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
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.