for a time, it is that when He has poured forth the venom of His malice against God’s elect it may return to His own confusion, and that the deliverance of God’s children may be more to His glory, and the comfort of the afflicted:  knowing that His hand is so powerful, His mercy and good-will so prompt, that He delivers His little ones from their cruel enemy, even as David did his sheep and lambs from the mouth of the lion.  For a little benefit received in extreme danger more moves us than the preservation from ten thousand perils, so that we fall not into them.  And yet to preserve from dangers and perils so that we fall not into them, whether they are of body or spirit, is no less the work of God than to deliver from them; but the weakness of our faith does not perceive it:  this I leave at the present.

Also, to tempt means simply to prove or try without any determinate purpose or profit or damage to ensue; as when the mind doubteth of anything, and therein desires to be satisfied, without great love or extreme hatred of the thing that is tempted or tried.  David tempted; that is, tried himself if he could go in harness. (I Sam. xvii.) And Gideon said, “Let not thine anger kindle against me, if I tempt thee once again.”  So the Queen of Sheba came to tempt Solomon in subtle questions.  This famous queen, not fully trusting the report and fame that was spread of Solomon, by subtle questions desired to prove his wisdom; at the first, neither extremely hating nor fervently loving the person of the king.  And David, as a man not accustomed to harness, would try how he was able to go, and behave and fashion himself therein, before he would hazard battle with Goliath so armed.  And Gideon, not satisfied in his conscience by the first that he received, desired, without contempt or hatred of God, a second time to be certified of his vocation.  In this sense must the apostle be expounded when he commands us to tempt; that is, to try and examine ourselves, if we stand in the faith.  Thus much for the term.

Now to the person tempted, and to the time and place of his temptation.  The person tempted is the only well-beloved Son of God; the time was immediately after His baptism; and the place was the desert or wilderness.  But that we derive advantage from what is related, we must consider the same more profoundly.  That the Son of God was thus tempted gives instructions to us, that temptations, altho they be ever so grievous and fearful, do not separate us from God’s favor and mercy, but rather declare the great graces of God to appertain to us, which makes Satan to rage as a roaring lion; for against none does He so fiercely fight as against those of whose hearts Christ has taken possession.