Luke 11:4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation… We are assured, though there be many windows and ports and doors for temptation to enter at, there is but one key to let us out or to lock us up against it, God's assistant or prevenient grace. (Archdeacon King.)Which promise He performs either by giving us ability to decline them when they offer themselves at us, or by allaying them in such fashion that they become healthful medicines to cure, not poisons to corrupt us, and happy probations not to waste but to refine us. As gold runs purest from the furnace, finding no abatement of the substance, but the dross only, or by apportioning them to our strength that they do not overmatch us, so though He gives us not peace, yet He gives us means, by a fair defensive war, to hold out the siege against them. Be this then our comfort, that as temptation hath some ill in it, so it hath much good. It was said of the conspiracy against Julius Caesar, "If in that action there were anything of glory, it belonged to Brutus, but all the malice and cruelty of the design was imputed to Cassius. I make a juster application: Whatsoever good is occasioned by temptation we must ascribe it to God, but the malignity which accompanies it belongs to the devil. (Archdeacon King.) Parallel Verses KJV: And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. |
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