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SERMON I.

TEMPTATIONS to EVIL, not from
GOD.

JAMES I. 13, 14.

Let no man fay when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own luft and enticed.

As we are in

inf

I.

S we are here in a state of trial and SERM. infirmity, having indeed an eternal happiness in profpect, but our way to it befet with difficulties from without, befides the difcouragement which arifeth from our own weaknefs, nothing is more reasonable and fit for us then seriously to confider those difficulties, and all the difavantages of every kind which neceffarily attend our prefent condition; and likewife, on the other hand, the encouragements whereby we are animated to a perfevering zeal in a Religious course, that we may know how to maintain our integrity, VOL. IV.

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and

SERM. and bear up against the former, as well as

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make a proper improvement of the latter to the true intention and end of them. Efpecially the fcripture doctrine concerning affliction is of great confequence to the right conduct of the chriftian life. We are taught that it is inevitable, and our own obfervation of the ftate of mankind in this world leadeth us to expect it. Now, affliction is an evil of which God himself is the author, very confiftently with the perfect purity of his nature, and with the tendereft compaffion for his fervants: Whom he loveth, he rebuketh and chasteneth; and the defign is worthy of fupreme goodness as well as rectitude, for it is to try the virtues of the afflicted in order to ftrengthen them, that they may be found unto praife, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jefus Chrift, as St. Peter fpeaketh, 1 epift. i. 7. For this reason the apostle James would have christians fubmit chearfully in all these trials, or temptations as he calleth them ver. 3. of this chapter, My brethren count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations; and the reason he giveth is just that which I have mentioned, that fuch temptations are the means of our growth in religion; knowing that the trial of your faith worketh patience:

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I.

patience: But let patience have her perfect SER M. work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. And as the conclufion of a discourse on the mutability of human affairs, whereby he endeavoureth to reconcile every particular perfon to the changes which happen to himself, he faith in the verse immediately preceding the text, bleed is the man that endureth temptations.

But there is another kind of temptation here spoken of, of which God is not the author or caufe; on the contrary, the apoftle forbiddeth them that are tempted to fay they are tempted of God, to allege it in words, to avow any fuch opinion or whatever may have a tendency to fupport and abet it, or even to entertain any fuch furmife in their hearts: The meaning of this, certain ly, is a folicitation to fin; when the inten tion is not to prove the fincerity of feeble virtue in order to confirm and increase it, but to fubvert and destroy it; to draw the weak and unwary into wickedness which leadeth to their ruin. This is what the perfectly holy and good God is not capable of; but that men are fo tempted, and often fuccessfully, experience witneffeth; fnares are laid for them, in which they are unhappily caught, and betrayed into heinous trangreffions,

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SERM. fions, fatal to their fouls, which tend to, I. and iffue in their death or final deftruction. It is of great importance to know whence this danger ariseth, that being duly apprised of it, we may be upon our guard against it, in order to preserve our integrity, that we may attain at the laft to the true end of our being, and the end of our faith, the perfection of righteousness and the falvation of our fouls. The scripture in many of its declarations speaketh of an envious and wicked being, or rather a multitude of them, who having early made defection from their duty, and lifted themselves in a rebellion against the divine government, and having left their first happy habitation, are reserved in chains under darkness to the judgment of the great day. In the mean time they are permitted by providence to go to and fro through the earth, and walk up and down in it, as fatan is represented as speaking concerning himself in the book of Job; and we are told their principal employment, a very wicked one, is to draw men into fin. They, being rebels against God, and moft malicious enemies to mankind, are the conductors of the oppofition to goodness in this earth, and tempters; rather, to make the enmity appear the more formidable, they are

repre

represented as in a confederacy and mifchie- SERM. vous affociation, ranged under the infernal 1. government of one head, who is eminently called the tempter, and is always ready to take every opportunity of enfnaring unwary mortals, having many of his minifters in all places fully inftructed in his hellish arts, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But after all, St. James teacheth, that our greatest danger is not from them; it is fomething in ourselves, we have reafon to be moft afraid of, as the fource of the most prevailing temptations; and but for it, we should have nothing to apprehend from the poisoned arrows of enemies without; their most fubtle devices and most furious affaults would be utterly ineffectual. This is what the apostle calleth every man's own lufts, meaning his lower appetites and paffions, whereby he is drawn away and inticed. There are, therefore, these two points contained in the text, which I shall distinctly confider.

First, That God in all his works and ways, the whole of his administration towards mankind, ftandeth perfectly clear of tempting them to moral evil; he is not in the leaft degree, or by a fair construction, in any part of his

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