O, says a soul in heaviness through manifold temptations, surely no one was ever tempted and tried like me! Paul answers to the contrary: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man." 1 Cor. 10:13. Is this any relief and support to you? If not, consider the text.
Temptation was common to Christ, as man: he was tempted "in all points like as we are." View him beset by Satan: see the hellish arts he practised upon him: he tempted him to the lust of the eye, to self-murder, to idolatry, to distrust God, to tempt God, yea, in all points, like as we are. You cannot feel a trial or temptation but what Christ felt before you. Though he had no sin in his nature, yet he doubtless felt all the assaults with which the power and malice of hell could attack him. Still he remained without sin: therefore temptations are not sins. Though, as God, Christ knew all things intuitively, yet he could only, as man, have an experimental sense of the nature and power of temptations.
This is very comfortable to his tried, tempted members, for he is "touched with a feeling of our infirmities.'' "Being tempted himself, he is able to succor them who are tempted." Heb. 2:18. O think of this trader all your temptations and trials. What! did Christ feel all that I feel before me and for me?. Had he the most quick and pungent sense of temptation? And was alt this that he might be able to succor me? Think, O my soul, thy crowned Head in glory feels for all his tempted members on earth. Consider Jesus, once a MAN as thou art, and now, as seeing thy poor panting heart and laboring breast bowed down with one temptation and another. Methinks we hear him say, "Thus it was with me when in the flesh: my heart yearns, my bowels move with tender compassion to that my brother in flesh: I am touched with a tender sympathy for him." Is it so 1. Then go and lay all in thine heart open to thy Lord: be neither afraid nor ashamed:
confess the vile lusts and corruptions of thy nature Remember, ever remember Christ's blood is the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. Zech. 13:1.