The oil of gladnessThe oyle of gladnesse

And so are those objections answered, that arise from feelings. Now the last sort spring from Satan's temptations. O J am laden and filled with temptations to despair, to hurt my self, to blaspheme God, to deny God and his Word, and other most execrable things, and J have long continued in this estate. J answer, Hast thou not sins of thine own to answer for, but that thou wilt also charge thy self with the devils sins? understand therefore that this ⟨p. 184⟩temptation is grounded upon a mere false position, that he who is pursued and molested with hellish temptations is not Gods child, nor hath his sins pardoned. And know that if Satan cast in the most vile temptations (for he can cast in temptations, as it is said, he put it into the heart of Jud. is to betray Christ) so long as those temptations be rejected & abhorred, they be not the mans sins, but his trials and afflictions only. For tell me, was not Christ forty days in the wilderness ⟨p. 185⟩tempted of the devil? Doubtless in all that space he pursued him with all the most noisome temptations he could invent, we read indeed of three alone, but we may be well assured, that they were above 3000. even numberless. It may seem that those three are recorded, because they were most crafty and subtle: when the devil had spent all his skill & pains before to no purpose, he proceedeth to these as his last & main assaults; for the two former were so subtly ⟨p. 186⟩conveyed, that a man can scarce see, that Christ had sinned, if he had yielded to them, for might not he as well make bread of stones as wine of water? and leap from the temple, as walk on the sea? But to work a miracle at the devils suggestion (either out of doubting because he spake against him, or of presuming because he spake for him) this had been a fault in Christ. And for the last it came so suddenly and violently, that it would have even carried a man away