V. To _distrust_ Gods Providence and Protection, is one of the worst

things, into which the Devil by his _Temptations_ would be hurrying of us. He would fain have driven our Lord unto a Suspicion of Gods care about Him, said the Devil, _You may dy for lack of Bread, if you do not look better after your self, than God is like to do for you_. It is an usual thing for Persons to dispair of Gods _Fatherly Care_ Concerning them; they torture themselves with distracting and amazing Fears, that they shall come to want before they dy; Yea, they even say with _Jonas_, in Chap. 2. 4. _I am cast out of the sight of God;_ He wont look after me! But it is the Devil that is the Author of all such Melancholly Suggestions in the minds of men. It is a thought that often raises a Feaver in the Hearts of _Married_ Persons, when Charges grow upon them; _God will never be able in the way of my calling, to feed and cloath all my Little Folks_. It is a Thought with which _Aged_ persons are often tormented, _Tho' God has all my dayes hitherto supplied me, yet I shall be pinched with Straits before I come to my Journeys end_. 'Tis a malicious Devil that raises these _Evil surmisings_ in the hearts of Men. And sometimes a distemper of Body affords a Lodg[56]ing for the Devil, from whence he shoots the cruel Bombs of such _Fiery Thoughts_ into the minds of many other persons. With such thoughts does the Devil choose to persecute us; because thereby we come to _Forfeit_ what we _Question_. We _Question_ the Care of God, and so we _Forfeit_ it, until perhaps the Devil do utterly _drown us in Perdition_. Our God says, _Trust in the Lord, and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed_. But the Devil says, _don't you trust in God; be afraid that you shall not be fed;_ and thus he hinders men from the _doing of Good_.