The end of this search is to give him light and instruction in point of advantage; hence he knows where to raise his batteries, and how to level his shot against us. This Christ plainly discovers to be the design of all his study, John xiv. 30, where he tells his disciples he expected yet another onset from Satan, and that near at hand; ‘for the prince of the world’ was then upon his motion, he was a-coming; but withal, he tells them of his security against his assaults, in that there was ‘nothing in Christ’ of advantage in any of these forementioned ways to foot a temptation upon. It appears, then, that he looks for such advantages, and that without these he hath little expectancy of prevailing.
2. Secondly, Satan having acquainted himself with our condition, makes it his next care to provide suitable temptations, and to strike in the right vein; for he loves to have his work easy and feasible, he loves not [to] go against the stream. Thus he considered Judas as a covetous person, and accordingly provided a temptation of gain for him. He did the like with Achan; and hence was it that he had the Sabeans so ready for the plunder of Job; he had observed them a people given to rapine and spoil; and accordingly, Job’s goods being propounded to them as a good and easy booty, he straightway prevailed with them. It was easy for him to draw Absalom into an open rebellion against his father; he had taken notice of his ambitious and aspiring humour, and of the grudges and dissatisfactions under which he laboured; so that, providing him a fit opportunity, he engaged him immediately. According to this rule, where he observes men of shallow heads and low parts, he the more freely imposeth upon them in things palpably absurd; where he takes notice of a fearful temper, there he tempts them with terrors and affrightful suggestions. He hath temptations proper for the sanguine complexion and for the melancholy; he hath his methods of dealing with the lustful and wanton, with the passionate and revengeful; he hath novelties at hand for the itching ear, and suggestions proper for those that are atheistically inclined.
Obj. To this may be objected, That experience tells us Satan doth not always walk in this road, nor confine himself to this rule: sometime he tempts to things which are cross to our tempers and inclinations, &c.
Ans. It is true he doth so; but yet the general rule is not prejudiced by this exception, especially if we consider,
[1.] First, That Satan being still under the commands and restraint of the Almighty, he cannot always tempt what he would, but according to a superior order and command. Of this nature I suppose was that temptation of which Paul complained so much; ‘he kept down his body,’ 1 Cor. ix. 27, upon this very design, that he might have it in subjection, and yet is he buffeted with a temptation which expected an advantage usually from the temper and frames of our bodies—for so much, I suppose, that phrase, ‘a thorn in the flesh,’ will unavoidably imply—though it still leave us at uncertainties what the temptation was in particular. Here Satan tempts at a disadvantage, and contrary to this rule; but then we must know that he was not the master of his own game—God expressly ordering such a temptation as was disagreeing with the apostle’s disposition, that it might the less prevail or hazard him, and yet be more available to keep him low, ‘lest he should be exalted above measure,’ which was God’s design in the matter.
[2.] Secondly, Sometime our temper alters; as the tempers of our bodies in a sickness may in a fit be so changed that they may desire at that time what they could not endure at another. A special occasion or concurrence of circumstances may alter for the time our constitution, and so an unusual temptation may at that time agree with this design.
[3.] Thirdly, Sometime by one temptation Satan intends but to lay the foundation of another; and then of purpose he begins with a strange suggestion, either to keep us at the gaze while he covertly doth something else against us, or to move us to a contrary extreme by an over-hasty rashness.
[4.] Fourthly, Sometime he tempts when his main design is only to trouble and disquiet us; and in such cases the most unnatural temptations, backed with a violent impetuousness, do his work the best.
3. Thirdly, Satan’s next work is the proposal of the temptation. In the two former he provided materials and laid the trains; in this he gives fire, by propounding his design; and this also he doth with caution these several ways:—
[1.] First, He makes the object speak for him, and in many he is scarce put to any further trouble: the object before them speaks Satan’s mind, and gains their consent immediately; yet is there no small cunning used in fitting the object and occasion, and bringing things about to answer the very nick of time which he takes to be advantageous for him.