_The fourth direction, of repelling a temptation by Scripture
arguments.—Of several things implied in the direction.—The necessity
of answering by Scripture arguments.—The excellency of the remedy.—How
Scripture arguments are to be managed._
The next particular in Christ’s answers to be observed by us is
his citations of Scripture as an invincible reason against all the
devil’s temptations; he beats them all back with this weapon, ‘It is
written.’ That this was written for our learning, and that, otherwise
than for our instruction, he lay not under any necessity of using
this method, hath been evidenced before, and it is a thing which
all commentators[487] do take notice of. From this we have another
direction for the right way and order of resisting temptations, which
is,
_Direct._ 4. _That temptations are best repelled by arguments drawn
from the word of God._
For the explanation of this, it may be considered what is first
_presupposed in this direction_; for when it is affirmed that we must
answer by reasons from Scripture, this implies—
(1.) First, _That temptations are not to be opposed by groundless
refusals_. It is no way safe to say we will not, because we will not,
nor to insist upon our own bare resolve; for this would be wilfulness,
rather than an obediential refusal, and unwarrantable self-confidence,
rather than a humble wrestling. There are some, of whom it may be
said, as the prophet once charged the Jews, Isa. xxii. 11, that when
Satan comes up against them, they look in that day ‘to the armour of
the house of the forest,’ they ‘repair the wall,’ and ‘cast ditches
for fortification;’ they prepare themselves to the battle ‘in their
own strength, but they look not unto the maker thereof,’ to him who
by his mighty power must fashion our hearts to resistance. The vanity
of such undertakings is enough manifested in the event, for commonly
such men go on in a bravado of resolution, but are so altered at the
first appearance of the enemy, that they yield without a stroke. Who
could be more confident than Peter that he would not deny his Master,
whatever others did? and yet how soon did his heart fail him. We may
warrantably deny a sinful motion, without being explicit in our reason
against it, especially in usual temptations, and when they thrust
themselves into our minds at such times when our thoughts are charged
with an attendance upon other duties, in which nevertheless the heart
hath a secret and implicit regard to the command of God; but in no case
must we go down to the battle in the strength of a wilfulness, lest it
go against us. And thus do they who, when they are reproved for some
miscarriage, as of drinking, will presently with great confidence make
engagements not to drink wine or strong drink, not to go into a tavern
or alehouse, without any humble respect to duty, or the power of God
for the conquest of the sin; and accordingly we see that usually such
promises and obligations do not hold; either they wilfully break them,
or they become sinfully witty to make evasions for the practice of sin,
without the breach of the oath or promise.
(2.) Secondly, The direction supposeth that _we must deny the sin with
the arguments of greatest strength and authority_. There were occasions
and hints of other answers to these temptations that offered themselves
in Christ’s way, and yet he waives them all, fixing only upon Scripture
reasons as the best and strongest. It is no Christian wisdom to urge
those inferior considerations of shame, loss, inconvenience, &c. Some
have no other reason betwixt them and sin, but _What will men say?_
or _What will become of me?_ But besides that, these would only be a
train to bring on disputings, and that it is no way safe to venture our
souls upon such defences, when better may be had; for who will venture
his life upon a staff when he may have a sword? It is easy for Satan
to break these bows, and to cut these spears in sunder. He can balance
such reasons with equal reasons, and presently make us believe that we
have as good reason to commit the sin as those urged by us for the not
committing of it.
(3.) Thirdly, This direction of using Scripture reason doth clearly
imply that _the force and power of Scripture is not in the words or
characters, but in the mind and reason of it_; not that Scripture used
as a charm or spell, as if the devil were afraid of the sound and words
of it, can beat back the devil, but it is the authority of its command
which works upon the mind the highest impressions of fear and care, and
as a strong argument prevails with us to forbear. Notwithstanding the
plainness and undeniableness of this inference, not only do ignorant
men bless themselves against the devil by repeating some phrases or
sentences of Scripture impertinently, and such as have no direct
signification of the matter in hand betwixt Satan and them, as if the
devil could not endure to hear the _paternoster_, or durst not come
within the sound of the name Jehovah, but also papists—and of them
such as might be supposed more considerate than to be carried by such
conceits—have placed a virtue in the words and sounds of Scripture,
and therefore do they command, though under some limitations and
restrictions, the hanging of sentences of Scripture about the neck
in scrolls, for the driving away of evil spirits, though in a clear
contradiction to the reason which they give in the general against
this course, which is this, that the ‘power of Scripture is not in the
figures and characters, but in the mind and understanding of it;’ and
therefore profits as ‘pondered in the heart,’ not as ‘hung about the
neck;’ and upon as slender grounds do they place a more than ordinary
virtue, in the angelical salutation, in the seven words upon the cross,
in the triumphal title, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,’ &c.[488]
Such kind of oppositions are but a mock to Satan. We cannot think to
‘bore the jaw of this leviathan with a thorn,’ or to come to him with
‘this bridle,’ or to ‘play with him as with a bird,’ [Job xli. 2;] he
durst allege scripture himself to Christ, and therefore it is not the
phrase or sound that affrights him.
(4.) Fourthly, The direction doth imply _an argumentative, proper,
and fit use of Scripture commands or promises_. We see Christ urged
not any scripture indifferently, but he used fit words, and chose to
himself select smooth stones out of this brook to sling against this
spiritual Goliath. Every temptation had an answer that doth most fully
and properly confront it. He regarded the main of the temptation, and
suffered not himself to be diverted from that prosecution, by engaging
himself in that which might have been perplexed and controversial,
though he had a fit opportunity to reprove Satan for a dishonest craft
of representing scripture in a sense of his own making, and so might
have rejected the temptation of casting himself down, as leaning upon a
false foundation, in that God did not promise in Ps. xci. to preserve
any that should presumptuously expect a protection while they run out
of God’s ways; yet he waived this answer, and opposed the assault by a
plain scripture which chargeth the contrary duty.
Secondly, Having seen what this direction doth imply in these things
that are to be removed from the sense and intendment of it, I shall
next, for ascertaining of the reality and importance of it, shew that
temptations are to be resisted by Scripture arguments, by these two
evidences:—
(1.) First, _God’s recommending of the commands of Scripture for such
a purpose_: Deut. vi. 6, ‘These words which I command thee this day,
shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine
hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes,’ &c. Whether
the latter part of the command is to be understood literally, as the
Jews apprehended and practised, though some think otherwise, is not
necessary to be asserted, seeing it is granted by all that they were
to have the commands of the law so ready in their minds and memories,
as if they had been written on their hands and upon their foreheads.
That God designed this precept for the resistance of sin and temptation
cannot be doubted, and that the advantage which might hence arise to
them was not only the information of their minds, in point of sin and
duty, is as unavoidable; for that and more is intended by that part of
the injunction, ‘These words which I command thee, shall be in thine
heart;’ but when? Besides this information, which the knowledge of the
law would afford them, and their humble compliance with it, as just
and good, which would enable them to say, ‘Thy law, O Lord, is within
my heart;’ he further enjoins them the quick and ready remembrances
of these laws, as if they were ‘frontlets between their eyes, and
signs on their hands.’ It can signify no less than this, that in so
doing they would be able to resist those motions by which Satan would
seek to engage them to the violation of these commands. Neither need
we to doubt hereof, when Christ himself hath so fully taught us, by
his own example, in resisting temptations, the particular use of the
remembrance of the law. In the New Testament the apostle is most
express in this matter: Eph. vi. 17, ‘Take the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God,’ where not only the use of Scripture commands
and promises against Satan’s suggestions is taught, but also the high
avail and potency of this weapon in reference to its end. It is called
a sword, and in that comparison it shews the active resistance which
may be made by it; and it is called, not a sword of flesh, for ‘the
weapons of our warfare are not carnal,’ but ‘of the Spirit,’ to shew
how mighty it is in repelling Satan.
(2.) Secondly, Another evidence of its usefulness is from _the success
which the children of God have had in the right management of this
weapon_. It is observable that while Christ answered by Scripture,
Satan was silenced, and had not what to reply to the answer, but was
forced to betake himself to a new temptation. David in many places
highly magnifies the power of the command, in the success he had by
it; Ps. xvii. 4, he shews how available it was to preserve him in his
common converse from the sinful snares laid before him, ‘Concerning
the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the
paths of the destroyer.’ In Ps. xviii. 22, 23, he tells us that he was
shielded from the sins of his inclination and love, which are hardest
to prevent, by the opposition that he gave to the motions of them, in
setting up the statutes of God against them; ‘All his judgments were
before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me; I was also
upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity.’ In Ps. cxix.
11, he puts his _probatum est_ upon the head of this receipt, and
speaks of it as his constant refuge, ‘Thy word have I hid in my heart,
that I might not sin against thee.’ In Ps. xxxvii. 31, he speaks of it
as a tried case of common experience to all the children of God, ‘The
law of God is in his heart, none of his steps shall slide.’ I shall
add to this the experience of Luther, when, saith he, in Epistle to
the Galatians, ‘the motions of the flesh do rage, the only remedy
is, to take the sword of the Spirit, that is, the word of salvation,
and to fight against them; of this I myself have good experience; I
have suffered many great passions and vehement, but so soon as I laid
hold of any place of Scripture, and stayed myself upon it, as upon an
anchor, straightway my temptations did vanish away, which without the
word had been impossible for me to endure, though but a little space,
much less to overcome.’[489]
(3.) Thirdly, The excellency of this remedy will further appear from
these following reasons:—
[1.] First, In that it is _a universal remedy_. There can be no
temptation, either of seducement or of affrightment, but the Scripture
will afford a suitable promise or command to repel it. So that it,
like the flaming sword in the cherubim’s hand at paradise, turns every
way to guard the soul. I need not give instances of its power against
sinful motions, having done that already, and of such temptations
which war against the peace of the soul. I need but say this in the
general, that as the nature of such temptations is to disguise God,
and to render him dreadful to us, in the appearances of wrath and
incompassionate implacableness—and this Luther sets down as a certain
rule—so have we in Scripture such declarations of the mind and tender
inclinations of God, and such full and clear promises to assure us of
this, and those so adapted to every case, to every kind of hard thought
which we might take up against him, that we may find enough in them
to break all those malicious misrepresentations of Satan, and to keep
up in our mind ‘right thoughts of God;’ which if we will adhere to,
not suffering such promises to be wrested out of our hands, nor our
hearts to give way to malignant impressions of cruelty, revenge, or
unmercifulness in God, though we be cast into darkness, into the deeps,
we may find some bottom on which to fix such beginnings of hope, as
may at last grow up to a spirit of rejoicing in God our Saviour; and
in this case, when our heart and Satan dictate to us that God is our
enemy, we ought, as it were, to shut our eyes, to refuse to hearken to
our own sense and feeling, and to follow the word; but if we once give
up the word of promise, it is impossible the wound of conscience should
be healed with any other consideration.
[2.] Secondly, _This remedy is comprehensive of most other remedies
against Satan’s temptations_. In Eph. vi., there are several other
pieces of spiritual armour recommended, and yet there is such a
manifest mutual respect betwixt this and those, that any may conclude
that however they be distinguished in their names, yet they are
conjoined in their operation. The girdle, so far as it relates to
truth of judgment and opinion, depends on the word of Scripture for
information; the shoes, which are defensive resolves to walk with a
steady foot in the ways of religion, notwithstanding the hardships
that attend holiness, are prepared to us, by the comfortable and
peace-bringing promises of the gospel; the righteousness which is our
breastplate, is only set forth and wrought out to us by the Scripture
and its ordinances; faith which is our shield, and hope which is our
helmet, they neither of them act without the warrant and encouragement
of it; and whereas other parts of the armour are defensive, this of
the Scripture is compared to the sword, which not only defends, but
also offends and beats back the enemy. If the matter be seriously
considered, all these parts of armour are but these two, the graces
of the Spirit—faith, hope, patience in their sincere exercise, and
the word of Scripture as the instrument by and in which they shew
their operations; so that all this armour being put to use, in every
particular temptation, it amounts to no more than this we are speaking
of, viz., that sinful motions are to be rejected by a believing,
sincerely resolute opposing of them, with arguments from the word of
God.
[3.] Thirdly, Scripture, as it is the word and command of the great
King of heaven, hath _a daunting and commanding authority over the
consciences of men_. ‘Where the word of a king is, there is power,’
Eccles. viii. 4, and such is the majesty of a divine law, that it hath
power over the consciences of those that are yet in their sins, and can
wound, affright, constrain, and bind even the rebellious; so that so
long as they retain any of their natural impressions of a divine power,
they have some awe for his commands, which may be seen and argued,
where it would be least expected, from the enragement of the hearts
of sinners, when ‘sin by the commandment,’ accidentally, ‘becomes
exceeding sinful,’ Rom. vii. 13, 14. For as that outrageous fierceness
doth arise from the contrariety that is betwixt a carnal heart and a
spiritual law; so that contrariety would never work if the authority of
that law, having a power to restrain, and give check to the corruption
of the heart, were not some way owned by the conscience; for where no
countermanding law is owned, there can be no irritating, provoking
restraint. This it can do to the vilest of men; but of how much more
power may we imagine the word to be with good men, whose hearts tremble
at the word, when they ‘bind the law upon their heart,’ and charge
their consciences with it? It is surely ‘quick and powerful, sharper
than a two-edged sword,’ [Heb. iv. 12;] nor doth it only, by unlovely
affrightments, terrify them from sin, but by commanding duty make the
heart in love with it, so that it becomes a delightful satisfaction to
be preserved from the snare.[490]
[4.] Fourthly, There is no argument that can be used against
temptations that can be more _afflictively discouraging to Satan_.
Satan, as bad as he is, cannot but believe those truths which he knows,
and he knows that there are many truths in Scripture which respect
him, as threatenings of punishment and divine vengeance; he believes
these things and trembles, James ii. 19. His unavoidable knowledge or
remembrance of these things begets horror in him, he cannot but be
under a dread of these truths. What can be supposed so to wound him
as the bringing these things to memory, by urging the command of God
against him? Dr Arrowsmith[491] gives two instances of this kind, the
one of Christopher Haas in Sweedland—from the epistle dedicatory to
the five tomes of Brentius’s works—the other of Daniel Cramer, rector
of a school at Stettin in Germany; on both which the devil made a bold
attempt in a personal appearance; from the first, demanding a catalogue
of his sins in writing; from the other, demanding a paper in which
one of the students had obliged himself to Satan’s service; they both
referred him to that text of Gen. iii. 15, ‘The seed of the woman shall
bruise the head of the serpent.’ And this was retorted upon him with
such a strong exercise of faith, that he presently desisted the suit
and vanished.
[5.] Fifthly, _This weapon cannot easily he wrested out of our hands_.
When we urge a divine prohibition against a temptation, what can he
say in answer? he cannot deny it to be the word of God, or to be true,
or that we are not obliged to it. He made none of these returns to
Christ, but, by his silence, owned that it was God’s holy command
obliging us to duty. Neither dares he stand upon these exceptions to
us, except he find our faith inclined to waver, or our minds weak and
wounded by inward troubles of spirit; and when he puts on a boldness
to deny Scripture to be the word of God, or that it signifies God’s
real intendments in his threatening—for by begetting unbelief of the
truth of Scripture, and by suggesting hopes of escape and pardon,
notwithstanding the violation of the commands of it, he wrests, when he
doth prevail, this weapon out of our hands—yet he is forced to fetch
a compass, and by many previous insinuations to make his way to these
atheistical assertions. Thus he did with Eve, first, finding her a
little inclinable, he dropped in privily something that might argue the
improbability of the threatened penalty, and then at last positively
denied it. But now if we hold to this, that ‘the command is true and
holy, and just and good,’ he cannot wrest our plea from us.
[6.] Sixthly, _Nothing doth more undermine temptations, by rendering
the reasons and motives thereof vain and empty, than doth the contrary
commands of Scripture_. Temptation hath always some enticement of
pleasure or profit, and these only seem to be taking or reasonable,
while we consider not the word of God, as rotten wood or fish shine
only in the dark; but when we are urged with sinful pleasures, how
mean, base, dangerous, and unlovely be they, when the command to the
contrary gives information that they are snares and lead to death, or
the provocation of the Almighty.
[7.] Seventhly, _While we resist with Scripture arguments, we engage
God, whose command we would stand by, to go down to the battle with
us_. We ‘lay hold upon his strength,’ and put obligations upon him
to take us out of the snare, and to deliver us from him who is ‘too
strong’ for us.
(4.) Fourthly, It remains that, in a word, I shew _how the commands or
arguments of Scripture are to be used in resisting Satan_, which is
thus, When you have any sinful thought cast into your mind, presently
reject the offer, by charging your heart with duty, from some opposite
command; as if you be urged to acts of uncleanness, presently refuse,
thus; No, I must not, God hath commanded the contrary, he hath said,
‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ If a covetous thought arise, reject
it with this, God hath said, ‘Thou shalt not covet.’ If you be tempted
to please the flesh, and follow vain delights, answer it with this, ‘If
ye live after the flesh, ye shall die;’ and the like must be done in
other temptations.
_Obj._ Some may perhaps think that this is easy work and quickly done,
and that it seems to attribute a virtue and power to the words of
Scripture, as if Satan were charmed by the language or phrase.
_Ans._ However at the first view this may seem easy, yet he that shall
consider how much exercise of grace goes necessarily to the right use
of Scripture opposition, shall not see cause to slight it as common,
nor yet to think that any virtue is attributed to the words. For,
[1.] First, The Scripture here is only recommended _as a fit
instrument, and no further or higher praise is given_. Though therefore
we may attribute the whole of the conquest to the instrument alone,
yet this hinders not, but that as an instrument peculiarly fitted for
these ends, we may commend it above all other instruments, as we may
justly commend bread for nourishing above a stone, and expect more
from it than from a chip; so have we reason to expect more by the use
of Scripture against Satan, than from other means of defence which God
hath not set up for that service.
[2.] Secondly, _It is a concomitancy of divine power and aid that
conquers for us_. The instrument is Scripture, but the power by which
it works is from God.
[3.] Thirdly, _Neither is it any careless formal use of Scripture
expressions that will give encouragement for expectation of a divine
concurrence_; but the use of Scripture in this business implies an
exercise of all graces, for it is an urging of Scripture under a
fourfold consideration.
_First_, As being certainly persuaded of their truth, and fully keeping
to that belief.
_Secondly_, As being thankfully apprehensive of the holiness, goodness,
and profitableness of the commands, and cheerfully adhering to them
as the only way and means to bring us to union with Christ, and to
preserve us in it.
_Thirdly_, As being highly and indispensably obliged by them to perform
the duty commanded therein, and to avoid the sins forbidden.
_Fourthly_, All this in a humble expectation of a divine help,
according to the promise of God. Now he that can plead the command or
promise against a temptation in this manner, doth not do an ordinary
work, neither will he ascribe the success to the words and phrase of
Scripture.
Some may, peradventure, wonder why Christ, by his example, had not
recommended prayer, seeing it is of such unquestionable use in our
undertakings against Satan. But that inquiry may be fully satisfied,
if it be considered that Christ did peculiarly prepare himself to this
encounter by ‘solemn fasting,’ ver. 2, which doth include praying;
for such complicated duties are often denominated by that part which
is extraordinary, and usually in Scripture a fast is only mentioned
where prayer is chiefly intended. That this fast of Christ related to
the temptation, and that also as a means of preservation, hath been
spoken of in its place; it remains only that from hence I add a fifth
direction.