forsake thee; that temptation which hath overcome him, may happen unto thee; that enemy which hath sifted him, may winnow thee; and therefore in his fall learn compassion towards him, and jealousy to thyself; "Restore him, and consider thyself."

Fifthly, Consider the temptations that arise from this sin, the daily and hourly solicitations wherewith it setteth upon the soul, to unsettle it in good, and to dispose it unto evil. Satan is emphatically in the Scripture called a 'Tempter :' and yet, as if his were but false temptations, St. James' saith, that "a man is indeed tempted by his own lusts, when he is drawn away and enticed:"-First, drawn away from God out of his sight and presence, and then solicited unto evil, either evil simply, or evil concomitantly, in doing good duties formally, blindly, unzealously, unconstantly, unspiritually. If a man shoot an arrow against a rock, it may be broken, but it cannot enter: no more can Satan's temptations prevail against the soul, without something within to give them admittance. Therefore, though he tempted Christ, yet he prevailed not: and our Saviour & gives the reason; "He hath nothing in me," nothing to receive his darts. But now, in us, the flesh holds treacherous compliancy with Satan and the world, and is ready to let them in at every assault. This is a great part of the cunning of wicked Angels, to engage and bribe over a man's own concupiscence to their party. Seed will never grow into a living creature, without a womb to foster it; there must be 'partus cordis,' as well as 'seminarium hostis,' the conception of the heart', as the 'temptation of Satan.' Temptations may vex, but they cannot corrupt us without our own sinful entertainment: as a chaste woman may be solicited by some base ruffian, but yet no whit in danger while she retains her chastity; it may grieve her, but

h

f James i. 14.

e Matth. iv. 3. 1 Thes. iii. 5. 8 John xiv. 30. • Σύμμαχον λαβοῦσι τὴν ἐν ἑκάστῳ κακὴν καὶ ποικίλην ἐπιθυμίαν. Just. Martyr. Apol. 2. i Quid tibi facturus est tentator? Te vince, et mundus est victus. Quid tibi facturus est tentator extraneus? Adsit intus castitas, victa est foris iniquitas. Si non in te inventa fuerit avaritia, remansit frustra extenta muscipula, &c. Aug. tom. 10. Serm. 9. de Divers. cap. 9.-Non diabolus voluntatem delinquendi imponit, sed materiam voluntati subministrat. Tert. Exhort. castigat. cap. 2.—vid. Aug. contr. 2. ep. Pelag. 1. 1. c. 2.—Eos qui foris nobis oppugnant, intus vincimus, vincendo concupiscentias, per quas nobis dominantur. Aug. tom. 3. 1. de Agone Christiano, cap. 2.-Weems. Christian. Synagog.

it cannot defile her. Many points of temptation the Devil can compass alone: suggestions, persuasions, arguments, instigations, injections of blasphemous or atheistical notions; but all these are, at the worst, but as the violence of a man that ravisheth a virgin. If we can wholly keep in our hearts from affording their embraces, and accepting the offers of Satan; if we can, with all the strength of our soul, cry out like the ravished woman in the law, they are the sins of Satan, and not ours. But here is the misery; Satan knows how our tide stands, he searcheth out our dispositions, and thereunto sorteth his temptations, and taketh ingredients of our own to temper with them, and to sweeten them :-as Agrippina', when she poisoned her husband Claudius, tempered the poison in the meat, which he most delighted in. One man hath lust and wit; Satan tempteth him to scorn and slight the humility of the ways of God, and the simplicity of the Gospel. Another hath lust and money; Satan tempteth him to pride, and oppression, to earthly-mindedness, and trust in his strong tower. Another hath lust and poverty; Satan tempteth him to murmuring, discontent, rebellion. Another hath lust and youth; Satan tempteth him to vanity and intemperance. Another hath lust and learning; Satan tempteth him to vain glory and ambition. There is in all of us much need of spiritual wisdom to observe, where we lie most obnoxious, where Satan doth most plant his forces, and direct his attempts; and ever to apply our strongest watch, our most importunate prayers to those gaps of our calling which are most naked, to those lusts in our nature which are most predominant.

m

Sixthly, Consider the war and rebellion of this sin: "I find a law in my members, warring against the law of my mind. The flesh lusteth against the spirit;-fleshly lusts war against the soul." Which passages are not so to be understood, as if when lust doth fight, it fights against nothing but the spirit; but yet it may be so disheartened and crushed, that it shall not always rebel (which is the late wretched and ignorant gloss of our new Pelagians, who, expressly contrary to the doctrine of St. Paul, and the

k Deut. xxii. 27. 1 Infusum delectabili cibo boletorum venenum. Tacit. An. Boletum medicatum avidissimo ciborum talium obtulit. m Rom. vii. 23. Gal. v. 17. 1 Pet. ii. 11.

articles of the Church of England, with the harmony of other Reformed Churches, deny the sinfulness of original concupiscence, or that it always lusteth against the Spirit); but the meaning of them is, that while we are in the Militant Church, we shall have hourly experience of this traitor in our bosom; and whensoever we go about any spiritual work, this evil will be present with us, and fight against us. And this war is not at a distance; but it is an intimate and close contrariety in the same part, like the combat between heat and cold in the same water; no room nor space to hold a Mediator, or to entertain a treaty, or to shift and evade the conflict. The same soul that commands obedience, doth itself resist it. In the same mind" the wisdom of the flesh, which is sensual and devilish,-fighteth against the wisdom of the Spirit, which is meek and peaceable. In the same will, a delight in the law of God, and yet a bias and counter-motion to the law of sin. In the same understanding, a light of the Gospel, and yet many relicks of human principles and fleshly reasonings; much ignorance of the purity, excellency, and beauty of the ways of God. In the same heart, singleness and sensibleness of sin, and yet much secret fraud and prevarication, hardness, and disapprehension of sin and wrath. In the same affections, love of God, and love of the world,-fear of God and fear of men,-trust in God and doubting of his favour. "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief," was the cry of the poor man in the Gospel; and such must be the complaints of the best of us: Lord, I will; help thou mine unwil lingness: Lord, I hear thee; help thou my deafness: Lord, I remember thee; help thou my forgetfulness: Lord, I press towards thee; help thou my weariness: Lord, I rejoice in thee; help thou my heaviness: Lord, I desire to have more fellowship with thee; help thou my strangeness: Lord, I love and delight in thy law; help thou my failings." Such tugging is there of either nature to preserve and improve itself. Jacob was a man of contention and wrestling from the beginning P; contention with his brother in the birth; contention for the birthright; contention with an Angel for the blessing; con

n Quid est hoc monstrum? Imperat animus corpori, et animus sibi, et resistitur, &c. Aug. Confes. 1. 8. c. Y. 10. P Gen. xxv. 22, 26, 27, xxxii. 24, xxix. 25, xxxj. 36. 41.

paretur: imperat

• Mark ix. 24.

г

tention for his wife, and for his wages with Laban. He was a typical man; his name was Israel, and he was a pattern to the Israel of God.-We must be all men of contention; wrestlers not only with God in strong and importunate prayers for his blessings, but with our elder brother Esau, with the lusts and frowardness of our own hearts. The thief" on the cross was a perfect emblem of the sin of our nature; he was nailed hand and foot, destined unto death, utterly disabled from any of his wonted outrages; and yet that only part which was a little loose, flies out in reviling and reproaching Christ. Our old man by the mercy of God is upon a cross, destined to death, disabled from the exercise of that wonted violence and dominion which it used; and yet so long as there is any life or strength left in him, he sets it all on work to revile that blessed Spirit which is come so near him. The more David prevails, the more Saul rageth and persecuteth him. As in the womb of Tamar * there was a strife for precedency, Zarah thrust out his hand first, and yet Pharez got forth before him; so in a Christian, many times the Spirit thrusts out the hand, and begins to work, and presently the flesh grows sturdy and boisterous, and gets first into the action. A man sets himself to call upon God, lifts up his hand with the scarlet thread, the blood of Christ upon it,-is in a sweet preparation to pour out his complaints, his requests, his praises to his Father; and ere he is aware, pride in the excellency of God's gifts, or deadness, or worldly thoughts intrude themselves, and justle-by God's Spirit, and cast a blemish upon the offering. A man is setting himself to hear God's Word, begins to attend and relish the things that are spoken, as matters which do, in good earnest, concern his peace; begins to see a beauty more than ordinary in God's service, an excellency with David in God's law, which he considered not before; resolves hereafter to love, frequent, submit, believe, prize it more than he had ever done;-presently the flesh sets up her mounds, her reasoning, her perverse disputes, her own principles, her shame, her worldliness, her want of leisure, her secular contentments, and so resists the Spirit of God, and rejects his coun

4 Luke xxiii. 39.

r Gal. v. 24.

1 Sam. xviii. 7, 8. & xxviii. 9.

t Gen. xxxviii. 28.

sel:-I have enough already; what needs this zeal, this pressing, this accurateness, this violence for Heaven? Strive we what we can, our infirmities will encompass us, our corruptions will be about us. But yet, beloved, as in a pyramid, the higher you go, the less compass still you find the body to be of, and yet not without the curiosity and diligence of him that framed it; so in a Christian man's resurrection, and conversation with Christ in Heaven, the nearer he comes to Christ, the smaller still his corruptions will be, and yet not without much spiritual industry and Christian art. A Christian is like a flame, the higher it ascends, the more thin, purified, and azure it is; but yet it is a flame in green wood, that wants perpetual blowing and encouragement. A man sets himself, with some good resolution of spirit, to set forward the honour of God, in questioning, in discovering, in shaming, in punishing (within the compass of his own calling and warrant) the abuses of the times,-in countenancing, in rewarding, in abetting and supporting, truth and righteousness: his flesh presently interpose th; his quiet, his security, his relations, his interests, his hopes, his fears, his dependencies, his plausibility, his credit, his profit, his secular provisoes: these blunt his edge, upbraid him with impoliticness, with malcontentedness, with a sullen and cynical disposition against men and manners; and thus put I know not what ill-favoured colours upon a good face, to make a man out of love with an honest business. In a word, good is before me, the glory, the service, the ways of God: I see it, but I cannot love it; I will, but I cannot do it; I do it, but I cannot finish it; I will, but yet I rebel; I follow, and yet I fall; I press forward, and yet I faint and flag; I wrestle, and yet I halt; I pray, and yet I sin; I fight, and yet am I captive; I crucify my lusts, and yet they revile me, I watch God" was heart, and yet it runs away from me. at first the author of nothing but peace within me; what envious man hath sown this war in my bowels? Let the apostle answer this question, saith St. Austin, "By one man, sin entered into the world." That which I would be,

my

u In tota anima et in toto corpore conditorem habeo pacis Deum : quis in me seminavit hoc bellum? Aug. 1. 5. cont. Julian. cap. 7. * Odi quod sum, non sum quod amo: infelix ego, qui in me venenatum inimica arboris gustum nec crucis ligno digessi! Aug. ep. 106.