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Untitled Article
Impossib le for him to be deceived , of eyeiiin the least to doubt , con * cernJ ; ncr the true source of them while There might be nothing in the manmr in which the
temptations presented themselves to his mind , to render it certain that they were not the suggestions of lhatwicked spirit who was deemed the ° rcat tempter of mankind , but merely , thoughts occasioned b y the circumstances he was in at
the time , in connection with popular opinions , which it seems extremely difficult to conceive any thing , short of inspiration for the purpose , sufficient to prevent him from imbibing , if we consider the wonder excited among the Jews by his teaching , when they asked
{ John vii . 15 . ) How knoweth this man letters , having never learned ? or , ( according to the translation in the Improved Version , ) How hath this man learning , having never ken taught f But as we may rea .
sonabljy suppose any doctrine or doctrines entering into the system of his religion , and the discovery of future events respecting himself , Ms nation , and the propagation of the Gospel , to have made part & least of the communication
received by him in the wilderness , * do not perceive how he could c ° nfomid a . communication in-« 'udingsuch particulars , with any . workings of his own imagination , or ho \ v he could avoid being tho . roughl y convinced that none but ^« G reat Bei ng , who rules through al 1 nat ure and directs all events , **> the author of such communi .
J % > n . YVhat could make him Jfcy that he should be able to * < piracies , —that he should J j SJ fh suph treatment as he and ( ^ ¦ I WX of his countrymen , 1 ' ^^ som ^ of . his chosen
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On tid Temptation of Christ . — Letter V . 46 f
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friends and attendants , —that he should be put td death by' ' criiMjixion and raised from thK dejicf , — that his religion shotild be pr&L pagated among all natibn ^ - ^ t'hat the wickedness of the Jews sli ^ uld
be punished by . the entire destruction of their metropolis and pofu ty , —What , I ask , could make him fancy , that these and other things which may be m > t unrea - sonably supposed to have constituted part of the communications
he received in the wilderness , that he might have a clear foresight of the labours , dangers , and sufferings he would have to encounter in the faithful and persevering discbarge of the duties of his exalted office , " and of the result of his benevolent undertaking to mankind ;
which things were most if net all of them predicted by him afterwards in the course of his public ministry , would actually taike place ? Gan we conceive thatsucfi things were suggested to his mint }
by pieviously established flnode 9 of thinking , or any existing circumstances at the time , and that he was thereby brought to persuftcfe himself , and afterwards confidently to foretel their happening ?
Could he possibly attribute such suggestions to any other- , cause than the immediate operatroii of the author of nature and the governor of the world upon his mind ? But can it be said thafc
there were any means by whie'li he might be infallibly secured from mistaking the origin of his temptations , and prevented from attributing them to the suggestion of the being who was generally thought the author of all tfre
temptations which besfct mankind ? 3 . Were it admitted ( frttt I must solemnly protest agaifist the acU
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1811, page 467, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2419/page/19/
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