[2.] Secondly, He gives the motion a further pretext of advantage or goodness. He insinuated that it might be a useful discovery of his sonship, and a profitable supply against hunger.
[3.] Thirdly, He seems also to put a necessity upon it, that other ways of help failing, he must be constrained so to do, or to suffer further want.
[4.] Fourthly, He forgets not to tell him that to do this was but suitable to his condition, and that it was a thing well becoming the Son of God to do a miracle.
[5.] Fifthly, He doth urge it at the rate of a duty, and that being in hunger and want, it would be a sinful neglect not to do what he could and might for his preservation.
The same way doth he take in other temptations; in some cases pleading all, in some most of these things, by which the means conducing thereunto may seem plausible. If he presents to men occasions of sinning, he will tell them ordinarily that they may lawfully adventure upon them, that they are harmless, nay, of advantage, as tending to the recreating of the spirits and health of the body; yea, that it is necessary for them to take such a liberty, and that in doing so, they do but what others do that profess religion. And often he hath such advantage from the circumstances of the thing, and the inclination of our heart, that he makes bold to tell us it is no less than duty. Such did the outrage of Demetrius seem to him, when he considered how much his livelihood did depend upon the Diana of the Ephesians. Paul’s zeal made him confident that persecution of Christians was his duty; neither is there anything which can pretend to any zeal, advantage, or colourable ground, but presently it takes the denomination of duty.
If any wonder that such poor and shallow pretences are not seen through by all men, they may know that this happens from a fourfold ignorance:—
(1.) First, From an ignorance of the thing itself. How easily may they be imposed upon, who know not the nature or the usual issues of things! As children are deluded to put a value upon a useless or hurtful trifle, so are men deceived and easily imposed upon in what they do not understand. And for this cause are sinners compared to birds, who are easily enticed with the bait proposed to their view as profitable and good for them, because they know not the snare that lies laid under it. This ignorance causing the mistake mentioned, is not only a simple ignorance, but also that ignorance which owes its rise to a wilful and perverse disposition,—for there are some that are willingly ignorant,—doth often lay those open to a delusion, who, through prepossession or idleness, will not be at pains to make full inquiries.
(2.) Secondly, This also comes to pass from an ignorance of our spirits: for while we either engage in the things proposed by Satan upon the general warranty of a good intention, or that we have no evil meaning in it, we are kept from a discovery of the intended design. Hence Paul saw nothing, in his persecuting the church of God, of what Satan aimed at; or while upon the pretence of a good intention, our secret corrupt principles do indeed move us underhand to any undertaking, we are as little apt to see the ends of Satan in what he propounds to us. Jehu and the disciples, Luke ix. 55, pretending a zeal for God, but really carried on by their own furious tempers, did as little as others see what the devil was doing with them.
(3.) Thirdly, The means of a temptation are rendered less suspicious, from an ignorance of the circumstances and concomitants that do attend them.
(4.) Fourthly, As also from an ignorance of our own weakness and inclination. While we are confident of greater strength to resist than indeed we have, of a greater averseness than is in us to the evil suspected, we contemn the danger of the means as below us, and so grow bold with the occasions of iniquity, as pretending no hazard or danger to us.