delusion, and to be disregarded as such. Some indeed there are that so severely remark the weaknesses of professors of religion, that they raise up a scorn to that which is of most necessary and serious use. Because the devil prevails with some hypocrites to gild themselves with Scripture phrase, and others through imprudent inadvertency are, unknown to themselves, beguiled by Satan, to misapplications of Scripture to their own estate, or to other things; they therefore decry all the inward workings of the heart, as fancy or affected singularity; these do but the devil’s work. But that the Spirit of God, whom Satan treacherously endeavours to imitate, doth set home Scripture commands, threatenings, and promises upon the hearts of his people, is not only attested by the experience of all that are inwardly acquainted with the ways of God, but is one of the great promises which Christ hath given for the comfort of his people in his absence: John xiv. 26, ‘But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father shall send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.’ This then being granted as a firm unshaken truth, our care must be in discovering and avoiding Satan’s counterfeit using of Scripture, and in this we should be more wary;
[1.] First, Because we are not so apt to suspect what we meet with in such a way, when it is brought to us in the language of Scripture.
[2.] Secondly, And those that are not exercised in the Scripture, will be at a sad loss, as not knowing how to extricate themselves from such difficulties as may arise to them from Satan’s sophistry.
[3.] Thirdly, Wariness is also more necessary, because we are inclinable to believe what suits our desires, and conscience awakened is averse to the rejecting of that which answers its fears.
Quest. You may say, What is there of direction for us in this case?
Ans. The answer is ready. Two things are given us in charge. (1.) That we be wisely suspicious. A facile hasty credulity is treacherous. Christ forbids, when he foretells the rising of false Christs, Mat. xxiv. 26, the forwardness of a sudden belief, taxing thereby those that are presently taken with every new appearance. It is childish to be carried with every wind. We are warned also of this: 1 John iv. 1, ‘Believe not every spirit.’ (2.) We are commanded to bring all pretences whatsoever to trial. Though immediate revelation or vision be pretended, or extraordinary commission, yet must all be brought to the touchstone. ‘We must prove all things,’ 1 Thes. v. 21, ‘and try those that say they are apostles,’ Rev. ii. 2; nay, ‘the spirits are to be tried whether they be of God,’ 1 John iv. 1.
Quest. You will say, How must we try?
Ans. I answer, God hath given a public, sufficient, and certain rule, which is the Scripture, and all must be tried by that; so that if there be impulses or discoveries or remembrances of Scripture upon any, it must not be taken for granted that they are of God, because they pretend so high, for so we shall make Satan judge in his own cause; but lay all to the line and plummet of the written word, and if it answer not that, call it confidently a delusion, and reject it as accursed, though it might seem in other regards to have been suggested by an angel from heaven.
Obj. But it will be said, Satan pretends to this rule, and it is Scripture that is urged by him.
Ans. I answer, Though it be so, yet he useth not Scripture in its own intendment and sense. For the discovery of his unfaithful dealing;—
[1.] First, Compare the inference of the suggestion with other scriptures. If it be from a dark scripture, compare it with those that are more plain, and in every case see whether the general current of the Scriptures speak the same thing; for if it be from Satan, he either plays with the words and phrases, from doubtful and equivalent terms making his conclusion, or his citation will be found impertinent, or, which is most usual, contrary to truth or holiness. If any of these appear by a true examination of the import of the scripture which he seeks to abuse, or by comparing it with the scope and genius of other scriptures, you may certainly pronounce that it is not of God, but Satan’s deceit.[438]
[2.] Secondly, Consider the tendency of such suggestions. Let no man say that this will come too late, or that it is an after-game. I do not mean that we should stay so long as to see the effects, though this is also a certain discovery of Satan’s knavery in his highest pretences. The fanatic furies of the German enthusiasts do now appear plain to all the world to have been delusions, by their end, fruits, and issue. But that while these conclusions are obtruded upon us, we should observe to what they tend, which we shall the better know if all circumstances round about be considered. Sometimes Satan doth covertly hint his mind, and send it along with the suggestions; sometimes our condition will enough declare it, and there is no case but it will afford something of discovery if seriously pondered. If he either prompt us to pride, vainglory, or presumption, or that our condition sway us that way, it will be sufficient ground of suspicion that it is Satan that then urgeth promises or privileges upon us. If we are of a wounded spirit, inclined to distrust, or if we be put on to despair, it is past denial that it is Satan that urgeth the threatenings, and presseth the accusations of the law against us. He that gathers stones, timber, lime, and such materials together, as are usually employed in building, doth discover his intention before he actually build his house, and thus may Satan’s end be known by his preparations, compared with the sway and inclination of our present temper.
[3.] Thirdly, It must be remembered that with these endeavours, we often seek the face of the Lord for help and counsel; and that we apply ourselves to such of the servants of God, as being more knowing than ourselves, and less prepossessed in their judgments, because not concerned, are better able to see into the nature of our straits, and to help us by their advices.
Chapter XVIII
Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.—MAT. iv. 8.
The manner of Satan’s shewing the kingdoms of the world.—Of Satan’s preparations before the motion of sin.—Of his confronting the Almighty by presumptuous imitation, and in what cases he doth so.—Of his beautifying the object of a temptation, and how he doth it.—His way of engaging the affections by the senses.—Of his seeming shyness.
This is the preparation to the third temptation; in which we have, (1.) The place where it was acted; (2.) The object set before him there.
1. First, The place was an ‘exceeding high mountain.’ What mountain it was, Nebo, Pisgah, or any other, it is needless to inquire. It is of more use to ask after the reasons of Satan’s choice of such a place. The text doth clearly imply one; that was the commodiousness of prospect. Satan intending to give him a view of the kingdoms of the world, chooseth a mountain as fittest for that end. But that this was not all the reason, is not only intimated by some,[439] but positively affirmed by others,[440] who think that Satan in this imitated the like in God to Moses, who was called up to Mount Nebo to view the land which God promised to Israel. Whether these circumstances of the mountain, and the view of the kingdoms of the world, were of purpose contrived to affront God by such an imitation, I will not be positive in it; but we may with greater evidence affirm that in offering the kingdoms of the world as things altogether in his disposal, he doth directly outbrave God by an insolent comparison of his power with that of the Almighty’s, whose is ‘the earth and the fulness of it,’ [Ps. xxiv. 1,] and to whom the sovereignty of the disposal of it doth belong.
2. Secondly, That which Satan sheweth Christ from the mountain is said to be ‘the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.’ Here some busy themselves to conjecture what kingdoms were thus pointed at. Some keep so strictly to the word ‘all,’ that they are forced to take up with that opinion, that all these temptations were only in vision,[441] for they consider that no one mountain in the world can give a prospect over one whole hemisphere, or if it could, yet no eye would be able to discern at so great a distance. But the inconveniences of this surmise have been pointed at before, and it is enough to shew that the text may admit of an interpretation which shall not be encumbered with this supposed impossibility.
Others restrain this to the land of Canaan, as if Satan only shewed this as a famous instance of the glory of all kingdoms. Some think the Roman empire, which was then most flourishing, and lifted up its head above other kingdoms, was the great bait laid before Christ, as if he had a design to divert Christ from the business of his office, by offering him the seat and power of Antichrist.[442] But the text runs not so favourably for any of these opinions as to constrain us to stay upon them. ‘Kingdoms of the world’ seem to intend more than Canaan or the Roman empire; the word κόσμος used here, and οἰκουμένη in Luke, which we translate ‘the world,’ do so apply to one another in a mutual accommodation, that we cannot stretch the ‘world’ to the largest sense of the whole globe of the earth, because it is expressed in Luke by οἰκουμένη, which signifies such a part of the world which is more cultivated and honoured by inhabitants; nor can we so restrain it to the Roman empire-though when they spake their apprehensions of their own empire, they seem to engross all, Luke ii. 1—because Matthew useth the word κόσμος, a word of greater freedom. It seems then that many kingdoms, or the most considerable kingdoms of the then known world, were here exposed to his sight. But then the difficulty still remains, how the devil could shew them to his eye. That it was not a visionary discovery to his mind, hath been said. Some think he shewed these partly by ocular prospect of those cities, castles, towns, vineyards, and fields that were near, as a compend of the whole, and partly by a discourse of the glory, power, and extent of other kingdoms that were out of the reach of the eye; but because the expression which Luke adds, ‘in a moment of time’—ἐν στυγμῇ χρόνου—intimates, that the way which Satan took was different from common prospecting or beholding, others are not satisfied with that solution of the difficulty, but fly to this supposition, that Satan used only juggling and delusion, by framing an airy horizon before the eyes of Christ, shewing not the kingdoms themselves, but a phantasm of his own making. But seeing this might have been done in any place, and that a high mountain was chosen for furthering the prospect, I think it is safest to conclude that the prospect was ocular, and not fantastical but real, only helped and assisted by Satan’s skill and art, as a great naturalist and as a prince of the power of the air, by which means, in reflections or extraordinary prospectives, he might discover things at vast distances; which we may the rather fix upon, because we know what helps for prospect art hath discovered by glasses and telescopes, by which the bodies of the sun, moon, and planets, at such unspeakable distance from us, have in this latter age been discovered to us beyond ordinary belief.[443] And we have reason to think that Satan’s skill this way far exceeds anything that we have come to the knowledge of, and so might make real discoveries of countries far remote, more than we can well imagine.
These things thus explained, I shall note several observations.
Obs. 1. First, If we consider this great preparation that Satan makes as introductory to the temptation to follow, we may observe, that where Satan hath a special design, he projects and makes ready all things relating to the temptation before he plainly utter his mind. He provides his materials before he builds, and lays his train before he gives fire. What is his method we may learn from the practice of those that are trained up in his service. They, in Rom. xiii. 14, are said to ‘make provision for the flesh’—πρόνοια—to fore-contrive their sins, and to project all circumstances of time, place, occasion, and advantage for their accomplishment. This is not to be understood of all sins, for in some that are inward in the mind, as vain thoughts, pride of heart, &c., there needs not such provisions. We may say of them their times are always, and in many cases ‘the house is swept and garnished’ [Mat. xii. 44] to his hand; he finds all things ready by the forwardness of those who are free in his service, and the sudden accidental concurrence of things. But where the temptation is solemn, and where the thing designed, in the perfecting of it, relates to exterior acts, there he useth this policy, to have all in readiness, though it cost him the labour of ‘compassing sea and land’ for it, before he expressly speak his purposes. His reasons are these:—
(1.) First, If things necessary for the encouragement and accomplishment of a temptation lay out of the way, and were not at hand, his suggestions would perish as soon as they were born, and would be rejected as impossible or inconvenient. To tempt a man to steal when he knows not where nor how, or to revenge when he hath no enemy nor provocation, seem to be no other than if they should be commanded to remove a mountain or to fly in the air, which would quickly be declined as motions affording no ground of entertainment. And therefore that his temptations may not bring a reason of refusal with them as being unseasonable, he takes care to fit his servants with all things requisite for the work he puts them upon.
(2.) Secondly, As temptations of this kind would be no temptations, because not feasible, without their preparations, so must we not think that it is the bare suggestion of Satan that makes a temptation to pierce. The reason of its prevalency is not barely because Satan breaks such a motion to us, but because such a motion comes accomplished with all suitable preparations. When it prevails, it is the sinful motion that wounds; but preparations are as the feathers that wing his arrows, without which they would neither fly nor pierce.
Applic. Let this, (1.) First, Renew our caution and suspicion in everything and every place that Satan is at work against us, though we see no visible snare.
Let it put us upon such a watchful carefulness in every of our ways, that we may resolve to undertake nothing for which we have not a good and warrantable reason at hand, that if our conscience say to us, What dost thou here? we may be able to give a good account.
(2.) Secondly, If we mind the behaviour of Satan in these preparations and offers, we see him act after the pattern of highest sovereignty, disposing of earthly kingdoms at such a rate as if all power were in his hand. Hence we may observe,
Obs. 2. That when Satan tempts to sin of highest contempt and insolency against God, he then thinks it concerns him to bear himself out by confronting the Almighty in imitating his authority and power.
This carriage of Satan is not to be found in all his temptations. For in most cases he acts with greatest secrecy; and as a thief that is afraid of discovery, he useth all ways possible for concealment; but when he sets up himself as ‘the god of the world,’ and stands in competition with the Lord, claiming an interest in the fear and devotion of men, then he boldly avoucheth himself, and labours to outvie God in point of greatness, that he might possess them with a belief that he only ought to be feared. This arrogancy of Satan against God may be seen in three things:—
[1.] First, In imitating divine ordinances and institutions. There is not any part of divine worship, the observation whereof God hath enjoined to men, but Satan hath set up something like it for himself. As God appointed his temple, priests, altars, sacrifices, offerings, tithes, sanctuaries, sacraments, &c., so hath Satan had his temples, priests, altars, sacrifices, offerings, sanctuaries, sacraments, &c. This is sufficiently known to any that read his histories; and I could give a full account of it from heathen authors, but that I have done already when I spoke of Satan’s subtlety in promoting idolatry in the world. I shall only add here that which Varro relates[444] of the books of Numa Pompilius, which were casually cast up by the plough of one Terentius coming too near the sepulchre of Numa, where these books had been buried. This Numa was the second king of the Romans, who instituted the rites and ceremonies of pagan worship for his subjects, and in these books, which he thought fit to conceal by burying them with him, he had laid open the bottom of these devilish mysteries, so that when they were brought to the senate, they, judging them unfit to be known, adjudged them to the fire; which is a clear ground of suspicion that he had there discovered so much of the causes of these rites, or of the way whereby he came to be instructed in them, that the public knowledge thereof consisted not with the interest of their heathenish religion. This conjecture Austin hath of the matter,[445] who also notes that Numa pretended familiar converse with the nymph Ægeria as a plausible cover to that devilish art of Hydromantia, by which he was instructed in ordering the ceremonies of idolatry which he established.
[2.] Secondly, Satan, with no less arrogancy, takes upon him to imitate God in his acts of power for the countenancing of his worship in the world. He had his miracles frequently, of which I have spoken elsewhere; so had he his oracles, as at Delphos and other places. Here it shall suffice to note that, as the sending the Lord Jesus into the world, furnished with such power of doing miracles for the confirmation of that office and authority which he had received from God for the redemption of man, was the highest instance that can be given of the mighty power, wisdom, and goodness of God; so Satan set himself with greatest industry to imitate that. Christ was almost no sooner ascended to the Father, but we hear of Simon Magus, Acts viii. 9, who was cried up as an instance of ‘the great power of God;’ and after that at Rome he gave out that he was God, confirming the people in such a belief, by the strange things which he there did among them, that a statue was erected for his honour, with this inscription, ‘To Simon, a great god.’[446] Long after this the devil raised up Apollonius Tyanæus, a man of an abstemious and commendable life. Him the devil did design to match Christ in his miracles, which were so many and so strange, that Philostratus doth not only compare him to Christ, but prefer him as the more honourable person. Christ himself foretold this stratagem of Satan, that he should raise up ‘false Christs’ with ‘lying signs and wonders.’ And to omit instances of former days, it is not beyond the memory of most of you, that the devil renewed this policy in James Nayler, who, in a blasphemous imitation of Christ’s riding to Jerusalem, rode to Bristol with a great company before him, crying, ‘Holy, holy,’ and ‘Hosanna to the son of David,’ and strewing the way with branches of trees. The authority that was then, taking notice of this and other blasphemous outrages, sentenced him to exemplary punishment; but here also the devil renewed his mockery, for a certain citizen of London of good note, being overcome with delusion, printed a book of Nayler’s sufferings, wherein the devil had opportunity to vent his malice more fully, for he compared all the parts of his punishment to the sufferings of Christ; his whipping, he said, was that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Matthew, ‘And Pilate delivered him to be scourged;’ his stigmatizing, he said, was that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, ‘His visage was marred more than any man’s;’ the boring of his tongue with a hot iron, he said, was the fulfilling of that, and they ‘crucified him;’ and after other particulars of comparison, in all which he equalled him to Christ, he at last takes notice that the multitude of spectators held off their hats while his tongue was bored through, a thing common in a crowd to give opportunity of sight to those that are behind, and to this act he applies that of the evangelists, ‘The vail of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom.’
[3.] Thirdly, In acts of empire and sovereignty he imitates God, that is, as God propounds himself as the only Lord God, and enjoins himself to be worshipped accordingly by promises of advantage in case of obedience, and threatenings of miseries and plagues in case of disobedience; so doth Satan set up himself in the world as god to be adored and worshipped, and him do all idolaters worship, as God testifies: Deut. xxxii. 17, ‘They sacrificed unto devils, not to God:’ Ps. cvi. 37, ‘They sacrificed their sons and daughters unto devils:’ 1 Cor. x. 20, ‘The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God.’ And though it be true that many of these blind worshippers did not formally worship the devil, but thought they had worshipped God, yet by such cunning did he engage them to take up with ways of worship of his prescribing, that it was in reality a service done to him. But, besides this, in those places of the world where he hath greater power, he formally propounds himself to be worshipped, and doth accordingly often appear to them in a visible shape; so that many of these blind heathens acknowledge two gods, one good and another cruel and hurtful, which latter they say they must worship, lest he destroy or harm them. By this Satan contests with God for an empire in the world; and to promote it the more he sometimes deals by fair promises of riches, advancement, pleasure, and such other baits, to allure men to his professed service. Thus are witches drawn to a compact with him. Thus Sylvester the Second gave up himself to the devil for the popedom, and so did several others. When this is not enough to prevail, he adds menacings, and breathes forth cruel threatenings, by which means many heathens are kept in awe by him and worship him, ne noceat, for no other reason but to preserve themselves from hurt by him. In this temptation he propounds himself to Christ as the object of divine worship, and boasts of the kingdoms of the world as things of his disposal; by which he seeks to draw him to fall down before him.
This course Satan takes for these reasons:—
First, As this proud and malicious ostentation of his power is some kind of satisfaction to his revengeful humour against God; so, Secondly, He doth hereby raise up himself and his wicked institutions of idolatry into credit and esteem with men. Thirdly, As this is a mockery to true religion, and a scorn cast upon the ways of God’s service, to bring it into disgrace and discredit; so, Fourthly, By this means he hardens the hearts of men against God. This was the consideration by which Pharaoh hardened his heart. When Moses turned his rod into a serpent, changed waters to blood, and did so many signs before him, his magicians did the like; upon which the king might thus reason with himself, that Moses had no other power but what his magicians had, though he might think him a more skilful magician; and therefore there was no reason to believe his message as being from God, seeing his miracles might be no other than the effect of his art to countenance a pretended command from heaven.
Applic. This insolency of Satan may inform us, First, Of the great patience of God, that sees these outrageous mockings, and yet doth not by a strong hand put a stop to them. Secondly, Of the great power and pride of Satan, that he both can—though not without permission from God—and dare attempt things of this nature. Thirdly, The great power of delusion, that can so blind men, that they not only are drawn to act a part in such designs, but believe confidently a divine impulse and heavenly warrant for their so doing. Fourthly, The miserable slavery of such vassals of Satan that are thus led by him, who are therefore sadly to be pitied and lamented, as being under such strong chains of captivity.
Obs. 3. Thirdly, We cannot pass by the art which the devil here useth to set off the temptation, and to make it plausible. He sets before him the world in all its glory. Here observe, That Satan, in his temptations to worldly pleasures, doth usually paint the object with all its utmost beauty.
When I have sometime observed a mountebank upon a stage, giving excessive commendations of a trivial medicine, asserting it good almost for every disease, and with a great many lies and boastings enforcing it upon the credulous multitude, it hath put me in mind of this spiritual mountebankery of the devil. How doth he gull and delude the foolish by laying out the pleasures of sin! and no otherwise doth he keep them at a gazing admiration of worldly pomp, delights, and satisfaction, which he promiseth them from iniquity, than the serpent Scytale doth with passengers, whom she stays, by amazing them with her beautiful colours, till she have stung them.[447] The art of Satan in this matter lies in four things:—
[1.] First, If there be anything that can be called a delight, or may any way conduce to a satisfaction in any sin, he will be sure to speak of it in its highest praises. He not only stretcheth his rhetoric to the height in giving commendations to the most noted pleasures that men propound to themselves, but he seeks out the hidden things of delight, and raiseth in men an itch of desire after the improvement of delight, by the contrivances of wit or art. Thus he tells them of jollity, ravishing mirth, high satisfaction, and, if they will believe him, of unspeakable delight to be had by giving themselves up to the world and the course of it. Nay, he hides nothing that will bear any praise; the least advantage, the smallest gratification that any sin can afford to human desire, he will be sure to speak of it.
[2.] Secondly, He carries on this design by lying. He promiseth more than ever sin can give, and he sends his proselytes out after sin under the highest expectations, and when they come to enjoy it, they often find the pleasure falls short of his boast. He whispers honours, preferments, and riches, in the ear of their hearts, and often pays them with poverty and disgraces, and gives them pro thesauro carbones, stones for bread, a serpent for a fish. Witches give frequent accounts of Satan’s lying promises; he tells them of feasts, of gold, of riches, but they find themselves deluded; he sends them oft hungry away from those banquets, so that they have no more than when a man dreams he eats. He gives that which seems gold in appearance, but at last they find it to be slates or shells. We find in this temptation he is liberal and large in his offers to Christ, and what he requires he will have in present payment, but the reward for the service is future. It is his business to engage men in sin by his promise of advantage, but being once engaged, he takes not himself concerned in honour or ingenuity for performance. Hence doth the Scripture fitly call the pleasures of sin ‘lying vanities,’ a ‘vain show,’ a ‘dream;’ thereby warning men from a forward belief of Satan’s promises, in that they find by experience they shall be at last but lies and disappointments.
[3.] Thirdly, To make his bait more taking, he conceals all the inconveniences that may attend these worldly delights. He offers here the kingdoms of the world to Christ, as if all were made up of pleasure. Those cares, troubles, and vexations that attend greatness and rule, he mentions not; their burden, hazard, and disquiet, he passeth over. Thus in common temptations he is careful to hide from men the miseries that follow these empty pleasures. So that often men do not consider the mischief, till ‘a dart strike through their liver,’ Prov. vii. 23, and till a dear-bought experience doth inform them of their mistakes.
[4.] Fourthly, His power and work upon the fancies of men, is none of the least of his ways whereby he advanceth the pleasures of sin. That he hath such a power, hath been discoursed before, and that a fancy raised to a great expectation makes things appear otherwise than what they are, is evident from common experience. The value of most things depends rather upon fancy than the internal worth of them, and men are more engaged to a pursuit of things by the estimation which fancy hath begat in their minds, than by certain principles of knowledge. Children by fancy have a value of their toys, and are so powerfully swayed by it, that things of far greater price cannot stay their designs, nor divert their course. Satan knows that the best of men are sometimes childish, apt to be led about by their conceits, and apt in their conceits to apprehend things far otherwise than what they are in truth. Hence is it, as one observes,[448] that of thousands of men that return from Jerusalem, or from Mount Sion, or from the river Jordan, scarce can we find one which brings back the admiration which he had conceived before he had seen them. Fancy doth pre-occupate the mind with a high opinion of things; and these exorbitant imaginations pass to such an excess, that men think to find a satisfaction beyond the nature of these pleasures they aim at, which hath these two inconveniences: the one, that this affects and draws as powerfully as if they were all as real and high as they are conceited to be; the other, that sight and fruition takes away the estimation, and by a disappointment doth deaden and dull the affections to what may be really found there. Thus Satan by one deceit makes men believe that sin hath pleasure, which indeed it hath not, and by that belief leads them on powerfully to endeavour an embracement of them, and at last urgeth them with a delusion.
Applic. In opposition to this deceit of the devil, we must learn to esteem worldly delights as low as he would value them high. And to this purpose the Scripture speaks of them in undervaluing language, calling worldly pomp an opinion, a fantasy, a fashion or figure, an imagination rather than a reality; and further enjoins us not to admire these things in others, not to envy them that enjoyment of them, nor to fret at our want of them, much less to be transported with any angry passion about them, nor to concern ourselves in any earnest pursuit of them.[449]
Obs. 4. Fourthly, Satan in this temptation did not bravely speak of these things, nor only make an offer in discourse, but he thought it most conducible to his design to present them to his sight. He knew full well that the heart is more affected by sensible discoveries than by rational discourses.
Note here, That Satan in temptations of worldly pleasure, endeavours to engage the affections by the senses.
That it is Satan’s great business to work upon the affections, I have shewed at large. Here he endeavoured to prepare the affections of Christ, that so the motion, when it came, might not die, as a spark falling upon wet tinder, but that the affections being stirred up might cherish the offer, and that the offer by a mutual warmth might more inflame the affections that were heated before.
To this end he works by the senses, and would have Christ’s eye to raise his affections of love, desire, hope, and whatever else might wing his soul to activity. There is a great connexion betwixt the senses and the affections. The senses bring intelligence unavoidably, and are apt to stir up our powers to action. As the jackal is said to hunt the prey for the lion, so do the senses for the affections, and both for Satan.
It is also remarkable that Satan, endeavouring to make the eyes of Christ traitors to his affections, and that he thinking it necessary to give him a view of what he proffered him, should not give him time to take a full survey of these kingdoms, but should huddle it up in such a haste, that all, as Luke tells us, was done in ‘a moment of time.’ Was Satan in haste? or was he unwilling to part with what he so liberally proffered? Surely no, but this transient view was his subtlety, to entice him the more, and to inflame his heart with greater desires.
Obs. 5. Observe then, That where Satan is most liberal in his proffers, he there manageth his overtures of advantage with a seeming shyness. And this he doth, First, To heighten the worth of them in our estimation, as if they were jewels not to be gazed at, or curious pieces not fit to be exposed to common view. Secondly, By this art he makes men more eager in the pursuit. Our natural curiosity presseth us with great earnestness after things of difficult access, and we have also strange desires kindled in us from a prohibition, so that what we list not to choose if we have a liberty of enjoyment, when we are forbidden, we are troubled with impatient longings for it, and cannot be at quiet till we do enjoy it: nitimur in vetitum.
When Satan makes nice with men, offering the pleasures of the world, and yet hedging up the way with difficulties, they should make no other construction of it, but that Satan doth, so far as he is concerned, more strongly entice them. He plays at peep with them, that he may make them more earnest to follow him, and to bid high for the possession of these delights.
Malo me Galatea petit, ... Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri.
Chapter XIX
Satan’s ends in tempting Christ to fall down and worship him.—Of blasphemous injections.—What blasphemy is.—The ways of Satan in that temptation, with the advantages he takes therein, and the reason of urging blasphemies upon men.—Consolations to such as are concerned in such temptations.—Advice to such as are so afflicted.
These observations, which the preparation to the temptation hath afforded us, being despatched, the temptation itself follows, which is this, ‘fall down and worship me.’
This motion, from such a one as Satan, to such a one as Christ, who was holy and undefiled, God and man, seems to be an incredible piece of arrogancy, pride, and malice; for to propound himself as the object of divine worship, was certainly a desperate assault. It includes, [1.] the highest blasphemy; [2.] the grossest idolatry imaginable. Both these are frequently noted as the design of this temptation.[450] But [3.] the comprehension of this motion takes in the whole withdrawing of the mind from God and religion, or the care of the soul and eternal life; in which sense Satan doth frequently practise this temptation upon men by the motive of worldly pleasures. I shall consider the temptation first, as blasphemous, and so it will give us this observation:—
Obs. 6. That the best of God’s children may be troubled with most vile and hideous blasphemous injections.
Blasphemy, in the largest sense, is anything spoken or done, by which the honour and fame of God may be wounded or prejudiced; but the formality of blasphemy lies in the purpose or intendment of reproaching God. Such was the blasphemy of the Israelitish woman’s son, recorded in Lev. xxiv. 11, where blaspheming is explained by the addition of the word cursing, which in the original—קלל—comes from a word that signifies to ‘set light by one.’[451] So that hence, and from the circumstances of the story, we may safely conjecture that this man having an Egyptian to his father, which probably might in scorn be objected to him by his contending adversary, he more readily might be drawn out to vilify the true God; but, be it what it will, it was certainly more than that blasphemy which the Rabbins fancy to be in the repetition of naming the word Jehovah, which in reverence they either leave out, as when they say, ‘the arm of the Almighty,’ or change it into some other, as Adonai, or the like; and accordingly we may observe, that reproaching God and blaspheming God are joined together, as Ps. xliv. 16; Isa. xxxvii. 23.
In blasphemy, as the matter, there must be thoughts, words, or actions that may aptly express a contempt or reproach of God; so also, as to the form of it, there must be an intendment of reproaching. Now though this be a sin which the heart of a servant of God would most abhor, yet Satan doth sometimes trouble the best with it. We have an instance in Job. His design was to bring him to curse God, for so he professeth in express terms; chap. i. 11, ii. 5, ‘Lay thine hand upon him, and he will curse thee to thy face.’ And in prosecution of this his boast, he breaks the matter plainly to him by his wife, chap. ii. 9, ‘Curse God and die.’ Whatever may be spoken of the word as signifying blessing, though some affirm the word ברך, in the proper idiom of that language, and not by an antiphrasis or euphemismus, as some think,[452] signifies as properly to ‘curse’ as to ‘bless,’ and is determinable to its signification either way by the circumstances of the place, or whatever men endeavour to excuse his wife, it is plain, not only by Job’s answer, that it was evil counsel, but also by Satan’s avowed design, that it was directly for cursing God. Besides this instance, if we consider the expression of ‘fiery darts,’ Eph. vi. 16, we shall find that this temptation is more common to all sorts of Christians than we would imagine. It is plain that these words allude to the poisoned arrows which Scythians and others used. These not only wounded but poisoned, and the venom inflamed with a fiery heat the part or member pierced. By this similitude, it must be granted that not common temptations are hereby understood, but such as were more than ordinarily hurtful, vexing, and dangerous. It may be persecutions are one of these darts, but all reckon temptations of spiritual terrors, and blasphemy, to be undoubtedly pointed at.[453]
The ways of Satan in this temptation are three:—
(1.) First, He endeavours to bring men to blaspheme, by secret and subtle ways of ensnaring them; and this is most-what practised in consequential and covert blasphemies, when, though men do not directly intend an open outrage against God, yet Satan brings them to that which might be so interpreted. This seems to have been the case of Job’s sons, according to his jealousy of them; ‘It may be my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their heart,’ Job i. 5; not that they were open blasphemers, for they were surely better educated, neither doth Job express such a fear of them; but that in their mirth their hearts might have been so loosened from the fear of God, that they might be tempted to undue thoughts of God, slighting his threatenings or goodness. To this purpose Broughton translates, ‘They have little blessed God in their hearts.’[454] The same thing we may observe in Job himself. When the devil could not prevail with him to ‘charge God foolishly,’ chap. i. 22, yet he pressed him so hard by his miseries, that he hoped at last to bring him to utter the anguish of his mind in impatient and reflecting expressions, and so far prevailed, that he bitterly ‘Curseth the day wherein he was born,’ chap. ii. 3, and wisheth that he had ‘given up the ghost when he came out of the belly;’ which though it came far short of what Satan had boasted of in his achievement against him, yet it had such an unwarrantable tendency that way, that when his friend Eliphaz took notice of his expressions, as savouring of too much distrust, he is forced to make apology for himself, and to excuse it by the desperateness of his condition; chap. vi. 26, ‘Do you imagine to reprove words and the speeches of one that is desperate?’ In such cases, the devil provokes men beyond their intentions, to speak in their haste so inconsiderately, that they know not or mind not, the just consequence of their speeches. It was a degree of blasphemy in David to say, though in his haste, that ‘all men were liars;’ it was an unbelieving reflection on the promise given him by Samuel. In Mal. iii. 13, the people did not believe that they had ‘spoken so much against God,’ when yet their words had been ‘stout against him.’
(2.) Secondly, Satan endeavours this by violent injections of blasphemous thoughts that are directly such. In this I shall note to you,
[1.] First, That the vilest thoughts of God, of his ways and providences, of Scripture, and of Christ, are frequently suggested. Things of greatest outrage against heaven, and contempt of the Almighty, as Bernard expresseth it, Terribilia de fide, horribilia de divinitate; as, there is no God, or that he is not just, or not faithful to his promises; or that Christ was but an impostor. He sticks at nothing in this kind, though never so contrary to the hope and persuasion of those whom he thus molests.
[2.] Secondly, These are frequently reiterated upon them, and their minds so troubled by them, that they cannot free themselves from such thoughts, but he follows on and clamours in their ears, as Gerson[455] observes, Nega Deum, maledic Deo—Deny God, curse God.
[3.] Thirdly, And this with so great a force and impetuosity, that they are compelled to form these thoughts in their minds, and to speak contrary to what they would, as if their thoughts and tongues were not under their own government, the devil not satisfying himself to bear in these thoughts upon them, but he endeavours, as it were, to make them say after him, and to cast his suggestions into their own mould, that so they might seem properly to be their own; and this they are forced to whether they will or no, even then when their minds are filled with horror, their heart with grief, and their body with trembling. I have discoursed with some who have bitterly complained that their tongues and their thoughts seemed not to be their own, but that Satan ruled them at his pleasure; and that when in opposition to the temptation they would have formed their tongues to speak blessing of God, they have spoken cursing instead of blessing; and that when a blasphemous thought had been cast into their mind, they could not be at rest till they had thought it again.
[4.] Fourthly, These troublesome temptations are oft of long continuance. Joannes Climacus tells us[456] of a monk that was troubled with blasphemous thoughts for twenty years together, and could not quit himself of them, though he had macerated his body with watchings and fastings. Some have them going away and returning again by fits, according as the prevalency and ferment of their melancholy gives Satan the advantage of dealing thus with them. For if we inquire why it is thus, especially with the children of God, we must partly resolve it into the ‘unsearchable wisdom of God,’ who for holy ends of teaching and disciplining his servants, permits Satan thus to molest them; and partly into those particular advantages which Satan hath against them according to the variety of their conditions, which usually are these:—
First, He takes advantage of such bodily distempers as do deprive men of the use of their reason, as fevers, frenzies, madness. In these he oft forms the tongues of men to horrid blasphemous speeches.
Secondly, A pressure of outward afflictions gives him his desired opportunity; and this he knows to be generally so successful, that he promised himself by this means a victory over Job. Ordinarily, straits and miseries do produce blaspheming. Isa. viii. 21, the prophet notes that when the people should be ‘hardly bestead and hungry,’ they should ‘fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward,’ as avouching what they had done.
Thirdly, Worldly plenty, fulness, and pleasure lay often foundations of this temptation. When their cups are full, and their hearts high, Satan can easily make them ‘set their mouth against heaven.’ A proud heart will readily say, ‘Our tongue is our own, or, Who is the Lord?’ [Ps. xii. 4.] This was the engine which the devil managed, if it were as Job suspected, against the sons and daughters of Job, to make them curse God in their hearts; and by this did he seek to prevail upon Christ in this blasphemous temptation.
Fourthly, A melancholy distemper doth usually invite Satan to give blasphemous suggestions. The disturbed and pliable fancies of such, are the advantages which he improves against them.
Fifthly, Inward terrors and distresses of conscience are also an occasion to Satan to move them, as by a desperate humour, to utter hard things of God and against themselves.
But there is yet a third way by which Satan tempts men to blaspheming, by sudden glances of blasphemous imaginations, which like lightnings do astonish the heart and then suddenly vanish. These are very common, and the best of men observe them frequently. Satan seems as it were rather to frolic and sport himself in these suggestions, than to intend a serious temptation. Their danger is not so much, yet are they not to be despised, lest these often visits, carelessly entertained, and not dismissed with just abhorrency, do secretly envenom the soul, and prepare it for stronger assaults.
I shall next inquire into the reasons of this trouble which Satan gives the children of God.
[1.] First, These temptations are very affrighting; though they prevail not, yet they are full of perplexing annoyance. Corrupt nature startles at them, and receives them not without dread and horror. It is sadly troublesome to hear others blaspheme God. ‘The reproaches of those that reproached thee,’ saith David, ‘fell upon me.’ It was as ‘a sword in his bones’ to hear the blasphemous scoffs of the wicked, when they said to him, ‘Where is thy God?’ And if it were confusion and shame to him to hear ‘the enemy reproach and blaspheme,’ as he professeth it was, Ps. xliv. 15, 16, how sadly afflicting would it be for any child of God to observe such things in his own imaginations! If there were no more in it than this, it is enough to put Satan upon that design, because it is a troublesome kind of martyrdom.[457]
[2.] Secondly, This is also a spiteful revenge against God. All he can do is to blaspheme and rage, and it is a kind of delight to put this force upon those that carry his own image. He would do all he can to make his own children to vilify and reproach their heavenly Father, and to render cursing for blessing.
[3.] Thirdly, This temptation, though it have not the consent or compliance of God’s children, yet it opens a way to many other sins, as murmuring, distrust, despair, weariness of God’s ways and services. When we find Satan thus to run upon us, it is apt to breed ‘strange thoughts of God,’ that thus permits Satan to take us by the throat, or to make us judge of ourselves as rejected of God, and given up to Satan’s power; and if it do this, his labour is not in vain; we are, as one observes,[458] more to fear his subtlety in bringing us by this into other snares, than the violence of the adversary in this suggestion.
[4.] Fourthly, This is a stratagem for laying the foundation of direful accusations. The devil in this doth as the Russians are[459] reported to do. They, when they have a spite against any of their neighbours, hide secretly some of their goods in their houses, and then accuse them of theft. When blasphemous thoughts are injected, and men refuse to consent, then Satan raiseth an accusation against them, as Joseph’s mistress did, as if they were guilty of all that blasphemy that he tempted them unto; and it is a difficult task to persuade them that these things should be in their minds, and that they should not be the proper issues of their own heart. And very often doth he from hence accuse them of sinning against the Holy Ghost, because of the hideous blasphemies which he had first suggested to them.
Applic. First, This will give us considerations of consolation, and that—(1.) In regard of others. We observe often our sick friends speak what we would not willingly hear, and it cannot choose but be sadly afflictive to hear their curses and blasphemous speeches; but when we consider the advantage that Satan takes of their distemper, if their lives heretofore have been pious and religious, we comfort ourselves in this, that it is more his malice than their own inclinations; neither should we suffer our hope or charity to be distressed on their behalf. (2.) It is the like ground of consolation for ourselves or others that are violently afflicted with blasphemous thoughts. For,
[1.] First, If we call to mind that our Lord and Master suffered such things, we that are of his household need not think we receive a strange or unusual measure in that we are molested as he was.
[2.] Secondly, If we consider that Christ was tempted without sin on his part, then may we fetch this conclusion from it, that it is possible that such thoughts should be cast upon us, and yet that we may not be chargeable with them as our iniquities.
Thirdly, We may hence see that such temptations are more frightful than hurtful. These, as one observes,[460] seldom take, they carry with them so much horror, to those that believe and love the true God, that it keeps them from a participation with Satan in the sin itself, nay, it fills them with fear and striving against it; they rather, as bugbears, scare and disquiet them, than produce the real effects of compliance with them.
Applic. Secondly, The consideration of this kind of temptation may fill the hearts and mouths of those of us as have not hitherto been troubled with it, with praise for so merciful a preservation. If we have not been under this kind of exercise, it is not from any good will that Satan hath to us, but because our God withholds a commission from him. A poor weak Christian wonders that Satan hath not made him a mark for this arrow, that he hath not broken him with this tempest. To answer that wonder, he may know that the same tenderness in God, that will not put ‘new wine into old crazy bottles,’ nor a ‘new stiff piece of cloth into an old tender garment,’ nor that will oppress the weak and infirm with strong exercise or burdens; that same tenderness of a compassionate Father doth keep off such trials, because he will not suffer them ‘to be tempted above what they are able.’
Applic. Thirdly, This temptation calls for advice to those that are under it, to whom I shall direct a few things.
[1.] First, When any are troubled with blasphemous thoughts, let it be considered in what state and temper their body is. If it be distempered with melancholy, as is most usual, then the prescription of an able physician is necessary in the first place, without which he that would spiritually advise or counsel shall but beat the air, and his words be so far from the fastness of nails that they shall be as wind. I have known many under great complaints and fears by reason hereof, that have been cured by physic alone; for when, in this case, the fuel is withdrawn, the fire goes out. Correct the melancholy temper that gives the devil this advantage, and the trouble will cease.
[2.] Secondly, It is of great consequence to understand the nature of these temptations. If the tempted could see these to be their sufferings rather than their sins, they would with greater ease bear it as an affliction. And to those that complain, abhor, resist, and pray against them, they are not sins, no more than when a harlot layeth her child at an honest woman’s door, that child is to be reckoned as the fruit of her wickedness. A giant may dash the son against his father, but so far will the father be from imputing it as rebellious insolence in his child, that he will pity him the more, as suffering by a double injury; for it is not only against his natural affection and reverence to his parent, but it is a bodily hurt beside. Thus will God much more pity his children under these sufferings.
[3.] Thirdly, We must not suffer such thoughts to lodge in us, but before they settle, if possible, we must repel them; as Abraham drove away the fowls that came down upon his sacrifice. I know the tempted will say this advice is not practicable; they find these thoughts swarm about them as bees, and when one is driven back another straight comes in its place. But to them I answer, that blasphemous thoughts are repelled two ways. (1.) By stout and resolute resistance. This, though it do not extinguish them, nor free us of the trouble, yet it keeps them from settling upon us, and us from the guilt of them. (2.) By diversion, which the work of a lawful employment, or good society, and other discourses may do. This may give some ease from the molestation, and the other preserves us innocent.
[4.] Fourthly, In temptations to blasphemy confident refusals do better than disputings.[461] Here we are to resist with courage and a holy contempt of Satan. If we be too timorous and fearful, he insults the more upon us; as dogs when they are observed follow the passenger with greater eagerness and noise. Abhorrences and positive discharges, like that of Christ in the same case, ‘Get thee hence, Satan,’ do more for us than to debate the matter with him.