24 Temptations to Evil, not from God. S n . it is the thing God hateth, and will have 1 nothing to do, no kind of communication with it. The opinion which many of the Heathens had of their deities as immoral, tended to fpread vice among them, and make it honourable ; let this be a prefervative to us from it, that our God is perfecaly free from all moral turpitude himfelf, and he is too good and too pure to give any kind of it the leaft countenance in his worfhippers. But how often do men mifconftrue the di- vine conduca, fo as to find a pretence for imagining that, at leali, he is not difpleafed with their fins, whereby they harden them - (elves in wick_ednefs ? Thus in Pfal. 1. 21. finners are reprefented as abufing God's pa- tience to their encouragement in finful cour- fes, as if it were to be underftood that he countenanced and abetted them, which is a kind of tempting. I kept ílence, and thou thought ß that I was fuch an one as thyfelf. But let us always cherifh this perfuafion in cur minds, that fin is an abomination to him, and that he would have all his reafon- able creatures to abftain from it, without which it is impofl'ible to pleafe him. Thirdly, let us remember that though we are in a Bate of infirmity, and mull expel to be tempted, yet this is our comfort and encouragement, that
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