PART 1-Reproof To Such As Are Not True Wrestlers

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

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

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

    

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

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

           

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

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

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

‘For we wrestle,’ Eph. 6:12.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       

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

       

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Satan is Prevented In All

             

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[The ends Satan propounds.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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