II. Any other acknowledgments of the Lord Jesus Christ, will be permitted by the Temptations of the Devil, provided those Acknowledgments of him, which are _True_ and _Full_, may be thereby prevented. What was it, that the Devil hurried our Lord Jesus Christ unto the Top of the _Temple_ for? Surely it could not meerly be to find _Precipices_; any part of the Wilderness would have afforded _Them_. No, it was rather to have _Spectators_. And why so, Why, the carnal Jews had an Expectation among them; that _Elias_ was to fly from Heaven to the Temple; and the Devil seems willing, that our Lord should be cry'd up for _Elias_, among the giddy multitude; or any thing in the World, tho never so considerable otherwise, rather than to be received as the Christ of God. The Devil will allow his Followers to think very highly of the Lord Jesus Christ; O but he is very lothe to have them think, _All_. We read in _Col. 1.19._ _It has pleased the Father, that in Him there should all Fullness dwell._ But it is pleasing to the Devil that we deny something of the Immense _Fullness_, which is in our Lord. The Devil would confess to our Lord, _Thou art the Holy One of God!_ but then he claps in, _Thou art Jesus of Nazareth;_ which was to conceal our Lords being _Jesus of Bethlehem_, and so his being, _The True Messiah_. All the _Heresies_, and all the Persecutions, that ever plagued the Church of God, have still been, to strike at some _Glory_ of our Lord Jesus Christ. A CHRIST Entirely Acknowledged, will save the Souls of them that so Acknowledge Him; but, says the Devil, _Whatever tides I must not give way to that._ As they say, the Devil makes Witches unable to utter all the _Lords Prayer_, or some such System of Religion, without some Deprevations of it; thus the Devil will consent that we may make a very large Confession of the Lord Jesus Christ; only he will have us to deprave it, at least in some one Important Article. Some one Honour, some one Office, and some one _Ordinance_ of the Lord Jesus Christ, must be always left unacknowledged, by those that will do as the Devil would have them.
III. _High Stations_ in the Church of God, lay men open to violent and peculiar _Temptations_ of the Devil. When our Lord was upon the _Pinacle_, that is not the _Fane_, or _Spire_, but the _Battlements_ of the _Temple_, there did the Devil pester him, with singular Molestations, and he therein seems to intend an Entanglement for the Jews, as well as for our Lord. Believe me they that stand High, cannot stand safe. The Devil is a _Nimrod_, a mighty Hunter; and common or little Game, will not serve his Turn: he is a _Leviathan_, of whom we may say, as in _Job. 41.34._ _He beholds all high things._ Men of high Attainments, and Men of high Employments, in the Church of God, must look, like _Peter_ to be more _Sifted_, and like _Paul_, to be more _Buffeted_ than other Men. _Ferunt Summos Fulmina Montes._----The Devil can raise a Storm, when God permitteth it, but as for those Men that stand near Heaven, the Devil will attack them with his most cruel storms of Thunder and Lightening. It was said, _let him that standeth take heed;_ but we may say, _They that stand most high, have cause to take most heed._ The Devil is a _Goliah_; and when he finds a _Champion_, he'l be sure most fiercely to Combate such a Man. He is for, _Killing many Birds with one stone_; and he knows that he shall hinder a world of _Good_, and produce a world of _Ill_, if once he can bring a Man Eminently Stationed into his Toyls. Hence 'tis that the _Ministers_ of God, are more dogg'd by the Devil, than other persons are. Especially such _Ministers_, as more in the highest Orb of Serviceableness; and most of all such _Ministers_ as have spent many years in Laudable Endeavours to be serviceable; Those Ministers are the _Stars_ of Heaven, at which the _Tayl_ of the _Dragon_, will give the most sweeping and most stinging strokes; the Devil will find that for them, that shall make them _Walk softly_ all their Days. These are the Men, that have creepled, and vexed the Devil more than other Men; for which the Devil has an old Quarrel with them. O Neighbours, little do you think, what black Days of Mourning, and Fasting, and Praying before the Lord, a Raging Devil does fill the lives of such _Men of God_ withall.