degree, with those which beset the path of every Christian, who, through the wilderness of this world, is hastening to a better country. They seem, also, to contain the sum and substance of all the trials to which man is liable; for though the ways in which the Almighty may permit us to be tempted are infinite, and no man can know beforehand when or how his firmness may be put to the proof, still, as our passions and appetites are limited, so are the avenues to sin bounded by the same limitations. The enemy may multiply the disguises, and increase the number of his assaults, yet they must still be made on those points on which alone we are assailable, and if these are safely guarded, we need not fear for the result. These points are, in the case before us, reduced to three; and though each, of course, admits of an infinite variety of detail, yet he who well understands the principle of these three distinct temptations, and is provided, like our Saviour, with an answer to his tempter, may, through the grace of

trials assail him, and " having been faithful in much, to be faithful also in that which is least 1."

The first temptation of our blessed Saviour is thus stated:-" and when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread "." Passing over, as I have said, the proof which this passage affords, that Jesus was the true Messiah, let us consider his conduct on this occasion, solely as a practical example for ourselves. This first temptation, then, falls on his bodily appetites. He is reduced to the extremity of hunger. It might have been of thirst, of nakedness, of poverty, of toil and labour. The trial would have been in substance the same; and he who knows how to resist one, will probably overcome the other. Hunger, however, was the instrument employed to lead him from his duty. The trial was

1 Luke xvi. 10.

2 Matt. iv. 2, 3.

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couched in this form,-" If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread;"-and the substance of the evil thought attempted to be suggested, may perhaps be something like the following:-" If thou be indeed the favoured child of the Most High, submit no longer to this harsh and humiliating treatment. Exert that supernatural power which, though certainly given thee for other purposes, may yet be lawfully employed to relieve thee from calamities, which thy heavenly Father has inflicted on thee, without any show of justice on his part, or deserving on thine." Now this is a trial which, in some form or other, and in a weaker or more serious degree, is wont to beset us all. When, as it would appear, without any fault of our own, we are in " trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity 1;"—nay, when we are under the powerful influence of any passion, appetite, or wish whatever, which we find we cannot innocently

gratify, we are in some degree liable to the same temptation which the sense of hunger brought on our Saviour in the wilderness.

We magnify the hardship

of our situation-we look at the lot of others more favoured than ourselves-and begin to flatter our consciences, that it cannot be very sinful to extricate ourselves, even by irregular means, from difficulties or sufferings which we cannot acknowledge ourselves to have deserved. It is thus that man is gradually led to the commission of those heinous and crying sins, with which we are daily surprised and grieved. To him the sin has lost half its horrors in the excuses which his situation seems to afford him. If the thief were not poor, he probably would disdain to steal. It is the circumstances in which we are placed, the supposed hardships to which we are exposed, the bodily appetites that cry aloud for gratification, which form the groundwork of the tempter's artifice, and work along with him to destroy our virtue. How well would it be, then, for us, when we are

led to adopt some crooked method for extricating ourselves from supposed evil, to recollect the spirit of our Saviour's answer when he refused to allow the sensation of hunger to lead him to distrust the equity of Providence :-"It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." i. e. "Every man is under the guardianship and care of the Almighty;-he may, for his own wise. purposes, deal out to different individuals a different portion of his temporal favour, and some may appear to suffer beyond measure or deserving under the chastisements with which he sees fit to visit them; but this is no reason for them to despair, or to try, by unlawful methods, to escape from the visitations of his hand; for they are the just, and, doubtless, the most fitting lot of him on whom they fall. As all mankind are not supported by the same food, so neither are they favoured with the same blessings. But all

1 Matt. iv. 4.