heir sustenance,
so that none of them are pined and consumed away by hunger; but Thou
hast fasted forty days and nights, ever waiting for some relief and
comfort from above, but Thy best provision is hard stones! If Thou dost
glory in thy God, and dost verily believe the promise that is made,
command that these stones be bread. But evident it is that so Thou canst
not do; for if Thou couldst, or if Thy God would have showed Thee any
such pleasure, Thou mightest long ago have removed Thy hunger, and
needest not have endured this languishing for lack of food. But seeing
Thou hast long continued thus, and no provision is made for Thee, it is
vanity longer to believe any such promise, and therefore despair of any
help from God's hand, and provide for Thyself by some other means!"

Many words have I used here, dearly beloved, but I can not express the
thousandth part of the malicious despite which lurked in this one
temptation of Satan. It was a mocking of Christ and of His obedience. It
was a plain denial of God's promise. It was the triumphing voice of him
that appeared to have gotten victory. Oh, how bitter this temptation
was no creature can understand but such as feel the grief of such darts
as Satan casts at the tender conscience of those that gladly would rest
and repose in God, and in the promises of His mercy. But here is to be
noted the ground and foundation. The conclusion of Satan is this: Thou
art none of God's elect, much less His well-beloved Son. His reason is
this: Thou art in trouble and findest no relief. There the foundation of
the temptation was Christ's poverty, and the lack of food without hope
of remedy to be sent from God. And it is the same temptation which the
devil objected to Him by the princes of the priests in His grievous
torments upon the cross; for thus they cried, "If he be the Son of God,
let him come down from the cross and we will believe in him; he trusted
in God, let him deliver him, if he have the pleasure in him." As tho
they would say, God is the deliverer of His servants from troubles; God
never permits those that fear Him to come to confusion; this man we see
in extreme trouble; if He be the Son of God, or even a true worshiper of
His name, He will deliver Him from this calamity. If He deliver Him not,
but suffer Him to perish in these anguishes, then it is an assured sign
that God has rejected Him as a hypocrite, that shall have no portion of
His glory. Thus, I say, Satan takes oc