especially as either his natural temper or his inactive way of living put him in most danger of; I dare undertake, that, following such a course, he should neither have worn out his knees with praying, nor his body with fasting before God would have given him an answer of peace, and a full conquest over his temptations. To which method may be added one instruction more, and that of no less sovereign influence in the case now before us than all of them together; namely, that we should upon no terms account any sin small; for whatsoever it may be reckoned, if compared with others of a higher guilt and malignity, yet still, considered absolutely in itself, it is not so small, but that it is an act of rebellion against the supreme Lord and Governor of the universe, by a direct violation of his law; not so small, but that by the same law it merits damnation to the sinner in the eternal destruction of his soul and body; nor, lastly, so small, but that as it merits, so it would actually and infallibly inflict the same upon him, had not the Son of God himself shed his blood and laid down his very life, both as a satisfaction for the sin, and a ransom for the sinner. And if all this must be owned and submitted to as uncontrollable truth, from what topic of reason or religion can the most acute disputant argue for the smallness of any sin? Nevertheless, admitting (without granting) that a sin were never so small, yet certain it is, that the greatest and the foulest sins, which the corrupt nature of man is capable of committing, generally enter upon the soul by very small and scarce observable instances at first. So that of all the courses which a man in such a case can take, this of capitulating, and, as it were, making terms with the Devil, is the most senseless and dangerous; no man having ever yet driven a saving bargain with this great trucker for souls, by exchanging guilts, or bartering one sin for another.

It is too well known, how it was with a most virtuous and excellent prince, (if we may be suffered to pay a due honour to that glorious name, which to the astonishment and scandal of all good men has been so vilified and run down of late ;) it is known, I say, what a struggle his pious and truly tender conscience had with itself, when he was urged to sign the death of a faithful and great minister, and how far his heart was from going along with his hand in signing that fatal act. Nevertheless thus pressed, (as he was on all sides,) he was prevailed upon at last to throw an innocent life overboard, to secure the whole government from that terrible national storm, which seemed at that time to threaten all. But what was the issue and result of this woful expedient? (which yet none more deeply regretted and repented of than that blessed prince himself.) Why, the result and natural

effect of it was, that the flame (intended thereby to be stifled and extinguished) broke out and raged thereupon ten times more violently, and the Devil and his faction took their advantage, and carried all before them more and more audaciously; never ceasing, till they had brought his royal head to the block, overturned both church and state, and laid our laws and liberties, with every thing that was great, honourable, or sacred throughout the whole kingdom, in the dust.

This was the consequence of an unjustifiable act for preventing a greater mischief, (as some judged :) which, no doubt, had it not been taken, but instead thereof innocence had been resolutely protected, and Providence humbly relied upon, things could never have come to that deplorable issue, which they were brought to, and which it is to be feared that we and our posterity may for some ages rue. For according to the course of God's justice in his government of the world, there is but too much ground to think, that so horrid a rebellion and regicide have not yet been so fully accounted for, but that there remains a long and a black score still to be paid off: it being so usual as well as just with God, where the guilt of a people is high and clamorous, to revenge the practices of the fathers upon the children, succeeding into and avowedly persisting in the same principles which produced them. God has owned it for his rule, and that for more generations than one; and it is not to be presumed that he will balk an established rule for our sakes.

Such, we see, have been the false and fallacious methods, whereby some have so wretchedly deceived themselves: besides which it has been likewise observed of some others, who have been so unfortunate as to have their dependance upon persons as much wickeder as greater than themselves, that they have complied with them in lesser irregularities to induce the grandee, out of mere good nature forsooth, not to press his poor dependant to fouler and more frightful enormities. But, alas! this is a way which never takes: for such great ones in all their debauches will be attended upon through thick and thin, and care not for any but a thorough paced companion in their vices; since no other can give them any countenance in their lewdness, which is the chief thing they drive at and desire. And therefore this also will be found as senseless and absurd a project to elude the tempter as any of the former, and seldom or never succeeds, but to an effect quite contrary to what was designed. For from lesser to greater has been ever accounted a very easy and natural passage, especially in sin. And he who suffers the Devil to be his rider, must not think always to jog on softly and slowly even in the dirtiest road, but must expect to be sometimes put upon his full career, and neither be

suffered to choose his own way or his own pace. In a word, he who ventures deliberately to commit a less sin in order to his avoidance of a greater, does certainly bring himself under the guilt of one, and puts himself in the next disposition to the other. And therefore this can be none of those ways by which God delivers men out of temptation.

4thly, If it be the prerogative and proper work of God to deliver and bring men out of temptation, let no man, when the temptation is founded in suffering, (how careful soever he may and ought to be of entering into it,) be so solicitous how to get out of it, as how to behave himself under it. For the former being God's work, may be best left to his care; it is the latter only which belongs to the man himself, and let him but make good his own part, and he may rest assured that God will not fail in his.

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And to this purpose, and for the comfort of every one under temptation, let this be observed as a great truth; that no man's suffering is properly and formally his sin (how much soever it might be occasioned by it,) and withal, that the whole time a man is under temptation without consenting to it, he is really and truly a sufferer by it. The tempter indeed dogs and pursues him close, and consequently must needs vex and afflict him proportionably; but still no man is ruined by being pursued by his enemy, but by being taken; and the huntsman (as hard as he may follow the chase) does not always carry his game. It is the tempted person's duty (no doubt) to fence, and strive, and oppose the temptation with all the art, as well as resolution, that he can; but nevertheless it is not his sin, if he cannot wholly rid himself of it. A sturdy beggar may weary me, but he cannot force me. He may importune my charity, but he cannot command my purse. And if in all our spiritual combats with our great enemy the tempter, this one rule were but impartially considered, and as strictly followed, it is incredible to imagine what a vast deal of guilt and mischief it would prevent in the world. It would prevent all that can arise from rashness and impatience, from a man's confidence in himself, and his diffidence in God; qualities that would advance the creature to the prerogative of God, and bring down God to the level of the creature. In a word, it would keep men from daring to snatch God's work out of his hand, from audaciously carving for themselves, or expecting God's mercies upon any but his own terms. It would keep them quiet even upon the rack, silent and patient under all the arts and engines of cruelty, and in the sorest distresses they can groan under; fearful how they catched at a deliverance, before God (who alone knows the proper seasons of mercy, and understands men better than they can

themselves) saw them fit for it. In fine, according to that of the prophet, (Isaiah, xxviii. 16,)" he who believeth will not make haste;" that is, he who founds his belief in his reason will not sacrifice it to the transports of his passion; but rather (as Moses bade the Israelites, in a condition they thought desperate) "stand still and see the salvation of God," than fly to such false methods of escape, as shall both assure and hasten his destruction. Nothing so much entitles a tempted person to relief from above, as a steady, composed, and unwearied looking up for it; a qualification always attended with such a peculiar greatness and firmness of mind, as the goodness of God never yet did, nor will, nor indeed can desert. In every arduous and difficult enterprise, action, all own, must begin the work, and courage carry it on; but it is perseverance only which gives the finishing stroke. If a city be besieged by an enemy, a bold and brisk sally now and then may give a present repulse to the besiegers, but it is constancy and continuance that must raise the siege; and consequently, in such cases, where the assault is frequent, and the opposition long, he who stands it out, bids as fair for victory as he who fights it out; and nothing can be more pusillanimous or more fatal than a hasty surrender. Promises of succour (if not too long delayed) often inspire courage, even where they find none. And therefore no man of judgment, if but with a competent supply of spirit to second it, would in so high a concern as that of his soul, part with his hope before his life, having so particular a promise to support the one, and only the common protections of Providence to guard the other. But then, on the other side, if his strength lie here, and this be his case, must it not be inexpressibly senseless and irrational for one who owns a dependance upon God for his deliverance, to have recourse to the Devil for the way and means of it? That man, no doubt, who makes his duty to God the sole measure of his dependance upon him, can never (be his straits what they will) be so much enslaved and insulted over, as to think it worth his while to purchase his liberty with the sale of his conscience, or to quit his passive obedience (with the inward comforts always accompanying an oppressed innocence) for the most active, thriving, and successful rebellion. For let a temporal suffering be never so sharp, whosoever will needs be his own deliverer, and that in his own time, and his own way also, that man first distrusts God, and then defies him, and not only throws off his yoke, but throws it at him too. For the great Lord and Governor of the world will be as much obeyed, trusted, and relied upon, while he visits and afflicts, as while he embraces and supports us; while his rod is upon us, as while his staff is

under us. And in the very worst circumstances which we can be in, it will be hard to prove that our allegiance to the King of kings (according to the new, modish, whig-doctrine relating to our temporal kings) is only conditional.

5thly, The fifth and last corollary or conclusion deducible from the foregoing particulars, is, that there can be no suffering or calamity whatsoever, though never so terrible and grievous to human nature, but may be endured without sin; and if so, may be likewise made a means whereby God brings a man out of temptation.

As to the first part of which proposition, the Christian martyrs were a glorious and irrefragable proof of it, as has been before observed; the torments they endured were as horrid and exquisite as the wit of man could then invent, or now comprehend; nor were they more for their peculiar strangeness unaccountable, than for the variety of their kinds innumerable. The whole history of the primitive church is but a continued martyrology; in a word, this noble army of martyrs were (as the apostle tells us, Heb. xi. 3537) "cruelly mocked and scourged, racked and tortured, slain with the sword, or rather butchered, burnt, and sawn asunder;" and in a word, what not? All this, I say, and a great deal more, they undauntedly suffered, and triumphed over; and the same grace which enabled them to bear such barbarities, enabled them also to bear them without sin; the fire indeed consumed them, but the smoke could not blacken them. All which being as to matter of fact unquestionable, it must needs be an argument of the clearest and most allowed consequence, that if such inhumanities actually have been borne, it is certain that they may be borne. Experience (which answers, or rather annihilates all objections) has made good the antecedent, and nothing can keep off the consequent. In the mean time, for my own part, I must confess myself wholly unable to believe, that such monstrous cruelties could ever have been endured, but in the strength of something supernatural and divine, something which raised and bore human nature above itself, something which gave it a kind of inward armour of proof; mere flesh and blood (God knows) being but a pitiful weak thing, and by no means a match equal to such encounters.

From all which we see and learn, how wholly different the wise and gracious methods of God are from those of poor silly mortals. The way of the world is for men to rush into sin, to keep or bring themselves out of misery; but God's method is, sometimes to bring men into worldly misery, to keep them from sin, and thereby rescue them from damnation. And this is most certainly true, that no evil, how afflictive soever, is or ought

VOL. JI,

to be accounted intolerable, which may be made a direct means to escape one intolerably greater. For as there is no sort of enjoyment upon earth, but may and often does, become the ground and scene of a temptation, so neither is there any sort of temporal misery, but may be a remedy against it. Poverty is indeed a bitter pill, but often used by the great physician of souls as a sovereign antidote against pride, profuseness, and sensuality. Nothing sinks deeper into an ingenuous mind than disgrace, and yet God frequently makes it an effectual cure of vainglory, arrogance and ambition. Sickness is a tedious and vexatious trial, eating up and consuming the vigour and spirit both of body and mind, and yet the surest and best course, by which God beats down the rage of lust, and the brutish furies of intemperance. And lastly, death itself, which nature fears and flies from, as its dreadfulest and greatest enemy, is yet the grand instrument in the hand of mercy to put an end to sin and sorrow, and a final period to all temptations.

And thus at length I am come near a close of what I had to discourse upon this great and important subject of temptation; indeed so important, that, whereas that best of prayers prescribed and left us by our Saviour (as the standing form and pattern for his church to pray by for ever) consists in all but of six petitions, this against temptation makes one of that small number; a clear demonstration, doubtless, of what infinite concern it is to all who know how to value their eternal state and condition, to guard against it, and to be delivered from it. For so much I dare aver may with great truth be affirmed of the malignity of it, (and more and worse can hardly be said,) that greater numbers have been destroyed by it than repentance ever saved. For it is this which has peopled hell, and made the Devil's dominious large and populous; this which has carried the trophies of his black conquests as far and wide as the corruption of man's nature has spread itself, and the sin of Adam extended its contagion; this, whereby that avowed enemy of God and man has done such terrible execution. upon souls: for were it not for his art and skill to insinuate, his power could do nothing to destroy; that being his sure and long tried method for getting hold of the will, and seizing the affections, and so drawing the whole man after him, which by downright force he could never do. In short, (according to the poet's expression,) populo dat jura volenti, he brings men to obey and serve him spontaneously, and farther than this he cannot go, nor lead any into the bottomless pit, but such as are as willing to follow as he to lead; a woful way of perishing certainly, and the very sting, not of death only, but even of damnation itself.

Nor is this all whereby he carries on his

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work, but he has yet this farther advantage over men, that, being a spirit, he can convey himself into and possess himself of the chief instruments of the soul's operations, the spirits, and this without the man's discerning that he does so. For though, indeed, when God permits him to exert his mischievous power upon the bodies of men, (as he did upon many in the days of our Saviour,) it must needs in that case be discernible enough where and of whom the evil spirit has taken possession: yet where he employs his malice only in a spiritual way, by secret but powerful instigations of their corrupt nature to wicked actions, (as for the most part he does now-a-days,) it is hard, if possible, to distinguish truly and exactly what proceeds from bare inherent corruption, and what from diabolical impulse and infusion; but no doubt in many instances it proceeds from both, and from the latter more especially, that being always more impetuous, and hurrying the soul with a more violent bias to the commission of sin, than, if left merely to its own inclinations, it would probably have been carried out to. And thus it is with men frequently; they find within themselves a motion both sensible and forcible, while the spring of it is invisible, and so run on violently, not aware, in the mean time, who it is that drives them, or what it is that he drives at.

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These and many more are the advantages which the tempter has over the sons of men, partly from the spirituality of his own nature, and partly from the grossness and imbecility of theirs to which if we join his incredible sagacity to spy out every the least opportunity offered him, and his implacable malice to pursue and make use of it, to the utter supplanting us, and that in no less an interest than that of our immortal souls, (in comparison of which the whole world is but a trifle) it must needs hold all thoughtful minds under such continual agonies and misgiving reflections, that although we may escape hell hereafter, he will be sure, if he can, to give us a severe taste of it here.

But what? Must all advantages then lie like a dead, or rather like a killing weight, wholly on the tempter's side, and no remedies to encounter them be found on ours? God forbid; for then we must look upon our case not only as dangerous, but desperate, and give over the conflict as absurd, where all resistance is vain, and the conquest impossible. But, on the contrary, as God of his great wisdom has not been wanting to forewarn and assure men that temptations will attend them, so neither has he been failing of his equal goodness to prescribe the proper ways, means, and methods, whereby to fence against them; which, as in the several particulars thereof, (each of them severally adapted to the several states, tempers, and conditions of men,) are for their

vast variety (upon the matter) innumerable, so they are nevertheless every one of them directly reducible to, and fully comprehensible under these two grand general heads, (prescribed by the best and surest guide of souls, our Saviour himself,) watchfulness and prayer; and accordingly (as I hinted before) I shall treat of them distinctly by themselves, as the proper materials of my following discourse upon the same subject, (though from another text,) with which I shall conclude all that I had proposed to deliver upon this weighty, useful, and highly concerning point of temptation.

Now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, &c. be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

SERMON LXX.

WATCHFULNESS AND PRAYER, A SECURITY FROM TEMPTATION.

PART VII. AND LAST.

"Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." MATTH. Xxvi. 41.

"This

As the life and business of a Christian in this world is certainly to flesh and blood a thing of great difficulty, and, considering the opposition which it is sure to meet with, of equal danger, so this appears in nothing more than in its being represented by one of the most difficult and dangerous things in human life, which is war; (1 Tim. i. 18,) charge I commit unto thee," says Paul to Timothy, "that thou mightest war a good warfare." And as the difficulty and danger of war is to be measured partly by the high worth of the thing fought for, and partly by the power and policy of the enemy to be fought with; so the eternal, invaluable interest of an immortal soul on the one side, and the arts and strength of a mighty, subtle, and implacable spirit on the other, are but too full a demonstration with what difficulty and danger the soul is to manage and maintain this spiritual conflict.

And therefore as all war is to be carried on partly by our own strength, and partly by that of allies and auxiliaries called in to our aid and assistance; so in this Christian warfare the things which properly answer those two are watchfulness and prayer; forasmuch as by watchfulness we exert and employ our own strength, and by prayer we engage God's; and if ever victory and success attend us in these encounters, these two must join forces,