in trying and exercising the virtues of his subjects: for this being the state of our trial and probation, wherein we stand candidates for those everlasting preferments in the other world, our blessed Lord hath thought meet to surround us with difficulties and temptations, that so, being in continual conflict with them, we may never want opportunity to exert and exercise our virtues, and to give the most glorious proofs of our courage and constancy: for difficulty is the spur of endeavour and the whetstone of virtue, without which the fairest graces that belong to human nature would be altogether useless, worthless, and unactive; such as faith and patience, temperance and equanimity, courage, and resignation to God; all which would scarce deserve the name of virtues, if they had not some difficulties to contest withal. Now one of the greatest difficulties with which our blessed Lord tries and exercises these graces of our nature is the temptations of evil spirits, who, as so many assisting geniuses to the corrupt inclinations of our nature, are permitted by him to rove about the world in innumerable swarms to tempt and elicit those inclinations into action; and these being spirits, have a much nearer access to the souls of men than any material agents whatsoever; for though they are totally debarred from all kind of intercourse with the immediate operations of the reasonable soul, and can no more look into its thoughts than we can into the bowels of the earth, yet our fancies and imaginations lying open to them, there is no doubt but they can and oftentimes do make what use they think fit of the animal spirits there, and dispose, and order, and distinguish them, just as the painter doth his numerous colours that

lie confusedly before him in their several shells, into the pictures and phantasms of whatsoever objects they please, and continue and repeat those pictures in our fancies as long and as oft as they think meet; and then considering what the natural use of the fancy is, both to the understanding and will, and how it prompts the one with matter of invention, and supplies it with variety of objects to work on, and draws forth or elicits the other to choose or refuse those objects it presents, according as they are amicably or odiously represented; considering these things, I say, it is notorious what mighty advantages the evil spirits have of insinuating their black suggestions to our minds. And then they being very subtile and sagacious by nature, and having had above five thousand years' experience to cultivate their talent of tempting and seducing us, (that having been their trade ever since they became devils) to be sure they can never be at a loss when or how to apply themselves to us, and to nick us with such temptations as are most convenient to our several inclinations, conditions, and circumstances; and accordingly, 2 Cor. ii. 11. the Devil is said to have his methods or devices, i. e. his stated rules by which he governs his mischievous practice of tempting and seducing souls; and 2 Tim. ii. 26. we are told of the snare of the Devil, or his crafty devices to en-tangle and captivate men's souls.

Now though the design of these evil spirits in tempting Christ's subjects is doubtless to seduce and ruin them, yet it is evident that the design of Christ in permitting them to tempt them is only to try and exercise them, and rouse them out of their sloth and inactivity, and by the continual alarms of these their

restless adversaries to keep them upon their guard, and make them more watchful and vigilant: and accordingly, from the consideration of that permission which these evil spirits have to tempt us, we are in scripture frequently exhorted to activity and vigilance so 1 Pet. v. 8. Be sober, be vigilant; for the Devil your adversary goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour: so also, Ephes. vi. 11. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil. Since therefore the Devil's tempting us is used by Christ as a motive to excite our activity, it is evident that Christ's intention in permitting him to tempt us is to excite and stimulate us thereunto. It is true, the Devil's temptations may, and often have a quite contrary effect on us than Christ intended; they may seduce us from our innocence and duty, and thereby involve us in everlasting perdition: but if they do, it is our own fault, and through our own consent, without which they can never prevail against us; for we are assured, that if we resist the Devil, he will fly away from us, and that we shall not be tempted by him above what we are able; and we are furnished by our Saviour with sufficient strength and assistance to repel his most powerful temptations: but if, instead of employing our strength and exercising our virtue in a vigorous resistance of him, (which is the thing Christ intended in permitting him to tempt us,) we will tamely suffer ourselves to be led captive by him, we must thank ourselves for all the dire and miserable consequents of it.

II. Another instance of the ministry of these evil angels to Christ, is their chastening and correcting

the faults and miscarriages of his subjects. Thus upon great and high provocations he many times lets loose these evil spirits upon us, and permits them to pain and punish us, either immediately by themselves, or mediately by their instruments: for so, only to prevent St. Paul's being exalted above measure through the abundance of his revelations, there was given a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet him; i. e. as it seems most probable, some evil spirit was sent to him from Satan, the prince of devils, to inflict some corporal pain or disease on him, (for so the grieving thorn, Ezek. xxviii. 24. signifies a sore bodily affliction ;) and though he sought the Lord thrice for this thing that it might depart from him, yet could he receive no other answer but, My grace is sufficient for thee: see 2 Cor. xii. 7, 8, 9. And it is very probable that those weaknesses, diseases, and deaths, which were inflicted on the Corinthians for their irreverent communication of the Lord's supper, (vide 1 Cor. xi. 30.) were inflicted by the ministry of evil angels, to whose power and malice they were abandoned by our Saviour, as a just chastisement of their profaneness: for so it is evident the incestuous person was corrected upon the sentence of his excommunication, which was, that he should be delivered up unto Satan for the destruction of his flesh, 1 Cor. v. 5. where the delivering him up to Satan seems to have been in answer to Satan's demanding of him; for so in scripture the Devil is sometimes called the accuser of the brethren, which accuses them before God day and night, Rev. xii. 10. and sometimes the avτídikos, which signifies an adversary in court of judicature, that impleads and accuses

us before God, 1 Pet. v. 8. Now this accusation of his is sometimes false and groundless, as in the case of Job, upon which account he is called diáßoλos, the calumniator; but sometimes he accuses us truly, for faults that are real and highly criminal, upon which he requires us of God, as he did St. Peter, Luke xxii. 31. i. e. he requires us as the executioner does a malefactor, to sift or winnow us as wheat, i. e. to shake and afflict us: and whenever God is pleased to answer this request, he is truly said to deliver us up to Satan: and this power of delivering up to Satan such persons as are justly accused of great and scandalous sins, God hath communicated to his church, upon which delivery in the primitive ages, (when there were no magistrates to second the church's censures with corporal punishments,) Satan, as the lictor, or executioner of our Saviour, immediately seized the criminal, and inflicted on him some bodily disease or torment, which St. Ignatius calls kóλασis diaBórov, the punishment of the Devil, Epist. ad Roman. For so in our Saviour's time, and before and after it, it was usual for evil spirits, by God's permission, to inflict diseases and torments on men's bodies, of which there are innumerable instances in the Gospels and the writings of the primitive fathers: and that this was then the usual consequence of excommunication is evident from that phrase, for the destruction of the flesh, which plainly signifies some corporal punishment consequent to that tremendous sentence, which is therefore called a rod, 1 Cor. iv. 21. because of the bodily correction that followed it. But since the power of corporal punishments hath been derived by Christ upon Christian magistrates, he very rarely chastens his subjects with any bodily