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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A71020	A sermon preach'd before the Queen at White-hall, February the XIIth, 1691/2 by William Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1692 (1692)	Wing S3352; ESTC R41211	12,283	34

nothing so bad could be thought of but some Men had Scripture-Examples or Precepts or Prophesies or Parables to justifie it and therefore we must be aware of this as well as of all the other Arts and Stratagems of the Tempter In answer to this our Saviour proves that this Text could not mean that God would command his Angels to bear him up in their hands if he should fling himself from the Pinacle of the Temple because we are expresly forbid to make such Experiments of God's Protection as this It is written Thou shalt not tempe the Lord thy God To tempt is to try and to tempt God is to try what he will or can do for us beyond his Promise and beyond the ordinary Methods of his Providence especially when we either murmur against God for not answering our unreasonable demands or presume upon his favour to do that which he has forbid us to do or expect his Protection and Blessing when we put our selves out of the ordinary Protection of his Providence it were easie had I time to give instances of all these ways of tempting God the Temptation of our Saviour concerns the last I mentioned out of a vain-glorious humour and a presumption of God's peculiar favour to us voluntarily without any reasonable pretence much less necessity to thrust ourselves into apparent and unavoidable Dangers and expect God should save us by Miracles for this is what our Saviour was tempted to to fling himself down from the Pinacle of the Temple in a presumptuous confidence of God's care of him that he would command his Angels to bear him up in their hands This looks like Faith in God a plerephory of Hope and full assurance of his Love but indeed is Vanity Pride Insolence Presumption and a tempting of God It is such an Affront and Indignity as wise Men will not bear from their best Friends when they impose upon them not to do them a real kindness but to gratifie their vanity and humour in such Demands as a wise Man cannot honourably grant And yet there is a more dangerous and fatal Presumption then this when men have such a strong Imagination of their being the Sons the Chosen and Elect People of God that they think they cannot do any thing to forfeit God's Love they may make more bold with God's Laws then other Men for God sees no sin in his people nay indeed that it is no Sin to advance themselves and the Cause they have Espoused which they call the Glory of God by extraordinary means that is by transgressing all the known and ordinary Rules of Justice and Charity These are dangerous Temptations and we have seen the miserable Effects of them and therefore let no man think that he is so great a favorite of Heaven as to have God at his beck to save him by Miracles when he wilfully exposes himself to such Dangers as nothing but Miracles can Deliver him from much less to think that God will alter the nature of Good and Evil for his sake that he will dispense with his Laws Laws which are as Eternal and Unchangeable as his own Nature when ever such vain Enthusiasts pretend to serve themselves and his Glory by the breach of them It is written Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God 3. These two Temptations were managed with great Art to deceive the third is open and bare-faced The Devil in express words tempts him to Idolatry with the Promise of all the Kingdoms of the World and the Glory of them which he had drawn a beautiful Landskip of and shew'd him from a high Mountain All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me Or as St. Luke relates it All this power will I give thee and the glory of them for it is delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will I give it Which in some sense was true at that time not that the Devil had the Supreme and Absolute disposal of Kingdoms for St. Paul assures us that all the Powers even of the Pagan World were of God and ordained by God But yet he was at that time the God of this World and had a more visible Kingdom than God himself The true Worshippers of God were at that time chiefly confined to Judea a very little spot of Earth but all the Power and Glory of the World was in the hands of Idolaters who Worshipped the Devil and wicked Spirits And the force of the Argument is as if he had said to our Saviour You call your self the Son of God and Worship him but will God do that for you which I can and will do if you Worship me You your self see that he has no Kingdom but Judea to bestow on you and that also is at present in the Hands of my Worshippers but what is that to all the Kingdoms of the World which are at my disposal and which you see your self are mine and under my Government But our Saviour without disputing the value of this World or what Power the Devil had in the disposal of it chides away the Tempter with Indignation be gone Satan For it is written thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve But tho' Christ refused this proffer his pretended Vicar has taken it and revived the old Pagan Idolatry for the Kingdoms of the World and the Glory of them This is the prevailing Temptation to this day to corrupt Religion the Faith and Worship of God for some temporal Advantages too many Men think that the best Religion which will best serve a secular Interest And we have reason to think that too many do this and know what they do that their furious Zeal for a false Religion is not all Ignorance and Mistake but an undissembled Love of this World For can we think that the Devil never tempted any Man but Christ knowingly and willingly to renounce the true Religion and the true Worship of God for this World No doubt he does and very often prevails too and these knowing Idolaters who make a downright bargain to Worship the Devil for the Kingdoms of the World and the Glory of them are those who abuse the Ignorant and Credulous with a false and hypocritical Zeal But let us remember that we must Worship the Lord our God and him only must we serve Let us remember what our Saviour tells us What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul Or What shall a man give in exchange for his soul Let us remember that the end of Religion is to please God to Glorifie him to be like him and to enjoy him for ever and this will give us a secure Victory over the World and the Devil Which God of his infinite Mercy grant through our Lord Iesus Christ to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be Honour Glory and Power now and for ever Amen FINIS 13 Rom. 1.

wisest Reasoner may be imposed on by so artificial a Tempter but God can neither deceive nor be deceived and then while we believe God and have regard to his Commands we cannot be deceived neither And what is able to resist all the Terrours and Flatteries of the World and the Flesh but the Authority of that God who is our Maker and our Judge What insignificant Names are Vertue and Vice how weak and feeble is the sence of Decency and Honour and the Dignity of Human Nature and of a Life of Reason after we have read or writ so many Volumes about it when we feel the soft Charms of Pleasure and our Eyes are filled with visible Glories Who would not part with a fine Thought or two with some pretty Notions of Moral Beauty and Intellectual Pleasures for a Happiness which may be seen and felt But the Authority of GOD the firm belief of his Promises and Threatnings the hopes and fears of another World are beyond all other Perswasions unless any thing can perswade a Man to be eternally miserable This may suffice to be spoke in General concerning our Saviours Temptation we come now to consider II. The particular Temptation wherewith our Saviour was Assaulted and they are Three 1. The First was to relieve his Hunger after his long fasting by working a Miracle And when the Tempter came to him he said if thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread This was a very artificial Temptation which it may be none but Christ himself would have been aware of For what hurt was it for the Son of God to work a Miracle What hurt was it for a Man who was Hungry to relieve his Hunger For here was no Temptation to excess but to satisfie the necessities of Nature What hurt was it for him who afterwards fed so many Thousands by Miracles in this great Distress to have wrought a Miracle to satisfie his own Hunger This was very Plausible and looked like very charitable Advice but yet there was a secret Snare in it 1st For this was made a Trial whether he were the Son of God or not If thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread Now had he complied with this it had argued a distrust of his Relation to God and of the Love of his Father and this was a Temptation to Sin Thus the Tempter dealt with our first Parents made them jealous of God's good Intentions towards them and by that Tempted them to Disobedience The Serpent said unto the Woman ye shall not surely die For God knoweth that in the day ye eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evil That is God envies your Happiness and therefore has forbid you to Eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Thus the Devil suggested to our Saviour that he had great reason to Question whether he were the Son of God because he was destitute of all the Comforts and Supports of Life and after forty Days Fasting had nothing in the Wilderness to Eat unless he would turn Stones into Bread And though this part of the Temptation our Saviour takes no notice of in his Answer but scorns it yet we find it makes a very powerful Impression upon other Men who are apt to measure God's Love or Hatred by present things when they are Prosperous they conclude they are the Favorites of Heaven when they are Afflicted and meet with cross Events then God is angry with them and has forsaken them And though this argues such a stupid Ignorance of Christianity that one would think it could be no Temptation to a Christian yet it is too Notorious that three parts of the Melancholy the Desertions nay despair of many Christians is owing to no other Cause they think their Condition safe for the next World while they are Prosperous in this but as soon as the World begins to Frown they are irrecoverably Damned but would such men consider that our Saviour himself wanted Bread in the Wilderness and had no place whereon to lay his Head it would cure these Desertions if there be no greater Guilt which a strait Fortune awakens the sense of which I doubt is too often the Case 2dly There was another Snare in this to perswade our Saviour to supply the necessities of Nature by extraordinary means without the immediate Direction and Command of God for this had been a distrust of God's Care and Providence to have relieved his own wants by preternatural and uncommanded Methods And therefore to this he Answers It is written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God That is Bread indeed is the ordinary Provision God has made for the support of Mans Life but when these ordinary and natural Provisions fail he has other ways to support Life as he fed the Israelites with Manna and Quails in the Wilderness and gave them Drink out of a Rock but then we must patiently and securely expect by what means God will provide for us and till the word proceed out of his mouth till we have some particular Command and Direction for it we must take no Extraordinary Uncommanded much less Forbidden ways to preserve our Lives for this is want of trust in God or want of Submission to his Will Extream want and necessity is almost an irresistible Temptation to human Nature to distrust the ordinary Provisions of Providence and to provide for our selves by what means we can and to justifie what we do by such necessities it requires a great degree of Faith and Trust in God when we have no Prospect of ordinary Succors patiently to expect God's Provision without going out of Gods way But thus our Saviour was tempted and has taught us how to conquer this Temptation Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God If Bread fail we must expect by what other means God will supply our Wants and not transgress those Laws God hath prescribed us how desperate soever our Condition seem to be 2dly The next Temptation is in the other extreme to presume so far upon his Interest in God's Favour and Protection as to make dangerous and vain-glorious Experiments of God's care He set him upon a pinacle of the temple and said unto him If thou be the Son of God cast thy self down for it is written He shall give his angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up lest at any time thou shouldst dash thy foot against the stone When the Tempter perceived that Christ wholly relied on the Directions and Authority of Scripture he inforces his Temptation with Scripture too misunderstood and misapplied And these are the most dangerous Temptations of all which impose upon Men with a shew of Religion as our late Experience of a wild Enthusiastic Age will tell us when