That they are great spiritual afflictions, ask but those, who have stood exposed to these fiery darts; and they will readily confess, that, next to the unspeakable regret they feel for sometimes yielding to temptations, the greatest burden and trouble of their lives is the continual labour and difficulty of resisting them. For what can be imagined more irksome to an ingenuous Christian, than to be restlessly importuned to do that, which he is assured will be to his own wound and ruin, and to the dishonour of that God whose glory he prefers above his chief joy and when they are haunted with direful injections, and blasphemous thoughts cast into their minds by the Devil; thoughts, contrary to the fundamentals of religion, and the common sentiments of natural reason; how could they even shrink from themselves, and abandon their own beings, rather than be forced to hear those horrid suggestions, which their great enemy, the Devil, is still impudently whispering unto them! It is, therefore, of concern to enquire how we may, when we are thus grievously pestered with these hellish injections, glorify God under so great an affliction.

To this I answer, in the general, If thou wouldst glorify God under temptations, be sure still to maintain a most vigorous and resolved resistance against their assaults: for, by this means, thou wilt glorify God, especially in two of his attributes, his Power and his Truth.

(1st) By resisting temptations, thou glorifiest the Almighty Power of God.

Thou fightest his battles, not only against thine, but his great enemy, the Devil. And, as the honour of a prince is engaged in the valour and resolution of his soldiers; so God hath, as it were, pawned his honour upon thy courage: thou art his champion, chosen and selected out by him purposely for the combat. Now if thou basely yield, thou leavest not only thine own soul, but God's honour bleeding upon the place: thy conscience becomes a spoil to the Devil, and thy name a reproach to religion. Certainly, God intended to make the almighty power of his grace exceeding glorious, by making use of such inconsiderable instruments as you are; instruments, like Gideon's pitchers, frail earthen vessels, but yet such as have the lamp of divine grace burning in them, to rout and put to flight all the legions and black musters of hell. See how God exults in the victorious constancy of his servant Job; and upbraids the Devil, that, though he had with his utmost malice assaulted him, yet he still persisted in his

integrity, and defeated all the attempts of his impotent malice: Job ii. 3. Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in all the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity; yea, although thou movest me against him, to destroy him without cause: God speaks of him with delight, and glories in him as a heroic champion. And, if you set yourselves vigorously to oppose the temptations of the Devil, God will likewise glory in you; and triumph over Satan to his utter shame, that such weak and feeble creatures should, through the assistance of his grace, be able to subdue all the power, that hell can arm against them. And this will, to his infinite regret, make that proud and cursed spirit know how utterly in vain all his raging attempts are against their Almighty Lord and Master; since he cannot turn away the face of one of the least of his servants. And, therefore, when St. Paul had prayed thrice, i. e. often, that God would remove that temptation and messenger of Satan which buffeted him, he receives this answer, 2 Cor. xii. 9. My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness: not that God's strength, which is infinite, can receive any addition of perfection from our weakness; but only it is declared and demonstrated to be infinitely perfect and infinitely powerful, when, by such contemptible instruments, it can overthrow all the powers of hell.

(2dly) By resisting temptations, thou glorifiest the Truth and Veracity of God.

For both God and Satan deal with the soul in somewhat a like way, though to different ends. They both urge promises and threatenings, as motives to induce us to their obedience. Satan's are all for the present; present gain and present pleasure, if we consent to his solicitations: but God's promises and threatenings are chiefly for the future. Indeed, we shall here enjoy so much peace of conscience, such a sweet calm and tranquillity of mind, such inward satisfaction in our self-reflections, that, were there nothing else propounded to us, yet even this alone were enough with rational and considerate men to out-bid all that Satan can offer: but yet God chiefly insists upon the consideration of those things, which shall be accomplished hereafter; and represents unto us eternal rewards and eternal punishments, the one to allure us to duty, the other to deter us from sin; and both to deliver us from the snare of the Devil, and that ruin into which we should else precipitate ourselves.

Now consider when you are tempted, whose promises or whose threatenings prevail most with you, God's or Satan's. If you yield to the temptation, it is plain that you prefer Satan's before God's. And this reflects a mighty dishonour upon him, either,

That what he promiseth is not valuable. Or,

That it is not so certain as what the Devil promiseth.

But, the common sense and first notions of all mankind must needs agree in this, that what God promiseth is infinitely more valuable, and what he threatens is infinitely more dreadful, than what can be promised or threatened in a temptation; inasmuch as eternal joys do vastly transcend momentary and impure pleasures, which die in their very birth, and leave nothing but a sting and torment in the conscience: and those light afflictions, which the Devil tempts us to avoid by sinning, are poor incon siderable nothings, in comparison with that eternal anguish and horror, which God threatens to inflict on us for sinning.

What is it then, that makes the temptations of the Devil so prevalent and effectual with most men in the world? Is it not because they do not believe him, who is truth itself, in what he promises and threatens; but assent to the false promises of him, who is a liar from the beginning? There is no man, that yields unto a temptation, but it is because he believes Satan rather than God. Infidelity is the root of all sin: and, by this, they cast a high disparagement and dishonour upon his truth and veracity. Did we but believe that heaven is so inconceivably glorious, a place where joy and bliss keep their eternal residence, and where we shall for ever live in the smiles and love of God, if now for

few short years we endeavour to our utmost to live holy and obedient lives; did we but believe that the crown of glory is so massy, and all the gems of it so bright and orient; that we shall there bathe in rivers of pleasure, and for ever feel and enjoy more satisfaction than we can now conceive: did we but believe these things as the Scripture hath revealed them to us, without diffidence or hesitation; nay, did we but believe them as probable and likely enough to come to pass, should we so cheaply forfeit the hopes of these things, for the impure and vanishing delights of sin? We find that the promise of some temporal reward from men, is of force enough to allure us to very hard tasks and difficult enterprises: how far will many venture, and how much pains and labour will they take to obtain it! and yet the promises, that God himself hath made of eternal glory, in

comparison with which to promise sceptres and kingdoms is but to promise trifles and gewgaws, have so little effect upon the generality of mankind to win them to a holy and obedient life! Whence is this, but that there is a great deal of atheism and infidelity secretly lurking in men's souls, which never more discovers itself, than when we suffer ourselves to be hurried away by temptations, against all those considerations, which the Scripture hath propounded to us of eternal rewards and punishments. Did we but believe that there is a day of reckoning to come, when we must stand before a righteous and impartial judge, to give a strict and narrow account of all our actions, and receive our doom from his mouth according to what we have done; did we but believe the intolerable wrath of God, the fire and darkness, woe and anguish, and all those racks and engines of torture that are prepared for the damned; who of us would ever again hearken unto a temptation, which only bids us plunge ourselves headlong into such an abyss of miseries? we should no more dare to commit the least sin against God, than to be damned, and run into the flames of hell with our eyes open, and seeing our destruction evidently before us. But the truth is, we are credulous towards the Devil, and infidels towards God; and most gross and deplored fools, in both. Satan labours most to weaken our faith; for he knows, if he can but once beat us from that guard, all his temptations will certainly prove effectual and do execution upon us. And, therefore, our Saviour tells Peter, Luke xxii. 31, 32. Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: teaching us, that there is no such sure defence against the temptations of the Devil, as the strong and vigorous actings of faith: while we believe what God hath spoken, we shall never be allured by whatsoever the Devil can suggest. And, therefore, also the Apostle, when he gives us the panoply and complete armour of a Christian, exhorts us, Eph. vi. 16. Above all, to take the shield of faith, wherewith we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Above all: i. e. either chiefly look that your faith be strong: or, else, as the shield was used to be a defence not only unto the body, but to the rest of the armour likewise; so, above all, or over all the other pieces of your spiritual armour, take the shield of faith, for this will be a defence not only to your souls, but to your other graces, to keep them from being bruised and battered by the temptations of the Wicked One.

And thus you have seen how we ought to glorify God under this first spiritual suffering, which is by Temptations, by a strong and vigorous resistance made against them; for, in so doing, we glorify both the power of divine grace, in preserving us from the commission of those sins unto which we are tempted; and likewise the truth and veracity of God, in his promises and threatenings.

2dly. The second spiritual suffering is Desertion, wherein we suffer from God.

And this is a very heavy affliction to that soul, who ever knew what the presence, and favour, and the comfortable and reviving influences of the love of God mean. When a pious Christian hath once fixed God as his chief and only good, and taken the measures of all his joy and content from his union to and communion with that sovereign good, how infinitely cutting must it needs be for God to absent and withdraw himself, and leave him under dark and gloomy apprehensions that he is rejected and cast out of favour, and disinherited by his Heavenly Father!

Now, in this doleful condition, when God hath eclipsed the light of his countenance, and withdrawn from us the comforts of his free Spirit, how shall we demean ourselves, so as to glorify him?

To this I answer: In this case, which is confessedly very sad and disconsolate, observe these following directions.

(1st) If you would glorify God under desertions, still stay yourselves upon him, though you cannot see him.

Though you cannot see his face, yet lay hold on his arm. See that most comfortable place, Isa. 1. 10. Who is there among you, that feareth the Lord, and obeyeth the voice of his prophet, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? here is a holy soul described in its worst estate; enveloped in thick darkness, as dark as the confused heap and rubbish of the first chaos; not having the least gleam of light breaking in upon it, either from the face of God, or the reflection of its own graces. Now what must this dark soul do, in this dark condition? Let him, saith the Prophet, trust in the name of the Lord, and stay himself upon his God. Now this staying upon God, in a time of darkness and desertion, implies, that, although we have no evidence, no light, nor knowledge that we are his, and that he is our God in covenant with us; yet, that we have fixed our firm and settled resolutions, to devolve and roll the eternal concernments of our