There is one occasion where our Lord is urged to act in violation of this principle. The sons of Zebedee ask whether they may not call down fire from Heaven on those who would not receive them. “But He turned and rebuked them.”(66) Again, if He had come down from the cross when challenged to do so, this principle would have been broken through. Those who said “He saved others, Himself He cannot save,”(67) uttered a truth deeper than they dreamed of: it was of the very essence of His mission that He should not use His powers for Himself. In connexion with this it may be noted that when St Peter is delivered from the prison,(68) and St Paul and Silas at Philippi, these deliverances are represented, not as being worked _by_ St Peter or St Paul, but as being worked _for_ them by the Divine power, without any doing of theirs. The Temptation on the Pinnacle of the Temple. When the temptation to employ open force was repelled, a more insidious one came in its stead. It was to use moral compulsion, and, by the public display of a resistless manifestation, to make doubt and opposition disappear. Our Lord, as I believe, clothes this suggestion in imagery suited to His hearers: He represents Himself as borne to the pinnacle of the Temple and bidden to cast Himself down. Of this pinnacle an account is given by Dr Edersheim: he considers it to have overlooked the Court of the Priests. The following extracts are from his account:— “In the next temptation Jesus stands on the watch-post which the white-robed priest has just quitted. In the Priests’ Court below Him the morning sacrifice has been offered.... Now let Him descend, Heaven-borne, into the midst of priests and people. What shouts of acclamation would greet His appearance! What homage of worship would be His!”(69) This pinnacle, supposing my view to be correct, would offer a fitting scene for the story of this trial, not only as being a giddy height, but because also the spot was a public one, and a crowd of spectators would witness the display. If our Lord had only been tempted to assure Himself of His power by a miracle of adventurous rashness, any precipice would have served as well. The essential force of the temptation lay in the suggestion to prostrate men’s minds, and to subjugate their wills, by performing before their eyes an appalling act, the superhuman nature of which could not possibly be gainsaid.