Resistence is impossible ... depending what you are talking about. Although Brown resists the journey that he is about to undertake, it is something that he/none of us, can resist.
My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt now and sunrise.
We all must go through some sort of initiation rite where we learn that our young/childish/immature vision of the world oversimplifies the complex realities of life. Brown wanders through the forest (perhaps), seeing many things that "seem" or "appear" or "might" indicate the presence of evil in his family and in his fell townspeople.
Toward the end of the evening, when he appears to be at a "Black Mass," he utters the words that this question seems to be based on:
"Faith! Faith!" cried the husband, "look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one."
He thinks his wife, Faith, is there, but he is also clearly pleading for his own "Faith," religious and in human nature" to resist the evil he suspects is everywhere and in everyone; the rest of the story makes clear that he is unable to do so. Because he is unable to compromise, to resist, as it were, his need for everyone to be perfect, his life takes a turn for the worse and he dies a miserable man.
The enemy of the good is the perfect.
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