th he performed His
promise made to Abraham? Who, I say, would have been persuaded of these
things, unless by trials and temptations taken of His creatures by God,
they had come by revelation made in His holy Scriptures to our
knowledge? And so this kind of temptation is profitable, good, and
necessary, as a thing proceeding from God, who is the fountain of all
goodness, to the manifestation of His own glory, and to the profit of
the suffered, however the flesh may judge in the hour of temptation.
Otherwise temptation, or to tempt, is taken in evil part; that is, he
that assaults or assails intends destruction and confusion to him that
is assaulted. As when Satan tempted the women in the garden, Job by
divers tribulations, and David by adultery. The scribes and Pharisees
tempted Christ by divers means, questions, and subtleties. And of this
matter, saith St. James, "God tempteth no man"; that is, by temptation
proceeding immediately from Him He intends no man's destruction. And
here you shall note, that altho Satan appears sometimes to prevail
against God's elect, yet he is ever frustrated of his final purpose. By
temptation He led Eve and David from the obedience of God, but He could
not retain them forever under His thraldom. Power was granted to Him to
spoil Job of his substance and children, and to strike his body with a
plague and sickness most vile and fearful, but He could not compel his
mouth to blaspheme God's majesty; and, therefore, altho we are laid open
sometimes, as it were, to tribulation for a time, it is that when He has
poured forth the venom of His malice against God's elect it may return
to His own confusion, and that the deliverance of God's children may be
more to His glory, and the comfort of the afflicted: knowing that His
hand is so powerful, His mercy and good-will so prompt, that He delivers
His little ones from their cruel enemy, even as David did his sheep and
lambs from the mouth of the lion. For a little benefit received in
extreme danger more moves us than the preservation from ten thousand
perils, so that we fall not into them. And yet to preserve from dangers
and perils so that we fall not into them, whether they are of body or
spirit, is no less the work of God than to deliver from them; but the
weakness of our faith does not perceive it: this I leave at the present.

Also, to tempt means simply to prove or try without any determinate
purpose or profit or damage to ensue; as when the mi