fioning a lying fpirit to put a lie in the mouth of Ahab's prophets; but it is a parabolical representation and prediction, in the oriental stile, given by a true prophet, of the willing deception that Ahab was under by means of his falfe prophets, to whom he liftened; and who would flatter him to his ruin which was accordingly foon accomplished.

In like manner, our Saviour's temptation in the wilderness, or the trial to which he was putin his religious retirement, before he entered upon his most important office, to prepare and fortify him for the discharge of it; is defcribed with the fame eastern imagery, as the fall of our firft parents.

The facred writers mention the holy spirit of God as directing him into this folitude. And though the devil is named in the scenery, there is no ground to fuppofe any fuch being concerned at all. But this beloved fon and fervant of God, being intrusted with fuch mighty godlike powers from him, the temptations that would refult from his new fituation, to abuse his truft, and mislead him from his duty; whether you confider them.

as

as the natural fuggestions of his own pious thoughtful mind, or as purposely presented to it by the holy fpirit, or divine power; these, in the high, figurative, prophetic stile, are perfonified and called the devil, because tending to evil, if not refifted. And attending to the beautiful ftory, as carried on in this view, it is easy to perceive that the different images, arifing in or prefented to our Saviour's mind, were the very trials to which as a frail human creature, he would be exposed in the course of his miniftry, and which would be his bane and deftruction if he did · not guard well against them; namely, the being too much elated by the great powers lent to him, to turn them to selfish purposes (y) of private ease and gratification; of giddy, wanton (%) vanity; or a towering pride

and

(y) Then was Jefus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fafted forty days and forty nights, he was afterwards an hungred. And when the tempter came to him he faid, if thou be the Son of God,

COMMAND THAT THESE STONES BE MADE BREAD.

(z( Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and fetteth him on a wing of the temple; and faith unto him, if thou be the Son of God, CAST THYSELF DOWN: for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, &c.

(a) and ambition; instead of using them, as he did most faithfully, folely for the ends for which they were beftowed, to confirm his divine miffion and doctrine.

It will be no finall confirmation, that Mofes did ufe a difcretion (b) of his own in his

manner

(a) Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and fheweth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them and faith unto him, ALL THESE THINGS

WILL I GIVE THEE, IF THOU WILL FALL DOWN AND

WORSHIP ME, Matth. iv. 1. &c. In like manner as witches, ghofts and apparitions, have all vanifhed, whereever learning has lighted her torch, and men have fought out the works of God, and. difcovered the natural caufes of feemingly extraordinary appearances: fo where the friptures fhall be ftudied with the like freedom and diligence, it will be found, that there is no powerful unknown agent, called the devil or fatan, no poffeffions of men's bodies by inferior demons, but all nature, all beings, happily under the immediate, fole, uncontrouled direction of their infinitely wife and benevolent creator.

(b) Le Clerc has a curious remark on that part of the narrative, Gen. iii. 4, &c. which contains the ferpent's dialogue with the wife, as he would have it rendered, and not woman: viz. that Mofes intended thereby to give a check to the pride of the Ifraelitish ladies, who took too much upon them, I fuppofe, upon their coming out of Egypt. Plurimi certe interpretes, inquit, tentatam volunt, abfente viro,

manner of relating the fin of our first parents, fo as might be moft ferviceable to keep his countrymen, for whom he wrote, in their obedience to the divine law; if it be also true, that he took a latitude of the like kind, for the fame end, by advancing and by inferting his account of a divine command, as given at the fame early period, even before the fall, I mean the institution of the fabbath, though it was not actually inftituted and appointed to be observed, till a very long time afterwards.

The prevailing opinion indeed has been in later times, that the fabbath was inftituted at the beginning of the world, and with a defign to be obferved by Adam and all his pofterity. But many chriftians in

early

Hevam, idque a tentatore data opera factum; quippe quam infidiofo fermone facilius deceptum iri, quam virum, crederet. Ut tamen non aufum inferiorem ingenio Hevam Adamo adfirmare, ita nec fine aliqua caufa, tentationis hanc circumftantiam fcriptis mandatam effe crediderim. Multa funt, in hifce libris, ad mulierum caftigandan fuperbiam comparata, et ex hoc ipfo loco, ad mulierum viris conjunctarum, feu uxorum faftum deprimendum argumentum ducit Paulus Tim. ii. 14.

I

early times and fince, have been of a different fentiment. And fuch eminent judi

cious scholars and exemplary chriftians, as Le Clerc, Beaufobre and L'Enfant, and Mr. Archdeacon Paley in our own times, (c) after them;

(c)" In my opinion, the tranfaction in the wilderness above recited, Exodus xvi, was the first actual inftitution of the fabbath. For, if the fabbath had been inftituted at the time of the creation, as the words in Genefis may seem at first fight to import, and if it had been obferved all along from that time to the departure of the Jews out of Egypt, a period of about two thousand years, it appears unaccountable that no mention of it, no occafion of even the obfcureft allufion to it, fhould occur either in the general hiftory of the world before the call of Abraham, which contains, we admit, only a few memoirs of its early ages, and those extreamly abridged; or, which is more to be wondered at, in that of the lives of the three firft Jewish patriarchs, which, in many parts of the account, is fufficiently circumftantial and domestic. Nor is there in the paffage above quoted from the fixteenth chapter of Exodus, any intimation that the fabbath, then appointed to be obferved, was only a revival of an ancient inftitution, which had been neglected, forgotten, or fufpended; nor is any fuch neglect imputed either to the inhabitants of the old world, or to any part of the family of Noah; nor, lastly, is any permiffion recorded to difpenfe with the inftitution during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt, or on any other public emergency.

The