roots of a large tree, with a glory around his head, while three little quadrupeds, of a most questionable physiognomy, though they may be designed for hares and other field creatures, are playing by his feet. Then we have before us two figures, one of the Saviour still with the raying glory, the other of the Arch-tempter, whose form is covered with a long robe, while his horns and hoofs, and two stones which he is proffering to Jesus, leave nothing to be imagined which the skill of the engraver could supply. Next, the Saviour is seen standing upon the topmost height of the temple, from which he appears to have just pushed off the Adversary, who, happily for himself, though unhappily for us, if he would otherwise have perished by the fall, is supplied with a good pair of wings. In the third temptation, the two figures are again seen standing upon the table summit of a mountain, while Satan, looking like an erect bear with long ears, is pointing out the prospect to the holy being whom he sought to beguile. Finally, the Saviour, no longer haunted by that foul shape, is pictured as seated at a table, while four kneeling angels are proffering him the viands with which it is spread.

The question of an intelligent child, on viewing these engravings, would doubtless be, whether the hideous and hateful form and presence of the Tempter would not be likely so to disgust the holy eye that was looking upon him, as to defeat the very object of his coming. Most probably this would have been the case. The engraver ought at least to have availed himself of the Scripture assertion, that "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light," and so have given him an outward seeming which would have helped his alluring speeches to one on whom all his arts were needed. At any rate, if the child does not ask the question just stated, we do: and we apprehend that Dr. Stearns also has asked it of himself. He alludes to what some regard as the absurd and shocking suppositions, that Christ was led about from place to place by Satan in bodily form, and followed that diabolical guidance, or was carried through the air by the Tempter, and he asks the very pertinent but most unorthodox question, "What reason is there for supposing a bodily presence?" We might answer the writer, that there is the same reason for supposing the

bodily presence of such a tempter, as there is for accepting the doctrine of his actual personal existence; namely, the positive assertion of Scripture, when taken in the letter. In that personal existence Dr. Stearns believes, but in that visible bodily presence he does not believe, and we are at a loss to discern any good reason for this discrimination in the exercise of his faith. Does not this instance illustrate the fact, that it is not Unitarian critics alone who avail themselves of a recourse to the license of figurative language, to meet some of the verbal difficulties of Scripture? The charge has been reiterated against us, that we explain away what we do not choose to receive. But where all classes of interpreters do this under the cover of figurative language, it would seem as if the critical canon were established, while the only question left open is as to its right application in any partic ular case. Now there are no more positive words used in the Bible, expressive of the actual personal existence of Satan, than are used to signify his actual, visible, bodily appearance to the Saviour. It is said that the Devil" came to Jesus"; that "he said" several distinct things to him; that "he taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple"; that "he taketh him up into" a mountain, "and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world," &c., and made him a very positive offer on a condition; and, finally, it is said that he "leaveth" Jesus "for a season." But how is it that all these verbs of speech, action, and motion lose their literal signification in this instance, and become merely figurative, while the little verb of existence, which states in some of its tenses the personality of a spirit of wickedness, must be religiously held to for the letter of what it asserts? Let the excellent divine whose views we are commenting upon reply.

Again, speaking of the nature of the Saviour's fasting, Dr. Stearns says: "The fast of forty days may have been more or less rigid. Fasting implies sometimes partial, and sometimes total abstinence. When Luke says, that 'in those days he did eat nothing,' he may mean that he had no regular supplies, that he subsisted only on the roots and wild fruits which he found in the desert." We accord in the supposition. But by what rule of criticism does Dr. Stearns define nothing as

meaning "roots and wild fruits"? There is a rule, we know, to justify him, but we submit that he applies that rule arbitrarily in his own case, and denies the privilege of it to others.

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"The Spirit of God," says our writer, "led the Son of God into temptation," as it was "a part of God's plan that his Son should come into conflict with the Prince of evil, and get the mastery of him." As to the question, how a perfectly holy being could possibly be tempted, Dr. Stearns argues, "We have only to remember that our Saviour, though divine, was perfectly human." We do indeed remember that this assertion has been often made; but to us it cannot convey any intelligible idea, or be any thing short of a downright absurdity and impossibility. Jesus is presented to us as one being, with a nature and with endowments bestowed upon him by the God whom he called "his Father and our Father, his God and our God." Trinitarians affirm, that besides this nature he had another, as one of the Trinity in the Godhead, and that he interchanged from hour to hour, and in the course of one strain of teaching, these two characters of his, not informing his hearers when he made the transition, and thus introducing inextricable confusion into all our conceptions of him. This alleged duplication of natures and characters may find a parallel in some points in supposing a case thus. There are business men around us who pursue some of their enterprises in their individual capacity, on private capital, taking their own risks, meeting their private losses, and enjoying their private gains, while at the same time. such men may be partners in a firm of three persons, in another branch of business, in which they have embarked another portion of their capital, subject to other contingencies. A man may certainly have such private business as an individual, and such partnership business as a member of a firm: there is no doubt about that. But suppose we were to say, that what such a man gains or loses as a member of a firm is no loss or gain to him as an individual; - or further, suppose we say that such a man is shrewd, or sharp, or liberal, or honest, as one of three, but reckless or dishonest as a business man by himself. Should we not introduce a strange confusion into the elements of his individuality? Such confusion there

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appears to us to be in asserting that Jesus as a human being could be ignorant of what he knew as one of the Trinity, or could be subjected to temptation in one capacity and not in the other.

Trinitarians profess to find relief from this perplexity by calling it a mystery. It is indeed a mystery, or rather a mystification, but it is one wholly of their own contriv ing. Peter's direct assertion concerning Jesus, that he was "a man approved of God by signs and wonders which God did through him," — that is, that he was a being in human form miraculously endowed by the Almighty, covers and explains satisfactorily every line and word that refers to Jesus, from the beginning to the end of the Bible.

Then as to the personal existence of a Devil Dr. Stearns says, "This individual, a mighty, mysterious, fallen intelligence, not, however, omniscient nor omnipotent, the head of a great organized opposition to God, the Arch-foe of man and the Prince of evil, is the agent by whom Jesus is tempted." To the suggestion, that some have regarded the narrative as "representing a conflict on the part of Christ with impersonal evil," the writer replies, "There is hardly more reason for supposing that what is here called the Devil is impersonal, than to suppose that what is here called Jesus is impersonal. The principle of interpretation which would remove the evil agent, as an agent, from the record, would remove our Saviour himself from the record, as an agent." It is strange that such a cultivated mind should mystify its own clear conceptions and turn upon its own assertions. May we not say to Dr. Stearns, in rigid conformity with what we have just quoted from him, that the same process which rids the scene from the bodily presence of the Devil, rids it also of the bodily presence of Jesus? By what an amazing inconsistency does the critic deny that bodily presence, and yet affirm a personal presence!

Of course, though without the slighest shadow of reason, (considering his own mode of dealing with the letter of the narrative,) Dr. Stearns rejects Farmer's explanation of the account, as exhibiting the conflict of the Saviour in retirement, at the opening of his ministry, with the three leading temptations which would address him in its course. He says, "On exegetical grounds, we can

no more explain away the reality of the Temptation, than we can explain away the reality of the Saviour's baptism, his agony in the garden, or even his crucifixion." True. But what constituted that reality of the temptation? It was just as real in Farmer's view of it as in that of Dr. Stearns.

"The Prince of evil," he says, "is a spirit," and he came as a spirit to Christ, concealing his true character because his hope of success depended on such concealment. What follows partakes of the confusion of which we have already made mention.

"But supposing only a spiritual presence [of the Devil], it is said the Saviour must have known, at once, both the Tempter and his designs, and have refused all converse with him. But this proceeds on the supposition that Jesus, as a man, knew all things, a sentiment which the Scripture expressly contradicts. That he was Divine as well as human, and that, when he called his Divine nature into exercise, he was omniscient by the power of it, no orthodox Christian will deny. But that he was also human, and that, as such, his faculties were subject to human limitations, every reader of the New Testament confesses." The writer affirms, in proof of this astonishing statement, that Jesus was at the crucifixion "bereft for a time of all consciousness of God's presence." This construction is put upon the repetition by the Saviour of the first words of a Psalm which goes on to express the sublimest trust in God, and, instead of uttering fixed despair, assures the Saviour's own confidence that his Father would have answered his prayer had he asked for "twelve legions of angels."

"The suggestions of the Tempter" are explained in the same way by Dr. Stearns as by Farmer, allowing for the idea of the former that Satan was spiritually, though not bodily or visibly, present. The temptation to supply his hunger by the use of his miraculous powers was at once repelled. Dr. Stearns supposes that the Saviour then went from the desert to Jerusalem, and actually mounted a pinnacle of the temple, while he was tempted to make a marvellous display of his power by leaping down unharmed. This concession, again, is made for the sake of an adherence to the strict letter of the narrative. But even here the writer fails to honor the