Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the
wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. Matt. 4:1
Many words have I used here, dearly beloved, but
I cannot express the thousandth part of the malicious despite which lurked in
this one temptation of Satan. It was a mocking of Christ and of His obedience.
It was a plain denial of God's promise. It was the triumphing voice of him that
appeared to have gotten victory. Oh, how bitter this temptation was no creature
can understand but such as feel the grief of such darts as Satan casts at the
tender conscience of those that gladly would rest and repose in God, and in the
promises of His mercy. But here is to be noted the ground and foundation. The
conclusion of Satan is this: Thou art none of God's elect, much less His
well-beloved Son. His reason is this: Thou art in trouble and findest no
relief. There the foundation of the temptation was Christ's poverty, and the
lack of food without hope of remedy to be sent from God. And it is the same
temptation which the devil objected to Him by the princes of the priests in His
grievous torments upon the cross; for thus they cried, "If he be the Son
of God, let him come down from the cross and we will believe in him; he trusted
in God, let him deliver him, if he have the pleasure in him." As though they
would say, God is the deliverer of His servants from troubles; God never
permits those that fear Him to come to confusion; this man we see in extreme
trouble; if He be the Son of God, or even a true worshiper of His name, He will
deliver Him from this calamity. If He deliver Him not, but suffer Him to perish
in these anguishes, then it is an assured sign that God has rejected Him as a
hypocrite, that shall have no portion of His glory. Thus, I say, Satan takes
occasion to tempt, and moves also others to judge and condemn God's elect and
chosen children, by reason that troubles are multiplied upon them.
But with what weapons we ought to fight against
such enemies and assaults we shall learn in the answer of Christ Jesus, which
follows: But He, answering, said "It is written, man shall not live by
bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
This answer of Christ proves the sentence which we have brought of the aforesaid
temptation to be the very meaning of the Holy Ghost; for unless the purpose of
Satan has been to have removed Christ from all hope of God's merciful
providence toward Him in that His necessity, Christ had not answered directly
to his words, saying, "Command that these stones be made bread." But
Christ Jesus, perceiving his art and malicious subtility, answered directly to
his meaning, His words nothing regarded; by which Satan was so confounded that
he was ashamed to reply any further.
But that you may the better
understand the meaning of Christ's answer, we will express and repeat it over
in more words. "Thou laborest, Satan," would Christ say, "to
bring into my heart a doubt and suspicion of My Father's promise, which was
openly proclaimed in My baptism, by reason of My hunger, and that I lack all
carnal provision. Thou art bold to affirm that God takes no care for Me, but
thou art a deceitful and false corrupt sophister, and thy argument, too, is
vain, and full of blasphemies; for thou bindest God's love, mercy, and
providence to the having or wanting of bodily provision, which no part of God's
Scriptures teach us, but rather the express contrary. As it is written, 'Man
doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proeeedeth out of the mouth
of God,' that is, the very life and felicity of man consists not in the
abundance of bodily things, or the possession and having of them makes no man
blest or happy; neither shall the lack of them be the cause of his final
misery; but the very life of man consists in God, and in His promises
pronounced by His own mouth, unto which whoso cleaves unfeignedly shall live
the life everlasting. And although all creatures in earth forsake him, yet
shall not his bodily life perish till the time appointed by God approach. For
God has means to feed, preserve, and maintain, unknown to man's reason, and
contrary to the common course of nature. He fed His people Israel in the desert
forty years without the provision of man. He preserved Jonah in the whale's
belly; and maintained and kept the bodies of the three children in the furnace
of fire. Reason and the natural man could have seen nothing in these cases but
destruction and death, and could have judged nothing but that God had cast away
the care of these, His creatures, and yet His providence was most vigilant
toward them in the extremity of their dangers, from which He did so deliver
them, and in the midst of them did so assist them, that His glory, which is His
mercy and goodness, did more appear and shine after their troubles than it
could have done if they had fallen in them. And therefore I measure not the
truth and favor of God by having or by lacking of bodily necessities, but by the
promise which He has made to me. As He Himself is immutable, so is His word and
promise constant, which I believe, and to which I will adhere, and so cleave,
whatever can come to the body outwardly."
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