the first sight, in the name of the Lord, is your safety; but to begin, with old mother Eve, to enter a contest, by argumentation and vain disputings, would prove your ruin and sad defeat. Mrs. Catharine Eretterge, once after a great conflict with Satan, said, "Reason not with me, I am but a weak woman; if thou hast any thing to say, say it to my Christ, he is my advocate, my strength, and my redeemer, and he shall plead my cause." Men must not think to resist Satan's craft with their craftiness; he shoots with Satan in his own bow, who thinks by vain disputing and reasoning to vanquish him. It is your greatest wisdom and highest honor peremptorily to withstand the beginnings of a temptation; for second thoughts and after remedies generally come too late. Then let the saints peremptorily resist Satan at his first appearance to insnare the soul: and when Satan standeth at your right hand, like Joshua, say,. "The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan."

The sixth Remedy is, solemnly to consider, that Satan suits his temptations to the constitutions and inclinations of the saints.

LUKE xxii. 31.

Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.

Satan is a restless, subtle, and unwearied enemy,

who carefully studies both the constitution and in

clination of the object he intends to devour; therefore he pries into the various powers and faculties of the soul to find out the most likely member to accept his device, and if he finds your knowledge to be weak and unstable, he will tempt you to error ; if your conscience be tender, he will tempt you to scrupulosity, and too much preciseness; if your conscience be liberal and large, he will tempt you to carnal confidence and security; if you are bold spirited, he will tempt you to presumption; if you are timorous, he will tempt you to desperation; if flexible, to inconstancy; if proud, to stiffness and gross folly, &c.; therefore, when you have obtained one victory, do not cast aside your bow, but be ready to meet a second and a third and, certainly, he only who makes a strong and constant resistance can gain the conquest, and put his enemy to flight, and be declared conqueror. Still let us remember, that it is but for a season that Satan departs from us, that he may return with more force.

3

CHAP. XXIV.

SATAN HATH HIS DEVICES TO DESTROY AND INSNARE THE GREAT AND HONORABLE IN THE WORLD. HIS FIRST DEVICE IS BY WORKING THEM UP TO SEEK THEMSELVES IN THEIR GREATNESS.

ESTHER Vi. 6.

Haman thought in his heart, To whom would the king delight to do honor, &c, but to myself.

:

Now, saith Satan, the Lord has given you both riches and honor; you ought therefore, to study how you can best establish yourselves, and your children after you, in the high and honorable circle of life Providence has placed you in and the only way to keep up your greatness and honorableness amongst men, is by a diligent attention to your own selves seek your own glory and greatness; try to advantage yourselves by raising, enriching, and securing yourselves in those high and honorable titles and places in the world. Oh! saith Satan, it does not become a nobleman, a statesman, nor a monarch, to trouble themselves with religion, or to make themselves so little in the world as to be found amongst the poor, despised worshippers of God. See Pharaoh, Ahab, Rehoboam, Jeroboam, Absalom, Joab, Haman, &c. But were the scrip

tures silent, our own observation and experience do abundantly evidence the way and the method of Satan to destroy the great and honorable, to bury their names in the dust and their souls in hell, by drawing them wholly to mind themselves in all things, to love themselves, to seek themselves, and to enlarge, enrich and ennoble themselves, that they be great and honorable in the earth.

may

The precious Remedies against this device of Satan are these :

First. Solemnly to consider that self-love and self-seeking is attended with a train of evils and sins.

2 TIMOTHY iii. 2.

For men shall be lovers of their own selves.

Self-seeking is a sin that puts men upon a world of other sins; upon sins not only against the law of God and the doctrines of the gospel, but that are against the very laws of nature. It was this that put the Pharisees upon opposing Christ, Judas upon betraying, and Pilate upon condemning Christ; this put Gehazi upon lying, Balaam upon cursing, and Saul and Absalom upon plotting David's ruin. What but self-seeking put Pharaoh and Haman upon contriving to destroy the Jews?

Self-glory and honor put men upon the ways and means of oppression and violence, that they would sell the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes, &c.; it constrains nien to use wicked balances, and the bag of deceitful weights. Self-seeking is like a deluge, that threatens to overthrow the world; and the love of self is the root of all hatred of others; first lovers of their own selves, then covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, &c., and then fierce, despisers of those that are good, and so become finally lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

The second Remedy is, carefully to consider, that self-seeking doth exceedingly abase a man.

EZEKIEL XXI. 25, 26, 27.

Exalt him that is low and abase him that is high.

So much of self doth strip the great and honorable of all their royalty and glory, and render them low and unworthy in the esteem of wise and prudent men. Of a lord, an esquire, &c. it makes a man become a servant to the creature, yea, a slave to slaves, as you may see in the word of God of various persons and characters, who have destroyed themselves through too much self-seeking. It is this that transforms a man into all shapes and forms, now as an angel of light, anon as an angel of dark