questions. Two remarkable things are told us here; one was, his reply to his mother's anxious question, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." Upon which he said, "How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" And yet it is added that "he went down with them, and was subject unto them."

I cannot help staying to remark what a beautiful union we here see between duty to God and duty to parents. The first has a paramount claim upon us, and must be first attended to as the ruling principle of life; but in childhood God deputes his authority, in part, to the parents; and what is the child's duty to its parents will generally be found to be its highest duty towards God.

CHAPTER XVII.

OUR LORD'S MINISTRY.

THE first circumstance that is recorded when our Lord was commencing his public life, was his visit to the scene of John's baptism, and his request that he also should be baptized. John at first protested against our Lord's coming to him for baptism; but he at length complied with his wish; and the reason assigned by Christ was, "For so it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." He intended thereby to set us an example of perfect obedience to the requirements of God's law, though there might be many things, as in our sacraments, which to man's natural sense might not seem useful or needful. When the baptism was ended, the heavens opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in the form of a dove, and a voice was heard from heaven, saying, "This is my

beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." I have already quoted to you the Baptist's voluntary testimony, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah.

After this we are told that "Jesus was led up of the spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil." It appears that our Lord was permitted to be tempted by Satan, in order that his victory over sin, and over Satan, the author of sin, might be shown to be complete, and that he might pass through temptation as Adam did, and yet be free from sin. The three temptations presented to our Lord were remarkable as being types of all our temptations. The first one appealed to the ordinary appetite of man, which, when not inordinately indulged in, is not sinful, but may become so, when its gratification is not in harmony with what God has laid down. The natural spirit within us, which is appealed to by this temptation, is called in Scripture "the lust of the flesh." Our Lord had already fasted forty days and nights; and when, as was natural, he was hungry, the first temptation was thus presented to him: "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made

bread." There were here two temptations: one was, that our Lord should at the wish of Satan prove his Divinity by a miracle; but the second and more prominent one was, that he should mistrust the providence of God, and work a miracle to preserve his life, instead of depending upon God to prolong that life by the ordinary means. To this our Lord replied, "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." By this he meant, that though it is the ordinary course that man shall be fed by common food, yet, if it be God's will that he be otherwise sustained, he must not mistrust God if he should find his ordinary supply fail; but must confidently leave the mode of supply to the will of his Heavenly Father, whether it be by ordinary or extraordinary means.

The passage that our Lord here quoted is taken from Deuteronomy; and it is well worth notice, that our Lord took all his answers to the temptations from one chapter of an historical book, showing us what a mine of wealth there is, even in a book of that kind, for the instruction of the Christian. And by prefacing

his answers with the words, "It is written," he plainly teaches us that Scripture furnishes an authoritative answer to every temptation. It is enough that God has said it; we must simply obey his commands, and trust his promises. And in thus warding off the attacks of Satan, our Saviour justified St. Paul's description of the armour of God in Scripture, and of our employing the word of God as the sword of the Spirit, and the shield of faith, whereby the Christian may quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.

The second temptation appears to have been framed exactly from our Lord's reply to the first; for seeing that it implied a perfect trust in God's providential care, the Tempter endeavoured to make that very reliance a cause of sin, by encouraging presumption, that is, by inducing him to go into danger, when not called upon by the providence of God. Satan placed our Lord upon a pinnacle of the temple, and bade him cast himself down, and try whether God would protect him under all circumstances with that same care in which he had so implicitly believed. And as a ground of the expectation that God would do so, Satan