CHAPTER XXV.
The fourth direction, of repelling a temptation by Scripture arguments.—Of several things implied in the direction.—The necessity of answering by Scripture arguments.—The excellency of the remedy.—How Scripture arguments are to be managed.
The next particular in Christ’s answers to be observed by us is his citations of Scripture as an invincible reason against all the devil’s temptations; he beats them all back with this weapon, ‘It is written.’ That this was written for our learning, and that, otherwise than for our instruction, he lay not under any necessity of using this method, hath been evidenced before, and it is a thing which all commentators[487] do take notice of. From this we have another direction for the right way and order of resisting temptations, which is,
Direct. 4. That temptations are best repelled by arguments drawn from the word of God.
For the explanation of this, it may be considered what is first presupposed in this direction; for when it is affirmed that we must answer by reasons from Scripture, this implies—
(1.) First, That temptations are not to be opposed by groundless refusals. It is no way safe to say we will not, because we will not, nor to insist upon our own bare resolve; for this would be wilfulness, rather than an obediential refusal, and unwarrantable self-confidence, rather than a humble wrestling. There are some, of whom it may be said, as the prophet once charged the Jews, Isa. xxii. 11, that when Satan comes up against them, they look in that day ‘to the armour of the house of the forest,’ they ‘repair the wall,’ and ‘cast ditches for fortification;’ they prepare themselves to the battle ‘in their own strength, but they look not unto the maker thereof,’ to him who by his mighty power must fashion our hearts to resistance. The vanity of such undertakings is enough manifested in the event, for commonly such men go on in a bravado of resolution, but are so altered at the first appearance of the enemy, that they yield without a stroke. Who could be more confident than Peter that he would not deny his Master, whatever others did? and yet how soon did his heart fail him. We may warrantably deny a sinful motion, without being explicit in our reason against it, especially in usual temptations, and when they thrust themselves into our minds at such times when our thoughts are charged with an attendance upon other duties, in which nevertheless the heart hath a secret and implicit regard to the command of God; but in no case must we go down to the battle in the strength of a wilfulness, lest it go against us. And thus do they who, when they are reproved for some miscarriage, as of drinking, will presently with great confidence make engagements not to drink wine or strong drink, not to go into a tavern or alehouse, without any humble respect to duty, or the power of God for the conquest of the sin; and accordingly we see that usually such promises and obligations do not hold; either they wilfully break them, or they become sinfully witty to make evasions for the practice of sin, without the breach of the oath or promise.
(2.) Secondly, The direction supposeth that we must deny the sin with the arguments of greatest strength and authority. There were occasions and hints of other answers to these temptations that offered themselves in Christ’s way, and yet he waives them all, fixing only upon Scripture reasons as the best and strongest. It is no Christian wisdom to urge those inferior considerations of shame, loss, inconvenience, &c. Some have no other reason betwixt them and sin, but What will men say? or What will become of me? But besides that, these would only be a train to bring on disputings, and that it is no way safe to venture our souls upon such defences, when better may be had; for who will venture his life upon a staff when he may have a sword? It is easy for Satan to break these bows, and to cut these spears in sunder. He can balance such reasons with equal reasons, and presently make us believe that we have as good reason to commit the sin as those urged by us for the not committing of it.
(3.) Thirdly, This direction of using Scripture reason doth clearly imply that the force and power of Scripture is not in the words or characters, but in the mind and reason of it; not that Scripture used as a charm or spell, as if the devil were afraid of the sound and words of it, can beat back the devil, but it is the authority of its command which works upon the mind the highest impressions of fear and care, and as a strong argument prevails with us to forbear. Notwithstanding the plainness and undeniableness of this inference, not only do ignorant men bless themselves against the devil by repeating some phrases or sentences of Scripture impertinently, and such as have no direct signification of the matter in hand betwixt Satan and them, as if the devil could not endure to hear the paternoster, or durst not come within the sound of the name Jehovah, but also papists—and of them such as might be supposed more considerate than to be carried by such conceits—have placed a virtue in the words and sounds of Scripture, and therefore do they command, though under some limitations and restrictions, the hanging of sentences of Scripture about the neck in scrolls, for the driving away of evil spirits, though in a clear contradiction to the reason which they give in the general against this course, which is this, that the ‘power of Scripture is not in the figures and characters, but in the mind and understanding of it;’ and therefore profits as ‘pondered in the heart,’ not as ‘hung about the neck;’ and upon as slender grounds do they place a more than ordinary virtue, in the angelical salutation, in the seven words upon the cross, in the triumphal title, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,’ &c.[488] Such kind of oppositions are but a mock to Satan. We cannot think to ‘bore the jaw of this leviathan with a thorn,’ or to come to him with ‘this bridle,’ or to ‘play with him as with a bird,’ [Job xli. 2;] he durst allege scripture himself to Christ, and therefore it is not the phrase or sound that affrights him.
(4.) Fourthly, The direction doth imply an argumentative, proper, and fit use of Scripture commands or promises. We see Christ urged not any scripture indifferently, but he used fit words, and chose to himself select smooth stones out of this brook to sling against this spiritual Goliath. Every temptation had an answer that doth most fully and properly confront it. He regarded the main of the temptation, and suffered not himself to be diverted from that prosecution, by engaging himself in that which might have been perplexed and controversial, though he had a fit opportunity to reprove Satan for a dishonest craft of representing scripture in a sense of his own making, and so might have rejected the temptation of casting himself down, as leaning upon a false foundation, in that God did not promise in Ps. xci. to preserve any that should presumptuously expect a protection while they run out of God’s ways; yet he waived this answer, and opposed the assault by a plain scripture which chargeth the contrary duty.
Secondly, Having seen what this direction doth imply in these things that are to be removed from the sense and intendment of it, I shall next, for ascertaining of the reality and importance of it, shew that temptations are to be resisted by Scripture arguments, by these two evidences:—
(1.) First, God’s recommending of the commands of Scripture for such a purpose: Deut. vi. 6, ‘These words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes,’ &c. Whether the latter part of the command is to be understood literally, as the Jews apprehended and practised, though some think otherwise, is not necessary to be asserted, seeing it is granted by all that they were to have the commands of the law so ready in their minds and memories, as if they had been written on their hands and upon their foreheads. That God designed this precept for the resistance of sin and temptation cannot be doubted, and that the advantage which might hence arise to them was not only the information of their minds, in point of sin and duty, is as unavoidable; for that and more is intended by that part of the injunction, ‘These words which I command thee, shall be in thine heart;’ but when? Besides this information, which the knowledge of the law would afford them, and their humble compliance with it, as just and good, which would enable them to say, ‘Thy law, O Lord, is within my heart;’ he further enjoins them the quick and ready remembrances of these laws, as if they were ‘frontlets between their eyes, and signs on their hands.’ It can signify no less than this, that in so doing they would be able to resist those motions by which Satan would seek to engage them to the violation of these commands. Neither need we to doubt hereof, when Christ himself hath so fully taught us, by his own example, in resisting temptations, the particular use of the remembrance of the law. In the New Testament the apostle is most express in this matter: Eph. vi. 17, ‘Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,’ where not only the use of Scripture commands and promises against Satan’s suggestions is taught, but also the high avail and potency of this weapon in reference to its end. It is called a sword, and in that comparison it shews the active resistance which may be made by it; and it is called, not a sword of flesh, for ‘the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,’ but ‘of the Spirit,’ to shew how mighty it is in repelling Satan.
(2.) Secondly, Another evidence of its usefulness is from the success which the children of God have had in the right management of this weapon. It is observable that while Christ answered by Scripture, Satan was silenced, and had not what to reply to the answer, but was forced to betake himself to a new temptation. David in many places highly magnifies the power of the command, in the success he had by it; Ps. xvii. 4, he shews how available it was to preserve him in his common converse from the sinful snares laid before him, ‘Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.’ In Ps. xviii. 22, 23, he tells us that he was shielded from the sins of his inclination and love, which are hardest to prevent, by the opposition that he gave to the motions of them, in setting up the statutes of God against them; ‘All his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me; I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity.’ In Ps. cxix. 11, he puts his probatum est upon the head of this receipt, and speaks of it as his constant refuge, ‘Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.’ In Ps. xxxvii. 31, he speaks of it as a tried case of common experience to all the children of God, ‘The law of God is in his heart, none of his steps shall slide.’ I shall add to this the experience of Luther, when, saith he, in Epistle to the Galatians, ‘the motions of the flesh do rage, the only remedy is, to take the sword of the Spirit, that is, the word of salvation, and to fight against them; of this I myself have good experience; I have suffered many great passions and vehement, but so soon as I laid hold of any place of Scripture, and stayed myself upon it, as upon an anchor, straightway my temptations did vanish away, which without the word had been impossible for me to endure, though but a little space, much less to overcome.’[489]
(3.) Thirdly, The excellency of this remedy will further appear from these following reasons:—
[1.] First, In that it is a universal remedy. There can be no temptation, either of seducement or of affrightment, but the Scripture will afford a suitable promise or command to repel it. So that it, like the flaming sword in the cherubim’s hand at paradise, turns every way to guard the soul. I need not give instances of its power against sinful motions, having done that already, and of such temptations which war against the peace of the soul. I need but say this in the general, that as the nature of such temptations is to disguise God, and to render him dreadful to us, in the appearances of wrath and incompassionate implacableness—and this Luther sets down as a certain rule—so have we in Scripture such declarations of the mind and tender inclinations of God, and such full and clear promises to assure us of this, and those so adapted to every case, to every kind of hard thought which we might take up against him, that we may find enough in them to break all those malicious misrepresentations of Satan, and to keep up in our mind ‘right thoughts of God;’ which if we will adhere to, not suffering such promises to be wrested out of our hands, nor our hearts to give way to malignant impressions of cruelty, revenge, or unmercifulness in God, though we be cast into darkness, into the deeps, we may find some bottom on which to fix such beginnings of hope, as may at last grow up to a spirit of rejoicing in God our Saviour; and in this case, when our heart and Satan dictate to us that God is our enemy, we ought, as it were, to shut our eyes, to refuse to hearken to our own sense and feeling, and to follow the word; but if we once give up the word of promise, it is impossible the wound of conscience should be healed with any other consideration.
[2.] Secondly, This remedy is comprehensive of most other remedies against Satan’s temptations. In Eph. vi., there are several other pieces of spiritual armour recommended, and yet there is such a manifest mutual respect betwixt this and those, that any may conclude that however they be distinguished in their names, yet they are conjoined in their operation. The girdle, so far as it relates to truth of judgment and opinion, depends on the word of Scripture for information; the shoes, which are defensive resolves to walk with a steady foot in the ways of religion, notwithstanding the hardships that attend holiness, are prepared to us, by the comfortable and peace-bringing promises of the gospel; the righteousness which is our breastplate, is only set forth and wrought out to us by the Scripture and its ordinances; faith which is our shield, and hope which is our helmet, they neither of them act without the warrant and encouragement of it; and whereas other parts of the armour are defensive, this of the Scripture is compared to the sword, which not only defends, but also offends and beats back the enemy. If the matter be seriously considered, all these parts of armour are but these two, the graces of the Spirit—faith, hope, patience in their sincere exercise, and the word of Scripture as the instrument by and in which they shew their operations; so that all this armour being put to use, in every particular temptation, it amounts to no more than this we are speaking of, viz., that sinful motions are to be rejected by a believing, sincerely resolute opposing of them, with arguments from the word of God.
[3.] Thirdly, Scripture, as it is the word and command of the great King of heaven, hath a daunting and commanding authority over the consciences of men. ‘Where the word of a king is, there is power,’ Eccles. viii. 4, and such is the majesty of a divine law, that it hath power over the consciences of those that are yet in their sins, and can wound, affright, constrain, and bind even the rebellious; so that so long as they retain any of their natural impressions of a divine power, they have some awe for his commands, which may be seen and argued, where it would be least expected, from the enragement of the hearts of sinners, when ‘sin by the commandment,’ accidentally, ‘becomes exceeding sinful,’ Rom. vii. 13, 14. For as that outrageous fierceness doth arise from the contrariety that is betwixt a carnal heart and a spiritual law; so that contrariety would never work if the authority of that law, having a power to restrain, and give check to the corruption of the heart, were not some way owned by the conscience; for where no countermanding law is owned, there can be no irritating, provoking restraint. This it can do to the vilest of men; but of how much more power may we imagine the word to be with good men, whose hearts tremble at the word, when they ‘bind the law upon their heart,’ and charge their consciences with it? It is surely ‘quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword,’ [Heb. iv. 12;] nor doth it only, by unlovely affrightments, terrify them from sin, but by commanding duty make the heart in love with it, so that it becomes a delightful satisfaction to be preserved from the snare.[490]
[4.] Fourthly, There is no argument that can be used against temptations that can be more afflictively discouraging to Satan. Satan, as bad as he is, cannot but believe those truths which he knows, and he knows that there are many truths in Scripture which respect him, as threatenings of punishment and divine vengeance; he believes these things and trembles, James ii. 19. His unavoidable knowledge or remembrance of these things begets horror in him, he cannot but be under a dread of these truths. What can be supposed so to wound him as the bringing these things to memory, by urging the command of God against him? Dr Arrowsmith[491] gives two instances of this kind, the one of Christopher Haas in Sweedland—from the epistle dedicatory to the five tomes of Brentius’s works—the other of Daniel Cramer, rector of a school at Stettin in Germany; on both which the devil made a bold attempt in a personal appearance; from the first, demanding a catalogue of his sins in writing; from the other, demanding a paper in which one of the students had obliged himself to Satan’s service; they both referred him to that text of Gen. iii. 15, ‘The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent.’ And this was retorted upon him with such a strong exercise of faith, that he presently desisted the suit and vanished.
[5.] Fifthly, This weapon cannot easily he wrested out of our hands. When we urge a divine prohibition against a temptation, what can he say in answer? he cannot deny it to be the word of God, or to be true, or that we are not obliged to it. He made none of these returns to Christ, but, by his silence, owned that it was God’s holy command obliging us to duty. Neither dares he stand upon these exceptions to us, except he find our faith inclined to waver, or our minds weak and wounded by inward troubles of spirit; and when he puts on a boldness to deny Scripture to be the word of God, or that it signifies God’s real intendments in his threatening—for by begetting unbelief of the truth of Scripture, and by suggesting hopes of escape and pardon, notwithstanding the violation of the commands of it, he wrests, when he doth prevail, this weapon out of our hands—yet he is forced to fetch a compass, and by many previous insinuations to make his way to these atheistical assertions. Thus he did with Eve, first, finding her a little inclinable, he dropped in privily something that might argue the improbability of the threatened penalty, and then at last positively denied it. But now if we hold to this, that ‘the command is true and holy, and just and good,’ he cannot wrest our plea from us.
[6.] Sixthly, Nothing doth more undermine temptations, by rendering the reasons and motives thereof vain and empty, than doth the contrary commands of Scripture. Temptation hath always some enticement of pleasure or profit, and these only seem to be taking or reasonable, while we consider not the word of God, as rotten wood or fish shine only in the dark; but when we are urged with sinful pleasures, how mean, base, dangerous, and unlovely be they, when the command to the contrary gives information that they are snares and lead to death, or the provocation of the Almighty.
[7.] Seventhly, While we resist with Scripture arguments, we engage God, whose command we would stand by, to go down to the battle with us. We ‘lay hold upon his strength,’ and put obligations upon him to take us out of the snare, and to deliver us from him who is ‘too strong’ for us.
(4.) Fourthly, It remains that, in a word, I shew how the commands or arguments of Scripture are to be used in resisting Satan, which is thus, When you have any sinful thought cast into your mind, presently reject the offer, by charging your heart with duty, from some opposite command; as if you be urged to acts of uncleanness, presently refuse, thus; No, I must not, God hath commanded the contrary, he hath said, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ If a covetous thought arise, reject it with this, God hath said, ‘Thou shalt not covet.’ If you be tempted to please the flesh, and follow vain delights, answer it with this, ‘If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die;’ and the like must be done in other temptations.
Obj. Some may perhaps think that this is easy work and quickly done, and that it seems to attribute a virtue and power to the words of Scripture, as if Satan were charmed by the language or phrase.
Ans. However at the first view this may seem easy, yet he that shall consider how much exercise of grace goes necessarily to the right use of Scripture opposition, shall not see cause to slight it as common, nor yet to think that any virtue is attributed to the words. For,
[1.] First, The Scripture here is only recommended as a fit instrument, and no further or higher praise is given. Though therefore we may attribute the whole of the conquest to the instrument alone, yet this hinders not, but that as an instrument peculiarly fitted for these ends, we may commend it above all other instruments, as we may justly commend bread for nourishing above a stone, and expect more from it than from a chip; so have we reason to expect more by the use of Scripture against Satan, than from other means of defence which God hath not set up for that service.
[2.] Secondly, It is a concomitancy of divine power and aid that conquers for us. The instrument is Scripture, but the power by which it works is from God.
[3.] Thirdly, Neither is it any careless formal use of Scripture expressions that will give encouragement for expectation of a divine concurrence; but the use of Scripture in this business implies an exercise of all graces, for it is an urging of Scripture under a fourfold consideration.
First, As being certainly persuaded of their truth, and fully keeping to that belief.
Secondly, As being thankfully apprehensive of the holiness, goodness, and profitableness of the commands, and cheerfully adhering to them as the only way and means to bring us to union with Christ, and to preserve us in it.
Thirdly, As being highly and indispensably obliged by them to perform the duty commanded therein, and to avoid the sins forbidden.
Fourthly, All this in a humble expectation of a divine help, according to the promise of God. Now he that can plead the command or promise against a temptation in this manner, doth not do an ordinary work, neither will he ascribe the success to the words and phrase of Scripture.
Some may, peradventure, wonder why Christ, by his example, had not recommended prayer, seeing it is of such unquestionable use in our undertakings against Satan. But that inquiry may be fully satisfied, if it be considered that Christ did peculiarly prepare himself to this encounter by ‘solemn fasting,’ ver. 2, which doth include praying; for such complicated duties are often denominated by that part which is extraordinary, and usually in Scripture a fast is only mentioned where prayer is chiefly intended. That this fast of Christ related to the temptation, and that also as a means of preservation, hath been spoken of in its place; it remains only that from hence I add a fifth direction.