tions to the principle from those to whom the instances will not apply; and partly because, in such questions of personal religion, they who are not able to guide themselves ought to have recourse to their spiritual pastor. It is but to keep up a delusion, too prevalent already, to attempt to do by public preaching what can only be efficiently done, in particular cases, by private counsel and advice. I will therefore only venture on two suggestions.

One is, whatsoever be your practice, let it be without ostentation. "Thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret." There are few that can stand being noticed, without suffering in the purity of their intention. Howsoever well they may have begun, secondary motives insinuate themselves with a strange subtilty. The comments of others, either by way of opposition, or, much more dangerously, of approval, seldom fail to produce an unhealthy self-consciousness which mars all, and then "verily we have our reward." Moreover, there is no reason why we should not carry our secret discipline with us into all paths and conditions of life. We may fast in the midst of the world, in its business and distractions, even when compelled to be present in the midst of its feastings. Let it be a matter between ourselves and God.

The other suggestion is, that we do not venture on any over-rigid practice at first. Excessive beginnings often end in miserable relaxations at last. Hardly any thing so much deteriorates the character as retracting good resolutions, or falling away from high professions. Little acts are great tests of self-control, steadiness, perseverance. Let us be content with these, and turn it to our humiliation that we are neither worthy nor able to undertake greater things. Higher rules of devotion are for those that are stronger than we. Let us ever bear in mind that all such practices are no more than means to an end. Let us never rest till that end is attained. And let us ever bear in mind that, fast and afflict ourselves as we may, there is only one "fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness," only one foundation, one sacrifice, one atonement for sin, which is the cross and blood-shedding of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1

SERMON V.

THE NATURE AND LIMITS OF TEMPTATION.

ST. MATTHEW iv. 1.

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”

THIS deeply mysterious passage of our Lord's humiliation can never be understood by us more than in part. It is full of truths only partially revealed; and, from our inability to comprehend them, we must refrain from offering too boldly to interpret the nature of His temptation.

Certain great truths, however, we may learn from what is here written. That same Spirit with whom the Son of God was one from everlasting, and by whom also He was anointed at His baptism, was here His guide to the place of His spiritual conflict with the Evil One. When it is said, He was led of the Spirit, it is to be understood in the same sense as when it is said, He was anointed,

SERM. V.]

NATURE AND LIMITS OF TEMPTATION. 77

tempted, and the like—the man Christ Jesus being susceptible of all these, by reason of His true and proper humanity. That same Spirit by which He was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor,' was also His guide in all that it behoved the Messiah to do and to suffer for the sin of the world. St.

Paul tells us that it was " through the Eternal Spirit" that He offered Himself to God; and that He was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:" that is to say, by the Divine Nature in which the Son and the Spirit are one and indivisible. Thus, through the Spirit He was led up of His own free will to be tempted of the devil. It was the onset of the warfare which was to end in the destruction of "him that hath the power of death."

There is an evident relation, partly of coincidence and partly of contrast, between the temptation of the first Adam in the garden, and of the second Adam in the wilderness. The first Adam was tempted through the senses, and by the allurements of self-exaltation, and covetousness of gifts which he did not possess. So with Christ: He was tempted to satisfy His hunger by a miracle; to display His divine nature, by suspending the laws which govern our state, to which He had made

1 Isaiah lxi. 1.

2 Heb. ix. 14.

3 Rom. i. 4.

Himself subject, and to forsake His Father for the offer of earthly greatness. In the two first temptations it does not at once appear in what the sin to which He was tempted consists. It may be that Satan sought for proof that He was the very Christ, and that he hoped either to destroy or to draw Him from God. His temptations were therefore put in a tone of incredulity and provocation, like that of the rulers who derided Him upon the cross, saying, "He saved others; Himself He cannot save let Him save Himself, if He be the Christ, the chosen of God :" and the malefactor also who "railed on Him, saying, If Thou be the Christ, save Thyself and us.”1 These words express a great depth of contumely, mixed with incredulity and fear. It would appear that Satan half knew and half feared lest He were the Christ, and so shaped the temptations as to goad Him, as he thought, into a manifestation of Himself, and in ways that would destroy the pure integrity of His obedience to God. The temptation lay not so much in the particular form, as in the moral character and effect of the act. So it was in the first temptation of man: the act was in itself, it may be, indifferent; the spring of it was disobedience, and the end was death. In this instance it would have been a renouncing of subjection to His Father,

1 St. Luke xxiii. 35, 39.