Commentary on Matthew 4:1-11, Sermon 11
CHRIST'S Third Temptation to IDOLATRY. SERMON XI.
MATTH. 4.10.
Then saith Iesus unto him, Get thee hence Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him onelyonly shalt thou serve.
IN the former verse, Satan had rapt out two notorious lyes. (As indeed tis hard to tell one lye, and but ONE Lye.) The first, Assertory, respecting the Time past, affirming that all the power and glory of the world, were in his absolute disposal, as delivered unto him. The second, Promissory, relating to the time to come, promising (when he meant nothing less) to invest and estate Christ, in the full and peaceable possession thereof.
Now, it is observable, that our Saviour in his answer to Satan, takes notice of neither Lye, so as to reprove and confute them. Not that his Silence herein was Consent, to Satans falshood; but partly, because, had He spoken truth therein, it signified nothing, as to the matter of Christs acceptance of his profer, which he heartily detested and defied: partly, because Christ made all convenient speed to come up to the Point, and to close with his Adversary about the main issue of the matter, the utter unlawfulness of Idolatry on any terms. To teach us, that the most compendious way to end any controversie, is, not to stand pidling and pelting away our spiritual artillery, against the ou…works, and less-important limbes thereof, when we may safely and speedily b…tter down the Citadel, and ought to bend all our forces against it. Just as two Muskets make no audible report, when at the same time and place a full Cannon is discharged; so our Saviour was not at leasure to listen to the two crackings lyes Satan had uttered, being totally taken up and ingrossed with the loud roaring abminable Blasphemy, vented by him, to which alone he shapeth his answer in the Text: Then saith Iesus, &c.
Observe in the words,
1. Christs Refusal of,
2. His Indignation at,
3. His Refutation of Satans temptation.
From his Refusal, we collect,
All worldly wealth, is no effectual, Doct.Allurement to Sin, unto a Sanctified Soul:
What saith Saint Paul? Gal. 7.14. By Christ the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world.
Now who is crucified? namely He, who after a long lingring torment, at last expires, and is stark Dead. Such, Saint Paul was, and such was Christ, in a more eminent and transcedent manner. His affections were crucified, before his Person was crucified in some sense; crucified from his Cradle, yea crucified before he was born, as deaded to all carnal delights; the cause why Satans profer made no impression upon him. For, tender the softest Persian Silks to a dead mans touch, and it nothing affects his fingers; reach the the sweetest Indian Spices to his nostrils, they work not on his smell; present the pleasantest wine of Helbon, (Ezek. 27.28.) to his taste, it moveth him to no delight; as here our mortified Saviour was unconcerned with all worldly vanities.
Get thee hence Satan.
Object.But S. Luke saith, Chap. 4.8. Get thee behinde me Satan; whereas it is a dangerous posture for one to have so fierce a Foe behinde his Back. Let me alwaies have my enemy in mine eye, that I may mark and observe his motions. Especially Satan being of a Serpentine nature, which, Gen. 3.15. bruiseth the Heel, it is suspicious to suffer him to come in the rere, behinde us, for fear he practiseth some treachery against us.
Luke's get thee behinde me Satan, Solut.must be expounded by Matthew's Get thee hence Satan, both being in sense and substance the same: That is, Avant, away, get thee out of my sight, as a detestable and odious obiect. Besides, there is no danger of the Devils being behind the backs of our Bodies, when at the self-same time, the Eye of our souls may with all caution be fastned upon him.
But because we have mentioned Satan being behinde us, I will describe a Christian, in what posture his soul ought to stand in all relations. He must have God before him, always eying and observing his will and his word: Satan behinde him, detesting and defying his temptations: the World be…e…th him, neglecting and contemning the wealth thereof: Grace within him, entertaining and treasuring it up in his heart: and Glory above him, ascending and aspiring thereunto in his affections and endeavours.
Now whereas our Saviour seems in some sort out of Patience, and filled with holy Indignation or Satan, Observe,
Doct.The most Lambs in their owne cause, are the Most Lions in Gods Quarrel.
We find the Character of Christs mildness, Matth. 12.9. Hee shall not strive, nor cry. Yet we hear him very loud in my Text, when striving with Satan. And just cause he had, when his Fathers honour was so deeply concerned.
Here let us recount how often we finde Christ angry in Scripture.
This was the first time in my Text; and Satan had the good Hansel, or first-fruits of Christs anger, bestowed deservedly upon him. And as Satan had the top, and beginning of Christs anger, so shall he have the last, and the close thereof, yea be-forced to suck out the very …ees and dregs, of his Indignation.
Secondly, Christ was angry, Iohn 2.15. when with a scourge of cords he drave the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple; but then it was in his Fathers quarrel, whose house of Prayer they had turned into a Den of Theeves.
Thirdly, Mark 3.5. when he had looked round about on the people with anger, (but for what? for any personal Injury they offered him? O no, but) for the hardness of their hearts.
Lastly, When offended with Peter, Matth. 16.23. he said unto him, Get thee behind me Satan, giving Peter worse language for disswading then ever he did Iudas, for contriving his passion, whom indeed he once called Devil, but never bid him, Get thee behinde me.
I will not be over-positive and confident; but perchance Christ may be found once again angry in Scripture: but this I dare presume to affirm, It is not then in his behalf, but (like meek Moses, Numb. 16.15. very worth in the case of Korah) when his Fathers honour or our good was interested therein.
It is written.
What, more Scripture still? Enough, and too much (will some carnal Palate say) of the Manna of Gods word: now a little of the flesh-pots, of Mans Traditions and Inventions, were it but for novelty and variety sake. O no: Christ still keeps himself to his Scripture. No wise Souldier will change a tryed sword, of whose metal and temper he hath had experience, yea which hath proved successful and victorious unto him, for a new blade out of the sorge; and our Saviour would not quit the sword of the word, wherewith he had twice foiled Satan, for any new weapon; but the third time maketh use thereof.
Doct.Scripture, is good to begin with, and good to continue with, and good to conclude with.
Some meates are said to be Gold in the morning, Silver at noon, but Lead at night. But Gods Word is Gold in the Morning, Gold at Noon, Gold at Night; yea, the more pretious, the more it is used.
Yea it is remarkable, Christ took all the three places wherewith he repelled Satan, out of one book of Deuteronomy, and two of them out of one (the sixth) chapter thereof. Now if the opening of one Box afforded Christ three Antidotes against Sat…ns poyson, how many Cordials may the whole Scripture yeeld us, especially since the happy addition of the New Testament thereto!
But as the Devil had formerly cited the text defectively (leaving out in all thy ways) so our Saviour quotes the same redundantly, Object.inserting the word OnelyOnly, (whereon all the hinge of the controversie did depend) which if the Original be consulted with, Deut. 6.13. appears not at all in the Text; contrary to the heavy curse, denounced Rev. 22.18. on such as adde any thing to Gods Word.
Answ.Though OnelyOnly be not expressed, it is implyed in the Text, and may be supplied from the context: For it followed in the next verse, Deut. 6.14. Ye shall not go after other gods. Is not this the same in effect, You shall serve God onelyonly? So when it is sad, Exod. 20.3. shalt have no other Gods but me; it amounteth to this, that we shall serve God onelyonly.
Doct.Explaining of the text, by the context, is no adding to the text.
If we Ministers, (especially in the heat and height of our preaching) cite not Scripture Syllabically or verbatim, but faithfully render the life and sense thereof (some perchance out of the preceding, some from the following verses) we cannot justly be taxed for fallacious alleadging thereof.
Use.This will arm us against the unjust cavil of Bellarmine, traducing all Protestants, and Luther by name, for adding to Scripture, in maintaining that faith ALONE justifieth.
We find this Alone, though not formally, yet equivalently in Gods word.
Here we will not, with some Protestant Divines, lay too much stress on that place, Luke 8.20. when Christ said to Iairus, Beleive ONLY, and shee shall be made whole; because it relateth not properly and directly to the justifying of Iairus his soul, but onelyonly to have that miraculous reviving bestowed on his Daughter. But we find Faith ALONE justifiing, tantamountingly in Scripture, when we read, Eph. 2.8. By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of your selves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. Here, (as in many other places) the total excluding of Works, fixeth justification in Faith Alone; and Saint Hillary, on the 8 of Matthew (so false is Bellarmines slander, that Luther first made the expression) hath the proposition in terminis, Fides sola justificat.
God is not onelyonly to be worshiped eminently above all, Doct.but also exclusively, none besides himself.
Two things are impatient of a Corrival: The Throne, and the Marriage-bed. God in Scripture shadoweth himself unto us, under both these Relations. Psal. 89.18. The holy One of Israel is our King. Jer. 3.14. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord: for I am married unto you. Dream not therefore of conjoyning any other in Worship with him.
Here some of Solomon's fools, though carnally wise, might conceive, (had they been in Christ's place) that they had an advantage to enrich and advance themselves, cozen and delude Satan, and withal, please and preserve God their friend, save and secure their own conscience.
Namely, thus.
With their bodies, they would fall down, and worship Satan; and so, by the plentiful performance of the condition, gain worldly wealth and glory to themselves. Mean time, they would reserve their hearts, (which Satan, not knowing the secrets thereof, could not discover) to God alone; yea, send up an ejaculation to Him, in the midst of their corporal prostration to Satan.
But God is a jealous God, and will not thus be abused. Should a wife, being found in the wanton embraces of another, pretend for her self, that still her heart was loyal to her husband, He should be as very a fool to believe it, as she an impudent harlot to affirm it.
Assure your selves, the wise God of heaven will not be abused by such vain palliations: nay, him onelyonly shalt thou serve:
To confute such,Use. who introduce a Mongrel-medly-Religion; as the Colonies substituted in the room of the ten tribes carried away into captivity, 2 King. 17. And a seeming-contradiction (but easily reconciled) is remarkable in three verses.
Vers. 32. They feared the Lord.
Vers. 33. They feared the Lord, and served their own gods.
Vers. 34. They fear not the Lord.
All is easily reconciled. They feared the Lord SEEMINGLY: but because they feared him IOYNTLY with their Idols… they feared him not TRUELY, nor ACCEPTABLY.
Such are they who serve God and Venus, their Wantonness; God, and Bacchus, their Drunkenness; God, and Ceres, their Gluttony; God, and Mars, their furious Revenge; God, and Mercury, their Fraudulent and Deceitful dealing.
Secondly, It confutes the practice of Saint-worship amongst the Papists, so derogatory to the glory of God.
Nor let them hope to evade, by coining the Distinction, (which with a broken cistern, Jer. 2.13. will not hold water) that God is onelyonly to be worshipped with the worship of foreign, but Saints may be worshipped with the worship of foreign.
As if where God saith, Thou shalt not steal, man should plead, Indeed I may not take away my neighbours goods by way of stealing; but I may take them away by way of lurching, or filching.
But God, though he be in fact mocked, is not in fine mocked; (though men multiply distinctions till their Fancies be weary, calling the same sin by different names) but will avenge himself on such as abuse him by their vain Inventions.
Again, foreign, to unbyassed judgements, doth in the natural notion of the word, import more lowe, submiss, and servile adoration, then foreign it self; and in Scripture is given to God himself.
Thus S. Iames, Chap. 1.1. stileth himself foreign, The servant of Iesus Christ. And although Saint Paul, (to note that by the way) Gal. 1.19. entitles him, for the more outward honour, Iames the brother of the Lord; yet the humble Apostle (being to speak of himself) waves all carnal relation to Christ, and onelyonly calleth himself foreign, The servant of Iesus, as a title of highest spiritual honour, and which speaketh his lowest service unto our Saviour; foreign, in the criticism thereof, being appropriate to our God alone.
Lastly, though the Learned Papists may plead for themselves, that they serve the Saint in the Image, and God in the Saint; yet it is to be feared, that the Ordinary people terminate their Worship in the very Image it self.