as man.

The purpose of Moses was to lead the Jews to look up to God for all the good things which they received, and to trust Him in all the hardships which they suffered. They were schooled by both the one and the other in the wilderness, lest at last in the fruitful land of promise they might pride themselves on their own prosperity and forget Him who gave it. They were inclined to think that they were nourished only by food; they forgot that all food receives its power of nourishing from God, and that everything which proceeds from Him is for the good and the life of man. Christ was tempted to the same sin. He was there in the wilderness by God's will, by the leading of the Spirit. To have turned stones into bread would have been as much as saying, "My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this food." It would have been using for His own needs what God had entrusted to Him for the benefit of others, and showing that He did not trust to God to keep Him alive with or without bread. This He refused to do, and so the devil was foiled for that time.

In all this, brethren, there is more that comes home to us than perhaps we think. We, too, are tempted to doubt that God is our Father. When we suffer pain or distress, nay, even when we feel the mere irksomeness of doing right, we are apt to think that He can be no Father who sets us in such straits. Yet we must not expect any miracles to startle us out of unbelief. God wrought none such on behalf of His only begotten, nor will He for us. We have the same assurance of Sonship in the spirit

which He has given us, whereby we cry, "Abba, Father." If we do not hear this, we shall be deaf to any proofs.

Or again some of us, who do believe ourselves to be sons of God, are inclined to keep that glory for ourselves, and fancy that the sinners whom we see around us cannot be sons of God too: perhaps we go so far as to think that we are permitted to do things forbidden to other men. Christ's example meets us here. If we set up ourselves above our fellows, if we trust in ourselves that we are righteous and despise others, we do just what Christ refused to do, we dishonour our sonship, we show but little of the Father's mind.

Once more, when the wants or the desires of the body press us strongly, we think we have a right to let them have their way, though it be by breaking God's law. We forget that no temptation has taken us or can take us but such as is common to man; and that God is faithful, who will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it. The same resource is open to us as to Christ, steady trust in our Father, who has placed us where we are, and the strength of Christ, who, being tempted, prevailed over His enemy and ours, is given to those who cry to Him in the hour of their trial.

I said just now that Christ's victory over the devil in the wilderness was the beginning of that long line of victories which was complete when He rose from the dead, and trampled on him that hath the power

of death. He conquered sin, and then He conquered death. Let this be at once our comfort and our lesson, brethren, to-day, when the thought of death is

brought so near to us. passed away into the

Since last Sunday three have unseen world, one of them a

leading member of our congregation, who long bore office among his brother churchmen. When the grave hides from our eyes those whom we have known and honoured, it is our privilege to believe that they are still in the keeping of the Lord of Life, Him over whom the Destroyer has been shown to have no power, and who never forsakes the work of His own hands. But for us, who survive, death can never lose its awfulness so long as sin and the knowledge of sin are still in the world. As St. Paul most truly says, "The sting of death is sin.” If we would overcome death, we must begin by overcoming temptation. If we are not striving against the tempter now, it can only be because we have already given in to him, that is, accepted death for our portion. But if the tempter is ever near us, He who overcame the tempter is ever near us also, ready to help us to resist him, and to restore us when we have fallen. Our prayer then must ever be,

"O keep us from the death of sin;
So Thou, O Lord, shalt be

The everlasting Easter joy

Of all newborn in Thee."

"To him that overcometh," says the Spirit, "will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God."

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VIII

THE TEMPTATION ON THE TEMPLE

"THEN the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."-Matthew iv. 5-7.

LAST Sunday I spoke to you about our Lord's temptation by the devil, and especially the first attempt made to shake His faith. It will be well to recall to mind the substance of what we then traced out, before going on to consider to-day the second temptation, and the way in which that too was resisted and overcome.

The temptation, we saw, followed close on our Lord's baptism. In that baptism He showed that nothing was unbecoming Him which any of His people had to go through. All those whose hearts answered to John the Baptist's stirring voice, who heard the call to repent, and came eager to find rid

dance of the sins which clave to their souls, went down into the river Jordan, and were baptized by the preacher. Jesus had no sins of His own. But He had all the misery which came on other men through their sins. The thought of sin pressed heavily upon Him, and made Him suffer with them, nay, far more than they did. And so He came to share their baptism. He would not allow John's humble unwillingness to baptize Him, because it became Him to fulfil to the uttermost all righteousness which became them. But as He rose from the water, His Father in heaven bore witness to Him as His Son indeed, His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased; and a dove lighted upon Him in token of the Holy Spirit of peace which rested upon Him without measure.

And now His work was to begin. That witness borne to Him from above was to fit Him for His Father's service, not to warrant His resting idly in the glory vouchsafed to Him. But first it must be tried whether He was indeed able for the task which lay before Him. For this cause, we are told, was the Son of God shown forth, that He might bring to nought the works of the devil. All His preachings, all His healings, were intended to set men free from some part or other of the curse which lay upon them through their subjection to the devil. It had then to be seen first, whether He were Himself proof against the devil, whether He could stand fast while the evil one put forth all his power and cunning to drag men deeper down to destruction by beguiling the very Captain of their Salvation. Straight from

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