Note 751 — MEMOIR OF THE EARLY LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ.
Reading edition
We do not know a state of mind more to be deprecated than what is indicated in this passage. It is the science of self-tormenting, that withers every joy, and blights all our happiness. That Satan tempts is a scriptural truth; but the same divine authority also informs us, that "every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed," James i. 14: that God suffereth no man to be tempted above what he is able, and that if we resist Satan he will flee from us. The mind that feels itself harassed by these mental temptations must take refuge in the promises of God, such as Isaiah xli. 10; xliii. 2; lix. 19; 2 Cor. xii. 9, and plead them in prayer. Resistance to temptation will weaken it, faith will overcome it, and the panoply of Heaven, if we be careful to gird ourselves with it, will secure us against all its inroads.