This will prevent all licentiousness of mind, and will rescue from hypocrisy and formality. In the conflict of temptation, in the heat of the battle, it is this adverting to the presence of God that supports the confidence of the Christian. What was that which supported Nehemiah and Daniel, and enabled Joseph to adhere to the Lord his God? It was this advertence-they had respect to the recompence of the reward.

5. This is a source of delight for those who are rightly affected towards God. Nothing is more delightful than to know that he is a present friend; an approver of our conduct; a present help in trouble.

How delightful to approach him under this character! how delightful to find that God is with us! "If God be for us, who can be against us?"

How delightful for a wounded spirit to go to him, to one who sympathizes, who changes not! In seasons of affliction and peculiar trial, who can expect relief equal to that person who rests on the rock of ages ? That person may be joyful in tribulation; you will never know what this consolation is, until you delight in the Lord.

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Permit me to make a brief improvement, and to direct your attention to the equity of the Divine Being, in connecting this advertency or inadvertency so closely with the recompences of a future state. The wicked will be banished from his presence, and the good admitted. To the one he will say, Depart, ye cursed;" to the other, Come, ye blessed." Then how reasonable and equitable will this allotment appear! The wicked who, by forgetting God, have displeased him; who have said, Depart from us; who have considered him as the intruder upon their pleasures; who have derived a satisfaction from forgetting him; who have given themselves over to the gratification of sinful lusts; whose happiness consisted in excluding God from their thoughts ;-the Divine Being will then make their choice apparent; the separation will then be as wide as they wished; there will then be an eternal gulf separating them from God. Eternal destruction will then await them; the voice of mercy they will hear no more. No more will they be troubled with invitations of mercy; these will all be over, and they will enter into a state as free from salvation as they ever wished. This is a most

awful thought the forgetfulness of God will into eternity.

On the contrary, good men who have followed the Divine Being here, who have traced his footsteps, who have treasured up the words of his mouth, will be with him for ever. How reasonable is it that they who coveted his presence should be satisfied; that those who have kept their garments unspotted from the world should be permitted to dwell in the light of his countenance for ever.

Let us, then, determine to choose him as our portion; to cleave to the fountain of happiness. We shall hereafter see him as he is, and those who have made him their choice will be satisfied when they wake up in his likeness.

LI.

TEMPTING GOD.

MATTHEW, IV. 7—" JESUS SAITH UNTO HIM, IT IS WRITTEN AGAIN, THOU SHALT NOT TEMPT THE LORD THY GOD."

WE propose to offer,

I. SOME EXPLANATORY REMARKS SHEWING THE VARIOUS MODES IN WHICH MAN MAY BE SAID TO TEMPT GOD.

It has been disputed by critics, whether to tempt God here signifies to presume upon his goodness or to distrust it. The word tempt, when used in reference to our conduct towards God, is usually employed in a bad sense, and means to seek from God displays of his power, on occasions and in a way prescribed by ourselves. Thus Moses says, Deut. vi. 16,-Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah. So Exodus, xvii. 7,-Moses called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord amongst us or not? This was not so much from distrust as from a petulant demand for an exertion of the divine power at the time, and in the manner, they dared to prescribe. The appositeness of the quotation is apparent; and our Lord shews the criminality of making a bold and unauthorized demand upon God in

our own will, for the exercise of his power. in the following instances:

We tempt God

1. When we expose ourselves to needless temptations in a presumptuous reliance upon our own strength, or upon divine interpositions in our favour.

We should beware of all rash and hazardous experiments upon character. Peter exposed himself to needless danger on various occasions. He did so in the judgment-hall when he intruded, uncalled, into the presence and company of worldly men, and sat and warmed himself by the fire, and seemed anxious not to be known as one of the disciples of Christ; and we all know what came of it. He did so when he cut off the ear of Malchus, unauthorized by our Lord, and in defiance of the solemn compact into which our Lord had entered; and this paved the way for his last temptation. He did so when he asked permission to leave the ship and go to Jesus, and walk upon the water. He did this mainly from a good motive, to shew his faith in Christ; but the fault was, that he prescribed the way in which he would have the divine power exerted on his behalf; he prescribed the way in which his faith was to be put to the test, and his love to Christ was to be shewn. The Jews were guilty of a great piece of presumption when they tauntingly asked Jesus to come down from the cross, and they would believe; and the Israelites were guilty of the same sin when they carried the Ark of God, thinking that this would infallibly secure the victory, because God must interpose to rescue his own ark out of the enemy's hand; but God punished their presumption with a signal overthrow the two sons of Eli, who had the custody of it, were slain at its side; the ark itself was taken, and remained in the land of the Philistines for the space of seven months. David exhibited a noble superiority to this feeling during the time of Absalom's rebellion. When they proposed that the ark should follow him, he forbade it, saying, Carry back the ark of God into the city: if I shall find favour of the Lord, he will both shew me it and his habitation. He knew that God could save him without the ark, but the ark could not save him without God; and, at all events, he would not hazard interests so precious to him by any act of hardihood or presumption.

:

Pray, earnestly pray, "Lead us not into temptation," for you know not what may be the consequence of a temptation;

it may produce mischiefs which you cannot recall, but which you will never cease to deplore while life lasts.

But the fact of our praying not to be led into it proves how much it is our duty not to thrust ourselves upon it. Jesus would not venture upon it uncalled for: he was led up into the wilderness.

Young persons sometimes ask, whether they may read such books, or frequent such society, as have a natural tendency to corrupt the mind from the simplicity of scriptural truth and obedience. The answer is, No, unless a very clear call of duty warrants; but such calls of duty are so rare that we may generally answer, no. Shall a person in tender health expose himself to an infected atmosphere? Shall we venture to the very edge of a precipice? Shall we try how much poison our constitution will sustain? Can we hope God will keep us from temptation when we rush into it ourselves?

2. By adopting inconsistent means to attain good and desirable ends.

Our Lord would not do this. Even to obtain bread, he would not turn stones into bread; he would not cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple to substantiate his own Messiahship; and he would not worship Satan to obtain the dominion of all the world.

The temptation here was founded upon the tardy progress of the work for which Christ came into the world; and Satan proposed a method by which the design might be accelerated, and the divine counsels performed: All this will I give thee. How grateful it would have been to the tempter had he been able to arouse a feeling of impatience at the slow progress of his cause-that he had been now thirty years in the world, and nothing had been achieved yet. Above all, had he prompted our Lord to take some hasty and irregular modes of accomplishing that end; but our Lord was proof against any such suggestion; and we shall do well to imitate him in his holy calmness and patience: He that believeth shall not make haste.

Are you in poverty, in obscurity, in straits, in afflictions, beware how you try to emancipate yourself from difficulties by indirect causes. In the advancement of your families, in the difficulties of business, in the counteraction of the petty enmities of others, there are many temptations of this kind. But Abraham would not go out of the path of duty

to save the child of promise; nor David to put a crown upon his brow, when his soldiers begged his permission to assassinate Saul; nor the three children to avoid the fiery furnace : Godliness with contentment is great gain, but they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare. We are to follow those who through faith and patience inherit promises, in their faith and patience.

3. By a perverted view of scripture promises disconnected with scripture precepts. Satan quoted the text in Psalm xci.; he quoted it wrong, quoting the promise but slurring over the duty: "He shall give his angels charge concerning thee" (omitting to keep thee in all thy ways, meaning the ways of prescribed duty and obedience.)

So if one says to you, Come with me into this or that convivial circle, for it is written, He preserveth the souls of his saints," then be sure," says Krummacher, "it is the subtle tempter with whom you have to deal; and answer him, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord; and he that runs presumptuously into danger shall perish in it."

Many texts are half-quoted. "Come now, and let us reason together," is one of these. Quote it how you will, the doctrine is delightful; but its moral force and beauty shine conspicuously in its own connexion: Wash you, make you clean; cease to do evil: come now, and let us, &c. Where the doctrine plainly is, that our application to God for mercy must be accompanied with an instant renunciation of sin.

So the texts connected with the doctrine of election are almost always quoted out of their connexion. They are usually quoted as conveying a balm of consolation to some of the weakest and some of the most wicked of men; whereas, in the epistles, they are invariably quoted as the great bulwarks of practical holiness: For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.

Beware how you separate the promises of grace from the precepts of duty; beware how you expect the enjoyment of salvation at last, without employing the appointed means of maintaining the life and fervour of religion in the soul. It is as true that without holiness no man shall see the Lord as it is that by grace ye are saved.

"Whosoever," says Perkins, "looks for the accomplishment of God's promises to him must be careful to walk