(2.) The other way is, to consider what a sad bargain you make by gratifying the devil, and hearkening to his counsel : Mat. xvi. 26, ' What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' A man never gets anything with Satan, but he shall lose that which is more precious ; he never maketh a profi'er to our advantage, but to our loss and hurt. Follow the world as hard as you can, lie, cozen, cheat, and you shall be rich ; put the case, It is so, but I must lose my soul, not in a natural, but legal sense : Job xxvii. 8, ' What is the hope of the hypocrite, though lie hath gained, when God taketh away his soul ?' He hath far better things from us than we have from him; a birthright for a mess of pottage, the hopes of heaven for an opulent condition here below. The bird buys the fowler's bait at a dear rate when his life must go for it. Thy soul must be lost, which all the gold and silver in the world cannot redeem and recover.
[4.] I observe again that Christ by his refusal hath taught us to
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tread the world under our feet, and all the glory of it should be an ineffectual and cold motive to a sanctified soul. If we have the same spirit that was in Christ, it will be so. All the kingdoms of the workl, and the glory of them, was far too little to make up a temptation to him. A mortified heart will contemn all this in comparison of our duty to God, and the comfort of a good conscience, and the hopes of glory. Surely they have not the spirit of Christ who are taken with small things, with a Babylonish garment, or some petty temptation. Uses. The use is to teach us how to counterwork Satan.
1. Since he worketh upon the fleshly mind, we are to be mortified and grow dead to the world. We profess faith in a crucified Lord ; we must be like him, crucified as he was crucified; then shall we glory in the cross of Christ, when we feel the virtue of it, and are planted into the likeness of it : Gal. vi. 14, ' God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.' Grow more dead to the riches, honour, pomp, pleasure, the favour, fear, love, wrath, praise and dispraise of men, that we may readily deny these things, so far as opposite to the kingdom of Christ, or our duty to God, or as they lessen our affections to him. We die as our esteem of those things doth decay ; till the man's temper be altered there is no hope to prevail by argument. Only they that are made partakers of a divine nature do escape the corruption that is in the world through lust.
2. Since he worketh by representation and promise, you must be prepared against both.
[1.] As he worketh by representation of the fair show and splendid appearance of worldly things, you must check it : —
(1.) By considering the little substance and reality that is in this fair appearance: 1 Cor. vii. 31, 'The fashion of this world passeth away,' a^vf^c^- It is but a draft, an empty pageantry ; so it is called, Ps. xxxix. 6, 'A vain show;' an image, shadow, or dream, that vanisheth in a trice. So Prov. xxiii. 5, ' Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not ?' It was not a while ago, and within a little while it will not be again, at least to us it will not be ; we must shortly bid good-night to all the world : 1 Pet. i. 24, ' All flesh is grass, and the glory thereof as the flower of the grass.' David saith, Ps. cxix. 86, ' I have seen an end of all perfection.' It is good often to inter- mingle these serious thoughts of the frailty of all sublunary enjoy- ments, to keep us modest in what we have, or desire to have, that we may not be blinded with the delusions of the flesh, and enchanted with an admiration of worldly felicity.
(2.) As the devil seeketh to open the eye of sense, so must we open the eye of faith : 2 Cor, iv. 18, ' We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen ; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.' Things unseen must be every day greatened in our eyes, that all our pursuit after things seen may be subordinated to our desires of, and labour after, things unseen. There we must see the greatest reality, or else we have not the true Christian faith : Heb. xi. 1 , ' Paith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.'
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It is such an evidence of the worth, and reality of the unseen glory as draweth off the heart from things seen, which are so pleasing to the flesh. Faith sets it before the eye of the soul in the promises of the gospel: Heb. vi. 18, ' Who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us/ Heb. xii. 2, ' Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross/ &c.