of Samaria-that he could be none other than the promised Messiah, the Son of God, and the King of Israel. Our Lord's remark of him, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!" greatly favours this opinion; the unostentatious piety of Nathaniel affording a contrast to those who loved to pray "standing in the streets, that they might be seen. of men." As also his reply, "Thou shalt see greater things than these:" evidently implying that this bore some pretensions to a miracle greater than which he should witness hereafter.

He loveth transgression that loveth strife: and he that exalteth his gate, seeketh destruction. Prov. xvii. 19. "In various parts of the East, they are obliged to have the doors of their houses very low, not more than three feet high, to prevent the Arabs, who scarcely ever dismount, from riding into their courts and houses, and spoiling their goods. He, then, who, through pride or ostentation, made a high gate, sought his own destruction."-Harmer.

There were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. St. Luke xiii. 1.

"It is uncertain to what event our Lord refers; but it is probable they were the followers of Judas Gaulonitis, who opposed paying tribute to Cæsar and submitting to the Roman government. A party of them coming to Jerusalem during one of the great festivals, and presenting their oblations in the court of the temple, Pilate treacherously sent a company of soldiers who slew them, and mingled their blood with their sacrifices.""-Josephus' Antiq.

Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. Psalm ciii. 5.

"Of all birds it is known that they have their yearly moulting times, when they shed their old, and are afresh furnished with a new stock of feathers. This is most observable of hawks and vultures, and especially of eagles,' which, when they are near an hundred years' old, cast their feathers, and become bald, and like young ones, and then new feathers sprout forth.

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"As God restoreth a body, emaciated by sickness, to bloom, vigour, and agility; so he satisfieth all the desires of the soul with a banquet of spiritual dainties, and bestoweth on her a relish for the same. By the renovating power of his Spirit, he restoreth her from decrepitude, to the health and strength of a young 'eagle,' so that she can ascend up on high, and contemplate the splendour of the Sun of Righteousness. Thus, at the day of the resurrection, clothed anew with salvation and glory, the body likewise shall arise from earth, and fly away as an eagle' toward heaven, to begin an immortal life, and be for ever young."Bp. Horne.

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For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. Matt. xxiv. 28.

The word carcase here is emblematical of the Jewish nation which was morally and judicially deadabout to fall a prey to the Roman armies, who were called eagles, partly from their military ensigns, which were gold or silver eagles, and partly from their strength and fierceness. The prophet Habakkuk makes a similar comparison of the Chaldean

cavalry," they shall fly away, as the eagle hasteth to eat" (Hab. i. 8).

Immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. Matt. xxiv. 29.

"It being here foretold that this should happen immediately after the wasting of the Jews, by Vespasian's army flying quickly through Galilee, Idumea, and Judea, this cannot be taken literally; because no such thing then happened either to the sun, moon, or stars. It must be, therefore, a metaphorical expression; and some have supposed it to signify, as it does frequently in the Old Testament and other writers, an utter desolation and terrible destruction brought upon a nation and upon their capital eities, compared to the sun and moon. In this language the prophet Isaiah speaks of the destruction of Babylon (Is. xiii. 9, 10). The indignation of God against the Idumean's is represented in like dreadful words (Is. xxxiv. 3, 4). So is the destruction of Egypt (Ezek. xxxii. 7). And in these words this very destruction is foretold by Joel ii. 31, iii, 15; The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall not yield their light.' This, therefore, says Maimonides, is a proverbial expression, importing the destruction and utter ruin of a nation. Bishop Warburton tells us, that in ancient hieroglyphic writing, the sun, moon, and stars, were used to represent states and empires, kings, queens, and nobility; their eclipse denoted temporary disasters, and their extinction entire overthrow. So the prophets, in like manner, call kings and empires

by the names of the heavenly luminaries. Stars falling from the firmament are employed to denote the destruction of the nobility and other great men; insomuch that in reality the prophetic style seems to be a speaking hieroglyphic."

THE TEMPTATION OF OUR SAVIOUR. IMMEDIATELY after the baptism of our blessed Lord, when he was acknowledged by a voice from heaven to be the Son of God, being full of the Holy Ghost, (Luke iv. 1) he was led up (from the low grounds of the Jordan) to be tempted of the devil; or as St. Mark expresses it, τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτὸν ἕκβαλλει, he was moved by the Holy Ghost to retire into the wilderness.

Of the great and good ends why the Holy Spirit should thus move our Lord to repair into the wilderness for this purpose, one, doubtless, was to teach us that when we have consecrated ourselves by baptism to God's service, we must expect temptations: and also to teach us, in our Lord's example, how we may best and most effectually resist them, even by an unshaken faith, (1 Pet. v. 9) and by the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God (Eph. vi. 17).

As to the scene of the temptation: that some particular wilderness is meant, is evident from the reading eis Tv pnuov (into the wilderness); but what wilderness it was seems to admit of doubt. Some imagine that the phrase must suggest to the mind of the reader the great desert of Arabia, in which the Israelites wandered so many years, and in which mount Sinai is situated; and this will appear the more probable

when, in reading of a miraculous fast of forty days, we recollect a similar fast of Moses and Elias on Mount Sinai, or in the way to that mountain. The people of Palestine, however, shew the wilderness in which Jesus is supposed to have been tempted, and from the forty days, it has acquired the name of Quarantania. It is an extremely rugged and wild ridge of mountains, to the north of the road which leads from Jerusalem, by the Mount of Olives, to Jericho. It was the scene of the parable of the good Samaritan. But Michaelis thinks this can hardly be the desert of temptation; as he supposes no writer would call this merely the desert, without a more particular description; and no man there could be in danger of perishing with hunger; for in whatever part of the desert he might happen to be, he need travel only for a few hours to reach a place where provisions might be had. Nor would our Saviour have been here altogether in solitude; nor, as St. Mark says (i. 13), among wild beasts; but among men-possibly, robbers, who then infested this desert, and made it dangerous to travel from Jerusalem to Jericho.

Lightfoot answers these opinions by saying, that if the correspondency of the fasts of Moses and Elias with this of Christ may be argued from, we may also argue for the wilderness of Judea, from the sore trials of David under the persecution of his enemies, &c. (1 Sam. xvii. 34, xxiii. 14, 19, 24, xxiv. 1.) Again, mention being made of the wilderness of Judea just before (Matt. iii. 2, 3), and a wilderness being here spoken of without any further mention what wilderness it was, none can be so properly understood as