prehensive sense, and there may be no intention to indicate the kind of trial to which our High Priest was subjected, or to limit our thoughts only to those testing processes which were Divine, or only to those which were Satanic. We know, however, that he endured both kinds; and in taking for our present subject the temptations of the Saviour, our thoughts will be chiefly directed to those which he suffered from the agency of the fallen spirit. From this source "He was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin." Let us, then, with reverence and child-like simplicity, first think over what is here asserted respecting our Saviour's temptations; and, secondly, endeavour to ascertain the design of these temptations. I. WE HAVE TO STUDY THE APOSTLE'S ASSERTION. 1. "He was tempted." "God is not tempted of evil;" but the Saviour was. It is obvious that temptation can be a possibility only to a created spirit, and is only likely to be the lot even of such a spirit in a low and early stage of its existence. On this account the Hebrews felt the idea of a tempted Saviour to be one most discordant to their tastes, repulsive to their pride, and at variance with all the impressions they had received from their national religion. It was difficult for them to conceive that a religion so solemn with the rime of antiquity, and so rich with the light of ceremonial splendour, ushered into existence with such stupendous wonders, and proclaimed with such joyful strains of inspiration, could be consummated in the appearance of a weak and tempted mortal. The Hebrews, to whom Paul addressed this epistle, shared, to some extent, these feelings, for old prejudices lingered along with their new principles. Many of them, it is probable, had been converted on the day of Pentecost; but though the work then wrought within them was Divine, it was connected with much that was only human. The power of sympathy, and the electric stroke of solemn surprise, had brought into play many merely natural emotions, which they mistook at the time for spiritual effects; and when these emotions cooled down, and only a faint and almost secret spark of grace was left, they felt the returning force of their former prejudices; they began to look wistfully back on the system they had renounced, and some of them half thought their new decision had been premature. If the Messiah had come forth from the secrecies of uncreated light to tread the trembling stage of the creation, clothed with the robes of his imperial majesty, and "travelling in the greatness of his strength;" if he had come like some celestial Maccabeus, to awe the world into subjection by the stroke of some majestic miracle-an earthly king, yet free from earthly weakness, in sceptred state and visual glory, yet in dread reserve, the reserve arising from his strange and unknown nature; or if the Holy One of Israel had appeared as he did to the elders, when there was under his feet a paved work of a sapphire stone, and, as it were, body of heaven in his clearness ;* or if he had made the mercy-seat his throne, and shone forth there, "the Light in human limbs arrayed:" if he had proclaimed his Gospel in tones like those which of old rang like the trumpet of the storm across the crowd of worshippers Exod. xxiv. 10. the gathered at the base of Sinai, when he proclaimed his law-all this would to them have seemed perfectly natural and right; but they were confounded to think that their Messiah could be a poor, scorned, wandering, tempted man. The quiet informality and mean conditions of his advent gave a shock to their faith; and although in the first effervescence of their feelings they had embraced him as their Lord, there were moments now when they were ready to say, "Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?" But Paul in this letter, which was written for the very purpose of confirming their faith, makes no attempt to soften or qualify that truth which so much tried it; he only pictures it with a more distinct relief, and proclaims it with a more certain sound-although he advances considerations which prove that what seemed to be the shame of the Gospel was its glory, and that what seemed to be its weakness was one of the secrets of its power. He reiterates the statement that Christ was in reality tempted. 2. Yes, not only was he tempted, but the apostle adds, he was tempted in all points like as we are. From the nature of the case, this phrase, comprehensive as it is, must be understood with a certain limitation. It may, perhaps, be understood as having reference simply to what was outward and instrumental. To borrow a con venient though much abused term, he was tempted in all points objectively as we are. He was tempted by all the powers, all the arts, all the devices, and all the instruments which are brought to bear upon us. We know, for instance, that Satan sometimes tempts us by direct suggestions. Sometimes, when we have dark thoughts, they shoot direct from his dark spirit; when we have thoughts which strike upon the soul like fiery darts, they are his fiery darts; when we have thoughts which grieve us, because they seem the unlawful whispers of our own mind, they are his whispers ; they originate not in us, but in him. Though there can be the touch of no Ithuriel's spear to detect his presence close at the side of the soul, he is there; when we have thoughts sudden, unaccountable, unholy, raised by no outward object, linked by no associating law, they are the blazing and destructive missiles thrown over the walls of the city of Mansoul by the besieging foe. Christ was in all these points tempted like as we are. We know, also, that at other times, and, perhaps, most frequently, Satanic temptations reach us by intermediate and instrumental agencies. He is mysteriously permitted to use the whole world of organized existence as a mighty apparatus of temptation. He is in secret, behind the shrouds of visible nature, fingering hidden springs, working evil machineries, applying subtle forces, so as to tempt us by sights, by sounds, by touches, and by endless appeals to human. frailty. There is scarcely an external thing that may not be plied as one of the "snares of the fowler." Christian! "his busy hands do plant "— "Snares in thy substance; snares attend thy want; Snares in thy quiet; snares in thy commotion; Snares are above thy head, and snares beneath; These are not evils which only have existence in the flights of quaint fancy, or pictorial rhetoric, or superstitious thought: the most sober and practical students of human nature and its perils confess their real existence, and allow their universal operation; and in all these points Christ was "tempted like as we are." Are we tempted through the senses? So was he. Are we tempted by opportunities of carnal honour and carnal power? So was he. Are we tempted through our human affections? So was he. Are we tempted to deflection from the path of obedience by the infirmities of the good, or the crafty questioning of the worldly wise? So was he. Every testing process to which we are subjected he went through. Satan omitted no conceivable mode, and withheld no possible intensity of trial from the holy soul of Immanuel. All the magic prospects and all the soothing illusions that externalism could give, all its joyful or mournful influences, all its power of tenderness or terror, he employed to enchant or assail the Son of man. So he was tempted in all points as we are, as to the instruments of temptation, though he had not all our susceptibilities to their touch. In all points in which he could innocently he did actually resemble us : he was ever tempted as we are, though ever victorious as we are not. 3. When the sacred writer has said of Jesus, "He was in all points tempted as we are," he adds the remarkable qualificationyet without sin." That is, the tempter found him without sin, and left him without sin. It was perfect holiness that walked the earth in the form of Jesus Christ. After the most intense trial of holy principle, he could make the declaration—“ The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." Of all the millions who have passed through the experiences of mortality, he was the only one who, without inconsideration or extravagance, could have said, "Bear witness, earth and heaven, spirits of darkness, and spirits of light, temptation has spent all its force upon me, and yet I am without sin" This is a statement which, when realized, is likely to ruffle the mind with surprise, or rack it with perplexity. We are ready to think that, if we were without sin, temptation would only be a name and not a reality, and that there would then be "no enchantment against Jacob, and no divination against Israel." "What," you exclaim, "what had temptation to work upon in the mind of Jesus, and how could he be tempted to sin if he had no sympathy with sin? Temptation would fall on such a mind, not like a spark on explosive elements, but like a spark on water-there would be no trial, no danger, no felt effect !" But we shall find, on more careful thought, that the only thing which is absolutely essential to create susceptibility to temptation is weakness. To use the words of John Owen, "Sin is not that to which Satanic temptation of necessity appeals, but only that at which it aims." It only necessarily appeals to weakness; all creatures in themselves are weak; and let but the creature in his weakness be seduced into the indulgence of some unlawful desire, in an unlawful * Quarles. degree, or in forbidden circumstances, there is sin-the first step is taken in that road which leads away from God, and he has crossed the awful boundary-line that divides the sinless from the fallen state! Fallen angels were sinless once. Lapsed, lost, low as they now are, when in the "dew of their youth" they were peers of heaven; they sang its songs; they plucked its amaranth; they drank its tranquil bliss; they loved its King, and served him like the sunbeam with unpolluted brightness and undiverted course; but at length temptation entered their sublime abode, we know not when-we know not how we only know that it could not have appealed to their sinfulness, for they were without sin; it only appealed to their weakness, overpowering it, and then these "sons of the morning" fell. Fallen man was once the sinless inhabitant of Paradise; but while as yet he had a spirit pure as the breeze that had rifled the fragrance of the young world's flowers, and fair as the star when it trembles into light-a memory that had never mirrored a contaminating imageand a heart that had never felt one tremor of sinful disturbance—an appeal was made to his weakness; he yielded to it-he fell, and in his fall fell all mankind. say, Imagine a But to come into a homelier region of illustration. father, in some dreary days of poverty, having the chance of taking, undetected, gold belonging to another man. He is without the sin of dishonesty, but the thought of his starving child, and the possibility, by this one secret act, of saving it from death, will surely be a real trial; and though he shakes off the thought like fire, though he would not for the universe take the bait which the tempter has flung in his way, does he not feel the temptation? Imagine some saint, sentenced to perish at the stake for Christ. The authorities "Recant and live, or confess and die!" He is without the sin of spiritual disloyalty, but as he looks through the prison-bars on the green of the spring, and the blue glory of the sky, as he feels the whiff of morning air "touch with transport all the springs of life;" as, in contrast to all this, comes the thought that if he should be constant to his Saviour he must shiver in the shaded cell through months of weariness, and only to be brought forth at last into the glare of day to die; to die in fire, to die amidst a cruel crowd, and leave his little ones like lambs in the midst of wolves; although he may say, "O Jesus, though all men should deny thee, yet will not I"-do not all these things combine to make that offer of dear life a temptation hard to overcome? It is, therefore, conceivable that although Christ was without sin, he was not without the susceptibility of being tempted. He appropriated our nature with all its weakness. He had the human love of rest; and though his days were spent in toil, and his nights in prayer, was there no temptation to seek the luxury of listlessness? He had the human sense of shame; and when that lit his cheek with burning suffusions, and drew from his lips the cry, "Come ye out against me as against a thief, with swords and with staves?" was there no temptation to resentment? He felt unfairness and injustice as we do; and when despised and rejected of men, was there no temptation to leave sin to its sorrow, and folly to its fate? Was it easy still to pursue on their behalf his meek and beneficent way, or was it without an effort that he restrained that power which might have made them in a moment dumb with consternation or pale in death? He had the human thirst for happiness, the human fear of death, and all the delicacies of our human organization; when, therefore, the tempter drew across it his deadly magnetic passes, when pain struck the nerves in all their tense and trembling strings, when in the hour of darkness he was about to take the cup of wrath for us, was there no temptation to give way? He was sinless, it is true; but having all the properties of our nature, keenly sensitive and symmetrically complete, his course from first to last was one of dire temptation. Though he never yielded, with reverence be it spoken, it was a trial not to yield; though he never fell, it was an agony not to fall; though he was the spotless Lord Jesus, his holiness maintained its existence in conflict, not in calm. Many a time there was the concentration of all its strength in a single bound to withstand the stern assault, and dash back the charging hosts of hell; and thus it was that temptation left him as it found him, "without sin." II. Let us now, with profound reverence, endeavour to ascertain THE ENDS OF THE SAVIOUR'S TEMPTATIONS. 1. He was tempted that he might be perfected. But, some will ask, “Was he not perfect already?" To meet this question, as well as to form some faint conceptions of the truth now before us, let us call to mind what the Scriptures assert respecting the wonderful peculiarity of his nature. It is their plain declaration that he was God. It is equally their plain declaration that he was man. In him the human and the Divine did not mingle and interpenetrate, so as to form a human deity or a deified humanity. As he was God, and not merely the shadow of God, he was man, and not the shadow of man. He was strictly and absolutely human, as we are human; he had a real human body, and a real human soul; he kept his supreme glories in abeyance by a royal act of power; "he emptied himself," and became the brother of our fallen race. The Divine nature could not be perfected; that, indeed, was perfect already, for that which is not always perfect is not always God. But human nature is born weak and undeveloped; it has to grow in mind and in body; one of its essential laws is its capability of im provement. Thus it was that even Jesus had to be educated. He did not start into full stature in the flash of a moment; "perfection was not struck out at a beat by the instantaneous omnipotence of miracle;" but in his case, as in ours, there was a gradual increase of knowledge, and a gradual heightenment of character. To question if he could have been thus perfected, stage by stage, would be to ques tion if he was human; for if Christ has not gone through this process, then the only reality of his nature is the Divine. But why should we feel inclined to question it? "It may seem a derogation to the dignity of Christ, to suppose him capable of advancement. But you will remember that all these reasonings apply only to the inferior nature, to that nature in which every humiliating characteristic is but a new testimony to the boundless love that brought its Creator to assume it. It is no more an impeachment to the dignity of Christ that, as a man, he should be capable of improvement, than that, as a |