Satan’s second affrighting temptation —THE FIERY DART OF BLASPHEMY 1/7

 Second Dart of affrighting temptations.  The second fiery dart with which he frightens the Christian is his temptation to blasphemy.  Every sin, in a large sense, is blasphemy; but here we take it more strictly.  When a man does, speaks, or thinks anything derogatory to the holy nature or works of God, with an intent to reproach him or his ways, this properly is blasphemy.  Job’s wife was the devil’s so­licitor, to provoke her husband to this sin: ‘Curse God,’ saith she, ‘and die.’  The devil was so impudent {as} to assault Christ himself with this sin, when he bade him ‘fall down and worship him.’  But he hath an advantage of making a nearer approach to a saint than he bade to Christ.  All that he could do to him was to offend his holy ear with an external motion.  It would not stand with the dignity or holiness of Christ’s person to let him come any farther.  But he can shoot this fiery dart into the imagination of a saint, to the great disturbance of his thoughts, endeav­ouring thereby to stir up some unworthy thoughts of God in him—though these are commonly no more welcome to a gracious soul than the frogs which crept into the bed-chamber of Pharaoh were to him.  Two things Satan aims at by these injections.  1. To set the saint a defaming God, which he loves a life to hear. But if this fails, then, 2. He is content to play at lower game, and intends the Christian’s vexation by forcing these unwelcome guests upon him.  Now faith, and only faith, can quench these fireballs in both respects.

How faith quenches the fiery dart of blasphemy, and Satan’s DOUBLE DESIGN therein.

           First Design.  Satan aims, by the stirring up of unholy thoughts, to set the saint a defaming God. There is a natural disposition in every wicked man to blaspheme God.  Let God but cross a carnal wretch in this way, and then suffer Satan to edge his corruption, and he will soon flee in God’s face.  If the devil’s supposition had been true—as it was indeed most false—that Job was a hypocrite, then that tale which he brought against him to God would have been true also—‘Put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face,’ Job 1:11. Had Job been the man he took him for, the devil had not lied; because it is natural to every wicked man to have base thoughts of God; and, when provoked, the inward rancour of his heart will appear in the foulness of his tongue—‘This evil is of the Lord; what should I wait for the Lord any longer?’ II Kings 6:33—a loud blasphemy, the seed of which is found in every un­believer.  There is but one spirit of wickedness in sin­ners, as but one spirit of grace in saints.  Simon Ma­gus he was ‘in the gall of bitterness,’ Acts 8:23; that is, in a state of sin.  Every unbeliever is of a bitter spirit against God and all that bears his name.  There is no trusting of the tamest of them all, though cooped up by restraining grace.  Let the lion out of his grate and he will soon show his bloody nature.  An unbeliever hath no more in him to quench such a temptation, than dry wood hath to quench the fire that is put to it. But now, let us see what exploits faith can do in quenching this fiery dart, and how faith does it. Generally it is by keeping the soul from entertaining any unbecoming or blasphemous thoughts of God; but,

How Faith Quenches the Fiery Dart of Atheism

           Question.  But what need of faith?  Will not reason serve the turn to stop the devil’s mouth in this point?  Cannot the eye of reason spy a deity except it look through the spectacles of faith?

           Answer.  I grant that this is a piece of natural di­vinity, and reason is able to demonstrate the being of a God.  Where the Scriptures never came a deity is acknowledged: ‘For all people will walk every one in the name of his god,’ Micah 4:5, where it is supposed that every nation owns some deity, and hath a wor­ship for that god they own.  Yet in a furious assault of temptation it is faith alone that is able to keep the field and quench the fire of this dart.

1. That light which reason affords is duskish and confused,serving for little more than in general to show there is a God; it will never tell who or what this God is.  Till Paul brought the Athenians acquainted with the true God, how little of this first principle in religion was known among them, though that city was then the very eye of the world for learning!  And if the world's eye was so dark as not to know the God they worshipped, what then was the world’s darkness itself —those barbarous places, I mean, which wanted all tillage and culture of humane literature to advance and perfect their understandings?  This is a Scripture notion; and so is the object of faith rather than rea­son, ‘He that cometh to God must believe that he is,’ Heb. 11:6.  Mark that, he ‘must believe.’  Now faith goes upon the credit of the word, and takes all upon trust from its authority.  He ‘must believe that he is;’ which, as Mr. Perkins on the place saith, is not nakedly to know there is a God, but to know God to be God’—which reason of itself can never do.  Such is the blindness and corruption of our nature, that we have very deformed and misshapen thoughts of him, till with the eye of faith we see his face in the glass of the word; and therefore the same learned man is not afraid to affirm that all men who ever cam of Adam —Christ alone excepted—are by nature atheists, because at the same time that they acknowledge a God, they deny him his power, presence, and justice, and allow him to be only what pleaseth themselves. Indeed it is natural for every man to desire to accom­modate his lusts with such conceptions of God as may be most favourable to, and suit best with, them.  God chargeth some for this: ‘Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself,’ Ps. 50:21—sinners doing with God as the Ethiopians with angels, whom they picture with black faces that they may be like themselves.
2. Suppose thou wert able by reason to demon­strate what God is, yet it were dangerous to enter the list and dispute it out by thy naked reason with Satan, who hath, though the worst cause, yet the nimbler head.  There is more odds between thee and Satan —though the reason and understanding of many the ripest wits were met in thee—than between the weak­est idiot and the greatest scholar in the world.  Now who would put a cause of so great importance to such a hazard as thou must do, by reasoning the point with him that so far outmatches thee?  But there is a divine authority in the word which faith builds on, and this hath a throne in the conscience of the devil himself, he flies at this; for which cause Christ, though he was able by reason to have baffled the devil, yet to give us a pattern what arms to use for our defence in our conflicts with Satan, he repels him only by lifting up the shield of the word.  ‘It is writ­ten,’ saith Christ, Luke 4:4, and again, ‘it is written,’ ver. 8.  And it is very observable how powerful the word quoted by Christ was to nonplus the devil; so that he had not a word to reply to any scripture that was brought, but was taken off upon the very mention of the word and forced to go to another argument. Had Eve but stood to her first answer, ‘God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it,’ Gen. 3:3, she had been too hard for the devil; but letting her hand‑hold go which she had by faith on the word, presently she fell into her enemy's hand.  Thus in this particular, when the Christian in the heat of temptation by faith stands upon his defence, interposing the word between him and Satan’s blows—I believe that God is; though I cannot comprehend his nature nor answer thy sophis­try, yet I believe the report the word makes of God; Satan may trouble such a one, but he cannot hurt him.  Nay, it is probable he will not long trouble him. The devil's antipathy is so great to the word, that he loves not to hear it sound in his ear.  But, if thou throwest down the shield of the word, and thinkest by the dint or force of thy reason to cut thy way through the temptation, thou mayest soon see thyself sur­rounded by thy subtle enemy, and put beyond an honourable retreat.  This is the reason, I conceive, why, among those few who have professed themselves atheists, most of them have been great pretenders to reason—such as have neglected the word, and gone forth in the pride of their own understanding, by which, through the righteous judgment of God, they at last have disputed themselves into flat atheism. While they have turned their back upon God and his word, [and] thought, by digging into the secrets and bowels of nature, to be admired for their knowledge above others, that hath befallen them which some­times doth those in mines that delve too far into the bowels of the earth—a damp from God’s secret judgment hath come to put out that light which at first hey carried down with them; and so that of the apostle is verified on them, ‘Where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?’ I Cor. 1:20.  Indeed it is the wisdom of God that the world by wisdom—their own trusted to —should not know God.
3. He that assents to this truth, that there is a God, merely upon grounds of reason and not of faith, and rests in that, doth not quench the temptation; for still he is an infidel and a Scripture atheist.  He doth not believe there is a God at the report of God’s word, but at the report of his reason; and so indeed he doth but believe himself and not God, and in that makes himself a god, preferring the testimony of his own reason before the testimony of God’s word, which is dangerous.

           Question.  But, may some say, is there no use of reason in such principles as this which are within its sphere?  May I not make use of my reason to confirm me in this truth that there is a God?

           Answer.  It is beyond all doubt that there is [use of reason].  Wherefore else did God set up such a light if not to guide us?  But it must keep its own place, and that is to follow faith, not to be the ground of it, or to give law and measure to it.  Our faith must not depend on our reason, but our reason on faith. I am not to believe what the word saith merely because it jumps with my reason, but believe my reason be­cause it is suitable to the word.  The more perfect is to rule the less.  Now the light of the word—which faith follows—is more clear or sure than reason is or can be; for therefore it was written, because man’s natural light was so defective.  Thou readest in the word there is a God, and that he made the world. Thy eye of reason sees this also.  But thou layest the stress of thy faith on the word, not on thy reason.  And so of other truths.  The carpenter lays his rule to the tim­ber, and by his eye sees it to be right or crooked; yet, it is not the eye but the rule that is the measure —without which his eye might fail him.  All that I shall say more to such as are annoyed with atheistical injections is this, fix thy faith strongly on the word, by which you shall be able to overcome this Goliath, and when thou art more free and composed, and the storm is over, thou shalt do well to back thy faith what thou canst with thy reason.  Let the word, like David’s stone in the sling of faith, first prostrate the temptation; and then, as he used Goliath’s sword to cut off his head, so mayest thou with more ease and safety make use of thy reason to complete the victory over  these atheistical suggestions.

Satan’s first affrighting temptation —THE FIERY DART OF ATHEISM.

           First Dart of affrighting temptations.  The first of Satan’s affrighting temptations is his temptation to atheism, which, for the horrid nature thereof, may well be called a fiery dart; partly because by this he makes so bold an attempt, striking at the being of God himself; as also because of the consternation he produceth in a gracious soul wounded with it.  It is true the devil, who cannot himself turn atheist, is much less able to make a child of God an atheist, who hath not only in common with other men an indelible stamp of a deity in his conscience, but such a sculpture of the divine nature in his heart, as irresis­tibly demonstrates a God; yea, lively represents a holy God, whose image it is; so that it is impossible a holy heart should be fully overcome with this temptation, having an argument beyond all the world of wicked men and devils themselves to prove a deity, viz. a new nature in him, ‘created after God in righteousness and true holiness,’ by which, even when he is buffeted with atheistical injections, he saith in his heart, ‘There is a God,’ though Satan in the paroxysm of his temptation, clouds his reasoning faculty for the pres­ent with this smoke of hell, which doth more offend and affright than persuade his gracious heart to es­pouse such a principle as it doth in a wicked man; who, when, on the contrary, he is urged by his conscience to believe a God, ‘saith in his heart there is no God,’ that is, he wisheth there were none. 

 And this may exceedingly comfort a saint—who, notwith­standing such injections to atheism, clings about God in his affections, and dares not for a world allow him­self to sin against him, no, not when most oppressed with this temptation—that he shall not pass for an atheist in God's account, whatever Satan makes him believe.  As the wicked shall not be cleared from atheism by their naked profession of a deity, so long as those thoughts of God are so loose and weak as not to command them into any obedience to his com­mands—‘The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes,’ Ps. 36:1; the holy prophet argues from the wickedness of the sinner’s life to the atheism of his heart—so, on the contrary, the holy life of a gracious person saith in mine heart that the fear of God is before his eyes; it appears plainly that he believes a God, and reveres that God whom he believes to be.  Well, though a gracious heart can never be overcome, yet he may be sadly haunted and disquieted with it.  Now, in the next place, I am to show you how the Christian may quench this fiery dart, and that is by faith alone.

Satan’s fiery darts of AFFRIGHTING TEMPTATIONS, and faith’s power to quench them.

           Having thus despatched the first kind of fiery darts—temptations which are enticing and alluring —we now proceed to the second kind—such as are of an affrighting nature, by which Satan would dismay and dispirit the Christian.  And my task [in this] is still the same, to show the power of faith in quenching these fiery darts.  Let then the point be this.

           DOCTRINE.  That faith, and only faith, can quench the fiery darts of Satan’s affrighting tempta­tions.  This sort of fiery dart is our enemy’s reserve. When the other, viz. pleasing temptations, prove un­successful, then he opens this quiver and sends a shower of these arrows to set the soul on flame, if not of sin, yet of terror and horror.  When he cannot carry a soul laughing to hell through the witchery of pleasing temptations, he will endeavour to make him go mourning to heaven by amazing him with the other.  And truly it is not the least support to a soul exercised with these temptations to consider they are a good sign that Satan is hard put to it when these arrows are upon his string.  You know an enemy that keeps a castle will preserve it as long as he can hold it; but, when he sees he must out, then he sets it on fire, to render it, if possible, useless to them that come after him.  While the strong man can keep his house under his own power, he labours to keep it in peace; he quenches those fire-balls of conviction that the Spirit is often shooting into the conscience; but, when he perceives it is no longer tenable, [when] the mutiny increases, and there is a secret whisper in the soul of yielding unto Christ, now he labours to set the soul on fire by his affrighting temptations.  

Much more doth he labour to do it when Christ hath got the castle out of his hands, and keeps it by the power of his grace against him.  It is very observable that all the darts shot against Job were of this sort.  He hardly made any use of the other.  When God gave him leave to practice his skill, why did he not tempt him with some golden apple of profit, or pleasure, or such like enticing temptations?  Surely the high testimony that God gave to this eminent servant discouraged Satan from this method; yea, no doubt he had tried Job's manhood before this as to those, and found him too hard; so that now he had no other way left prob­able to attain his design but this.  I shall content my­self with three instances of this sort of fiery darts, showing how faith quenches them all—temptations to atheism, blasphemy, and despair.

Directions How to Use The Shield of Faith to Quench Enticing Temptations. 3/3

           Answer (3.)  Thou hast encouragement for this expecting act of faith from what God already hath en­abled thee to do.  Thou canst, if a believer indeed, through mercy say, that sin is not in that strength within thy soul as it was before thy acquaintance with Christ, his word  and ways.  Though thou art not what thou wouldst be,  yet also thou art not what thou hast been.  There was a time when sin played rex—king, in thy heart without control.  thou didst go to sin as a ship to sea before wind and tide.  Thou didst dilate and spread thy affections to receive the gale of temp­tation.  But now the tide is turned, and runs against those motions, though weakly—being but new flood; yet thou findest a secret wrestling with them, and God seasonably succouring thee, so that Satan hath not all his will on thee.  Well, here is a sweet beginning, and let me tell thee, this promiseth thee a readiness in God to perfect the victory; yea, God would have thy faith improve this into a confidence for a total deliv­erance.  ‘Moses,’ when he slew the Egyptian, ‘sup­posed his brethren would have understood,’ by that little hint and essay, ‘how that God by his hand would deliver them,’ Acts 7:25.  Oh it is a bad improvement of the succours God gives us, to argue from them to unbelief: ‘He smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, can he give bread also?’  He broke my heart, saith the poor creature, when it was a rock, a flint, and brought me home when I was walking in the pride of my heart against him; but, can he give bread to nourish my weak grace?  I am out of Egypt; but can he master those giants in iron chariots that stand betwixt me and Canaan?  He helped me in such a temptation; but what shall I do the next bout?  Oh, do not grieve a good God with these heart‑aching questions.  You have ‘the former rain,’ why should you question ‘the latter?’  Benjamin was a good pawn to make old Jacob willing to go himself to Egypt.  The grace which God hath already enriched thee with is a sure pledge that more is coming to it.

           Direction 3.  The expecting act of faith must produce another—an endeavouring act, to set the soul on work in the confidence of that succour it ex­pects from God.  When Jehoshaphat had prayed and stablished his faith on the good word of promise, then he takes the field and marches out under his vic­torious banner against his enemies, II Chr. 20.  Go, Christian, do as he did, and speed as he sped.  What David gave in council to his son Solomon, that give I to thee, ‘Arise therefore, and be doing, and the Lord be with thee,’ I Chr. 22:16.  That faith which sets thee on work for God against thy sins as his enemies, will undoubtedly set god on work for thee against them as thine.  The lepers in the gospel were cured, not sitting still but walking.  ‘And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed,’ Luke 17:14.  They met their cure in an act of obedience to Christ’s command. The promiseth saith, ‘Sin shall not have dominion over you;’ the command bids, ‘Mortify your members which are on earth.’  Go thou and make a valiant attempt against thy lusts, upon this word of com­mand, and in doing thy duty thou shalt find the per­formance of the promise.  The reason of so many fruitless among Christians concerning the power of their corruptions lies in one of these two miscarriages —either they endeavour without acting faith on the promise (and such indeed go at their own peril, like those bold men, Num. 14:40, who presumptuously went up the hill to fight the Canaanites, though Moses told them the Lord was not among them, thus slighting the conduct of Moses their leader, as if they needed not his help to the victory; a clear resemblance of those who go in their own strength to resist their cor­ruptions and so fall before them)—or else they pre­tend to believe, but it is ostiâ fide—an easy faith; their faith doth not set them on a vigorous endeavour. They use faith as an eye but not as a hand; they look for victory to drop from heaven upon their heads, but do not fight to obtain it.  This is a mere fiction, a fanciful faith.  He that believes God for the event, believes him for the means also.  If the patient dare trust the physician for the cure, he dare also follow his prescription in order to it.  And therefore, Chris­tian, sit not still, and say thy sin shall fall, but put thyself in array against it.  God, who hath promised thee victory calls thee to thy arms and means to use thy own hands in the battle if ever thou gettest it. ‘Get thee up,’ said the Lord to Joshua, ‘wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face,’ Joshua 7:10.  God liked the prayer and moan he made very well; but there was something else for him to do besides praying and weeping, before the Amorites could be overcome.  And so there is for thee, Christian, with thy faith to do, besides praying and expecting thy lusts down, and that is searching narrowly into thy heart, whether there be not some neglect on thy part, as an Achan, for which thou art so worsted by sin, and fleest before the face of every temptation.

Directions How to Use The Shield of Faith to Quench Enticing Temptations. 2/3

           Direction 2.  A second way to engage God is by faith’s expecting act; when thou hast been with God expect good from God.  ‘I will direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up,’ Ps. 5:3.  For want of this many a prayer is lost.  If you do not believe, why do you pray? and if you believe, why do you not expect?  By praying, you seem to depend on God; by not expect­ing, you again renounce your confidence and ravel out your prayer.  What is this but to take his name in vain, and to play bo‑peep with God? as if one that knocks at your door should, before you came to open it to him, go away and not stay to be spoken with.  Oh Christian, stand to your prayer in a holy expectation of what you have begged upon the credit of the prom­ise, and you cannot miss of the ruin of your lusts.

           Question.  O, but, saith the poor soul, shall not I presume to expect when I have prayed against my corruptions that God will bestow on me so great a mercy as this is?

           Answer (1.)  Dost thou know what it is to presume?  He presumes that takes a thing before it is granted.  He were a presumptuous man indeed that should take your meat off your table who never was invited.  But I hope your guest is not over-bold that ventures to eat of what you set before him.  For one to break into your house, upon whom you shut the door, were presumptuous; but to come out of a storm into your house when you are so kind as to call him in, is no presumption, but good manners.  And, if God opens not the door of his promise to be a sanc­tuary to poor humbled sinners fleeing from the rage of their lust, truly then I know none of this side heaven that can expect welcome.  God hath promised to be a king, a lawgiver, to his people.  Now it is no presumption in subjects to come under their princes’ shadow and expect protection from them, Isa. 33:21, 22. God there promiseth he ‘will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ships pass thereby.’ ‘For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us.’  God speaks to his people as a prince or a state would to their sub­jects.  He will secure them in their traffic and mer­chandise from all pirates and pickroons; they shall have a free trade.  Now, soul, thou art molested with many pirate lusts that infest thee and obstruct thy commerce with heaven—yea, thou hast complained to thy God what loss thou hast suffered by them; is it now presumption to expect relief from him, that he will rescue thee from them, that thou mayest serve him without fear who is thy liege‑lord?

           Answer (2.)  You have the saints for your prece­dents, who, when they have been in combat with their corruptions, yea, been foiled by them, have even then acted their faith on God, and expected the ruin of those enemies which for the present have overrun them.  Iniquities prevail against me, Ps. 65:3—he means his own sins and others' wrath.  But see his faith.  At the same time they prevailed over him he beholds God destroying of them, as appears in the very next words, ‘As for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away.’  See here, poor Christian, who thinkest thou shalt never get above deck.  Holy David has a faith not only for himself, but also [for] all be­lievers—of whose number I suppose thee one—‘as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away!’  And mark the ground he hath for his confidence, taken from God's choosing act, ‘Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts,’ ver. 4.  As if he had said, ‘Surely he will not let them be under the power of sin or want of his gracious succour whom he sets so nigh himself.’  This is Christ’s own argument against Satan in the behalf of his people.  ‘The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jeru­salem rebuke thee,’ Zech. 3:2.

Directions How to Use The Shield of Faith to Quench Enticing Temptations. 1/3

           Question.  But how would you have me use my shield of faith for my defence against these fiery darts of Satan’s enticing temptations?

           Answer.  By faith engage God to come in to thy succour against them.  Now, there are three engaging acts of faith which will bind God—as we may so say with reverence—to help thee, because he binds him­self to help such.

           Direction 1.  The first is the prayerful act of faith.  Open thy case to God in prayer, and call in help from heaven—as the governor of a besieged castle would send a secret messenger to his general or prince to let him know his state and straits.  The apostle James saith, ‘Ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not,’ chap. 4:2.  Our victory must drop from heaven if we have any.  But it stays till prayer comes for it.  Though God had a purpose to deliver Israel out of Egypt, yet no news of his coming till the groans of his people rang in his ears.  This gave heav­en the alarm, ‘Their cry has come up to God,... and God heard their groaning, and remembered his covenant,’ Ex. 2:24.  Now the more to prevail upon God in this act of faith, fortify thy prayer with those strong REASONS which saints have used in like cases.  As,

           (1.) Engage God from his promise when thou prayest against any sin.  Show God his own hand in such promises as these, ‘Sin shall not have dominion over you,’ Rom. 6:14.  ‘He will subdue our iniquities,’ Micah 7:19.  Prayer is nothing but the promise reversed, or God’s word formed into an argument, and retorted by faith upon God again.  Know, Christian, thou hast law on thy side; bills and bonds must be paid, Ps. 119:37.  David is there praying against the sins of a wanton eye and a dead heart, ‘Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.’  And see how he urgeth his argument in the next words—‘Stablish thy word unto thy servant.’  A good man is as good as his word, and will not a good God? But where finds David such a word for help against these sins? surely in the covenant; it is the Magna Charta.  The first promise held forth thus much, ‘The seed of the woman shall break the serpent’s head.’

           (2.) Plead with God from relation when thou art against any sin.  Art thou one God hath taken into his family?  Hast thou chosen God for thy God?  Oh what an argument hast thou here!  ‘I am thine, Lord, save me,’ saith David.  Who will look after the child if the father will not?  Is it for thy honour, O God, that any child of thine should be a slave to sin?  ‘Be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name.’  ‘Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me,’ Ps. 119:132.

           (3.) Engage God from his Son’s bloody death to help thee against thy lusts that were his murderers. What died Christ for but to ‘redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people,’ Titus 2:14.  And shall not Christ be reimbursed of what he laid out?  Shall he not have the price of his blood and purchase of his death?  In a word, what is Christ praying for in heaven, but what was in his mouth when praying on earth?  That his Father would ‘sanc­tify them, and keep them from the evil of the world.’ Thou comest in a good time to beg that of God which thou findest Christ hath asked for thee.

Use and Application

           Use First.  This may be a touchstone for our faith, whether of the right make or no; is thy faith a temptation‑quenching faith?  Many say they believe. Yes, that they do!  They thank God they are not infi­dels.  Well, what exploits canst thou do with thy faith?  Is it able to defend thee in a day of battle, and cover thy soul in safety when Satan’s darts flee thick about thee?  Or is it such a sorry shield that lets every arrow of temptation pierce thy heart through it? Thou believest, but still as very a slave to thy lust as ever. When a good fellow calls thee out to a drunken meet­ing, thy faith cannot keep thee out of the snare, but away thou goest, as a fool to the stocks.  If Satan tells thee thou mayest advantage thy estate by a lie, or cheat in thy shop, thy faith stands very tamely by and makes no resistance.  In a word, thou hast faith, and yet drivest a trade of sin in the very face of it!  Oh! God forbid that any should be under so great a spirit of delusion to carry such a lie in their hand and think it a saving faith.  Will this faith ever carry thee to heaven that is not able to bring thee out of hell? for there thou livest while under the power of thy lust. ‘Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely,... and come and stand before me,’ Jer. 7:9.  If this be faith, well fare and honest heathens who escaped these gross pollutions of the world, which you like beasts with your faith lie wallowing in. I had rather be a sober heathen than a drunken Christian, a chaste heathen than an unclean believer.

           Oh venture not the life of your souls with such a paper shield.  Come to him for a faith that is the faith maker—God I mean.  He will help thee to a faith that shall quench the very fire of hell itself, though kindled in thy bosom, and divide the waves of thy lust in which now thou art ever drowned—as once he did the sea for Israel—that thou shalt go on dry land to heaven, and thy lusts not be able to knock off the wheels of thy chariot.  But, if thou attemptest this with thy false faith, the Egyptians’ end will be thine. ‘By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned,’ Heb. 11:29.  Though true faith gets safely through the depths of temptation, yet false faith will drown by the way.

           But, perhaps thou canst tell us better news than this, and give us better evidence for the truth of thy faith than so.  Let us therefore hear what singular thing hath been done by thee since a believer.  The time was thou wert as weak as water; every puff of wind, blast of temptation, blew thee down; thou wert carried as a dead fish with the stream.  But, canst thou say [that] since thou hast been acquainted with Christ thou art endued with a power to repel those temptations which before held thy heart in perfect obedience to their commands?  Canst thou now be content to bring thy lusts, which once were of great price with thee—as those believers did their conjuring books, Acts 19:19—and throw them into the fire of God’s love in Christ to thy soul, there to consume them?  Possibly thou hast not them at present under thy foot in a full conquest.  Yet have they begun to fall in thy thoughts of them? and is thy countenance changed towards them to {from} what it was?  Be of good comfort, this is enough to prove thy faith of a royal race.  ‘When Christ cometh,’ said the convinced Jews, ‘will he do more miracles than these which this man hath done?’ John 7:31.  And when Christ comes by faith into the heart, will he do greater works than these thy faith hath done?

           Use Second.  This helps to answer that objection by which many poor souls are discouraged from be­lieving and closing with the promise.  ‘Oh,’ saith the tempted soul, ‘ye bid me believe—alas! how dare I, when I cannot get victory of such a lust, and am over­come by such a temptation?  What have such as I to do with a promise?’  See here, poor soul, this Goliath prostrated.  Thou art not to believe because thou art victorious, but that thou mayest be victorious.  The reason why thou art so worsted by thy enemy is for want of faith.  ‘If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established,’ Isa. 7:9.  Wouldst thou be cured before thou goest to the physician? that sounds harsh to thy own reason, and is as if thou shouldst say thou wilt not go to the physician till thou hast no need of him.  No; go and touch Christ by faith that virtue may flow from him to thy soul; thou must not think to eat the fruit before thou plantest the tree.  Victory over corruption is a sweet fruit; but found growing upon faith’s branches.  Satan does by thee as Saul did by the Israelites, who weakened their hands in battle by keeping them fasting.  Up and eat, Christian, a full meal on the promise, if thou wouldst find thy eyes enlightened and thy hands strengthened for the com­bat with thy lusts.  It is one part of the ‘doctrine of devils,’ which we read of, I Tim. 4:3, to forbid ‘meats which God hath created to be received with thanks­giving.’  But the grand doctrine of the devil which above all he would promote is, to keep poor trem­bling souls from feeding by faith on the Lord Jesus; as if Christ were some forbidden fruit!  Whereas, God hath appointed him above all other, that he should be received with thanksgiving of all humble sinners.  And therefore, in the name of God, I invite you to this feast.  Oh, let not your souls—who see your need of Christ, and are pinched at your very heart for want of him—be lean from day to day from your unbelief; but come, ‘eat, and your souls shall live.’  Never was child more welcome to his father’s table than thou art to Christ’s, and that feast which stands on the gospel board.

           Use Third.  Make use of faith, O ye saints, as for other ends and purposes, so particularly for this, of quenching this kind of fiery darts, viz. enticing temp­tations.  It is not the having of a shield, but the hold­ing and wielding of it, that defends the Christian.  Let not Satan take thee with thy faith out of thy hand, as David did Saul in the cave, with his speak sticking in the ground which should have been in his hand.

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.’