Temptations to Evil, nct from God. 3 patience : But let patience have her perfec`l S E R M. work, that ye may be perfe8 and entire, I. wanting nothing. And as the conclufion of `'""4 a difcourfe on the mutability of human affairs, whereby he endeavoureth to reconcile every particular perfon to the changes which happen to himfelf, he faith in the verfe im- mediately preceding the text, blefed is the man that endureth temptations. But there is another kind of temptation here fpoken of, of which God is not the author or caufe; on the contrary, the apoftle forbiddeth them that are tempted to fay they are tempted of God, to allege it in words, to avow any fuch opinion or what- ever may have a tendency to fupport and abet it, or even to entertain any fuch furmife in their hearts : The meaning of this, certain- ly, is a folicitation to fin; when the inten- tion is not to prove the fincerity of feeble virtue in order to confirm and increafe it but to fubvert and deftroy it ; to draw the weak and unwary into wickednefs which leadeth to their ruin. This is what the perfef ly holy and good God is not capable of; but that men are fo tempted, and often fuccefsfully, experience witneßèth ; fnares are laid for them, in which they are unhappily caught, and betrayed into heinous trangref B 2 fions,
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