by His providence, lead him; and mark how gloriously He carried him through it. Look now at David, the man after God's own heart, betrayed by sinful self-indulgence and sloth into a similar trial; and what was the result? You have read this day the penitential confessions* of David the adulterer, of David the murderer! Believer, look, tremble, watch, pray, and oh! leave it to your God to choose your trials for you; and while you follow faithfully and fearlessly, wherever the guiding pillar of the divine presence marks out your way, never, never venture to take a single step in any path of trial, on which that pillar does not shed its heavenly light!

3. Disappointed in these efforts, Satan now assails our Lord with a temptation which, perhaps from his own experience, he hoped would prove irresistible; he strove to seduce Him into that sin which had seduced himself, and cast him out of heaven-ambition! He takes the Son of God to an exceeding high mountain, and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world, and all their glory, and promises to give them all to Him, if He will only fall down and worship him. Strange that even the pride of Satan could tower to such a pitch of impious ambition, of blasphemous arrogance, as this. See what an accursed thing is pride; how

*Psalm 51.

deeply stamped on it does it bear the brand of Satan's image; how surely does it emanate from, and lead to hell. By our Lord's indignant answer to this temptation we are taught that if Satan were even to offer us, on the single condition of doing him one act of homage, all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory, (and with what a mere atom of them can he tempt any of us now,) we should fling back, with holy indignation, the glittering bribe-after all but a paltry bribe to an immortal soul: and with what holy scorn should a believer, to such a proposal, reply; get thee hence, Satan ! this poor and worthless bribe, were it even thine to give, has no snare for me, who can call the God, not merely of all the kingdoms of the earth, but of all the kingdoms of the universe, my God-even mine for ever. Him only must I worship-Him only will I serve; for one heaven-beaming smile of His countenance, one heaven-breathing whisper of His voice, is worth all the kingdoms of this world, and all their glory, and can yield my soul a substantial, satisfying happiness which they could never give!

And now, in glancing at the three-fold temptation of our blessed Lord, is it not most remarkable that He encountered every species of temptation by which we are ourselves liable to be assailed, enumerated by St. John, in the very order of our Lord's successive trials; "as the lust of the flesh, the lust of

the eyes, and the pride of life." Yes; sensuality, vanity, and pride; the love of pleasure, the thirst for admiration, the desire of power, whether by rank, riches, or dominion, are the three great storehouses of temptation, from which the tempter draws the most dangerous snares and enticements by which he seeks to seduce and destroy the immortal souls of men; and from these inexhaustible quivers he drew on the mount of temptation the sharpest and most poisoned arrows, in hopes to wound, if not to vanquish, the well-beloved Son of God; and how unspeakably comforting is it to the believer to know that thus his divine friend and master has learned experimentally, not merely the power of the tempter in general, but the peculiar power of the very temptations he has himself to struggle with, so that his Redeemer's sympathy is as close and identifying as he could even desire, and gives the sweetest assurance, that in that he hath suffered, being thus tempted like himself, He can indeed both feel with him and succour him. 'Tis true that what Jesus suffered in His conflict with Satan, the holiest of His followers can but faintly conceive; because those who are most like Him, in His abhorrence of sin, are still in this so unlike Him, that they can but feebly estimate the agony which His holy, sin-abhorring soul must have experienced in being compelled to listen to such horrible suggestions from the accursed author of sin and enemy of

God. To assist you, however, in some measure, in estimating this agony, conceive what a pure minded, fond, and faithful wife would suffer, if obliged to listen to the base proposals of a vile seducer, who sought to alienate her affections and allegiance from the husband whom she loved and honoured; conceive what an attached and loyal subject would suffer, if compelled to hear the dishonourable proposals of a vile traitor, who sought to seduce him from his love and loyalty to the Sovereign he revered; or conceive what a fond and grateful son would suffer, if constrained to hearken to the hateful voice of his beloved father's greatest enemy, endeavouring, by tempting bribes, to induce him to lift his hand against that father's life, and you will have some faint conception of what the Son of God suffered in His conflict with Satan; suffered, believer, in His love for thee. Oh! dwell on this wondrous display of thy Redeemer's love, till as thou art musing on it, the fire of holy gratitude glows so warmly within, as at the last to constrain thee to speak to all around of a Saviour's compassion, and a Saviour's grace; and however harassed now by trials and temptations, be comforted by the thought that yet a little, and thou shalt see Him face to face, and spend a happy eternity with Him in a world where thou shalt never feel the tempter's power; never even hear a whispering of the tempter's voice.

III. We come now to consider the weapon which the Redeemer wielded in this warfare, and by which He vanquished Satan. To each temptation He replied: "It is written!" This is certainly most remarkable; that instead of drawing on the inexhaustible resources of His own divine mind, He appeals to the Old Testament Scriptures, the written word of God; and thence derives all His arguments to answer the suggestions and repel the assaults of Satan. Now assuredly the Son of God must have had some important motive for adopting so extraordinary a course, so unlike what we would have anticipated: and without presuming to be wise above what is written, or dwelling on many probable motives that suggest themselves, (particularly His desire to discountenance that unscriptural claim of the Church of Rome-unwritten tradition, and to hold up, stamped with the seal of His exclusive sanction and authority, the written word of God, as the alone rule of Christian faith, and arbiter of Christian controversy), it will fall in more immediately with my present subject to observe that by thus repelling Satan with arguments drawn from the written word of God, the Redeemer has enabled (as we doubt not He designed) His people in all their conflicts with their great adversary, to stand on the very same ground on which the captain of their salvation stood, and to wield the very same weapon which He wielded, and by which