[1.] First, These temptations are very affrighting; though they prevail not, yet they are full of perplexing annoyance. Corrupt nature startles at them, and receives them not without dread and horror. It is sadly troublesome to hear others blaspheme God. ‘The reproaches of those that reproached thee,’ saith David, ‘fell upon me.’ It was as ‘a sword in his bones’ to hear the blasphemous scoffs of the wicked, when they said to him, ‘Where is thy God?’ And if it were confusion and shame to him to hear ‘the enemy reproach and blaspheme,’ as he professeth it was, Ps. xliv. 15, 16, how sadly afflicting would it be for any child of God to observe such things in his own imaginations! If there were no more in it than this, it is enough to put Satan upon that design, because it is a troublesome kind of martyrdom.[457]
[2.] Secondly, This is also a spiteful revenge against God. All he can do is to blaspheme and rage, and it is a kind of delight to put this force upon those that carry his own image. He would do all he can to make his own children to vilify and reproach their heavenly Father, and to render cursing for blessing.
[3.] Thirdly, This temptation, though it have not the consent or compliance of God’s children, yet it opens a way to many other sins, as murmuring, distrust, despair, weariness of God’s ways and services. When we find Satan thus to run upon us, it is apt to breed ‘strange thoughts of God,’ that thus permits Satan to take us by the throat, or to make us judge of ourselves as rejected of God, and given up to Satan’s power; and if it do this, his labour is not in vain; we are, as one observes,[458] more to fear his subtlety in bringing us by this into other snares, than the violence of the adversary in this suggestion.
[4.] Fourthly, This is a stratagem for laying the foundation of direful accusations. The devil in this doth as the Russians are[459] reported to do. They, when they have a spite against any of their neighbours, hide secretly some of their goods in their houses, and then accuse them of theft. When blasphemous thoughts are injected, and men refuse to consent, then Satan raiseth an accusation against them, as Joseph’s mistress did, as if they were guilty of all that blasphemy that he tempted them unto; and it is a difficult task to persuade them that these things should be in their minds, and that they should not be the proper issues of their own heart. And very often doth he from hence accuse them of sinning against the Holy Ghost, because of the hideous blasphemies which he had first suggested to them.
Applic. First, This will give us considerations of consolation, and that—(1.) In regard of others. We observe often our sick friends speak what we would not willingly hear, and it cannot choose but be sadly afflictive to hear their curses and blasphemous speeches; but when we consider the advantage that Satan takes of their distemper, if their lives heretofore have been pious and religious, we comfort ourselves in this, that it is more his malice than their own inclinations; neither should we suffer our hope or charity to be distressed on their behalf. (2.) It is the like ground of consolation for ourselves or others that are violently afflicted with blasphemous thoughts. For,
[1.] First, If we call to mind that our Lord and Master suffered such things, we that are of his household need not think we receive a strange or unusual measure in that we are molested as he was.
[2.] Secondly, If we consider that Christ was tempted without sin on his part, then may we fetch this conclusion from it, that it is possible that such thoughts should be cast upon us, and yet that we may not be chargeable with them as our iniquities.
Thirdly, We may hence see that such temptations are more frightful than hurtful. These, as one observes,[460] seldom take, they carry with them so much horror, to those that believe and love the true God, that it keeps them from a participation with Satan in the sin itself, nay, it fills them with fear and striving against it; they rather, as bugbears, scare and disquiet them, than produce the real effects of compliance with them.
Applic. Secondly, The consideration of this kind of temptation may fill the hearts and mouths of those of us as have not hitherto been troubled with it, with praise for so merciful a preservation. If we have not been under this kind of exercise, it is not from any good will that Satan hath to us, but because our God withholds a commission from him. A poor weak Christian wonders that Satan hath not made him a mark for this arrow, that he hath not broken him with this tempest. To answer that wonder, he may know that the same tenderness in God, that will not put ‘new wine into old crazy bottles,’ nor a ‘new stiff piece of cloth into an old tender garment,’ nor that will oppress the weak and infirm with strong exercise or burdens; that same tenderness of a compassionate Father doth keep off such trials, because he will not suffer them ‘to be tempted above what they are able.’
Applic. Thirdly, This temptation calls for advice to those that are under it, to whom I shall direct a few things.