By the supposition with which we set out, you have solemnly renounced the indulgence of sinful pleasures. But recollect that sin will return to the charge, she will renew her solicitations a thousand and a thousand times; she will sparkle in your eyes, she will address her honeyed accents to your ears, she will assume every variety of form, and will deck herself with a nameless variety of meretricious embellishments and charms, if haply in some one unguarded moment she may entangle you in those “fleshly lusts which war against the soul.” “Count the cost.” Are you prepared to shut your eyes, to close your ears, and to persist in a firm, everlasting denial?—_Robert Hall._
God delights in our temptations, and yet hates them; he delights in them when they drive us to prayer; he hates them when they drive us to despair. The Psalm says: “An humble and contrite heart is an acceptable sacrifice to God,” etc. Therefore, when it goes well with you, sing and praise God with a hymn; goes it evil, that is, does temptation come, then pray; “For the soul has pleasure in him;” and that which follows is better: “and in them that hope in his goodness.” … He that feels himself weak in faith, let him always have a desire to be strong therein, for that is a nourishment which God relishes in us.
The weak in faith also belong to the kingdom of Christ; otherwise the Lord would not have said to Peter, “Strengthen thy brethren,” Luke xxii; and Romans xiv: “Receive the weak in faith;” also I. Th., v: “Comfort the feeble minded, support the weak.” If the weak in faith did not belong to Christ, where, then, would the apostles have been whom the Lord oftentimes … reproved because of their unbelief?
Upright and faithful Christians ever think they are not faithful, nor believe as they ought; and therefore they constantly strive, wrestle, and are diligent to keep and to increase faith, as good workmen always see that something is wanting in their workmanship. But the botchers think that nothing is wanting in what they do, but that everything is well and complete.
Christ desires nothing more of us than that we speak of him. But thou wilt say, If I speak or preach of him, then the word freezes upon my lips. O! regard not that, but hear what Christ says: “Ask and it shall be given unto you,” etc.; and “I am with him in trouble; I will deliver him and bring him to honor,” etc.