Page:Post-Mediaeval Preachers.djvu/242

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no place for repentance, whilst to Peter, all that was needed was a following of Jesus in His humiliations and sufferings.

III. The weapons wielded by Christ in His temptation, were, pure trust in God, the Word of God, and hatred of the devil.

IV. It is of advantage that when we are tempted, we should recognize the tempter through his disguise. Temptation loses half its power when it is recognized as a temptation. When Christ showed Satan that He knew him, at once Satan took to flight (1 Cor. xi. 14. 2 Cor. ii. 11. 1 John iii. 4.)

V. Christ made no allusion to Satan’s offer, but passed at once to the condition, to show us that we should not suffer his allurements to find the smallest lodgment in our minds.

VI. Christ made use of the words, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, instead of Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, Deut. vi. 13, from which He quoted, to show that in Him we have passed from the bondage of fear to the liberty of love, from the fear of servants to the reverence of children, that we have come to the perfect love of the New Covenant, which casteth out fear of the Old Law.

VII. Christ teaches us that God demands worship and bodily reverence, that reverence of falling down on the knee which Satan asked for himself.