boar, &c.,) so doth God Satan and his instruments, to manifest his wisdoBi 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 his saints' enemies, doth superadd a sweet relish to their deliverances at last. * He brake the heads of the 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.
CHAPTER IX.
AN ACCOUNT IS GIVEN HOW THE ALL-WISE GOD DOTH OUTWIT THE DEVIL IN HIS TEMPTING OF SAINTS TO SIN ; WHEREIN ARE LAID DOWN THE ENDS SATAN PROPOUNDS, AND HOW HE IS PREVENTED IN ALL, WITH THE GRACIOUS ISSUE THAT GOD PUTS TO THESE HIS TEMPTATIONS.
Quest. ' But how doth God defeat Satan, and outwit his wiles in tempting his saints?'
Answ. This God doth by accomplishing his own gracious ends for the good and comfort of his people, out of those temptations from whicli 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 are thinking to rid their hands of him. To instance in a few particulai's.
Section I. — First, Satan by his temptations aims at the defiling of the Chris- tian'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 him- self, 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 the purging them from sin ; they are the black soap with which God washeth his saints white.
First, 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 mean time 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 mean time gives the enemj' 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 counsel, and overrules proceed- ings there to the saint's advantage ; he suffers the devil to annoy the Christian with temptations to blasphemy, atheism; and by these, together with the trou- bles 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 oi'dinary, 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 Satan might have come as a seducer, and taken him napjiing in secui-ity.
Secondly, God purgeth out the very sin Satan tempts to, even by his tempt- ing. Peter never had such a conquest over his self-confidence, never such an establishment of his faith, as after his foul 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 Chi-ist more than his fellow- brethren, to whom before he had preferred himself? What an imdaunted 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
AGAINST THE WILKS Ol'" THE DEVIL. 71
temptation doth but stir humour, which the soul, having found out, hath the greater advantage to evacuate, by applying those means, and using those ingredients which do pm-ge that malady, cum delecfu. Now the soul will call all out against this destroyer ; Paul had not took such pains to ' buffet his body,' had he not found Satan knocking at that door.