Temptation

 It is related of Mr. Knox, that the night before his death, he slept some hours with great unquietness, often sighing and groaning. When he awoke, the bystanders asked him why he mourned so heavily. He answered, “In my lifetime, I have been assaulted with temptations from Satan, and he has often cast my sins in my teeth, to drive me to despair; yet God gave me strength to overcome all his temptations. But now the subtle serpent takes another course, and seeks to persuade me that all my labours in the ministry and my fidelity in that service have merited heaven and immortality. But blessed be God, he has brought to my mind these Scriptures, ‘What hast thou, that thou hast not received?’ (1 Corinthians 4:7); ‘Not I, but the grace of God in me’ (1 Corinthians 15:10). With these in mind, Satan has gone away ashamed, and shall no more return. And now I am sure that the battle is at an end, and that without pain of body or trouble of mind, I shall shortly exchange this mortal and miserable life for a glorious immortality.” Oh, that it may be the same with us, that God’s grace may be all, and we nothing. “We are not sufficient of ourselves, to think anything as of ourselves, our sufficiency is of God” (2 Corinthians 3:5).

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