PART 3-Reproof To Such As Are Not True Wrestlers

  

  Second.  It reproves those who seem to wrestle against sin, but not according to the word of com­mand that Christ gives.  There is a law in wrestling which must be observed.  If a man also strive for mas­teries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully, II Tim. 2:5.  He alludes to the Roman games, to which there were judges appointed to see that no foul play were offered contrary to the law of wrestling; the prize being denied to such though they did foil their adver­sary; which the apostle improves to make the Chris­tian careful in his war, as being under a stricter law and discipline, that requires not only valour to fight, but obedience to fight by order and according to the word of command.  Now few do this that go for great wrestlers.

1. Some while they wrestle against one sin, em­brace another,and in this case it is not [that] the per­son wrestles against sin, but one sin wrestles against another, and it is no wonder to see thieves fall out when they come to divide the spoil.  Lusts are di­verse, Titus 3:3, and it is hard to please many masters, especially when their commands are so contrary. When pride bids lay on in bravery, lavish out in entertainment, covetousness bids lay up; when malice bids revenge, carnal policy saith, Conceal thy wrath, though not forgive.  When lust sends to his whores, hypocrisy pulls him back for shame of the world.  Now is he God's champion that resist one sin at the command of another, it may be a worse?

2. Some wrestle, but they are pressed into the field, not volunteers.Their slavish fears scare them at present from their lust, so that the combat is rather betwixt their conscience and will, than them and your lust.  Give me such a sin, saith will.  No, saith con­science, it will scald; and throws it away.  A man may love the wine, though he is loath to have his lips burned.  Hypocrites themselves are afraid to burn.  In such combats the will at last prevails, either by bribing the understanding to present the lust it desires in a more pleasing dress, that conscience may not be scared with such hideous apparitions of wrath; or by pacifying conscience with some promise of repentance for the future; or by forbearing some sin for the pre­sent, which it can best spare, thereby to gain the reputation of something like a reformation.  Or if all this will not do, then, prompted by the fury of its lust, the will proclaims open war against conscience, sinning in the face of it, like some wild horse, [which] impatient of the spur which pricks him and bridle that curbs him, gets the bit between his teeth, and runs with full speed, till at last he easeth himself of his rider; and then where he sees fattest pasture, no hedge or ditch can withhold him, till in the end you find him starving in some pound for his trespass. Thus, many sin at such rate, that conscience can no longer hold the reins nor sit the saddle, but is thrown down and laid for dead; and then the wretches range where their lusts can have the fullest meal, till at last they pay for their stolen pleasures most dearly, when conscience comes to itself, pursues them, and takes them more surely by the throat than ever, never to let them go till it brings them before God's tribunal.
3. Others wrestle with sin, but they do not hate it,and therefore they are favourable to it, and seek not the life of sin as their deadly enemy.  These wres­tle in jest, and not in earnest; the wounds they give sin one day, are healed by the next.  Let men resolve never so strongly against sin, yet will it creep again into their favour, till the love of sin be quenched in the heart; and this fire will never die of itself, the love of Christ must quench the love of sin, as Jerome [saith] excellently [one love extinguishes another.] This heavenly fire will indeed put out the flame of hell; which he illustrates by Ahasuerus’ carriage to Vashti his queen, who in the first chapter makes a de­cree in all haste that she comes no more before him; but when his passion is a little down, Est. 2:1, he be­gins to relent towards her; which his council perceiv­ing, presently seek out for a beautiful virgin, on whom the king might place his love, and take into his royal bed; which done, we hear no more of Vashti.  Then and not till then will the soul's decree stand against sin, when the soul hath taken Christ into his bosom.

PART 2-Reproof To Such As Are Not True Wrestlers

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

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

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

PART 1-Reproof To Such As Are Not True Wrestlers

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

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

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

    

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

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

           

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

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

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

‘For we wrestle,’ Eph. 6:12.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       

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

       

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

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

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

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

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

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