casion to tempt, and moves also
others to judge and condemn God's elect and chosen children, by reason
that troubles are multiplied upon them.

But with what weapons we ought to fight against such enemies and
assaults we shall learn in the answer of Christ Jesus, which follows:
But He, answering, said "It is written, man shall not live by bread
alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God." This
answer of Christ proves the sentence which we have brought of the
aforesaid temptation to be the very meaning of the Holy Ghost; for
unless the purpose of Satan has been to have removed Christ from all
hope of God's merciful providence toward Him in that His necessity,
Christ had not answered directly to his words, saying, "Command that
these stones be made bread." But Christ Jesus, perceiving his art and
malicious subtility, answered directly to his meaning, His words nothing
regarded; by which Satan was so confounded that he was ashamed to reply
any further.

But that you may the better understand the meaning of Christ's answer,
we will express and repeat it over in more words. "Thou laborest,
Satan," would Christ say, "to bring into my heart a doubt and suspicion
of My Father's promise, which was openly proclaimed in My baptism, by
reason of My hunger, and that I lack all carnal provision. Thou art bold
to affirm that God takes no care for Me, but thou art a deceitful and
false corrupt sophister, and thy argument, too, is vain, and full of
blasphemies; for thou bindest God's love, mercy, and providence to the
having or wanting of bodily provision, which no part of God's Scriptures
teach us, but rather the express contrary. As it is written, 'Man doth
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proeeedeth out of the
mouth of God,' that is, the very life and felicity of man consists not
in the abundance of bodily things, or the possession and having of them
makes no man blest or happy; neither shall the lack of them be the cause
of his final misery; but the very life of man consists in God, and in
His promises pronounced by His own mouth, unto which whoso cleaves
unfeignedly shall live the life everlasting. And altho all creatures in
earth forsake him, yet shall not his bodily life perish till the time
appointed by God approach. For God has means to feed, preserve, and
maintain, unknown to man's reason, and contrary to the common course of
nature. He fed His people Israel in the desert forty years with