Application: of Character of The Assailants or Enemies With Whom The Christian Is to Wrestle 2/2

  

Consider 2.  [It is a limited power.]  Satan’s power is limited, and that two ways—he cannot do what he will, and he shall not do what he can.

           (1.) He cannot do what he will.  His desires are boundless, they walk not only to and fro here below, but in heaven itself, where he is pulling down his once fellow-angels, knocking down the carved work of that glorious temple, as with axes and hammers, yea, unthroning God and setting himself in his place.

(a) This fool saith in his heart, ‘There is no God;’ but he cannot do this, nor many other things, which his cankered malice stirs him up to wish; he is but a creature, and so hath the length of his tedder, to which he is staked, and cannot exceed.  And if God be safe, then thou also, for thy life ‘is hid with Christ in God.’  ‘If I live,’ saith Christ, ‘ye shall live also.’  You are engraven on the table of his heart; if he plucks one away, he must the other also.  (b) Again, as he cannot hurt the being of God, so he cannot pry into the bosom of God.  He knows not man’s, much less the thoughts of God.  The astrologers nor their master could bring back Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.  As men have their closets for their own privacy, where none can enter in but with their key; so God keeps the heart as his withdrawing room, shut to all besides himself; and therefore when he takes upon him to foretell events, if God teach him not his lesson, nor second causes help him, he is beside his book.  So to save his credit [he] delivers them dubiously, that his text may bear a gloss suitable to the effect whatever it is.  And when he is bold to tell the state of a person, there is no weight to be laid on his judgement.  Job was an hypocrite in his mouth, but God proved him a liar.  (c) Again, he cannot hinder those purposes and counsels of God he knows.  He knew Christ was to come in the flesh, and did his worst, but could not hinder his landing, though there were many devices in his heart, yet the counsel of the Lord concerning him did stand, yea, was delivered by the midwifery of Sa­tan suggesting , and his instruments executing his lust as they thought, but fulfilling God's counsel against themselves.  (d) Satan cannot ravish thy will.  He can­not command thee to sin against thy will, he can motum agere—make the soul go faster, that is on its way, as the wind carries the tide with more swiftness; but he cannot turn the stream of the heart contrary to its own course and tendency.

           (2.) Satan's power is so limited that he cannot do what he can.  God lets out so much of his wrath as shall praise him, and be as a stream to set his purpose of love to his saints on work, and then lets down the flood-gate by restraining the residue thereof.  God ever takes him off before he can finish his work on a saint.  He can, if God suffers him, rob the Christian of much of his joy, and disturb his peace by his cun­ning insinuations, but he is under command; he stands, like a dog, by the table, while the saints sit at his sweet feast of comfort, but dares not stir to roam off their cheer; his Master's eye is on him.  The want of this consideration loseth God his praise, and us our comfort—God having locked up our comfort in the performance of our duty.  Did the Christian con­sider what Satan’s power is, and who dams it up, this would always be a song of praise in his mouth.  Hath Satan power to rob and burn, kill and slay, torment the body, distress the mind? whom may I thank that I am in any of these out of his hands?  Doth Satan love me better than Job? or am I out of sight, or beside his walk?  Is his courage cooled or his wrath appeased, that I escaped so well?  No, none of these. His wrath is not against one, but all the saints; his eye is on thee, and his arm can reach thee; his spirit is not cowed, nor his stomach stayed with those mil­lions he hath devoured, but [is] keen as ever; yea, sharper, because now he sees God ready to take away, and the end of the world drawing on so fast.  It is thy God alone whom thou art beholden to for all this; his eye keepeth thee.  when Satan finds this good man asleep, then he finds our God awake; therefore thou art not consumed, because he changeth not.  Did his eye slumber or wander for one moment, there would need no other flood to drown thee, yea, the whole world, that what would come out of this dragon’s mouth.

           Consider 3. [It is a ministerial power.]  Satan’s power is ministerial, appointed by God for the service and benefit of the saints.  It is true, as it is said of the proud Assyrian, ‘he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so,’ Isa. 10:7; but it is in his heart to des­troy those he tempts.  But no matter what he thinks; as Luther comforted himself, when told what had passed at the diet at Nuremberg against the Protes­tants, that ‘it was decreed one way there, but other­wise in heaven;’ so for the saints’ comfort, the thoughts which God thinks to them are peace, while Satan's are to ruin their graces, and destruction to their souls.  And his counsel shall stand in spite of the devil.  The very mittimus which God makes, when he commits any of his saints to the devil’s prison, runs thus: ‘Deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus,’ I Cor. 5:5; so that tempted saints may say, ‘We had perished if we had not perished to our own thinking.’  This leviathan, while he thinks to swallow them up, is but sent of God (as the whale to Jonah) to waft them safe to land.  ‘Some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white,’ Dan. 11:35.  This God intends when he lets his children fall into temptation.  As we do with our linen, the spots they get at our feasts, are taken out by washing, rub­bing, and laying them out to bleach.  The saints’ spots are most got in peace, plenty, and prosperity, and they never recover their whiteness to such a degree as when they come from under Satan’s scouring.  We do too little, not to fear Satan; we should comfort ourselves with the usefulness and sub­serviency of his temptations to our good.  All things are yours who are Christ's.  He hath given life to be yours, hath given death also.  He that hath given heaven for your inheritance—Paul and Cephas, his ministers and ordinances to help you thither—hath given the world with all the afflictions of it, yea, the prince of it too, with all his wrath and power, in order to the same end.  This, indeed, is love and wisdom in a riddle, but you who have the Spirit of Christ can unfold it.