268 chkist's temptation. [Ser. II.
were any evidences of human frailty, lest the world should be offended, And stumble thereat, he was pleased at the same time to give some notable demonstration of the divine power ; as, on the other side, when holy men are honoured by God, something falleth out to humble them : 2 Cor. xii. 7.
2. Distinctly and apart. Where observe : —
[1.] That he fasted forty days and forty nights ; so did Moses when he received the law : Exod. xxxiv. 28 ; and at the restoring of the law Elias did the like : 1 Kings xix. 8. Now what these two great pro- phets had done, Christ, the great prophet and doctor of the Christian church, did also. For the number of forty days, curiosity may make itself work enough ; but it is dangerous to make conclusions where no certainty appeareth. However this is not amiss, that forty days were the usual time allotted for repentance : as to the Ninevites, Jonah iii. 4 ; so the prophet Ezekiel was to bear the sins of the people for forty days ; and the flood was forty days in coming on the old world : Gen. vii. 17. This was the time given for their repentance, and there- fore for their humiliation ; yet the forty days" fast in Lent is ill-grounded on this example, for this fast of Christ cannot be imitated by us, more than other his miracles.
[2.] At the end of the forty days he was an hungered, sorely assaulted with faintness and hunger, as any other man at any time is for want of meat. God's providence permitted it, that he might be more capable of Satan s temptations ; for Satan fits his temptations to men's present case and condition. When Christ was hungry, he tempteth him to provide bread, in such a way as the tempter doth pre- scribe. He worketh upon what he findeth : when men are full, he tempteth them to be proud, and forget God ; when they are destitute, to distrust God : if he sees men covetous, he fits them with a wedge of gold, as he did Achan ; if discontented, and plotting the destruction of another, he findeth out occasions. AVhen Judas had a mind to sell his Master, he presently sendeth him a chapman. Thus he doth work upon our dispositions, or our condition ; most upon our dispositions, but here only upon Christ's condition. He observeth which way the tree leaneth, and then thrusteth it forward.
Secondly, The temptation itself, verse the third. Where two things are observable : —
I. The intimation of his address, ' And when the tempter came to him.'
II. The proposal of the temptation, ' If thou be the Son of God,' &c.
I. For the address to the temptation, ' And when the tempter came to him,' there two things must be explained : —
1. In what manner the tempter came to Christ.
2. How he is said to come then to him.
[1.] How he came to him. Whether the temptations of Christ are to be understood by way of vision, or historically, as things visibly acted and done ? This latter I incline unto ; and I handle here, because it is said, irpoaeXOwv avrw 6 Treipd^cov, — ' The tempter came to him.' This importeth some local motion and accession of the tempter to Christ, under a visible and external form and shape. As
Mat. IV. 2-4.] Christ's temptation. 2G9
afterwards, when the Lord biddeth liiiu be gone, ' then the devil leaveth him,' ver. 11 ; a retiring of Satan out of his presence, not the ceasing of a vision only. Yea, all along, he ' taketh him,' and ' sets him on a pinnacle of the temple,' and ' taketh him to an high mountain.' All which show some external appearance of Satan, and not a word that intimateth a vision. Neither can it be conceived how any act of adoration could be demanded by Satan of Christ — 'fall down and w^orship me ' — unless the object to be worshipped were set before him in some visible shape. The coming of the angels to Christ when the devil left him, ver. 11, all understand historically, and of some external coming. Why is not the coming and going of the devil thus to be understood also ? And if all had been done in vision, and not by converse, how could Christ be an hungered, or the devil take that occasion to tempt him? How could answers and replies be tossed to and fro, and scriptures alleged ? So that from the whole view of the frame of the text, here was some external con- gress between Christ and the devil. If you think it below Christ, you forget the wonderful condescension of the Son of God ; it is no more unworthy of him than crucifixion, passion, and burial was. It is true, in the writing of the prophets, many things historically related were only done in vision ; but not in the Gospels, which are an history of the life and death of Christ ; where things are plainly set down as they were done. To men the grievousness of Christ's temptations would be much lessened, if we should think it only a piece of fantasy, and imaginary rather than real. And if his temptations be lessened, so will his victory, so will our comfort. In short, such as was Christ's journey into the wilderness, such was his fast, such his temp- tation ; all real. For all are delivered to us in the same style and thread of discourse. Yea, further, if these things had been only in vision and ecstacy, there would have been no danger to Christ in the second temptation, when he was tempted to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple. Surely then he was truly tempted, and not in vision only ; yea, it seemeth not so credible and agreeable to the dignity and holiness of Christ, that Satan should tempt by internal false suggestions, and the immission of species into his fancy or understand- ing ; that Christ should seem to be here and there, when all the while he was in the desert. For either Christ took notice of these false images in his fancy, or not. If not, there is no temptation ; if so, there will be an error in the mind of Christ, that he should think himself to be on the pinnacle of the temple, or top of an high moun- tain, when he was in the desert. It is hard to think these sugges- tions could be made without some error or sin ; but an external sug- gestion maketh the sin to be in the tempter only, not in the person tempted. Our first parents lost not their innocency by the external suggestion, but internal admission of it, dwelling upon it in their minds. To a man void of sin, the tempter hath no way of tempting but externally.