were led into the wilderness; and as Christ was led up straitway from Jordan into the wilderness; so we are brought from the Laver of Regeneration in the Church back. again into the world, there to sojourn for a while, till God hath proved us, and found us worthy for himself *.

This being the end for which God permits us to be tempted, we are exhorted by St. James, to count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations. But then, as an haughty Spirit goeth before a fall, and lest we should be too forward, presuming upon our strength; we are taught to pray daily to our heavenly Father, that he would not lead us into temptation. Before a temptation hath reached us, we are to distrust ourselves, and to pray that God in his mercy would deliver us from the trial and upon this consideration, happy is the man that feareth always; who knowing his own weakness, will not rush hastily into the battle. When we read the histories of campaigns, whether ancient or modern, foreign or domestic, this moral presents itself to us every where, that a confident enemy is sure to be beaten; because it is the nature of

a Wisdom iii. 5..

↳ Prov, xxviii, 14.

con

confidence to be unprepared. But when we find ourselves visited with any trial of our faith, we are to rejoice under it on this account, as knowing the wise and righteous design with which it is sent upon us, and accepting it as a divine testimony of our adoption and election. Yet here again we are upon slippery ground, and must take care not to mistake a falling into Sin for a falling into Temptation. He who is tempted can have no reason to rejoice, but so far only as the trial gives him an opportunity of proving the power of his good principles, and of shewing his fidelity to God by resisting and overcoming the temptation.

XVII. The Christian must prepare himself to receive the assaults of Satan, as Christ also was prepared; that is, by abstinence and mortification. What was the case with those champions, who prepared themselves to obtain a corruptible crown, such as was bestowed in the heathen sports upon him that conquered in running, wrestling or fighting? For some months before the great day came, on which their skill was to be proved, they abstained from all gross diet, anointed their bodies, and exercised their limbs: to which St. Paul alluding, observes-he that striveth for the

mastery

mastery is temperate in all things. And can it be thought unfit, that the servant of God, who wrestleth against principalities and powers, should use abstinence and fasting; when they, who wrestled against flesh aud blood, allowed the necessity, and submitted chearfully to the practice of it?

The comparison by which the Apostle hath illustrated this matter, will set the doctrine of fasting in its proper light: for as the temperance observed by those combatants was no part of their mastery, but only prepared the way to it; so the practice of fasting is not to be insisted upon for its own sake, but rather for its effects; as it brings the body into subjection, and thereby rectifies the mind that it may be ready to obey the dictates of the divine Spirit, and resist the allurements of vice. Fasting is not the victory itself, but a preparatory circumstance: therefore he who pleaded his fasting as a merit in itself, and said, Lord, I fast twice in the week, while he had failed of the effect, and was still of a proud unmortified spirit; that man departed from the Temple without receiving any testimony of his justification.

XVIII. The design of fasting being rightly understood, it will thence appear to be neces0 3

sary;

sary; however some Christians may havegiven themselves the liberty of disputing against it; while others have treated it as an object of raillery and ridicule. God, they say, hath required no such service at our hands (though Christ himself hath given directions for the rational observation of it, and connected it with the duties of prayer and almsgiving); the gospel is the marriage of Cana in Galilee, a state of perpetual festivity; fasting, a barren virtue of the cloister, fit only for the sour, melancholy, superstitious monastic, The Reformation had many great and good effects; but it had this bad one, that it induced some to throw off such restraints as are necessary for a Christian, and to improve themselves into libertines so universally true is the old observation-Dum pitant stulti vitia, in contraria currunt"Fools correct one evil by another." But they who argue for such improvements, of fend against the rules of common prudence, and are ignorant of the first elements of christianity. What an extravagant opinion must they entertain of their own sufficiency! If Christ himself, considered as a man en

a See Matth. vi. 17.

dued

dued with like passions with ourselves, was g s not fitted for temptation without a previous mortifying of the flesh; what are they pretending to are their abilities greater than his? surely they must think so: and that they are able to conquer vice in the midst of ease and indulgence, for the accomplishing of which Christ himself fasted, and that for forty days? The notion is equally absurd and presumptuous; suggested by the tempter himself; who, knowing that the passions are headstrong, and the reasoning faculties weak and abject, when the body is indulged, counsels us to eat and drink and rise up to play; to mix with the worst part of the world at all seasons, and abstain from none of its recreations, that we may be ready to follow him who will guide us into fire and brimstone, instead of that blessed Spirit who would lead us to the felicity of Heaven. This is the method he inspires for the overcoming of all temptations. But we have not so learned Christ; whose example being now before us ought to convince us, that as he went into a lonely wilderness, and fasted forty days, we also, if we wish to conquer the world, the flesh, and the Devil, must attempt it in a state of abstinence and retirement. It is necessary that