should be cradled in a manger;' that the power of God should fly from the weakness of man, the God of Israel go down into Egypt, that the God of the Law should be subject to the Law; the God of circumcision, circumcised; that he who binds the devils in chains, should be tempted; that he whose is the world, and the fulness thereof, should hunger and thirst; that the God of strength should be weary, the judge of all flesh condemned, the God of life put to death: that he who is one with the Father, should cry out of misery, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'* That he who had the keys of hell and death at his girdle,' should lie in the sepulchre of another, having in his life time, no where to lay his head,' nor after death to lay his body: that that head before which the angels cast down their crowns, should be crowned with thorns:' and those eyes purer than the sun, put out by the darkness of death; those ears, which hear nothing but hallelujahs of saints and angels, to hear the blasphemies of the multitude; that face, that was fairer than the sons

One of the Rabbins, when he read what bitter torments the Messiah should suffer, when he came into the world, cried out, "Let the Messiah come, but let not me see him." Dionysius being in Egypt, at the time of Christ's suffering, and seeing an eclipse of the sun, and knowing it to be contrary to nature, cried out, "Either the God of nature suffers, or the frame of the world will be dissolved."

of men, to be spit on by those beastly wretched Jews; that mouth and tongue that spake as never man spake,' accused for blasphemy; those hands that freely swayed the sceptre of heaven, and those 'feet like unto fine brass,' nailed to the cross for man's sins;' each sense annoyed, his feeling or touching with a spear and nails; his smell with stinking savour, being crucified about Golgotha, the place of skulls; his taste with vinegar and gall; his hearing with reproaches, and the sight of his mother and disciples bemoaning him; his soul comfortless and forsaken, and all this for these very sins which Satan paints, and puts fine colours upon; Oh! how should the consideration of this stir up the soul against it, and induce the soul to fly from it, and to use all holy means, whereby sin may be subdued and destroyed.*

After Julius Cæsar was murdered, Antonius brought forth his coat all bloody, and cut, and laid it before the people, saying, 'Look, here you have your emperor's coat, thus bloody and torn;' whereupon the people were presently in an uproar, and cried out to slay those murderers; and they took their tables and stools that were in the place, and set them on fire, and run to the houses of them that had slain Cæsar, and burnt them. So when we consider that sin hath

*It is an excellent saying of Bernard, "The more vile Christ made himself for us, the more dear he ought to be to us."

slain our Lord Jesus, ah! how should it provoke our hearts to be revenged on sin, that hath murdered the Lord of glory, and hath done that mischief, that all the devils in hell could not have done.

Never let go

It was good counsel one gave, out of your mind, the thoughts of a crucified Christ: let these be meat and drink unto you; let them be your sweetness and consolation; your honey, and your desire; your reading and your meditation; your life, death, and resurrection.

CHAPTER III.

The third Device that Satan hath to draw the soul to sin, is,

BY extenuating of sin. As Lot said of Zoar, 'It is but a little one, and my soul shall live :' Gen. xix. 20, alas, saith Satan, it is but a very little sin you stick so at: you may commit it without any danger to your soul, you may commit it, and yet your soul shall live.-The remedies against this device of Satan, are these:

Remedy 1. First, solemnly consider, that those sins which we are apt to account small, have

brought upon men the greatest wrath of God.* The least sin is contrary to the law, the nature, the being, and the glory of God; and therefore is often punished severely by him; and do we not see daily the vengeance of the Almighty falling upon the bodies, names, states, families, and souls of men, for those sins that are but little ones in their eyes? Surely if we are not utterly left of God, and blinded by Satan, we cannot but see it. Oh therefore! when Satan says it is but a little one, do thou say, oh! but those sins that thou callest little, are such as will cause God to send destruction upon sinners, as he did upon the Sodomites.

Rem. 2. Seriously consider, that giving way to less sins, makes way for the committing of greater. He that to avoid a greater sin, will yield to a less, ten thousand to one, but God in justice will leave that soul to fall into a greater. Sin is of an encroaching nature, it creeps on the soul by degrees, step by step, till it brings the soul to the very height of sin.t David gives

Draco the rigid Law-giver, being asked why (when sins were not equal) he appointed death to all? answered, "He knew that sins were not all equal, but he knew the least deserved death." So, though the sins of men be not all equal, yet the least of them deserves eternal death.

† Ps. cxxxvii. 9. "Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." Hugo's gloss is pious, &c. "Let there be nothing in thee of Babylon; not only the grown men, but the little ones must be dashed against the stones; not only great sins but little sins must be killed, or they will kill the soul for ever.

way to his wandering eye, and this led him to those foul sins that caused God to break his bones, and to turn his day into night, and to leave his soul in great darkness. Jacob and Peter, and other saints, have found this true by woful experience, that the yielding to a little sin, hath been the ushering in of a greater; the little thief will open the door, and make way for the greater, and the little wedge knocked in, will make way for the greater. Satan will first draw thee to sit with the drunkard and then to sip with him, and then at last to be drunk with him; he first will draw thee to be unclean in thy thoughts, and then to be so in thy looks, and then to be so in thy words, and at last to be unclean in thy practices: he will first draw thee to look on the golden wedge, and then to like it, and then to handle it, and at last by wicked ways to gain it, though thou runnest the hazard of losing God and thy soul for ever: as you may see in Gehazi, Achan, and Judas, and many in these our days. 'Sin is never at a stand,' Ps. i. 1. first ungodly, then sinners, then scorners; here they go on from sin to sin, till they come to the top of sin, viz. to sit in the seat of scorners, or as it is in the Septuagint, 'to affect the honour of the chair of pestilence.'

Austin writing upon John, tells a story of a certain man, that was of an opinion that the devil made the fly, and not God; saith one to him,