to Satan's kingdom, and employed for the disimprovement of the weak beginnings and improbable increase of christianity, might give lustre and demonstration to it, that it came from God; since the great permissions of power made to the devil, and acted with all art and malice in defiance of the re cause he was the Son of God, was an invitation to no purpose, save only that it gave occasion to this truth, That God's providence secures all his sons in the ways of nature, and while they are doing their duty; but loves not to be tempted to acts unreasonable and unnecessary. God will protect his servants in or from all evils happening without their know-ligion, could produce no other effect upon it, but ledge, or against their will; but not from evils of their own procuring. Heron, an inhabitant of the desert, suffered the same temptation, and was overcome by it; for he died with his fall, sinfully and ingloriously. For the caresses of God's love to his saints and servants are security against all but themselves. The devil and all the world offer to do them mischief, but then they shall be safe, because they are innocent; if they once offer to do the same to themselves, they lose their protection, because they lost their prudence and their charity. But here, also, it will concern all those, who, by their eminent employment, and greater ministries in ecclesiasticals, are set upon the pinnacle of the temple, to take care that the devil tempt not them to a precipice; a fall from so great a height will break the bones in pieces: and yet there also the station is less firm, the posture most uneasy, the prospect vertiginous, and the devil busy, and desirous to thrust us headlong. 13. St. Hierom here observes well, the devil intending mischief to our blessed Saviour, invited him to cast himself down." He may persuade us to a fall, but cannot precipitate us without our own act. And it is an infinite mercy in God, that the devil, who is of malice infinite, is of so restrained and limited a power, that he can do us no ghostly disadvantage, but by persuading us to do it ourselves. And then it will be a strange imprudence to lay violent and unreasonable hands on ourselves, and do that mischief which our strongest and most malicious adversary cannot; or to be invited by the only rhetoric of a dog's barking, to come near him, to untie his chain, to unloose his muzzle, for no other end but that we may be bitten. Just such a fool is every person that consents to the temptations of the devil. 14. By this time the devil began to perceive that this was the Son of God, and designed to be the King of all the world, and therefore resolved, for the last assault, to proffer him the kingdoms of the world; thinking ambition more likely to ruin him, because he knew it was that which prevailed upon himself, and all those fallen stars, the angels of darkness. That the devil told a lie is most likely, when he said, he had power to dispose the kingdoms of the world; for originally, and by proper inherent right, God alone disposes all governments: but it is also certain, that the devil is a person capable of a delegate employment, in some great mutation of states; and many probabilities have been observed by wise personages, persuading that the grandeur of the Roman empire was, in the degrees of increment and decrement, permitted to the power and managing of the devil; that the greatness of that government, being in all appearance full of advantage 1 S. Hieron. in 4 cap. Matt. that it made it grow greater; and the greatness was made more miraculous, since the devil, when his chain was off, fain would, but could not, suppress it. 15. The Lamb of God, that heard him with patience tempt him to do himself a mischief, and to throw himself headlong, could by no means endure it, when he tempted to a direct dishonouring of God. Our own injuries are opportunities of patience; but when the glory of God, and his immediate honour, is the question, then is the occasion and precise minute for the flames of a clear-shining and unconsuming zeal. But the care of God's glory had so filled and employed all the faculties of Jesus, that he takes no notice of the offer: and it were well, also, that we had fewer opinions of the lustre of worldly dignities; or at least that we, in imitation of our blessed Master, should refuse to accept all the world, when it is to be bought of the devil, at the expense of a deadly sin. For that government cannot be very honourable, that makes us slaves to the worst of tyrants; and all those princes and great personages, who, by injury and usurpation, possess and invade others' rights, would do well to consider, that a kingdom is too dearly paid for, if the condition be first to worship the devil. 16. When the devil could do no good, "he departed for a time." If he could ever have spied a time of returning, he wanted not will nor malice to observe and use it; and although Jesus was a person without danger, yet I doubt not but the Holy Ghost described that circumstance, that we should not have the securities of a deep peace, when we have had the success of conquerors, for a surprise is most full of horror and of more certain ruin; so that we have no security, but a perpetual observation; that, together with the grace of God, (who takes care of all his servants, and will drive away the tempter when he pleases, and help us always when we need,) is as great an argument for our confidence, and encouragement to our prayers and address to God, as it is safety to our person, and honour to our victory. And let us account it our honour, that the trials of temptation, which is the greatest' sadness of our condition, are hallowed by the temptation of Jesus, and our condition assured by his assistances, and the assistances procured by our prayers most easily upon the advantage of his sufferings and compassion. And we may observe, that poverty, predestination, and ambition, are the three quivers, from which the devil drew his arrows, which (as the most likely to prevail) he shot against Christ: but now he shot in vain, and gave probation that he might be overcome; our Captain hath conquered for himself and us. By these instances we see our danger, and how we are provided of a remedy. THE PRAYER. greater reward: for temptation is the opportunity of virtue and a crown; God having disposed us in such a condition, that our virtues must be difficult, our inclinations averse and corrigible, our avocations many, our hostilities bitter, our dangers proportionable, that our labour might be great, our inclinations suppressed and corrected, our intentions be made actual, our enemies be resisted, and our dangers pass into security and honour, after a contestation, and a victory, and a perseverance. It is every man's case; trouble is as certainly the lot of our nature and inheritance, and we are so sure to be tempted, that in the deepest peace and silence of spirit oftentimes is our greatest danger; not to be tempted, is sometimes our most subtle temptation. It is certain, then, we cannot be secure when our security is our enemy; but therefore we must do as God himself does, make the best of it, and not be sad at that, which is the public portion and the case of all men, but order it according to the intention, place it in the eye of virtue, that all its actions and motions may tend thither, there to be changed into felicities. But certain it is, unless we first be cut and hewn in the mountains, we shall not be fixed in the temple of God; but, by incision and contusions, our roughnesses may become plain, or our sparks kindled, and we may be, either for the temple or the altar, spiritual building or holy fire, something that God shall delight in, and then the temptation was not amiss. O holy Jesus, who didst fulfil all righteousness, and didst live a life of evenness, and obedience, and community, submitting thyself to all rites and sanctions of Divine ordinance; give me grace to live, in the fellowship of thy holy church, a life of piety, and without singularity, receiving the sweet influence of thy sacraments and rites, and living in the purities and innocencies of my first sanctification. I adore thy goodness infinite, that thou hast been pleased to wash my soul in the laver of regeneration, that thou hast consigned me to the participation of thy favours by the holy eucharist. Let me not return to the infirmities of the old man, whom thou hast crucified on thy cross, and who was buried with thee in baptism; nor renew the crimes of my sinful years, which were so many recessions from baptismal purities: but let me ever receive the emissions of thy Divine Spirit, and be a son of God, a partner of thine immortal inheritance; and when thou seest it needful, let me receive testimony from heaven, that I am thy servant and thy child. And grant that I may so walk, that I neither disrepute the honour of the christian institution, nor stain the whitenesses of that innocence, which thou didst invest my soul withal, when I put on the baptismal robe, nor break my holy vow, nor lose my right of inheritance, which thou hast given me by promise and grace; but that thou mayest love me with the love of a father, and a brother, and a husband, and a lord, and I serve thee in the communion of saints, in the susception of sacraments, in the actions of a holy life, and in a never-failing love or uninterrupted devotion; to the glory of thy name, and the promotion of all those ends of religion, which thou hast designed in the excel-efficacy toward the drawing out of his thorn; yet lent economy of christianity. Grant this, holy Jesus, for thy mercy's sake, and for the honour of thy name, which is, and shall be, adored for ever and ever. Amen. DISCOURSE V. Of Temptation. 1. God, who is the fountain of good, did choose rather to bring good out of evil, than not to suffer any evil to be not only because variety of accidents and natures do better entertain our affections, and move our spirits, who are transported and suffer great impressions by a circumstance, by the very opposition, and accidental lustre and eminency, of contraries; but also that the glory of the Divine Providence, in turning the nature of things into the designs of God, might be illustrious; and that we may, in a mixed condition, have more observation, and, after our danger and our labour, may obtain a a Erras, mi frater, erras, si putas unquam christianum persecutionem non pati. Tunc maximè oppugnaris, si te oppugnari nescis.-S. HIER. ad Heliod. 2. And therefore we must not wonder, that oftentimes it so happens, that nothing will remove a temptation, no diligence, no advices, no labour, no prayers; not because these are ineffectual, but because it is most fit the temptation should abide, for ends of God's designing: and although St. Paul was a person, whose prayers were likely to be prevalent, and his industry of much prudence and God would not do it, but continued his war, only promising to send him succour, "My grace is sufficient for thee;"b meaning, he should have an enemy to try his spirit and improve it, and he should also have God's grace to comfort and support it; but as, without God's grace, the enemy would spoil him, so without an enemy God's grace would never swell up into glory and crown him. For the caresses of a pleasant fortune are apt to swell into extravagances of spirit, and burst into the dissolution of manners; and unmixed joy is dangerous: but if, in our fairest flowers, we spy a locust, or feel the uneasiness of a sackcloth under our fine linen, or our purple be tied with an uneven and a rude cord; any little trouble, but to correct our wildnesses, though it be but a death's head served up at our feasts, it will make our tables fuller of health and freer from snare, it will allay our spirits, making them to retire from the weakness of dispersion, to the union and strength of a sober recollection. 3. Since, therefore, it is no part of our employ b 2 Cor. xii. 9. ment or our care, to be free from all the attempts | and representment, or they are returned with scorn. of an enemy, but to be safe in despite of his hostility; it now will concern us to inform ourselves of the state of the war in general, and then to make provisions, and to put on armour accordingly. с 4. First: St. Cyprian often observes, and makes much of the discourse, that the devil, when he intends a battery, first views the strength and situation of the place. His sense, drawn out of the cloud of an allegory, is this: The devil first considers the constitution and temper of the person he is to tempt, and where he observes his natural inclination apt for a vice, he presents him with objects, and opportunity, and arguments fitting to his caitive disposition; from which he is likely to receive the smaller opposition, since there is a party within that desires his intromission. Thus, to lustful natures, he represents the softer whispers of the spirit of fornication; to the angry and revengeful, he offers to consideration the satisfactions and content of a full revenge, and the emissions of anger; to the envious he makes panegyrics of our rivals, and swells our fancies to opinion, our opinion to selflove, self-love to arrogance, and these are supported by contempt of others, and all determine upon envy, and expire in malice. Now, in these cases, when our natures are caitive and unhandsome, it were good we were conscious of our own weaknesses, and, by special arts and strengths of mortification, fortify that part, where we are apt and exposed to danger: we are sure enough to meet a storm there, and we also are likely to perish in it, unless we correct those aversenesses and natural indispositions, and reduce them to the evennesses of virtue, or the affections and moderation of a good nature. Let us be sure, that the devil take not a helve from our own branches to fit his axe, that so he may cut the tree down and certainly he that does violence to his nature, will not be easy to the entertainment of affections preternatural and violent. 5. Secondly: But the devil also observes all our exterior accidents, occasions, and opportunities of action; he sees what company we keep, he observes what degrees of love we have to our wives, what looseness of affection towards children, how prevalent their persuasions, how inconvenient their discourses, how trifling their interests, and to what degrees of determination they move us by their importunity or their power. The devil tempted Adam by his wife, because he saw his affections too pliant, and encircling her with the entertainment of fondness, joy, wonder, and amorous fancy; it was her hand that made the fruit beauteous to Adam; "she saw it fair" of itself, " and so she ate;" but Adam was not moved by that argument, but, "The woman gave it me, and I did eat:" she gave vivacity to the temptation, and efficacy to the argument. And the severity of the man's understanding would have given a reasonable answer to the insinuations of the serpent: that was an ugly beast, and his arguments not being of themselves convincing to a wise person, either must put on advantages of a fair insinuation Serm. de Zelo But when the beauteous hands of his young virginmistress became the orators, the temptation was an amorevolezza; he kisses the presenter, and hugs the ruin. Here, therefore, is our safest course, to make a retrenchment of all those excrescences of affections, which, like the wild and irregular sucker, draw away nourishment from the trunk, making it as sterile as itself is unprofitable. As we must restrain the inclinations of nature, so also of society and relation when they become inconvenient, and let nothing of our family be so adopted, or naturalized into our affections, as to create within us a new concupiscence, and a second time spoil our nature: what God intended to us for a help, let not our fondnesses convert into a snare; and he that is not ready to deny the importunities, and to reject the interests, of a wife, or child, or friend, when the question is for God, deserves to miss the comforts of a good, and to feel the troubles of an imperious, woman. 6. Thirdly We also have ends and designs of our own, some great purpose, upon which the greatest part of our life turns; it may be, we are to raise a family, to recover a sunk estate; or else ambition, honour, or a great employment, is the great hinge of all our greater actions; and some men are apt to make haste to be rich, or are to pass through a great many difficulties to be honourable and here the devil will swell the hopes, and obstruct the passages; he will heighten the desire, and multiply the business of access, making the concupiscence more impatient, and yet the way to the purchase of our purposes so full of employment and variety, that both the implacable desire, and the multitude of changes and transactions, may increase the danger, and multiply the sin. When the enemy hath observed our ends, he makes his temptations to reflect from that angle which is direct upon them, provoking to malice and impatience against whomsoever we find standing in our way, whether willingly or by accident; then follow naturally all those sins, which are instrumental to removing the impediments, to facilitating the passage, to endearing our friends, to procuring more confidents, to securing our hopes, and entering upon possession. Simon Magus had a desire to be accounted some great one; and by that purpose he was tempted to sorcery and divination; and with a new object he brought a new sin into the world, adding simony to his sorcery, and taught posterity that crime, which, till then, had neither name nor being. And those ecclesiastics, who violently affect rich or pompous prelacies, pollute themselves with worldly arts, growing covetous as Syrian merchants, ambitious as the Levantine princes, factious as the people, revengeful as jealousy, and proud as conquerors and usurpers; and, by this means, beasts are brought into the temple, and the temple itself is exposed to sale, and the holy rites, as well as the beasts of sacrifice, are made venal. To prevent the infinite inconveniences, that thrust them d Habet namque voluptatem quandam admonitio uxoria, quum plurimùm ametur quod consulit.-S. CHRYSOST selves into the common and great roads of our life, the best course is to cut our great channel into little rivulets, making our ends the more, that we may be indifferent to any, proposing nothing great, that our desires may be little; for so we shall be better able to digest the troubles of an enemy, the contradictions of an unhandsome accident, the crossing of our hopes; because our desires are even, and our ends are less considerable, and we can, with much readiness, divert upon another purpose, having another ready with the same proportion to our hopes and desires as the first. Thus, if we propound to ourselves an honest employment or a quiet retirement, a work of charity abroad or of devotion at home, if we miss in our first setting forth, we return to shore, where we can negociate with content, it being alike to us either to traffic abroad with more gain, or trade at home with more safety. But when we once grow great in our desires, fixing too earnestly upon one object, we either grow impatient, as Rachel, "Give me children, or I die;" or take ill courses and use unlawful means, às Thamar, choosing rather to lie with her father than to die without issue: or else are miserable in the loss and frustration of our hopes; like the women of Ramah, who "would not be comforted." Let, therefore, our life be moderate, our desires reasonable, our hopes little, our ends none in eminency and prelation above others: for as the rays of light, passing through the thin air, end in a small and undiscerned pyramis, but, reflected upon a wall, are doubled, and increase the warmth to a scorching and troublesome heat; so the desires of man, if they pass through an even and indifferent life towards the issues of an ordinary and necessary course, they are little, and within command; but if they pass upon an end, or aim of difficulty or ambition, they duplicate, and grow to a disturbance: and we have seen the even and temperate lives of indifferent persons continue in many degrees of innocence; but the temptation of busy designs is too great, even for the best of dispositions. 7. But these temptations are crasse and material, and soon discernible; it will require some greater observation to arm against such as are more spiritual and immaterial. For he hath apples to cozen children, and gold for men; the kingdoms of the world for the ambition of princes, and the vanities of the world for the intemperate; he hath discourses and fair-spoken principles to abuse the pretenders to reason, and he hath common prejudices for the more vulgar understandings. Amongst these I choose to consider such, as are by way of principle or proposition. 8. The first great principle of temptation I shall note, is a general mistake, which excuses very many of our crimes upon pretence of infirmity, calling all those sins, to which by natural disposition we are inclined, (though, by carelessness and evil customs, they are heightened to a habit,) by the name of sins of infirmity; to which men suppose they Vim temperatam dii quoque provehunt But have reason and title to pretend. If, when they have committed a crime, their conscience checks them, and they are troubled, and, during the interval and abatement of the heats of desire, resolve against it, and commit it readily at the next opportunity; then they cry out against the weakness of their nature, and think, as long as this body of death is about them, it must be thus, and that this condition may stand with the state of grace and then the sins shall return periodically, like the revolutions of a quartan ague, well and ill for ever, till death surprises the mistaker. This is a patron of sins, and makes the temptation prevalent by an authentic instrument; and they pretend the words of St. Paul," For the good that I would, that I do not; but the evil that I would not, that I do. For there is a law in my members rebelling against the law of my mind, bringing me into captivity to the law of sin."{ And thus the state of sin is mistaken for a state of grace, and the imperfections of the law are miscalled the affections and necessities of nature, that they might seem to be incurable, and the persons apt for an excuse, therefore, because for nature there is no absolute cure. that these words of St. Paul may not become a savour of death, and instruments of a temptation to us, it is observable, that the apostle, by a fiction of person, (as is usual with him,s) speaks of himself, not as in the state of regeneration under the gospel, but under the difficulties, obscurities, insufficiencies, and imperfections of the law; which, indeed, he there contends to have been a rule good and holy, apt to remonstrate our misery, because by its prohibitions, and limits given to natural desires, it made actions (before indifferent) now to be sins; it added many curses to the breakers of it, and, by an efficacy of contrariety, it made us more desirous of what was now unlawful: but it was a covenant, in which our nature was restrained, but not helped; it was provoked, but not sweetly assisted; our understandings were instructed, but our wills not sanctified, and there were no suppletories of repentance; every greater sin was like the fall of an angel, irreparable by any mystery, or express, recorded or enjoined. Now of a man under this covenant he describes the condition to be such, that he understands his duty, but by the infirmities of nature he is certain to fall, and by the helps of the law not strengthened against it, nor restored after it; and therefore he calls himself, under that notion, “a miserable man, sold under sin," not doing according to the rules of law, or the dictates of his reason, but by the unaltered misery of his nature certain to prevaricate. But the person described here is not St. Paul, is not any justified person, not so much as a christian, but one who is under a state of direct opposition to the state of grace; as will manifestly appear, if we observe the antithesis from St. Paul's own characters. For the man here named is such, as in whom "sin wrought all concupiscence, in whom sin lived, and slew him," so f Rom. vii. 19, 23. Ut videre est, Rom. iii. 7 Gal. ii. 18. 1 Cor. vi. 12. and x. 23, 29, 30. and xiii. 2. frequent expresses in Scripture, the spiritual person, or the man "redeemed by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," is free from the law, and the dominion, and the kingdom, and the power of all sin. "For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." that he was dead in trespasses and sins; and al- | bonds loosed. For, by the perpetual analogy and though he "did delight in the law after his inward man," that is, his understanding had intellectual complacencies and satisfactions, which afterwards he calls "serving the law of God with his mind," that is, in the first dispositions and preparations of his spirit, yet he could act nothing; for the law in his members did enslave him, " and brought him into captivity to the law of sin ;"h so that this person was full of actual and effective lusts, he was a slave to sin, and dead in trespasses: but the state of a regenerate person is such, as to have "crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts;"i in whom sin did not reign, not only in the mind, but even also not in the mortal body; over whom sin had no dominion; in whom the old man was crucified, and the body of sin was destroyed, and sin not at all served. And to make the antithesis yet clearer, in the very beginning of the next chapter the apostle saith, "That the spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made him free from the law of sin and death;" under which law, he complained immediately before he was sold and killed, to show the person was not the same in these so different and contradictory representments. No man in the state of grace can say, "The evil that I would not, that I do;" if, by evil, he means any evil that is habitual, or in its own nature deadly. 9. So that now let no man pretend an inevitable necessity to sin; for if ever it comes to a custom or to a great violation, though but in a single act, it is a condition of carnality, not of spiritual life; and those are not the infirmities of nature, but the weaknesses of grace, that make us sin so frequently; which the apostle truly affirms to the same purpose: "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot (or that ye do not1) do the things that ye would."m This disability proceeds from the strength of the flesh, and weakness of the Spirit: for he adds, " But if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law:" saying plainly, that the state of such a combat, and disability of doing good, is a state of man under the law, or in the flesh, which he accounts all one; but every man that is sanctified under the gospel is led by the Spirit, and walks in the Spirit, and brings forth the fruits of the Spirit. It is not our excuse, but the aggravation of our sin, that we fall again, in despite of so many resolutions to the contrary. And let us not flatter ourselves into a confidence of sin, by supposing the state of grace can stand with the custom of any sin: for it is the state either of an animalis homo, (as the apostle calls him,") that is, a man in pure naturals, without the clarity of Divine revelations, who "cannot perceive or understand the things of God;" or else of the carnal man, that is, a person, who, though in his mind he is convinced, yet he is not yet freed from the dominion of sin, but only hath his eyes opened, but not his 10. But sins of infirmity, in true sense of Scripture, signify nothing but the sins of an unholy and unsanctified nature, when they are taken for actions done against the strength of resolution, out of the strength of natural appetite and violence of desire; and therefore, in Scripture, the state of sin and the state of infirmity is all one. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly" (saith the apostle P): the condition in which we were, when Christ became a sacrifice for us, was certainly a condition of sin and enmity with God, and yet this he calls a being without strength, or in a state of weakness and infirmity; which we, who believe all our strength to be derived from Christ's death, and the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the fruit of his ascension, may soon apprehend to be the true meaning of the word. And in this sense is that saying of our blessed Saviour, "The whole have no need of a physician, but they that are weak :" for therefore "Christ came into the world to save sinners," those are the persons of Christ's infirmary, whose restitution and reduction to a state of life and health was his great design. So that whoever sin habitually, that is, constantly, periodically, at the revolution of a temptation, or frequently, or easily, are persons who still remain in the state of sin and death; and their intervals of piety are but preparations to a state of grace, which they may then be, when they are not used to countenance or excuse the sin, or to flatter the person. But if the intermediate resolutions of emendation (though they never run beyond the next assault of passion or desire) be taken for a state of grace, blended with infirmities of nature, they become destructive of all those purposes, through our mistake, which they might have promoted, if they had been rightly understood, observed, and cherished. Sometimes, indeed, the greatness of a temptation may become an instrument to excuse some degrees of the sin, and make the man pitiable, whose ruin seems almost certain, because of the greatness and violence of the enemy, meeting with a natural aptness; but then the question will be, whither, and to what actions, that strong temptation carries him? whether to a work of a mortal nature, or only to a small irregularity? that is, whether to death, or to a wound? for whatever the principle be, if the effect be death, the man's case was therefore to be pitied, because his ruin was the more inevitable; not so pitied, as to excuse him from the state of death. For let the temptation be never so strong, every christian man hath assistances sufficient to support him, so as that, without his own yielding, no tempt » Rom. v. 6. Οντων ἡμῶν ἀσθενῶν, τουτέστιν ἀσεβῶν, without strength, that is, ungodly. 4 Vide August lib. ii. c. 17. De Peccatorum Meritis, et Enchir. 81 |