upon mind! How powerful must be the fympathy, how prompt. the communication of kindred fpirits, intuitively perceiving and interchanging mutual fentiments of kindness, gratitude or efteem! Who can conceive or explain the influence which beings wholly fpiritual may exercise over the human fpecies, creatures composed of matter and fpirit, whofe fenfes, whofe imagination, whofe memory, whofe understanding, all are fo eafily impreffible?

Of all the faculties which fpiritual beings poffefs, that of rendering themselves the objects of fenfe most of all exceeds our comprehenfion. They present a form, they utter, and receive, and return articulate founds, and anon they are" vanished into air, thin air." The appearance of Gabriel to Zach. arias and to Mary, and of the multitude of the heavenly hoft to the fhepherds, is a ftriking demonftration of it. We have before us another inftance of this aftonishing faculty, in a fpirit of a very different character, and for a very different purpose-Satan, the destroyer, "foe to God and man," tempting Chrift in the wilderness.

The two Evangelifts, who have given us the history of this temptation in detail, differ only in refpect of the order of the facts related, that which is placed second in St. Matthew's Gospel is the third in Luke's, and that which is the second in Luke is the third in Matthew. We have chofen to follow the latter, because, as he was shortly after called to the office of a postleship, he probably received the history from Chrift's own mouth; and becaule the words which He addreffes to the wicked one, in the clofe of the third temptation, according to Matthew's ftatement of it," Get thee behind me, Satan," feem to have concluded the fcene. This flight difference, however, ferves only to confirm the authenticity of both historians, as it is a proof that the one did not copy from the other. We now proceed to the temptation itself.

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And when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou be the Son of God, command that thefe ftones be made bread." At tend to the feason which he laid hold of. It was at the mo ment that he faw Jefus ready to faint with hunger. Attend to the place; it was in the wilderness, which produced nothing fit for food. Attend to the suggestion; it presents nothing apparently offenfive. He only wifhes a little feafonable reliet to one under the preffure of the greateft diftrefs, and that relief procured by means at once fimple and innocent. The law had relaxed fomewhat of its feverity in favour of cafes like the present, by exempting from the punishment of theft, the per fon who had committed it only to fatisfy his hunger. But N here

here there was not the fhadow of a crime; He had but to employ the power which he certainly poffeffed, and which he lawfully might exercife. It would be a demonftration of hisimmediate reliance on his heavenly Father; it would remove all doubt refpe&ting the divinity of his miflion; Who could refale to acknowledge Him who was thus declared to be the Son of God? He himfelt wants only this proof, to induce him, like another Herod, to fall down and worship him.

It is clear that the tempter, when he used the expreffion “the Son of God," did not fully apprehend the import of what he faid, that he did not mean by it to acknowledge the divinity of the Saviour. Had he known with whom he had to do, Durft he have undertaken to tempt and feduce him? By" the Son of God," therefore; he underftands only a Prophet of diftinguifhed rank, fuperior to all others, of pre-eminent virtue and merit, endowed with higher gifts and powers, chofen and commiffioned of Providence for the converfion and falvation of the world, and of confequence infinitely dear to God. In this perfuafion his object is an attempt to defeat the plan of Provi dence, to counteract the measures of Heaven, and, as he had fucceeded in the feduction of the reprefentative head of the human race he entertained the inférnal hope of prevailing also over its Reftorer and Redeemer. He would dive, therefore, to the bottom of the character of Him, for whofe appearance in the world fuch mighty preparation had been made, and whom a feries of circumftances the most extraordinary had pointed out as the peculiar care of heaven. The operation of a miracle will one way or another serve to clear this up. The converfion of stones into bread appearing to him an impoffibility, if Chrift refutes to perform it, an imputation lies against his power; if he under ake without effecting it; his divine miffion is rendered questionable. Can he be God's beloved Son, if he withhold the concurrence of omnipotence in a fituation where it is of fuch high importance to determine what he in truth is ? And again, on the other hand, if Jefus pay any attention whatever to the fuggeftions of Satan, he cannot be the Son of God, for that were to betray ignorance of the perfon who accofts him, and of the defign which he entertained.

Mark ftill farther "the depths of Satan." He too, unhappily, knows what is in man: and he well knew what a stimu lus it is to a mind ever to flightly tinctured with pride or vainglory, when placed, especially in eminence of ftation, to have the power and authority of that ftation called in question.. The temptation has, in this view. the air of a challenge to Christ, to fupport his high pretenfions by correfponding ace.

tions, and thus he would draw Him into a rafh, imprudent, vain-glorious difplay of his power, without a reafon and without an end. Miracles are intended, and performed for the converfion of the incredulous, at least for their conviction, and to render them inexcufable. Unless this be in view, power ceafes to be under the direction of wifdom. Accordingly we find that whenever haughty, determined unbelievers expected or demanded a fign, it was conftantly denied them. What, has the Father entrufted him with his authori ty, to fatisfy a malignant curiofity: and fhall that power be lavifhed away, in humouring the obftinate and incorrigible, which is defigned for the inftruction and confirmation of fuch as love and feek the truth? How, Satan call on Chrift to work a miracle? and for what end? that he might believe in him? Was the object of his miffion to reftore "angels who had left their first eftate." Had Chrift, then, at the requifition of Satan, performed a miracle, he could have nothing in view but an oftentatious exhibition of the gifts committed to him, which was all that the tempter wanted.

This leads to a general obfervation on the wildom and moderation which ever governed our Lord's conduct, in this refpect. As he never employed his power for the purposes of his own glory, becaufe he fought only that of his heavenly Father, fo he never exercifed it to promote his own advantage; Charity, not felf-love, dictated all his words, all his actions. He withdraws, he retires, when he meant to provide for his own safety; and He remains upon the cross when infidelity defied him to come down. An amiable view of the Son of God! In Him all power appears enthroned, with wildom ftanding on the right hand, and charity on the left; and it is acting continually in conformity to their advice. How then does he escape the fnare laid for him by the devil with fuch dexterity and artifice ? By an answer artlessly fimple, but at the fame time exactly pointed, and directly to the purpose. The Ifraelites, when preffed by famine, bread failing them in the wilderness, were fuftained for forty years by manna falling day by day from heaven; God fubftituting in place of bread, the common aliment of man, a celeftial food, denominated in Scripture "Angel's bread," probably because it was prepared and difpenfed by the miniftration of angels. This gives occa fion to Mofes to observe, in recapitulating the conduct of Providence toward that people, the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wildernefs, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou

wouldeft

wouldeft keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee and fuffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou kneweft not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live."

Jefus was now in a fituation exactly fimilar to that of the Ifraelites, in the barren wilderness, conducted thither by the Spirit of God, following the deftination of divine Providence : Lunger preffes, and the demon urges him to find a fupply by converting tones into bread. "There is no occafion to have recourfe to this, or to any other extraordinary, uncommanded means," is the Saviour's reply, "the unlimited power of my Father in heaven is not fubjected to the neceffity of fupporting those who are following the leadings of his Spirit and Providence, by bread alone; it has an infinity of other methods to fupply their wants, to provide for their fubfiftence. Knoweft thou not what he did to the Fathers in the defert. as I now am, and what the Scripture faith upon the fubject, "Man fhall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," that is through any other medium, " and by any other fubftance which he fhall pleafe to appoint, and to which he fhall affix his bleffing." It is thus that Jefus inftructs his difciples to wield "the {word of the Spirit, which is the word of God;" thus he confounds the tempter, and, without calling himfeit the Son of God, or proving that he was fo by working a miracle, he fatisfies himfelf with making the adverfary teel it by the wifdom of his anfwer, by his confidence in God, and by a patient and profound fubmiffion to his will.

How mortifying is the contraft between the perfeverance of wickednefs in the worft of caufes, and the faintnefs and lan guor of human virtue in purluing the best! We are easily difcouraged, we are foon weary of well-doing, but the enemy of our falvation is indefatigable, he goeth about continually, he returns ftill to the charge. He has failed in his first attempt, but he is determined to make another. He goes on a principle but too ftrongly verified by melancholy experience, that every man, and in Chrift he fees nothing yet but a man, that every man has his weak fide, fome fin that doth more eafily befet him, some leading propensity that rules him at pleafure, and which makes intereft, and reafon, and confcience, and every thing bend to it, Let the tempter but find this out, and the whole man is his own. He finds Jefus invulnerable on the fide of fenle and vain-glory; he has escaped the

fnare

fnare by the wife and feafonable application of Scripture; but may not a net be woven to entangle him, whose cords fhall be drawn from Scripture itfelf? Here, in my apprehenfion, lies the force of the fecond temptation. It is of a piece with the temptation which prevailed over the man of God' who exclaimed against the altar which Jeroboam had erected,

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I am a Prophet also as thou art, and an angel ipake unto me by the word of the Lord," and the tempter flattered himself it would be as readily believed, and therein the deceiver deceived himfelf.

"Then the devil taketh him," fays the Evangelift, "up into the holy city, that is, Jerufalem, and fetteth him on a pinnacle of the temple," probably the fummit of one of the porticos, which terminated in a platform, and were furrounded by a battlement, for the pinnacle of the temple properly to called, was inacceffible, being finished in form of a dome, fuck full of fharp points gilded over to prevent the birds from perching upon it. Jofephus reprefents these porticos, efpecially that on the fouth, as of a height fo prodigious, from the depth of the valley below, that no head could look downward without becoming giddy. It was to this awful emibence that Satan was permitted to transport from the wildernefs the Son of God, and there to propose to him to make experiment of the power, truth and faithfulness of God, faying, "If thou be the Son of God, caft thyfelf down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they fhall bear thee up, left at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." The propofal was wild and extravagant in the extreme; but not lefs artful than extravagant. The import of it is plainly this, it Jefus Chrift be the Son of God, must he not repofe confidence in the promifes which He has made, and reft aflured of his conftant care and protection? If he does not, it must be from a fecret diftruft of his power and goodness, from a difbelief of Scripture promifes, which were in effect to renounce his character as the Son of God. The defign of the tempter is apparent he means to deftray, if he can, the object of his fear and envy. Perfuaded that a fall from fuch a height must prove fatal, and feeling his power limited to art and infinuation, he tries to infpire a prefumptuous confidence in heaven, and thus to bring to an open telt what he really was, the beloved of God, concerning whom he had given his angels charge, and thereby terminate his own hopes, or ruin a rafh and failible man, like every other whom he had fo fuccefsfully tried, and thus complete his triumph over irail humanity.

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