of your Duty, whether to Good or to Bad, SERM. is so sure of a Reward either in this Life or the next, and in some Measure, in both, that notwithstanding all the Opposition that is made to your Endeavours, you have Encouragement enough to be instant in your Calling, and, to use the Words of St. Paul, to be stedfast, unmoveable, always abiding in the Work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know, your Labour is not in vain in the Lord, 1 Cor. xv. 58. Neither our Planting nor our Watering shall be vain, if he vouchsafe to give an Encrease; and that He may do so, let us all join to ask his Blessing in these Words of our Church. * O Almighty GOD, make, we beseech thee, all Bishops and Pastors diligently to preach thy holy Word, and the People obediently to follow the same, that they may receive the Crown of everlasting Life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

SERMON XI.
Christ tempted.

MATT. iv. I.

Then was Jefus led up of the Spirit into the
Wilderness, to be tempted of the Devil.

SERM.T

ΧΙ.

Have fixed on these Words to difcourse on at this Time, with the same View that the Church proposes them to our Thoughts and Meditations upon this first Sunday within the Season of Lent. During this Season she supposes us to be in some Degree employed in looking into and examining our Spiritual State, in observing what Progress or Proficiency we have made in Religion and Virtue, and what Hindrances and Obstructions the Enemy of our Salvation still throws in our Way, or lays before us. And whilst we are taken up with such Thoughts as these, she concludes we shall see the Neceffity of our continuing still militant here, in order to be

victorious or triumphant hereafter. And there

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ΧΙ.

therefore that our present Difficulties and Dif- SERM. couragements may not flacken our Pursuit after that Crown of Glory we shall obtain, provided we manfully continue the War to the End; she shews us our Enemy foiled and fubdued, and directs us where we may have Arms and Strength to keep him under. She shews us the Holy Jesus alone, set upon with all the Wiles of the Devil, under the utmost Disadvantage of Time and Place, and yet fingly repelling that Arch-Fiend and Adversary of Men, and forcing him to retreat with Confusion and Shame. A Combat worthy the closest Observation of every Christian, through every Particular. But before we descend to confider it minutely, give me Leave to suggest to you the Reason why Providence afsigned him this Trial and Conflict as to himfelf, before he should enter upon his Ministry and Office with respect to others.

Now the Reason of the Son of GOD'S being made manifest in the Flesh, St. John tells us, was, that he might destroy the Works of the Devil, ἵνα λύση τὰ ἔργα τῷ Διαβόλε, 1 John iii. 8. or rather that he might loose them, (as the Greek Word signifies) i. e. that he might counter-act the Devil's Part, and set Men free from the Dominion and Power

SERM. which Satan by tempting our first Parents ΧΙ. had obtained over them. He was to undo,

as the second Adam, all the Mischief that the first Adam had done; to begin the Work of Man again, and consequently to go through that Trial and Probation of his Virtue and Strength, which the first Man, alas! though sufficiently warned and prepared for the Engagement, could not, or rather would not, stand.

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The first Adam, though placed in the Midst of the Paradise of God; though indulged in the Use of all the Fruits and the Trees, which even Eden could produce, one only excepted; though carefully forewarned of the Danger and Ruin that would immediately ensue upon the tasting that one forbid den Tree; yet no sooner does the Tempter approach and allure him with the specious Beauties and Qualities of the Fruit; no fooner does he represent it to be good for Food, to be pleasant to the Eyes, and a Tree to be defired to make one wife, and to be as GOD's knowing good and evil, Gen. iii. 5, 6. but immediately the Wife deluded by the Devil, and the Husband by the Wife, both preferring the Gratifications of Sense to the Obedience of Reafon, present Delights to Happiness

ΧΙ.

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in Futurity, they both greedily swallow the SERM. Bait, and find indeed, as the Devil told them, their Eyes opened, but opened to what? why to fee their own Folly, Nakedness and Shame; their Knowledge of Good and Evil enlarged, but by the woful Experience of the Loss of every Thing good to themselves, and the implanting of every Thing evil in it's Room.

And the common Parents of all Mankind being thus vanquished by the Devil's Wiles; the whole Race and Progeny of Men that descended from them, under the Curse and Effects of this original Sin, must naturally remain in Subjection to him. A Subjection from which it was impoffible ever again to be free, unless every Man singly for himself, or another general Representative and Head of all Mankind, should, in the Name of all, renew the Combat, and enter the Lists with the Devil again, and by vanquishing and fubduing him, spoil him of the Dominion and Power he had before obtained over us. But now this was what no natural Son of Adam could ever propose. For if Adam himself, whilst in his original Righteousness, and fortified with superior Assistance and Grace, could not stand his Affaults; how could any descended from him after his Fall, after his Nature was become