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man's own corrupt heart, they usually arise by occasion of some external object, or from some natural cause, and are not so sudden and incessant, nor so unnatural and violent.

Now all those evil thoughts, or thoughts of evil rather, which are from Satan; if you consent not unto them, but abhor and resist them with detestation, they are not your sins, but Satan's, and theirs that put them into you. They are your crosses, because they are matter of trouble to you, but they are not your sins, because they leave no guilt upon you. They are no more your sins than these thoughts. Cast thyself down headlong, and fall down and worship me, viz. the devil, were Christ's sins, if you consent not, but resist them, as Christ did, Matt. iv. 5, 9.

You should carefully observe this. For if the devil was so malicious and presumptuous, as to assault, our blessed Saviour with such devilish temptations, injecting into him such vile and blasphemous notions and thoughts; should you think it strange that he does perplex you with the like? And for all this, you have no cause to doubt, whether Christ were the Son of God or no, though the devil made an if of it, and it was the thing the devil aimed at; why then should it be doubted that any of Christ's members may be thus assaulted? And yet, surely, they have no cause for this to question, whether they be sanctified, or in a state of grace. For these vain thoughts in them are so far from being abominable evils, that, being not consented to, they are, as I said, not their sins.

It is a piece of the devil's cunning, first to fill a man full of abominable thoughts, and then to be the first that shall put in this accusation and doubt, viz. Is it possible for any child of God, that is sanctified with God's Holy Spirit, to have such thoughts? But consider well, that an innocent Benjamin may have Joseph's cup put into his sack's mouth, without his knowledge or consent, by him, who for his own ends intended thereby to accuse Benjamin of theft and ingratitude, Gen. xliv. 2, 4, 15. Was Benjamin any