Faith’s Victory Over The World Distinguished From That Attained By Some of The Better Heathens

           Objection.  But some may say, if this be all faith enables to, this is no more than some heathens have done.  They have trampled on the profits, pleasures of the world, who never knew what faith meant.

           Answer.  Indeed, many of them have done so much by their moral principles, as may make some, who would willingly pass for believers, ashamed to be outgone by them who shot in so weak a bow.  Yet it will appear that there is a victory of faith, which, in the true believer, outshoots them more than their moral conquest doth the debauched conversations of looser Christians.

1. Distinction.  Faith quenches the lust of the heart.  Those very embers of corruption, which are so secretly raked up in the inclination of the soul, find the force and power of faith to quench them.  Faith purifies the heart, Acts 15:9.  Now none of their con­quests reach the heart. Their longest ladder was too short to reach the walls of this castle.  They swept the door, trimmed a few outward rooms; but the seat and sink of all, in the corruption of man’s nature, was never cleansed by them; so that the fire of lust was rather pent in than put out.  How is it possible that could be cleansed, the filthiness of which was never known to them?  Alas! they never looked so near themselves to find that enemy within them which they thought was without.  Thus, while they laboured to keep the thief out he was within, and they knew it not.  For they did either proudly think that the soul was naturally endued with principles of virtue, or vainly imagined it to be but an abrasa tabula—white paper, on which they might write good or evil as they pleased.  Thus you see the seat of their war was in the world without them, which, after some sort, they con­quered; but the lust within remained untouched, be­cause a terra incognita—an unknown region to them.  It is faith from the word that first discovers this unfound land.
2. Distinction.  Faith’s victory is uniform.  Sin in Scripture is called a ‘body,’ Rom. 6:6, because made up of several members, or as the body of an army, con­sisting of many troops and regiments.  It is one thing to beat a troop or put a wing of an army to flight, and another thing to rout and break the whole army. Something hath been done by moral principles, like the former.  They have got some petty victory, and had the chase of some more gross and exterior sin; but then they were fearfully beaten by some other of sin's troops.  When they seemed to triumph over ‘the lust of the flesh’ and ‘eye’—the world’s profits and pleasures—they were at the same time slaves to ‘the pride of life,’ mere gloriæ animalia—creatures of fame—kept in chains by the credit and applause of the world.  As the sea which, they say, loses as much in one place of the land as it gains in another; so, what they got in a seeming victory over one sin they lost again by being in bondage to another, and that a worse, because more spiritual.  But now, faith is uni­form, and routs the whole body of sin, that not one single lust stands in its unbroken strength.  ‘Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace,’ Rom. 6:14.  ‘Sin shall not’—that is, no sin; it may stir like a wounded soldier on his knees—they may rally like broken troops, but never will they be long master of the field where true faith is seen.
3. Distinction.  Faith enables the soul not only to quench these lusts, but, the temptation being quenched, it enables him to use the world itself against Satan, and so beat him with his own weapon by striking his own cudgels to his head.  Faith quen­ches the fire of Satan’s darts, and then shoots them back on him.  This it doth by reducing all the enjoy­ments of the world which the Christian is possessed of into a serviceableness and subordination for the glory of God.

           Some of the heathens’ admired champions, to cure ‘the lust of the eyes,’ have from a blind zeal plucked them out; to show the contempt of riches, have thrown their money into the sea; to conquer the world’s honour and applause, have sequestered them­selves from all company in the world—a preposterous way that God never chalked.  Shall we call it a victory or rather a frenzy?  The world by this time perceives their folly.  But faith enables for a nobler conquest. Indeed, when God calls for any of these enjoyments, faith can lay all at Christ's feet.  But while God allows them, faith’s skill and power is in sanctifying them. It corrects the windiness and flatulent nature of them so, that what on a naughty heart  rots and corrupts, by faith turns to good nourishment in a gracious soul.  If a house were on fire, which would you count the wiser man—he that goes to quench the fire by pulling the house down, or he that by throwing good store of water on it, doth this as fully, and also leaves the house standing for your use?  The heathen and some superstitious Christians think to mortify by taking away what God gives us leave to use; but faith puts out the fire of lust in the heart, and leaves the crea­ture to be improved for God’s glory and enjoyed to the Christian’s comfort.

How Faith Quenches ‘The Pride of Life.’

1. Faith takes away the fuel that feeds this temp­tation. Withdraw the oil and the lamp goes out.  Now that which is fuel to this temptation is pride.  Where this lust is in any strength, no wonder the creature’s eyes are dazzled with the sight of that which suits the desires of his heart so well.  The devil now by a temp­tation does but broach, and so give vent to, what the heart itself is full with.  Simon Magus had a haughty spirit; he would be Simon µX("H—some great man, and therefore, when he did but think an opportunity as offered to mount him up the stage, he is all on fire with a desire of having a gift to work miracles, that he dares to offer to play the huckster with the apostle. Whereas a humble spirit loves a low seat; is not ambi­tious to stand high in the thoughts of others; and so, while he stoops in his own opinion of himself, the bullet flees over his head which hits the proud man on the breast.  Now it is faith lays the heart low. Pride and faith are opposed; like two buckets, if one goes up the other goes down in the soul.  ‘Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith,’ Hab. 2:4.
2. Faith is Christ’s favourite, and so makes the Christian expect all his honour from him.Indeed it is one of the prime acts of faith to cast the soul on God in Christ as all-sufficient to make it completely happy; and therefore, when a temptation comes —‘soul, thou mayest raise thyself in the world to this place or that esteem, if thou wilt but dissemble thy profession, or allow thyself in such a sin’—now faith chokes the bullet.  Remember whose thou art, O my soul.  Hast thou not taken God for thy liege-lord, and wilt thou accept preferment from another’s hand? Princes will not suffer their courtiers to become pen­sioners to a foreign prince—least of all to a prince in hostility to them.  Now, saith faith, the honour or applause thou gettest by sin makes thee pensioner to the devil himself, who is the greatest enemy God hath.
3. Faith shows the danger of such a bargain,should a Christian gain the glory of the world for one sin.

           (1.) Saith faith, Hadst thou the whole world’s empire, with all bowing before thee, this would not add to thy stature one cubit in the eye of God.  But thy sin which thou payest for the purchase blots thy name in his thoughts; yea, makes thee odious in his sight.  God must first be out of love with himself before he can love a sinner as such.  Now, wilt thou incur this for that?  Is it wisdom to lose a prize, to draw a blank?

           (2.) Saith faith, The world’s pomp and glory cannot satisfy thee.  It may kindle thirstings in thy soul, but quench none; it will beget a thousand cares and fears, but quiet none.  But thy sin that procures these hath a power to torment and torture thy soul.

           (3.) When thou hast the world’s crown on thy head, how long shalt thou wear it?  They are sick at Rome, as he said, and die in princes’ courts, as well as at the spital; yea, kings themselves are put as naked to their beds of dust as others.  In that day all thy thoughts will perish with thee.  But the guilt of thy sin, which was the ladder by which thou didst climb up the hill of honour, will dog thee into another world.  These and such like are the considerations by which faith breaks off the bargain.

4. Faith presents the Christian with the exploits of former saints, who have renounced the world’s honour and applause, rather than defile their con­sciences, and prostitute their souls to be deflowered by the least sin.  Great Tamerlane carried the lives of his ancestors into the field with him, in which he used to read before he gave battle, that he might be stirred up not to stain the blood of his family by cowardice or any unworthy behaviour in fight.  Thus, faith peruses the roll of Scripture-saints, and the exploits of their faith over the world, that the Christian may be excited to the same gallantry of spirit.  This was plainly the apostle’s design in recording those worthies, with the trophies of their faith, Heb. 11—that some of their no­bleness might steal into our hearts while we are read­ing of them, as appears, ‘Seeing we also are com­passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so eas­ily beset us,’ Heb. 12:1.  Oh, what courage does it put into the soldier to see some before him run upon the face of death!  Elisha, having seen the miracles of God wrought by Elijah, smites the waters of Jordan with his mantle, saying, ‘Where is the Lord God of Elijah?—‘and they parted,’ II Kings 2:14.  Thus faith makes use of the exploits of former saints and turns them into prayer.  Oh where is the Lord God of Abra­ham, Moses, Samuel, and those other worthies, who by faith have trampled on the world’s pomp and glory, subdued temptations, stopped the mouths of lion-like lusts?  Art not thou, O God, god of the val­leys—the meanest saints, as well as of the mountains —more eminent heroes?  Do not the same blood and spirits run in the veins of all believers?  Were they victorious, and shall I be the only slave, and of so prostrate a spirit, like Issachar, to couch under my burden of corruption without shaking it off?  Help me, O my God, that I may be avenged of these my enemies.  And when it hath been with God it will also plead with the Christian himself.  ‘Awake,’ saith faith, ‘O my soul, and prove thyself akin to these holy men —that thou art born of God as they were—by thy victory over the world.’

How Faith Quenches The ‘Lust of The Eyes.’

1. Faith persuades the soul of God's fatherly care and providence over it.And where this breast-work is raised the soul is safe so long as it keeps within its line.  ‘Oh!’ saith Satan, ‘if thou wouldst but venture on a lie—make bold a little with God in such a com­mand—this wedge of gold is thine, and that advan­tage will accrue to thy estate.’  Now faith will teach the soul to reply, ‘I am well provided for already, Sa­tan; I need not thy pension; why should I play the thief for that which, if good, God hath promised to give?’  ‘Let your con­versation be without covetous­ness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,’ Heb. 13:5.  How canst thou want, O my soul, that by the promise hast command of God's purse?  Let him that is ‘without God in the world’ shift and shirk by his wits; do thou live by thy faith.
2. Faith teaches the soul that the creature’s com­fort and content comes not from abundance but God’s blessing.And to gain the world by a sin is not the road that leads to God’s blessing.  ‘A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent,’ Prov. 28:20.  ‘Shouldst thou,’ saith faith, ‘heap up the world's goods in an evil way, thou art never the nearer to the content thou ex­pectest.’  It is hard to steal one's meat and then crave a blessing on it at God’s hands.  What thou gettest by sin Satan cannot give thee quiet possession of, nor discharge those suits which God will surely com­mence against thee.
3. Faith advanceth the soul to higher projects than to seek the things of this life.It discover a world beyond the moon—and there lies faith’s merchandise —leaving the colliers of this world to load themselves with clay and coals, while it trades for grace and glory.  Faith fetcheth its riches from on far.  Saul did not more willingly leave seeking his father’s asses when he heard of a kingdom, than the believing soul leaves proling for the earth now it hears of Christ and heaven, Ps. 39:6, 7.  We find, ver. 6, holy David brand­ing the men of the world for folly, that they troubled themselves so much for naught: ‘Surely,’ saith he, ‘they are disquieted in vain; he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.’  And, ver. 7, we have him with a holy disdain turning his back upon the world as not worth his pains: ‘And now, Lord, what wait I for?’  As if he had said, Is this the portion I could be content to sit down with?—to sit upon a greater heap of riches than my neighbour hath?  ‘My hope is in thee; deliver me from all my transgressions,’ ver. 8.  Every one as they like.  Let them that love the world take the world; but, Lord, pay not my portion in gold or silver, but in pardon of sin.  This I wait for.  Abraham, he by faith had so low an esteem of this world's treasure that he left his own country to live here a stranger, in hope of ‘a better,’ Heb. 11:16.

           Third Dart of pleasing temptations.  ‘The pride of life.’  There is an itch of pride in man’s heart after the gaudy honours of the world; and this itch of man’s proud flesh the devil labours to scratch and ir­ritate by suitable proffers.  And when the temptation without and lust within meet, then it works to pur­pose.  Balaam loved the way that led to court; and therefore spurs on his conscience—that boggled more than the ass he rode on—till the blood came.  The Jews when convinced of Christ’s person and doctrine, yet were such slaves to their honour and credit, that they part with Christ rather than hazard that.  ‘For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God,’ John 12:43.  Now faith quenches this temptation, and, with a holy scorn, disdains that all the prefer­ment the world hath to heap on him should be a bribe for the least sin.  ‘By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,’ Heb. 11:24, though by this adoption he might have been heir, for aught we know, of the crown; yet this he threw at his heels.  It is not said, ‘he did not seek to be the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,’ though that would have sounded a high commenda­tion, having so fair an opportunity.  Some would not have scrupled a little court flattery, thereby to have cologued From Webster’s.         — SDB themselves into further favour—having so fair a stock in the king's heart to set up with.  But, it is said that he ‘refused to be called’ by this name. Honour came trouling in upon him, as water at a flowing tide.  Now, to stand against this flood of pre­ferment, and no breach made in his heart to entertain it—this was admirable indeed.  Nay, he did not refuse this preferment for any principality that he hoped for elsewhere.  He forsook not one court to go to another, but to join with a beggarly reproached peo­ple.  Yea, by rejecting their favour he incurred the wrath of the king.  Yet faith carried him through all those heights and depths of favour and disgrace, honour and dishonour; and truly, wherever this grace is—allowing for its strength and weakness—it will do the like.  We find, Heb. 11:33, how Samuel and the prophets ‘through faith subdued kingdoms.’  This, sure, is not only meant of the conquest of the sword —though some of them performed honourable achievements that way—but also by despising the honour and preferments of them.  This indeed many of the prophets are famous for; and in particular Samuel, who, at God's command, gave away a king­dom from his own house and family by anointing Saul, though himself at present had possession of the chief's magistrate’s chair.  And others, ver. 37, we read, ‘were tempted;’ that is, when ready to suffer, were offered great preferments if they would bend to the times by receding a little from the bold profession of their faith; but they chose rather the flames of martyr­dom than the favour of princes on those terms.  But, more particularly to show you how faith quenches this temptation.

How Faith Quenches The ‘Lust of The Flesh.’ 2/2

 (2.) The pleasures of sin must needs be short, because life cannot be long, and they both end toge­ther.  Indeed, many times the pleasure of sin dies be­fore the man dies.  Sinners live to bury their joy in this world.  The worm breeds in their conscience be­fore it breeds in their flesh by death.  But be sure that the pleasure of sin never survives this world.  The word is gone out of God’s mouth, every sinner shall ‘lie down in sorrow and wake in sorrow.’  Hell is too hot a climate for wanton delights to live in.  Now faith is a provident, wise grace, and makes the soul bethink itself how it may live in another world.  Whereas the carnal heart is all for the present; his snout is in the trough, and, while his draught lasts he thinks it will never end.  But faith hath a large stride; at one pace it can reach over a whole life of years and see them done while they are but beginning.  ‘I have seen an end of all perfections,’ saith David.  He saw the wicked, when growing on their bed of pleasure, cut down, and burning in God’s oven, as if it were done already, Ps. 37:2.  And faith will do the like for every Christian according to its strength and activity.  And who would envy the condemned man his feast which he hath in his way to the gallows.

           Answer 3. Faith outvies Satan’s proffers by show­ing the soul where choicer enjoyments are to be had at a cheaper rate.  Indeed, ‘best is best cheap.’  Who will not go to that shop where he may be best served? This law holds in force among sinners themselves.  The drunkard goes where he may have the best wine; the glutton where he may have the best cheer.  Now faith presents such enjoyments to the soul that are beyond all compare best.  It leads to the promise, and entertains it there, at Christ’s cost, with all the rich dainties of the gospel.  Not a dish that the saints feed on in heaven but faith can set before the soul, and give it, though not a full meal, yet such a taste as shall melt it in 'joy unspeakable and full of glory.’  This sure must needs quench the temptation.  When Satan sends to invite the Christian to his gross fare, will not the soul say, ‘Should I forsake those pleasures that cheered, yea ravished, my heart, to go and debase my­self with sin's polluted bread, where I shall be but a fellow-commoner with the beast, who shares in sen­sual pleasures with man—yea, become worse than the beast—a devil, like Judas, who arose from his Master’s table to sit at the devil’s?’

           Second Dart of pleasing temptations.  ‘The lust of the eyes.’  This is quenched by faith.  By ‘the lust of the eyes,’ the apostle means those temptations which are drawn from the world’s pelf and treasure. [It is] called so, in the first place, because it is the eye that commits adultery with these things.  As the un­clean eye looks upon another man's wife, so the cov­etous eye looks upon another's wealth to lust after it. In the second place it is called so, because all the good that in a manner is received from them is but to please the eye.  ‘What good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?’ Ecc. 5:11.  That is, if a man hath but to buy food and raiment enough to pay his daily shot of necessary ex­penses, the surplusage serves only for the eye to play the wanton with.  Yet we see how pleasing a morsel they are to a carnal heart.  It is rare to find a man that will not stoop, by base and sordid practices, to take up this golden apple.  When I consider what sad ef­fects this temptation had on Ahab, who, to gain a spot of ground of a few acres, that could not add much to a king’s revenues, durst swim to it in the owner’s blood, I wonder not to see men whose condition is necessitous nibbling at the hook of temptation, where the bait is a far greater worldly advantage.  This is the door the devil entered into Judas by.  This was the break-neck of Demas’ faith, he embraced ‘this present world.’  Now faith will quench a temptation edged with these.

How Faith Quenches The ‘Lust of The Flesh.’ 1/2

           Question.  How does faith quench this fiery dart of sensual delights?

           Answer 1. As it undeceives and takes off the mist from the Christian’s eyes, whereby he is now enabled to see sin in its naked being and callow  principles be­fore Satan hath plumed [it].  It gives him the native taste and relish of sin before the devil hath sophis­ticated it with his sugared sauce.  And truly, now sin proves a homely piece, a bitter morsel.  Faith hath a piercing eye; it is ‘the evidence of things not seen.’  It looks behind the curtain of sense, and sees sin, before its fiery was on and it be dressed for the stage, to be a brat that comes from hell, and brings hell with it. Now, let Satan come if he please, and present a lust never so enticing, the Christian’s answer is ready.  ‘Be not cheated, O my soul,’ saith faith, ‘with a lying spirit.’  He shows thee a fair Rachel, but he intends thee a blear-eyed Leah; he promises joy, but he will pay thee sorrow.  The clothes that make this lust so comely are not its own.  The sweetness thou tastest is not native, but borrowed to deceive thee withal. ‘Thou art Saul,’ saith the woman of Endor, ‘why hast thou deceived me?’ Thus, faith can call sin and Satan by their own names when they come in a disguise. ‘Thou art Satan,’ saith faith, ‘why wouldst thou de­ceive me?  God hath said sin is bitter as gall and wormwood, and wouldst thou make me believe I can gather the sweet fruits of true delight from this root of bitterness? grapes from these thorns?’

           Answer 2. Faith doth not only enable the soul to see the nature of sin void of all true pleasure, but also how transient its false pleasures are.  I will not lose, saith faith, sure mercies for transient uncertain pleas­ures.  This made Moses leap out of the pleasures of the Egyptian court into the fire of ‘affliction,’ Heb. 11:25, because he saw them ‘pleasures for a season.’ Should you see a man in a ship throw himself over­board into the sea, you might at first think him out of his wits; but if, a little while after, you should see him stand safe on the shore, and the ship swallowed up of the waves, you should then think he took the wisest course.  Faith sees the world and all the pleasures of sin sinking: there is a leak in them which the wit of man cannot stop.  Now is it not better to swim by faith through a sea of trouble and get safe to heaven at last, than to sin in the lap of sinful pleasures till we drown in hell's gulf?  It is impossible that the pleasure of sin should last long.

           (1.) Because it is not natural.  Whatever is not natural soon decays.  The nature of sugar is to be sweet, and therefore it holds its sweetness; but sweeten beer or wine never so much with sugar, in a few days they will lose their sweetness.  The pleasure of sin is extrinsical to its nature, and therefore will corrupt.  None of that sweetness which now bewitches sinners will be tasted in hell.  The sinner shall have his cup spiced there by his hand that will have it a bitter draught.

          

FAITH’S POWER TO QUENCH Satan’s pleasing temptations

           SECOND.  We shall show you that faith will enable a soul to quench the pleasing temptations of the wicked one.  This is called our ‘victory that overcometh the world, even our faith,’ I John 5:4. Faith sets its triumphant banner on the world's head.  The same St. John will tell you what is meant by the world: ‘Love not the world;... for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world,’ I John 2:15, 16.  All that is in the world is said to be ‘lust,’ because it is food and fuel for lust.  Now faith enables the soul to quench those darts which Satan dips and envenoms with these worldly lusts —called by some the worldlings Trinity.

           First Dart of pleasing temptations.  ‘The lust of the flesh.’  Under this are comprehended those temp­tations that promise pleasure and delight to the flesh. These indeed carry fire in the mouth of them; and when they light on a carnal heart, do soon inflame it with unruly passions and beastly affections.  The adulterer is said to burn in his lust, Rom. 1:27.  The drunkard to be ‘inflamed with his wine,’ Isa. 5:11.  No sort of temptation works more strongly than those which present sensual pleasure and promise delight to the flesh.  Sinners are said to ‘work all uncleanness with greediness’—with a kind of covetousness; for the word imports they never have enough.^[4]  When the voluptuous person hath wasted his estate, jaded his body in luxury, still the fire burns in his wretched heart.  No drink will quench a poisoned man’s thirst. Nothing but faith can be helpful to a soul in these flames.  We find Dives in hell burning, and not ‘a drop of water to cool the tip of his tongue’ found there.  The unbelieving sinner is in a hell above ground.  He burns in his lust, and not a drop of water, for want of faith, to quench the fire.  By faith it is said those glorious martyrs ‘quenched the violence of the fire,’ Heb. 11.  And truly the fire of lust is as hot as the fire of martyrdom.  By faith alone this is quenched also: ‘We...were sometimes foolish, dis­obedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleas­ures,...But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,...he saved us,’ Titus 3:3, 4.  Never could they shake off these lusts, the old companions, till by faith they got a new acquaintance with the grace of God re­vealed in the gospel.

USE OR APPLICATION OF...The Shield of Faith, Whereby Ye Shall Be Able to Quench All The Fiery Darts of The Wicked

 Use First.  O how should this make us afraid of running into a temptation when there is such a witchery in it.  Some men are too confident.  They have too good an opinion of themselves—as if they could not be taken with such a disease, and therefore will breathe in any air.  It is just with God to let such be shot with one of Satan’s darts, to make them know their own hearts better.  Who will pity him whose house is blown up, that kept his powder in the chimney corner?  ‘Is thy servant a dog,’ saith Hazael, II Kings 8:13.  Do you make me a beast, sunk so far be­low the nature of man as to imbrue my hands in these horrid murders?  Yet, how soon did this wretch fall into the temptation, and, by that one bloody act upon his liege lord, which he perpetrated as soon as he got home, show that the other evils, which the prophet foretold of him, were not so improbable as at first he thought.  Oh, stand off the devil’s mark, unless you mean to have one of the devil’s arrows in your side! Keep as far from the whirl of temptation as may be. For if once he got you within his circle, thy head may soon be dizzy.  One sin helps to kindle another; the less the greater, as the brush the logs.  When the courtiers had got their king to carouse and play the drunkard, he soon learned to play the scorner: ‘The princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners,’ Hosea 7:5.

           Use Second.  Hath Satan’s darts such an enkind­ling nature? take heed of being Satan’s instrument in putting fire to the corruption of another.  Some on purpose do it.  Idolaters set out their temples and al­tars with superstitious pictures, embellished with all the cost that gold and silver can afford them, to be­witch the spectator’s eye.  Hence they are said to be ‘inflamed with their idols,’ Isa. 57:5—as much as any lover with his minion.  And the drunkard, he enkin­dles his neighbour’s lust, ‘putting the bottle to him,’ Hab. 2:15.  O what a base work are these men em­ployed about!  By the law it is death for any wilfully to set fire on his neighbour’s house.  What then de­serve they that set fire on the souls of men, and that no less than hell-fire?  But, is it possible thou mayest do it unawares by a less matter than thou dreamest on.  A silly child playing with a lighted straw may set a house on fire which many wise cannot quench.  And truly Satan may use thy folly and carelessness to kin­dle lust in another’s heart.  Perhaps an idle light speech drops from thy mouth, and thou meanest no great hurt; but a gust of temptation may carry this spark into thy friend’s bosom, and kindle a sad fire there.  A wanton attire, which we will suppose thou wearest with a chaste heart, and only because it is the fashion, yet may ensnare another's eye.  And if he that kept a pit open but to the hurt of a beast, sinned, how much more thou, who givest occasion to a soul’s sin, which is a worse hurt?  Paul ‘would not eat flesh while the world stood, if it made his brother offend,’ I Cor. 8:13.  And canst thou dote on a foolish dress and im­modest fashion, whereby many may offend, still to wear it?  ‘The body,’ Christ saith, ‘is better than rai­ment.’  The soul, then, of thy brother is more to be valued surely than an idle fashion of thy raiment.  We come to the second branch of the point.

The Shield of Faith, Whereby Ye Shall Be Able to Quench All The Fiery Darts of The Wicked

The fiery darts of Satan which the believing soul is able by faith to quench may be described as of two sorts.  FIRST. Either those that do pleasingly entice and bewitch with some seeming promises of satis­faction to the creature.  Or, SECOND. Such as affright and carry horror with them.  Both are fiery, and quenched by faith, and only faith.

FAITH’S FIRST QUENCHING POWER.  Satan’s ‘fiery darts’ of PLEASING TEMPTATIONS, and faith’s power to quench them.

           We shall begin with the first sort of Satan’s fiery darts, viz. those temptations that do pleasingly entice and bewitch the soul with some seeming promises of satisfaction to the creature.  The note is this:— DOCTRINE. That faith will enable a soul to quench the fire of Satan’s most pleasing temptations.  FIRST. We will show you that these enticing temptations have a fiery quality to them.  SECOND. That faith is able to quench them.

Satan’s pleasing temptations HAVE A ‘FIERY’ QUALITY.

           FIRST.  We shall show you that Satan’s enticing temptations have a fiery quality in them.  They have an inflaming quality.  There is a secret disposition in the heart of all to all sin.  Temptation doth not fall on us as a ball of fire on ice or snow, but as a spark on tinder, or [as] lightning on a thatched roof, which presently is on a flame.  Hence in Scripture, though tempted by Satan, yet the sin is charged on us.  ‘Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed,’ James 1:14.  Mark! it is Satan tempts, but our own lust draws us.  The fowler lays the shrap, but the bird’s own desire betrays it into the net.  The heart of a man is marvellous prone to take fire from these darts.  ‘Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out,’ Prov. 26:20.  Thus the ‘fiery darts’ on Christ. There was no combustible matter of corruption in him for Satan to work upon.  But our hearts being once heated in Adam could never cool since.

  A sinner’s heart is compared to ‘an oven.’  ‘They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker,’ Hosea 7:4. The heart of man is the oven, the devil the baker, and temptation the fire with which he heats it; and then no sin comes amiss.  ‘I lie,’ saith David, ‘among them that are set on fire,’ Ps. 57:4.  And, I pray, who sets them on fire?  The apostle will resolve us, ‘set on fire of hell,’ James 3:6.  O friends! when once the heart is inflamed by temptation, what strange effects doth it produce! how hard to quench such a fire, though in a gracious person!  David himself, under the power of a temptation so apparent that a carnal eye could see it—Joab I mean, who reproved him—yet was hurried to the loss of seventy thousand men’s lives; for so much that one sin cost.  And if the fire be so raging in a David, what work will it make where no water is nigh, no grace in the heart to quench it?  Hence the wicked are said to be ‘mad’ upon their idols, Jer. 1:38—spurring on without fear or wit, like a man inflamed with a fever that takes his head; there is no holding of him then in his bed.  Thus the soul posses­sed with the fury of temptation runs into the mouth of death and hell, and will not be stopped.

The saint’s enemy described BY THEIR UNITY 2/2

3.  (2.) Darts or arrows, they make little or no noise as they go.  They cut their passage through the air, without telling us by any crack or report, as the can­non doth, that they are coming.  Thus insensibly doth temptation make its approach;—the thief is in before we think of any need to shut the doors.  The wind is a creature secret in its motion, of which our Saviour saith, ‘We know not whence it cometh and whither it goeth,’ John 3:8, yet, ‘we hear the sound thereof,’ as our Saviour saith in the same place.  But temptations many times come and give us no warning by any sound they make.  The devil lays his plot so close, that the soul sees not his drift, observes not the hook till he finds it in his belly.  As the woman of Tekoah told her tale so handsomely, that the king passeth judgement against himself in the person of another before he smelt out the business.
   3. Darts have a wounding killing nature, espe­cially when well headed and shot out of a strong bow by one that is able to draw it.  Such are Satan’s temp­tations—headed with desperate malice, and drawn by a strength no less than angelical; and this against so poor a weak creature as man, that it were impossible, had not God provided good armour for our soul, to outstand Satan’s power and get safe to heaven. Christ would have us sensible of their force and danger, by that petition in his  prayer which the best of saints on this side heaven have need to use—‘Lead us not into temptation.’  Christ was then but newly out of the list, where he had tasted Satan’s tempting skill and strength; which, though beneath his wisdom and pow­er to defeat, yet well he knew it was able to worst the strongest of saints.  There was never any besides Christ that Satan did not foil more or less.  It was Christ’s prerogative to be tempted, but not lead into temptation.  Job, one of the chief worthies in God’s army of saints, who, from God’s mouth, is a none­such, yet was galled by these arrows shot from Satan’s bow, and put to great disorder.  God was fain to pluck him out of the devil’s grip, or else he would have been quite worried by that lion.
              Second.  Satan’s warlike provision is not only darts, but ‘fiery darts.’  Some restrain these fiery darts to some particular kind of temptation, as despair, blasphemy, and those which fill the heart with terror and horror.  But this, I conceive, is too strait; but faith is a shield for all kind of temptations—and indeed there is none but may prove a ‘fiery’ tempta­tion; so that I should rather incline to think all sorts of temptations to be comprehended here, yet so as to respect some in an especial manner more than others. These shall be afterwards instanced in.
              Question.  Why are Satan’s darts called fiery ones?
              Answer 1.  They may be said to be ‘fiery,’ in re­gard of that fiery wrath with which Satan shoots them. They are the fire this dragon spits, full of indignation against God and his saints.  Saul, it is said, ‘breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord,’ Acts 9:1.  As one that is inwardly inflamed, his breath is hot—a fiery stream of persecuting wrath came as out of a burning furnace from him.  Tempta­tions are the breathings of the devil’s wrath.
              Answer 2.  They may be said to be ‘fiery,’ in re­gard of the end they lead to, if not quenched; and that is hell-fire.  There is a spark of hell in every tempta­tion; and all sparks fly to their element.  So all temp­tations tend to hell and damnation, according to Sa­tan’s intent and purpose.
              Answer 3.  And chiefly they may be said to be ‘fiery,’ in regard of that malignant quality they have on the spirits of men—and that is to enkindle a fire in the heart and consciences of poor creatures.  The apostle alludes to the custom of cruel enemies, who used to dip the heads of their arrows in some poison, whereby they became more deadly, and did not only wound the part where they lighted, but inflamed the whole body, which made the cure more difficult.  Job speaks of ‘the poison of them which drank up his spirits,’ Job 6:4.  They have an envenoming and inflaming quality.

The saint’s enemy described BY THEIR UNITY 1/2

SECOND.  The saint’s enemy is set out by their unity—‘fiery darts of the wicked’—J@Ø B@<ZD@Ø ‘of the wicked one.’  It is as if all were shot out of the same bow, and by the same hand; as if the Christian’s fight were a single duel with one single enemy.  All the legions of devils, and multitudes of wicked men and women, make but one great enemy.  They are all one mystical body of wickedness; as Christ and his saints [are] one mystical holy body.  One Spirit acts Christ and his saints; so one spirit acts devils, and ungodly men his limbs.  The soul is in the little toe; and the spirit of the devil in the least of sinners.  But I have spoken something of this subject elsewhere.  The saint’s enemy described by their warlike provision

           THIRD.  The saint’s enemy is here described by their warlike furniture and provision with which they take the field against the saints—‘darts,’ and those of the worst kind, ‘fiery darts.’

           First. Darts.  The devil’s temptations are the darts he useth against the souls of men and women. They may fitly be so called in a threefold respect.

1. Darts or arrows are swift.  Thence is our usual expression, ‘As swift as an arrow out of a bow.’  Light­ning is called God’s arrow, because it flies swiftly.  ‘He sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them,’ Ps. 18:14, that is, lightning like arrows.  Satan’s temptations flee like a flash of lightning—not long of coming.  He needs no more time than the cast of an eye for the despatch of a temptation.  David’s eye did but una­wares fall upon Bathsheba, and the devil’s arrow was in his heart before he could shut his casement.  Or the hearing of a word or two [will suffice].  Thus, when David's servants had told what Nabal the churl said, David's choler was presently up—an arrow of revenge wounded him to the heart.  What quicker than a thought?  Yet how oft is that a temptation to us? one silly thought riseth in a duty, and our hearts, before intent upon the work, are on a sudden carried away, like a spaniel after a bird that springs up before him as he goes after his master.  Yea, if one tempta­tion speeds not, how soon can he send another after it!—as quick as the nimblest archer.  No sooner than one arrow is delivered, but he hath another on the string.
2. Darts or arrows fly secretly.  And so do temptations.

           (1.) The arrow oft comes afar off.  A man may be wounded with a dart and not see who shot it.  The wicked are said, to shoot their arrows ‘in secret at the perfect,’ and then, ‘they say, Who shall see them?’ Ps 64:4, 5.  Thus Satan lets fly a temptation.  Sometimes he useth a wife’s tongue to do his errand; another while he gets behind the back of a husband, friend, servant, &c., and is not seen all the while he is doing his work.  Who would have thought to have found a devil in Peter tempting his master, or suspected that Abraham should be his instrument to betray his be­loved wife into the hands of a sin?  Yet it was so. Nay, sometimes he is so secret that he borrows God’s bow to shoot his arrows from, and the poor Christian is abused, thinking it is God chides and is angry, when it is the devil that tempts him to think so, and only counterfeits God’s voice.  Job cries out of ‘the arrows of the Almighty,’ how ‘the poison of them drank up his spirit,’ and of ‘the terrors of God that did set themselves in array against him,’ Job 6:4, when it was Satan all the while that was practicing his malice and playing his pranks upon him.  God was friends with this good man, only Satan begged leave—and God gave it for a time—thus to affright him.  And poor Job cries out, as if God had cast him off and were become his enemy.

          

The saints enemy described BY THEIR NATURE

FIRST.  The saint’s enemy is here described by their nature—‘wicked.’  Something I have said of this, ver. 12 where Satan is called ‘spiritual wickednesses.’ I shall at present therefore pass it over with the lighter hand.  Certainly there is some special lesson that God would have his people learn even from this attribute of the devil and his limbs—for the whole pack of devils and devilish men are here intended —that they are represent­ed to the saint’s considera­tion by this name so oft as ‘wicked.’  I shall content myself with TWO ENDS, that I conceive God aims at by this name.

           First End.  They are called ‘wicked,’ as an odi­ous name whereby God would raise his children’s stomachs into a loathing of sin above all things in the world, and provoke their pure souls as to hatred and detestation of all sin, so [to] a vigorous resistance of the devil and his instruments, as such, who are wicked; which is a name that makes him detestable above any other.  God would have us know, that when he himself would speak the worst he can of the devil, he can think of no name for the purpose like this—to say he is ‘the wicked one.’  The name which exalts God highest, and is the very excellency of all his other excellencies, is, that he is ‘the holy One,’ and ‘none holy as the Lord.’  This therefore gives the devil the blackest brand of infamy, that he is ‘the wicked one,’ and none wicked to that height besides himself. Could holiness be separated from any other of God’s attributes—which is the height of blasphemy to think —the glory of them would be departed.  And could the devil’s wickedness be removed from his torments and misery, the case would be exceedingly altered. We ought then to pity him whom now we must no less than hate and abominate with a perfect hatred.

1. Consider this, all ye who live in sin, and blush not to be seen in the practice of it.O that you would behold your faces in this glass, and you would see whom you look like!  Truly, no other than the devil himself and in that which makes him most odious, which is his wickedness.  Never more spit at the name of the devil, nor seem to be scared at any ill-shapen picture of him; for thou carriest a far more ugly one —and the truest of him that is possible—in thy own wicked bosom.  The more wicked the more like the devil; who can draw the devil's picture like himself? If thou beest a wicked wretch thou art of the devil himself.  ‘Cain,’ it is said, ‘was of that wicked one,’ I John 3:12.  Every sin thou committest is a new line that the devil draws on thy soul.  And if the image of God in a saint—which the Spirit of God is drawing for many years together in him—will be so curious a piece when the last line shall be drawn in heaven, O think, then, how frightful and horrid a creature thou wilt appear to be, when after all the devil’s pains here on earth to imprint his image upon thee, thou shalt see thyself in hell as wicked to the full as a wicked devil can make thee.
2. Consider this, O ye saints, and bestow your first pity on those poor forlorn souls that are under the power of a wicked devil.It is a lamentable judg­ment to live under a wicked government, though it be but of men.  For a servant in a family to be under a wicked master is a heavy plague.  David reckons it among other great curses.  ‘Set thou a wicked man over him,’ Ps. 109:6.  O what is it then to have a wicked spirit over him!  He would show himself very kind to his friend that should wish him to be the worst slave in Turkey, rather than the best servant of sin or Sa­tan.  And yet see the folly of men.  Solomon tells us, ‘When the wicked bear rule, the people mourn,’ Prov. 29:2.  But when a wicked devil rules, poor besotted sinners laugh and are merry.  Well, you who are not out of your wits so far, but know sin’s service to be the creature's utmost misery, mourn for them that go themselves laughing to sin, and by sin to hell.

           And again, let it fill thy heart, Christian, with zeal and indignation against Satan in all his tempta­tions.  Remember he is wicked, and he can come for no good.  Thou knowest the happiness of serving a holy God.  Surely, then, thou hast an answer ready by thee against this wicked one comes to draw thee to sin.  Canst thou think of fouling thy hands about his base nasty drudgery, after they have been used to so pure and fine work as the service of thy God is? Listen not to Satan’s motions except thou hast a mind to be ‘wicked.’

           Second End.  They are called ‘wicked,’ as a name of contempt, for the encouragement of all be­lievers in their combat with them.  As if God had said, ‘Fear them not; they are a wicked company you go against’—cause, and they who defend it, both ‘wicked.’  And truly, if the saints must have enemies, the worse they are the better it is.  It would put mettle into a coward to fight with such a crew.  Wickedness must needs be weak.  The devils’ guilt in their own bosoms tells them their cause is lost before the battle is fought.  They fear thee, Christian, because thou art holy, and therefore thou needest not be dismayed at them who are wicked.  Thou lookest on them as subtle, mighty, and many, and then thy heart fails thee.  But look on all these subtle mighty spirits as wicked ungodly wretches, that hate God more than thee, yea thee for thy kindred to him, and thou canst not but take heart.  Whose side is God on that thou art afraid?  Will he that rebuked kings for touching his anointed ones and doing them harm in their bodies and estates, stand still, thinkest thou, and suf­fer these wicked spirits to attempt the life of God himself in thee, thy grace, thy holiness, without com­ing in to thy help?  It is impossible.

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2. Character.Presumptuous faith is lame of one hand; it hath a hand to receive pardon and heaven from God, but no hand to give up itself to God.  True faith hath the use of both her hands.  ‘My beloved is mine’—there the soul takes Christ; ‘and I am his’ —there she surrenders herself to the use and service of Christ.  Now, didst thou ever pass over thyself freely to Christ?  I know none but will profess they do this.  But the presumptuous soul, like Ananias, lies to the Holy Ghost, by keeping back part, yea, the chief part, of that he promised to lay at Christ’s feet.  This lust he sends out of the way, when he should deliver it up to justice; and that creature enjoyment he twines about, and cannot persuade his heart to trust God with the disposure of it, but cries out when the Lord calls for it, ‘Benjamin shall not go.’  Life is bound up in it, and if God will have it from him he must take it by force, for there is no hope of gaining his consent. Is this the true picture of thy faith, and [of the] temper of thy soul? then verily thou blessest thyself in an idol, and mistake a bold face for a believing heart. But, if thou beest as willing to be faithful to Christ, as to pitch thy faith on Christ; if thou countest it as great a privilege that Christ should have a throne in thy heart and love, as that thou shouldst have a place and room in his mercy; in a word, if thou beest plain-hearted and wouldst not hide a sin, nor lock up a creature enjoyment, from him, but desirest freely to give up thy dearest lust to the gibbet, and thy sweetest enjoyments to stay with, or go from thee, as thy God thinks fit to allow thee—though all this be with much regret and discontent from a malignant party of the flesh within thee—thou provest thyself a sound believer; and the devil may as well say that himself believeth as that thou presumest.  If this be to pre­sume, be thou yet more presumptuous.  Let the devil nickname thee and thy faith as he pleaseth; the rose-water is not the less sweet because one writes ‘worm­wood water’ on the glass.  The Lord knows who are his, and will own them for his true children, and their graces for the sweet fruits of his Spirit, though a false title be set on them by Satan and the world, yea, sometimes by believers on themselves.  The father will not deny his child because he is a violent fit of a fever talks idle and denies him to be his father.
3. Character.  The presumptuous faith is a sap­less and unsavoury faith.  When an unsound heart pretends to greatest faith on Christ, even then it finds little savour, tastes little sweetness in Christ.  No, he hath his old tooth in his head, which makes him relish still the gross food of sensual enjoyments above Christ and his spiritual dainties.  Would he but freely speak what he thinks, he must confess that if he were put to his choice whether he would sit with Christ and his children, to be entertained with the pleasures that they enjoy from spiritual communion with him in his promises, ordinances, and holy ways; or had rather sit with the servants, and have the scraps which God al­lows the men of the world in their full bags and bellies of carnal treasure; that he would prefer the latter before the former.  He brags of his interest in God, but he care not how little he is in the presence of God in any duty or ordinance.  Certainly, if he were such a favourite as he speaks, he would be more at court than he is.  He hopes to be saved, he saith, but he draws not his wine of joy at this tap.  It is not the thoughts of heaven that comfort him; but what he hath in the world and of the world, these maintain his joy.  When the world's vessel is out, and the creature joy spent, alas, the poor wretch can find little relief from, or relish in, his pretended hopes of heaven and interest in Christ, but he is still whining after the other.  Whereas true faith alters the very creature’s palate.  No feast so sweet to the believer as Christ is. Let God take all other dishes off the board and leave but Christ, he counts his feast is not gone—he hath what he likes; but let all else stand, health, estate, friends, and what else the world sets a high value on, if Christ be withdrawn he soon misseth his dish, and makes his moan, and saith, ‘Alas! who hath taken away my Lord?’  It is Christ that seasons these and all his enjoyments, and makes them savoury meat to his palate; but without him they have no more taste than the white of an egg without salt.

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3. Character.The doubtings of a truly believing soul make him more inquisitive how he may get what he sometimes he fears he hath not.  Many sad thoughts pass to and fro in his soul whether Christ be his or no, whether he may lay claim to the promise or no; and these cause such a commotion in his spirit, that he cannot rest till he come to some resolution in his own thoughts from the word concerning this great case.  Therefore, as Ahasuerus, when he could not sleep, called for the records and chronicles of his kingdom, so the doubting the doubting soul betakes himself to the records of heaven—the word of God in the Scripture—and one while he is reading there, another while looking into his own heart, if he can find anything that answers the characters of Scrip­ture—faith, as the face in the glass doth the face of man.  David, Ps. 77, when he was at a loss what to think of himself, and many doubts did clog his faith —insomuch that the thinking of God increased his trouble—did not sit down and let the ship drive, as we say, not regarding whether God loved him or no. No; he ‘communes with his own heart, and his spirit makes diligent search.’  Thus it is with every sincere soul under doubtings.  He dares no more sit down contented in that unresolved condition, than one who thinks he smells fire in his house dares settle himself to sleep till he hath looked into every room and cor­ner, and satisfied himself that all is safe, lest he should be waked with the fire about his ears in the night.  The poor doubting soul [is indeed] much more afraid, lest it should awake with hell‑fire about it; whereas a soul in a state and under the power of unbelief, is secure and careless.  The old world did not believe the threatening of the flood, and they spend no thoughts about the matter.  It is at their doors and windows before they had used any means how to escape it.
4. Character.  In the midst of the true believer’s doubtings there is an innitency of his heart on Christ, and a secret purpose still to cleave to him.  At the same time that Peter's feet were sinking into the waters, he was lifting up a prayer to Christ; and this proved the truth of his faith, as the other its weak­ness.  So Jonah, he had many fears, and sometimes so predominant, that as bad humours settle into a sore, so they gathered into a hasty unbelieving conclusion, yet then his faith had some little secret hold on God. ‘Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple,’ Jonah 2:4.  And, ‘When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord,’ ver. 7.  Holy David also, though he could not rid his soul of all those fears which got into it through his weak faith, as water into a leaking ship, yet he hath his hand at the pump, and takes up a firm resolution against them.  ‘What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee,’ Ps. 56:3.  The doubting Christian sinks, but, as a traveller in a slough where the bottom is firm, and so recovers himself.  But the unbeliever, he sinks in his fears, as a man in a quick-sand, lower and lower till he be swallowed up into despair.  The weak Chris­tian’s doubting is like the wavering of a ship at anchor —he is moved, yet not removed from his hold on Christ; but the unbeliever's, like the wavering of a wave, which, having nothing to stay it, is wholly at the mercy of the wind.  ‘Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed,’ James 1:6. 

           Third Ground of Suspicion.  O but, saith another, I fear mine is a presumptuous faith, and if so, to be sure it cannot be right.

           Answer.  For the fuller assoiling [i.e. clearing] this objection, I shall lay down three characters of a presumptuous faith.

           1. Character.  A presumptuous faith is an easy faith.  It hath no enemy of Satan or our own corrupt hearts to oppose it, and so, like a stinking weed, shoots up and grows rank on a sudden.  The devil never hath the sinner surer than when dreaming in this fool’s paradise, and walking in his sleep, amidst his vain fantastical hopes of Christ and salvation. And therefore he is so far from waking him, that he draws the curtains close about him, that no light nor noise in his conscience may break his rest.  Did you ever know the thief call up him in the night whom he meant to rob and kill?  No, sleep is his advantage. But true faith he is a sworn enemy against.  He persecutes it in the very cradle, as Herod did Christ in the cratch;^[8] he pours a flood of wrath after it as soon as it betrays its own birth by crying and lamenting after the Lord.  If thy faith be legitimate Naphtali may be its name; and thou mayest say, ‘With great wrestlings have I wrestled with Satan and my own base heart, and at last have prevailed.’  You know the answer that Rebecca had when she inquired of God about the scuffle and striving of the children in her womb, ‘Two nations,’ God told her, ‘were in her womb.’  If thou canst find the like strife in thy soul, thou mayest comfort thyself that it is from two con­trary principles, faith and unbelief, which are lusting one against another; and thy unbelief, which is the elder —however now it strives for the mastery—shall serve the younger.

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2. Character. The doubtings of a sincere believer are accompanied with ardent desires those things which it most calls in question and doubts of.  The weak believer, he questions whether God loves him or no, but he desires it more than life.  And this is the language of a gracious soul, ‘Thy lovingkindness is better than life,’ Ps. 63:3.  He doubts whether Christ be his; yet, if you should ask him what value he sets upon Christ, and what he would give for Christ, he can tell you, and that truly, that no price should be too great if he were to be bought.  No condition that God offers Christ upon appears to him hard, but all easy and cheap.  And this is the judgment which only the believing soul can have of Christ.  ‘Unto you therefore which believe, he is precious,’ I Peter 2:7.  In a word, he doubts whether he be truly holy or only counterfeit; but his soul pants and thirsts after those graces most which he can see least.  He to him should be the more welcome messenger that brings him the news of a broken heart, than another that tells him of a whole crown and kingdom fallen to him.  He dis­putes every duty and action he doth, whether it be ac­cording to the rule of the word; and yet he passion­ately desires that he could walk without one wry step from it; and doth not quarrel with the word because it is so strict, but with his heart because it is so loose. And how great a testimony these give of a gracious frame of heart!  See Ps. 119:20, 140, where David brings these as the evidence of his grace.  Canst thou there­fore, poor soul, let out thy heart strongly after Christ and his graces, while thou dost not see thy interest in either?  Be of good cheer, thou art not so great a stranger with these as thou thinkest thyself.  These strong desires are the consequent of some taste thou hast had of them already; and these doubts may pro­ceed, not from an absolute want, as if thou wert wholly destitute of them, but [from] the violence of thy desires, which are not satisfied with what thou hast.  It is very ordinary for excessive love to beget excessive fear, and that groundless.  The wife, because she loves her husband dearly, fears when he is abroad she shall never see him more.  One while she thinks he is sick; another while killed; and thus her love torments her without any just cause, when her hus­band is all the while well and on his way home.  A jewel of great price, or ring that we highly value, if but laid out of sight, our extreme estimate we set on them makes us presently think them lost.  It is the nature of passions in this our imperfect state, when strong and violent, to disturb our reason, and hide things from our eye which else were easy to be seen.  Thus many poor doubting souls are looking and hunting to find that faith which they have already in their bosoms—[it] being hid from them merely by the vehemency of their desire of it, and [by the] fear they should be cheated with a false one for a true.  As the damsel ‘opened not the gate for gladness’ to Peter Acts 12:14—her joy at [the time then] present made her forget what she did—so the high value the poor doubting Christian sets on faith, together with an ex­cess of longing after it, suffer him not to entertain so high an opinion of himself as to think he at present hath that jewel in his bosom which he so infinitely prizeth.

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First Ground of Suspicion.  I am afraid, saith the poor soul, I have no true faith, because I have not those joys and consolations which others have who believe.

           Answer First.  Thou mayest have inward peace though not joy.  The day may be still and calm though not glorious and sunshine.  Though the Comforter be not come with his ravishing consolations, yet he may have hushed the storm of thy troubled spirit; and true peace, as well as joy, is the consequent of ‘faith un­feigned.’

           Answer Second.  Suppose thou hast not yet at­tained so much as to this inward peace, yet know, thou hast no reason to question the truth of thy faith for want of this.  We have peace with God as soon as we believe, but not always with ourselves.  The par­don may be past the prince’s hand and seal, and yet not put into the prisoner’s hand.  Thou thinkest them too rash, dost thou not, who judged Paul a murderer by the viper that fastened on his hand?  And what art thou who condemnest thyself for an unbeliever, be­cause of those troubles and inward agonies which may fasten for a time on the spirit of the most gracious child God hath on earth?

           Second Ground of Suspicion.  O but can there be any true faith where there is so much doubting as I find in myself?

           Answer.  There is a doubting which the Scripture opposeth to the least degree of faith.  Our blessed Saviour tells them what wonder they shall do if they believe and ‘doubt not,’ Matt. 21:21; and, Luke 17:6, he tells his disciples if they have faith as a grain of mustard-seed,’ they shall do as much.  That which is a faith without doubting in Matthew is faith as a grain of mustard-seed in Luke.  But again, there is a doubt­ing which the Scripture opposeth not to the truth of faith, but to the strength of faith, ‘O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?’ Matt. 14:31.  They are the words of Christ to sinking Peter, in which he so chides his doubting as yet to acknowledge the truth of his faith, though weak.  All doubting is evil in its nature, yet some doubting, though evil in itself, doth evidence some grace that is good to be in the person so doubting; as smoke proves some fire.  And peev­ishness and pettishness in a sick person that before lay senseless, is a good sign of some mending, though itself a thing bad enough.  But the thing here desir­able, I conceive, would be to give some help to the doubting soul, that he may what his doubting is symptomatical of; whether of true faith, though weak, or of no faith.  Now for this I shall lay down four characters of those doubtings which accompany true faith.

1. The doubtings of a true believer are attended with much shame and sorrow of spirit, even for those doubtings.  I appeal to thy conscience, poor doubting soul, whether the consideration of this one sin doth not cost thee many a salt tear and heavy sigh which others know not of?  Now, I pray, from whence come  these?  Will unbelief mourn for unbe­lief? or sin put itself to shame?  No, sure, it shows there is a principle of faith in the soul that takes God's part, and cannot see his promises and name wronged by unbelief without protesting against it, and mourning under it, though the hands of this grace be too weak at present to drive the enemy out of the soul.  The law cleared the damsel that ‘cried’ out ‘in the field,’ and so will the gospel thee who sincerely mournest for thy unbelief, Deut. 22:27.  That holy man, whoever he was, was far gone in his doubting disease, Ps. 77.  How many times do we find his unbelief putting the mercy and faithfulness of God—which should be beyond all dispute in our hearts—to the question and dubious vote in his distempered soul? He might with as much reason have asked his soul whether there was a God? as whether his mercy was clean gone and his promise failed? yet so far did his fears in this hurry carry him aside.  But at last you have him acknowledging his folly, ver. 10, ‘And I said this in my infirmity.’  This I may thank thee for, O my unbelief! thou enemy of God and my soul, thou wilt be puzzling me with needless fears, and make me think and speak so unworthily of my God.  This proved there was faith at the bottom of his unbelief.

Faith or the graces of God in a believer must be acknowledged

      Exhortation Second.  We come to the second word of exhortation we have to speak to the saints:—If faith be such a choice grace, and thou hast it, deny not what God hath done for thee.  Which is worst, thinkest thou?—the sinner to hide his sin and deny it, or the Christian to hide and deny his faith?  I confess the first does worst, if we look to the inten­tion of the persons; for the sinner hides his sin out of a wicked end.  The doubting soul [however] means well:—he is afraid to play the hypocrite and be found a liar in saying he hath what he fears he hath not. But, if we consider the consequence of the Christian’s dis­owning the grace of God in him, and what use the devil makes of it for the leading him into many other sins, it will not be so easy to resolve whose sin is the greatest.  Good Joseph meant piously when he had thought of putting away secretly his es­poused Mary —thinking no other but that she had played the whore—and yet, it would have been a sad act if he had persisted in his thoughts, especially after the angel had told him that which was conceived in her to be of the Holy Ghost.  Thus thou, poor mourning soul, may be, art oft thinking to put away thy faith as some by-blow of Satan, and base-born counterfeit grace begot on thy hypocritical heart by the father of lies.  Well, take heed what thou dost.  Hast thou had no vision—not extraordinary of and angel or immedi­ate revelation, but ordinary of the Spirit of God—I mean in his word and ordinances, encouraging thee from those characters which are in the Scripture given of faith, and the conformity thy faith hath to them, to take and own thy faith as that which is conceived in thee by the Holy Ghost, and not a brat formed by the delusion of Satan in the womb of thy own groundless imagination?  If so, be afraid of bearing false-witness against the grace of God in thee.  As there is that makes himself rich in faith that hath nothing of this grace, so there is that maketh himself poor that hath great store of this riches.  Let us therefore hear what are the grounds of this thy suspicion, that we may see whether thy fears or thy faith be imaginary and false.  First. Saith the poor soul, I am afraid I have no true faith because I have not those joys and consolations which others have who believe.  Second. O but can there be any true faith where there is so much doubt­ing as I find in myself?  Third. O but I fear mine is a presumptuous faith, and if so, to be sure it cannot be right.

CHARACTERS by which we may know whether faith be strong or weak 4/4

6. Character.  The more ingenuity and love is in thy obediential walking, the stronger thy faith is. Faith works by love, and therefore its strength or weakness may be discovered by the strength or weakness of that love it puts forth in the Christian’s actings.  The strength of a man's arm that draws a bow, is seen by the force the  arrow which he shoots flies with.  And certainly the strength of our faith may be known by the force our love mounts to God with.  It is impossible that weak faith—which is unable to draw the promise as a strong faith can—should leave such a forcible impression on the heart to love God to aban­don sin, perform duty, and exert acts of obedience to his command, know thy place, and take it with hum­ble thankfulness, thou art a graduate in the art of be­lieving.  The Christian’s love advanceth by equal paces with his faith, as the heat of the day increaseth with the climbing sun; the higher that mounts towards its meridian, the hotter the day grows.  So the higher faith lifts Christ up in the Christian, the more intense his love to Christ grows, which now sets him on work after another sort than he was wont.  Before, when he was to mourn for his sins, he was acted by a slavish fear, and made an ugly face at the work, as one doth that drinks some unpleasing potion; but now acts of repentance are not distasteful and formidable, since faith hath discovered mercy to sit on the brow of jus­tice, and undeceived the creature of those false and cruel thoughts of God which ignorantly he had taken up concerning him.  He doth not now ‘hate the word repentance’—as Luther said he once did before he understood that place, Rom. 1:17—but goes about the work with amiable sweet apprehensions of a good God, that stands ready with the sponge of his mercy dipped in Christ’s mercy, to blot out his sins as fast as he scores them up by his humble sorrowful confession of them.  And the same might be said concerning all other offices of Christian piety.  Strong faith makes the soul ingenuous.  It doth not pay the performance of any duty, as an oppressed subject doth a heavy tax —with a deep sigh, to think how much he parts with —but as freely as a child would present his father with an apple of that orchard which he holds by gift from him.  Indeed, the child when young is much ser­vile and selfish, forbearing what his father forbids for fear of the rod, and doing what he commands for some fine thing or other that his father bribes him with, more than for pure love to his person or obedi­ence to his will and pleasure.  But, as he grows up and comes to understand himself better, and the relation he stands in, with the many obligations of it to filial obedience, then his servility and selfishness wear off, and his FJ`D(¬—natural affection—will prevail more with him to please his father than any other argument whatever.  And so will it with the Christian where faith is of any growth and ripeness.
7. Character.  To name no more, the more able faith is to sweeten the thoughts of death, and make it desirable to the Christian, the stronger his faith. Things that are very sharp or sour will take much sugar to make them sweet.  Death is one of those things which hath the most ungrateful taste to the creature’s palate that can be.  O it requires a strong faith to make the serious thoughts of it sweet and de­sirable!  I know some in a pet and a passion have pro­fessed great desires of dying, but it hath been as a sick man desires to change his place, merely out of a wea­riness of, and discontent with, his present condition, without any due consideration of what they desire. But a soul that knows the consequences of death, and the unchangeableness of that state, whether of bliss or misery, that it certainly marries us to, will never cheerfully call for death in his cordial desires, till he be in some measure resolved from the promise what entertainment he may expect from God when he comes into that other world—and that weak faith will not do without abundance of fears and doubts.  I con­fess, that sometimes a Christian of very weak faith may meet death with as little fear upon his spirit, yea, more joy, than one of a far stronger faith, when he is held up by the chin by some extraordinary comfort poured into his soul from God immediately.  Should God withdraw this, however, his fears would return upon him, and he feel again his faintings; as a sick man, that hath been strangely cheered with a strong cordial, does his feebleness when the efficacy of it is spent.  But we speak of the ordinary way how Chris­tians come to have their hearts raised above the fear, yea, into a strong desire, of death, and that is by attaining to a strong faith.  God can indeed make a feast of a few loaves, and multiply the weak Chris­tian’s little faith on a sudden, as he lives on a sick-bed, into a spread table of all varieties of consola­tions.  But I fear that God will not do this miracle for that man or woman who, upon the expectation of this, contents himself with the little provision of faith he hath, and labours not to increase his store against that spending time.

CHARACTERS by which we may know whether faith be strong or weak 3/4

4. Character.  The more the Christian can lose or suffer upon the credit of the promise, the stronger his faith is.  If you should see a man part with a fair inheritance, and leave his kindred and country where he might pass his days in the embracements of his dear friends and the delicious fare which a plentiful estate would afford him every day, to follow a friend to the other end of the world, with hunger and hard­ship, through sea and land, and a thousand perils that meet him on every hand, you would say that this man had a strong confidence of his friend, and a dear love to him, would you not?  Nay, if he should do all this for a friend whom he never saw, upon the bare credit of a letter which he sends to invite him to come over to him, with a promise of great things he will do for him; now, to throw all his present possessions and enjoyments at his heels, and willingly put himself into the condition of a poor pilgrim and traveller, with the loss of all he hath, that he may come to his dear friend, this adds to the wonder of his confidence. Such gallant spirits we read of—‘Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice,’ I Peter 1:6-8.  Observe the place, and you shall find them in sorrowful plight —‘in heaviness through manifold temptations’—yet, because their way lies through the sloughs to the en­joyment of God and Christ, whom they never saw or knew, but by the report the word makes of them, they can turn their back off the world's friendship and enjoyments—with which it courted them as well as others—and go with a merry heart through the deep­est of them all.  Here is glorious faith indeed.  It is not praising of heaven, and wishing we were there, but a cheerful abandoning the dearest pleasures, and embracing the greatest sufferings of the world when called to the same, that will evidence our faith to be both true and strong.
5. Character.  The more easily that the Christian can repel motions, and resist temptations to sin, the stronger is his faith.  The snare or net which holds the little fish fast, the greater and stronger fish easily breaks through.  The Christian’s faith is strong or weak as he finds it easy or hard to break from temptations to sin.  When an ordinary temptation holds thee by the heel, and thou art entangled in like the fly in the spider’s web—much ado to get off, and per­suade thy heart from yielding—truly it speaks faith very feeble.  To have no strength to oppose the as­saults of sin and lust, speaks the heart void of faith. Where faith hath not a hand to prostrate an enemy, it yet hath a hand to lift up against it, and a voice to cry out for help to heaven.  Some way or other faith will show its dislike and enter its protest against sin.

           And to have little strength to resist, evidenceth a weak faith.  Peter's faith was weak when a maid's voice dashed him out of countenance; but it was well amended when he could withstand, and, with a noble constancy, disdain the threats of a whole counsel, Acts 4.  Christian, compare thyself with thyself, and give righteous judgment on thyself.  Do now thy lusts as powerfully inveigle thy heart, and carry it away from God, as they did some months or years ago; or canst thou in truth say thy heart is got above them.  Since thou hast known more of Christ, and had a view of his spiritual glories, canst thou now pass by their door and not look in; yea, when they knock at thy door in a temptation, thou canst shut it upon them, and dis­dain the motion?  Surely thou mayest know thy faith is grown stronger.  When we see that the clothes which a year or two ago were even fit for the person, will not now come on him, they are so little, we may easily be persuaded to believe the person is much grown since that time.  If thy faith were no more grown, those temptations which fitted thee would like thee as well now.  Find but the power of sin die, and thou mayest know that faith is more lively and vigor­ous.  The harder the blow, the stronger the arm that gives it.  A child cannot strike such a blow as a man. Weak faith cannot give such a home-blow to sin as a strong faith can.

CHARACTERS by which we may know whether faith be strong or weak 2/4

2. Character.  The more composed and content­ed the heart is under the changes which providence brings upon the Christian’s state and condition in the world, the stronger his faith is.  Weak bodies cannot bear the change of weather so well as healthful and strong ones do.  Hot and cold, fair or foul, cause no great alteration in the strong man's temper; but alas! the other is laid up by them, or at best goes complain­ing of them.  Thus strong faith can live in any cli­mate, travel in all weather, and fadge with any condi­tion.  ‘I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, there­with to be content,’ Php. 4:11.  Alas! all Christ’s schol­ars are not of Paul’s form; weak faith hath not yet got the mastery of this hard lesson.  When God turns thy health into sickness, thy abundance into penury, thy honour into scorn and contempt, into what language dost thou now make thy condition known to him?  Is thy spirit embittered into discontent, which thou ventest in murmuring complaints? or art thou well satisfied with God's dealings, so as to acquiesce cheer­fully in thy present portion, not from an unsensible­ness of the affliction, but approbation of divine ap­pointment?  If the latter, thy faith is strong.

           (1.) It shows God hath a throne in thy heart.  Thou reverencest his authority and ownest his sover­eignty, or else thou wouldst not acquiesce in his or­ders.  ‘I was dumb, because thou didst it,’ Ps. 39:9.  If the blow had come from any other hand he could not have taken it so silently.  When the servant strike the child, he runs to his father and makes his complaint; but, though the father doth more to him, he com­plains not of his father, nor seeks redress from any other, because it is his father whose authority he re­veres.  Thus thou comportest thyself toward God; and what but a strong faith can enable thee?  ‘Be still, and know that I am God,’ Ps. 46:10.  We must know God believingly to be what he is, before our hearts will be ‘still.’

           (2.) This acquiescency of spirit under the dispo­sition of providence shows that thou dost not only stand in awe of his sovereignty, but hast amiable comfortable thoughts of his mercy and goodness in Christ.  Thou believest he can soon, and will certainly make thee amends, or else thou couldst not so easily part with these enjoyments.  The child goes willingly to bed when others, may be, are going to supper at a great feast in the family; but the mother promiseth the child to save something for him against the morn­ing; this the child believes and is content. Surely thou hast something in the eye of thy faith which will rec­ompense all thy present loss; and this makes thee fast so willingly when others feast, be sick when others are well.  Paul tells us why he and his brethren in afflic­tion did not faint, II Cor. 4:16, 17.  They saw heaven coming to them while earth was going from them. ‘For which cause we faint not, ...for our light afflic­tion, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’

           3. Character.  The more able to wait long for answers to our desires nd prayers, the stronger faith is.  It shows the tradesman to be poor and needy when he must have ready money for what he sells. They that are forehanded are willing to give time, and able to forbear long.  Weak faith is all for the present; if it hath not presently its desires answered, then it grows jealous and lays down sad conclusions against itself—his prayer was not heard, or he is not one God loves, and the like.  Much ado to be kept out of a fainting fit—‘I said in my haste that all men were liars.’  But strong faith that can trade with God for time, yea, waits God’s leisure—‘He that believeth shall not make haste,’ Isa. 28:16.  He knows his money is in a good hand, and he is not over-quick to call for it home, knowing well that the longest voyages have the richest returns.  As rich lusty ground can forbear rain longer than lean or sandy [ground], which must have a shower ever and anon, or the corn on it fades; or as a strong healthful man can fast longer without faintness, than the sickly and weak,—so the Christian of strong faith can stay longer for spiritual refreshing from the presence of the Lord, in the returns of his mercy and discoveries of his love to him, than one of weak faith.