The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded

1. We must distinguish between a Time of Temptation in some, and the ordinary State of Mind and Affections in others. There may be a season wherein God in his holy wise Orderings of all things towards us, and for his own Glory, in his holy blessed Ends, may suffer a Lust or Corruption to break loose in the Heart, to strive, tempt, suggest, and tumultuate, unto the great trouble and disquietude of the Mind and Conscience. Neither can it be denied, but that falling in conjunction with some vigorous Temptation, it may proceed so far as to surprise the Person in whom it is into actual sin, unto his ⟨p. 135⟩defilement and amazement. In this case no man can say, he is tempted of God, for God tempeth no man, but every man is tempted of his own Lust and enticed. But yet Temptations of what sort soever they be, so far as they are afflictive, corrective, or penal, are ordered and disposed by God himself. For there is no evil of that nature, and he hath not done it. And where he will have the Power of any corruption to be afflictive in any Instance, two things may safely be ascribed unto him.

1. We must distinguish between a Time of Temptation in some, and the ordinary State of Mind and Affections in others. There may be a season wherein God in his holy wise Orderings of all things towards us, and for his own Glory, in his holy blessed Ends, may suffer a Lust or Corruption to break loose in the Heart, to strive, tempt, suggest, and tumultuate, unto the great trouble and disquietude of the Mind and Conscience. Neither can it be denyed, but that falling in conjunction with some vigorous Temptation, it may proceed so far as to surprize the Person in whom it is into actual sin, unto his ⟨p. 135⟩defilement and amazement. In this case no man can say, he is tempted of God, for God tempeth no man, but every man is tempted of his own Lust and enticed. But yet Temptations of what sort soever they be, so far as they are afflictive, corrective, or penal, are ordered and disposed by God himself. For there is no evil of that nature, and he hath not done it. And where he will have the Power of any corruption to be afflictive in any Instance, two things may safely be ascribed unto him.