JUst so does God usually deal with his Servants; when he vouchsafes them extraordinary Measures of Grace, they are to look for Employments that will exercise it, or Temptations that will try it.
Thus that great Captain of our Salvation, Heb. 12. 2. whom the Scripture so much and so deservedly exhorts us to have our Eyes on, When at his solemn Inauguration into his Prophetick Office, the Heavens were open’d, from whence the Spirit of God did in a Bodily shape, descend like a Dove upon him, accompany’d with a Heavenly Voice, proclaiming him the Beloved Son of God, in whom the Father is well pleas’d, Matth. 4. Then, I say, that is (as Saint Mark tells us) immediately, (Merit 1. 12) Jesus (being, as another Evangelist has it, full of the Holy Ghost, Luk. 4. 1.) was led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness to be Tempted of the Devil. That wise and mercifull Disposer of all things, who will not suffer his Children to be Tempted above what they are able, seasonably fortifies them by these preparatory Provisions and Consolations, for the Labours and Difficulties they are to be expos’d to. But whereas, if these Horses had reason wherewith to fore-see the Journey in order whereunto the Provender is so plentifully given them, they would (if not be troubl’d at their good Cheer) at least lose much of the Pleasure of it, by thinking of the Labour to ensue; with the Servants of God the case is much otherwise. For such is his Goodness to those he is pleas’d thus to deal with, in proposing and reserving them a Crown in some sort proportionate to, and yet inestimably out-valuing, the Toils and Difficulties requisite to obtain it; that as advantageous, and as welcome as his Preparatory Vouchsafements can be, the pious Soul may well think them less Favours upon their own Account, than as they enable the Receiver to do the more Service to the Giver.
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