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temptation of our Lord, when by a garbled quotation from Scripture, (omitting "in all thy ways,") since by Scripture he had been defeated, he tempts him, whom he could not persuade to distrust, to the opposite sin of presumption. He took Jesus along with him to the roof of the temple, and urged him to throw himself down, and thus exhibit himself to the people suspended in the air, as their long-expected Son of Man" coming in the clouds of heaven, and suddenly to his temple." That this was his design may be conceived from the scene of it being, not, as before, the wilderness, but the temple. This would have been an ostentatious and an unwarranted requisition of a miracle to be wrought for his preservation, from danger wantonly incurred from the desire of display, and of proving the faithfulness of God. Jesus therefore answered the enemy by another quotation from Deuteronomy, which plainly forbids men to tempt the Lord their God, by unnecessary appeals to his providential care. The last recorded temptation is the offer of universal empire, addressed, it should seem, not to ambition only, but to every passion that can be gratified by the unlimited possession of all the objects of sense. When we consider how many hopeful

Christians have sacrificed their consciences even for a small share of the enjoyments, the power, or the praise of the world, we may appreciate in some degree the irresistible attraction of the whole to men, unless restrained by divine influence, and shall thankfully use the petition recommended by our tempted Master, who perfectly knew our nature, "Lead us not into temptation." The Devil, defeated in the former instances, seems to have despaired of success by any covert temptation, and to have resolved to make one bold effort, grounding his hope upon the vastness of the recompence which he proposed as the price of a transient act of worship. Whatever disguise the Devil had before assumed, he must now have thrown it off. Jesus therefore addressed him by his name of Satan, or enemy, and commanded him to depart immediately, for it was written, that God alone should be worshipped. Thus baffled, he left him for a season; and we

are taught by our Lord's example, that if we resist the Devil, he will flee from us. Angels then came to rejoice in his triumph, and to pay him a willing homage, far more satisfactory than that an universal emperor would have received from slaves, and to supply his wants, an act which shows his pre-eminence above every creature.

Matthew and Luke, though they give substantially the same account, and often use the same words, record the temptations in a different order, the second of the first being the third of the second; and with the majority of harmonists, I prefer that of Matthew, for it does not seem likely that the Devil should have left Jesus on the roof of the temple; and there is an obvious opposition between the trial there and the first, neither of which would, so manifestly as the last, betray the real character of the tempter. Mr. Greswell suggests an ingenious reason for this transposition, which I transcribe. The first temptation is addressed to the purely sensual principle, the second to the purely intellectual principle, the third to the two combined: the proximate cause of the first we know was hunger; that of the second, we may reasonably conjecture, the voice from heaven at our Lord's baptism; and that of the third, the expectation of a temporal Messiah: the object of the two first was to discover whether Jesus was the Son of God; that of the third, whether he was the true Christ. If so, it would appear to be the strongest in the eyes of the Jews, because a temptation to avow himself such an one as they expected and desired; but to the Gentiles it would seem to be simply addressed to ambition, and of inferior strength to the second, and therefore one writing for Gentiles, would be likely to place it first. It is remarkable, that he was afterwards twice assailed by the temptation of worldly grandeur; first by his own disciple Peter, whom he rebuked in the same terms as he did Satan on this occasion; and again, when the multitude, persuaded, by the stupendous miracle of the 5000 fed with a few loaves and fishes, that he was the prophet like Moses foretold to come into the world, intended to take him by force, to make him their king.

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18. The testimony of the Baptist to Jesus. John i.

The fame of John's baptism had attracted the notice of the Sanhedrim, and they sent a formal deputation of priests and levites of the sect of the Pharisees, to enquire whether he were himself the expected Messiah. This he plainly denied, and answered in the negative to their other enquiries, if he were Elijah, or the other prophet whom they expected. This may appear contradictory to our Saviour's subsequent testimony; but if he had assented, he would have misled them, as they understood the prophecy of Malachi literally. Being then asked who he was, he answered as before, the herald of the Messiah; but he now declared, that though they knew him not, he was actually in the midst of them. The day after their departure Jesus returned from the desert, and John, seeing him approaching, pointed him out to his disciples and the persons assembled as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world; intimating to them who were well acquainted with the Mosaic ritual, that both the paschal sacrifice and the lambs that were offered up in the temple at the morning and evening service, were only typical of this the real victim, which had been slain (in the Divine decree) before the foundation of the world. The Saviour taketh away the sin of the world, by rendering it consistent with God's justice and holiness to pardon and accept sinners; and repentance and reformation, to which the deist ascribes inherent efficacy, are themselves gifts purchased by his death. The next day, seeing Jesus walking, John repeats his testimony to two of his disciples, Andrew and another, thought to be St. John, (from the accuracy with which he marks particulars, and his omission of the name:) they returned with Jesus to his abode in the neighbourhood on his invitation, and stayed with him the day. Andrew, convinced by his conversation with Jesus, brought his brother Simon, who at this first interview was surnamed Cephas, in Greek, Peter, in English, a stone; but they were not called to a constant attendance upon him till some time after his return to

Galilee. The next day, Jesus himself called Philip their townsman; and he introduces to him Nathaniel, supposed to be the same as Bartholomew, who was prejudiced against him on account of his reputed birth-place, but candidly yielded to his friend's request that he should come and judge for himself. To him our Saviour bore this honourable testimony, that he was in character as well as by descent an Israelite, and without guile. To convince him, he tells him that he saw him, when he thought himself unobserved, under a fig-tree, probably at his prayers; and this proof that he knew his most secret occupations when at a distance, removed his doubts, and he acknowledged him for the Son of God, and the King of Israel. Our Saviour seems to wonder that so small an indication of divine knowledge should have drawn forth this confession, and he promises him greater helps for the confirmation and increase of his faith than he had had for its production. He assured him, that as he had been brought to believe, by this single discovery of his glory, his power to read the heart, he should henceforth be favoured with a sight of greater things, and should behold an intercourse carried on by angels between earth and heaven, through him the medium of communication, as typified by the ladder shewn to his progenitor Israel in his mysterious dream.

19. Jesus first shows forth his glory, by miraculously changing water into wine, at a wedding feast at Cana. John iv.

Our Lord returned into Galilee, probably with these four disciples, and, on the third day after, was present at a marriage feast, which it is supposed, from the part taken by his virgin mother, was at the house of a relation. He here first manifested forth his glory; a remarkable expression, which is never used concerning the miracles of any prophet or apostle. They were only instruments by which God manifested forth his glory; but Jesus, as Emmanuel, wrought miracles by his own inherent power. As he taught, so he performed miracles

with authority. I will, be thou clean: I charge thee come out of the man whereas the language of Peter is, Why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? His name, through faith in his name, hath made this man strong. Acts iii. As Joseph is not mentioned, it is supposed that he was dead. The occasion on which this miracle was wrought, the miracle itself, and our Lord's answer to his mother, may almost be regarded as a prophetical protest against the superstition and idolatry of the Roman Church, which disparages marriage, which it absolutely prohibits in the clergy, and worships the Virgin. Even at this day there are multitudes who call upon her to beseech, nay even to command", her Son, now that he sits upon his throne, though in his state of humiliation he would not allow her to counsel him in the exercise of his ministry. Her Son's reply is an intentional discouragement to her interposing, and conveys a reproof; but there is no coarseness or disrespect in the manner, for ladies of the highest rank are thus addressed, not only in Homer's Poems, and in the Greek Drama, but also in the refined age of Augustus, in which Christ was born. The respect naturally felt for our Lord's mother, soon degenerated into a blameable excess. She was called even by Origen and Athanasius, Theotokos, or Mother of God, and the Council of Ephesus confirmed the title. A subsequent age, transferring to her the office of her Son, calls her Queen of Angels, and Queen of Heaven. Epiphanius bestows upon her titles too high for any mortal; yet her Roman Catholic votaries would do well to consider this remarkable passage in his Reply to the Collyridians, who were in the habit of offering to her cakes, as an unbloody sacrifice. "Holy indeed is Mary's person, but not divine, not

P Witness these passages from Roman Catholic hymns:

"Jussu matris impera Salvatori."

"Monstra te esse matrem."

The latter may still be seen inscribed over an altar in the cathedral of Narbonne. These commands are softened down to intercession in the English translations, prepared for the Roman Catholics of our own country.

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