If we look further amongst protestant divines, we shall observe it taken for granted, that Christ fasted upon design, and this is generally reduced to those two heads:—
(1.) First, Either for instruction: as to shew that he was God, by fasting so long, and that under the trouble of molesting and disquieting temptations; whereas the fasts of like date in Moses or Elias were accompanied with the quiet repose of their thoughts; or to shew that he was man, in that he really felt the natural infirmities of the human nature, in being hungry; or to teach us the usefulness of fasting in the general, when fit occasions invite us thereto; or,
(2.) Secondly, For confirmation of his doctrine, to put an honour and dignity upon his employment;[372] as Elias fasted at the restoring of prophecy, and at the Reformation. As Moses fasted at the writing of the law, so Christ began the gospel of the kingdom with fasting. However, that these things cannot be spoken against, being conclusions warrantably deducible from this act of Christ’s; yet these seem not, in my apprehension, to come fully up to the proper end of this undertaking of his; which seems not obscurely to be laid before us in that passage of Luke iv. 2, ‘being forty days tempted of the devil; and in those days he did eat nothing;’ where we see that his being ‘tempted forty days’ was the principal thing, and that his fasting had a plain reference and respect to his temptation. Thus far, I suppose, we may be secure, that we have the design in the general, that his fasting was in order to his temptation. But then whether this was designed as an occasion of the temptations, or as a remedy against them, it is not so easy to determine. That one of those, at least, was intended, cannot be denied by those that will grant that his fast related to the combat; and it seems not to labour of any repugnacy or absurdity, if we say that it is possible that both these ends might be aimed at, and accordingly I shall proceed to observe upon them. There are only some other things to be first despatched out of the way: as
The continuance of the fast, why it was forty days, neither more nor less. Though some adventure to give reasons for it,[373] not only papists, who, according to their wont, are ridiculous and trifling in this matter; but also protestants, supposing that some regard was, or ought to be, had to his fulfilling the times of the fasts of Moses and Elias; yet I think it is neither pertinent nor safe to determine anything about it, only it observes to us that the continuance of this was a considerable time.
We are more concerned to inquire whether Christ was under any conflict of temptation all that time;[374] which although some deny, lest they should favour a seeming contradiction among the evangelists, yet the words of Luke are so express, ‘being forty days tempted of the devil,’ Luke iv. 2, that no tolerable evasion can be found to cast these temptations to the end of the forty days; for he tells us, he was not only tempted after the expiration of the forty days, but that he was tempted during the continuance of the forty days beside; only there was a difference in the kinds of these temptations, in regard of the way wherein Satan managed them, and this also is fully set down by Matthew, ‘And when the tempter came to him,’ which with the other expression of Luke compared, shews us, that during the space of the forty days Satan tempted Christ, and yet came not to him till afterward—that is, he managed those temptations in an invisible way. Hence we may note,
Doct. 2. That Satan doth usually tempt in an invisible way and manner. To explain this a little, I shall evidence it by a few considerations. As,
(1.) First, That he hath a hand in all sins first or last, and then it must needs be in an invisible way. His work is to tempt, to go about laying snares to draw men to sin. Wicked men are ‘of their father the devil,’ John viii. 44, and do his works. Carnal desires are ‘his lusts;’ giving way to anger is ‘giving place to the devil,’ Eph. iv. 26, 27, and resisting of sin is called in the general, ‘a resisting of the devil,’ &c., James iv. 7. In all this work of Satan, men do not see him. When he puts evil motions into their hearts they do not perceive him, and therefore doth he his work in an invisible way.
(2.) Secondly, We have sufficient discoveries of these private paths of his: for, [1.] Sometime he tempts by friends: he tempted Job by his wife, Christ by Peter. [2.] Sometime by external objects, as he drew out Achan’s covetousness, and David’s uncleanness, by the eye. [3.] Sometime by injecting thoughts and motions to our mind. [4.] Sometime by exercising an invisible power upon our bodies, in stirring up the humours thereof, to provoke to passion or excessive mirth. All these ways, of which I have discoursed before more largely, are secret and invisible, and by such as these he most usually tempts.
(3.) Thirdly, The wiles, depths, secrets, and devices of Satan, which the Scripture tells us are his most familiar ways and courses, they in their own nature imply a studied or designed secrecy and imperceptibility.
(4.) Fourthly, He hath peculiar reasons of policy for his invisible way of dealing; for the less visible he is, the less suspicious are his designs, and consequently the less frightful and more taking. By this way he insinuates himself so into our bosoms, that he gets a party in us against ourselves before we are aware; whereas in vain he knows he should spread his net if his designs and enmity were discovered to us.