PART 2-Reproof To Such As Are Not True Wrestlers

  (2.) The Spirit strives with men more imme­diately, when he makes his inward approaches to the consciences of men, debating in their own bosoms the case with them.  One while he shows them their sins in their bloody colours, and whither they shall surely bring them, if not looked to timely, which he doth so convincingly, that the creature smells sometimes the very fire and brimstone about him, and is at present in a temporary hell; another while he falls a parleying and treating with them, making gracious overtures to the sinner, if he will return at his reproof, presents the grace of the gospel, and opens a door of hope for his recovery, yea, falls a wooing and beseeching of him to throw down his rebellious arms, and come to Christ for life, whose heart is in a present disposition to receive and embrace the first motion the returning sinner makes for mercy.  Now when the Spirit of God follows the sinner from place to place, and time to time, suggesting such motions, and renewing his old suit, and the creature shall fling out of the Spirit's hands, thus striving with him, [the thing being unac­complished], as far from renouncing his lusts, or tak­ing any liking to Christ as ever.  This is to resist the Spirit to his face, and it carries so much malignity in it, that even where it hath not been final, poor hum­bled souls [so] over-set with the horror of it, that they could not for a long time be persuaded but that it was the unpardonable sin.  Take heed therefore, sinners, how you use the Spirit when he comes knocking at the door of your hearts.  Open at his knock, and he will be your guest; you shall have his sweet company. Repulse him, and you have not a promise he will knock again.  And if once he leave striving with thee, unhappy man, thou art lost for ever; thou liest like a ship cast up by the waves upon some high rock, where the tide [will] never come to fetch it off.  Thou may­est come to the Word, converse with other ordin­ances, but in vain.  It is the Spirit in them, which is both tide and wind, to set the soul afloat, and carry it on, or else it lies like a ship on dry ground which stirs not.

2. We wrestle against God when we wrestle with is providence;and that in two ways.

           (1.) When we are discontented with his provi­dential disposure of us.  God's carving for us doth not please us so, but that we are objecting against his dealings towards us, at least muttering something with the fool in our hearts, which God hears as lightly as man our words.  God counts then we begin to quarrel with him, when we do not acquiesce in, and say amen to his providence, whatever it is.  He calls it a contending with the Almighty, Job 40:2, yea, a re­proving of God.  And he is a bold man sure that dare find fault with God, and article against heaven.  God challengeth him, whoever he is, that doth this, to ans­wer it at his peril.  ‘He that reproveth God, let him answer it,’ ver. 2 of the chapter forementioned.  It was high time for Job to have done, when he hears what a sense God puts upon those unwary words which dropped from him in the anguish of his spirit and paroxysm of his sufferings.  Contend with the Almighty?  Reprove God?  Good man, how blank he is, and cries out, I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.  Let God but par­don what is past, and he shall hear such language no more.  O, sirs, Take heed of this wrestling above all other.  Contention is uncomfortable, with whomso­ever it is we fall out—Neighbours or friends, wife or husband, children or servants, but worst of all with God.  If God cannot please thee, but thy heart riseth against him, what hopes are there of thy pleasing him, who will take nothing kindly from that man who is angry with him?  And how can love to God be pre­served in a discontented heart, that is always mut­tering against him?  Love cannot think any evil of God, nor endure to hear any speak evil of him, but it must take God's part, as Jonathan David’s, when Saul spake basely of him; and when it cannot be heard, will like him arise and be gone.  When afflicted, love can allow thee to groan, but not to grumble.  If thou wilt ease thy encumbered spirit into God's bosom by prayer, and humbly wrestle with God on thy knees, love is for thee, and will help thee to the best argu­ments thou canst use to God; but if thou wilt vent thy distempered passions, and show a mutinous spirit against God, this stabs it to the heart.
           (2.) We wrestle against providence, when incor­rigible under the various dispensations of God toward us.  Providence has a voice if we had an ear.  Mercies should draw, afflictions drive.  Now when neither fair means nor foul do is good, but we are impenitent under both; this is to wrestle against God with both hands.  Either of these have their peculiar aggrava­tions: one is against love, and so disingenuous; the other is against the smart of his rod, and therein we slight his anger, and are cruel to ourselves in kicking against the pricks.  Mercy should make us ashamed, wrath afraid to sin.  He that is not ashamed, has not the spirit of a man. He that is not afraid when smit­ten, is worse than the beast who stands in awe of whip and spur.  Sometimes mercy, especially these outward mercies, which have a pleasing relish to the carnal part in a Christian, hath proved a snare to the best of men, but then affliction useth to recover them.  But when affliction makes men worse, and they harden themselves against God, to sin more and more while the rod is on them; what is like to reclaim them?  Few are made better by prosperity, whom af­flictions make worse.  He that will sin, though he goes in pain, will much more, if that once be gone. But take heed of this contesting with God.  There is nothing got by scuffling with God, but blows, or worse.  If he say he will afflict thee no more, it is even the worst he can say; it is as much as if he should say he will be in thy debt till another world, and there pay thee altogether.  But if he means thee mercy, thou shalt hear from him in some sharper affliction than ever.  He hath wedges that can rive thee, wert thou a more knotty piece than thou art.  Are there yet the treasures of wickedness, and the scant measure that is abominable? saith god to Israel.  What! incorrig­ible, though the Lord's voice crieth unto the city, Micah 6:9, bidding you hear the rod, and him that hath appointed it?  See what course God resolves on. Therefore will I make thee sick in smiting of thee, ver. 13.  As if he had said, My other physic, I see, was too weak, it did not work or turn your stomach, but I will prepare a potion that shall make you sick at heart.
        

PART 1-Reproof To Such As Are Not True Wrestlers

  First.  This may reprove such as wrestle; but against whom? against God, not against sin and Satan.  These are bold men indeed, who dare try a fall with the Almighty; yet such there are, and a woe [is] pronounced against them, Isa. 45:9 ‘Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker.’  It is easy to tell which of these will be worsted.  What can he do but break his shins that dasheth them against a rock?  A goodly battle there is like to be, when thorns contest with fire, and stubble with flame.  But where live those giants that dare enter the list with the great God? What are their names, that we may know them, and brand them for creatures above all other unworthy to live?  Take heed, O thou who askest, that the wretched man whom thou seekest so to defy, be not found in thy own clothes itself.  Judas was the traitor, though he would not answer to his name, but put it off with a ‘Master, is it I?’  And so mayest thou be the fighter against God.  The heart is deceitful.  Even holy David, for all his anger, was so hot against the rich man, that took away the poor man’s ewe-lamb, that he bound it with an oath, [that] the man should not live who had done it, yet proves at last to be himself the man, as the prophet told him, II Sam. 12. Now there are two ways wherein men wrestle against God.  1. When they wrestle against his Spirit,  2. When they wrestle against his providence.

1. When the wrestle against his Spirit.  We read of the Spirit striving against the creature, ‘My spirit shall not always strive with man,’ Gen. 6:3, where the striving is not in anger and wrath to destroy them —that God could do without any stir or scuffle—but a loving strife and contest with man.  The old world was running with such a career headlong into their ruin, [that] he sends his Spirit to interpose, and by his counsels and reproofs to offer, as it were, to stop them and reclaim them; as if one seeing another ready to offer violence on himself, should strive to get the knife out of his hand, with which he would do the mischief; or one that hath a purse of gold in his hand to give, should follow another by all manner of en­treaties, striving with him to accept and take it.  Such a kind of strife is this of the Spirit's with men.  They are the lusts of men—those bloody instruments of death, with which sinners are mischieving themselves —that the Holy Spirit strives by his sweet counsels and entreaties to get out of our hands.  They are Christ's grace and eternal life [that] he strives to make us accept at the hands of God's mercy; and for repulsing the Spirit thus striving with them, sinners are justly counted fighters against God.  ‘Ye stiff­necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost,’ Acts 7:51.  Now there is a twofold striving of the Spirit, and so of our wrestling against it.

   (1.) The Spirit strives in his messengers with sinners.  They coming on his errand, and not their own, he voucheth the faithful counsels, reproofs, and exhortations which they give us as his own act. [What] Noah, that preacher of righteousness, said to the old world is called the preaching of the Spirit, I Peter 3:19.  The pains that Moses, Aaron, and other servants of God took in instructing Israel, is called the instruction of the Spirit, Neh. 9:20; so that when the word, which God's ministers bring in his name, is rejected, the faithful counsels they give are thrown at sinners' heels and made light of; then do they strive with the Spirit, and wrestle against Christ as really, as if he visibly in his own person had been in the pulpit, and preached the same sermon to them.  When God comes to reckon with sinners, it will prove so.  Then God will rub up your memories, and mind you of his striving with you, and your unkind resisting him.  They, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, shall know here hath been a prophet among them, Eze. 2:5.  Now men soon forget whom and what they hear.  Ask them what was pressed upon their consciences in such a sermon.  They have forgot.  What were the precious truths laid out in another? —and they are lost.  And well were it for them if their memories were no better in another world; it would ease their torments more than a little.  But then they shall know they had a prophet among them, and what a price they had with them in their hands, though it was in fools’ keeping.  They shall know what he was, and what he said, though a thousand years past, as fresh as if it were done but last night.  The more zealous and compassionate, the more painful and powerful he was in his place, the greater shall their sin be found, to break from such holy violence of­fered to do them good.  Surely God will have some­thing for their sweat, yea, lives of his servants which were worn out in striving with such rebellious ones. May be yet, sinners, your firmament is clear, no cloud to be seen that portends a storm; but know, as you use to say, winter does not rot in the clouds; you shall have it at last.  Every threatening which your faithful ministers have denounced against you out of the Word, God is bound to make good.  He con­firmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel of his messengers, Isa. 44:26, and that in judgment against sinners, confirming the threatenings, as well as in mercy performing the promises, which they declare as the portion of his children.  But it will be time enough to ask such on a sick-bed, or a dying hour, whether the words of the Lord delivered by their faithful preachers have not taken hold of them.  Some have confessed with horror [that] they have; as the Jews—‘Like as the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us, so hath he dealt with us,’ Zech. 1:6.

    

The Christian's Life Here Is a Continual Wrestling With Sin and Satan

The Christian's life here is a continual wrestling with sin and Satan

           

Doctrine.  The Christian’s life is a continual wrestling.  He is, as Jeremiah said of himself, born ‘a man of strife.’  Or what the prophet [said] to Asa, may be said to every Christian; ‘From hence thou shalt have wars:’ from thy spiritual birth to thy nat­ural death; from the hour when thou first didst set thy face to heaven, till thou shalt set thy foot in heaven.  Israel's march out of Egypt was, in gospel-sense, our taking the field against sin and Satan; and when had they peace?—not till they lodged their colours in Canaan.  No condition wherein the Chris­tian is, here below, is quiet.  Is it prosperity or adver­sity? here is work for both hands, to keep pride and security down in the one, faith and patience up in the other; no place which the Christian can call privileged ground.  Lot in Sodom wrestled with the wicked in­habitants thereof; his righteous soul being vexed with their unclean conversation.  And how fares he at Zoar?  Do not his own daughters bring a spark of Sodom's fire into his own bed, whereby he is inflamed with lust?  Some have thought if they were but in such a family, under such a ministry, out of such occasions, O then they should never be tempted as now they are!  I confess change of air is a great help to weak nature, and these forenamed as vantage-ground against Satan; but thinkest thou to fly from Satan's presence thus?  No, though thou shouldst take the wings of the morning he would fly after thee; these may make him change his method in tempting, but not lay down his designs; so long as his old friend is alive within, he will be knocking at thy door without.  No duty can be performed without wres­tling.  The Christian needs his sword as much as his trowel.  He wrestles with a body of flesh; [and] this to the Christian in duty is as the beast to the traveller, he cannot go his journey without it, and [has] much ado to go with it.  If the flesh be kept high and lusty, then it is wanton and will not obey; if low, then it is weak and soon tires.  Thus the Christian rids but little ground, because he must go his weak body's pace.  He wrestles with a body of sin as well as of flesh; this mutters and murmurs when the soul is taking up any duty, so that he cannot do what he would.  As Paul said, I would have come once and again, but Satan hindered me.  I would have prayed, may the Christian say, at such a time, and meditated on the word I heard, the mercies I received at another [time], but this enemy hindered.  It is true indeed, grace sways the sceptre in such a soul; yet, as school-boys taking their time when the master is abroad, do shut him out, and for a while lord it in misrule, though they are whipped for it afterwards, thus the unregenerate part takes advantage when grace is not on its watch to disturb its government, and shut it out from duty.  Though this at last makes the soul more severe in mortifying, yet it costs some scuffle before it can recover its throne; and when it cannot shut from duty, yet is the Christian woefully yoked with it in duty.  It cannot do what it doth as it would.  Many a letter in its copy doth this enemy spoil, while he jogs him with impertinent thoughts.  When the Chris­tian is a praying, then Satan and the flesh are a prating; he cries, and they louder to put him out or drown his cry.  Thus we see the Christian is assailed on every side by his enemy; and how can it be other, when the seeds of war are laid deep in the natures of both, which can never be rooted up till the devil cease to be a devil, sin to be sin, and the saint to be a saint? Though wolves may snarl at one another, yet are soon quiet again, because the quarrel is not in their nature; but the wolf and the lamb can never be made friends. Sin will lust against grace, and grace draw upon sin, whenever they meet.

THE NATURE OF THE WAR IS SET OUT BY THIS WORD 'WRESTLING'

The nature of the War is set out by this word Wrestling.

‘For we wrestle,’ Eph. 6:12.

The nature of the War is set out by this word Wrestling‘For we wrestle,’ Eph. 6:12.

  The Christian's state in this life [is] set out by this word wrestling.  The wrestling or conflicting state of a Christian in this life is rendered observable here by a threefold circumstance.  First, The sharpness of the combat.  Second, The universality of the combat.  Third,the permanency of the combat.

           First.  The sharpness of the combat.  The kind of combat which the Christian's state is here set out by, is the phrase translated ‘we wrestle’, which though it be used sometimes for a wrestling of sport and recreation, yet [is used] here to set out the sharp­ness of the Christian's encounter.  There are two things in wrestling that render it a sharper combat than others.

           First.  It is a single combat.  Wrestling is not properly fighting against a multitude, but when one enemy singles out another, and enters the list with him, each exerting their whole force and strength against one another; as David and Goliath, when the whole armies stood as it were in a ring to behold the bloody issue of that duel.  Now this is more fierce than to fight in an army, where though the battle be sharp and long, the soldier is not always engaged, but falls off when he has discharged, and takes breath a while; yea, possibly may escape without hurt or stroke, because there the enemy's aim is not at this or that man, but at the whole heap.  In wrestling [how­ever] one cannot escape so; he being the partic­ular object of the enemy's fury, must needs be shaken and tried to purpose.  Indeed the word ‘wrestling’ signifies such a strife as makes the body shake again.  Satan hath not only a general malice against the army of saints, but a spite against thee John, thee Joan; he will single thee out for his enemy.  We find Jacob when alone, a man wrestled with him.  As God de­lights to have private communion with his single saints, so the devil [delights] to try it hand to hand with the Christian when he gets him alone.  As we lose much comfort when we do not apply the promise and providence of God to our particular persons and conditions—God loves me,pardons me, takes care of me.  The water at the town-conduit doth me no good, if I want a pipe to empty it into my cistern; so it ob­structs our care and watchfulness, when we conceive of Satan's wrath and fury as bent in general against the saints, and not against me in particular.  O how careful would a soul be in duty, if, as going to church or closet, he had such a serious meditation as this: Now Satan is at my heels to hinder me in my work, if my God help me not!

           Second.  It is a close combat.  Armies fight at some distance.  Wrestlers grapple hand to hand.  An arrow shot from afar may be seen and shunned, but when the enemy hath hold of one there is no decli­ning, but either he must resist manfully, or fall shamefully at his enemy's foot.  Satan comes close up, and gets within the Christian, takes his hold of his very flesh and corrupt nature, and by this shakes him.

           Second.  The universality of the combat.  ‘We wrestle’ comprehends all.  On purpose you may per­ceive the apostle changeth the pronoun ye in the for­mer verse, into we in this, that he may include himself as well as them; as if he had said, The quarrel is with every saint.  Satan neither fears to assault the minister, nor despiseth to wrestle with the meanest saint in the congregation.  Great and small, minister and people, all must wrestle; not one part of Christ’s army in the field, and the other at ease in their quarters, where no enemy comes.  Here are enemies enough to engage all at once.

           Third. The permanency or duration of this combat; and that lies in the tense we wrestle.  Not, our wrestling was at first conversion, but now over, and we passed the pikes; not, we shall wrestle when sickness comes, and death comes; but our wrestling is; the enemy is ever in sight of us, yea, in fight with us.  There is an evil of every day's temptation, which, like Paul's bonds, abides us wherever we be come.  So that these particulars summed up will amount to this point.

APPLICATION OF: The Certainty of Standing Against All SATAN'S Wiles If We Be Thus Armed

       

 Use First.  This affords a reason why God suffers his dear children to fall into temptation, be­cause he is able to outshoot Satan in his own bow, and in the thing wherein he thinks to outwit the Christian to be above him.  God will not only be admired by his saints in glory for his love in their salvation, but for his wisdom in the way to it.  The love of God in saving them will be the sweet draught at the marriage-feast, and the rare wisdom of God in effecting this, as the curious workmanship with which the cup will be enamelled.  Now wisdom ap­pears most in untying knots and wading through difficulties.  The more cross wards there are in a business, the more wisdom to fit a key to the lock, to make choice of such means as shall meet with the several turnings in the same.  On purpose therefore doth God suffer such temptations to intervene, that his wisdom may be the more admired in opening all these, and leading his saints that way to glory, by which Satan thought to have brought them to hell. The Israelites are bid remember all the way that God led them in the wilderness for forty years, Deut. 8:2. The history of these wars, Christian, will be pleasant to read in heaven, though bloody to fight on earth. Moses and Elias talked with Christ on Tabor—an emblem of the sweet communion which shall pass between Christ and his saints in glory,—and what was their talk, but of his death and sufferings? Luke 9:30.  It seems a discourse of our sufferings and temp­tations is not too low a subject for that blissful state. Indeed this left out, would make a blemish in the fair face of heaven's glory.  Could the damned forget he way they went into hell, how oft the Spirit of God was wooing, and how far they were overcome by the conviction of it; in a word, how many turns and returns there were in their journey forward and backward, what possibilities, yea, probabilities they had for heaven, when on earth; were but some hand so kind as to blot these tormenting passages out of their memories, it would ease them wonderfully.  So, were it possible, glorified saints could forget the way wherein they went to glory, and the several dangers that intervened from Satan and their own backsliding hearts, they and their God too would be losers by it, I mean in regard to his manifestative glory.  What is the glory wherein God appears at Zion's deliverance —those royal garments of salvation, that make so admired of men and angels—but the celebration of all his attributes, according to what every one hath done towards their salvation?  Now wisdom being that which the creature chiefly glories in, and that which was chosen by Satan for his first bait, [when he] made Eve believe she should be like God in knowledge and wisdom, therefore God, to give Satan the more shameful fall, gives him leave to use his wits and wiles in tempting and troubling his children, in which lies his great advantage over the saints, that so the way to his own throne—where his wisdom shall at last, as well as his mercy, sit in all its royalty—may be paved with the skulls, as I may so speak, of devils.   

       

  Use Second.  This gives a strong cordial to our fainting faith, in the behalf of the church of Christ. If all the devil's wits and wiles will not serve him to overcome one single soldier in Christ's camp, much less shall he ever ruin the whole army.  These are the days of great confusion in the Christian world, and the chief fear of a gracious heart is for the ark, lest that should fall into the enemies' hand; and when this palladium is taken, [lest] the city of God, his church, be trod under the feet of pride.  I confess Satan seems to get ground daily; he hath strangely wriggled into the bosoms and principles of many, who, by the fame of their profession and zeal, had obtained, in the opinion of others, to be reckoned among the chief of Christ's worthies in their generation.  He hath sadly corrupted the truths of Christ; brought a disesteem on ordinances, [so] that by this, and as a judgment for this, the womb of the gospel is become in a great measure barren, and her children which hang upon her breasts thrive not in love and holiness as of old, when the milk was not so much, nor that so spiritful. He hath had advantage by the divisions of the godly, to harden those that are wicked into a further disdain of religion; and by the bloody wars of late years, to boil up the wrath of the popish and profane crew to a higher pitch of rage and fury against Christ's little remnant than ever: so that if ever God should suffer the sword to fall into their hand, they are disciplined and fitted to play the bloody butchers on Christ’s sheep above their forefathers.  Neither are they so crest-fallen, but that they can hope for such a day, yea [they] take up some of those joys upon trust afore­hand, to solace themselves, while the rest follow. And now, Christian, may be their confidence, together with the distracted state of Christ's affairs in the world, may discompose thy spirit, concerning the issue of these rolling providences that are over our heads; but be still, poor heart, and know that the contest is not between the church and Satan, but between Christ and him.  These are the two champions.  Stand now, O ye army of saints, still, by faith, to see the all-wise God wrestle with a subtle devil.  If you live not to see the period of these great confusions, yet generations after you shall behold the Almighty smite off this Goliath's head with his own sword, and take this cunning hunter in the toil of his own policies; that faith which ascribes  greatness and wisdom to God, will shrink up Satan's subtlety into a nigrum nihil—a thing of nothing.  Unbelief fears Satan as a lion, faith treads on him as a worm. Behold therefore thy God at work, and promise thyself that what he is about, is an excellent piece. None can drive him from his work.  The pilot is beaten from the helm, and can do little in a storm, but lets the ship go adrift.  The architect cannot work, when night draws the curtain, yea, is driven off the scaffold with a storm of rain.  Such workmen are the wisest counsellors and mightest princes on earth. A pinch may come, when it is as vain to say, Help, O king; as, Help, O beggar.  Man's wisdom may be levelled with folly, but God id never interrupted.  All the plots of hell and commotions on earth, have not so much as shaken God's hand, to spoil one letter or line that he hath been drawing.  The mysteriousness of his providence may hang a curtain before his work, that we cannot see what he is doing, but when darkness is about him, righteousness is the seat of his throne for ever.  O, where is our faith, sirs?  Let God be wise, and all men and devils fools.  What though thou seest a Babel more likely to go up, than a Babylon to be pulled down; yet believe God is making his secret approaches, and will clap his ladders on a sudden to the walls thereof.  Suppose truth were a prisoner with Joseph, and error the courtier, to have its head lift up by the favour of the times; yet dost [thou] not remember that the way to truth's preferment lies through the prison?  Yea, what though the church were like Jonah in the whale's belly, swallowed up to the eye of reason by the fury of men, yet dost [thou] not remember [that] the whale had not power to digest the prophet?  O be not too quick to bury the church before she be dead.  Stay while Christ tries his skill before you give it over; bring Christ by your prayers to its grave, to speak a resurrection word. Admirable hath the saints' faith been in such straits; as Joseph's, who pawned his bones that God would visit his brethren, willing them to lay him where he believed they should be brought; Jeremiah purchaseth a field of his uncle, and pays down the money for it, and this when the Chaldean army [was] quartered about Jerusalem, ready to take the city, and [to] carry him with the rest into Babylon.  And all this by God's appoint­ment, Jer. 32:6-8, that he might show the Jews by this, how undoubtedly he, in that sad juncture of time, did believe the performance of the promise for their return out of captivity.  Indeed God counts him­self exceedingly disparaged in the thoughts of his people, though at the lowest ebb of his church's affairs, if his naked word, and the single bond of his promise, will not be taken as sufficient security to their faith for its deliverance.

PART 2-The Gracious Issue God Puts to Satan's Temptations

2. Satan's aim is to weaken the saint’s faith on God, and cool his love to God, but [he is] befooled in both.

             (1.) God turns their temptations, yea, their falls to the further establishment of their faith, which, like the tree, stands stronger for its shaking; or like the giant Anteus, who, in his wrestling with Hercules, is feigned to get strength by every fall to the ground. False faith, indeed, once foiled, seldom comes on again; but true faith riseth and fights more valiantly, as we see in Peter and other Scripture examples.  Temptation to faith, is like fire to gold, I Pet. 1:7.  The fire doth not only discover which is true gold, but makes the true gold more pure; it comes out, may be, less in bulk and weight, because severed from that soil and dross which embased it, but more in value and worth.  When Satan is bound up, and the Christian walks under the shines of divine favour, and [the] en­couragement of divine assistance, his faith may ap­pear great, if compared with another under the withdrawings of God and buffetings of Satan, but this is not equal judging.  As if to try who is the bigger of two men, we should measure one naked, and the other over his clothes; or in comparing two pieces of gold, [we] weighed one with the dross and dirt it contracts in the purse, with the purged from these in the fire.  Faith before temptation hath much hetero­geneal stuff that cleaves to it, and goes for faith; but when temptation comes these are discovered.  Now the Christian feels corruption stir, which lay as dead before; now a cloud comes between the soul and the sweet face of God—the sense of which latter, and the little sense of the other bore up his faith before—but these bladders [being] pricked, he comes now to learn the true stroke in this heavenly art of swimming on the promise, having nothing else to bear him up but that.  And a little of this carries more of the precious nature of faith in it, than all the other; yea, is, like Gideon's handful of men, stronger when all these accessories to faith are sent away, than when they were present.  And here is all the devil gets; in­stead of destroying his faith which he aims at, he is the occasion of the refining of it, and thereby adding to its strength.

             (2.) The love of tempted saints is enkindled to Christ by their temptations, and foils in their tempta­tions.  Possibly in the fit there may seem a damp up­on their love, as when water is first sprinkled upon the fire, but when the conflict is a little over, and the Christian comes to himself, his love to Christ will break out like a vehement flame.  (a) The shame and sorrow which a gracious soul must needs feel in his bosom for his sinful miscarriage while under the temptation, will provoke him to express his love to Christ above others; as is sweetly set forth in the spouse, who, when the cold fit of her distemper was off, and the temptation over, bestirs her to purpose; her lazy sickness is turned to love-sickness; she finds it as hard now to sit, as she did before to rise; she can rest in no place out of her Beloved's sight, but runs and asks every one she meets for him.  And whence came all this vehemency of her zeal?  All occasioned by her undutiful carriage to her husband; she parted so unkindly with him, that bethinking what she had done, away she goes to make her peace. 

 If sins com­mitted in unregeneracy have such a force upon a gracious soul, that the thought of them, though pardoned, will still break and melt the heart into sorrow (as we see in Magdalene), and prick on to show zeal for God above others (as in Paul), how much more will the sins of a saint, who, after sweet acquaintance with Jesus Christ, lifts up the heel against that bosom where he hath lain, affect, yea, dissolve the heart as into so many drops of water, and that sorrow provoke him to serve God at a higher rate than others?  No child so dutiful in all the family as he who is returned from his rebellion.  (b) Again, as his own shame, so the experience which such a one hath of Christ's love above all others will increase his love.  Christ's love is to fuel ours; as it gives its being, so it affords growth.  It is both mother and nurse to our love.  The more Christ puts forth his love, the more heat our love gets; and next to Christ’s dying love, none greater than his succouring love in temptation.  The mother never hath such advantage to show her affection to her child as when in distress, sick, poor or imprisoned; so neither hath Christ to his children as when tempted, yea, worsted by temptation.  When his children lie in Satan's prison, bleeding under the wounds of their consciences, this is the season he takes to give an experiment of his tender heart in pitying, his faithfulness in praying for them, his mindfulness in sending succour to them, yea, his dear love in visiting them by his comforting Spirit.  Now when the soul hath got off some great temptation, and reads the whole history thereof together (wherein he finds what his own weakness was to resist Satan, nay his unfaithfulness in complying with Satan, which might have provoked Christ to leave him to the fury of Satan), now to see both his folly pardoned and ruin graciously prevented, and that by no other hand but Christ's coming unto his rescue (as Abishai to David, when that giant thought to have slain him, II Sam. 21.)  This must needs ex­ceedingly endear Christ to the soul.  At the reading of such records the Christian cannot but inquire —Ahasuerus concerning Mordecai, who by discovering a treason had saved the king's life—What honour hath been done to his sweet Saviour for all this?  And thus Jesus Christ, whom Satan thought to bring out of the soul’s favour and liking, comes in the end to sit higher and surer in the saint's affections than ever.

PART 1-The Gracious Issue God Puts to Satan's Temptations

2. Satan's aim is to weaken the saint’s faith on God, and cool his love to God, but [he is] befooled in both.

             (1.) God turns their temptations, yea, their falls to the further establishment of their faith, which, like the tree, stands stronger for its shaking; or like the giant Anteus, who, in his wrestling with Hercules, is feigned to get strength by every fall to the ground. False faith, indeed, once foiled, seldom comes on again; but true faith riseth and fights more valiantly, as we see in Peter and other Scripture examples.  Temptation to faith, is like fire to gold, I Pet. 1:7.  The fire doth not only discover which is true gold, but makes the true gold more pure; it comes out, may be, less in bulk and weight, because severed from that soil and dross which embased it, but more in value and worth.  When Satan is bound up, and the Christian walks under the shines of divine favour, and [the] en­couragement of divine assistance, his faith may ap­pear great, if compared with another under the withdrawings of God and buffetings of Satan, but this is not equal judging.  As if to try who is the bigger of two men, we should measure one naked, and the other over his clothes; or in comparing two pieces of gold, [we] weighed one with the dross and dirt it contracts in the purse, with the purged from these in the fire.  Faith before temptation hath much hetero­geneal stuff that cleaves to it, and goes for faith; but when temptation comes these are discovered.  Now the Christian feels corruption stir, which lay as dead before; now a cloud comes between the soul and the sweet face of God—the sense of which latter, and the little sense of the other bore up his faith before—but these bladders [being] pricked, he comes now to learn the true stroke in this heavenly art of swimming on the promise, having nothing else to bear him up but that.  And a little of this carries more of the precious nature of faith in it, than all the other; yea, is, like Gideon's handful of men, stronger when all these accessories to faith are sent away, than when they were present.  And here is all the devil gets; in­stead of destroying his faith which he aims at, he is the occasion of the refining of it, and thereby adding to its strength.

             (2.) The love of tempted saints is enkindled to Christ by their temptations, and foils in their tempta­tions.  Possibly in the fit there may seem a damp up­on their love, as when water is first sprinkled upon the fire, but when the conflict is a little over, and the Christian comes to himself, his love to Christ will break out like a vehement flame.  (a) The shame and sorrow which a gracious soul must needs feel in his bosom for his sinful miscarriage while under the temptation, will provoke him to express his love to Christ above others; as is sweetly set forth in the spouse, who, when the cold fit of her distemper was off, and the temptation over, bestirs her to purpose; her lazy sickness is turned to love-sickness; she finds it as hard now to sit, as she did before to rise; she can rest in no place out of her Beloved's sight, but runs and asks every one she meets for him.  And whence came all this vehemency of her zeal?  All occasioned by her undutiful carriage to her husband; she parted so unkindly with him, that bethinking what she had done, away she goes to make her peace. 

 If sins com­mitted in unregeneracy have such a force upon a gracious soul, that the thought of them, though pardoned, will still break and melt the heart into sorrow (as we see in Magdalene), and prick on to show zeal for God above others (as in Paul), how much more will the sins of a saint, who, after sweet acquaintance with Jesus Christ, lifts up the heel against that bosom where he hath lain, affect, yea, dissolve the heart as into so many drops of water, and that sorrow provoke him to serve God at a higher rate than others?  No child so dutiful in all the family as he who is returned from his rebellion.  (b) Again, as his own shame, so the experience which such a one hath of Christ's love above all others will increase his love.  Christ's love is to fuel ours; as it gives its being, so it affords growth.  It is both mother and nurse to our love.  The more Christ puts forth his love, the more heat our love gets; and next to Christ’s dying love, none greater than his succouring love in temptation.  The mother never hath such advantage to show her affection to her child as when in distress, sick, poor or imprisoned; so neither hath Christ to his children as when tempted, yea, worsted by temptation.  When his children lie in Satan's prison, bleeding under the wounds of their consciences, this is the season he takes to give an experiment of his tender heart in pitying, his faithfulness in praying for them, his mindfulness in sending succour to them, yea, his dear love in visiting them by his comforting Spirit.  Now when the soul hath got off some great temptation, and reads the whole history thereof together (wherein he finds what his own weakness was to resist Satan, nay his unfaithfulness in complying with Satan, which might have provoked Christ to leave him to the fury of Satan), now to see both his folly pardoned and ruin graciously prevented, and that by no other hand but Christ's coming unto his rescue (as Abishai to David, when that giant thought to have slain him, II Sam. 21.)  This must needs ex­ceedingly endear Christ to the soul.  At the reading of such records the Christian cannot but inquire —Ahasuerus concerning Mordecai, who by discovering a treason had saved the king's life—What honour hath been done to his sweet Saviour for all this?  And thus Jesus Christ, whom Satan thought to bring out of the soul’s favour and liking, comes in the end to sit higher and surer in the saint's affections than ever.

How Satan is Prevented In All

             

Second Particular.  Satan by tempting one saint hath a mischievous design against others, either by encouraging then to sin by the example of such a one, or discouraging them in their holy course by the scandal he hath given; but God here befools him.

1. By making the miscarriages of such, a seasonable caveat to others to look to their standing. Dost thou see a meek Moses provoked to anger; what watch and ward hast thou need keep over thy unruly heart!  Though loud winds do some hurt by blowing down here a loose tile, and there a turret, which was falling before—yet the common good sur­mounts the private damage of some few, these being a broom in God's hands to sweep and cleanse the air. So, though some that are wicked are by God's righteous judgement for the same hardened into further abominations by the saints' falls, yet the good which sincere souls receive by having their formality and security in a further degree purged, doth abundantly countervail the other, who are but sent a little faster, whither they were going before.
2. God makes his saints’ falls an argument for comfort to distressed consciences.  This hath been, and is as a feather—when the passage seems so stopped that no comfort can be got down otherwise —to drop a little hope into the soul, to keep the creature alive from falling into utter despair.  Some have been revived with this, when next door to hell in their own fears.  David's sin was great, yet [he] found mercy.  Peter fell foully, yet [is] now in heav­en.  Why sittest thou here, O my soul, under the hatches of despair?  Up and call upon thy God for mercy, who hath pardoned the same to others.      

 3. God hath a design in suffering Satan to trounce some of his saints by temptation, to train them up in a fitness to succour their fellow-brethren in the like condition.  He sends them hither to school —where they are under Satan's ferula and lash—that his cruel hand over them may make them study the Word and their own hearts, by which they get experience of Satan's policies till at last they commence masters in this art of comforting tempted souls.  It is an art by itself, to speak a word in season to the weary soul.  It is not serving out an apprenticeship to human arts [that] will furnish a man for this.  Great doctors have proved very dunces here, knowing no more how to handle a wounded conscience than a rustic the chirurgeon's instrument in dissecting the body when an anatomy lecture is to be read.  It is not the knowledge of the Scripture—though a man were as well acquainted with it, as the apothecary with his pots and glasses in his shop, and able to go directly to any promise on a sudden—[that] will suffice.  No, not grace itself, except exercised with these buffetings and soul conflicts.  Christ himself we find trained up at this school.  ‘He wakeneth mine ear, to hear as the learned,’ Isa. 50:4.  Even as the tutor calls up his pupil to read to him.  And what is the lecture which is read to Christ, that he may have the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season to the weary souls?  ‘The Lord hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned I away back; I gave my back to the smiters,’ &c., ver. 5, 6.  His sufferings (which were all along mingled with temptations), were the lecture from which Christ came out so learned, to resolve and comfort distressed souls.  So that the devil had better let Christ alone, yea, and his saints also, who do him but the greater disservice in comforting others.  None will handle poor souls so gently as those who remember the smart of their own heart sorrows.  None [are] so skilful in applying the comforts of the Word to wounded consciences, as those who have lain bleeding themselves; such know the symptoms of soul-troubles, and feel others' pains in their own bosoms, which some that know the Scriptures, for lack of experience do not, and therefore are like a novice physician, who perhaps can tell you every plant in the herbal, yet wanting the practical part, when a patient comes, knows not well how to make use of his skill.  The saints' experiences help him to a sovereign treacle made of the scorpion's own flesh—which they through Christ have slain—and that hath a virtue above all other to expel the venom of Satan's temptations from the heart.

How God Doth Outwit The Devil In His Tempting of Saints to Sin

How God doth outwit the devil in his tempting of saints to sin.

             Question.  But how doth God defeat Satan, and outwit his wiles in tempting his saints?

             Answer.  This God doth by accomplishing his own gracious ends for the good and comfort of his people out of those temptations from which Satan designs their ruin.  This is the noblest kind of conquest, to beat back the devil's weapon to the wounding of his own head, yea, to cut it off with the devil’s own sword.  Thus God sets the devil to catch the devil, and lays, as it were, his own counsels under Satan's wings, and makes him hatch them.  Thus the patriarchs helped to fulfil Joseph's dream, while they were thinking to rid their hands of him.  To instance in a few particulars,

[The ends Satan propounds.]

             First Particular.  Satan by his temptations aims at the defiling of the Christian's conscience, and disfiguring that beautiful face of God's image which is engraven with holiness in the Christian's bosom; he is an unclean spirit himself, and would have them such that he might glory in their shame; but God outwits him, for he turneth the temptations of Satan to sin, to purging them from sin; they are the black soap with which God washes his saints white.           

1. God useth the temptations of Satan to one sin, as a preventive against another; so Paul's thorn in the flesh to prevent his pride.  God sends Satan to as­sault Paul on that side where he is strong, that in the meantime he may fortify him where he is weak.  Thus Satan is befooled, as sometimes we see an army sit­ting down before a town, where it wastes its strength to no purpose, and in the meantime gives the enemy an advantage to recruit; and all this by the counsel of some Hushai, that is a secret friend to the contrary side.  God, who is the saint's true friend, sits in the devil's council, and overrules proceedings there to the saint's advantage.  He suffers the devil to annoy the Christian with temptations to blasphemy, atheism, and with these, together with the troubles of spirit they produce, the soul is driven to duty, is humbled in the sense of these horrid apparitions in its imagina­tion, and secured from abundance of formality and pride, which otherwise God saw invading him.  As in a family, some business falls out, which keeps the master up later than ordinary, and by this the thief, who that night intended to rob him, is disappointed. Had not such a soul had his spirit of prayer and diligence kept awake by those afflicting temptations, it is likely that Satan might have come as a seducer, and taken him napping in security.          
2. God purgeth out the very sin Satan tempts to, even by his tempting.  Peter never had such a con­quest over his self-confidence, never such an establishment of his faith as after his soul-fall in the high-priest's hall.  He that was so well persuaded of himself before, as to say, ‘Though all were offended with Christ, yet would not he,’ how modest and humble was he in a few days become, when he durst not say he loved Christ more than his fellow-brethren, to whom before he had preferred himself! John 21:15. What an undaunted confessor of Christ and his gos­pel doth he prove before councils and rulers, who even now was dashed out of countenance by a silly maid, and all this the product of Satan's temptation sanctified unto him!  Indeed a saint hath a discovery by his fall, what is the prevailing corruption in him, so that the temptation doth but stir the humour, which the soul having found out, hath the greater advantage to evacuate, by applying those means, and using those ingredients which do purge that malady  with a choice.  Now the soul sure will call all out against this destroyer?  Paul had not taken such pains to buffet his body, had he not found Satan knocking at that door.          

3. God useth these temptations for the advancing the whole work of grace in the heart.  One spot occasions the whole garment to be washed.  David overcome with one sin, renews his repentance for all, Ps. 51.  A good husband when he seeth it rain at one place, sends for the workman to look over all the house.  This indeed differenceth a sincere heart from an hypocrite, whose repentance is partial, soft in one plot, and hard in another.  Judas cries out of his treason, but not a word of his thievery and hypocrisy. The hole was no wider in his conscience than where the bullet went in; whereas true sorrow for one, breaks the heart into shivers for others also.

PART 2-Satan Shall Never Vanquish a Soul Armed With True Grace

Second Reason.  The second reason is taken from the wisdom of God, who as he undertakes the ordering of the Christian's way to heaven, Ps. 37:24, so especially this business of Satan's temptations.  We find Christ was not led of the evil spirit into the wilderness to be tempted, but of the Holy Spirit, Matt. 4:1.  Satan tempts not when he will, but when God pleaseth, and the same Holy Spirit which led Christ into the field, led him off with victory.  And therefore we find him marching in the power of his Spirit, after he had repulsed Satan, into Galilee, Luke 4:14.  When Satan tempts a saint, he is but God's messenger, II Cor. 12:7.  ‘There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.’  So our translation.  But rather as Beza, who will have it in [the nominative case, the messenger Satan, implying that he was sent of God to Paul; and indeed the er­rand he came about was too good and gracious to be his own, lest I should be exalted above measure.  The devil never meant to do Paul such a good office, but God sends him to Paul, as David sent Uriah with let­ters to Joab; neither knew the contents of their message. 

 The devil and his instruments, both are God's instruments, therefore the wicked are called his sword, his axe; now let God alone to wield the one and handle the other.  He is but a bungler that hurts and hackles his own legs with his own axe; which God should do, if his children should be the worse for Satan's temptations.  Let the devil choose his way, God is for him at every weapon.  If he will try it by force of arms, and assault the saints by persecution, as the Lord of hosts he will oppose him.  If by policy and subtilty, he is ready there also.  The devil and his whole council are but fools to God.  Nay, their wis­dom, foolishness, cunning, and art, commend everything but sin.  The more artificial the watch, the picture, &c., the better; but the more wit and art in sin, the worse, because it is employed against an all-wise God, that cannot be outwitted, and therefore in the end but pay the workmen in greater damnation. ‘The foolishness of God is wiser than men;’ yea, than the wisdom of men and devils, that is, the means and instruments which God opposeth Satan withal.  What weaker than a sermon?  Who sillier than the saints in the account of the wise world?  Yet God is wiser in a weak sermon, than Satan in his deep plots, wherein the state heads of a whole conclave of profound cardinals are knocked together—wiser in his simple ones, than Satan in his Ahithophels and Sanballats. And truly God chooseth on purpose to defeat the pol­icies of hell and earth by these, that he may put such to greater shame, I Cor. 1:21.  How is the great scholar ashamed to be baffled by a plain countryman's argu­ment?  Thus God calls forth Job to wrestle with Satan and his seconds—for such his three friends showed themselves in taking the devil's part—and sure he is not able to hold up the cudgels against the fencing-master, who is beaten by one of the scholars.  God sits laughing while hell and earth sit plotting, Ps. 2:4; ‘He disappointeth the devices of the crafty,’ Job 5:12, he breaketh their studied thoughts and plots, as the words import, in one moment pulling down the labours of many years’ policy.  Indeed as great men keep wild beasts for game and sport, as the fox, the boar, &c., so doth God Satan and his instruments, to manifest his wisdom in the taking of them.  It is observed, that the very hunting of some beasts af­fords not only pleasure to the hunter, but also more sweetness to the eater.  Indeed God, by displaying of his wisdom in the pursuit of the saint's enemies, doth superadd a sweet relish to their deliverance at last. He brake the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gave him to be meat to his people.  After he had hunted Pharaoh out of all his forms and burrows, now he breaks the very brains of all his plots, and serves him up to his people, with the garnishment of his wisdom and power about.

The Certainty of Standing Against All His Wiles If We Be Thus Armed.

[The certainty of standing against all his wiles if we be thus armed.]

             The second branch of the apostle's argument follows, to excite them the more vigorously to their arms; and that is from the possibility yea, certainty of standing against this subtle enemy, if thus armed, ‘That ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.’  So that this gives the apostle's argument its due temperament; for he meant not to scare them in­to a cowardly flight, or sullen despair of victory, when he tells them that their enemy is so subtle and politic, but to excite them to a vigorous resistance, from the assured hope of strength to stand in battle, and victoriously after it; which two I perceive are comprehended in that phrase, standing against the wiles of Satan.  Sometimes to stand implies a fighting posture, ver. 14.  sometimes a conquering posture: ‘I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth,’ Job 19:25.  That earth which was the field where all the bloody battles were fought betwixt him and Satan, on it shall he stand, when not an enemy shall dare to show his head.  So that taking both these in, the observation is—

[Satan shall never vanquish a soul armed with true grace.]

             Doctrine.  Satan with all his wits and wiles, shall never vanquish a soul armed with true grace; nay, he that hath this armour of God on shall vanquish him.  Look into the Word; you shall not find a saint but hath been in the list with him, sifted and winnowed more or less by this enemy, yet at last we find them all coming off with an honourable victory: as in David, Job, Peter, Paul, who were the hardest put to it of any upon record; and lest some should attribute their victory to the strength of their inherent grace above other of their weaker brethren, you have the glory of their victories appropriated to God, in whom the weak are as strong as the strongest.  We shall give a double reason of this truth, why the Christian who seems to be so overmatched, is yet so unconquerable, II Cor. 12:9; James 5:11.

             First Reason.  The curse that lies upon Satan and his cause.  God's curse blasts wherever it comes.  The Canaanites with their neighbour nations were bread for Israel, though people famous for war; and why?  They were cursed nations.  The Egyptians [were] a politic people; let us deal wisely, say they; yet being cursed of God, this lay like a thorn at their heart, and at last was their ruin.  Yea, let the Israelites themselves, who carry the badge of God's covenant on their flesh, by their sins once become the people of God's curse, and they are trampled like dirt under the Assyrian's feet.  This made Balak beg so hard for a curse upon Israel.  Now there is an irrevocable curse cleaves to Satan from Gen. 3:14, 15, ‘And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed,’ &c., which place, though partly meant of the literal serpent, yet chiefly of the devil and the wicked—his spiritual serpentine brood—as appears by the enmity pronounced against the serpent's seed and the woman's, Gen. 3:15, which clearly holds forth the feud between Christ with his seed, against the devil and his.  Now there are two things in that curse which may comfort the saints.  1. The curse prostrates Satan under their feet: Upon thy belly shalt thou go; which is no more than is elsewhere promised, that God will subdue Satan under our feet.  Now this prostrate condition of Satan assures believers that the devil shall never lift his head, that is, his wily policy, higher than the saint's heel.  He may make thee limp, but cannot bereave thee of thy life; and this bruise which he give thee shall be rewarded with the breaking of his own head, that is, the utter ruin of him and his cause.  2. His food is here limited and appointed.  Satan will not devour whom he will.  The dust is his food; which seems to restrain his power to the wicked, who are of the earth earthy, mere dust; but for those who are of a heavenly extraction, their graces are reserved for Christ's food, Song. 7:13, and their soul's are surely not a morsel for the devil's tooth.

PART 4 - Directions Tending to Entrench and Fortify the Christian Against the Assaults of Satan, as a Troub­ler and Accuser

   

       

 Question.  But what counsel would you give me, saith the distressed soul, who cannot fasten on my former comforts, nor dare to vouch those evidences which once I thought true?  I find indeed there have been some treaties of old between God and my soul; some hopes I have had, but these are now so defaced and interlined with backslidings, repentances, and falls again, that now I question all my evidences, whether true or counterfeit; what should one in this case do?

             Answer First.  Renew thy repentance, as if thou hadst never repented.  Put forth fresh acts of faith, as if thou hadst never believed.  This seriously done, will stop Satan's mouth with an unexpected answer. Let him object against thy former actions as hypocritical; what can he say against thy present repenting and believing? which, if true, sets thee beyond his shot.  It will be harder for Satan to disprove the present workings of God's gracious Spirit, whilst the impression thereof are fresh, than to pick a hole in thy old deeds and evidences.  Acts are transient, and as wicked men look at sins committed many years since as little or none, by reason of that breadth of time which interposeth; so the Christian upon the same account stands at great disadvantage, to take the true aspect of those acts of grace, which so long ago passed between God and him, though sometimes even these are of great use.  As God can make a sinner possess the sins of his youth, as if they were newly acted, to his terror in his old age, so God can present the comforts and evidences which of old the saint received, with those very thoughts he had then of them, as if they were fresh and new.

             Answer Second.  And therefore, if yet he haunts thee with the fears of thy spiritual estate, ply thee to the throne of grace, and beg a new copy of thy old evidence, which thou hast lost.  The original is in the pardon office in heaven, whereof Christ is master, [and] if thou beest a saint, thy name is upon record in that court.  Make thy moan to God, hear what news from heaven, rather than listen to the tales which are brought by thine enemy from hell.  Did such reason less with Satan, and pray over their fears more to God, they might sooner be resolved.  Can you expect truth from a liar, and comfort from an enemy?  Did he ever prophesy well of believers?  Was not Job the devil's hypocrite, whom God vouched for a non-such in holiness, and proved him so at last?  If he knew thou wert a saint, would he tell thee so?  If an hypocrite, he would be as loath thou shouldst know it. Turn thy back therefore on him, and go to thy God; fear not, but sooner or later he will give his hand to thy certificate.  But look thou dost not rashly pass a censure on thyself, because a satisfactory answer is not presently sent at thy desire; the messenger may stay long, and bring good news at last.

             Answer Third.  Shun battle with thine enemy while [until] thou art in a fitter posture, and that thou mayest draw into thy trenches, and make an honourable retreat into those fastnesses and strengths which Christ hath provided for his sick and wounded soldiers.  Now there are two places of advantage into which deserted souls may retire—the name of God, and the absolute promises of the gos­pel.  These I may call the fair havens, which are then chiefly of use, when the storm is so great that the ship cannot live at sea.  O, saith Satan, dost thou hope to see God?  None but the pure in heart shall be blessed with that vision.  Thinkest thou to have comfort?  That is the portion of the mourners in spirit.  Now, soul, though thou canst not say in the hurry of temptation [that] thou art the pure and the mourner in spirit, yet then say thou believest God is able to work these in thee; yea, hath promised such a mercy to poor sinners; it is his covenant [that] he will give a new heart, a clean heart, a soft heart; and here I wait, knowing, as there was nothing in the creature to move the great God to make such promises, so there can be nothing in the creature to hinder the Almighty his performance of them, where and when he pleaseth.  This act of faith, accompanied with a longing desire after that grace thou canst not yet find, and an attendance on the means, though it will not fully satisfy all thy doubts, may be, yet will keep thy head above water, that thou despairest not; and such a shore thou needest in this case, or the house falls.     

  

Answer Fourth.  If yet Satan dogs thee, call in help, and keep not the devil's counsel.  The very strength of some temptations lies in the concealing of them, and the very revealing of them to some faithful friend, like the opening and pricking of some impost­hume, gives the soul present ease.  Satan knows this too well; and therefore, as some thieves, when they come to rob a house, either gag them in it, or hold a pistol to their breast, frightening them with death, if they cry or speak; thus Satan, that he may more freely rifle the soul of its peace and comfort, overawes it so, that it dares not disclose his temptation.  O, saith Satan, if thy brethren or friends know such a thing by thee, they will cast thee off; others will hoot at thee.  Thus many a poor soul hath been kept long in its pangs by biting them in.  Thou losest, Christian, a double help by keeping the devil's secret —the counsel and prayers of thy fellow-brethren.  And what an invaluable loss is this!

PART 3 - Directions Tending to Entrench and Fortify the Christian Against the Assaults of Satan, as a Troub­ler and Accuser

2. Satan perplexeth the tender consciences of doubting Christians, with obscure scriptures,whose sense lies too deep for their weak and distempered judgements readily to find out, and with these he hampers poor souls exceedingly.  Indeed as melancholy men delight in melancholy walks, so doubting souls most frequent such places of Scripture in their musing thoughts, as increase their doubts.  How many have I known that have looked so long on those difficult places, Heb. 6:6; 10:26, which pass the understanding, as a swift stream the eye, so that the sense is not perceived without great observation, till their heads have turned round, and they at last, not able to untie the difficulties, have fallen down in despairing thoughts and words of their own condition, crying out, O they have sinned against knowledge of the truth, and therefore no mercy remains for them.  [Now] if they have refreshed their under­standings by looking off these places, whose engraving is too curious to be long pored on by a weak eye, they might have found that in other scriptures plainly expressed, which would have enabled them, as through a glass, more safely to have viewed these. Therefore, Christian, keep the plains; thou mayest be sure it is thine enemy that gives thee such stones to break thy teeth, when thy condition calls rather for bread and wine—such scriptures, I mean, as are most apt to nourish thy faith, and cheer thy drooping spirit.  When thou meetest such plain scriptures which speak to thy case, go over where it is fordable, and do not venture beyond thy depth.  Art thou afraid because thou hast sinned since the knowledge of truth, and [that] therefore no sacrifice remains for thee?  See David and Peter's case, how it patterns thine, and [is] left upon record that their recovery may be a key in thine hand to open such places as these.  Mayest thou not safely conclude from these, [that] this is not their meaning, that none can be saved the sin after knowledge?  Indeed in both these places, it is neither meant of the falls of such as ever had true grace, nor of a falling away in some particular acts of sin, but of a total universal falling away from the faith, the doctrine as well as seeming practice of it.  Now if the root of the matter were ever in thee, other scriptures will first comfort thee against those particular apostasies into which thou hast re­lapsed, by sweet promises inviting such to return, and [giving] precedents of saints, who have had peace spoken to them after such folly, and also they will satisfy thee against the other, by giving full security to thy faith, that thy little grace shall not die, being immortal, though not in its proper essence, because but a creature, yet by covenant, as it is a child of promise.
3. Dark providences.  From these Satan disputes against God's love to, and grace in, a soul. First, he got a commission to plunder Job of his temporal estate, and bereave him of his children, and then labours to make him question his spiritual estate and sonship.  His wife would have him entertain hard thoughts of God, saying, ‘Curse God and die;’ and his friends as hard thoughts of himself, as if he were an hypocrite; and both upon the same mistake, as if such an afflicted condition and a gracious state were incon­sistent.  Now, Christian, keep the plains, and neither from this, charge God foolishly for thine enemy, nor thyself as his.  Read the saddest providence with the comment of the Word, and thou canst not make such a harsh interpretation.  As God can make a straight line with a crooked stick, be righteous when he useth wicked instruments; so also gracious when he dispen­seth harsh providences.  Joseph kept his love, when he spake roughly to his brethren.  I do not wonder that the wicked think they have God's blessing, be­cause they are in the warm sun.  Alas! they are strangers to God's counsels, void of his Spirit, and sensual, judging of God and his providence, by the report their present feeling makes of them like little children, who think every one loves them that gives them plums.  But it is strange that a saint should be at a loss for his afflicted state, when he hath a key to decipher God's character.  Christian, hath not God secretly instructed thee by his Spirit from the Word, how to read the shorthand of his providence?  Dost not thou know that the saint's afflictions stand for blessings?  Every son whom he loves he corrects; and prosperity in a wicked state, must it not be read a curse?  Doth not God damn such to be rich, honourable, victorious in this world, as well as to be tormented in another world?  God gives them more of these than they seem to desire sometimes, and all to bind them faster up in a deep sleep of security, as Jael served Sisera: he shall have milk though he asked but water, that she might nail him surer to the ground—milk having a property, as some write, to incline to sleep, Jud. 5:25.
4. Answer Fourth.  Be careful to keep thy old re­ceipts which thou hast had from God for the pardon of thy sins.  There are some gaudy days, and jubilee-like festivals, when God comes forth clothed with the robes of his mercy, and holds forth the sceptre of his grace more familiarly to his children than ordinary, bearing witness to their faith, sincerity, &c., and then the firmament is clear, not a cloud to be seen to darken the Christian's comfort.  Love and joy are the soul's repast and pastime, while this feast lasts.  Now when God withdraws, and this cheer is taken off, Satan's work is how he may deface and wear off the remembrance of this testimony, which the soul so triumphs in for its spiritual standing, that he may not have it as an evidence when he shall bring about the suit again, and put the soul to produce his writings for his spiritual state, or renounce his claim.  It be­hoves thee therefore to lay them safely; such a testimony may serve to nonsuit thy accuser many years hence; one affirmative from God's mouth for thy pardoned state, carries more weight, though of old date, than a thousand negatives from Satan's. David's songs of old spring in with a light to his soul in his midnight sorrows.  

            

PART 2 - Directions Tending to Entrench and Fortify the Christian Against the Assaults of Satan, as a Troub­ler and Accuser

  

Answer Third.  Be sure, Christian, thou keep­est the plains.  Take heed that Satan coop thee not up in some straits, where thou canst neither well fight nor fly.  Such a trap the Egyptians hoped they had the Israelites in, when they cried, They are entangled, they are entangled.  There are three kinds of straits wherein he labours to entrap the Christian —nice questions, obscure scriptures, and dark providences.    

1. He labours to puzzle him with nice and scrupulous questions, on purpose to retard the work, and clog him in his notion, that meeting with such intricacies in his Christian course, which he cannot easily resolve, thereby he may be made either to give over, or go on heavily.  Therefore we have particular charge not to trouble the weak heads of young converts with ‘doubtful disputations,’ Rom. 14:1. Sometimes Satan will be asking the soul, How it knows its election.  And where he finds one not so fully resolved, as to dare to own the same, he frames his argument against such a one’s closing with Christ and the promise, as if it were presumption to assume that, which is the only portion of the elect, before we know ourselves of that number.  Now, Christian, keep the plains and thou art safe.  It is plain, we are not to make election a ground for our faith, but our faith and calling a medium or argument to prove our election.  Election indeed is first in order of divine acting, God chooseth before we believe; yet faith is first in our acting.  We must believe before we can know we are elected, yea, by believing we know it. The husbandman knows it is spring by the sprouting of the grass, though he hath no astrology to know the position of the heavens.  Thou mayest know thou art elect, as surely by a work of grace in thee, as if thou hadst stood by God's elbow when he writ thy name in the book of life.  It had been presumption for David to have thought he should have been king, till Sam­uel anointed him, but then none at all.  When thou believest first, and closest with Christ, then is the Spirit of God sent to anoint thee to the kingdom of heaven; this is that holy oil which is poured upon none but heirs of glory; and it is no presumption to read what God's gracious purpose was towards thee of old, when prints those his thoughts, and makes them legible in thy effectual calling.  Here thou dost not go up to heaven, and pry into God's secrets, but heaven comes down to thee, and reveals them.  Again, he will ask the Christian what was the time of his conversion.  Art thou a Christian, will he say, and dost thou not know when thou commencedst?  Now keep the plains, and content thyself with this, that thou seest the streams of grace, though the time of thy conversion be like the head of Nylus, not to be found.  God oft betimes, before gross sins have de­flowered the soul, and steals into the creature's bosom without much noise.  In such a case Satan doth but abuse thee when he sends thee in this errand; you may know the sun is up, though you did not observe when it rose.  Again, what will become of thee, saith Satan, if God should bring thee into such an affliction or trial, when thou must burn or turn, or when all thy outward estate shall be rent from thee, no meal in the barrel, no money in the purse?  Darest thou have so good an opinion of thyself, as to think that thy faith will hold out in such an hour of temptation?  If thou hast but half an eye, Christian, thou mayest see what Satan drives at.  This is an ensnaring question; by the fear of future troubles he labours to bring thee into a neglect of thy duty, and indispose thee also for such a state whenever it falls.  If a man hath much business to do on the morrow, it is his wisdom to discharge his mind thereof, when composing to sleep, lest the thoughts thereof break his rest, and make him the more unfit in the morning.  The less rest the soul hath in God and his promise concerning future events, the less strength it will find to bear them when the pinch comes.  When therefore thou art molested with such fears, pacify thy heart with these three plain conclusions.    

 (1.) Every event is the product of God's providence; not a sparrow, much less a saint, falls to the ground by poverty, sickness, persecution, &c., but the hand of God is in it.           

(2.) God hath put in caution he ‘will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,’ Heb. 13:5.  He that enables thee in one condition, will in another.  God learns his servants their whole trade.  Grace is a universal prin­ciple.  At the first moment of thy spiritual life, suffering grace was infused as well as praying grace.         

  (3.) God is wise to conceal the succours he intends in the several changes of thy life, that so he may draw thy heart into an entire dependence on his faithful promise.  Thus to try the metal of Abraham’s faith, he let him go on, till his hand was stretched forth, and then he comes to the rescue.  Christ sends his disciples to sea, but stays behind himself, on a design to try their faith, and show his love.  Comfort thyself therefore with this, though thou seest not thy God in the way, yet thou shalt find him in the end.       

PART 1 - Directions Tending to Entrench and Fortify the Christian Against the Assaults of Satan, as a Troub­ler and Accuser.

[Directions Tending to Entrench and Fortify the Christian Against the Assaults of Satan, as a Troub­ler and Accuser.]

             Question.  How shall I stand in a defensive posture, may the Christian say, against these wiles of Satan as a troubler?

             Answer First.  If thou wouldst be guarded from him as a troubler, take heed of him as a seducer.  The haft of Satan's hatchet, with which he lies chopping at the root of the Christian's comfort, is commonly made of the Christian's wood.  First he tempts to sin, and then for it.  Satan is but a creature, and cannot work without tools; he can indeed make much of a little, but not anything of nothing, as we see in his assaulting of Christ, where he troubled himself to little purpose, because he came and found nothing in him, John 14:30.  Though the devil throws the stone, yet it is the mud in us which royles our comforts.  It is in vain for the Philistines to fall on Samson till his lock was cut.  Take heed, therefore, of yielding to his enticing motions.  These are the stumbling-blocks at which he hopes thou [wilt] break thy shins, bruise thy conscience; which once done, let him alone to spin out the cure.  Indeed, a saint's flesh heals not so easily as others: drink not of the devil's wassel; there is poison in the cup, his wine is a mocker; look not on it as it sparkles in the temptation. 

What thou drinkest down with sweetness, thou wilt be sure to bring up again as gall and wormwood.  Above all sins, take heed of presumptuous ones; thou art not out of the danger of such.  Sad stories we have of saints’ falls, and what follows then? Ps. 19:13.  Take him, jailor, saith God, deliver such a one unto Satan.  And if a saint be the prisoner, and the devil the keeper, you may guess how he shall be used.  O how he will tear and rend thy conscience!  Though that dreadful ordinance is not used as it should be in the church, yet God's court sits, and if he excommunicate a soul from his presence, he falls presently into Satan's clutches.  Well, if through his subtlety thou hast been overtaken, take heed thou art yet not in the devil’s quarters.  Shake the viper off thy hand; ply thee to thy chirurgeon.  Green wounds cure best.  If thou neglectest and the wind get to it, thy conscience will soon fester.  Ahab, we read, was wounded in battle, and was loath to yield to it; it is said, he was held up in his chariot, but he died for it, I Kings 22:35.  When a soul hath received a wound—committed a sin —Satan labours to bolster him up with flattering hopes, holds him up, as it were, in his chariot against God.  What, yield for this!  Afraid for a little scratch, and lose the spoil of thy future, pleasure for this?  O take heed of listening to such counsel; the sooner thou yieldest, the fairer quarter thou shalt have. Every step in this way gets thee further from thy peace.  A rent garment is catched by every nail, and the rent made wider. Renew therefore thy repentance speedily, whereby this breach may be made up, and worse prevented, which else will befall thee.  

           

Answer Second.  Study that grand gospel truth of a soul’s justification before God.  Acquaint thyself with this in all its causes; the moving cause, the free mercy of God, being justified freely by his grace; the meritorious, which is the blood of Christ; and the ins­trumental, faith; with all the sweet privileges that flow from it, Rom. 3:24.  An effectual door once opened to let the soul into this truth, would not only spoil the pope's market, as Gardner said, but the devil's also. When Satan comes to disquiet the Christian's peace, for want of a right understanding here, he is soon worsted by his enemy; as the silly hare which might escape the dogs in some covert or burrow that is at hand, but trusting to her heels is by the print of her own feet and scent, which she leaves behind, followed, till at last, weary and spent, she falls into the mouth of them.  In all that a Christian doth, there is a print of sinful infirmity, and a scent by which Satan is enabled to trace and pursue him over hedge and ditch; this grace and that duty, till the soul, not able to stand before the accusation of Satan, is ready to fall down in despair at his feet.  Whereas, here is a hiding place whither the enemy durst not come, ‘the clefts of the rock,’ the hole ‘of the stairs,’ which this truth leads unto.  When Satan chargeth thee for a sinner, perhaps thou interposest thy repentance and reformation, but soon art beaten out of those works, when thou art shown the sinful mix­tures that are in them: whereas this truth would choke all his bullets, that thou believest on him who hath said, Not unto him that worketh, but unto him that believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is imputed for righteousness, Rom. 4:5.  Get therefore into this tower of the gospel covenant, and roll this truth (as she that stone on the head of Abimelech) on the head of Satan.