tempted on all points like as we are." Luther translates it "Everywhere." The hand of the dear good man might have trembled, perhaps, at the thought of writing it "in all points.” Out of holy timidity and deep awe, he therefore rather chose to write " Everywhere." Our Saviour appeared, as the Scripture saith, "in the likeness of sinful flesh," i. e. in human nature weakened by the fall. All the consequences of sin passed over on Him, save sin itself. He was tempted, yet without sin. The innocent impulses and weaknesses of our nature were also His inheritance. He hungered and thirsted, He could become weary and sleepy; He could weep and rejoice, need rest and refreshment, etc. These infirmities and necessities, blameless in themselves, the tempter thought to use as handles on which to lay hold, and lead away our Lord from his divinely appointed path. He proposed to Him ways and means for satisfying these wants, which were by no means God's ways or means. Had the Saviour adopted these measures, yea, had he even cherished the remotest desire to do so, then would Satan's monstrous design have succeeded. The Lamb would have had a spot; the Priest a blemish; the offering would have been unavailable; the whole plan of salvation forever broken up, and all of us immediately consigned to hell. Oh, how much was there at stake in the wilderness! What an incalculably weighty and momentous occurrence is the temptation of Jesus! With what utmost tension of soul should we look for the further development and issue of this event!

DISCOURSE X.

THE ONSET AND THE ARMS IN THE TEMPTATION.

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil," etc.-MATT. iv. 4-11.

WE come now to the first onset.

The tempter had waited a favorable moment for his opening assault. Jesus was an hungered; then slips he before Him, and says "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." This was the first attack, by which the tempter designed, partly to make sure regarding the person of Jesus, and partly, in case He were really the Lord from heaven, to annihilate at a stroke His whole sacrificial work. The Devil's aim was, if possible, first of all, to stain the pure soul of Christ with the sin of unbelief, as in Paradise he began his assault with -a "Yea, hath God said," in order to cause our first parents to stumble at God's command; so also here. The "If thou be the Son of God," is at bottom nothing else than a "Yea, hath God said?" in disguise. It is an attempt to make the Lord doubt the testimony which He had received from the Father at His baptism.

Now, just observe, once for all, the monstrous, unexampled cunning of the tempter. In that single word, "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread," he sets before our Saviour, not one, but countless snares and trapseach one more hidden and dangerous than the other. "Either,

thought the devil, if He is the Son of God, He will now err in regard to His Sonship, and the witness of God, deeming it utterly improbable that God could suffer His child thus to starve and be put to shame amid the stones and fruitless thorns of a wilderness, and so will His soul be defiled with unbelief; Or," thought the artful one, "He will cast off the veil before me, and in His eagerness to convince me of His Sonship by a miracle, will He act counter to the purpose of God, whose decree it is, that He should be poor, and suffer, and empty Himself of His glory, in order to expiate Adam's sin. But should I not succeed, imagined the devil again, in moving Him to forsake the path of poverty, and to step out of His humiliation in order to disclose His real dignity to me and others, yet, perhaps, the stress of hungering nature will urge Him to follow my proposal. He will deem it pardonable to employ the power which God has given Him, in rescuing Himself from starvation; He will convert the stones into bread; by self-help will He raise Himself superior to His sufferings, and so put from His lips that cup of bitterness, without draining which no atonement is possible."

Such were the devil's thoughts. He hoped, that though Jesus might escape His first snare, He would yet be caught in the second or the third. And in fact, no plan could have been more adroitly devised and set. Without a miracle of preservation, the Holiest here would have fallen. The slighest trace of sin, had it existed in Jesus, would now have sprung forth to the light; and shown itself. But no! not the slightest particle of dust discolors the white linen of His innocence. He stands alone in the field—no one supports—no one protects Him. Nevertheless He breaks all the lances of the foe victoriously-the devil is beaten--Jesus triumphs.

The temptation to turn stones to bread, is one of the commonest in our every day life-something of it is experienced by all the children of God in one way or another. There are brethren among us-I mean brethren in the Lord-who are required to fast in these times. They have no work, no wages,

and are driven to much anxiety for their daily bread. Brethren, ye sit among the stones and brambles of the wilderness, and are "an hungered." It would be a miracle if the tempter did not steal up to you also with an "Art thou indeed a child of God, that He should let you starve thus ?" and then again with the suggestion "Speak to those stones that they be made bread." Most strange would it be, if he did not also come to you with his varied proposals such as, "Fawn and flatter that thou mayest obtain favor and employment" or "deceive and lie that thou mayest make money; adopt this or that iniquitous trade, and save thyself from starvation;" or "throw thyself on the side of scoffers and enemies of the cross that they may support thee "— or "buy into a lottery that thou mayest share its good luck," or whatever other ways he may point out to you. All this means nothing else than-" Command that these stones be made bread." But, my brethren, let stones be stones,-and remain stones, and look for your bread to Him who has promised to give it you,yea, who has promised to give you greater things than this. God-who has numbered the very hairs of your head—will let none of His little children be put to shame. Is it not far better to fast and starve in the name of God, than to see good days in the name of the devil? Your fastings will have an end, when they shall have worked out for your salvation that which God has decreed. Be of good cheer, then. Ye are wandering in the wilderness, in order to behold the faithfulness and the glory of God, which is more clearly seen in the wild and arid desert, than in the fat lands.

There are souls among us who obtain from their Christianity nothing but shame and contempt-and have but little joy or refreshment. It would be a wonder, dear friends, if Satan did not mix himself therein,-either to make you despise Christianity altogether, or to display to you in the world and its objects those pleasures which you find not in God. Brethren, it is the devil who thus counsels, and would fain induce you to convert the stones of your sufferings and joylessness into bread, in obedi

But

ence to your own caprice, and without the will of Christ. methinks we would prefer to this if it must be so-to spend the few days of this life in the desert with Christ, or to lie in the furnace, and then to share in his glory: while we gladly leave the convict's farewell-meal, which the devil might have prepared for us, to those who appear to take pleasure in the prospect of burning and howling with their dark chief in the lake of fire for ever and ever.

"The Lord rebuke thee, Satan," be our war cry, as often as we hear this dragon crawling in our neighborhood. God be praised, since the true Michael fought and overcame him, his power over us is at an end. He may, indeed, buffet us with blows, and try to trip us up also, so that we may even at times come near reeling and falling; but, ruin us—this can he never; and although he may lurk around our tent," this roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour,"-yet has he a ring in his nose and a chain about his neck. Our Prince and Captain holds him fast, and marks the limits to which he may go. Only let us, on our part, fence ourselves around with the wounds of Jesus. In this fortress we are safe, and here we may joyfully sing :

The Prince of this world

May rage as he will,

In naught shall he harm us,

His doom he will seal.

One word from our Jesus

Can level him low,

Can rescue his followers

And prostrate their foe.

Behold now the WEAPON with which Jesus achieved his victory. It was the word of God. One simple and believing "It is written," and the devil is vanquished, his assault frustrated.

The Bible is the arsenal for God's warriors, the spiritual armory, whose walls are overlaid with shields and coat of mail, and glisten and flash with swords and spears. Every one who