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    giiial one of Christ hwnoself- The reason alleged for this supposed liberty having -been taken with our liord ' s own representation of the cause and . nature of his tri & ls

    in the wilderness ^ is that the person who took it was apprehend ^ ive , that if he represented in plain and naked fomgu & ge such things as he was about to relate concerning Jesus they might

    appear to the precipitate ^ and to any who werenot well-disposed towards hirrij to be u bhmish on his character * and not to consist well with

    the appellation of Holyokeof God . But what probability can there be , that the evangelist , or first recorder of the temptation , should feel an apprehension which Oiir L 6 i * d himself cbtild not have

    felt when he thotight proper to disclose the working ^ of his mind in the wilderness , the knowledge of which it was in his power to have confined to his oavji bosom feftd we have not the least

    intimation of his prohibiting me individual or individuals , to whom he communicated it , from ithparting it to others ) if he had apprehended that the disclosure might prove

    injurious to his reputation ! Beside the great improbability , that any disciple of Jesus should have pr ^ S um ^ d id give aja almost totally different aspect to the representation he Had iteeeived of what

    befel his revered master m the wildefines , where can we find the shadow df a , proof , that an

    evangelist of any other discijple a who might ftiake the first record of the temptation , did ri & Uy % through either design or ittiad viei tence vdt & P what lie had beett told aboiil

    it , in so ^ xtraorditiary a manner ? I must own 1 | i ^ ftiund none I must , tfaeretbt ^ ^ he & leave to

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    declare my want of ibbre cogent reasons than 1 have hitherto met with , for questioning the truth of either of the above-mentioned pro-. — _ —r — .- __ _ — — — __ . _ - ^ . ^ _^ ^^ j —w

    ^^ positit > ns ^ and for Hot considering the evangelical narratives as pre- * senting us with a faithful and uiw equivocal view of what our Lord really believed concerning the

    existence and agency of the being said to have been his tempter—^ a view intended to be Regarded as free from idiom or figure .. I would here observe farther , that Mr . C . seems to have laboured under

    another mistake in supposing the trials particularized in the gospeU to have happened at times * and places at considerable distances from one another . On this head

    Mr . Farmer appears to me to have been right , who makes them to have occurred at one and the same place , and within the limits of the fortieth day of our Lord ' s retirement in the desert . See the

    Inquiry , p . 82 , note p , and the passages there referred to . The note is worthy of attention . He there observes from Mat , iv . 2 , 3

    and Luke iv . 2 , 3 , that the ' temp ** tatious recorded by those evangelists must have been proposed to Christ , not after the forty days were expired , and at three

    different times , as some without any manner of reason have supposed , but after the commencement of the fortieth day , and yet before the expiration . of it . But iiiso short a time f ( he justly asks , uU

    ludmg ^ to tjhe vulgar hypothesis * and with obviously equal propri ^ ety , " the same question , may be pijt \ yith reference to the times anci situations ,, j ^ viy & ich Mr * C

    imagined the three trial © happened ) ri J ^ ow w ^ it possible , lhat Christ should hold a conversation with

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    On the Temptationof Christ . —Letter IV * 641

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1810, page 641, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1708/page/21/