SERMON II.

THE SAVIOUR'S TEMPTATION.

ST. LUKE iv. 1st and part of 2nd Verse.

"And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil!"

THERE has been war on earth; and deep and thrilling must have been the interest with which we would have watched the changing fluctuations of the fight, when on the battle-field of Waterloo the fate of nations, the destiny of Europe, hung suspended in the scale; and deep indeed should have been our joy, and fervent our thanksgivings to the Lord of Hosts! the God of battles! when the shout of victory was heard among the champions of England's glory, and of Europe's freedom!

There has been war in heaven: "Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels :" and awful must have been the spectacle, when the

principalities and powers of heaven were the combatants, and wielded their immortal energies in the stupendous conflict; and loud and lofty must have been the triumphal shouts and songs of praise around the throne of God, when victory crowned the faithful armies of the Almighty; and the hosts of rebel angels were cast down from their thrones on high into the prison-house of hell. But there has no record reached us of any conflict that ever took place in earth or heaven, for one moment to be compared in interest and importance to us, with that mysterious conflict which our text unfolds; and louder and loftier, if possible, than the triumphal songs of angels and archangels, should be our songs of joy and praise, ascending from grateful hearts before the Throne of God, to hail the victory with which that mysterious conflict was crowned-a conflict on which hung suspended not merely the temporal fate of nations, or the temporal destinies of Europe; but the everlasting doom of mankind— the eternal destinies of the universe: yea, what is of the deepest interest to us-our own eternal weal or woe; a conflict in which the combatants were no less than Satan, the "god of this world," and Jesus, the God of Heaven, manifest in the flesh; and the result of which was to decide whether there was to be salvation for our ruined world, or not; whether the kingdoms of the earth were to be consigned for ever to the dominion of the prince of Hell! or

eventually to become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ, over which Messiah, Prince of Peace, was to sway the sceptre of universal righteousness, and love!

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Yes, my friends, on that day, when "Jesus was of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil," the great captain of our salvation more immediately entered upon that mysterious conflict with the great enemy of God and man, which, in His love for us, He undertook, even to accomplish our redemption; and which, amidst strugglings and sufferings which no created being could ever have endured, and no created intelligence can ever comprehend, He, from that moment, unceasingly carried on, for our sake and for our salvation, with an unfailing patience and an unfaltering purpose, which only divine love could have supplied, and only divine power sustained; till at last, on Calvary's cross of torture and of shame, the mysterious conflict terminated in complete and everlasting conquest; and the Almighty Warrior, with His garments of Salvation dyed deep in His own blood, expired in the very moment of victory, exclaiming in triumph as He expired, "It is finished!" The warfare is accomplished! The victory is won! The redemption of a lost world is achieved! The kingdom of hell is spoiled of its proudest triumph; and the kingdom of heaven is opened to all believers! This day, my friends,

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we are called on to contemplate the commencement of the mighty and mysterious conflict which terminated thus gloriously, and to follow the footsteps of our great deliverer, from the river of His baptism to the mount of His temptation!

I am aware that a veil of shrouding mystery hangs over this scene, which I will not attempt, with presumptuous hand, to lift up, but through that veil I see bright gleamings of mercy and of love; and surely it is at once our duty, and our wisdom, rather to contemplate these with reverential gratitude than to look curiously or presumptuously into the mysterious texture of the veil itself; for what mortal eye can penetrate, what finite understanding comprehend the texture of that veil, in which all the essential attributes of the divine and human nature are interwoven by the hand of God himself? How these natures were united in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, I pretend not, then, to understand, I profess not to explain. Suffice it for us to know that, however united, the union was not such as that the human nature was swallowed up in the divine; nor did it receive from the union, such influences or supports as to render it inaccessible to human griefs, or unassailable by human temptations. Suffice it to know that He was as truly and perfectly man, in every essential attribute of humanity, as He was truly and perfectly God, in every essential attribute of deity;—that He had a

human frame like our own, subject to wants and weaknesses; a human heart, like our own, susceptible of earthly affections, and vulnerable by earthly sorrows! In truth, the only superiority which the Son of God enjoyed in this respect, when, for our sakes, He became the Son of Man, was a superiority of sorrow, for, having the tenderest heart that ever beat within a human frame, He felt suffering, and especially the sufferings of others, with a depth and an intensity, so peculiar as to entitle Him, preeminently indeed, to that affecting appellation-A Man of Sorrows!

Such was the mysterious personage appearing in our world as the Representative and Redeemer of our fallen race, who, we are told in our text, "was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil!" I will not, therefore, waste a moment of our precious time in endeavouring to explain how any of the suggestions of Satan could have been temptations to the Redeemer, considering that He is God, as well as man: enough for the humble believer to know, on the infallible authority of the Word of God, that He was in all points tempted like as we are; but, Oh! let us never forget the Apostle's conclusion, "yet without sin!" let us shrink back in horror from venturing, even in speculation, to the brink of that appalling blasphemy, (can I call it less?) by which it would be insinuated that sin-sin-that abominable thing