[2.] Secondly, That malice must needs be great that _seeks its own fuel, and provides or begs its own occasions, and those such as give no proper provocation to his anger_. Of this temper is his malice. He did thus with Job: he begs the commission, calumniates Job upon unjust surmises, presseth still for a further power to hurt him, insomuch that God expressly stints and bounds him—which shews how boundless he would have been if left to his own will—and gives him at last an open check, Job ii. 3, wherein he lays open the malice of his heart in three things: [1.] His own pressing urgency: ‘Thou movedst me;’ [2.] His destructive fury: no less would serve than Job’s utter destruction; [3.] Job’s innocency: all this without cause: ‘Thou movedst me to destroy him without cause.’ [3.] Thirdly, That malice must needs be great that _will pursue a small matter_. What small game will the devil play rather than altogether sit out! If he can but trouble, or puzzle, or affright, yet that he will do, rather than nothing; if he can, like an adder in the path, but bite the heel, [Gen. xlix. 17,] though his head be bruised for it, he will notwithstanding busy himself in it. [4.] Fourthly, That malice must be great which will _put itself forth where it knows it can prevail nothing, but is certain of a disappointment_. Thus did Satan tempt Christ. Those speeches, ‘if thou be the Son of God,’ do not imply any doubt in Satan; he knew what was prophesied of Christ, and what had been declared from heaven in testification of him, so that he could not but be certain he was God and man; and yet what base unworthy temptations doth he lay before him, as ‘to fall down and worship him’! Was it that Satan thought to prevail against him? No surely; but such was his malice, that he would put an affront upon him, though he knew he could not prevail against him.