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to lay hold on some fit occasion to act some wicked imagination that you have hatched in your own heart? If so, this is clear, your sinning is not out of weakness, but from stubbornness and wilfulness.

iii. THE MORE QUIET AND CALM YOUR AFFECTIONS ARE WHEN YOU SIN, THE MORE FREE YOU ARE FROM THE HURRYINGS AND PERTURBATIONS OF PASSIONS WHEN YOU SIN, THE MORE PRESUMPTUOUS ARE YOUR SINS.

Indeed, it is no sufficient excuse, that you sin in a passion; no more than it is for a murderer to say he was drunk when he did it but, yet, this takes off something from the presumption in sinning. Then a man is a bold and arrogant sinner, when he can sin calmly; and bid defiance to God and heaven, in cold blood.

Now St. Peter's denial of Christ, was from the excessive passion of fear, that then surpised him, and scattered his graces; but, when that passion was over, he recruited again but Judas had no passion; but the wickedness of his own heart wrought quietly and calmly in him, to the betraying of his Master.

When the winds rage violently, no wonder if sometimes the tallest cedars are overthrown by them; but those trees, that fall of their own accord, when the air is still and calm, it is a certain sign they were rotten. So it is in this case: when the tempest of passion rageth, be it fear or any other passion and perturbation of the mind, no wonder if sometimes the tallest and the strongest Christians fall, are cast down, and overwhelmed by it; but, if men fall into sin when their intellectuals are clear, and when their reason is calm and undisturbed, truly this is a certain sign these men are rotten, and these presumptuous sins have gotten dominion over them, for they fall like rotten trees of their own accord, without any tempest of passion to stir them.

iv. WHEN AT ANY TIME YOU COMMIT A SIN, CONSIDER WHAT THE TEMPTATIONS ARE THAT ASSAULT YOU, AND HOW YOU BEHAVE YOURSELVES UNDER THOSE TEMPTATIONS; FOR, FROM THENCE, YOU MAY CONJECTURE, WHETHER YOUR SINS BE PRESUMPTUOUS OR NOT.

Temptations, as they are strong inducements unto sin, so sometimes they are great mitigations of sin. The more violently the soul is baited and wearied with temptations, the less presumption is it guilty of if at length it yields. This, God doth

judge to be weakness, not wilfulness. He knows our frame; that we are but dust and ashes; and that we are no match for principalities and powers: and those mighty enemies, that we are to combat with, we can no more stand before than so much loose dust before a fierce and rapid whirlwind.

Yea, were there no Devil to tempt, yet the corruptions of our own hearts are much too hard for us: but, when both our own lusts and the Devil shall conspire together, the one to betray us with all its deceitfulness and the other to force us with all its power, who then can stand? If God, at such a time as this is, withdraw his grace and Spirit, as sometimes he doth from the best of his servants, where is the Christian that ever coped with these temptations, and was not vanquished and captivated by them?

It is true, when God assists him, the weakest Christian proves victorious over the strongest temptations. A dwarf may beat a giant, when he is manacled that he cannot stir nor resist. God sees that Satan is an over-match for us; and, therefore, he ties his hands, before he sets us out to the conflict; and what wonder is it, if we then conquer? When God hath trodden Satan under us, no wonder, if, as weak as we are, we can then trample upon him too.

But, that all our success may appear to be, not from our own strength, but from God's might, he leaves us sometimes to Satan, and lets loose Satan upon us in all his rage. He leads us into temptation, and he leaves us under temptation; and, when we are buffeted, we then yield and fall, and the Devil shamefully triumphs over us.

In this case, which is one of the saddest that a Christian can be in, though the sin be very foul and heinous; yet the same power of temptation, that makes us sin heinously, keeps us from sinning presumptuously. Presumptuous Sins are not to be measured by the bulk and ugliness of the action, but by the forward and headlong consent of the will unto it; and, therefore, a gross sin may sometimes be but a sin of infirmity, when yet a sin of a less nature is desperately daring and presumptuous. In the Law, if a person that was ravished struggled and cried out aloud for help, the crime was not imputed to her: so, if the soul be forcibly ravished by temptations, though it struggle and strive against them, though it call upon its God, crying aloud, "Help, Lord," though it call up its graces, "Arise, help;" this sin shall not be imputed to it as a presumptuous sin.

How then shall we judge by our temptations, whether the sins which we commit are presumptuous or not?

I answer: you may judge of it, by these following particulars.

1. If we commit sin, when we are not beseiged and disturbed by violent and invincible temptations, this is too certain a sign, that then we sin presumptuously.

This plainly shews a will strongly fixed and resolved to sin. When men will surrender and yield up their souls to the Devil, even before he summons them; and when they will consent to sin upon every small and trivial temptation, as soon as they have but a hint and glimpse of some sinful object passing before them, though it offer them no violence, though it present nothing to them of so much pleasure and profit and credit in it, but that a generous Christian might easily disdain, if yet they run out after it, and will sin merely because they will; these are most desperate sinners, that are impatient to wait the leisure of a lingering and lazy temptation. They know the Devil hath much work to do in the world; many thousands to tempt, deceive, and draw to perdition: and, therefore, they will not trouble him; and, for his ease, they will sin without a temptation, and ruin their own souls without any help of any other devil than what their own hearts prove to them. As those are the best and most stayed Christians, that are constant in the performance of holy duties, even then when they have no strong impulses and motions from the Holy Ghost unto duty: so, truly, those are the worst and most stubborn sinners, that even then commit sin with greediness, when they have no violent impulses and temptations from the Devil to hurry them into sin.

Now there are Two things, whereby it plainly appears, that then a Sin is Presumptuous, when it is committed without strong and violent temptations to it.

(1) Hereby we do evidently declare a fearful contempt of the Great God.

We never more vilify and disparage God, than when we do that for nothing, which we know his soul hates. Should the Devil, when he tempts you, take you, as he took Christ, and shew you the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them all, and promise to bestow all these upon you: yet, when God shews you the infinite glory of the kingdoms of another world, you can plead no natural reason why you should consent to sin; God infinitely outbidding the Devil, even then when the Devil bids highest.

But, when you will prefer a sin that bids nothing, a barren, fruitless, and unprofitable lust, before the holy will of the Great God and the sure promises of eternal glory, what reason or pretence can you shew why you should sin, unless it be, because you are resolved rather to despite and affront God, than to advantage your own souls? And this was the great aggravation of Judas's Sin, and that which made it so exceeding Presumptuous: what a poor temptation were thirty pieces of silver, to induce him to the vilest wickedness that ever was committed since the world stood! It was no more than the ordinary value and rate of a slave as you may see in Exod. xxi. 32. amounting much to about thirty seven shillings and sixpence: and, yet, so far did he undervalue Christ, as that, for this small price, he sold the Lord of Life and Glory: and this, God himself takes notice of, as a great indignity done unto him; Zech. xi. 13. A goodly price, says God by the Prophet there, was I prized at of them! I know that, at the very hearing of this, your hearts rise up in detestation of the cursed covetousness of Judas, that ever he should suffer himself to be tempted by so base a reward as a few shillings were, to betray Him to death, who was infinitely more worth than heaven and earth. Why, the case is yours: nay, wonder not at it: he betrayed him for thirty pieces of silver, and you daily crucify him and put him to open shame: you wound and pierce him to the very heart, for much less than that is: look back upon your past life, can you not recal to mind, that you have been prevailed upon to commit many a sin by such poor and inconsiderable things as scarce bear the shew, or face, or appearance of a temptation? have you not dealt very injuriously with God and Christ, and set them at nought for a little gain, for some vanishing delight, for compliance sake, for the fickle favour of men? yea, very feathers and empty nothings have weighed down the scales with you against God! The Devil's first and greatest sin was pride, and contempt of God: and how much is he pleased and humoured, to see the same contempt of God rivetted in the hearts of men; and to see him so much slighted in the world, that he can scarce bid low enough when he tempts, but whatever he offers is greedily snatched at, and preferred before God and heaven, though it be but a very toy and trifle! This, certainly, must needs be a very heinous contempt of the Great Majesty of Heaven, and must needs argue most desperate boldness and presumptuous sinning.

(2) When men sin upon small or no temptations, they declare

plainly a wretched neglect of their precious souls; and, therefore, they sin presumptuously.

I have read of a soldier, who, being with two others for some crime condemned, drew lots for his life; and, having drawn one lot that saved and pardoned him, seeing one of his companions come shivering and quaking to draw, told him, that, for two shillings, or thereabouts, he would take his lot, whatever it was: he drew again, and again it proved successful to him: however, it was a most daring presumption, that after so narrow an escape, he should again hazard his life, and set it to sale for so small a price as that was. Truly, the like presumption we ourselves are guilty of: we purchase toys and trifles, with the dreadful hazards of our souls; those souls, that are infinitely more worth than ten thousand worlds: we make common barter and exchange for every base lust; and, as prodigais pay very dear for very toys only to satisfy their fancies, so do we lay down our precious souls at stake for those lusts that usually have nothing in them, besides the satisfaction of the humours and fancies of our own wills in sin. Would you not censure that man to be most desperately fool-hardy, that should venture to dive into the bottom of the sea, only to take up pebbles and gravel? How great deal of folly and presumption then are they guilty of, who dive even to the bottom of hell, only to get straws and feathers, and such impertinent vanities and inconsiderable nothings, that certainly men would never hazard their immortal souls for, unless they thought they did themselves a courtesy to be damned! How many are there, that would not suffer, no not so much as a hair of their head to be twitched off, to gain that, for which they will not stick to lie and swear; sins that murder their souls! They are so foolish, that the Lord complains in Isa. lii. 3. they sell themselves for nought: either they stay not till the Devil comes to cheapen them, but sin beforehand; or, else, they readily take any price, that he offers for them: any vile trifle is looked upon as a great purchase, if they can procure it at so low a price as hell and damnation is. What is it, that makes the swearer open his throat as wide as hell against heaven and God himself: but only, that he fancies that a big, full-mouthed oath makes his speech more graceful and stately? And what is it, that makes the company-keeper run into all excess with riot, and drown himself in all sensuality; but only, that he may comply with his debauched companions, and not disgust them by any singularity and reservedness?

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