Commentary on Matthew 4:1-11, Sermon 1
CHRIST'S First Temptation to DESPAIRE. SERMON I.
MATTH. 4.1.
Then Iesus was led of the spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil.
THE eleven first verses of this Chapter containe the most glorious Combat that ever was fought on earth, if we seriously consider,
1. The eminencie of the persons; Generals seldom fight Duels as here▪ the Prince of Peace against the Prince of Da…kness.
2. The spaciousness of the place, the Wilderness, where they were not pent and confin'd by intruding spectators, but had Rehoboth▪ elbow-room, each of them to exercise their activity to the utmost.
3. The concernment of the Cause, no less then the salvation or damnation of the Elect. Had Satan worsted Christ in this combate, he had defeated the salvation of mankinde.
4. The length and fierceness of the Fight, *Luk. 4.2.fourty dayes; long battels are seldome hot, hot battels are seldome long; This was both.
Lastly, The clearness of the conquest; the success of some fights hath been in such a twilight, that after the battel ended with the swords of souldiers, they have been begun with the pens of Historians, disputing who got the better; so equally hath the Victory been divided betwixt them: But here the Devil was quite routed, forsook the field, & after left our Saviour sole Conqueror, and the Angels hitherto the invisible spectators of the fight, were afterwards witnesses of his victory, yea attendants on his triumph; They ministred unto him.
We will take the words of the Text as they lie in order.
Then.
Then? When? Immediately after the ending of his Baptizing, and immediately before the beginning of his Preaching, vers. 17. Then began Iesus. In spiritual feasts, it is no bad manners for the entertainer to cut for himself before he carve for his guests.
The first Doctrine concerns Ministers. Such as intend to enter into the Ministery, Doct▪must expect temptations.
It is an expression reported and approved by Master Perkins, That four things make a Divine, (to the first three I concur chearfully and willingly; to the fourth and last I consent fully, but sadly) namely, Reading and Meditation, Prayer and Temptation.
The second Doctrine is general to all Christians.
Doct.After a more then ordinary elevation of thy Soul in grace, suspect and expect a sudden Temptation.
As sure as the Valley attends on a hill in nature; so after an height of holiness in thy soul (too fine ware to have much measure of) beware a depression, concavity, and hollowness of a Temptation. I speak not this to make any good Christians fearful, but all watchful; not any to despair, but all to be discreet.
Object.You Ministers speak much of temptations, it is a great Topick in your Sermons: but for my part (saith many a man) I never had temptation as yet, and know not what belongeth thereunto.
Answ.It is too too suspicious, that the great work of conversion is not as yet sincerely wrought in thy heart, and Satan needs not besiege that soul with temptations, which is already in his peaceable possession; But if thou beest truly converted, how old soever, thou art young enough to be tempted. A Countryman riding with an unknown traveller (whom he conceived honest) over a dangerous plain; This place (said he) is infamous for robbery: but for mine own part, though often riding over it early and late, I never saw any thing worse then my self. In good time, replied the other; and presently demanded his purse, and robbed him. Brag not that thou never hast had a temptation; it may surprise thee in that very instant wherein thou boastest that thou wert never tempted. Wherefore, be not high-minded, but fear.
Was led into the wilderness.
Let this qualifie the harshness of the phrase, Mark 1.12. The spirit driveth him; but how? not as a ship is driven by a tempest, not as the horses and chariots driven by Iehu, furiously: but, to joyn Matthew and Mark together, he was led-driven, by a mixt motion: led, there is willingness; driven, a kinde of violence: led, there is freedom; driven, there is force.
The sum is this: an efficacious impression from the spirit met in Christ with a voluntary condescention thereunto, and susception thereof.
I see then no cause of cavil, that Effectual Grace, when it works irresistibly on the soul of a Convert, must needs prejudice and destroy the liberty thereof. I may say in such a case, A man is led-driven to repent, led-driven to believe: parallel whereunto, I may say, He doth come-drawn to repent, according to Christ's expression, (Ioh. 6.14.) No man cometh unto me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him. Sic …uvat trabi: a pleasing force entertained by mans freenes; led and driven.
The Doctrine is this:
The Doctrine.Such as do not rashly run themselves into a temptation, but are led into it by divine providence, may with Christ confidently expect a comfortable issue out of it.
Now they run into a temptation, who leave their Calling to meet it: They are led into a temptation, who go on in their vocation, and a temptation encounters them; so that (because they may not go back in their Calling) they must either go over it, or under it, or thorow it. Now a man in his Calling, is twice as strong to resist the temptation, as one out of it. A Fish is twice as strong in the water, as on the shore; but a four-footed beast is twice as strong on the land, as in the water. The reason is, because the water is the proper element of the one, and earth of the other. Thy Calling is thy element, wherein thou art most able to resist temptation. When Esau came against him, (Gen. 32.9.) Iacob with two excellent arguments importun'd Gods protection: One from Gods command, Thou saidst unto me, Return into thy country: the other from his promise; Thou saidst unto me, I will deal well with thee. Both these reasons mayst thou enforce upon God to preserve thee, when a temptation assaults thee in thy calling: His Command, Six days shalt thou labour; his Promise, That he will keep thee in all thy ways, (whereof thy Calling is, next the serving of God, the highest:) And thou mayst comfortably presume that he will either remove the temptation, or make thee victorious over it.
Use.Use 1. To confute such who on the proud opinion of their strength hollow in the ears of a sleeping temptation, and tempt it to tempt them; dealing therewith as Asahel with Abner, (2. Sam. 2.) Abner would willingly have declined the fighting with Asahel; but the other prosecuted, yea persecuted him to fight, and was slain by him. Some temptations may be said to have no minde to meddle with us, but that our pride and business must be tampering with them. We should not be so forward, if we considered how hard a thing it is to get out of a temptation. We usually say, Such a man is run into debt: but if afterwards he hap to pay his engagements, we say not that he is run out of debt, but he is crept out of debt. Swift may the motion be into a temptation, but slowe the recovery out of it.
Into the wilderness.
I observe,
Solitariness is most advantageous for the devil to tempt us. Doct.Therefore Christ sent always his disciples by two's, when to preach, Luk. 10.1. when to fetch the colt, Matth. 21.1. when to bespeak the room for the Passeover, Mark 14.13. And this perchance was one reason why Christ in the choice of his Apostles and Disciples pitch'd on an even number, Twelve of the one, and Seventy of the other; that if he should have occasion to sub-divide them, they should fall out into even couples, and no odde one to lack a companion. However, no place comes amiss to the devil to tempt in: Paradise, where he tempted our first parents: A Palace, where he tempted David with pride, in numbering his people: An upper room, where he tempted Iudas to betray Christ: The Congregation, (the Apostles being present) where he tempted Ananias and Sapphira to tell a lye. But Satan is in his throne, most potent and powerful in a solitary place, in the wilderness.
Quest.What was the Devils design in tempting of Christ?
Answ.He had a double designe.
1. If possible▪ to wound him with sin, which if he had effected, he had frustrated the salvation of mankind, Satan knowing he could not save others, who sinned himself.
Object.Seeing Satan must needs know already that Christ was the Son of God, why would he adventure on a labour in vaine, seeing it was impossible to make him sin? Iam. 1.13.) God cannot be tempted with evil. Now Satan must needs know that Christ was the Son of God, by what he had seen and heard; He had heard Gabriels salutation to the Virgin Mary (Luk. 1.35.) That holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God: The Angels singing to the Shepherds (Luk. 2.11.) To you is born a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. The prophecie of Simeon (Luk. 2.34.) plainly describing him for a Saviour; yea, Satan had seen the Spirit of God descending on him as a Dove (Mat. 3.16.) and God owning him from heaven, for his welbeloved Son. All these observed by Satan, must needs infallibly inform him that Christ was the Son of God, and therefore it was a wonder that the devil would tempt him.
All these did only amount to vehement suspitions,Answ. whereby Satan might probably conjecture, but could not certainly conclude him the Son of God. I mean, thus he could not hereby collect, That Christ was the second Person in the Trinity incarnated, assuming mans flesh and nature upon him. He knew him to be the Son of God by grace and adoption, such an one as David and other men were, and a most eminent person in piety and holiness: He knew also that he was the Redeemer of Israel, such as Moses, Ioshua, and the rest of the Judges were: all of them Saviours of their people by temporal deliverances from their enemies: But he knew not certainly (though he shrewdly suspected) that he was the only Son of God by eternal generation, and who by his death and Passion should save mankind from their sins. Wherefore the devil did not wholly despaire, but tempted Christ with some probability of success.
This first design, I may call it the devils forlorne hope, which he himself (almost) despaired would take effect.
The second was his Reserve, which was to vex our Saviours soul with suffering an affliction. If righteous Lot (2 Pet. 2.8.) dwelling among the Sodomites, in seeing and hearing, vexed his soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds; surely it not only grated the ears, but grieved the heart of Christ to hear the devil lye so impudently, blaspheme God so presumptuously, quote Scripture so perfidiously, and apply it so mischievously.
What was Gods intent in leading Christ to be tempted?Quest.
That he gaining an experimental knowledge of Temptations,Answ. might sympathize the more affectionately with us in our temptations, Heb. 4.15. For we have not such an high Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Why did God suffer Saint Paul, 2 Cor. 1.8, to fall into a desperate sickness and escape it, but chiefly that he might, verse 4. comfort others in trouble, by the comfort wherewith himself was comforted in God? And for the same reason suffered Christ to be tempted.
I wonder why Papists assigne such and such diseases, to such and such Saints to cure them: as soare eyes to Saint Blaze, the tooth-ach to Saint Appollonia. Was it not because (perchance we shall give a better reason for the Papists therein, then they can give for themselves) these Saints when living were affected with these infirmities? which makes them more compassionate to such as suffer the same maladies. But whatsoever thy paines be, make thy application by prayer to Christ, who will experimentally pity thy condition. Art thou hungry? he was hungry, Mat. 4. Thirsty? he was thirsty, Ioh. 4. Weary? he weary, Mat. 27. Tempted? he was tempted, as in the text.
By a barbarous and ancient custome, all the goods of shipwrackt men were escheated to the Crown, and so the poor Merchant was stript out of the raggs of his estate, which the modesty of the windes and waves had left him.
But when King Richard the first himself had been on the Sea neer Sicily, like to be drowned, he recalled those Customes, making provision that the propriety of those goods should still be preserved to the right owner.
Christ hath been tossed in a Tempest of Temptation, and knows what belongs to the trouble thereof.
Let us pray to him with confidence in all our distresses, assured that out of the bowels of his experimental compassion, he will have the more mercy upon us.