unhappily slip, that we may feel the greater necessity of God's power to save us, and enable us to stand more firmly for the future; that we may never provoke God to permit us to be tempted (or tried) above what we are able to bear, but that with the temptation (or trial) he would make a way for us to escape, that we may be able to bear it.

The only sense then, you see, my brethren, in which God can, with any truth and propriety, be said to lead us into temptation, is not by any positive act or design of his own, to hazard the constancy or happiness of his creatures, but only when, for our advancement in Christian virtues and pious fortitude, he either corrects us by the exercise of various visitations or religious trials, or when, for the punishment of our stubbornness and carelessness, he is pleased to permit our great enemy more freely to attack us in the various ways to which our weak and depraved nature subjects us without the upholding hand of his gracious help, and our constant trust in his divine promise. For to our comfort we must carefully remember, that Satan cannot tempt us at his pleasure, but only when and so far as God shall permit him; and that for God's glory, and the profit of his servants. This we see fully exemplified in the case of Job, whom Satan could not touch without God's permission, and in that of the

Apostle (Luke, xxii. 31), whom Satan desired to sift, or winnow, before he could assault him. He who could not even effect the loss of a few beasts that perish, till Christ gave him permission to enter into the swine, we may be well assured, can have no power over Christ's disciples, without leave; and this, to show them their weakness, and whom only they have to fear, and to depend upon for succour against the gates of hell itself. Thus, then, by a common liberty of speech, God is said himself to do what he suffers Satan to effect, who, when by his ministers he was permitted to destroy Job's temporal substance and comfort, it is thus expressed in submission to the Supreme Ruler of all events: The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away (Job, i. 21); and God himself speaks thus to Satan (ii. 3): Thou movest me to afflict him without a cause. Again, when Satan tempted David to number the people, through David's slackness and want of trust in God, he was permitted to prevail over him, in order to open his eyes to his sin against the Lord; and on this account it is said, that the fury of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved Daved to say, Go, number the people. (2 Sam. xxiv. 1.) And thus, whenever we speak of the effect without strictly noticing the cause, God may be said "to lead us into temptation," by permitting us to be tried in whatever way his

wisdom sees fit to grant it. All, therefore, that we can safely understand by this expression, is an humble desire that God will neither try us himself, beyond our strength (as we often tempt him to do, by our sinful presumption), nor suffer the devil, the world, or our own flesh, so far to have the mastery as to wean us from his favour. And to secure this divine help we must be uniform in the rules our Lord himself has presented to us: (1.) to watch and pray that we enter not into temptation, for this serious reason, that though the spirit is willing (to help), the flesh is weak: in applying for or using it, (2.) to take heed, because it is the natural lot of our present state to be tried, or tempted, and yet not to faint, because no temptation shall take us, but what is common to man, and that God is faithful, who will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able (if we trust in him for help), according to the declaration of St. John, in Rev. iii. 10, that whosoever keepeth the word of his patience, he also will keep them from the hour of temptation; not from being wholly tempted (for that will come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth), but from the power of it that it shall not hurt them.

With a due impression, therefore, of our own weakness and unworthiness, we pray further in these words, that, if it be God's will, we may not

be exposed to any great temptations at all; but if, for any ends of his wise providence, he shall be pleased to suffer us to be tempted, according to the instance just mentioned, of king David's numbering the people, as recorded in 2 Sam. xxiv. I, and in 1 Chron. xxi. 1; and the trials of Job; that then he would mercifully vouchsafe to strengthen and support us under the temptations, and carry us through them with innocence and integrity; and, especially, not so far to desert us, as to suffer them to hurry us into wilful sin, but to give us grace to attend to the exhortations of his holy Apostle St. Peter (1 Ep. v. 8), to be sober and vigilant, because our adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may be permitted to devour; and whom we are commanded to resist, by continuing steadfast in the faith; knowing that some afflictions (or temptations, as they are here called) are accomplished in our brethren that are in the world; but to build on this hope continually, that the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that we have suffered awhile, will make us perfect, stablish, strengthen, and settle us.

Having been so very full and particular in the explanation of this part of the sixth petition of the Lord's Prayer, it being so essential for every Christian clearly to understand it, I

shall have less occasion to say much upon these concluding words, "but deliver us from "evil."―The general import of this petition is a prayer against every thing hurtful both to soul and body; and hence, also, it may be received in a double acceptation, as signifying either an evil person or an evil thing. In the former point of view, it may not only respect all wicked men (as instruments of evil to us), but especially the wicked ONE, the ruler and employer of these instruments; or, as he is called, Matt. iv. 3, the TEMPTER; who is the author of all sin and wickedness, and, as before so abundantly shown, the scourge of those who do evil; as also the occasional limited chastiser of those who become objects of correction. But if we confine these words-deliver us from evil, as relating to what we usually term misfortune or temporal calamity; then it does not so much respect the evil of sin itself, as the evil of temptation, to which it seems most properly to refer, according to this prayer of Christ to God for his preservation of the Apostles (John, xvii. 15), And I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil; that is, the danger of it, the temptations it abounds with, and every thing that may weaken their faith, or render them comfortless under their