SERMON V.

MATT. iv. 1.

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”

In all parts of the Christian's life, he that would walk steadily and surely must keep his eyes fixed upon his great Exemplar; but especially when trials wax severe, and the way is truly strait, will he need such solace to his weakness; and there is no rough place where his Master has not left the imprint of his footsteps; there are no sufferings, toil, or temptations, through which He has not passed before us; "He was in all points tempted like as we are;" whatever is our burden, its weight is known and familiar to Him to whom we have to look for strength.

For this reason it is, doubtless, that on Sunday next, the first in Lent, the Church meets us in the gospel of the day with the

record of our Lord's temptation. She would thus seasonably animate our fainting resolutions; for whatever the softness of these easy times may whisper, she did undoubtedly intend to call men in that season to practise, in some way or other, more than usual self-discipline and mortifying of the flesh; and knowing how distasteful are such exercises to the common run of Christians, and the various temptations to which such a season must expose them, she meets them at its opening with the record of their Master's fasting and temptation, to be at once their best example, and their chief support in such a course.

Now, it will not be questioned by any who watch closely the working of their own or others' minds, that a great part of the force and power of our blessed Lord's example here is lost on men, through their slipping it aside, by secretly imagining that, after all, His case and theirs are wholly different. They read of His being tempted; and as they do not disbelieve the Scriptures, they admit in a certain way that He was;

that is, they never question it. But practically speaking, and meaning by temptation such temptations as they yield to, they do not believe that He was tempted: they have a secret reserve-" Christ was tempted, as far as He could be tempted; but how could He who was God as well as man be really tempted? what was there in Him to tempt?" By such and such-like questions the practical example of our Lord is wholly set aside; and men lose the benefit which was designed for them in holy Scripture, when in it were noted down these awful struggles of the prince of darkness with the Captain of our salvation.

As

This is, in fact, the leaven from which the earliest heresies arose; it is an attempt to explain the great mystery of the incarnation, by resolving the human nature of our Lord into an economical appearance. such, it shews in two ways forcibly the great importance of accurately holding, and distinctly bringing out, the dogmas of the Christian faith: first, because it exhibitswhat is always doubtless true, though it

cannot always be so clearly traced-the connexion which there is between a weakened Christian life and a creed unsound even on those points which men call subtle and abstruse: and, secondly, because it shews how heresies spring, not from some peculiar temper of their time, but from the common tendencies of our fallen nature; and how, therefore, we may look for their return, if a watchful jealousy for ascertained conclusions be at any time remitted in the Church. Peculiar seasons, indeed, favour the growth of one or other form of error, and aid its full development; but it is as spring draws forth the verdure of the earth: the various seeds, dormant hitherto, but now apparent in their growth, were ready there, or the sun and showers had never called them into an evident life; and the seeds of error are in the heart, waiting to spring up again, when the creeds and symbols which suppressed them have lost amongst us their vitality and power.

For both these reasons, then, to give life to the example of our Lord, and to keep up the