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.