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VII.

THE TEMPTATION.

SOON after our Lord had been baptised, he left the banks of the river Jordan, and went into the wilderness, where one of the most instructive events of his life was now to happen - his temptation by the devil.

I have told you that our Saviour's history was an example for our conduct in life. Now the chief danger to which we are exposed is the temptation of the devil; that is, the sinful desires, the bad appetites, and the vicious passions, which the devil ex

cites in our hearts: it therefore pleased our Lord to afford to us, very early in his ministry, three important lessons.

First, that all men, even the wisest and holiest, are liable to temptation. Secondly, by what means those who desire to be wise and holy should endeavour to resist it.

A third important lesson is taught us, in the time in which our Lord was tempted; for it was immediately after his baptism, and the descent of the Holy Ghost, which, had he been capable of sin, would have cleansed him from it, that the tempter was permitted to assail him, in order to show us that human nature is so disposed to evil, and our best resolutions are so weak, that even when we think we are the safest, we are as liable as ever to the temptations of the world and the devil.

It seems, from the reports of travellers, that the wilderness to which our Saviour retired, is the most dreary melancholy place that can be imagined: no inhabitants-no housesno cottages, not even trees or herbage, -nothing but naked rocks and barren mountains, infested by wild beasts, whose dreadful howling must add to the horrors of the scene.

Forty days and forty nights our Lord spent in this dismal place, during which he ate nothing, being supported without food by the power of God; but towards the close of them, that power was withdrawn and he began to suffer the human affliction of hunger.

Then it was-in that season of distress-that the devil, always on the watch to take advantage of our weak

ness, began a succession of temptations. And first he tempted our Saviour by the most pressing of his sufferings, hunger. "If thou be the "Son of God," he said, "command "that these stones be made bread." That is as if he had said, "Show an impatience of God's will, which has appointed this trial for you; murmur against his commands as too severe; "and attempt, by your own power, to "relieve yourself from those wants to "which it has been His pleasure to subject you."

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But our Blessed Saviour rebuked and answered him, by repeating a verse from the holy Bible:-"Man shall not "live by bread alone, but by every "word which proceedeth out of the "mouth of God."

This refusal teaches us, his disciples,

three great lessons of courage and consolation in our distress:

First-That we ought never to distrust the power and will of our Heavenly Father Himself to relieve us, and that no suffering which we may have to bear, can be any excuse for attempting to relieve ourselves by disobedience to God.

Secondly-That the "word of God" will enable us to bear worldly privations, and will console and comfort us under them.

Thirdly- That the best resistance we can make to temptation is by prayer to God, and by the remembrance of what God has written in the Bible for our instruction and guid

ance.

Having failed in this temptation on his bodily wants, the devil now tried