Whoever wrote this account of Christ's temptation, as if it was not foolish enough, has added, that after the Devil had withdrawn from making Jesus such tempting offers to enlist into his service, angels came and ministered unto him. What the nature of the service was, which they performed, we know not; but one would suppose their first inquiry ought to have been, whether he did not wish to have his dinner as soon as possible? The whole of this account is so contemptible, that I shall not give it any further attention.
If we contrast the submissive conduct and humble deportment of Jesus, when in conversation with the Devil, with his manner and intercourse with the rulers and priests of his own nation, he appears, in reference to the latter, whom we should expect he would have treated with that respectable language due to their standing in society, and consistent with his dignity as the Messenger of Peace, to great disadvantage as a divine teacher: for it must be ever borne in mind, that Jesus must be considered, according to his own account, superior to all that ever came before him, and to the imperfections found in men in common, and even in the prophets of old, so that he must so conduct himself that his sayings and doings must be capable of standing the most rigid moral scrutiny. But, instead of his appealing to the Jewish rulers in the most courteous manner--instead of his plainly stating who he was, and the vast importance of his coming on earth, he begins by upbraiding them in a way calculated to disgust them, and thereby frustrate the object of his mission. He calls them "a generation of vipers" and asks them "how they can think to escape the damnation of hell?"
Although the chief priest and rulers were over-anxious in their inquiries as to whom he was, and by what authority he so openly condemned others, he treated them as unworthy of a civil reply; for, let the moral conduct of the Jewish priests and rulers be what it might, admitting it was very bad, nothing could justify him in the use of insult and the most violent vituperations. What kind of reception would an ambassador meet with in England, should he, before his' mission was fully understood by that Court, abuse the rulers of that kingdom, and at the same time associate with a few obscure individuals as witnesses of such abuse? Would he be considered a fit person to represent the authorities who sent him? for, never let us forget, that of all the missions sent by one nation to another nation for the settlement of any difficulties that might exist between them, none ever was of such importance as the one which Jesus was to present to "_the lost sheep of the house of Israel_." Let us also bear in mind, that the rulers among the Jews made every inquiry as to whom he was, and the purport of his coming. Yes, every effort on the part of the Jews was made to draw out of him from whence he derived his authority: but his answers were any thing but to the point, for, he said on one occasion, "_An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas,_" and that was no answer at all.