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polemical divinity-in short, a man that wears armour under his clothes; and above all, an intimacy of acquaintance with the Popish ritual and" liturgy," with the appearance and demeanour of Popish congregations, and with such like Popish concerns, both in England and elsewhere, which we might be able to account for in an avowed Romanist, in a man who had avowedly received a Roman-Catholic education, and lived in Roman-Catholic habits; but which, we must say, in a clergyman of the Church of England, is exceedingly extraordinary and particularly unaccountable.

We must cease to place confidence in the merely official supporters of Protestantism. Some there are, like our author, who vindicate the Romanists, while others seem more or less decidedly opposed to them. But the question is, Will the latter oppose the former? For example, will our Bishops and Archbishops, who voted against emancipation, do any thing against such a production as we now have before us? We question it. But, if not, how far can we depend on them?

In a word, we must regard all views as false or defective, which contemplate the cause of Protestantism in an inferior light than as the cause of God. It is no mere quarrel. It is no party question. The Lord hath a controversy with this realm; and all who do not shew themselves on his side, expose themselves to the consequences of being found against him.

A conflict with Popery, if there be any thing yet left to make head against it (and surely there are some, whose knees have not yet bowed), may soon commence. This conflict will appear more and more in its true character-namely, in that of a conflict of light against darkness; a conflict of those who are on the Lord's side, mustering for the fray against Satan and his hosts; a conflict of religion, girding on her armour, putting the trumpet to her mouth, and lifting high the standard, against ungodliness coming in like a flood. The next great sign of the times, for which we are now watching, and assuredly it will soon appear, is the crimson sword: we mean, the sign of persecution. With respect to the end of the conflict, we feel little doubt. Concerning the horrors of its progress, we own some dark forebodings. Already the two parties are beginning to draw off, for the fray, to their respective sides. Already the hostile armies are beginning to muster: the one large, and increasing; swelled by the accession, and hereafter to be swelled yet more, of trooping columns of apostates: the other small, diminishing, and to all appearance disadvantageously posted; with few resources, except such as are invisible. Soon may new scenes commence ; and with the deepest feeling, more of solemnity than of fear, we wait their issue.

SCRIPTURAL COINCIDENCES.

(Continued from page 294.)

XXIII. THE proper exercise of faith precedes the evidence of the senses. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. We may draw a distinction, in the conduct of the different women who anointed the body of our Lord. There were some who did so after his death. This may have been an act of kindness, of reverence, of affection; but it was no act of faith. There was one woman, however, who anointed the Lord's body for his burial, before his death took place. She believed, then, that he was to die; and that, too, when our Lord's repeated assurances and predictions on this subject seem to have made little or no impression upon any one besides: so that she appears to have been the only individual amongst those about him, who had any distinct idea of his death before it took place. It would be well if, for the reproving and quickening of our own faith, we would contemplate this occurrence. The Lord attached much importance to her act: declared that it should be spoken of wherever his GOSPEL should be preached; intimating, as it were, that the religious system, however specious, that overlooked such an extraordinary circumstance, would not have much of the GOSPEL in it, after all. Moreover, he himself said expressly, "In that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial." Here then we have faith; and Evangelical faith, Gospel faith; for it was a faith that looked to the death of Christ. The women who anointed our Lord's body, after his death had taken place according to his predictions, do not appear to have believed in his resurrection even then. But she who anointed him while yet living, and sitting in the house of Simon the leper, made, by this act, a public declaration of her belief. And the care with which she had kept the ointment for the occasion, or treasured up the cost of it, shewed how that precious word of the Lord, neglected by all the rest,-that he was to die for our sins, that he was "to give his life a ransom for many,”—had been treasured up in her heart: while her breaking the box shews how those who have a particular belief in that word, the word of life by the death of Christ, are made willing to give for his cause-reserving nothing.

XXIV. After our Lord's temptation in the wilderness, the devil “departed from him for a season." The time of our Lord's final trial, at his crucifixion, seems to have been that of Satan's return, to renew his assaults: for, as that time approached, we find our Lord saying, " the prince of this world cometh;" as if the enemy, who had departed before, now came again. Thus

our Lord, in fact, experienced two grand temptations; one at the beginning of his public ministry on earth, the other at its close and many remarkable coincidences may be observed in them; so that the latter, though more aggravated, corresponds in various particulars to the former.

In both instances, our Lord's Divinity was questioned: 66 If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread;" "If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. "In both instances, however, his Divinity, soon after being questioned, was publicly proclaimed soon after Satan questioned it, by the devils who cried out, saying, "Thou art Christ the Son of God;" soon after the Jews questioned it, by a Gentile, exclaiming, "Truly this was the Son of God."Nay, the Eternal Father bare testimony himself to his Eternal Son, just before his first temptation, and just after his second: for at our Lord's baptism, "lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son ;" and after his crucifixion, he was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." (Rom.

i. 4.)

In the first temptation, the devil took up our Lord into an exceeding high mountain, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple. In the second, our Lord was lifted up upon the cross, on the hill of Calvary.

The Lord was tempted to an undue act of compliance, by descending, in each instance: from the cross; "If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross:" from the pinnacle; "If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down:" upon the mountain; "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me."

Jerusalem is styled "the holy city," when Satan was there tempting our Lord. (Matt. iv. 5.) It is also styled "the holy city," just after our Lord had there been crucified. (Matt. xxvii. 53.)

Before the first temptation, Baptism; before the second, the Lord's Supper.

Led up into the wilderness for his first conflict, he went up to Jerusalem for his second. (Matt. iv. 1; xx. 18.)

Before his temptation in the wilderness, Jesus received the Holy Spirit for his own ministry, descending in a bodily and visible form, like a dove," and it abode upon him." After his crucifixion, he received spiritual gifts for men: and sent down the Holy Ghost upon his followers, under the semblance of wind, of fire, of cloven tongues, and it sat upon each of them "

At the first trial, our Lord was forty days in the wilderness. After the second, he abode forty days in the wilderness of this world, ere he ascended to the right hand of the Father.

It was in vain for Satan to tempt our Lord: for just before, while others, who came to John, "were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins," Jesus "was baptized,” and “straightway" came up out of the water, having no sins to confess.-So also after our Lord's death. Others, once dead, must expect to lie in their graves till the last trump shall call them forth, at the morning of the resurrection. But upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, when the Lord had lain in the tomb at the utmost not much more than six-and-thirty hours, the women who came to the sepulchre found the stone rolled away, but his body they found not. The Lord Jesus was already risen. He had loosed the bonds of death sin had no claim upon him; and it was not possible that he should be holden of them. As he came forth from Jordan, so came he forth from the tomb.

Upon our Lord's temptation in the wilderness, "behold, angels came and ministered unto him." During his conflict at Gethsemane," there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him."

In the wilderness, he "was with the wild beasts." At the time of his death, "he was numbered with the transgressors; and surrounded and assailed with brutal violence by his persecutors, whose gathering about him and afterwards watching him upon the cross is compared by the Prophet in the twenty-second Psalm, where he speaks beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, to that of wild and savage animals : Many bulls have compassed me; strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.....For dogs have compassed me.....They look and stare upon me......Save me from the lion's mouth; for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns."

66

In the wilderness, Jesus was an hungred. Upon the cross, he said "I thirst."

In the wilderness, he solemnly replies to Satan from the word of God. Before his enemies on the day of his crucifixion, he answers them with equal solemnity.

Satan tries every mode of tempting our Lord, but has nothing in him, and Jesus comes out of the conflict perfectly clear, having yielded to the threefold temptation in no one point. So Pilate declares, “I find in him no fault at all;" and the penitent thief, "This man hath done nothing amiss;" and the centurion, "Certainly this was a righteous man."

In the wilderness our Lord was alone, not having yet called his disciples. In the hands of his enemies at Jerusalem he was left alone, for "then all the disciples forsook him and fled."

The Lord would not perform a miracle to supply his wants in the wilderness, when Satan invited and even challenged him to do so. Nor would he perform a miracle for his own deliverance upon mount Calvary, when the soldiers said, "If thou be the King of the Jews, save thyself."

The Lord submitted to be completely under the direction of Satan, as to external circumstances, in the wilderness; so as to be carried and taken up, to the holy city, to the pinnacle of the temple, to the high mountain. Thus did he also submit to be completely in the hands of his enemies and persecutors, at Jerusalem; so as to be hurried and led about from the Garden of Gethsemane to Annas, from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, from Herod to Pilate again, from the presence of Pilate to the Common Hall of the soldiery, and at last to Calvary.

The great difference, then, between these two conflicts of our Lord, as far as Satan is concerned, consists in this: that in the first, Satan was present and acted, in his own person; in the second, having other agents, and, it may be, fearing, if he had the choice, to renew the conflict in the same way as before, he acted in and through them.-Suppose we had only the account of our Lord's last trial, and none of the temptation in the wilderness; should we then discover, from the scriptural account of our Lord's sufferings and death, taken alone, that Satan was here so actively engaged? Yet, by comparing the two accounts, we see plainly that this was the case. Hence, then, let us learn to detect Satan, where we do not see him. No doubt the wicked are often employed by him against the people of the Lord, where he has no other means of assault: to tempt, if possible; if not, to torment and afflict them.

Since also, in our Lord's second trial, at the close of his ministry, we see so much that corresponds with the first, only presented in a different shape, we learn to suspect, that the whole of Satan's powers of assaulting us lie, after all, within certain limits: and that when he has tried all his means within those limits, he has nothing left but to add every aggravation in his power, and to try them again. Unhappily, temptations often tried, with us as often succeed and as Satan returned a second time, though foiled at first, to assail our Lord, we may well expect that he will return to assail us, again and again. But "blessed is the man that endureth temptation:" and, looking to the Lord, we may hope assuredly to conquer, through the example of his

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