forth thy hand upon his person." [1] Nay, so restricted is the power of the devil, that he could not even enter into the swine mentioned in the Gospel, without the permission of God. [2]
To understand the force of this petition, it is necessary to show the meaning of the word " temptation," as here employed, and also, what it is to be led into temptation. To tempt is to sound, to probe, him who is tempted, that, eliciting from him what we desire, we may extract the truth. In this meaning of the word, God does not tempt; for what is it that is unknown to God? " All things are naked and open to his eyes." [3] Another species of temptation consists in pushing our scrutiny far, having some further object in view, either for a good or a bad purpose; for a good purpose, as when worth is tried, in order that it may be rewarded and honoured, and its example proposed as a model for imitation, and as a motive to give glory to God. This is the only sort of temptation which consists with the divine attributes, and of it we have an illustration in these words of Deuteronomy: " The Lord your God tries you, that it may appear whether you love him or not." [4] In this sense, God is also said to tempt those who are his, when he visits them with want and infirmity and other calamities, with a view to try their patience, and in them to present to others an example of Christian virtue. Thus was Abraham tempted to offer his son in sacrifice, [5] and became a singular example of obedience and patience, worthy of being preserved in the records of all future ages; thus also Tobias, of whom it is written, " Because thou wast acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove thee." [6]
Man is tempted for a bad purpose, when impelled to sin or destruction. This is the peculiar province of the devil; he tempts mankind, to deceive and precipitate them into ruin; and is, therefore, called, in Scripture, " the tempter." [7] In these temptations, at one time stimulating us from within, he makes use of the agency of the passions; at another time, assailing us from without, he makes use of depraved men as his emissaries; and employs, with a fatal efficiency, the services particularly of heretics, who, " sitting in the chair of pestilence," [8] which, instead of being the chair of truth, is converted into that of error, scatter, with profuse hand, the deadly seeds of false doctrine, unsettling and precipitating into the gulf of perdition their deluded adherents, who draw no line of distinction between vice and virtue, and who are of themselves but too much inclined to evil.
We are said to be led into temptation, when we yield to its wicked suggestions. This takes place in a two-fold manner: first, when, abandoning our position, we rush into the evil to which we are allured by the agency of others. God tempts no man thus: he is the occasion of sin to none; " he hateth all
