derived." Cast thyself down," says he, for "the Angels will bear thee up, lest thou

dash thy foot against a stone." He had planted Christ upon the top of those mighty stones and buildings which composed the Temple at Jerusalem; a situation, from whence no man could cast himself down, without being dashed in pieces before he came near the ground. But it having been promised to the Messiah in the Psalms, that he should not dash his foot against a stone, the Tempter persuades him, that the Angels would bear him up aloft in the air, so that he should be supported wonderfully in an upper Region, without any peril of being dashed against the walls of the Temple, or of alighting upon the earth in such a manner as to endanger his life. Fad credulity or vanity, or both together, prevailed upon Christ to comply with this proposal, he had committed himself to the Prince of the power of the air; had forfeited the protection of God, and the ministry of the holy Angels; who were not engaged to assist in any such wild undertaking as this: and if his immediate death had not followed from natural causes, it seems reasonable to believe, that

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the Devil would have been permitted to destroy him in his fall.

The promise of God, according to the intention of the Scripture, was only this; that the Angels should have charge over the Messiah, to preserve him in all his ways (which words the Tempter omitted, as not for his purpose,) from the offence and mischief of Sin. Thus it was said of Christ himself, that he should be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to the people of Israel: not such a stone as their feet should literally stumble at, nor such a rock as they should fall against to the breaking of their bones; but a person, with whose life and doctrine they should be so offended, as to stumble morally in the course of their obedience, and fall into sin and the judgment of God.

If the text be taken in this its true sense, how absurd is the Devil's inference! "The "Grace of God, and the ministry of his

Angels shall keep thee from offending and "falling into Sin; therefore, cast thyself "down from the top of the Temple !" If the Devil understood this Scripture himself, he must have supposed that Christ did not understand it, or that vanity would corrupt

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his judgment. By the answer he received, the matter was cleared up in very few words, and his mouth was stopped upon this subject. -It is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God: Our Saviour quotes another Text of Scripture, to shew that the Devil had quoted his wrong: and this is the only effectual way; for God can neither contradict himself, nor be the author of Sin. The Text, as here misapplied, is an encouragement to tempt God, with the view of putting his power and veracity to the proof, and render both of them subservient to human fancy; so that nothing more was necessary, than to shew briefly, in the words of Scripture, that the attempt was contrary to a plain prohibition. Spiritual wickedness can find no apology but from the word of God ignorantly or maliciously interpreted and whatever they who are thus employed may imagine or pretend, malice will influence the interpretations of some men, as surely as it did influence that of the Devil. This was the method first observed in Paradise. The forbidden Tree was marked out to Adam and Eve by the word of God, as the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil; from which expression, the Devil taught Eve to expect a

divine and God-like knowledge from it; and thus prevailed upon her to put the word of God to the trial, in contempt of that other positive declaration-In the day thou eatest thou shalt surely die. Here he proceeds upon a like foundation-" God hath promised to "bear thee up that thou fall not into sin;

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try therefore, whether his Angels will not "bear thee up, and preserve thee from

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falling to the earth." Had the experiment been made, the same consequence might be expected as in the case of Eve. Such is the nature, and such are the devices of spiritual wickedness; that peculiar sort of wickedness, which originates in the Devil; for in all this there is nothing of the world nor of the flesh. The fleshly appetite had already been applied to, to produce distrust in the providence of God: here the mind is stirred up to a godly sort of insolence and presumption, the most mischievous and desperate of all wickedness, whether we judge of it by its temper or by its fects. matter of the next temptation is suited to the pride of life and the appetite for worldly glory.

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XIII. Again, the Devil taketh him up an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him

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all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them: and saith unto him, all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me-to which St. Luke adds--for that (the) world and its glory) is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it. The Devil being the father of lies, is not to be trusted in any thing he utters, without a suspicious scrutiny; yet it seems in part to be true, (and it opens an ample field for speculation) that this world is committed to him, and that he has power to bestow it, by God's permission, on those who comply with the condition of falling down and worshipping him. four great monarchies of the world, by whom its power and glory were possessed, the Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, Roman, were all heathen, and consequently devoted to Satan. The whole world of the Gentiles, when it was exhibited to Christ from the top of the mountain, was in this state, being not yet redeemed from the power of Satan unto God. It is remarkable, that the conquests added to the Roman Empire in its heathen state, dropped

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away from it by degrees in its Christian, and were made over to barbarians and idolaters, who came down like a torrent from the northern regions. What was anciently the Roman