An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

A third Soul-tribulation may be from Satan's temptations: He is called the tempter, he is said to have his fiery darts, he hath his buffetings. We see how fiercely he assaulted Christ himself; and as for the incestuous person by Satan's devices, he was almost swallowed up with sorrow. And indeed, what horrid suggestions of blasphemy, self-murder, and whatsoever is most terrible and amazing, will ⟨p. 168⟩not he assault the godly soul with, if God bind him not up. Well doth the Scripture compare him to a a roaring Lion; what can a poor Lamb do, if he fall upon it? And truly no more could the poor humbled sinner stand before all the temptations and oppositions of Satan, if Gods grace did not interpose; yet even in this hellish darkness, when the soul is apt to judge its condition, like those that are damned in hell; when he is ready to conclude, God hath forsaken him for ever, that the express signs and characters of a cast-away are upon him, as he thinketh, yet of this Whales-belly, from the mouth of hell, God doth raise him, and give him comfort; yea many times those have the greatest comforts, that have the greatest exercises of this kind; and therefore the Lord did leave them in this black night, that the day might be the sweeter and more welcome.

A third Soul-tribulation may be from Satans temptations: He is called the tempter, he is said to have his fiery darts, he hath his buffetings. We see how fiercely he assaulted Christ himself; and as for the incestuous person by Satans devices, he was almost swallowed up with sorrow. And indeed, what horrid suggestions of blasphemy, self-murder, and whatsoever is most terrible and amazing, will ⟨p. 168⟩not he assault the godly soul with, if God bind him not up. Well doth the Scripture compare him to a a roaring Lion; what can a poor Lamb do, if he fall upon it? And truly no more could the poor humbled sinner stand before all the temptations and oppositions of Satan, if Gods grace did not interpose; yet even in this hellish darkness, when the soul is apt to judge its condition, like those that are damned in hell; when he is ready to conclude, God hath forsaken him for ever, that the express signs and characters of a cast-away are upon him, as he thinketh, yet of this Whales-belly, from the mouth of hell, God doth raise him, and give him comfort; yea many times those have the greatest comforts, that have the greatest exercises of this kind; and therefore the Lord did leave them in this black night, that the day might be the sweeter and more welcome.