Direct. 3. Temptations are best answered when they are presently denied and forthwith repelled. The direction is of great importance; it is not for us to pass by a temptation with silence, or to defer an answer. For these reasons:—
(1.) First, The nature of temptations, as dangerous or infectious, doth sufficiently enforce a necessity of their speedy removal. Things of danger require a sudden stop. If poison be taken into the body, we speedily labour to cast it up, or to overcome it by antidotes. We labour to stay the spreading of a gangrene presently. Who thinks it fit to delay when fire hath taken hold upon a house? The very opportunity of help is in the speediness of the endeavour. It is too late to bring water when the house is consumed, too late to apply a remedy when the disease hath conquered. They that consider what a temptation is, will see no reason to move slowly in opposing.[482]
(2.) Secondly, Silence encourageth Satan. It is not with him as it is with men; it is the policy of some to overlook their petitioners, and by silence to scare them from any further address; but Satan hath more impudence than to be put out of countenance by delay, and more active malice than to be discouraged by silence; nay, it doth on the contrary embolden him. Modest requests are disheartened by silence, but such motions which, by their nature, imply a disgrace, and carry no reason for their acceptance but what they expect to find in the consent of those to whom they are made, if they be not presently refused, they give encouragement to hope for entertainment. An immodest request to a chaste matron, if not forthwith expressly abominated, encourageth to further attempts. Sin being so great an affront to a holy heart, the motion of it cannot be entertained with silence, but Satan is emboldened to expect consent in time, and follows his advantage accordingly. He usually flies at a valiant peremptory resistance; but if the pulse of the soul beat slowly upon the motion, he grounds his hope upon that, and is animated to a further procedure.
(3.) Thirdly, Our wills are apt to be inclined by delay. Though grace have made straight our crooked natures, yet we still carry such a sway to our former dispositions, that a small thing, having the advantage of our natural bias and inclination, makes us, like a deceitful bow, turn to our old stand. For the understanding and will of the regenerate are but imperfectly good, the faculties that should obey are unruly. In such a case how dangerous may delays prove! Who will suffer a seditious incendiary in an army, formerly inclined to mutiny? Who will permit leaven to remain in that mass, which he desires may not be leavened, and not quickly remove it? Who will neglect a spark upon dry tinder, that would not have it consumed, and not instantly put it out? If it was so great a mischief to Eve in innocency, as hath been said, to delay her peremptory denial, of how much greater hazard is it to us! Delays are dangerous to a very proverb, and silence may end in consent.
(4.) Fourthly, Silence is also some degree of consent. It is strange to find a man delaying an answer to temptation, and yet no way guilty of consenting. In things that are to be opposed with care and hatred, no man can withhold his hand without blame. He that is not against Satan, who is to be perpetually resisted, is so far for him as he is not against him. He that delays justice which is due, denies it. The judge in the parable was called unjust, not because he had devoured the widow’s house, but because he deferred to do her right.[483] He that hinders not evil when and as soon as he can, doth command and approve it. These are received axioms amongst men, and have the same truth in them if applied to resistance of temptations. And this may further appear by considering, [1.] The weakness of the will in the regenerate. When our wills are really set upon good and against evil, yet we cannot say they are perfectly for the one and against the other, but that there is still some degree of averseness to good, and of inclination to evil in our wills, or else we should not meet with complainings of imperfections under sincere resistances; as in the apostle, ‘The evil that I would not, that do I,’ [Rom. vii. 19.] [2.] The acts of the will in consenting may be so sudden, short, and quick, that they may be almost insensible, and as forward and ready as the motion. [3.] The will may be interpretatively voluntary and consenting, when yet it forms not in itself any positive approbation. It may be guilty, in that it doth not more strongly and speedily dissent: for the suspension or negation of the will’s act, where it ought to act, cannot avoid the charge of coming short of duty.
(5.) Fifthly, Not to answer presently, is to lose the best opportunity of answering. It is less dangerous, more easy, more comfortable to be speedy in denial. The sooner fire is put out, or the disease is stayed, the less hurt is done; and it is far less labour to quench a spark than a flame; to pluck up a young plant than an old standard; to kill the cockatrice in the egg. A temptation opposed speedily, is with greater ease overcome, than after it hath settled though but a little: for it presently makes a party within us; our affections are soon engaged, our understanding soon bribed, and then we have not only Satan but ourselves to oppose; and this self so divided, that when we come to fight, our wills are against our wills, our affections against our affections, our wishes and prayers clash and contradict each other. As Austin confesseth of himself: ‘I prayed,’ said he, ‘and then feared lest thou shouldst hear me too soon; I desired to satisfy, rather than to extinguish lust.’[484] At the first assault the soul is oft in a better posture, more unanimous and consistent with itself; then is the golden opportunity of resistance. For, as one saith,[485] it is better to do it while reason is on our side, than when both reason and affection conspire against us. And, lastly, it would be more honour and satisfaction to us, rather not to have admitted such a guest, than after such admittance into our thoughts to be forced to cast him out.[486] In the review of our actions we shall have more comfort to have been resolute against any sin than to hold our peace.
The necessity of a quick and speedy rejection of a sinful motion is then beyond dispute, and there needs no more to be said for the explanation of this direction, but an account of what is implied in a speedy denial. It contains these four things:—
[1.] First, That it must issue from a fixed determination against sin. Some refuse a temptation with the same mind that carried Lot’s wife out of Sodom, and are forced beyond their own inclination, but these go not far till they ‘look back;’ and no wonder: for if he that is sincerely peremptory against sin at the first motion, may by the solicitation of the flesh be inclined afterward, there is little expectation that he whom the first motion finds indifferent and but coldly denying, should hold out long. But that refusal that must give any encouragement to hopes of success, must be an answer of holy indignation against the offer of temptation, and that confirmed into a serious resolve of heart not to yield.
[2.] Secondly, This positive denial must be also wisely jealous of Satan, in motions that are unlikely, or that may seem light, little, and not directly intended. Though it may be but a transient glance, or a thing that is out of our road, yet must nothing be contemned or undervalued. Jealousy will take notice of small actions or circumstances, and no less suspicious must we be of every proffer made to us, lest Satan by any means get an advantage against us.
[3.] Thirdly, The refusal must be so quick, that it may be ready to take the temptation by the throat. At the first motion or rising of it in our mind, we must endeavour to stifle it in the birth, that it may be as the ‘untimely fruit of a woman that never sees the sun,’ [Job iii. 16;] we must not give it time to grow up to a rod of wickedness, but must nip it in the earliest buddings of it. It is the nature of grace, if we do but faithfully pursue the inclinations of it, to be quick in its opposition. So doth the apostle’s phrase teach us, Gal. v. 17, ‘The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh:’ the spirit is as ready to repel, as the flesh to suggest. No sooner doth the one stir, but the other is ready with an opposition, and the reason of it is from the active contrariety that is betwixt them; for so the word, ἀντίκειται, there used, would express it; they are sworn enemies, animated by principles of constant opposition, as water and fire are, which cannot meet in peace together, but a present noise and combat is raised from this conjunction.