Now, whether our Lord could or could not have done these wonderful deeds,
one thing is plain--that He would not do them; and, therefore, we may
presume that He ought not to have done them. It seems as if He did not
wish to be a wonderful man: but only a perfectly good man, and He would
do nothing to help Himself but what any other man could do. He answered
the evil spirit simply out of Scripture, as any other pious man might
have done. When He was bidden to make the stones into bread, He answers
not as the Eternal Son of God, but simply as a man. "It is written:"--it
is the belief of Moses and the old prophets of my people that man doth
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God:--as much as to say, If I am to be delivered out of this
need, God will deliver me by some means or other, just as He delivers
other men out of their needs. When He was bidden cast Himself from the
temple, and so save Himself, probably from sorrow, poverty, persecution,
and the death on the cross, He answers out of Scripture as any other Jew
would have done.
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