THE TEMPTER’S “IT IS WRITTEN.”
Matthew iv. 6.
“It is written,” said the Tempter, quoting Scripture for his purpose, when it was his hour and the power of darkness, in the day of temptation in the wilderness. The quotation was refuted on the spot, and the Tempter was foiled. But his failure has not deterred mankind, at sundry times and in divers manners, from venturing on the same appeal, with no very unlike design. The wise as serpents (there was a serpent in Eden) who are not also harmless as doves, have now and then essayed to round a sophistic period, or clench an immoral argument, with an It is written.
Among the crowd of pilgrims who throng the pages of his allegory, Bunyan depicts one Mr. Selfwill, who holds that a man may follow the vices as well as the virtues of pilgrims; and that if he does both, he shall certainly be saved. But what ground has he for so saying? is Mr. Greatheart’s query. And old Mr. Honesty replies, “Why, he said he had Scripture for his warrant.” He could cite David’s practice in one bad direction, and Sarah’s lying in another, and Jacob’s dissimulation in a third. And what they did, he might do too. “I have heard him plead for it, bring Scripture for it, bring arguments for it,” etc., quoth old Honesty with a degree of indignation that does credit to his name.
“The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul, producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the core.”
Such is Antonio’s stricture on Shylock’s appeal to Jacob’s practice, “When Jacob grazed his uncle Laban’s sheep”; and there is a parallel passage in the next act, where Bassanio is the speaker:—