Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A71020
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A sermon preach'd before the Queen at White-hall, February the XIIth, 1691/2 by William Sherlock ...
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Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing S3352; ESTC R41211
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12,283
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34
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over all we have as he did in the Case of Job to afflict us in our Relations our Bodies our Estates good Names or whatever gives us the sharpest and keenest sense of suffering and is the most difficult exercise of our Faith 2. Let us consider the time when our Saviour was tempted viz. immediately after his Baptism being full of the Holy Ghost 4. Luke 1. 1. As soon as our Saviour was baptized he was led by the Spirit into the Wilderness For Then in my Text relates to the time of his Baptism and St. Luke tells us this was done in his return from Jordan where he was baptized by John By this Religious Rite our Saviour had devoted himself to the immediate service of God in the Salvation of Mankind and was inaugurated into his Prophetick Office by that Testimony which was given to him by a Voice from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased and this was the Critical time both for the Devil to tempt and for our Saviour to baffle all his temptations and to triumph over him Could the Devil have conquered our Saviour in this first assault there had been an end of this Glorions design of mans Salvation when he had enslaved and captivated the Saviour himself and therefore he began as early with the second Adam as he did with the first though not with the like success Had our first Parents resisted the first temptation we had been happy for ever but they yielded and brought death upon themselves and their Posterity but the seed of the Woman whom God had promised should break the Serpents Head who was made manifest to destroy the works the Kingdom and the Power of the Devil by God's order and appointment first encounters him in his own person resists his most furious assaults makes him retreat with shame and despair as foreseeing his own destiny and the final destruction of his Kingdom As the old Serpent seduced our first Parents in Paradice and brought sin and misery and death into the world so it was very fitting that the Saviour of Mankind should give the first proof of his Divine Power in conquering the Tempter This gives us great encouragement to fight under Christ's Banners against the World the Flesh and the Devil for the Captain of our Salvation has already conquered and if we are not wanting to our selves we shall be more than Conquerors through Christ who strengthens us He knows what the power of temptations is and what measures of Grace are necessary to resist them and if we do not forsake him he will not forsake us He has conquered himself and knows how to conquer and if we faithfully adhere to him we shall conquer too Nay in case we should some time be conquered this has made him a merciful and compassionate High Priest being in all things tempted like as we are He knows the weakness of humane nature and the power and subtilty of the Tempter and prays for us as he did for St. Peter That our faith fail not that if we fall we may rise again by Repentance And this is a mighty Consolation That if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous who is not only a Propitiation for our Sins but was tempted also as we are 2ly St. Luke observes that our Saviour was full of the Holy Ghost which he received without measure at his Baptism when the Holy Ghost descended like a Dove and rested on him before he was led by the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil For Human Nature and it was the Human Nature of Christ on which the Holy Ghost descended cannot resist such powerful Assaults without Divine Assistances And the Example of our Saviour assures us that God will not expose us to any Temptations without giving us proportionable measures of Grace to resist them That if we are at any time conquered it is not for want of power but for want of will to conquer that is the fault is wholly our own and we cannot blame God for it I doubt there are few men in the World but the Devil had he the full power of tempting could find out some Temptations too big for them but the Divine Goodness is seen as well in restraining the power of the Devil that we shall not be tempted above what we are able to bear as by the strengthning our minds by the internal Assistances of his Grace and therefore our Saviour has taught us to pray Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the wicked One which does not signify that we may never be tempted which is impossible while we live in Bodies of Flesh and Blood and are incompassed with all the Flattering Objects of Flesh and Sense but that God would not give us up into the power of the Devil to be tempted above what we are able Some of the Ancients observe from this Story That when we devote and consecrate our selves to God we must expect to be tempted as our Saviour was As for bad men who are the Slaves and Vassals of the Devil he cannot so properly be said to tempt as to govern them for he is the Spirit that worketh in the Children of disobedience but when men desert his Service he is very busie to recover his Slaves again but then our comfort and security too is That when we give up our selves to the Service of God he takes us into his protection the wicked One cannot touch us without his leave and he always proportions our Trials to our Strength 3dly Consider the Place of our Saviour's Temptation He was led by the Spirit into the Wilderness where there were no tempting Objects but yet there the temping Spirit found him Some men think that the surest way to get rid of Temptations is to get out of the World to withdraw themselves from Human Conversation or to make a shew of doing it without doing it as if the Devil could not follow them into a Desert or a Cell While we live in Bodies of Flesh and Blood we may be tempted where-ever we are If we mortify our Sensual Appetites and our love to this World we may live very innocently in the World if we do not we can never get rid of the World but where-ever we go we carry it in our hearts Do these men imagine they can never be tempted to lust unless they daily see and converse with beautiful Women or that they cannot love the World without living in a Court and enjoying all the ease and luxury of a plentiful Fortune or that it is not possible to despise the World with as much haughtiness and vanity of mind as any Man has who most admires it That a Monk can't be as proud as an Emperor and glory as much in a sullen Retirement in Voluntary Austerities in an Affected Poverty in a Vain Opinion of extraordinary Sanctity as any Man can do
in Wealth and Power Whence came all those Superstitions which have corrupted both the Faith and Worship of Christianity and done more mischief to the Church and Religion than all the looseness of a Secular Life but from Desarts and the Cells of Monks and Hermites Which proves that the Devil has his Temptations for the Wilderness as well as for the Court for the most Religious Devotees and Melancholly Enthusiasts as well as for the Men of this World and those the most dangerous Temptations too which as experience tells us open a back-door for Pride and Ambition and Secular Power and a general corruption of Manners to enter into the Church and into the Lives of Christians And therefore we must guard our selves against the Tempter as well in our greatest solitudes and retirements from the World as in a croud of business We must have a care of the temptations of Devotion and Mortification of Fastings and Penances of a sullen discontent at this World as well as of the temptations of a busie Life and of an easie and prosperous Fortune 4thly I observe That Christ was led by the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil that is It was God's appointment not his own voluntary choice And this Teaches us manfully to resist Temptations when the Providence of God and the unavoidable circumstances of our Condition bring us into Temptations but not presumptuously to thrust our selves into them There is always danger in Temptations especially when we rashly venture upon them Let not him that putteth on his Armour boast as he that putteth it off is true in our Spiritual Warfare We have seen great Men conquered even St. Peter himself and therefore Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall and not unnecessarily venture too near a Precipice where he may be in danger of falling Our Saviour has taught us to pray that God would not lead us into Temptation as I observed before much less then ought we to lead our selves into Temptation We may easily presume too far upon the Strength of our Faith our Courage our Resolution as St. Peter did who had he been more diffident of himself had kept out of the High-Priest's Hall and escaped the Temptation which he could not resist We daily see that Men who presume upon the Strength of their Constitution and use their Bodies ill destroy their Health and shorten their Lives while Men who feel their own weak and crazy Temper live on with Care to a good Old Age and thus it is with respect to the Mind as well as to the Body Presumption will destroy those whom Fear and Caution will secure and therefore let us not be high-minded but fear There are a great many ways whereby Men expose themselves to Temptation and tempt even the Tempter some of which are very obvious As to keep Ill Company whose Conversation is a daily Temptation Sloth and Idleness which betrays Men to any Wickedness which offers itself For it is an uneasie thing to have nothing to do and that itself is a Temptation and the Devil never wants Business to employ such Men in and I know nothing worse than this but when Men choose such Business as is nothing else but Idleness and Vanity or can only minister to their own or to other Mens Lusts. But there are other ways whereby Men thrust themselves into Temptations without considering what they do I might name many but shall content myself with some few at present which are least observed and which prove Snares to good Men as for instance To impose upon our selves constant Tasks of Religion that we will Read and Pray so much and so often every Day and observe voluntary Fasts and abstain from such innocent Diversions c. which Men commonly resolve in some great Heats and Fits of Devotion which they fancy will continue in the same fervour but never do and then these Tasks grow very uneasie as every thing of Religion does when it grows a Task and then they degenerate into dulness and formality and then Men either leave them off and with that are tempted to leave off Religion itself or they are so very cold that they fancy themselves spiritually dead and fall into Melancholly into Desentions into Despair itself It is a dangerous thing for Men by rash and arbitrary Vows to tye themselves up from doing that which otherwise they might very innocently do and which they will be strongly tempted to do when they have vowed not to do it The Guides of Souls know that this is no imaginary Case but what they so often meet with and see such ill effects of that it is very fit to warn Men of the snare Were there no other reason against the Monkish Vows of Celibacy Poverty and Obedience I should think this sufficient that considered only as perpetual Vows they are a dangerous State of Temptation and for my own part I would never advise any Man to make a perpetual Vow to do or not to do any thing which it is not perpetually his Duty to do or not to do Thus to marry with Persons of a disagreeable Age or a disagreeable Humour or a contrary Religion is to put our selves into a state of Temptation but such particular Instances would be endless and therefore I forbear If God lead us into Temptation he will give us sufficient strength to resist if we improve his Grace if we lead our selves into Temptation and God leave us to the power and subtilty of the Tempter the sin and the folly is our own 5thly I observe by what means our Saviour conquered the Devil's Temptations and that was by the Authority and by the Word of God It is written Man shall not live by bread alone It is written Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God It is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve These are such Answers as would admit of no Reply for the Authority of God can never be answered And thus we must conquer also if ever we will conquer by a firm Faith in God and Belief of his Word Faith is our Shield and the Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit and we have no other fure Defence against all Temptations This ruined our first Parents in Paradise when their Reason and Natural Powers were in their greatest Vigour Perfection and Integrity that instead of insisting on God's Authority they ventured to reason the Case with the Tempter Set aside the Authority of God and the Devil will quickly out-wit and out-reason us he is skilled in all the Arts of Deceit and Methods of Perswasions and without God's Authority our Courage our Resolution our Honour out Reason itself even all the Rants and triumphant Speculations of Philosophy will fail us in the Day of Trial to Tempt is either to deceive or to perswade and there is no other secure defence against either but the Authority and the Word of God The