God's voice. Job cries out, ' The arrows of the Ahnighty ! ' how the poison of them drank up his spirit, and of the terrors of God that did set themselves in array against him, Job vi. 4 ; when it was Satan all the while that was prac- tising his malice and playing his pranks \ipon him. God was friends with this good man, only Satan begged leave, and God gave it for a time, thus to aftright him ; and poor Job cries out, as if God had cast him otf, and were become his enemy. Sccondlj', Darts or arrows, thej^ make little or no noise as they go ; they cut their passage through the air without telling us by any crack or report, as the cannon doth, that they are coming : thus insensibly doth temptation make its approach, the thief is in before we think of any need to shut the doors. The wind is a creature secret in its motion, of which our Saviour saith, ' We know not whence it comes, nor whither it goes,' John iii. 8 ; yet ' we hear the sound thereof,' as our Saviour saith in the same place : but temptations many times come, and give us no warning by an}' sound they make. The devil lays his plot so. close, that the soul sees not his drift, observes not his hook till he finds it iu his belly ; as the woman of Tekoa told her tale so handsomely that the king passeth judgment against himself in the person of another before he smelt out the business. Thirdly, Darts have a wounding, killing nature, especially when well headed, and shot out of a strong bow by one that is able to draw it ; such are Satan's temptations, headed with desperate malice, and drawn by a strength no less than angelical ; and this against so weak a creature as man, that it were impossible, had not God provided good armour, for our soul, to outstand Satan's power and get safe to heaven. Christ would have us sensible of their force and danger, by that petition in his prayer, which the best of saints on this side of heaven have need to use : ' Lead us not into temptation.' Christ was then but newly out of the list, where he had tasted Satan's tempting skill and strength, which though beneath his wisdom and power to defeat, yet well he knew, it was able to worst the strongest of saints. There was never any besides Christ that Satan did not foil more or less ; it was Christ's prerogative to be tempted, but not led into temptation. Job, one of the chief worthies in God's army of saints, who from God's mouth is a none-such ; yet was galled by these arrows shot from Satan's bow, and put to great disorder. God was fain to pluck him out of the devil's gripe, or else he had been quite worried by that lion.
Secondly, Satan's wai'like provision is, not only darts, but fiery darts. Some restrain these fiery darts to some particular kind of temptation, as despair, blas- phemy, and those which fill the heart with terror and horror ; but this, I con- ceive, is too strait, because faith is a shield for all kind of temptations, and in- deed there is none but may prove a fiery temptation ; so that I shoidd rather incline to think all sorts of temptations to be comprehended here, yet so as to respect some in an especial manner more than others, which after shall be in- stanced in.
Quest. Why are Satan's darts called fiery ones? Ansiv. First, They may be said to be fiery, in regard of that fiery wrath with which Satan shoots them ; they are the fire this dragon spits, full of indignation against God and his saints. Saul, it is said, 'breathed out threatening and slaughter against the church,' Acts ix. 1. As one that is inwardly inflamed, his breath is hot, a fiery stream of persecuting wrath came as out of a burning furnace from him; temptations are the breathings of the devil's wrath. Secondly, Fiery in regard of the end they lead to, if not quenched, and that is hell-fire ; there is a spark of hell in every temptation. As all sparks fly to their element, so all temptations tend to hell and damnation, according to Satan's intent and purpose. Thirdly, and chiefly, Fiery, in regard of that malignant eft'ect they have on the spirits of men, and that is to enkindle a fire in the heart and conscience of poor creatures : the apostle alludes to the custom of cruel enemies, who used to dip the heads of their arrows in some ])oison, whereby they became more deadly, and did not only woimd the part where they light, but inflame the whole body, which made the ciu'e more difficult. Job speaks of ' the poison of them which drank up his spirits,' Job vi. 4. They have aji envenoming and inflaming quality.
478 ABOVE ALL, TAKING THE SHIELD OF FAITH.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE FIERY NATURE OF SATAN's ENTICING TEMPTATIONS, WITH FAITll's POWER TO QUENCH THEM.
They are of two sorts, either those that do pleasingly entice and bewitch with some seeming promises of satisfaction to the creature ; or, Secondly, Such as affright and carry horror with them. Both are fiery, and quenched by faith, and only faith. We shall begin with the first, such as do pleasingly entice. And the note is this :