Meditations on the fall and rising of St. Peter

THE Devil hath a kind of method and colour of modesty in his Temptations. He knew that it would not sort with the Holiness of Peter, to shoot at the first a fiery dart towards him, and tempt him in the very beginning of his onset, unto a perjured and blasphemous denial of his Master. Peter would have at the first trembled at so fearful a suggestion. And ⟨p. 31⟩therefore, like a cunning Captain, he so ranks and musters up his forces, as that the first Temptation shall like weaker Soldiers make way for the latter, which are the old experienced and sturdy fighters; the former serve only to weaken Peter, the latter to overthrow him. At the first the Devil tempts us to small sins, to remit something of our wonted vigour, to indulge a little unto our corrupt desires, to unbend our thoughts, and to slacken our pace in prosecution of good courses, that ⟨p. 32⟩by cooling our selves we may be able to hold out the better; but when he hath drawn us thus far, he hath gotten the advantage of us; and having a door open, lets in his more ugly and horrid Temptations. Sin hath its several ages and growths; first, it is but conceived and shaped in the womb of Concupiscence; then it is nourished and given suck by the embraces and delights of the Will, as of a Nurse; then lastly, it grows into a strong man, and doth of it self run up and down our ⟨p. 33⟩little World, invade all the faculties of Soul and Body, which are at last made the instruments of Satan to act and fulfil it. Satan at the first leads us downward towards Hell, as it were, by steps and stairs, which though they go lower and lower, yet we seem still to have firm footing, and to be able to go back at pleasure. But at last we find, as the way more and more slippery, so the enemy ready at hand to push us down into a dungeon of unrecoverable misery, did not Gods mercy