I. Scripture-light the most sure light ... delivered in three sermons on 2 Pet.…

what a burden is this to my soul! But he can present them to you whether you will or not: and did he not present these things unto Christ himself? All these things will I give thee (saith he) if thou wilt fall down, and worship me; what greater Blasphemy can be imagined, than that the God of Heaven and Earth (as Christ was) should worship Satan; yet hereunto he did tempt our Lord and Saviour: And if our God doth so order the Temptations of his Children, as that thereby they are kept from sin, have they any reason to be discouraged now by these horrid Temptations? Many a man is kept from other sins: Jerome, Luther, Magdeburgensis, and others, relate a Story of a certain Martyr, That when the Enemies could not threaten him out of his Religion; they sent a very handsome, fair, and beautiful Woman to entice him to folly; and he finding himself to be moved, and his lust begin to work, did bite off his Tongue, and spit it in her face, thinking that the pain ⟨p. 141⟩thereof, would keep him from that fleshly lust,¹ counting it more ease to combat with pain, than with lust, as Austin speaks, and hereby he was preserved. I do not speak of this fact to commend it, but only to show, that God doth sometimes keep his Children from lust, by pain. Now in these blasphemous suggestions, you find a great deal of pain, and if you were not in these pains, you would be lusting after other evils: God seeth what filthy, vile, lusting hearts you have, and therefore suffers these pains for to come upon you, and so you are kept from lust: Did you never know a man kept from lust by these Temptations? yea, did you never know a man converted to God by occasion of these Temptations? I have, and I think many, many poor souls that have lived in an ignorant Condition a long time, then it pleased God to suffer Satan to throw in these Temptations, these horrid Temptations, whereby they were so amazed, & startled, that thereupon, they looking into their own condition, were converted unto Jesus Christ. The more delights, & complacencies a man takes in sin, the more sinful is the sin: the more a mans flesh trembleth, & his soul is burdened under Temptation, the less sinful. Now, cannot you say in truth, Lord, though these be my greatest burdens, yet they are my least delights? Yes:

what a burden is this to my soul! But he can present them to you whether you wil or not: and did he not present these things unto Christ himself? All these things will I give thee (saith he) if thou wilt fall down, and worship me; what greater Blasphemy can be imagined, than that the God of Heaven and Earth (as Christ was) should worship Satan; yet hereunto he did tempt our Lord and Savior: And if our God doth so order the Temptations of his Children, as that thereby they are kept from sin, have they any reason to be discouraged now by these horrid Temptations? Many a man is kept from other sins: Jerom, Luther, Magdeburgensis, and othrs, relate a Story of a certain Martyr, That when the Enemies could not threaten him out of his Religion; they sent a very handsom, fair, and beautiful Woman to entice him to folly; and he finding himself to be moved, and his lust begin to work, did bite off his Tongue, and spit it in her face, thinking that the pain