bitterness,' Acts viii. 23 ; that is, in a state of sin. Every unbeliever hath a bitter spirit against God, and all that bears his name. There is no trusting the tamest of them all. Let the lion out of his cage, and he will soon shew his bloody nature. An unbeliever hath no more in him to quench such a temptation than dry wood hath to quench fire. But now let us see what exploits faith can do in quenching this fiery dart, and how it does it. First, Faith sets God before the soul, within sight and hearing of all its thoughts and ways ; and this keeps the soul in awe, that it dares harbour nothing unworthy of God in its most secret thoughts. David gives the reason why the wicked are so bold, Psa. Ixxxvi. 14: 'they have not set thee before them.' Such as defame and asperse the names of others, do it commonly behind their backs. Sin in this life seldom comes to such a ripeness, as to blaspheme God to his face ; this is properly the language of hell. There is a mixture of atheism with the blasphemy of sinners while on earth. They do with God as those wretched miscreants did with Chi-ist, they cover his face, and then smite him ; they draw a curtain of atheistical principles between God and them, and then belch out their blasphemies against that God, whose onniiscience they do not believe. Now faith sees God eyeing the soul, and so preserves it. 'Curse not the king,' saith Solomon, ' no, not in thy thought ; and curse not the rich in thy bed- chamber ; for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter,' Eccles. x. 20. Such kind of language faith useth. Blaspheme not, saith faith, O my soul, the God of heaven ; thou canst not whisper it so softly, but the voice is heard in his ear, who is nearer to thee than thou to thyself: and thus it breaks the snare the devil lays. Those vmbecoming speeches which dropped from Job's mouth, throvigh the length and extremity of his troubles, though they did not amount to blasphemy, j'et when God presented himself to him in his majesty, they soon vanished, and he covered his face with shame before the Lord for them: 'Now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes,' Job xlii. 5, 6. Secondly, Faith credits no report of God, but from God's ov/n mouth, and thus it quencheth temptations to blasphemy. It is impossible a soul should have any but holy and loyal thoughts of God, who shapes his apprehensions of him by the word, which is the only true glass to behold God in, because it alone presents him like himself in all his attributes, which Satan by this sin of blasphemy one way or other asperses. Faith conceives its notions of God by the word, resolves all cases of conscience, and deciphers all providences (which God writes in myste- rious figures) by the word, for want of which skill Satan drives the creature very often to have hard thoughts of God, because he cannot make presently good sense of his administrations in the world. Thus there have been some who foolishly have charged God's justice, because some outrageous sinners have not been overtaken with such speedy judgment as they deserve; others have charged as deeply his care and faithfulness, in providing no better for his servants, whom they have seen kept long under the hatches of great afllictions : like him who seeing a company of Christians in poor ragged clothes, said, he would not serve that God, who kept his servants no better. These and such like are the broken glasses that Satan presents God in, which disfigure him to the creature's eye ; and truly, if we will look no farther, but judge God to be what he appears to be by them, we shall soon condemn the Holy One, and be within the whirl of this dangei'ous temptation. Thirdly, Faith quenches temptations to blasphemy, as it is full of praise. It disposeth the Christian to bless God in the saddest con- dition that can befall it. Now blessing and blasphemy are most contrary ; by the one we think and speak evil, and by the other, good of God, and therefore they cannot well dwell under the same roof; they are like contrary tunes, they cannot be played on the same instrument without changing all the strings. It is past Satan's skill to strike so harsh a stroke as blasphemy is, on a soul tuned and set to praise God ; now faith doth this. ' My heart is fixed,' saith David: there was his faith; then follows, ' I will sing and give praise,' Psa. Ivii. 7. It was faith that tuned his spirit, and set his affections praising. And would not Satan, think you, have found it a hard task to make David blaspheme God, while his heart was kept in a praising frame ? Now two wa)'S faith doth this : first, as it seeth mercy in the greatest affliction, an eye of comfort in the saddest mixture of providence ; so when the devil provokes to blasphemy from
ABOVE ALL, TAKING THE SHIELD OF FAITH. 4.93