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Title: The Warfare of the Soul
Practical Studies in the Life of Temptation
Author: Shirley C. Hughson
Release Date: July 18, 2010 [EBook #33194]
Language: English
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THE WARFARE OF THE SOUL
_PRACTICAL STUDIES IN THE LIFE OF TEMPTATION_
BY
SHIRLEY C. HUGHSON
PRIEST OF THE ORDER OF THE HOLY CROSS
WITH A PREFACE BY
THE REV. ALFRED G. MORTIMER, D.D.
_Rector of St. Mark's, Philadelphia_
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1910
_Copyright_, 1910, _by_
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND Co.
_The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A._
{v}
PREFACE
If we desired to describe our life here in one word, that word might be
_Temptation_. From one point of view the purpose for which we are put
into this world is to be tempted, that is, to be tried or tested, in
order that the wheat among us may be separated from the chaff, and that
the children of light may be manifested and divided from the children
of darkness.
This _testing_, however, is not only that the good may be separated
from the bad, it is the means by which the good becomes good; for by it
latent virtues are developed and a character fitted for heaven is
formed.
Let us regard a little child just baptized--it is an innocent child of
God, but what is innocence? In many respects a beautiful attribute,
but a purely negative one; for it is the attribute of an _untried_
soul. That child must pass through the wilderness of temptation, and
with the result either that the innocence will be transformed into
_sanctity_ or will be lost and give place to sin.
When our Lord was baptized, as He came up {vi} out of the water, the
Voice from heaven proclaimed, "This is my Beloved Son in Whom I am well
pleased," and we read "_Then_ was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the
wilderness to be tempted of the devil," and the temptation was a
testing on the part of the Evil One, whether He were indeed the Son of
God. So each child in baptism is made by the operation of the Holy
Ghost the child of God, and _then_ his whole life is a being led by one
of two spirits--the Spirit of God, leading him through temptation to
sanctity, or the spirit of evil leading him by temptation into sin.
For St. Paul tells us, doubtless referring to this, that, "As many as
are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God." This however
must be proved by temptation.
Sanctity is the positive virtue of the soul which has been tempted and
has stood the test, has vanquished the tempter and won the victory and
the reward--the Crown of Life. Happy is that soul, for St. James says,
"Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he
shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them
that love Him." We must therefore strive to grasp the fact that
temptation is not an evil, on the contrary it is the only way in which
the soul can be developed. Instead therefore of meeting it with fear
and trembling {vii} and great reluctance, St. James says, "Count it all
joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying
of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect
work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." A
well-known spiritual guide says, "But how are we to overcome
temptations? Cheerfulness is the first thing, cheerfulness the second,
and cheerfulness the third." This is but a homely way of putting St.
James' injunction, "Count it all joy when ye fall into divers
temptations."
In the book of Ecclesiasticus we read, "My son, if thou come to serve
the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation." We must not suppose from
this that only those who serve the Lord are tempted, though they are
doubtless attacked by Satan in special ways. All men, however, whether
they serve the Lord or not, have to endure temptation, but those who
desire to serve Him will prepare their soul for temptation by studying
its laws, learning how best to meet its assaults, and fortifying
themselves with divine grace for the struggle.
This little book will be found most useful to such; for it will help
them, not only to prepare for temptation, but will teach them the true
purpose of the life of temptation, and the best methods {viii} of
utilizing the attacks of the foe; so that they may leave no stain of
sin, but rather may develop in the soul those Christian virtues which
belong to sanctity.
ALFRED G. MORTIMER.
ST. MARK'S, PHILADELPHIA,
Epiphany, 1910.
{ix}
TO THE READER
You do not need to be told that the writer offers you here nothing of
his own. He has sat at the feet of certain masters whom through the
ages the Holy Ghost has employed to speak to the souls of men. He
seeks only to bear you a message from them. May the same Blessed
Spirit use these pages to enlighten the souls He loves. If the message
makes you long to know God better, to love Him more truly, to serve Him
more faithfully, it will not have been borne in vain, and he who brings
it craves as his hire a spiritual alms,--a prayer that he, along with
you and all God's people, may be found faithful at the end.
S. C. H.
ST. MICHAEL'S MONASTERY, SEWANEE.
Christmas, 1909.
{xi}
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE WARFARE OF THE SOUL
1. A Personal Issue
2. Not Peace, but a Sword
3. The Terms of the Warfare
4. The Nature of Temptation
5. Precept and Counsel
CHAPTER II
THE TEMPTER: HIS HISTORY AND NATURE
1. Satan's Fall and its Effects
2. The Hopelessness of his Warfare
3. The Limitations of the Tempter
4. The Restraint of the Divine Decrees
CHAPTER III
THE TEMPTER: HIS CHARACTERISTICS AND METHODS
1. Satan, The Deceiver
2. The Fact of his Personality
3. His Experience and Wisdom
4. The Methods of his Might
5. The Soul's Safety
{xii}
CHAPTER IV
THE UNIVERSALITY OF TEMPTATION
1. The Common Lot
2. Enduring Hardship
3. The Sufferings of the Saints
4. Satan in the Sanctuary
5. The Sacrament of Temptation
CHAPTER V
THE SPIRIT OF SOLICITUDE
1. True and False Anxiety
2. Worry Versus Faith
3. The Cure of a Doubting Spirit
4. God's Sympathy
CHAPTER VI
OUR PREPARATION FOR TEMPTATION
1. A Double Weapon
2. The Spirit of Vigilance
3. Prayer and Temptation
CHAPTER VII
TRAINING THE INNER LIFE
1. Environment and Character
2. Educating the Memory
3. Guiding the Imagination
4. The Practice of Constancy
5. The Practice of Calmness
6. The Practice of Patience
7. The Practice of Diligence
{xiii}
CHAPTER VIII
THE STAGES OF THE BATTLE
1. The Satanic Suggestion
2. The Response of the Natural Heart
3. The "Inferior" and "Superior" Wills
4. The Fatal Consent
CHAPTER IX
IN THE HOUR OF BATTLE
1. Realizing God's Friendship
2. The Divine Example of Humility
3. Instant in Prayer
4. A Holy Perversity
5. Scorning the Tempter
6. Staying not the Hand
7. The Final Phase of Victory
CHAPTER X
THE TESTS OF VICTORY AND DEFEAT
1. The Test of Common Sense
2. The Test of Doubt
3. Signs of the Soul's Victory
4. Spiritual Safety, Spiritual Victory
5. The Truest Test
CHAPTER XI
THE SCHOOL OF THE HOLY GHOST
1. The Teaching of Temptation
2. The Bulwark of Love
3. The Lesson of Humility
4. The Lessons of Consolation
5. How to Learn our Lessons
{xiv}
CHAPTER XII
THE RETURN FROM CAPTIVITY
1. Hastening to Repent
2. A Tranquil Sorrow
3. A Spirit of Reparation
4. The Work of Amendment
5. The Gainsaying of Satan
CHAPTER XIII
THE GROUND FOR CHRISTIAN COURAGE
1. Members One of Another
2. The Church's Treasury of Grace
3. God's Interest in our Victory
{1}
CHAPTER I
THE WARFARE OF THE SOUL
I. _A Personal Issue_
The spiritual warfare is intensely personal. Any consideration of it
is a consideration of definite personalities, divine, angelic, human,
Satanic,--God, the Angels, the Soul, and Satan. We speak commonly of
great principles being at stake in this warfare, often forgetting that
it is not possible for a moral or spiritual principle to exist apart
from a person.
As we shall try to learn in the following pages, God--the three Persons
of the Ever-Blessed Trinity--is always to be the first thought of the
Christian warrior,--God, His Presence, His power, and His loving
interest in our victory. But the well-trained soldier has an eye not
to his own resources only; he seeks to learn something also concerning
the Enemy he is to face. Next to the Presence of God, nothing is so
necessary to the Christian soldier as to remember the presence of the
Tempter; either in his own person or in that of one of his evil angels.
Although God {2} has revealed nothing directly to us on the subject,
yet His revelation concerning Satan's work is such that we can hardly
escape from the conclusion that, as each soul has a guardian angel, so
each soul has assigned to him by Satan an attendant evil spirit, whose
whole business is to seek to lead the soul into sin.
We see how in the conflict we have tremendous personalities to deal
with, the Personality of the triune God,--Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost,--and the Personality of Satan and his innumerable fallen angels,
who, though finite and created, possess a scope and power which are,
perhaps, so great that our human thought cannot compass them. But
immeasurably below any of these as it is, our own personality must not
be forgotten, for let it ever be kept in mind that _the issue of our
individual battle depends on ourselves_. The laws of this war are such
that on the one hand the powerful personal will even of the arch-fiend
himself has no power to control us, except in so far as our personal
will, acting with complete freedom, permits it; and on the other hand,
the infinite personal will of God never operates so as to compel us,
unless again our will yield freely to His call. Satan cannot control
or influence us against our wills, and God, reverencing His image in
man, refrains His power {3} and never forces man's love or service.
The will of man is free, and this makes him the central factor in the
spiritual warfare.
II. _Not Peace, but a Sword_
In sending them forth on their first mission, the Prince of Peace
declared to His awe-struck disciples, "I came not to send peace but a
sword."[1] The world being what it was, the Kingdom of Peace was to be
founded only by conflict. Those whom He sent forth to found His Church
understood this principle, and everywhere in the accounts of their
journeys and labours, as well as in the words of counsel they give
their converts, there is the sound of warfare, "the voice of them that
shout for mastery."[2]
Everything indicates that the battle is fierce and desperate. Our Lord
sends His message to the Seven Churches, and to each the reward is only
"to him that overcometh."[3] We are warned of foes without and of
traitors in the inmost citadel of our souls; of the "lusts which war
against the soul";[4] "the law in our members warring against the law
of our mind."[5]
{4}
St. Paul exhorts us repeatedly to "put on the whole armour of God."[6]
He sends his counsel to his son in the faith in order that he "war a
good warfare";[7] he pleads with him "to fight the good fight of
faith,"[8] and to "endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus
Christ";[9] and in his last days he bases his own hope of the crown of
life upon the assurance of his conscience that he himself had "fought a
good fight."[10]
So everywhere the New Testament rings with the sound of warfare, the
shock and onset of battle. Everywhere we hear of foes and fighting,
armour and rewards, life and death. We are told of the subtilty and
ferocity of the Adversary, of the ranks and power of his evil
angels.[11]
We are sent into the world just that we might spend our life in a state
of warfare, and in so far as this condition is absent from any life,
just so far is that life a failure. To have a knowledge of the force
and resources of the enemy is as necessary to the waging of a
successful war as it is to have one's own training and equipment
complete; and he who enters upon the struggle is well armed beforehand
if he has realized the {5} seriousness of the conflict in which he is
about to engage.
Every baptized soul is a member of the army of the living God. Have we
grasped the truth that this is no light undertaking; that in this
warfare there are no quiet winter quarters into which we may retire, no
light summer campaigns to be gaily prosecuted against a foe who flees
at our first approach; but that the struggle is inevitable, that it is
real, that our enemy is powerful, sleepless, and relentless; and above
all, that we are in the thick of the conflict as long as life endures?
Even the tenderest consolations that God gives His children concerning
the warfare never lose sight of the inevitableness of it. We are given
no false encouragement that would arouse a hope of escape. The very
name by which the Body of Christ on earth is called,--the Church
Militant,--is a standing witness of what the life of her members must
be.
When St. Paul comforts the Corinthians with the assurance that the
struggle they are enduring is common to man, that God has not given
them more to endure than that which is coming upon all their brethren,
the Holy Ghost inspires him to guard this point carefully.[12] He
assures them {6} that God Who is faithful to His word, "not slack
concerning His promise,"[13] "will not suffer you to be tempted above
that ye are able." The very fact of the approach of a trial or
temptation is in itself the irrefutable proof that we are strong enough
to conquer it, if only we use faithfully what we have, and what will be
given. He then goes on to say that God "will, with the temptation also
make a way to escape"; but the escape is not to be from temptation. He
promises indeed to "make a way to escape," but only in order "_that ye
may be able to bear it_,"--the escape is to be from the failure, from
sin, never from the conflict so long as life endures. "There is no
discharge in that war."[14]
This is the condition under which life in this world exists; the only
escape from it lies in base surrender to the enemy of God and man. If
we face this condition, and accept it without flinching, we are then in
the position of a soldier who, having weighed well the purpose and
significance of his enlistment, is ready with generous spirit to submit
to all that it involves. No surprises or disheartening revelations of
the nature of the struggle will meet us, because we shall have
understood well in the beginning what we are undertaking and what we
must expect.
{7}
III. _The Terms of the Warfare_
Let us in the beginning set clearly before ourselves a few simple
facts, facts with which we have been conversant all our lives, but
which our lifelong course shows us to have taken too little into
account. These we must regard in a very personal way, for our study
will be worse than futile if it be not intensely personal.
Let each one of us, therefore, set clearly before himself these
fundamental propositions:
(1) Our Leader is our Lord Jesus Christ, fighting now, as He fought
when He was on earth, in the perfect powers of His Sacred Humanity. We
must for our own encouragement remember that though He is perfect God
as well as perfect Man, yet it was not by means of His divine power
alone that He fought His own battle against temptation and conquered.
He won the victory by the use of His human will, fortified by His
divinity. It was as Man, not as God, that He fought and conquered.
Had he contended against Satan in His God-nature only, there would have
been no real struggle, for even the slightest exercise of His divine
power must have crushed the enemy in a single moment of time. It was
just because He did fight as Man, {8} in the power of His finite and
created nature, that there could be a real conflict.
(2) As baptized Christians we are His soldiers, fighting with the
powers and faculties of His perfect Humanity, which were given us when
we were baptized. If we are indeed, as the Apostle declares, "members
of His Body, of His flesh, and of His bones,"[15] then we fight with
His human powers. No longer have we to use our own, but His perfect
human faculties. No longer have we to plan with our weak minds; we
have at our command the perfect intelligence of the Man Jesus, for "we
have the mind of Christ."[16] No longer does the battle depend on our
vacillating wills, for His perfect human will is so bound up with ours
that it is not possible for us to be overcome except in so far as we
fall away from this union with Him. And His love is our love, going
out to God and to our fellow-man.
(3) The enemy is Satan, the prince of this world and of the hosts of
hell; whose purpose in the warfare is the dishonour of God, and who
fights against us just because we are the children of God.
(4) His chief mode of attack is what is commonly called Temptation, the
alluring of the soul to some thought, word, or deed that is contrary to
the will of God.
{9}
(5) The successful resistance of temptation is a victory for our souls
to the honour of our King. The battle is His; and the victory is won
when we so yield ourselves to Him that He can employ us as instruments
of His warfare.
(6) The entrance of any sin is defeat for our souls to our King's
dishonour, and no sin can enter save in so far as we become partakers
of the Satanic purpose and will.
(7) The entrance of serious wilful sin is a yielding of ourselves as
Satan's captives.
(8) Such captivity means not an idle, passive confinement in some
spiritual prison, but an active enlistment in the armies of hell to
fight against our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us keep these considerations before us; let us ask the Holy Spirit
to give us a right understanding of these truths; and our study of the
Christian warfare will not be in vain.
IV. _The Nature of Temptation_
We have said above that Satan's chief weapon in his war against the
soul is what is commonly called Temptation, whereby he allures the soul
to consent to some thought, word, or deed that is contrary to the
divine will.
Temptation is always a testing of the soul. {10} This testing may be
applied by God Himself, by Satan, or one of his fallen angels, or by
one of our fellow-men.
God may be said to tempt man in the sense of applying tests to prove or
instruct him, as when it is said that "God did tempt Abraham"[17] in
commanding him to offer up Isaac. In every such case, however, God
beforehand gives the soul He is testing sufficient grace to bear the
trial. This is taught us by St. Paul in the text that we shall come
back to over and over again: "God is faithful who will not suffer you
to be tempted above that ye are able."[18] Should failure and sin
result, it would be because there had been wilful neglect to use the
strength given. God cannot tempt man in the sense of inducing him to
sin. Such a suggestion would be blasphemous. "Let no man say when he
is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil,
neither tempteth He any man."[19] Trials may also come through man,
acting consciously or unconsciously, under the direction of God, who
might use such a one to try His servant. We do not mean to treat in
these pages, however, this aspect of temptation. We are to deal with
the word in its popular use, as meaning some inducement to commit sin.
{11}
Before going further, therefore, it will be well for us to define
temptation in the sense in which we are using it.
_Temptation is any solicitation, from whatever source, directed towards
an intelligent, moral creature, who is in a state of probation, to
violate the known will of God._
(1) All such temptation comes primarily from Satan as its source. He
is originally responsible for every solicitation to sin, although he
does not always act directly and immediately. He does perhaps most of
his work through agents, men or devils. One very active agent of Satan
is ourselves, though we often fail to realize it. By entering into
occasions of sin we assist the tempter, and by repeated acts we so
train our hearts to delight in some particular sin that no outside
solicitation is necessary. We sin, and go on sinning, not because he
is busy persuading us to it, but because, like rebellious Israel of
old, we "love to have it so."[20]
(2) In order to constitute temptation, the solicitation must be
directed to an intelligent, moral creature. An idiot or an insane
person cannot be tempted, because he has neither the intellect to
understand what is going on, nor any moral responsibility.
{12}
(3) To be tempted one must be in a state of probation. Neither the
Saints nor the angels in heaven, nor the souls of the faithful
departed, can be tempted; they are beyond the sphere in which it is
possible for temptation to operate. Nor yet can the devils, nor the
souls of the lost, suffer from temptation, for the nature of temptation
indicates a choice, and they have made their eternal choice, which at
their Judgment received the divine ratification; for this, in its
essence, is what the Judgment is,--the divine ratification of the
choice the soul made when it was free to choose.
(4) Nothing can constitute temptation save what is a solicitation to
violate the known will of God. He does not hold the soul responsible
for so-called sins of ignorance, for there can be no real, formal sin
save where there is knowledge.
It is a legal maxim in the kingdoms of this world that "Ignorance of
the law is no excuse"; but, thank God, it is an excuse in the Kingdom
of Heaven. He does not hold us responsible for that which we do not
know. Let us remember, however, that much of ignorance of spiritual
things is the result of our own culpable failure to lay hold upon the
light and grace which He offers. Our ignorance is, perhaps in most
cases, our own fault; and yet such is the tenderness of {13} our God to
His children, that He is willing to overlook it, and to count sin as
though it were not sin.
Surely the soul that is not wholly base will long to make a generous
response to this so great goodness, and will rise from its lethargy and
seek by every means to lay hold upon the divine light, and strength,
and knowledge, not only for its own sake, but to show a tender Father
that His love does awaken in our hearts an answering love which
quickens us to a generous service.
V. _Precept and Counsel_
When we speak of temptation being a solicitation to violate the known
will of God, it is necessary for us to understand that conformity to
God's will is not in every case required of us under penalty of sin.
His will is revealed to us in two ways, in _precept_ and in _counsel_.
To violate a precept is in every case sin; to reject a counsel is, in
itself, never a sin. God may set before us two alternatives, both of
them being good, but one a higher and better thing than the other. In
such a case, we are often--in fact, generally--tempted to accept the
lower. For example, a young man may have set before him, at some
particular time of his life, the alternative {14} of serving God in
work in his home parish, or of giving himself, by one great and final
act of sacrifice and dedication, to the service of God in the monastic
life. The former alternative is thoroughly good and holy, but none
will deny that the latter is better. But the monastic life is a call
of such a nature that compliance is never required under pain of sin;
and one may even feel entirely sure that the call is directly from God,
and yet be at liberty to refuse it because it is a form of service that
belongs to counsel and not to precept.
While the soul is weighing the question, strong temptation invariably
comes to choose the lower service. Not that the tempter is interested
in our serving God in any sphere whatever, but he hopes that if he can
induce us to choose the lower now, he may be able later on still
further to lower our ideals, and so in the end induce us to reject the
divine will in some matter that belongs to the precepts of God's law.
With this hope he even strives earnestly to induce us to do a good
thing in order to dissuade us from choosing that which is better.
So while it is entirely true, as we said above, that the rejection of a
counsel is never, in itself, sinful, yet there is great peril always in
refusing the known will of God, even when He does not {15} bind us to
that will under the penalty of sin. The soul that truly loves is ever
alert to perform the entire will of the beloved.
"The noble love of Jesus forceth man to work great things, and stirreth
him up always to desire the most perfect. Love wills to be aloft and
will not be kept down by any lesser thing."[21]
[1] St. Matt. x, 34.
[2] Exod. xxxii, 18.
[3] Rev. ii and iii.
[4] 1 Pet. ii, 11.
[5] Rom. vii, 23.
[6] Eph. vi, 11. See also Rom. xiii, 12; 2 Cor. vi, 7, and 1 Thes. v,
8.
[7] 1 Tim. i, 18.
[8] 1 Tim. vi, 12.
[9] 2 Tim. ii, 3.
[10] 2 Tim. iv, 7.
[11] See Pusey, _Parochial Sermons_, Vol. II, pp. 113-114.
[12] 1 Cor. x, 13.
[13] 2 St. Pet. iii, 9.
[14] Eccles. viii, 8.
[15] Eph. v, 30.
[16] 1 Cor. ii, 16.
[17] Gen. xxii, 1.
[18] 1 Cor. x, 13.
[19] St. James i, 13.
[20] Jer. v, 31.
[21] _Imitation_, III, v. (Bigg's Trans.)
{16}
CHAPTER II
THE TEMPTER: HIS HISTORY AND NATURE
I. _Satan's Fall and its Effects_
We have already reminded ourselves that it is as important to
understand somewhat of the enemy's force and resources as it is to have
our own equipment and training complete. Let us therefore consider the
adversary, for next to the unceasing recollection of the presence,
power, and goodness of God, the most necessary thing for the Christian
soldier is the recollection of the presence and character of the enemy.
Vigilance in maintaining this recollection is what the Apostle solemnly
commands.[1]
We cannot speak with theological exactness of the cause and occasion of
the fall of Satan and his rebel host, for God has revealed but little
concerning it; but when we compare Scripture with Scripture, it seems
inevitable that the sin of Satan was one of pride, and, very probably,
{17} its particular form was a desire to make himself equal with God.
In the account given in Revelation of the war in heaven, St. Michael,
whose name is simply a Hebrew word meaning "Who is like God?" is
mentioned as the captain of God's host, who fought against the dragon
and his angels, and overcame and cast them out.[2] It would seem that
the leader of the loyal angels took his name from the battle cry with
which the armies of God, as they pressed upon the rebel ranks,
repudiated the blasphemous claim of him who was seeking to be like the
Most High.[3]
As we think of Satan as he is to-day, and as he meets us in the
conflict, it will be of great value to us to keep definitely in mind
the effect that his fall must have had upon his nature and powers.
Not only is the adversary finite, with all the limitations common to
finite beings, but he is one who, by his fall from original
righteousness, has become a blasted creature, maimed and wounded in all
his faculties.
Man, too has fallen, and the blight is also upon {18} all his powers;
but with every return to God in penitence man's powers are recuperated;
he regains somewhat of his former strength. Nay, more, the spiritual
strength we lay hold of through penitence is often greater than that
which we lost through sin. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more
abound."[4] God through the Precious Blood of His Son so mightily
overrules the evil that, as we think of our sin, we can indeed
triumphantly cry, "_O felix culpa!_"
Not so with Satan and his companions. From the day of their fall the
poison of the evil that is in them has been working relentlessly, and
with never a moment's cessation, toward their ultimate destruction. By
an humble, earnest effort for God's service in the little opportunities
of daily life, we go on from strength to strength, while our foe,
however powerful he may be in his warfare against the weakness of man,
is daily drawing nearer to the time when he will lie in hell, an
impotent and inert slave of the evil he has chosen as his portion.
Even now, when so much of his ancient might remains, we can see the
signs of his growing weakness.
One illustration of the effect of his fall upon him is found in the
stupidity which marks his {19} work. It is almost incredible that,
after all the long millenniums of his warfare, and especially his
experience since the Incarnation, he should be so incapable of
realizing the inevitable consequence of his warfare against God.
In innumerable cases he has seen the Saints strengthened by his
antagonism; he has seen the weak becoming strong through the right use
of the opportunities his temptations afford them; he has stood at the
Judgment of souls as their accuser, and been covered with confusion as
he saw his accusations rejected, and crowns given them, all the more
glorious because of the occasion for battle and victory his hate had
afforded them. All this he has seen, and yet its real significance has
never dawned upon him.[5]
More astonishing still, in spite of his experience, he has never been
able to see that when he joins the struggle with us he is only seeking
to renew the old warfare which was brought to a final issue on Calvary
to his eternal discomfiture; that it is not the weak human soul he is
fighting, {20} but the omnipotent God Who in human flesh, and by the
exercise of human powers and faculties, bruised him under His feet,
invaded his infernal kingdom, broke the gates of brass, and smote the
bars of iron in sunder.[6]
Are we wiser than Satan? Have we caught the true significance of the
battle, the vision of its final issue? Do we realize, when the
conflict comes, that our heart is but the arena of a struggle between
the omnipotence of God and the weakness of Satan, and that we are
called to fight along with Him "Who is the Author of unconquerable
might, the King of the Empire that cannot be overthrown?" If so, then
there can be no fear or repining because of the battle, but with the
glad war-cry, "Emmanuel,--God with us!" can we plunge into the glorious
strife, knowing that with His own right hand and with His holy arm will
He get Himself the victory.[7]
II. _The Hopelessness of his Warfare_
The hopelessness of Satan's warfare is shown in its final issue. Sin
entered into the world through Satan, and by sin came death.[8] Death
seems, when we first consider it, Satan's triumph; but in reality it is
his destruction. He pursues a {21} soul through life, but the hour of
death marks the absolute cessation of his power and influence. The
faithful departed in the Church Expectant are in the hand of God, and
nevermore can the torment of temptation touch them. The very act of
wreaking the utmost of his power is the act which places them forever
beyond even the possibility of communication with him. So both prophet
and apostle cry out in an ecstasy of triumph, as the Holy Spirit leads
them to this conclusion,--"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where
is thy victory?"[9]
So also is it with "the spirits of just men made perfect,"[10] who,
having been purged of all stain of sin, stand in the glory of the
Beatific Vision in Paradise. Satan thought by means of death to make
eternal life with God impossible; but by the divine overruling death is
made the gateway of everlasting life. He watches the progress of the
effect of sin; he sees the bodily weakness which he introduced into the
race when he induced our first parents to sin, increasing, only to
realize that the supreme result of evil in the world is to remove the
soul he has been pursuing with malignant hate, forever from the sphere
of his action.
Even with the lost the same holds good. With {22} infernal glee he
watches by the deathbed of a reprobate soul, of one that has yielded
himself to his rule. He sees the last hour approaching; the dread coma
of death settles down on the mind and heart where Satan's seat is; and
he watches for the rending of soul and body asunder which will seal for
eternity his claim to his possession of the sinner. The hour strikes;
the horrible spasm of death seizes the frame and passes; the Evil One
clutches with hellish eagerness the liberated spirit that is now his
forever. The lost soul with the swiftness of thought is judged,
Satan's claim is granted, and the lost wretch flees into outer
darkness, the eternal slave of hell. But what a difference now
transpires! for such a soul can no longer be used as the active
instrument of the divine dishonour, and Satan finds satisfaction in
possessing a soul only when he can use it as a co-worker with himself
in his warfare with God.
III. _The Limitations of the Tempter_
Our consideration of Satan's strength has shown us something of the
awful and malignant character of his office. We see that he is not a
foe to be despised, and the soul that thinks lightly of his antagonism
is marked by him as a sure {23} victim. Yet despite all this, to fear
Satan is to dishonour God. What would be thought of a soldier in the
armies of an earthly kingdom who was afraid of the enemy? He may be
far from despising him; he may recognize his power and skill, but to be
afraid of him would be the mark of the caitiff. How much more
dishonourable is it in the soldiers of Jesus Christ, our Captain, to
stand in fear when He is fighting for us, and has promised us certain
victory if only we be faithful.
This is the first consideration that should nerve and enhearten us; but
there is a second and most important one to which God would direct our
attention, namely, the natural limitations of the adversary himself.
The popular notion of Satan is an extraordinarily erroneous one, and
the reaction from it has driven many to a complete denial of his
existence. Many make a god of him, endow him with attributes of deity,
regarding him as both omnipresent and omniscient. But we are ever to
remember that Satan is a creature, finite and limited.
(1) He is in no sense omnipresent. "No angel nor devil has any gift of
ubiquity. If any created spirit be in one place, he is not in another.
If he is busy protecting, or endangering, the soul of {24} one, he is
not with another."[11] Satan has no more power than we have to be in
more than one place at the same time, although, through the faithful
agency of his many evil angels, fellow-devils with himself, he is able
to deal with every soul. We speak in popular language of Satan
tempting us, but it is probable that most of our temptations, though
inspired by him, are not brought to us by him directly and in his own
proper person, but through spiritual or other agencies under his
control.
(2) Again, Satan is not omniscient. This attribute, like that of
omnipresence, belongs to God alone. Doubtless, in common with other
purely spiritual beings, and in spite of his fall, he has, in virtue of
his nature, vaster knowledge of things than we can now grasp, but his
knowledge is necessarily limited and finite, and any attainment, or
increase of it, must be through finite processes.
(3) Another truth that brings us the greatest comfort and courage is
that which is revealed in Holy Scripture, namely, that he has no power
of reading our minds and hearts. It must ever be a consolation to us
to know that in times of temptation neither he nor the fallen spirits
he employs can know what effect their evil suggestions are producing in
our hearts, except in so {25} far as we give outward evidence of
it.[12] Could he at times see how troubled and afraid we are, how near
to yielding, he would redouble his assault with such fury as might
sweep us wholly away; but God in His merciful kindness withholds this
knowledge from him.
This should teach us the necessity of a calm and untroubled front in
times of temptation; giving no outward sign of perturbation that might
encourage him; remembering how Satan's experience has given him skill
beyond our thought in reading such signs. To give such outward
indications would be to notify him of our fear of him; and also would
advertise him that we were not putting our trust wholly in God. Let
him be given these two assurances, and our chance of escape would be
small.
IV. _The Restraint of the Divine Decrees_
As we have seen, Satan is limited as are all creatures, but his
limitations are more than those which belong of necessity to a finite
and created {26} nature. Because of his rebellion and his warfare
against the Saints, God by decree has set him his bounds, as perhaps He
has done with none other of His creatures.
(1) He can tempt a soul that is in grace only with explicit permission
from God. This is taught clearly in the history of the temptations of
Job.[13] He defames the character of this servant of God, challenging
God, as it were, to give him permission to test the Saint. The
permission is given, and then, and not till then, is Satan able to lay
siege to the heart of the patriarch.
(2) After God's permission has been given, the extent of the temptation
is also specially marked out by God. He sends Satan forth with
permission to try His servant, but decrees what he can, and what he
cannot, do. "Behold all that he hath is in thy power; only upon
himself put not forth thy hand." This was the limitation of the first
temptation, and when in it "Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly,"
for the further perfecting of His servant and the confusion of the
tempter, He gives a second permission, for each detailed temptation had
to be stamped with the divine approval. But here again was the
definite bound set. "Behold he is in thine hand, but save his life."
{27}
But in many cases God sets for Satan an even more baffling limitation
than was done in the trial of Job, not allowing him to know definitely
how far he will be allowed to go. He has no rights in his work of
temptation. God has made no covenant with him to allow him anything;
he is permitted to operate little by little, here and there, and from
time to time, not according to his own will or wish, but only as God
wills for His own glory.
If he knew in the beginning the exact limit, if nothing more, he could
so much the more intelligently prepare his plans. He is, however, in
the position of a man who is bidden to prepare for a journey, but is
given no idea of the distance it is to cover, along what road it will
be, or what space of time it will occupy. The plan laid out in such a
case must be, at best, a poor kind of thing. God has promised us that
we shall not be tempted above that we are able. In other words, that
He will preside over this battle, watching it in its every detail, and
when the limit of our strength is reached, the tempter will be
instantly checked. What must be his rage and chagrin to find so often
the spoil of the battle apparently all but within his grasp, when
suddenly his arm is shortened, his power paralysed.
[1] "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a
roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."--1 Peter v, 8.
[2] Rev. xii, 7.
[3] "It seems certain that this sin was pride, which is the beginning
of all sin.... More specifically, the pride of the fallen angels seems
to have been a refusal to accept the position of creature, subject in
all things to their Creator."--Hunter, _Outlines of Dogmatic Theology_,
448.
[4] Rom. v, 20.
[5] "According to the divine economy, the Evil One is not consigned at
once to the place of punishment allotted to him, but is permitted to be
at large for the trial and probation of men; that he may, though
contrary to his own design, render the Saints more righteous through
patience, and become the cause of greater glory to them."--St. Macarius
the Egyptian, _Institutes of Christian Perfection_, Bk. IV, ch. ii
(London, 1816).
[6] Ps. cvii, 16.
[7] Ps. xcviii, 2.
[8] Rom. v, 12.
[9] 1 Cor. xv, 55. Compare Hosea xiii, 14.
[10] Heb. xii, 23.
[11] Moberly, _The Administration of the Holy Spirit_, p. 25.
[12] "For Thou, even Thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children
of men."--1 Kings viii, 39.
"After all, with all his vast knowledge and experience, he is but a
creature. He cannot know you from within; he is not omniscient, not
omnipresent. He can only _guess_ at your motives,--the secret spring
of your actions."--Webb, _The Presence and Office of the Holy Spirit_,
pp. 78-79.
[13] Job i and ii.
{28}
CHAPTER III
THE TEMPTER: HIS CHARACTERISTICS AND METHODS
I. _Satan, the Deceiver_
The foremost characteristic of Satan is that which marks him as a
Deceiver. It was by deceit that he brought death into the world and
all our woe. Our first mother was "beguiled through his subtilty,"[1]
and "being deceived, was in the transgression."[2] Our Lord declares
him to be the father of lies,[3] and the constant apostolic warning is
against his falsehood and deceit. He secures the active allegiance of
men by "blinding the minds of them which believe not";[4] he is able to
lead astray God's people by being "transformed into an angel of
light,"[5] and through his wiles and lying wonders he seeks "to seduce,
if it were possible, even the elect."[6] So we are taught to watch and
pray "lest the devil find room to deceive, who never sleeps, but goes
about seeking whom he may devour."[7]
{29}
Nevertheless there is great consolation in the fact that his chief
weapon is deceit. By using it he bears his testimony that, though we
be far gone from righteousness, yet, should we be permitted to see
clearly, truth rather than error would appeal to us.
No man chooses evil for evil's sake.[8] Before he makes such a choice
he is deceived into thinking either that the thing is good, or that
under the particular circumstances it is right for him to make what,
under other conditions, would be a sinful choice. Thus, much of the
sin we commit comes from making ourselves an exception to rules which
we ourselves acknowledge, and it has been said that such action is of
the very essence of immorality.
One of Satan's favourite deceptions is practised upon us in regard to
himself. It has been well said that Satan's master-stroke in these
latter times is his policy of persuading men that he himself has no
existence. If an army disbelieves in the existence of an enemy, no
guard will be kept, and it will be easily surprised and overcome.[9]
{30} So we may be sure that those who deny the personality of Satan
will sooner or later be his captives. Knowing this he operates as
hiddenly as possible.
How different is his plan of warfare from what it was two thousand
years ago. Men believed in him then, and he fought them in the open.
Now they question his existence, and he goes softly lest they should
discover their error through his too manifest activity. In our Lord's
time, for example, demoniacal manifestation was common; it is rarely
heard of now. Satan does not care to be too much in evidence. He
encourages us to think lightly of him that we may all the more surely
fall into his snares.
Here we see the evidence of his absolute devotion to his cause. Wiser
in his generation than the children of light,[10] he is willing to be
effaced if thereby the glory of the kingdom of hell can be enhanced.
We often mar what we do for God by conspicuously claiming the credit;
he asks for no credit if only the result redounds to his power.
{31}
II. _The Fact of his Personality_
The question of the personality of Satan is one that we must briefly
consider here. Do we believe in a personal devil? The answer to this
question will show what is our attitude towards the spiritual conflict.
We may go further, and say that it will show whether, in the last
analysis, we believe there is any spiritual conflict.[11]
In these days when man is made the measure of all things, both divine
and devilish, we often hear it said that every soul is its own tempter,
that what revelation calls temptation is but the working out of a
so-called "evil principle" that resides by nature in every human
spirit.[12]
Of course, there is a partial truth in this, for {32} when we yield
ourselves to Satan's power by consenting to sin, we then become his
servants, and just as one man often acts as Satan's agent in tempting
another, so, too, we can act as his agent in tempting ourselves. But
it is none the less his personal work though carried out through
another.
To deny the personality of Satan involves one in all manner of denials
of Scripture and Church teaching. Revelation declares that God made
our first parents and pronounced them "very good."[13] Whence then
arose the inherent "principle of evil" that wrought their temptation?
Did God create in them and pronounce "very good" that which asserted
itself so desperately against His will, or did it come from a
personally directed intelligence outside of them?
Again, in the second Adam, if He is indeed the God-man, the Incarnate
Jehovah, whence came His temptation? If it came from some principle
within Him, then just in so far as His temptation was greater than ours
must the evil principle dwelling in Him have been greater; and when we
consider the extent of His temptation we must then conclude that His
human nature had more inherent evil in it than that of any other who
has ever braved the perils of the spiritual conflict.
{33}
Again, the verdict of the Christian experience of all ages has been
that the more nearly men attain to the likeness of Christ, the more
they are tempted. Does then the increase of the Christ-character give
added virulence and strength to the evil that is within?
These illustrations of temptation show that those who reject the
personality of Satan and of his evil angels, and substitute for it the
idea of temptation arising from an evil principle within, are involving
themselves in conclusions which strike at the very fundamentals of
divine revelation concerning God and His relations to man.
III. _His Experience and Wisdom_
One of Satan's most powerful means of warfare lies in his experience in
dealing with the souls of men. We dare not presume to think that we
can oppose or overreach him with any gift of discernment that we have
of ourselves. His experience in this warfare has been age-long. Ours
has covered but a few brief years. His devotion to his cause has been
unflagging, and so, by his strenuous attention to the business in hand,
he has acquired vast stores of knowledge as to methods of temptation.
Our knowledge of attack and resistance is a poor and beggarly thing,
because when God would place us in the school {34} of temptation that
we might learn this military science, we are wanting in devotion to our
cause and miss the numberless opportunities that are offered.
Furthermore, Satan has dealt with millions of souls of the same type as
ours, dealt with them and mastered them. It were the height of folly
for us to imagine that there might be any thing in our nature, or in
our aim and purpose, that he has not met and studied in characters far
stronger than ours. Taken apart from God, there is nothing in us that
can for a moment baffle so powerful and experienced a foe. We can
present no new front to him. Only the infinite strength and variety of
God's grace can supply that which will surely baffle and defeat him.
As we study the history of his dealings with the souls of men we see
not only that he is faithful to his own abominable ideals and aims, and
so acquires great knowledge of the methods which avail against us, but
that he is faithful and methodical in using the experience he has
gained.
He makes the most of what he has. If he discovers that a certain mode
of temptation is effective against men, he wastes neither time nor
force in wandering afield after new things. He works one method
thoroughly, getting out of it {35} all possible dishonour to God,
before seeking new ways and means. He never scatters his force, but is
ever intensifying and concentrating it, daily seeking to perfect more
and more his method of warfare.
Let us see how careful he is to utilize his own tremendous experiences.
Take the first recorded temptation that he brought against man. What
was his course of reasoning in devising it? "I fell through the desire
to be like God," he reflects. "This same temptation will ensnare this
new handiwork of God whom He has made in His own image and likeness."
It was to him unthinkable that any intelligent being should not have
that aspiration, and he approaches our first mother, promising as the
reward of sin, "Ye shall be as gods."[14] His confidence was not
disappointed. The lure attracted, man fell, and sin and death entered
the world.
We note that he again falls back upon his experience in tempting the
second Adam. He hears the Father's voice declare, "Thou art My Beloved
Son,"[15] and immediately he proceeds to test Him. Mark the substance
of his insolent assault. "If thou art the Son of God, prove it,
vindicate your claim. I challenge it. Turn {36} these stones into
bread, and by this miracle show me that you are like God."[16]
This he believed would be the supreme test. His own fall had come
through his ambition; the fall of the human race had its beginning in
the same proud aspiration; and surely, he argued, it would prove
effective against this new opponent of his power as prince of this
world. We know what was the issue of the attempt. No sin could enter
the heart of the Sinless One, and yet He allowed Himself to be thus
tempted that we might find in His example a means of offsetting the
advantage our enemy has in his vast experience with men and their
frailties.
IV. _The Methods of his Might_
Not in a single chapter, nor yet in many chapters, would it be possible
for us to discuss all the forms of the might with which Satan wars
against the servants of God. We must hasten on to the consideration of
some of those that he most commonly employs.
(1) His activity. He never sleeps; he never rests on his arms. What
seem to be pauses in the battle are only intervals he is employing to
study us more carefully, and to plot some more {37} subtle and
ingenious method of attack. Even in moments of defeat he is alert to
recover even the smallest advantage. How often when we have just won
from him some hard-fought battle, and are pausing, as it were, for
breath, our vigilance relaxed ever so little, does he discharge a
Parthian shot of pride in our victory, or of impatience which, if it
does not wound us grievously, at least mars the perfection of the
victory we had secured by God's grace.
(2) His aggression. We are, perhaps, in many instances, ready to use
the opportunities that present themselves to labour for God's glory,
but how salutary a lesson have we to learn from him who, in the
interests of eternal unrighteousness, does not wait for opportunity,
but labours unceasingly to _create_ occasions for the dishonour of our
God. He goes up and down the world "seeking whom he may devour,"[17]
letting nothing slip that can forward his infernal designs.
In furthering the glory of God and the work of the kingdom we count
ourselves to have done well if we have been fairly faithful to the
opportunities that come. We hear much, among even the best of
spiritual teachers, of seizing opportunities of grace, but little is
said of _making_ such opportunities, of watching and labouring, keen
{38} and alert to turn to good account and to God's glory every
circumstance, whether or not it seem in itself to bear the hall-mark of
heaven-sent opportunity.
How much more zealous is Satan in the evil cause! He not only uses
every opportunity that comes, but he counts himself to have done little
unless he has forced occasions for wounding the divine Majesty and
enslaving souls made in the image of God.
(3) His persistency. Though it is within the power of the soul, by a
stout and persistent defence, to discourage Satan in regard to certain
particular temptations, yet in regard to temptation in general he is
never discouraged. However many times we may inflict defeat upon him,
however mighty in battle the soul of saint or sinner may wax, he never
resigns the hope that he may yet secure dominion in the heart in which
God now reigns.
What a frightening suggestion this offers! He who knows us so well,
better than we know ourselves, better than anyone knows us save God and
our Guardian Angel, sees ever in us possibilities of final and eternal
failure. There is always some definite thing in us that buoys up his
hope that he may yet be able to persuade or deceive us into rejecting
the service of God and accepting {39} his. Every time we yield to the
slightest sin or laxity, we encourage and embolden him still more,
until he feels that he can safely attack the soul that but a little
time before he feared. It is thus that we become responsible for our
own temptations, raise up occasions for sin, and give, by our often
deliberate acts, vantage ground and footing to him from which he can
drive home a deadly stroke.
(4) A fourth characteristic is the patience with which he works. He
bides his time. We should naturally think that when he found a soul in
a sinful environment he would immediately use the occasion to lead it
into some serious sin, but by no means does he always take this course.
Often in the most sinful surroundings he does not, for a long time,
allow the sight of sin to suggest participation in it. He waits until
we are accustomed to its presence; until the sense of shock wears off.
He begins by getting us to tolerate the fact of sin about us, for he
knows that any toleration of sin in the general life with which we are
surrounded is a long step towards tolerating it in ourselves.
So he waits with a patience born of a deep-laid plot. He notes that
after a while we see our Lord fearfully dishonoured, and our souls are
not thereby grieved and outraged; that we come {40} and go in a world
where He is being crucified daily, but with a smiling countenance that
masks no broken heart beneath.
Then he begins to insinuate his suggestions to evil. Perhaps the
temptation at first is to some slight sin only, merely venial. He
would not rouse our slumbering conscience by the frightening
temptations to that which is serious. But Satan has no interest in a
soul committing venial sins merely for their own sake. Venial sin
cannot deliver us into his power, and cannot keep us out of heaven.
It is well for us to remember this. Satan cares nothing for venial sin
_per se_. He never tempts a soul to it save as a cunningly laid
preparation for that deadly sin which follows logically upon a long and
reckless course of venial sin; and the soul that deliberately yields to
little temptations is knowingly, wilfully, and deliberately aiding and
abetting the devil in his plan for the supreme dishonour of our God.
So through all these steps the Satanic patience endures. He sees the
soul's sensibilities becoming more and more blunted; the conscience
less and less sensitive. He sees the little act of sin lightly
consented to, then the habit formed. He marks the soul's defences
crumbling, and in a well-chosen hour, subtly and in some familiar {41}
guise, he presents the temptation to the great offence, and his triumph
is complete.
(5) The last characteristic we shall consider is his ready adaptability
to every circumstance that transpires in the midst of the battle. He
cares not how we are tempted, if only our fall can be secured. We, in
our self-will, often desire to serve God in some particular way, and
lose interest when we have to change our method. Satan gives us an
example in this, for he cares not how he fights, if only he can, in
some small measure at least, accomplish God's dishonour. He has no pet
plans to which he clings in a self-willed way. Utterly devoted to his
cause, he feels no reluctance or sense of personal chagrin at having to
give up a certain method he has been using to dishonour God in us. He
gladly and immediately resigns what he finds is not to the purpose.
We see this illustrated in the swiftness with which he shifts the point
of attack, often with great readiness and seeming graciousness
accepting as his own the point of view from which we reject his first
overture.
This is vividly illustrated in his temptation of our Lord in the
wilderness. In response to the first temptation, our Lord shows that
man is not to live by bread alone, not by merely natural means, even
though in themselves they may be {42} good, but that he is to be
sustained by a trust in God. Instantly Satan changes his front. He
takes Him up upon a pinnacle of the temple and delivers the second
temptation, which in substance is this: "You are entirely right. God
must be trusted implicitly and in all things. Now give an evidence of
your trust in Him. Cast yourself down, for it is written--(and here we
see how the devil so completely shifts to our Lord's point of view that
he begins to quote Scripture himself),--'He shall give His angels
charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up,
lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." But the Blessed
One could not be deceived. Again fell the crushing _Scriptum est_, and
again the tempter is vanquished.
As we have just seen in his quotation from Scripture, if it suits his
purpose he will make use of the best and holiest things if only he can
balk God's will,--things which, in themselves, he must fear and hate.
"So he may cozen and deceive thee, he cares not whether it be by truth
or falsehood," says à Kempis.[18] He will try to induce us to go to
church when he knows that in so doing we may be neglecting plain,
God-sent duties at home. He could not possibly desire us to meditate
on holy things, and yet a {43} self-willed meditation, to the neglect
of charity or obedience, is most pleasing to him, and he will incite us
to it, even smoothing the way for us, suggesting to us beautiful and
holy thoughts, and glad to help us with our meditation because he knows
it is being made selfishly, and therefore contrary to the divine will.
V. _The Soul's Safety_
Our assurance of escaping the power of this malignant and tireless foe
lies:
(1) In never parleying or arguing with him. He is far cleverer than we
are, and if we stop to consider his proposals, or to reason about them,
our fate will, sooner or later, be that of our first mother, who,
because she was willing to hear what the tempter had to say, found
herself deceived to her utter undoing. Our only safe course lies in
instant and vigorous rejection of all that he suggests.
(2) But, although we shall see later that it is often wise to ignore
him wholly,[19] our resistance is not to be merely a passive one. We
are to meet point with point, attack with counter-attack. If he is
tirelessly active in his cause, there must be in us a corresponding
activity and zeal for God's {44} service and for the safety of our
souls; a like aggressive spirit, a forcing of circumstances and
conditions, wherever possible, that glory may be won for our King, and
the power of the devil diminished; a like persistency, and equal
alertness, a ready trying of one method, then another; and no matter
what past failures may have been, a continuing the fight, that in the
end we may be worthy of the victory.
If we can learn these lessons, though the strength and prowess of Satan
be an hundred-fold greater than that which human might can own, yet we
shall have no fear of him. On the contrary he will fear us, delivering
his attacks warily, lest he find his power shattered by the weapons
with which we shall be able to oppose him.
We were considering a little while ago how Satan "walketh about,
seeking whom he may devour."[20] These words of St. Peter have another
significance. True, he goes about with strong and ceaseless
aggression, but he goes about seeking only those whom he _may_ devour.
He does not fall without discretion upon the throngs of men, as the
lion upon the flock. He seeks only those who will, he thinks, in the
end yield themselves to him. He skulks about, hiding himself, seeking,
as we have seen, to blind men to the {45} very fact of his existence,
until he finds opportunity for attack when he thinks the soul will
yield. Some strong souls he does not openly seek, for too often has he
been defeated by them, and he fears to tempt them save in some
insidious, hidden way. In dealing with such souls he loses his
lion-like character, and lies in ambush like the coward who is afraid
to strike save from behind.
A great comfort, therefore, we must draw from the thought that Satan's
career has been one of failure as well as of victory. God's Saints,
following the lead of the King of Saints, have on a thousand
battle-fields trampled him under their feet; and with whatever insolent
confidence he may approach us, it is never without a haunting,
unnerving fear lest the issue be what it has been many times before, a
crushing defeat.
It is not the weak human soul only that trembles at the impending
conflict, but the soul of Satan, so often beaten down and humiliated at
the hands of the weakest of the soldiers of God.
[1] 2 Cor. xi, 3.
[2] 1 Tim. ii, 14.
[3] St. John viii, 44.
[4] 2 Cor. iv, 4.
[5] 2 Cor. xi, 14.
[6] St. Mark xiii, 22.
[7] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[8] "The soul, from her nature, always relishes good, though it is true
that the soul, blinded by self-love, does not know and discern what is
true good."--St. Catherine of Siena, _Dialogue_, p. 122. (Thorold
Trans., London, 1907.)
[9] "There is something satanic in the contempt and the ridicule with
which men treat Satan. I say it is satanic because it is a Satanic
illusion to make men cease to fear him, or cease even to believe in
him. He is never more completely master of a man than when the man
ridicules his existence,--when, as we hear in these days, men say,
'There is no devil.'"--H. E. Manning, _Sin and Its Consequences_, pp.
168-169.
[10] St. Luke xvi, 8.
[11] It is perhaps best to avoid such expressions as "personality of
evil," lest they be misunderstood. "Evil cannot be personal in or of
itself; it can only obtain the advantages of personal embodiment and
action by being accepted by an already existing creature, endowed with
will,--a creature which freely determines implicitly to accept it by
rejecting good.... In Satan evil has become dominant and fixed as in a
previously existing personal being; there was no such thing in the
universe of the Almighty and All-good God as a self-existing or
originally created devil."--Liddon, _Passiontide Sermons_, p. 95.
[12] "What do they exactly mean by this imposing phrase? How can evil
itself be, strictly speaking, a principle? The essence of evil is
absence of principle, principle being something positive. Evil is
contradiction to positive principle."--Liddon, _Passiontide Sermons_,
p. 88.
[13] Gen. i, 31.
[14] Gen. iii, 5, or rather "as God." The word in the Hebrew is simply
_Elohim_.
[15] St. Mark i, 11.
[16] See Pusey, _Parochial Sermons_, Vol. II, p. 148.
[17] 1 St. Peter v, 8.
[18] _Imitation_, IV, xxx.
[19] See page 142.
[20] 1 St. Peter v, 8.
{46}
CHAPTER IV
THE UNIVERSALITY OF TEMPTATION
I. _The Common Lot_
"So long as we live in this world we cannot be without tribulation and
temptation. Whence it is written in Job,[1] 'The life of man upon
earth is a temptation.'"[2]
Man did not have to wait for the full revelation of God in His Son
before knowing this truth. Holy Job testifies to it out of his own
experience, and the Son of Sirach gives the warning, "My son, if thou
come to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation."[3] The
constant and definite warning and promise of our Lord and His Apostles
were to the same effect. In the only prayer He taught His disciples, a
prayer He commands us to use daily, they are taught to say, "Lead us
not into temptation";[4] and on the night in which He was betrayed,
full of tender solicitude for their souls, He warns them, "Pray that ye
enter not into temptation."[5]
{47}
In all His teaching He takes it easily for granted that temptation is
an inevitable factor in the life of those who would follow Him. In the
parable of the Sower He assumes, without so much as making the
statement, that temptation must come to every heart in which the seed
of the Word is sown.[6]
Everywhere His Apostles give us the same teaching. St. Paul testifies
to the presence of temptation in his own life, and warns and comforts
his converts concerning it, telling them of the sweetness and loving
care of God in it all: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as
is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that ye are able."[7] And further, God reveals to us the
depth of our Lord's temptation as a source of comfort and
encouragement: "In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is
able to succour them that are tempted";[8] and again, He "was in all
points tempted like as we are."[9]
So likewise is it through the writings of all the Apostles. St. James
assumes the universal fact, and points out the way of temptation as the
way of joy;[10] St. Peter shows how temptation {48} leads on to "praise
and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ";[11] and the
Epistles of the Beloved Disciple, tender and full of all gentleness as
they are, ring with the suggestion of the Satanic antagonism, the
warfare and the victory. What a trumpet call there is to the elect
lady and her children: "Look to yourselves, that we lose not those
things which we have wrought."[12] It is like an echo of the
revelation on Patmos, the message to the faithful Philadelphians, "Hold
that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown."[13]
II. _Enduring Hardship_
It is a part of the temptation itself that, as we contemplate the fact
of its universality, the question should arise in the soul, weary with
the battle, sore with long buffeting, "Is there no rest, no cessation
from the strain and stress of the warfare?"
The question comes from Satan. Assuming the role of a comforter, he
whispers to us of the hardness of the ceaseless struggle. It is a
temptation to induce us to forget our character as the followers of our
Lord. When we were baptized we were signed with the Sign of the Cross
in {49} token that we should "manfully fight under Christ's banner
against sin, the world, and the devil, and continue Christ's faithful
soldier and servant unto our life's end."[14]
In short, at our Baptism we were enlisted and sealed as soldiers, and a
soldier who never fights has no reason for existing. A soldier who
turns himself back in the day of battle is not only unworthy of his
name and character, but is by this act reversing the whole principle of
his life and vocation. We are members of the Church Militant,--the
fighting Church. The Son of God has gone forth to war, the
trumpet-call to His soldiers has sounded. It were shame upon the
soldier of an earthly army should he, at such a time, linger and repine
because of the battle, and surely those who contend for no earthly
laurel, but for the "crown of glory that fadeth not away,"[15] cannot
afford to do less.
Let us never forget that we are members of an army, that it is a time
of war; our Captain has gone forth with His host; "The ark and Israel,
and Judah, abide in tents; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord
are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into mine house to eat
and to drink?"[16]
We must not, however, leave the matter at {50} this point, lest some be
"swallowed up with overmuch sorrow,"[17] and find only despair where
they looked for consolation. In the spiritual combat, unceasing as it
is, there are many considerations which offer comfort. These we shall
not here meditate upon at length. They will find their place before we
close our study of this holy warfare. But it will help and encourage
us to remind ourselves that in this struggle the exercise of strength
does not exhaust the soul.
In the moment that we seem weakest, then are we strong, because
Christ's strength is made perfect in our weakness.[18] Then it is that
God teaches us our own insufficiency that we may look not to anything
that we have or do, but to Him that He may send us "help from the
sanctuary and strengthen us out of Sion."[19] Great strain upon bodily
strength depletes it, but the more unsparing the call upon our
spiritual energies, the more are they confirmed and increased. Then
again, the harder the battle, the more splendid the victory and the
reward. Every Satanic device and energy that is directed against us
does but swell the opportunity for a more glorious place in the
Kingdom. So à Kempis {51} says: "These help to virtue; these test the
young soldiers of Christ; these fashion the heavenly crown."[20]
Thus does evil react upon itself for its own destruction, and surely
none but a pusillanimous soul will desire to flee the honour of being
used as the sure occasion and instrument of the glory of our God, and
of the overthrow of Satan.
III. _The Sufferings of the Saints_
The holy author of the "Imitation of Christ" tells us, "No man is so
perfect and holy as not sometimes to have temptations."[21] The
universality of temptation is found not only in respect to outward
condition and circumstance, but also in respect to the character of
those against whom Satan directs his malice. Saintly souls longing for
a still greater saintliness, if they truly discern the things of the
Spirit, will not fall into the snare of thinking that perhaps some day
in this life they will become so like our Lord that temptation can
never more vex and torment them. To become like Him will be to invite
more desperate {52} attacks. The more we are conformed to His
likeness, the more must we expect to arouse the hatred and malice of
the Evil One. He who is the Holy of Holies was, just because of that
fact, tempted as never other man was tempted.
Not only is our greater conformity to Christ the signal for Satan's
attack, but we must expect the particular occasions of God's outpouring
of grace upon us to be also the occasions of special and perhaps
immediate assault.
It was so with our Lord. There are few words in the narrative of
stronger or more valuable significance than the adverb with which St.
Matthew begins the fourth chapter of his Gospel: "_Then_ was Jesus led
up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil."
Bishop Andrewes says: "When as Christ was but newly come out of the
water of Baptism, and immediately after the heavens had opened unto
Him, and the Holy Ghost descended upon Him in the likeness of a dove,
and while He was yet full of the Holy Ghost, did the devil set upon
Him";[22] and saintly old Leighton warns us: "Thou shalt be sure to be
assaulted when thou hast received the greatest enlargements from
heaven, either at the Sacrament or in prayer, or in any other way; then
look for an onset. {53} This arch-pirate lets the empty ships pass,
but lays wait for them when they return richest laden."[23]
Thus the soul that has received special blessings of God must expect
special attack, not only because it is natural for Satan to seek
promptly to offset and quench the divine grace, but because when God
gives us special spiritual strength He gives it in order that it may be
used, and He Himself will supply the opportunity by permitting Satan to
make his attack. "It is God's property to look for much at his hands
to whom He hath given much. When He gives a man a large measure of
grace, He gives the devil withal a larger patent."[24]
The like experience has ever been suffered by the Saints. We read of
their struggles with temptation, and of the methods the adversary
employs against them, and they sound often impossible and grotesque.
We are inclined to dismiss them as the product of the childish
imagination of some mediæval chronicler; but how do we know the method
of the devil with the Saints? He never has occasion to deal with us in
any unusual way. He is able to overthrow us daily with the most
ordinary and commonplace {54} temptations; how then dare we say how he
might approach those against whom no common temptation can avail?
Thus are we taught not to look forward to growth in holiness as a means
of escape from temptation. Such expectation would in itself be sin,
because we should then be seeking God's gifts for our own selfish ease
and indulgence, and not for His honour. If He should vouchsafe us the
grace to attain to great achievement in the spiritual life, it would be
a base return for His goodness to shut those graces up in our hearts
(were such a thing possible), instead of using them in more extended
endeavour for the glory of His Kingdom; instead of arming ourselves by
their means for more complete and crushing conquests of His enemies.
The Saints are led along the path of sanctity that they may be more
effective soldiers; not that they may by such progress escape from the
presence of the foe, and find a pusillanimous peace in this life, while
all the powers of evil are storming at the gates of the Kingdom, and
making captives of the King's children.
Peace is to be had indeed, and in this life, "for the Kingdom of God is
righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost,"[25] but, says à
Kempis, {55} "he that knows how to suffer will possess the greatest
peace." Endurance of hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ is the
only passport to honourable peace in this life, the only pledge of the
"peace of God which passeth all understanding"[26] in the life to come.
IV. _Satan in the Sanctuary_
Thomas à Kempis tells us again, "There is no order so holy nor place so
secret where there be not temptations."[27]
It would seem that the energies of Satan against God would, from the
nature of things, find themselves paralysed under certain conditions.
Surely, one should think, the devil could introduce his temptations
more readily in a brothel than in a church, in ordinary secular
employment rather than when we are engaged in the service of the
sanctuary.
Such, however, is not the case. Amid the common employments of the
carpenter shop in Nazareth we should scarcely have wondered had He been
tempted; but that the enemy should have approached the Incarnate Son of
God while in the midst of His great retreat in preparation for His
ministry does fill us with astonishment. {56} Or if it seem not
unnatural that He should have been tempted in the desert solitudes, yet
we do marvel at the audacity that led the tempter to bear Him to the
holy precincts of the temple, and seize upon the circumstances there to
tempt Him to seek other than His Father's will. But so it was with the
Master, and so shall it be with the disciple.[28]
Who has not been tempted at the holiest times and in the most sacred
places? Is it not, furthermore, the common experience that Satan the
more eagerly and readily pursues us under such circumstances? There is
a principle in it, and a most natural one. It is a favourite device of
the enemy to assault us at such times for two reasons.
First, because he knows that could he induce us to sin under such
circumstances, his victory would be greater, the dishonour of God would
be deeper, the hurt to the soul more serious. Many a soul has been
startled while kneeling in the very act of receiving the Blessed
Sacrament by the swift, sudden onslaught of some strong temptation. To
yield at such a time would not only bring upon it the guilt of the sin
itself, but there would be added to it something of the nature of
sacrilege. Satan knows this, and is keen to gain every advantage from
it.
{57}
Secondly, he seeks to lead us into sin under these conditions because
he fears especially what is going on in our souls. God is drawing near
to us, and we are drawing near to Him.[29] We are hearkening what the
Lord God will say concerning us,[30] and He is preparing to speak in
our souls with the Voice that is "mighty in operation,"[31] with the
Voice of which it is said, "He spake the word and they were made, He
commanded and they were created."[32]
Satan knows how that Voice in the attentive heart can speak into being
new creations of divine grace, and of strength unto the battle; and it
is to his utmost interest that our hearts be turned aside from hearing
the divine Voice within. It is a great blow to his power for a soul to
make a good Communion, to pray a holy prayer, or to be able to listen
piously and without distraction to a spiritual instruction or
exposition of God's holy word. Such acts are acts of offensive warfare
against him, and it is no wonder if he then rouses himself and his evil
agents to check this inroad into his kingdom.
So let us not be surprised if many distractions come in these times of
devotion, and if they endure long. Nor must we expect to be freed {58}
from them as long as we live, for they constitute one of Satan's
favourite modes of attack. St. Francis de Sales was once asked by a
Sister of the Visitation how she could be rid of distractions in
prayer. With that wise humour so characteristic of the Saint, he
replied, "Die and be saved."[33] He knew of nothing short of this,
that could free one from Satanic interruption. "To be clean delivered
from it," says Walter Hilton, "so that he shall feel no suggestion, nor
jangling of fleshly affections, or of vain thoughts at any time, that
can no man come to in this life."[34]
Let us remember, however, that involuntary distraction is not sin. If
as soon as we are conscious that the mind has wandered we bring it back
again, our souls are clear. We may wander again the next minute, but
as long as we {59} continue by acts of the will to bring the attention
back again, no sin is upon us.
The sin, at such times, lies in being disheartened, but a little
reflection on the principle involved will keep us safe. Satan seeks to
interrupt our prayers because he fears them; and God help the poor
blinded soul who is happy and satisfied because the Evil One does not
think his devotions are worth interrupting.
V. _The Sacrament of Temptation_
If temptation be so universal, and if, as is usually the case, it is a
condition which is attached more particularly to the lives of those who
are making the greatest effort of conformity to the divine will, we are
irresistibly drawn to the conclusion that there must be some signal
blessing to be gained from enduring it.
St. James tells us, "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for
when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord
hath promised to them that love Him."[35] This apostolic beatitude can
hardly be said to refer only to the blessedness that comes from so
meeting temptation as merely to escape sin. This would make the
beatitude a poor thing that might {60} be supposed to belong as truly
to the man who is never tempted at all. The Apostle is, we can be
sure, speaking of a special blessing that comes from bearing a part in
the spiritual warfare; and he goes on to say that the crown which
constitutes the reward is not one that is promised to those who succeed
in the negative work of merely avoiding sin, but to those who excel in
the positive service of God, and exercise love,--"the crown of life
which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him." So we see that
the crowning blessing derived from being tempted is that it affords us
the best possible opportunity of exercising that divine love which must
be the motive underlying all our spiritual life and action.
So it may be said that the temptation of the present moment is the
sacrament of the present moment. A sacrament is the outward and
visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace; and temptation, if met
with the right disposition, is a sign of a special grace with which God
desires to adorn our souls, a grace which we make our own whenever we
fight valiantly, and by the power of God gain the mastery over the
temptation.
Satan seems never to have realized this truth, or else for the
maintenance of his own kingdom he would refrain from his assaults on
God's {61} people. So has sin blinded the very Prince of Sin. He
assaults the Saints of God. In a strength not their own they drive him
back baffled and defeated, and the turrets of the infernal citadel
topple and crash. In the age-long conflict with God, he has never
learned how the divine purpose is using him and his malice, nay, giving
direct permission for its exercise against Himself, in order that the
eternal Kingdom may be the more surely built up among men.
[1] Job vii, 1. (Septuagint Version.)
[2] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[3] Ecclus. ii, 1.
[4] St. Matt. vi, 13.
[5] St. Matt. xxvi, 41.
[6] St. Matt. xiii.
[7] 1 Cor. x, 13.
[8] Heb. ii, 18.
[9] Heb. iv, 15.
[10] St. James i, 2.
[11] 1 St. Peter i, 7.
[12] 2 St. John 8.
[13] Rev. iii, 11.
[14] Office of Holy Baptism.
[15] 1 Pet. v, 4.
[16] 2 Sam. xi, 11.
[17] 2 Cor. ii, 7.
[18] 2 Cor. xii, 9. "Weakness is the guardian of our
strength."--Pusey, _Parochial Sermons_, II, 337, quoting St. Greg. Mag.
[19] Ps. xx, 2.
[20] _Imitation_, III, xxxv. "It happens sometimes that men's souls
are shipwrecked through evil thoughts, but also it is by the entering
in of such thoughts that we become worthy of being crowned."--_Verba
Seniarum_, x, 86. Quoted by Hannay in _The Wisdom of the Desert_, p.
221.
[21] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[22] Andrewes, _Sermons_, Vol. V, p. 501.
[23] Archbishop Leighton, _Commentary_, in loc.
[24] Andrewes, _Sermons_, Vol. V, p. 501-502.
[25] Rom. xiv, 17.
[26] Phil. iv, 7.
[27] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[28] St. Matt. x, 24.
[29] St. James iv, 8.
[30] Ps. lxxxv, 8.
[31] Ps. xxix, 4.
[32] Ps. cxlviii, 5.
[33] St. Francis de Sales, _Spiritual Conferences_, p. 138.
[34] Hilton, _The Scale of Perfection_, Bk. II, Pt. I, ch. viii.
"A certain brother came to the Abbot Pastor, and said, 'Many evil
thoughts come into my mind, and I am in danger through them.' The old
man led him out into the air, and said to him, 'Stretch yourself out,
and stop the wind from blowing.' The brother, wondering at his words,
replied, 'I cannot do that.' Then the old man said to him, 'If you
cannot stop the wind from blowing, neither can you prevent evil
thoughts from entering your mind. That is beyond your power; but one
thing you can do,--conquer them.'"--_Verba Seniorum_, xi, 50. Quoted
by Hannay, p. 217.
[35] St. James i, 12.
{62}
CHAPTER V
THE SPIRIT OF SOLICITUDE
Thomas à Kempis tells us that since the life of man upon earth is a
temptation, "Everyone ought therefore to be anxious about his
temptations and to watch in prayer."[1]
I. _True and False Anxiety_
The anxiety to which we are exhorted is not, however, that attitude of
mind and heart which would follow upon any uncertainty, or want of
assurance, in regard to the result. The word à Kempis uses gives, in
its original significance, no such suggestion. It is _sollicitus_,
which has the force of _being wholly aroused_. That is to say, because
life on earth is a temptation, we are warned that our whole being must
be stirred in the face of such a condition.
There must not be a single faculty that is not keen and alert to enter,
at a moment's notice, upon the conflict. Every part of our nature must
be as a soldier fully armed, standing ready to {63} spring instantly
forward to the conflict at the word of command.[2]
The anxiety that engenders doubt and fear is indeed too often found
among God's people. "It is never free from imperfections and always
springs from some evil root of self-love,"[3] and is the result more of
a lack of faith than of any true, supernatural solicitude for the
safety of our souls. We can well afford to leave all these cares with
God. Says the saintly writer we have been quoting, "Greater is Thy
anxiety for me than all the care that I can take for myself; for he
stands precariously who casts not all his anxiety upon Thee."[4]
The true Christian anxiety is closely akin to the virtue of Holy Fear,
which, as we know, is one of the special gifts of the Holy Ghost. We
are anxious about our temptations and the possibilities of sin, because
we have a dread of offending a Father whose love has ever been poured
out upon us in most precious benefactions. The soul recognizing God's
goodness, and His tender, {64} fatherly love, shrinks from the baseness
and ingratitude of wounding that love. We are not afraid of God; we
are afraid of offending God because we love Him. There are few virtues
that are so immediately rooted in love as Holy Fear. Of course, we
have no reference to that servile fear which St. John tells us is cast
out by perfect love.[5] He refers to the fear of the slave who dreads
to offend because he is afraid of the lash. Holy Fear is the fear that
is aroused in the pure heart of a little child who shrinks from that
which would wound the love of a tender father. We find the true
expression of our filial anxiety in the familiar words of Faber's hymn:
"Oh, how I fear Thee, living God,
With deepest, tenderest fears,
And worship Thee with trembling hope,
And penitential tears."
II. _Worry Versus Faith_
The presence of worry is proof of absence of trust in God. The two
cannot abide in the same heart; and there is no more subtle device of
the tempter than this of arousing in us the spirit of worry concerning
our temptations. It is a temptation within a temptation, and this very
{65} complication has the effect of sadly clouding the real issue.
We have the word of the Holy Ghost that "God is faithful, who will not
suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able."[6] The word
_faithful_ as used here by St. Paul signifies faithfulness in carrying
out an agreement. It is implied that God has entered into a covenant
with the soul that He will permit no temptation beyond our strength to
assail us. The Apostle says that God is faithful and will fulfil His
part in this covenant. But the soul that admits worry is, in
substance, saying that it is not convinced of God's faithfulness in the
matter, and considers, in spite of the promise, that there is much to
fear.
Worry is the mother of an innumerable brood of sins. Well did the
Psalmist say, "Fret not thyself else shalt thou be moved to do
evil."[7] He knew somewhat of the sources of sin. His own experience,
as well as the inspiration of the Spirit, had taught him that the
fretted soul was a fair target for a hundred darts of the enemy. "The
very sound of the word anxiety is painful," says a modern writer; "next
to sin there is {66} nothing that so much troubles the mind, strains
the heart, distresses the soul, and confuses the judgment."[8] Imagine
an army troubled, strained, distressed, confused; what possible chance
would it have of victory against a powerful and confident foe? It
would be the plaything of the enemy, as indeed the human soul often is
when it allows itself to be unnerved by a false anxiety.
Thus we see that the anxious soul is the doubting soul, and the soul
that doubts God's goodness and loving care in the midst of the trial
and conflict has already flung away its weapons and prepared the terms
of its surrender to Satan. Even if our own experience did not teach us
better, His word, so often repeated, should reassure us. What can be
more comforting than the many passages concerning the divine care and
compassion with which the Scriptures teem?
We recall the final summing up of the last great blessing which Moses
gave his people from God before he went up into the mount to be seen of
them no more. "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the
everlasting arms."[9] Do these words leave room for anxious doubt that
in every assault of the enemy He will be with us? Or those other words
that have brought strong {67} consolation to so many souls in the midst
of the conflict: "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee"?[10]
Would that we could learn the lesson as the Psalmist learned it, that
we might rest upon the divine compassion, not enervated as we too often
are by human sympathy, but with our hearts thrilling with courage,
fearing naught, knowing that He is faithful that hath promised,[11] and
should the battle prove too strong He will save and deliver. "He shall
send down from on high to fetch me; and shall take me out of many
waters."[12]
III. _The Cure of a Doubting Spirit_
There are many practical means we can employ to allay that kind of
solicitude which is both the cause and effect of a doubting spirit.
(1) Think not overmuch of the dangers of the warfare. The imagination
brooding over them will be apt to paint them in lurid colours that will
terrify and weaken. If the thought of the peril presses upon us,
supplant it by recalling the oft repeated pledges of divine help.
Think rather of the glory of a conflict in which God is our Leader, and
in which victory is absolutely assured if only we do not lose heart but
fight on to the end.
{68}
Recall the precious promises He has given us, and how that often in the
very language of these promises we gain a glimpse of conditions of the
war that ought mightily to encourage us. "Resist the devil and he will
flee from you,"[13] says the Spirit, comforting us concerning the peril
of the conflict. Glance for a moment at the particular words the Holy
Ghost here chooses. "Resist the devil"; or, to go back to the
etymology of the word, Stand against him; yield not one step to him
however he may fling the full weight of his power against you. But
what will be the result? Not only that your soul will be safe from
stain or guilt, but that you will carry consternation into the ranks of
hell. "He will flee from you," and the word used by the inspired
writer means not merely that he will withdraw and leave you, but that
he will make a precipitate flight, as one in a panic flees from
impending danger.[14]
Let us remember when suggestion of fear comes that this is in itself a
special temptation from Satan, and nowhere in his temptations is he
guilty of more deliberate lying. As a matter of fact there is no
danger, even in the fiercest of his assaults, to the soul that
cherishes the {69} presence of Christ within. For if He be in my
heart, then the conflict is between Him and the tempter, and so long as
my heart is His, and I do not, by wilful sin, drive Him forth, it is as
impossible for Satan to conquer as it was for him to have triumphed
over our Lord in the great conflict in the wilderness.
In short, at such times all our Lord asks is that we maintain our
hearts for Him that He may use them as battle-fields upon which to join
issue once more with the adversary that He may administer to him
another crushing defeat. True, He uses our faculties with which to
fight, but the battle is His, and if we stand not in the way His will
be the victory. There can be no real danger to the faithful soul when
the struggle is conducted under these conditions.
(2) Speak not of your anxieties to everyone. We may rightly take
counsel with some wise spiritual guide who may be able to interpret
them for us; but experience shows us that many times much speaking of
these matters gives body and reality to troubles which have no adequate
ground, and which might easily have been driven away, had we only
sought to divert the mind from them, and so to forget them, instead of
impressing them still more on the consciousness by dwelling upon them
in thought and conversation.
{70}
Above all things let not our conversation concerning our anxieties take
the form of complaint, for in every case the complaint is against God.
He is directing the detail of the warfare, and each complaint is an
open questioning of His justice and wisdom and love. When Satan sees
that our spirits are thus inclined, how quick he is to take advantage
of it. How thick and fast do suggestions come that lead us swiftly on
to that state of self-pity at the supposed hardness of our lot, that
means a speedy extinction of divine grace within. Remember that
complaint means disloyalty, and disloyalty is a long step toward open
rebellion.
Even if our querulous spirit does not lead directly to such serious
sin, it involves us in great peril. We have already seen that Satan
has no means of knowing the effect of his assaults except by the
outward indications we give. When we openly complain of the force of
his attacks, are we not advertising him of our weak points? The
garrison that is maintaining a siege not only seeks to keep its
fortifications intact, but, should weakness transpire at any point, is
most careful not to give the enemy knowledge of it. Keep a brave front
always. This not only encourages our own heart, but discourages the
adversary.
{71}
(3) We must also draw upon our past experience to convince ourselves
that most of our anxieties have no real basis in fact. How many hours
and days of troubled care can we recall which were proved by the issue
of the event to have had reality only in our anxious imagination.
"My sons," said an old man on his deathbed, in giving his last counsel
to his children, "I have had much trouble in this life, but most of it
never happened." This is the universal experience, and it holds good
with the solicitude that we feel over our temptations and other
spiritual trials as in the less important matters of our temporal life.
(4) It will be a help to remind ourselves very frequently that in
indulging a false anxiety concerning our spiritual difficulties, we are
seeking to-day to bear the morrow's burden, something God means no soul
to undertake. There are surely temptations enough to-day to require
all of to-day's grace and strength; and, conversely, we know that no
grace will be wanting for the trials of the present hour.
The promise is given to us as to God's people of old, "As thy days so
shall thy strength be";[15] that is, according to the need of each
particular occasion so will strength be given. There is no {72}
promise that strength will be given to-day to bear the anticipated, and
often imaginary, ills of the future; and when we allow ourselves thus
to anticipate them, we are courting sure defeat.
Satan delights to lead us into this false anxiety, for he knows we have
at the present moment no grace to grapple with temptations and trials
which do not belong to this time; and further, he knows that a faithful
confidence in God now is the _sine qua non_ to securing and storing up
strength against the future trial. If he can disturb that confidence
to-day, when the real temptation comes to-morrow we shall not have laid
hold of the grace that was offered, and so cannot but fail, unless some
extraordinary mercy of God saves us then in spite of our faithlessness.
Nor should we ever permit ourselves to forget that there may be no
to-morrow. "Remember that it is God's, not thine."[16] How sad a case
would it be (and doubtless there have been many such), if we should
weaken our souls and God's power within them, by fretting over what
might happen to-morrow; then, the call suddenly coming, find ourselves
saved indeed perhaps, but occupying a lower place in heaven forever,
because in troubling our hearts over the burdens of a to-morrow that
never came we lost the {73} grace of to-day. Every grace given us here
is transmuted into glory there. Let us not lose one of them, for the
graces proffered and accepted here are pledges of the measure of the
heavenly glory that will be ours.[17]
IV. _God's Sympathy_
But, do what we will, after all, the best and only unfailing refuge
from the snare of a false solicitude is to turn in these anxious
moments to Him with Whom alone true sympathy is found. With profit may
we hearken to the warning of the blessed à Kempis: "By mutual speech we
seek mutual comfort, and desire to ease the heart overwearied with
manifold anxieties..... But, alas, often in vain and to no end; for
this outward comfort is no small loss of inward and divine
consolation."[18]
In our solicitude we desire, and rightly desire, human sympathy, and
God means us to have it. It was for this very thing that He sent His
Son to take our nature and a human heart, full of warm love and
sympathy, that we might find in perfection that for which we
yearn,--the tender sympathy of our own kind. What sweet and {74}
strong consideration for our weakness is shown in this. Mere human
sympathy only enervates, and in the end the soul is left weaker than
before. Every man's experience has told him this, and yet deep in the
human heart there is that uncontrollable longing for the loving touch
of another heart, human like our own. God sees this, and condescends
to it. He takes humanity, full and complete, up into the Godhead, that
in Him we may find that human Heart that will give us perfectly the
comfort and sympathy for which we yearn.
So in our solicitude let us turn to Him, our Elder Brother, and the
disciple who lay on His breast at Supper will have no more loving a
welcome, no sweeter a sympathy, than that which He will give to us who
are wearied with the burden of life's warfare, and perplexed with the
problems of the battle.
[1] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[2] "When the mind ceases to entertain religious anxiety, it becomes at
the same time forgetful of the commandments, and while it thinks itself
advancing, it wanders from the smooth road, and idles on its way."--St.
Macarius, _Institutes of Christian Perfection_, Bk. I, chap. v.
[3] Scupoli, _The Spiritual Combat_, chap. xxv.
[4] _Imitation_, IV, xvii.
[5] 1 St. John iv, 18.
[6] 1 Cor. x, 13.
[7] Ps. xxxvii, 8. The R. V. reads, "Fret not thyself; it tendeth only
to evil-doing."
[8] Archbp. Ullathorne, _Christian Patience_, p. 128.
[9] Deut. xxxiii, 27.
[10] Heb. xiii, 5.
[11] Heb. xi, 11.
[12] Ps. xviii, 16.
[13] St. James iv, 7.
[14] [Greek: _pheúgô_], from which our English word _fugitive_ is
derived.
[15] Deut. xxxiii, 25.
[16] Pusey, _Parochial Sermons_, Vol. II, p. 158.
[17] See a remarkable discourse in Dr. Pusey's _Lenten Sermons_ on "The
Losses of the Saved."
[18] _Imitation_, I, x.
{75}
CHAPTER VI
OUR PREPARATION FOR TEMPTATION
I. _A Double Weapon_
If we have the right spirit of solicitude about our temptations, it
will arm us with a double weapon against Satan which he will have no
power to break. We are told that we are to watch in prayer,--_vigilare
in orationibus_.[1] It is the command given by our Lord to his
disciples in the Garden in the hour of the power of darkness: "Watch ye
and pray lest ye enter into temptation."[2]
St. Paul, also, in his exhortation to the Ephesian Christians to "put
on the whole armour of God,"[3] does not regard it as enough to give
the great list of virtues with which they are to be panoplied. The
loins must indeed be girt with truth; the breastplate of righteousness
must be buckled on and the sandals of the preparation of the gospel of
peace; while above all else there must be the shield of faith; and the
great catalogue of {76} the Christian soldier's equipment ends with the
helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit.
But this armour is not sufficient for the warfare. Complete as it
seems, something else is necessary to insure the victory; and so the
great Christian warrior, who himself had "fought a good fight,"[4] adds
something more, namely, watchfulness and prayer,--"_Praying_ always,
with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and _watching_
thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints."
How strong are his words, poured forth with such impetuosity of
expression as to seem to a superficial reader to be almost
tautological,--"praying with all prayer and supplication." How
careful, too, is he to remind us that this prayer and supplication must
be "in the Spirit," in response to the Spirit's impulse, and with the
right judgment that He alone can give, and which He will give only to
those who ask Him "nothing wavering."[5]
Nor will prayer alone suffice. There must be a "watching thereunto
with all perseverance"; not relaxing our vigilance, but maintaining it
to the end. Neither is the soul to grow faint in its watch, nor
imagine, in regard to any point, that careful guard is no longer
necessary.
{77}
The word "thereunto" calls for comment. Does the vigilance enjoined
apply only to the work of prayer which has just been mentioned, or does
it reach back to the whole category of duties included in putting on
the armour of God? At first glance it might seem inadequate to make it
refer only to the all-embracing duty of prayer, but if we comprehend
fully all that prayer means, we shall see that it is not necessary that
we should directly connect the injunction to vigilance with anything
else.[6] If we are keenly vigilant to pray as we ought in the power of
the Spirit concerning truth and righteousness, faith and salvation, and
all else that the Apostle has been describing, nothing will be wanting
to us as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. How truly did à Kempis catch
the thought which the Holy Spirit had given the great Apostle when he
paraphrased our Lord's command in the words, "Be watchful in prayer."
Let us consider, then, this twofold weapon with which God will arm us,
for we note that they are not two separate weapons. Our Lord said,
"Watch ye and pray," and the blessed à Kempis gives us, as we have just
seen, the true commentary on the command in the paraphrase, "Watch in
prayer."
{78}
Vigilance without prayer would be to learn of the danger, and yet fail
to guard against it. To pray without vigilance would be to expect God
to work some miracle for us, to protect us when we ourselves had done
nothing to employ the means He places in our hands for forestalling and
defeating Satan. In short, it would be a sin of presumption. So one
cannot avail without the other.
With this understanding clear in our minds, let us proceed to examine
the relation of vigilance and prayer to temptation.
II. _The Spirit of Vigilance_
"_Watch._" This implies much more than a mere guarding ourselves in a
general way. It means that a systematic and regular guard is to be
kept over our _whole life_, over _all_ our senses and faculties, over
_all_ circumstances and conditions so far as we can by any means direct
them.
Here again we may find our illustration in the world about us.
Approach the camp of a well disciplined army. How quickly you are
challenged. Seek to enter it on any side, and a sentinel, alert and
suspicious, keeps you at a distance. The foe may be hovering in the
darkness of the neighbouring forest, or he may be a hundred miles away,
but this makes no difference in the vigilance of the guard. They take
{79} no chances. The enemy is abroad, and no man sleeps on his post.
Nor is it the known weak points only, or only the side from which the
attack is expected, that receives attention. Everywhere strict
watchfulness is maintained, while the threatened points are doubly
sentinelled.
We have in this the picture of what the watch about the beleaguered
soul should be. The soul that means to give a good and generous
service to God must guard itself at every point. How frequently, when
attention is called to some sin, do we think, "Oh, that is not my
weakness," or, "That would constitute no temptation to me whatever."
Vain, boasting spirit!--trusting to escape from evil by merely natural
means! How Satan gloats as he marks one point that is being left
unguarded, and waits, alert and observant, for a favourable opportunity
for attack. Through long time, months and years it may be, he
maintains a steady, subtle work of suggestion, leading the mind little
by little, unconsciously because no guard is kept, into an attitude
where the temptation we boastingly defied will prove a terrible foe
before whose sudden onslaught we shall go down in grievous and
ignominious fall.
If in truth God has spared us the fall into some sin that happens in
the lives of those about us, our safety will lie not in
self-congratulation, {80} but in humble thanksgiving that only through
the mercy of God have we been spared this stain. "But for the mercy of
God, there goes John Bradford," exclaimed a rugged old Christian as a
condemned murderer passed by on his way to death.
Again, our vigilance must be especially directed against the
temptations to which we have already yielded. When a sin has once
found entrance, it is easy for it to enter again, not only because
experience of the sin itself makes it attractive, but because
psychologically it is easy to do the thing we have done before. In my
self-examination to-night I find that a certain sin has been committed.
Let me mark it over against the morrow that the temptation, if it
recur, may be stamped out quickly, lest the fault entering often become
habitual, and a binding chain of besetting sin be forged about my soul.
Similarly must we guard the particular faculty that we find has led us
into sin. Is it pride of intellect, the desire to show what little we
know, the instinctive tendency to monopolize conversation, or to
instruct and correct others? Or is it a weakness that has its seat in
our affections, a tendency to condone sin in those we love, or a
critical spirit against those for whom we have no natural affinity? Or
perhaps it is a sin of speech; {81} the unkind word we so easily speak,
the idle boast of our own achievements; or the sin of idle
conversation, the "objectless" talk that occupies so much of our
conversation with others, and which our Lord so terribly condemned.[7]
Although no sin may have been committed, yet an oft-recurring
temptation is always to be diligently watched. It indicates that
Satan, who generally knows us better than we know ourselves, has reason
to believe that here is a weak point in our armour; or that he thinks
that God might, for some reason, be particularly dishonoured by our
commission of the sin suggested at some special time or place.
Vigilance, too, must be kept regarding occasions of sin. For this
reason we should practise not only daily examination of conscience that
we may learn wherein we have failed, but we should begin each day with
an anticipation of possible happenings. Where do I expect to go? Whom
shall I see? What duties are to be performed which may occasion
temptation? Perhaps I know that, if the expected routine of the day be
not disturbed, I shall go to a certain place and shall meet certain
people. The last time I was in that place something occurred which
caused me to sin. Is the occasion of that sin still there? {82} If
so, I must note it, and be most guarded concerning it. Perhaps I shall
meet a certain person who irritates and annoys me. This, too, I must
note, and forestall by some prompt word or act of charity, before the
temptation has time to present itself.
III. _Prayer and Temptation_
All this vigilance will, however, avail nothing unless it be combined
with prayer. The good soldier in the field does not depend upon
himself, but is constantly referring to headquarters for instructions,
and this reference on the part of the soldier in the armies of the
Kingdom is what we call prayer.
We must, however, get beyond the narrow and inadequate notion that
prayer is confined to formal acts of praise, thanksgiving, confession,
and petition. These are real and essential parts of prayer, and we
have need of them as we shall see; but they are not all.
Every act of directing the human will towards the will of God is prayer
in its truest and most comprehensive sense. Every longing of the heart
for God, every effort to identify ourselves with Him, our wills with
His will, though there be neither word, nor even thought, definitely
framed, is prayer. Our spoken prayers may have prayed {83} themselves
away; the mind and body may be so wearied that formal acts of prayer
are a burden to the flesh, and well-nigh impossible. But these are not
necessary if we are keeping our hearts turned towards Him, and are
striving, even though at times we may not appear to succeed, to
maintain, around and within, that atmosphere of loving devotion which
is the Christian's way of keeping open the lines of communication with
his base of supplies.
Our first duty in prayer, as a preparation over against temptation, is
to address ourselves directly to the case in hand, and, pleading our
own nothingness, to ask God to go with us through the day to defend and
succour us. Pray about the particular occasion of sin that may seem
imminent; pray with especial earnestness as we approach it more nearly.
But the prayer must not be for ourselves alone. If there are others
involved we must pray for them, that they too may be controlled by the
Holy Spirit.
If the occasion we are approaching is one that is dangerous because we
have before yielded to Satan, no prayer can be of greater effect than
an act of contrition for the past sins, the commission of which is now
involving us in renewed peril. Every act of contrition purifies the
soul more and more, and adds to the strength with which {84} we are to
meet the confident enemy on the scene of his former victory, but this
time to put him to flight. "_Amplius lava me_,"--Wash me more and
more,--was the cry of the Psalmist in his great prayer of penitence.[8]
Here we cannot fail to consider the particular strength which comes
from the greatest prayer of contrition,--sacramental confession and the
absolution which follows. If the anticipated occasion be one of
possible mortal sin, and if the sin of the past has been grievous, the
best preparation will be the seeking of absolution in the tribunal of
penance. Every sacrament brings its own particular grace, and the
special grace of absolution is a power infused into us which will apply
to the especial need of our souls. Satan has at some time been able to
effect an entrance at some point; again he draws near to assault the
absolved soul, confident that he will find the same avenue open. To
his chagrin, however, he finds it not only closed, but fortified with a
special gift of strength from God; and, fearing the shame of a defeat,
he will often withdraw without attacking.
This is a common experience with those who habitually frequent the
tribunal of penance. How many times have we had many and grievous {85}
falls into some particular sin; we make a good confession and go away
not only cleansed, but strengthened by the grace of absolution; and
after some days or weeks we begin to realize with a sense of joyful
surprise that the temptation which a little while ago was constantly
appearing seems to be entirely withdrawn. The occasion may arise, but
the soul feels no drawing to that in which it had before sinned. It is
the operation of the special grace of absolution, a grace which cannot
be had other than through the Sacrament of Penance, whatever other
great graces God may give us in reward for true contrition of spirit.
It is important that the work of prayer in preparation for temptation
should cover every point. As we have already thought in connection
with watchfulness, nothing must be done in the natural spirit; no
temptation can be overcome by means of dependence on anything else but
the gifts of divine grace. "Not by might, nor by power, but by My
Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts."[9]
It is a part of the Faith that we can do nothing pleasing to God in the
natural spirit. Nothing can be acceptable with Him, nothing can draw
from Him the graces we need, save what is done {86} through the power
and influence of the Third Person of the Ever-Blessed Trinity.
The Apostle says that no man can do so simple a thing as to "say that
Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost."[10] So it is the Holy Ghost
Who is to be our guide and protector. Do we pray to the Holy Ghost?
We pray often to the Father; frequently, perhaps, to God the Son, but
how much is prayer to God the Holy Ghost neglected amongst Christians!
And yet He alone is the agent of the Godhead in the Church. His is the
work of sanctification, as the Father's is the work of creation, and
the Son's that of redemption. No grace comes to us save through the
Spirit. Everything that comes into our lives from God, whether by
means of prayer or sacrament, faith or good works, comes through the
personal action of the Holy Ghost.
Therefore in preparing for temptation let us look to Him and pray to
Him in all things; and thus "strengthened by His Spirit in the inner
man,"[11] we can go forth to the day's conflict, knowing that the
assaults of Satan and the occasions of sin can only bring us new
opportunities of victory that will merit us the crown of life which is
promised to them that overcome.
In the midst of this prayer in preparation for {87} temptation we must
expect to find ourselves the objects of Satan's peculiar malice. All
prayer is a challenge to him, but none so much as the prayer by which
we are gaining new force and resource to employ against him.[12]
In this, as in all else, we see how carefully Satan conducts his
warfare. If it were possible to do so, what leader would fail to
attack his enemy when he was in the very act of laying in new supplies
of food and ammunition upon which to subsist, and with which to fight?
Lastly, in the very moment of temptation our prayers must be strong and
unceasing. The more the temptation increases, the more fervently--yea,
desperately--must we pray, crying out as a drowning man might call to
the only one from whom he could expect help.
But, says one, there's the rub. How can I pray when a thousand
distractions are thrust in so powerfully from every side? We are to
find the answer to such questions in our Lord's {88} hour of deepest
temptation in Gethsemane where we are told that "being in an agony, he
prayed more earnestly"[13]--literally, more intensely.
Let the intensity of our prayer keep pace with the intensity of
assault. We can more than defeat Satan if at such times we compel
ourselves to pray with greater care and exactness, framing with
extraordinary care the very words we are speaking to God, and if our
perturbation be such that we can find no words to utter, let us not
grow faint, but remember that this was precisely the case with our Lord
in His Agony, when He prayed over and over again, "saying the same
words."[14]
By his constant effort to interfere with our prayers, especially in
seasons of trial and temptation, Satan gives his testimony to the
efficiency which we shall acquire if we are earnest in our work of
preparation for the battle. He fears it with a fear born of long
experience. "Grievous indeed to us," says St. Bernard, "is the
temptation of the enemy, but far more grievous to him is our
prayer."[15] He has through all the ages contended against the grace
and strength of God as he found it in its manifold forms in the Saints.
He sees the history of the spiritual {89} warfare repeating itself in
us, and surely it should be a source of rejoicing to us that he should
count us as foes to be feared, as he feared in other days, or in our
own time, the great Saints and warriors of the Kingdom of God.
[1] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[2] St. Mark xiv, 38.
[3] Eph. vi, 11-18.
[4] 2 Tim. iv, 7.
[5] St. James i, 6.
[6] See _The Speaker's Commentary_, in loc.
[7] St. Matt. xii, 36.
[8] Ps. li, 2.
[9] Zech. iv, 6.
[10] Cor. xii, 3.
[11] Eph. iii, 16.
[12] "St. Thomas and many other grave doctors say that it is by reason
of the war that the devil is accustomed to make against those that are
in prayer, that the Church, directed by the Holy Ghost, ordains that we
should begin all the canonical Hours with this verse, 'O God, make
speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me.' Whereby we implore
God's assistance in prayer against the snares and temptations of the
enemy."--Quoted by Rodriguez, _Christian Perfection_.
[13] St. Luke xxii, 44.
[14] St. Matt. xxvi, 44.
[15] St. Bernard, _Serm. in Dedicat. Eccles._, III.
{90}
CHAPTER VII
TRAINING THE INNER LIFE
I. _Environment and Character_
A psychological principle we should never lose sight of is that the
attitude of mind and heart towards all moral questions is just what we
choose to make it. Surround a man with debasing associations, and let
him yield to the resulting influences, and he becomes debased. On the
other hand, the influence of a pure and noble environment makes for
purity and nobility of character. Every man in his inner character,
and in that outward expression of character that we call life, is the
product of the influences to which he yields himself.
One of our chief dangers, however, is that many influences flow out
from our daily environment of which we are quite unconscious. We are
not always in a position to realize our surroundings and their effect,
and even when we can realize them, it is often beyond our power to
control them. But before an external influence can work any hurt to
us, there must be something {91} within that answers to it. A child
may pass unscathed through an environment of vice, because there is
nothing in the child-heart that responds to the call of sin.
Our Lord had this in mind, perhaps, when He laid it down as a condition
necessary to entrance into the Kingdom of God that we should become as
little children,[1] and He was able to make this condition quite
absolute, because while no man can control his external environment and
the consequent influences, he can, by the deliberate use of his will,
acting in the power of the Holy Ghost, create, in very large measure,
whatever interior condition he wishes. By his daily course he can
develop a moral and spiritual interior that will habitually respond
with alacrity to the evil and be deaf to the good; or, on the other
hand, one that will not only rise up quickly to entertain every good
influence and suggestion, but will in a large measure (though never
wholly in this life) be even unconscious like little children of the
presence of evil influences.[2]
{92}
So let us learn how to create an interior environment in which the Holy
Ghost will be the dominant force. Otherwise Satan will surely surround
us with so much of sin, that becoming accustomed to it, and to the
thought of it, we shall be unable to resist the effort he will make to
use our faculties as instruments for his work.
Nor must we wait until conscious of his approach before seeking to
create the proper interior environment. In most cases it will then be
too late. It is not easy to surround ourselves with an atmosphere of
good and pious thought in the moment of assault. We must be beforehand
with him. In times of peace we must prepare for war.
We may be quite sure that it is with the intention of affording us the
opportunity to do this that God often gives us rest from the attacks of
the enemy. He does not mean us to lie idle at such times, but to seize
the opportunity to train for future battles, just as soldiers in
barracks engage in daily drill that they may be more efficient fighters
when again called to take the field. "After thou hast escaped these
{93} temptations, or else if our Lord hath so kept thee (as He doth
many by His mercy), that thou hast not been troubled much by any such,
then it is good for thee that thou beware of turning thy rest into
idleness."[3]
Let us consider how Satan uses certain of our faculties as instruments
of sin, and see how by a definite system of spiritual exercises we can
so forestall him that he will find nothing in us ready for his use.
II. _Educating the Memory_
How much sin, for example, is due to the action of memory! It is
indeed strange that this wonderful faculty, which more than any other
operates to give unity, consistency, and proportion to our life, should
be so often used to call up past sins that we may sin them over again
in will if not in deed. We linger with pleasure, by the exercise of
this faculty, over past sins, making them our own again, staining our
souls once more with that which we thought had been buried forever in
the far-off years.
We bring to renewed life old revenges, ancient hates, and revel again
amid scenes of impurity which can never be re-enacted in real life.
Such {94} acts, frequently indulged, grow into a habit, and the habit
becomes necessity when the memory not only easily and naturally reverts
to those events and conditions of the past that were bound up with sin,
but becomes so trained that it must recall the evil, and can only with
great stress, difficulty, and distaste be made to recall that which is
good.
If, on the other hand, by persistent acts of will we force the memory
to recall the righteous passages from our past, far-off happenings
sweet and holy, we, little by little, train it to retain these
righteous things, while all other impressions grow more and more dim as
the years go by.
Those who have practised such methods find that after a time the
memory, even when left alone, will engage itself with that which is
good, just because it has become accustomed to it, and will reject the
evil (in many cases, of itself, without the direct interposition of the
will), because long exercise has so trained it that in its ordinary
operation evil memories are repugnant to it.
Therefore keep the memory definitely busy. Too often when we think it
is browsing, as it were, carelessly among the fields of the past, it
is, as a matter of fact, being subtly directed by Satan, until, ere we
know it, it has fallen upon some evil thing whose touch is poison.
{95}
III. _Guiding the Imagination_
So likewise with the imagination. Perhaps no human faculty is
responsible for so much sin, and there is a peculiar heinousness in
sins of the imagination. In His mercy God has limited our sphere of
sin. There are certain evils impossible for us because He has withheld
us from the condition necessary for their commission.
Instead, therefore, of being grateful for such a blessed limitation, we
use the imagination to conjure up impossible situations. We create new
worlds for ourselves, new theatres for our exploits of pride and
wickedness, and in them, through will and imagination, we enact the sin
that it would be impossible to commit in our actual external lives.
This strong activity of the imagination can and must be directed. If
this mysterious faculty be so prone to produce its own creations, if we
indeed will dream of things that do not belong to the present moment,
let them be holy things.
Yes, let the imagination run as fast as it will, check it in nothing
save in the subjects of its activity. Let it transport us to heavenly
places. Let it picture to our astonished vision the things that will
be hereafter, the company of heaven, {96} the companionship of the
Saints, the glory of the Lamb.
Or, if these ranges be too lofty, let the fancy create new earthly
theatres for our activity. Let us picture ourselves following Jesus as
He "went about doing good";[4] let us see Him healing the lepers,
opening the eyes of the blind, raising the dead, blessing the little
children; let us bring vividly before us the great example of His life;
and let the picture so burn itself, through the power of the
imagination, into the very fabric of the brain, that we cannot choose
but make it the model for our own lives.
So, after a time, the imagination will become so trained that it will
ever be creating holy things, and presenting them for our
consideration, and will become incapable, in the end, of producing any
picture that could not find ready reflection in the stainless mirror of
the human mind of our Blessed Lord.
When we consider the method of thus training the inner man, we find
that our course must be shaped by means of certain practices, which
should be strenuously pursued if real progress is to be made. These
practices will be, as à Kempis says particularly of one of them, as a
rudder guiding the ship, keeping it on its proper course. {97} Those
we shall consider especially are: (1) Constancy of mind and will; (2)
Patience; (3) Calmness; (4) Diligence.
IV. _The Practice of Constancy_
Thomas à Kempis says, "The beginning of all evil temptations is
inconstancy of mind, and small confidence in God, for as a ship without
a rudder is tossed to and fro by the waves, so the man who is slack and
quits his purpose is many ways tempted."[5]
God, knowing human weakness and incapacity, requires but little of man,
but He does emphatically require that this little be resolutely
purposed, and definitely executed. The soldier who threshes wildly
about the field, however fiercely and courageously, is not the one to
contribute to the victory. He who sets a definite purpose before him;
who knows just what he wants to do, and allows nothing to shake his
purpose, is the one on whom the commander can depend to accomplish
something in the battle.
So in our spiritual warfare the most important factor is definiteness
of purpose, and constancy in executing it. The Christian warfare must
be conducted by rule. When I arise each morning {98} to the work of
another day, I must know, as far as possible, what that work is; I must
know the particular method by which it is to be performed; I must have
submitted it all to God so that, feeling assured of "a right judgment
in all things," I shall be able to go forward to my duty without doubt
or hesitation. The army that knows not when to fight, whose officers
are in confusion and uncertainty regarding the next move, falls an easy
prey to the enemy. But let the same army be provided with a definite
plan of campaign; let every officer and man, each in his place, know
just what he is to do under every condition that may arise; and the
enemy will have no easy task to defeat it.
This all points to the necessity of the Christian having a Rule of
Life, and holding fast to it; allowing himself to be drawn off to
nothing else until that be fulfilled. Satan has a subtle way at times
of seeking to disturb our spirit of constancy by suggesting something
that, in itself, is better and higher than that we have resolved upon.
But let us not be deceived by this clever move on his part. If we have
undertaken a definite thing for God, that is the highest and best for
us until it be accomplished; and the thought that any thing can be more
pleasing to Him is but a wile of the devil; and to entertain the {99}
suggestion is to be guilty of pride. Better a small and humble service
well performed, than great things poorly done. "Our advancement and
perfection consist not in the performance of very extraordinary things,
or in the being employed in the highest and most labourious offices of
religion, but only in doing our ordinary actions well, and in
acquitting ourselves well of whatsoever obedience employs us in, be it
ever so mean or easy."[6] So Christian perfection, against which all
temptation is directed, consists in doing ordinary things
extraordinarily well.
The conclusion of the matter is that we cannot be safe unless our whole
life is lived by definite, practical rule; a rule for rising in the
morning, for prayers, for our Bible reading, our Communions, our
Confessions, for the commonest details of our daily routine, leaving
nothing to be decided by chance or whim. A life thus ordered and
carried out with constancy of purpose and will, for the glory of God,
is a standing {100} menace to Satan's power. He fears it, because he
knows that it possesses a power against which his long experience and
consummate skill are as nothing.
V. _The Practice of Calmness_
A life lived as has been described above is one that will be dominated
by a spirit of calmness, a calmness born of strength. The strong man
is always the calm man. An agitated spirit is the evidence of a
conscious weakness. The soldier who has faith in his commander, who
knows he can rely on the weapons furnished him, and who is certain that
his strength is greater than that of his enemy, is not excited in the
face of attack. He receives it with serenity because he feels assured
of what the result will be. It is uncertainty that brings agitation;
it is the uncertainties of life that produce the worry that kills--and
worry means want of faith. But the Christian soldier is beset by no
uncertainties. If, in unswerving trust, he keeps his will firm for
God, knit up with the perfect human will of our Lord, he knows there
are no contingencies in the warfare he is waging. There can be but one
issue,--that of complete and glorious victory.
If this assurance concerning the issue produces calmness, the spirit of
calm will in its turn react {101} upon us for the greater certainty of
the victory.[7] The heart that is calm is the one that is capable of
seeing all things in their true nature and relation. Such a heart is
not easily deceived by the tempter, nor can it be frightened by the
clamour of his onslaught. With steady hand it parries his deadliest
thrusts, and assuming the offensive is able in its turn to inflict
mortal wounds upon the power of Satan wherever it may be manifested.
VI. _The Practice of Patience_
Patience is also a necessary virtue that has constantly and assiduously
to be cultivated if we would be ready always for the battle.
(1) We are to be patient with God, biding His time, tarrying His
leisure,[8] awaiting whatever He may send in the conflict, assuring
one's heart always that He rules and overrules, and that all things
work together for good to those who love Him.[9]
(2) We know the necessity of patience with our fellow-men. Our daily
experience show us how large a proportion of temptation arises from
failure to bear with those among whom we live, {102} not infrequently
those who hold the first place in our hearts. A wholesome remedy for
impatience with those about us is to remember ourselves. "Endeavour to
be patient in bearing with the defects and infirmities of others of
what sort soever they be: for thou also hast many which must be borne
with by others. If thou canst not make thyself what thou wouldest, how
canst thou expect to have another to thy liking? We are glad to see
others perfect; and yet we mend not our own faults. We will have
others severely corrected: and will not be corrected ourselves. The
large liberty of others displeases us: and yet we will not have our own
desires denied us. We will have others restrained by laws: but will
not in any way be checked ourselves. And thus it appears: how seldom
we weigh our neighbour in the same balance with ourselves."[10]
(3) All these things we have just been considering are doubtless
familiar to us, but perhaps the thought of patience with ourselves is
not so common a one, although there is no more important a factor in
all the Christian warfare.
Patience must be exercised towards oneself as towards a weak and
wayward child. We are not to expect too much of ourselves. To turn
upon oneself angrily or bitterly because we cannot {103} immediately
drive away some persistent temptation, or because we have yielded,[11]
is an act of spiritual pride. It shows that we thought ourselves quite
able to cope with the tempter; prided ourselves indeed upon our
spiritual powers; and are now in a state of surprise and indignation
that we should have failed; when all the while, had we known ourselves,
we should have seen that the real wonder is that we are ever able at
all to resist him successfully.
Nor must we be surprised if there seem to rise up out of our own hearts
foul and humiliating temptations. We are not to forget that we are
made from the dust of the earth that can, of itself, bring forth naught
but thorns and thistles. The material of temptation is everywhere,
within and without, the soul "having the worst temptation within itself
in its own temptibility."[12]
Nor will he who understands himself and his own weakness grow impatient
with the long {104} continuance of the battle. He will recognize that
if he had his just deserts he would long since have been cast out from
God rather than permitted to wear the King's uniform, and fight battles
for the honour of His Name. He who knows himself will go softly all
the days of his life, knowing that only by so great a salvation as that
wrought on Calvary has he been preserved from the power of the enemy.
So "by little and little, and by patience with long suffering through
God's help thou shalt better overcome, than by hardness and thine own
pertinacity."[13]
VII. _The Practice of Diligence_
There remains to be considered the spirit of diligence that must
characterize the soldier of Christ. Keep yourself always busy with the
things of God. Keep the whole mental faculty engaged; keep it under
the command of the Holy Ghost, for just as in all else that belongs to
man, if God does not direct it, Satan will. There is a deep spiritual
truth in the old proverb, "An idle brain is the devil's workshop."
Not only will this course superinduce such habits of thought and
character as will strengthen us mightily, but, the human mind being
what it {105} is, will render it often impossible for Satan to find
lodgment in it for his temptation.
The mind can only be engaged with a limited number of things at any one
time. This varies with various persons, according to their mental
training and development, but even the most highly developed mind can
compass but few things at the same moment. Our common mental processes
consist of one thought, or group of thoughts, thrusting out others, and
taking their place until in their turn they are displaced. Since this
is the case, one's safety from evil thoughts lies in diligently keeping
the mind filled with good and holy thoughts. Keep the will at work
calling up a continuous procession of suggestions and pictures of
things righteous and God-like, and when Satan approaches to insinuate
into the heart his temptations, he will find it so full that there will
be no room in it for him or his works.
This must be done in an organized and methodical way. Let us not trust
to chance opportunity. At every moment the will is, consciously or
subconsciously, making a choice either for good or evil. Our part is
to seize upon these moments and force that inevitable choosing to be
not only righteous, but definitely and explicitly a choice of
righteousness.
Practise over and over again the work of {106} choosing God. Arraign
before the mind things good and evil, the higher and the lower, that
the will may be drilled in the repeated preference of what belongs to
Him.
This will be a much simpler method than may seem at first. How many
moments are there in each day when we are, of necessity, unoccupied.
We have to wait five minutes for an appointment; we spend a quarter of
an hour on a crowded car; we have a little distance to walk to reach
some destination; or occasionally there is a wakeful hour at night.
What are we doing all this time? We can be sure the will is operating.
It stands sentinel to admit or repulse every thought that comes; and
what is the nature of the thoughts admitted? Idle thoughts, critical
thoughts of those about us, silly vain thoughts of self,--how covered
with confusion and shame we should be if some by-stander were able to
look within and see the busy, thronging procession that streams through
our mind unchallenged, nay more, welcomed and indulged. Yet this is
the very opportunity God gives us to busy ourselves for Him: and
instead of using it, we let it run to sinful waste, marring our whole
character, for as a man thinks, so he is.
How much better would it have been had we said, when we realized the
unoccupied minute: {107} "I will use this little time to make an act of
love, of hope, of faith. I will speak to Him familiarly in some
ejaculation of prayer. I will, for His praise, repeat some psalm I may
know by heart. I will pray for some of these people, strangers though
they be to me."[14] Then immediately perform this resolution in a most
definite way, framing with care even the very words with the lips, that
the body as well as the mind may have its part in the work.
Try this for a month, earnestly and persistently, and at the end of
that time see if the whole inner being does not spontaneously turn to
such holy exercises. So far as the human aspect of it is concerned, it
is a mere matter of psychology. The mind acts thus, because it has
been trained to it. The repeated act has formed the habit, and the
habit in its turn repeats the act; but through and in it all is divine
grace, the very life of God, operating in the infinite activity of His
love.
Especially must we exercise this diligence when we perceive the
tempter's approach. When we become conscious of the slightest
suggestion that seems to point to sin, let the will rally all our {108}
faculties to expel it, and to fill the mind so full that it can have no
chance of returning. But here as everywhere else must we be on our
guard against Satan's subtilty and power. Often in response to such an
attitude on our part, he presents some attractive thought, pure and
good, perhaps; then another and another, leading the soul that is not
watchful by a long train of associated ideas up to the goal he has
prepared, to some one thought that is either itself sin if consented
to, or the ready vehicle of sin.
Accustom the mind with unwearied diligence to such thoughts as we can
readily, conceive finding place in the mind of Christ, rejecting all
others. "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be
any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."[15]
Let the mind be thus employed, and Satan may indeed be able to lead us
along some line of thought up to the place of temptation, but it will
be only to find, as with our Lord, when he bore Him up to the pinnacle
of the temple, that this place of his own choosing will prove the scene
of his own utter defeat.
[1] St. Matt. xviii, 3.
[2] "A temptation can never be divorced from a course of life. It is
woven into the very texture of life's continuity. It is a temptation
because of what we are _at the time_. It is the conditions of the
crisis which make a moment, a decision, critical.... It is thus the
whole setting of a life which brings temptation. So temptation is
never clean detached from the past, or the future, of the tempted; for
there is no such thing as a human experience which has not its roots in
the past, and its fruit in the sequel."--H. J. C. Knight, _The
Temptation of our Lord_, p. 55.
[3] Walter Hilton, _The Scale of Perfection_, Bk. I, Pt. II, chap. i.
[4] Acts x, 38.
[5] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[6] Rodriguez, _The Practice of Religious and Christian Perfection_,
Vol. I, p. 86. Pere Grou teaches "that nothing is small or great in
God's sight; whatever He wills becomes great to us, however seemingly
trifling, and if once the voice of conscience tells us that He requires
anything of us, we have no right to measure its importance.... There
is no standard of things great and small to a Christian, save God's
will."--_The Hidden Life of the Soul_, p. 206. ("Half-a-Crown" Ed.)
[7] "Be still, then, and know that I am God."--Ps. xlvi, 10. "In
quietness and in confidence shall be your strength."--Isa. xxx, 15.
[8] Ps. xxvii, 16.
[9] Rom. viii, 28.
[10] _Imitation_, I, xvi.
[11] "You are vexed at the vexation, and then you are vexed at having
been vexed. I have seen people in the same way get into a passion, and
then be angry because they had lost their temper!"--St. Francis de
Sales, _Spiritual Letters_, xxvii.
[12] S. T. Coleridge, _Aids to Reflection_, p. 186. (Bohn Ed.)
Bishop Andrewes in his second sermon on the Temptation of Christ,
speaking of it being impossible for Him to have sinned since there was
no fire of concupiscence in Him, quaintly says: "To us the devil needs
bring but a pair of bellows, for he shall find fire within
us."--Andrewes, _Sermons_, Vol. V, p. 508.
[13] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[14] A busy Wall Street financier not long since told the writer that
for several years, whenever stepping from an omnibus or car, in the
thronged street or crowded railway station, he had made a practice of
offering an ejaculation of prayer for his fellow-passengers.
[15] Phil. iv, 8.
{109}
CHAPTER VIII
THE STAGES OF THE BATTLE
The spiritual masters in every age are at agreement concerning the
process by which the soul passes from a state of grace into a state of
sin. They express it in various ways, and in varying degrees of
elaboration, but when analysed it can be brought down to three steps
given us by St. Gregory, _Suggestion, Pleasure, Consent_.[1] Thomas à
Kempis presents it somewhat more fully, and it is with his statement of
the process that we purpose engaging ourselves.
"First," he says, "a bare thought comes to the mind; then a strong
imagination; afterwards pleasure, and evil motion, and consent."[2]
I. _The Satanic Suggestion_
First of all, then, "the bare thought,"--_simplex cogitatio_,--"comes
to the mind"; or more literally _runs upon_ (_occurit_), the mind. The
word {110} is full of action. The suggestion of evil does not drift
into the mind in any merely accidental way. It is propelled from
without by a strong, alert intelligence,--none other than the
Tempter,--and under just the conditions and circumstances that his
experience shows him are the most advantageous for his uses. À Kempis
doubtless had here in mind St. Paul's thought, expressed to the
Corinthians, "There hath no temptation _taken_ you, but such as is
common to man";[3] the idea being that of the temptation laying hold of
the soul as a warrior might take hold upon his adversary in battle.
He proposes the evil thing, not perhaps as a thing sinful in itself,
for, as we have already seen, his experience has taught him that few
souls, even of the most depraved, can be induced to accept evil for
evil's sake. He presents it sometimes under the guise of that which is
positively good; or perhaps, with an assumption of great virtue, he
acknowledges it to be wrong in itself, but seeks to persuade us that it
would be right for us to make an exception of ourselves under the
peculiar circumstances that are present.
It is necessary for us to study with care the subject of suggestion of
sin, lest either through Satan's wiles, or our own ignorance, we be
deceived, to our soul's hurt. It is at this point {111} that we must
understand the difference between temptation and sin. The failure to
grasp this difference has been the cause of great distress to many
faithful souls; it has been the root of fatal discouragement in
numberless cases, and, in not a few, of downfall and final wreck.
The suggestion may often be the result of our past unfaithfulness. It
is not always easy to trace the pedigree of a temptation, but in most
cases it is highly likely that it is to be traced back to some failure
of our own in the past. Men indulge themselves; they whet the
imagination with evil thought and conversation and reading. They
develop their passions by giving rein to them. By continued failure to
resist, they go on in the same sin under many varying conditions, until
a hundred commonplace, every-day happenings, entirely innocent in
themselves, become charged with sinful suggestions, recalling the old
sin whenever they occur. It is as though a commander should plant
powerful batteries about his own fortress, preparing them to be used by
the enemy. Thus learning from our past, we know how to guard ourselves
for the future. Present faithfulness is the pledge, and the only
pledge, of future security.[4]
{112}
Or it may be that Satan, accustomed to success in leading us astray in
certain things, is encouraged to suggest like evil to our minds again.
However this may be, whether the suggestion arises from the evil bent
that our minds have received through former yielding, or whether it be
Satan's device and unprovoked solicitation, _there is no sin in the
mere fact that evil is suggested to our minds, however persistently or
strongly_.[5]
In any case it had its origin outside of us, and unless we have
deliberately run into the occasion of sin, or in some culpable way
invited it, we are in the immediate case not responsible for the
suggestion.
Therefore, the suggestion can in no way be regarded as sin, for unless
our wills have brought it about, or consciously encouraged it, our
souls are unstained. Without the action of the will, no sin can enter
the heart. "What is done without, or against, our will, rather takes
place in us, than is done _by_ us."[6]
{113}
"No risings, then, of any passion, yea, though it should rise again and
again, against thee, and by rising weary thee, and almost wear thee
out: no thought by night when thou hast not power over thy soul, and
thy will is not conscious: no thoughts by day, which come to thee again
and again, and besiege thee and torment thee, and would claim thee for
their own: no distractions in prayer, even if they carry thee away, and
thou lose thyself and awake, as it were, out of a dream, and thy prayer
be gone,--none of these things are thine. Nothing without thy will is
thine, or will be imputed to thee. It is not the mere presence with
thee of what thou hatest: it is not the recurrence, again and again, of
what thou loathest, which will hurt thee: not even if it seems to come
from thy inmost self, unless thy will consent to it."[7]
II. _The Response of the Natural Heart_
Following upon the suggestion, à Kempis tells us there comes "a strong
imagination." The undisciplined soul does not instantly turn from the
suggestion. It allows a vivid picture of it to attract and hold the
attention. This may be quite involuntary, and, if so, is not in itself
sin, but unless the attention be speedily withdrawn {114} there follows
the second stage of temptation, namely, Pleasure. _Deletatio_ is the
word à Kempis uses, which has the sense of a pleasure which entices one
from the right way.
Here again, however, we must make the careful distinction between
temptation and sin, if we would not be entangled in a fatal network of
scruples. Though there may spring up in our hearts a distinct sense of
delight at the thought of committing the sin suggested, yet in this
delight itself there is no sin, unless the will enters in to confirm it.
This is not the kind of delight that St. Paul speaks of in his terrible
condemnation of those "who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in
unrighteousness";[8] for if the will comes in promptly to resist the
sense of delight, we are free from blame. The pleasure which often
follows the suggestion of sin to a faithful soul, while definite, and
perhaps even long continued, has its seat in our lower nature, in what
spiritual writers call the "inferior will" of which we shall speak
presently. So long as it does not capture the higher will, no sin has
been committed.
A simple illustration will suffice to show what is here meant. One is
walking with a companion on the street. Some one appears in sight who
{115} has recently wronged him. All the memory of the wrong surges up
in the heart instantly, and there comes a sharp suggestion to say some
unkind, revengeful thing. The heart responds to the suggestion, and it
would be a real pleasure to speak this unloving thought. But,
realizing the sin of it, we refrain; we even say to ourselves, "It
would be an intense satisfaction to speak, nothing would give me so
much pleasure; but I know it is not the will of God, and therefore
nothing will induce me to do it."
Here is the Satanic suggestion, followed by a definite sense of
pleasure therein, and yet so met and disposed of that no sin, but
rather the blessing of a victory, results. And this victory is more to
God's honour than it would have been had we rejected the temptation
with disgust, having found no sort of pleasure in it. When we found
pleasure in it, but refused it, there was a greater victory over self
and Satan.
III. _The "Inferior" and "Superior" Wills_
The existence of the two operations of will in man is proved from Holy
Scripture. St. Paul, writing to the Roman Christians, lifts the veil
from his own spiritual experience and shows us how they operated in
him. His experience we all recognize as our own.
{116}
"I find then a law," he says, "that when I would do good"--that is when
I will to do good,--"evil is present with me. For I delight in the law
of God after the inner man, but I see another law in my members warring
against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of
sin which is in my members."[9]
It is well before going further to inquire what is this "inferior will"
that manifests itself in the great Saints, as well as in us sinners,
and in which this delight at the thought of sin is said to have its
place. How is it to be distinguished from the higher will, which,
while acknowledging the sense of pleasure, yet refuses to yield to it?
And what relation have these two wills to the act of consent, which
constitutes the sin? Let us find the answer to our question in one of
the best of spiritual masters, the author of "The Spiritual Combat":
"Although we may be said in this combat to have within us two wills,
the one of the reason, which is thence called reasonable and higher,
the other of the senses, thence called sensual and lower, and commonly
described by the words 'appetite,' 'flesh,' 'sense,' and 'passion'; yet
as it is through the reason that we are men, we cannot truly be said to
will anything which is willed {117} by the senses, unless we are
inclined thereto by the higher will.
"And herein does our spiritual conflict principally consist. The
reasonable will being placed, as it were, midway between the Divine
Will which is above it, and the inferior will or the will of the
senses, which is beneath it, is continually warring against both, each
seeking in turn to draw it, and bring it under obedience."[10]
{118}
It is the inferior will that runs forward with delight to act upon
Satan's suggestion; it is the higher will that checks this
precipitation and says, "I know it is not the will of God, and
therefore nothing will induce me to do it." This higher will is what
is commonly meant when we speak of the human will being conformed to,
or arrayed against, the Divine Will. It has to act before man becomes
responsible.[11]
It is this higher will that enjoys its freedom, and therefore
constitutes in us a part of the {119} divine image. There is no power
that can compel it until, by its own free action, it yields itself to
that power. God, reverencing His image, as He sees it in us, will not
force a reluctant will to serve Him; and Satan cannot.[12] Scupoli
says again:
"God has, in truth, endowed our will with such freedom and such
strength, that were all the senses, all the evil spirits, nay, the
whole world itself, to arm and conspire against her, assaulting and
oppressing her with all their might, she could still, in spite of them,
will or not will, most freely all that she wills or wills not, and that
how often soever, whensoever, howsoever, and to what end soever, best
pleases her."[13]
{120}
It is on these grounds that the "superior will" has been called the
"Royal Faculty," because like a king it sits enthroned over all other
faculties, guiding and ruling them. No matter what dispositions we may
have, they are inoperative until the will commands; and according as
the will dictates, so is our whole life. We, and all that pertains to
us, are good or bad according as the will operates for good or evil.
Let us understand clearly, however, what is meant by the freedom of the
human will, lest we fall into error. As we have seen, the will is
indeed free. Satan cannot force it; God will not. But this does not
mean that the will is free to stand alone. It means simply that the
_will is free to choose_. Man was made for service. It has been said
that the dream of mankind has ever been of liberty, but the one
practical question that faces us every moment from the cradle to the
grave is, Whom shall I serve? Furthermore, there are but two
alternatives of service,--God or Satan. Man, from his very nature,
cannot choose to serve himself. Brought down to its final analysis,
all service is that of God or Satan, heaven or hell.
Nor is man and his life, so organized that the will can choose once for
all, and have done with it. We may choose once for all, but that same
{121} choice must every day and hour be repeated and ratified, else it
will not stand.[14]
It is a thought that must give us pause, that in every waking moment of
our lives, consciously or unconsciously, explicitly or implicitly, the
will is choosing, and that each several choice is making for our
eternal weal or our eternal woe; is gathering material for an immortal
crown, or for our accusation and possible condemnation at the end.
Nor is it possible, as we have just seen, for the will to refrain from
choosing. It is free to choose what it will, but choose it must. Some
have thought it possible to stand neutral, but not so. "Not to choose
is to choose amiss." Not to choose the service of God is to choose the
service of Satan.
The will, like our other faculties, does most readily that which it is
accustomed to do. The law of habit holds good here as elsewhere, and
habit is mostly acquired by the repeated performance of little acts.
We do not ordinarily perform great deeds of love as a means of
training; {122} rather do we perform them because we are already
trained. Some great act of love may confirm the will in its tendency
Godward, but it is not in high and lofty things that we are to seek our
training. Therefore in training the will so that it may acquire the
habit of spontaneously choosing God in all things, it must be taught to
acquiesce constantly in the little hourly leadings towards Him. If we
make a habit of consenting to another person, after a time it is
difficult to refuse consent. This holds equally good with the sweet
and happy rule of the Holy Spirit when we have aligned our wills with
His, and with the horrid slavery of hell when we have committed our
wills to Satan.
In fitting the will for the great warfare, it must be taught little by
little, in numberless minor things, to consent to God's Will. So after
a time the habit will be formed; God's Voice will become the signal for
prompt action, and the voice of Satan will be as the voice of a
stranger whom the will, like the sheep in the parable, will not follow.
Surely then it will be worthy to be called the Royal Faculty, for as a
king indeed will it reign, one with the Will of Him Who is the King of
kings.
{123}
IV. _The Fatal Consent_
We see that there is no power that can compel the will, unless it be
that the will has, by its own act, delivered itself to be bound by
Satan. This brings us to the third stage--Consent. The suggestion to
evil may be strong, the pleasure that follows may be keen; and yet
there is no sin until the will has yielded consent; until its denial,
its hesitation, have been beaten down, and it has cried, "I yield."
It is around this point that the conflict centres. The suggestion may
count for nothing; it is often but a random shot that the enemy fires
on the chance of striking a vital point, "just as a besieging army
sends rockets here and there into a city to try for the powder
magazines."[15] The pleasure that follows, great as it may be, is not
in itself sinful, and may be the occasion of greater merit and grace to
the soul that feels it and, instead of yielding, beats it down
ruthlessly. But if Satan can induce the will to give consent, the deed
is done, the evil has entered, and, in proportion to the seriousness of
the matter, the divine love is quenched, and the power of the devil
quickened and strengthened.
A distinction, too, must be made between {124} deliberate and
indeliberate consent. St. Francis de Sales refers to what he calls
inclinations to sin,[16] when the mind, not being thoroughly aroused,
may amuse itself for some time with a thought or imagination, without
reflecting that it is a temptation to sin.
Father Augustine Baker says likewise, "The simple passing of such
thoughts or imaginations in the mind is no sin at all, though they
should rest there never so long without advertence, but only the giving
of deliberate consent to them"; and to constitute this deliberate
consent he requires that the mind must be "fully awake,"--that is, to
the fact that these were of the nature of sin,--"and had reflected on
them."[17]
Our only hope lies in a stubborn refusal of consent. Our safety lies
in fixing the will on this one thing. Never mind how fiercely the
enemy may assault. He may deliver charge after charge with a rapidity
that bewilders the soul, and makes it grow sick and dizzy. We may seem
to be beaten down under his feet, and all the storms and billows of a
fierce and terrible temptation may sweep over us, and yet so long as
from the {125} midst of the confusion we cry, "I will it not," the soul
is safe.[18]
The refusal of consent should be instant upon the first consciousness
of temptation. It is of great peril to dally even for a moment with
the sinful suggestion. Not only does it encourage the tempter on the
one hand, and weaken our powers of resistance on the other, but
deliberate dallying with evil is a sin in itself. It means that an
outpost has been surrendered, and even though in the end we reject the
main suggestion, yet we have by no means come off unscathed. We are
less capable of resisting the next attack than we were before; for "the
imagination of sin, the {126} dallying with it, the indulgence of the
senses, short of what the soul must own to itself to be a grave fall,
steeps and drags the soul more thoroughly in sin, immerses it in a
thicker and more blinding mist, interpenetrates more the whole moral
texture of the soul with evil, than, at an earlier stage, does the
actual sin itself."[19]
It is not always, however, with confusion and noise of battle that
Satan seeks to force our consent. Often the hardest temptations to
endure are those in which he comes very gently, and with long continued
pressure seeks to weary, and discourage, and break down the will.
It is a fatal error into which scrupulous souls are not infrequently
led, to think that the long continuance of the suggestion, or even of
the delight with which our lower nature responds, constitutes consent.
The devils have a mysterious power, allowed them by God, of holding a
temptation before the soul continuously or repeatedly, and we are often
as powerless to put it away as we are to refuse to see an object which
is actually reflected on the retina of the eye.
How many times have loving hearts that would choose death a thousand
times rather than dishonour our Lord become sick with terror when in
the midst of such prolonged temptation there {127} comes a dread
whisper within, "You have consented, though you knew it not." It is
the voice of the tempter, and the ruse is a favourite one in his
warfare against the soul, for he knows that for us to think we have
sinned is almost as fatal in its effects on the _morale_ of the soul as
to have actually yielded consent.
So when the lying whisper comes, let us cry out against him, charge him
with his lie; and then turning swiftly to our Lord, renew our
allegiance to Him with such strong, passionate acts of love, that the
evil spirit, filled with despair, will take his flight, departing from
us "for a season."
[1] S. Greg. Mag., _Regulae Pastoralis_, III, xxx. See also the
opening paragraph of Dr. Pusey's sermon on "Victory over Besetting
Sin," _Parochial Sermons_, Vol. II.
[2] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[3] 1 Cor. x, 13.
[4] "Our trial, by God's appointment and mercy, lies mostly in some few
things. We bring trials upon ourselves which God did not intend for
us. We increase manifoldly our own trials by every consent to
sin."--Pusey, _Parochial Sermons_, Vol. II, p. 121.
[5] "Past sin involves present trial, not present sin. When a man has
once turned to God his past sin will not be imputed to him either in
itself, _or in its effects_. One who has given way would by God's just
appointment, visiting for sin, have trials. He need not, if he wills
not by God's grace, have sin." _Ibid._, p. 335.
[6] _Ibid._, p. 334.
[7] _Ibid._, p. 338.
[8] 2 Thess. ii, 12.
[9] Rom. vii, 21-23.
[10] Scupoli, _The Spiritual Combat_ (Pusey's Trans.), chap. xii.
St. Francis de Sales, in a letter to the Mère de Chastel, has a
delightfully characteristic passage, full of paternal tenderness
combined with playful and reverent humour, in which he sets forth the
mode of action of the two wills. "Indeed, my dear daughter Marie," he
writes, "you say truly that there are two beings in you. The one is a
Marie who, like St. Peter, is tender, sensitive, ready to be irritated
by a touch. This Marie is a daughter of Eve, and so her temper is
frail. The other Marie wills to be wholly God's; and in order so to
be, she wills in all simplicity to be humble and gentle towards
everyone, and she would fain imitate St. Peter after he was converted.
This Marie is the child of the Blessed Virgin. These two diverse
Maries come into collision, and the bad one is so bad that often the
other scarce knows how to defend herself, and then perforce she fancies
herself beaten, and believes the bad Marie to be stronger. But not so,
my poor, dear child; the bad one is not stronger than you. She is more
perverse, more enterprising, more obstinate, and when you lose heart
and sit down to cry, she is pleased because it is so much time lost for
you; and if she cannot make you lose eternity, at all events she will
try to make you lose time. My dear daughter, rouse your courage ... be
watchful of your enemy; tread cautiously for fear of the foe; if you
are not on your guard against her she will be too much for you. Even
if she should take you by surprise, and make you totter, or give you a
slight wound, do not be put out.... Now do not be ashamed of all this,
my daughter, any more than St. Paul was when he confessed that there
were two beings in him, one rebellious against God, the other obedient
to Him."--St. Francis de Sales, _Spiritual Letters_, lvii.
[11] "It is impossible," says the Abbot Moses, "for the mind not to be
approached by thoughts, but it is in the power of every earnest man
either to admit them or reject them. Their rising does not depend upon
ourselves, but their admission or rejection is in our own power....
The movement of the mind may well be illustrated by the comparison of a
mill-wheel. The headlong rush of water whirls it round, and it can
never stop its work so long as it is driven by the water. Yet it is in
the power of the man who directs it to decide whether he will have
wheat, or barley, or darnel ground by it. For it must certainly crush
that which the man in charge of it puts in. So the mind is driven by
the torrents of temptation which pour in on it from every side and
cannot be free from the flow of thoughts, but we control the character
of the thoughts by the efforts of our own earnestness."--Cassian,
_Conferences_, I, 17, 18.
[12] "The power of divine grace, like that of the Adversary, is
impulsive, not compulsive, that the free power of our will may be
entirely preserved. Wherefore, for the evil things which a man does by
the influence of Satan, it is not Satan that receives the punishment,
but the man himself; forasmuch as he was not involuntarily forced into
those things, but was consenting in his own will. In the same manner
also with respect to what is good, Grace does not ascribe it to itself,
but to the man, and it therefore assigns to him glory, as the cause of
good to himself. For grace does not so constrain by compulsive force
as to render a man's will incapable of altering; but though it be
present to him, it gives way to his free and arbitrary power, that his
will may be manifested how it is disposed to good or to evil. For the
law is not applied to our nature, but to our free-will, which is able
to convert itself either to good or to evil."--Macarius, _Institutes of
Christian Perfection_, Bk. VII, chap. iii. (Penn's Trans., London,
1816.)
[13] Scupoli, _The Spiritual Combat_, chap. xiv.
[14] "I shall fulfil Thy Will if, for Thy Love, I contradict my own,
which Thou wilt not in any way constrain, but dost leave it perfectly
free that I, _by voluntarily and constantly subjecting it to Thine_,
may become dearer and more full in Thy sight."--St. Catherine of Siena,
_Dialogue on Consummated Perfection_, in Drane's History of St.
Catherine, Vol. II, p. 348.
[15] Faber, _Growth in Holiness_, chap. xvi.
[16] St. Francis de Sales, _Spiritual Letters_, cxiv.
[17] Baker, _Sancta Sophia_, pp. 284-286. See also Hilton, _The Scale
of Perfection_, Bk. 2, Sec. 1, chap. viii.
[18] Using anger as an illustration, Father Baker enters into a
detailed description of what may happen, and yet the soul be free from
sin. Perhaps there is not one of us who can read the following words
without a sense of deep gratitude and relief concerning not infrequent
experiences of our own. He says: "A person being moved to anger,
though he find an unquiet representation in the imagination, and a
violent heat and motions about the heart, as likewise an aversion in
sensitive nature against the person that hath given the provocation;
yet if, notwithstanding, he refrains himself from breaking forth into
words of impatience to which his passion would urge him, and withal
contradicts designs of revenge suggested by passion, such an one,
practicing internal prayer and mortification, is to esteem himself not
to have consented to the motions of corrupt nature, although besides
the inward motion of the appetite [i.e., the inferior will], he could
not hinder marks of his passion from appearing in his eyes and the
colour of his countenance."--_Sancta Sophia_, pp. 237-238.
[19] Pusey, _Lenten Sermons_, p. 264.
{128}
CHAPTER IX
IN THE HOUR OF BATTLE
"Like as the children of Ephraim, who being harnessed and bearing bows,
turned themselves back in the day of battle."[1] Thus does the
Psalmist recall a day of shame and humiliation in the history of God's
people. Well prepared for the battle, with every hope of victory
before them, the children of Ephraim failed in the hour when they faced
the enemy.
Thus has it been with many souls in the spiritual warfare. We may be
forewarned, we may be armed with the manifold gifts of the Spirit, and
yet fail, for the preparation is not everything. When in the actual
presence of the foe, the soul must smite boldly and well. The weapons
God supplies must be used. Not to use a grace is to lose a grace.
I. _Realizing God's Friendship_
It is easy to find theories of opposing temptation; but often hard to
apply them in the actual {129} moment of the assault. The cause lies
in the fact that we do not realize our relation to God. God is our
friend; and we must think of Him in the ordinary terms of earthly
friendship. The Eternal Son came to earth and was Incarnate, just in
order that we might find in Him an earthly relation, by means of and
through which we might be able to rise up to the heavenly friendship.
So far as mere intellectual knowledge is concerned, we know quite well
what we are to Him, and yet so dull is our appreciation of it that it
is only with painful care that we are able to keep from mortally
offending this good God. We should have slight regard for an earthly
friendship that rested on so precarious a foundation. When shall we
come to that blessed time when our friendship with God will be as
spontaneous in its action, and as free from peril of violation at our
hands, as the friendships we enjoy with those fellow-mortals whose
hearts are knit up with ours in loving earthly friendship!
Before we go on to consider definitely the methods we may profitably
employ when the battle is actually upon us, let us use an illustration
that may help us to grasp very practically just what our relationship
is to God.
You know a man whom you look up to with profound regard and reverence.
Not only this, {130} but his unfailing goodness to you under many and
various conditions has claimed and won your deepest love and gratitude.
This man has an enemy, a despicable character, universally known to be
devoid of every sentiment of common decency and honour, who has for
years scrupled at no means, even the foulest and most contemptible, to
injure the object of his hate. You know these facts to be true, and
have yourself had the misfortune to have many dealings with him, and
have always found that his actions justify the low opinion that all
right-thinking men have of him. One day this creature has the audacity
to approach you, and try deliberately to turn you against your
benefactor, and to induce you to consent to something that would be to
the dishonour and contempt of the one to whom you owe so much. How
long would you listen to him? Do you think you would stop to weigh
calmly the arguments for and against his proposition? Or would you
not, without a moment's hesitation, turn upon him with indignation, and
drive the contemptible creature from your presence, with a sense of
loathing, almost of contamination, that you had been made to listen to
such a suggestion?
We do not have to go far to find a key to the parable. The benefactor
whom we regard with {131} so deep a reverence is our loving heavenly
Father, who has claimed and won our love through the goodness and mercy
with which He has followed us all the days of our life. The enemy
whose age-long efforts have ever been for His dishonour is the devil,
who seeks to make us the instrument by which he would dishonour God.
When illustrated thus, the audacity of the tempter, and the insulting
character of every temptation, are made plain.
This simple parable will surely enable us to grasp the relations
between God and ourselves and Satan, and with this realization fresh
upon us, we can go on to consider some of the special methods we may
use to overcome God's enemy and ours.
II. _The Divine Example of Humility_
It is interesting to note that when our Lord was assailed in the
wilderness by the Tempter, His method of resistance was to turn
immediately to the consideration of His Father's word. He did not
address Himself to the pros and cons of the Satanic suggestion. He
inflicts instant and crushing defeat upon His adversary by turning His
attention, not to the character of the temptation, but straight to the
will of the Father.
{132}
In this our Lord showed by His action what He afterward taught
concerning Himself when He said, "I can of Mine own self do
nothing."[2] His first act in His temptation was to declare His entire
dependence on His Father. So, if in our temptations, we would share
His victory, our method of battle must follow His. The tempted soul
must fling itself instantly upon God in the humblest acknowledgment of
dependence. Much of our failure in the conflict arises from a
forgetfulness of this. How often does the very dread of the sin so
agitate the soul that instead of turning to God, we stand, as it were,
fascinated by the horror of the suggestion, losing precious moments
that should be devoted to flinging open all the channels of
communication with God, that His own strength may flow into us for the
battle. This course of defence is effective in two ways.
(1) First, as regards God. Nothing can so completely open the channels
of communication with Him as an utter abandon of humility in His
presence. Scripture is full of the divine teaching on this point. The
Holy Spirit declares by the great Prophet of the Incarnation, "Thus
saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is
Holy, I dwell in the high {133} and lofty place with him also that is
of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble."[3]
St. James declares, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the
humble;"[4] and St. Peter, repeating the same teaching, adds this
exhortation, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God
that He may exalt you in due time."[5]
(2) But not only does this self-abasement in the first moment of
temptation bring down new power from God for the struggle, but it has a
direct and disastrous effect on Satan. Nothing so completely bewilders
him as self-humiliation. He, the very personification of pride, cannot
understand how a soul can for a moment so humble itself. He is
puzzled, nonplussed. He knows not how to proceed. He thought he
understood us; he had studied our lines of defence, and thought he knew
just how to approach and break through them; but this unexpected
manoeuvre shatters his plan of battle. Many a soul that, in the
approach of temptation, has thus flung itself at the feet of God has,
while lying there awaiting the divine word, felt the awful sense of the
Satanic presence pass, and the sickening tug of temptation cease. The
enemy in the face of a situation so far beyond his power of {134}
understanding had made haste to withdraw his attack, lest while thus
fighting in the dark he should meet still more humiliating defeat.
III. _Instant in Prayer_
The humble soul is always the praying soul. The soul that realizes its
dependence will lose no time in calling upon Him on Whom it leans, and
this earnest prayer is the weapon in the warfare, without which certain
overthrow must ensue.
As in the case of humbling ourselves, the use of this weapon is to be
considered in its relation both to God and to Satan.
(1) Its relation to God. We know that prayer for help must of
necessity bring help, because the divine promise is given and repeated
a hundred times in Holy Scripture, that the Lord will hear us in the
day of trouble.[6] It is needless to multiply texts. One word of God
the Eternal Son suffices, "And shall not God avenge His own elect which
cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them? I tell you
He will avenge them speedily."[7]
Impossible as it may seem, the prayer of the humble heart can command
the very Godhead. {135} Ascending to the throne of grace in union with
the intercession of Christ, the cry of the hard-pressed child of God
has power to liberate the divine Omnipotence, and set in motion all the
infinite energies of the kingdom which come forth in their
unconquerable might to wage war on our behalf.
This power that the praying soul has over God (we dare use such an
expression with entire freedom) is one of the mysteries of our union
with Him, and since He has given us so repeated a revelation of it, we
can expect nothing of Him if we neglect it.
One or two Scripture passages will make this clear to us. When Israel
rebelled and Moses prayed for them, God's answer was, "Now therefore
let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them."[8] Why should
the Omnipotent One have spoken thus since none is able to hinder Him or
bind His hands? The Holy Ghost, speaking by the Psalmist ages after,
gives us the meaning when He says: "He said He would have destroyed
them had not Moses, His chosen, stood before Him in the gap."[9] The
wrath of God was paralysed in the face of the prayer of the Saint.
Isaiah, sounding his lament over the lost condition of Israel, says,
"There is none that calleth {136} upon Thy name, that stirreth up
himself to take hold of thee."[10] The Hebrew tongue affords us no
stronger expression than that which the Spirit here inspired the
prophet to use. The meaning is, to lay, as it were, violent hands upon
God, by means of prayer, and with a holy audacity to hold Him back from
launching the thunderbolt of His wrath against the apostate nation.
The expression "stirreth up himself" indicates by a bold rhetorical
stroke the power which the prophet knew such a one would have if he
could be found among the sons of Israel. When used in the Old
Testament it invariably implies the arousing of some mighty force,
which when once awakened would sweep all before it, as when Balaam
prophesied concerning Israel, "He couched, he lay down as a lion, as a
great lion; who shall stir him up?"[11]
Thus in the power of prayer shall we be able to sweep all before us, if
in the hour of temptation we pray with a like holy audacity.
(2) But not only does prayer in the hour of temptation call the power
of God to our succour, but the bare fact that we pray at such a time
completely overreaches Satan. The primary reason {137} of his
temptation is to draw us away from God. If the invariable result of
temptation is thus to draw us the more surely and closely to His feet
in prayer, the tempter will not be slow to realize that he is being
used as the instrument, and his assault as the occasion, of
accomplishing this very thing that his labour is directed against.
When he realizes this, baffled and discouraged, he will have no
alternative but to withdraw.
We must say a word about ejaculatory prayer, for in the hour of
temptation this method of prayer is to be our chief source of strength.
Most frequently, perhaps, in temptation there is no time or occasion
for formal prayer. Our appeal to God in such times must be instant.
These prayers of ejaculation have been described as "short, sharp, and
swift darts [Latin, jaculum, a dart], and desires, shot by our burning
hearts, and reaching heaven in an instant. Our forefathers, the
Saints, frequently used them, for being short, they trouble not the
memory; being fervent, they rouse our dulness and dryness to affection
and devotion; being frequent, they still renew our attention to God's
presence, and put us perpetually in mind of our duties."[12]
To this, it may be added that ejaculatory {138} prayer is apt to be a
measurably perfect prayer, because, being so quickly finished, the
devil has not time to chill its fervour by distractions, such as we
invariably suffer from in longer forms of prayer. Even were it so
disposed, the average mind cannot act with sufficient quickness to
perceive the distraction ere the prayer be finished.
Those who study God's word piously will find numberless prayers in the
very language of the Holy Ghost, which will be most effective in the
moment of danger. The briefer these are, the better. The Psalter is
full of them, and there is no better military exercise for the
Christian soldier than to spend his time when not actually in battle,
in learning as many of them as possible by heart, so that they may be
ready at hand when the battle begins.
Short, quick prayers like the following will be found of great profit:
"O Lord, my God, in Thee have I put my trust; save me from all them
that persecute me, and deliver me."[13]
"Save, Lord, and hear us, O King of Heaven."[14]
"Save me, O God, for Thy Name's sake, and avenge me in Thy
strength."[15]
"Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness."[16]
{139}
"Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick."[17]
"Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my soul after
Thee, O Lord."[18]
"Why art thou so heavy, O my soul, and why art thou so disquieted
within me? O put thy trust in God, for I will yet give Him thanks
which is the help of my countenance and my God."[19]
"O God, Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee."[20]
"Thou, Lord, art my hope."[21]
"O help us against the enemy, for vain is the help of man."[22]
"Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my
voice."[23]
We need not multiply instances of these prayers. Let each one take the
Psalter, the Gospels, and other parts of Scripture, and go over them
for himself, copying them out, committing them to memory in quiet
times, thus filling his quiver full of heaven-tempered darts, the use
of which in time of stress will surely put to flight the audacious
enemy.
It is well to remember in the use of prayer in the moment of
temptation, that the mind must be wholly set upon God. There is real
danger {140} in trying to pray while at the same time our thoughts are
upon the special form of temptation that is being presented. Turn your
back upon it, and cry to God. Think only of Him, His goodness, His
loving protection. The diversion of the mind alone is a victory over
the tempter; and where it is turned from him, and set upon strong and
holy appeals and aspirations, it is not possible but that the enemy
will be driven utterly from our path.
IV. _A Holy Perversity_
Another effective method of resistance is to make a rule of doing, in a
definite and precise way, and instantly if possible, just the contrary
of what Satan is seeking to induce us to do. For instance, he
insinuates into our minds some bitter, resentful, and uncharitable
thought. We know the thought is evil, and we abhor it accordingly, nor
do we give any sort of consent to its presence; but still it is not
easy to crush. Perhaps it is a revival of some old bitterness in
regard to a real wrong done us long ago. We fight hard against it, and
thus save ourselves from sin; but how much shall we add to Satan's
discomfiture, how shall we indeed crown our victory, if, instead of
expending our energy in the merely negative {141} work of refusing
admittance to our hearts of an unloving thought, we proceed to do or
say some loving thing; or at any rate offer a resolution instantly to
God to watch for an opportunity, and, if need be, to go out of our way,
to perform some act of kindness before the day is over.
Or in case of temptation to pride, personal vanity or self-assertion,
to perform some little act of meekness; or when the temptation is to
some form of self-indulgence or selfishness, deliberately to do some
unselfish thing, preferring for our greater self-denial something that
naturally we should not care to do.
A simple illustration will show how discouraging such a course will be
to the tempter. Suppose whenever you had occasion to ask a certain
acquaintance to do something for you, instead of complying with your
request, he did just the contrary thing, and that with a precision and
regularity that gave evidence of a deliberate plan and policy. Suppose
again that this contrary thing was the very act that he knew was most
displeasing to you. How long would you persist in your applications to
him? Surely, not for long. So will it be with Satan. He is far too
intelligent a creature, and knows and serves his own interests all too
faithfully, to continue his efforts long under such conditions.
{142}
V. _Scorning the Tempter_
A most excellent method, which can often, though not always, be
applied, is that of ignoring the tempter. It is a helpful thing in the
Christian warfare to remember always that Satan is the embodiment of
pride. Nothing cuts the proud soul so deeply as being ignored. It can
endure opposition, even defeat, but the thing that is intolerable is to
be taken no account of. So when Satan attacks, in not a few instances,
the resistance that to him will be the most cruel will be to go calmly
on one's way, ignoring him. As St. Francis de Sales says: "You should
not answer, or seem even to hear, what the enemy says. Let him hammer
as he will at the door; do not you even say so much as, Who is
there?... Beware that you never open the door, either to peep out and
see what it is, or to drive away the clamour."[24]
An illustration similar to the one employed in our discussion of
resisting by doing the thing contrary to the temptation will help us
here. Imagine yourself having occasion frequently to apply to a
certain person for a service. Imagine such a person deliberately
ignoring you whenever you spoke, pretending not to hear you, {143}
gazing with feigned absent-mindedness out of the window. Do you think
you would long continue your application to such an one? Indeed you
would not. Pride, even right-minded self-respect, would forbid it; and
you can be sure Satan, acting on the same principle, will soon cease to
annoy you when he finds himself the object of so studied a contempt.
Since the human mind, however, always demands something upon which to
be engaged, we can much more successfully ignore Satan's addresses if
we divert the mind by an act of the will into some totally different
channel. "Temptations," says Walter Hilton, "vex the soul indeed, but
do not harm it, if so be a man despise them and set them at naught; for
it is not good to strive with them, as if thou wouldst cast them out by
mastery and violence, for the more they strive with them, the more they
cleave to them. And therefore they shall do well to divert their
thoughts from them as much as they can, and set them upon some
business."[25]
This diversion of the mind will be all the more effective if it is in
the direction of those holy things which Satan abhors. Therefore "let
us turn our hearts to converse with God, which is better than to
reflect upon our temptations and {144} troubles. Let us be so
attentive to Him, that we have neither leave nor leisure to give ear to
Satanic suggestions."[26]
VI. _Staying not the Hand_
We are told in the Second Book of the Kings[27] that when the prophet
Elisha was fallen sick of the sickness whereof he died, Joash, the King
of Israel, came unto him. The man of God commanded him to take the
arrows and smite upon the ground, whereupon the King, weak in ambition,
and with no vision of God's destiny for him as a national deliverer,
smote thrice upon the ground and stayed. "And the man of God was wroth
with him and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then
hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it." If he who goes
forth to fight for God would utterly consume the enemy, he must seek
the vision of His purpose for him, and if he is truly ambitious of
heavenly honours it is not far to seek.
We can quite safely say that God never predestined any soul barely to
win the victory. He plans high things for all his children, but how
many are there who never attain them because, like the king of Israel,
they are giving Him a {145} spiritless service. They smite thrice with
the arrows of deliverance and stay their hand. They are content to
remain on a low spiritual plane, within the pale of divine grace
indeed, but satisfied with this, and using their further energies for
passing earthly things instead of devoting them with a burning
splendour of enthusiasm to an ever higher service in the kingdom that
shall have no end.
How disappointing are such lives to God! He had meant to promote them
to great honour, and they have no aspiration above the lowest place.
Nor can they plead that they know not His purpose for them. The
Scriptural revelation is full of the highest assurances. God lays wide
open before us the plan He has prepared for our glory. He tells us in
a hundred passages, every utterance eloquent with love, what it all is,
and He stays in His description only when the finite mind of man cannot
follow Him; and then He cries: "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath
prepared for them that love Him."[28]
If we are to rise up to satisfy the divine measure of our predestined
glory, we must smite not thrice, but five or six times. We must smite
not only {146} until we feel the assault stayed, but until we are sure
that the tempter has acknowledged himself defeated. Some spiritual
guides advise the soul pursuing the tempter, not allowing him to depart
from us without further chastisement and humiliation. "Do not leave
off the conflict until the enemy is, as it were, wearied out, dead, and
yields himself up discomfited."[29]
"When the assaults have ceased," says Scupoli, "excite them again, so
as to have an opportunity of overcoming them with greater force and
energy. Then challenge them again a third time so as to accustom
yourself to repulse them with scorn and horror."[30]
Remember, however, as a point of the most extreme importance, that this
course should never be adopted in temptations against faith or against
purity. In these cases there should be an immediate avoidance of the
thought and occasion of the temptation, and the mind should be
instantly diverted utterly from it by definite occupation of a contrary
nature.
VII. _The Final Phase of Victory_
The counsel of the author of "The Spiritual Combat," appeals to us not
only as coming from {147} a great guide of souls, but because (as is
always the case with the wisdom of the Saints), it answers our sense of
the fitness of things. A poor soldier he would be who never planned to
fight on the offensive, who never sought to carry the war into the
enemy's country. The Blessed Christ has organized the armies of the
Kingdom not merely for the protection of a weak and incapable people,
but for the positive conquest of Satan through the strength and
aggressiveness of His soldiers. In the account of the armour of God as
given us by St. Paul,[31] we are, it is true, told of the breast plate,
the shield, and the helmet, all armour of defence; but we are also told
of the feet shod that the soldier might march straight forward; and of
the sword of the Spirit with which we are to slay the adversary.
Under the old dispensation, too, the Spirit taught the like truth. In
one of the chiefest of the Psalms of consolation,--the 91st,--the soul
is spoken of as finding its refuge in the very secret place of the Most
High; as being covered with His wings,--shielded from the mysterious
terror that walks by night, from the arrow that flies by day; and there
is mention of shield and buckler, weapons of defence. But also there
is mention of the splendid feats of aggressive conquest that {148} God
expects from those to whom He accords His almighty protection. "Thou
shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon
shalt thou trample under feet."
The contrast between the earlier part of the Psalm and this sudden
promise is startling. Heretofore God and the angels have been the
actors prosecuting their work of protection and defence. Now it is as
though He said, "I have hid thee in My tabernacle, and now it is
_Thou_, the defenced one, who shall tread upon the lion and adder;
Thou, and I only as acting in and through thee!"[32]
The Hebrew form of expression the Holy Spirit employs presents two
powerful word-paintings. When it is said, "Thou shalt _tread_ upon the
lion and adder," there is the suggestion of stamping in pieces, of
treading one's enemies as grapes are trodden in the wine-press; and
where the promise is made, "The young lion and the dragon shalt thou
_trample under feet_," the Holy Ghost is lifting up before ancient
Israel, in their own language, the picture of the terrible onset of
{149} armed horsemen beating down the enemy with ruthless trampling
beneath the iron-shod feet of the horses.
Thus are the soldiers of God called upon not only to vanquish, but to
tread the hosts of hell as grapes are trodden in the vintage; not only
to cause them to flee, but to pursue and trample them with terrible
strength as victorious horsemen trample down the flying foe.
[1] Ps. lxxviii, 10.
[2] St. John v, 30.
[3] Isa. lvii, 15.
[4] St. James iv, 6.
[5] 1 Pet. v, 6.
[6] Ps. xx, 1.
[7] St. Luke xviii, 7-8.
[8] Exod. xxxii, 10.
[9] Ps. cvi, 23.
[10] Isa. lxiv, 7.
[11] Numbers xxiv, 9. See also Job xli, 10, and Ps. xxxv, 23, and
lxxx, 2.
[12] Castaniza, _The Spiritual Conquest_, pp. 405, 406. (Vaughan, 3d
Ed.)
[13] Ps. vii, 1.
[14] Ps. xx, 9.
[15] Ps. liv, 1.
[16] Ps. li, 1.
[17] St. John xi, 3.
[18] Ps. xlii, 1.
[19] Ps. xliii, 5-6.
[20] Ps. lxiii, 1.
[21] Ps. xci, 9.
[22] Ps. cviii, 12.
[23] Ps. cxxx, 1.
[24] St. Francis de Sales, _Spiritual Letters_, xi.
[25] Hilton, _The Scale of Perfection_, I, Pt. II, Sec. 2, chap. i.
[26] Castaniza, The Spiritual Conquest, p. 459.
[27] 2 Kings xiii.
[28] Cor. ii, 9.
[29] Scupoli, _The Spiritual Combat_, chap. xiii.
[30] _Ibid._
[31] Eph. vi.
[32] Compare Romans xvi, 20: "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under
_your_ feet shortly." "The God of peace" goes forth to war, fighting
in order to secure that peace whereby His title of "Prince of Peace" is
justified; and it is His power that will bruise Satan, but the bruising
is to be under _our_ feet. We give ourselves to Him that He may
conquer in and through us.
{150}
CHAPTER X
THE TESTS OF VICTORY AND DEFEAT
It is all very well to sit down calmly, and consider, as we have done,
the stages of temptation, and to draw definite conclusions as to the
point at which the temptation passes over into sin. Such principles as
these are not hard to discover. In fact, as a general rule it is
comparatively easy in any matter to arrive at moral principles. If we
cannot think them out for ourselves, any handbook of Christian ethics
will give them to us, cut and dried.
The real stress and strain in life arises from the difficulty of
applying principles to special cases in hand, and it is just this
difficulty that is experienced amid the shock of the conflict by many
souls, even those who are illuminated by the Holy Ghost.
I. _The Test of Common Sense_
What practical tests, therefore, can we bring to bear in order to know
whether the will has consented? Before entering upon a discussion of
them, we can sum up the whole matter by saying that to everything must
be applied the test of common sense. At no time are scruples {151} so
apt to intrude themselves as when we seek to apply tests to discover
whether or not we have sinned; and no spiritual scruple was ever based
on common sense. On the contrary, the cherishing of scruples always
points to some positive lack of mental balance. Above all things, we
are to be reasonable with ourselves. We shall find with ever so little
consideration that the laws which apply to the conditions of our
ordinary daily life are the laws that must apply to our spiritual life.
There will be no danger of perplexing scruples if we apply the same
rules to the inquiry concerning sin as we should apply to a question of
ordinary human relations, and as dutiful children we must give our
heavenly Father credit for as much loving generosity in His dealings
with us as we know would be employed by an earthly parent who had ever
showed us a tender and loving consideration.
So bearing these things ever in mind, we can proceed to think of the
further tests we may apply, to show whether or not we have consented to
the devil's temptations.
II. _The Test of Doubt_
"If you doubt whether you have consented to evil, always take the doubt
as a negative."[1] {152} This is the rule laid down for us by St.
Francis de Sales. In it he follows the great spiritual teachers in
holding that if sin, especially mortal sin, "is not _more than
certain_, you should decide that it does not exist," especially if the
conscience is prone to be tender.[2]
It is a principle of divine, as well as human law, that a man is to be
counted innocent until he is proved guilty.[3] We must give ourselves
the benefit of the doubt. This we can do safely, and without scruple,
provided we have been ordinarily faithful in the use of the means of
spiritual knowledge that God supplies, such as Prayer, Sacraments, etc.
We must insist upon this; in the first place, because the nature of the
human mind demands it. A thing that the soul really abhors could not
possibly find entrance without its certain knowledge. In the second
place, because justice requires it. We are bound to exercise justice
towards ourselves as well as towards others, and it would be manifestly
unjust to regard a man as guilty of a crime so long as the case is
involved in reasonable doubt.
The third reason why we must acquit ourselves when doubt exists, is
that it is a grave danger to the soul to become accustomed to the idea
of {153} committing sin. It is a principle of psychology that it is
much easier to perform an action when we have grown used to the thought
of it.
A fourth reason is thus expressed by St. Francis in a letter to the
famous Angelique Arnauld, Abbess of Port Royal: "If you accuse your
soul without just cause, you spoil its courage, and turn it into a mere
coward."[4] It is the Christian's duty by every means to encourage his
soul and to do nothing to discourage it. The Psalmist gives us
repeated examples of this, as for instance, when he cries, "Why art
thou so heavy, O my soul, and why art thou so disquieted within me.
Put thy trust in God, for I will yet give him thanks which is the help
of my countenance and my God."[5] Discouragement has been called "the
temptation of temptations."[6]
{154}
The soldier would not be tolerated in an army who made it his business
to go up and down the lines in the course of the battle discouraging
his fellows. We always feel that there is a peculiar meanness about
the man who tries to take the heart out of those about him. We must in
these spiritual matters, under pain of sin, be as fair to, and as
considerate of, our own souls as of the souls of others, for we have no
special rights over ourselves in such matters. Our souls are not our
own. "All souls are mine,"[7] says God, and we wrong Him when we
injure any soul.
It does not acquit us to plead, as silly souls are sometimes heard to
do, that we are injuring no one but ourselves. In the first place,
this is not true. Every hurt we inflict on our souls, every
discouragement into which we lead ourselves, is not only a wrong to
God, but inflicts a hurt on every soul that is bound up with us in the
Communion of Saints. This is just what the Apostle meant when he said,
"Whether one member suffer all the members suffer with it."[8]
The care and constant strengthening of our own souls is a part of the
obligation laid upon {155} us as our brother's keeper;[9] and we know
the curse that fell upon Cain not only for his crime of blood, but in
punishment for the far greater crime of refusing to recognize the
solidarity of humanity, and the duties that arise therefrom. He
murdered one man's body, but who can tell how many souls we have been
slaying though weakening our own power to help and rescue them in their
hour of conflict.
Even were it true that we injure none but ourselves by injustice to our
souls, we are in this case injuring that which belongs, not to
ourselves, but to another, namely to God, and He will let no such wrong
go unavenged.
Although we are not to accuse ourselves in such cases of doubt, it is
well to speak of them to a wise spiritual guide.[10] This will afford
us the opportunity of receiving such counsel as will aid us should the
particular form of assault be repeated.
It is also a discouragement to the enemy to see that his schemes are
thus understood and exposed. He loves ever to work in the dark, and it
is a matter of common experience that he often abandons a plan of
temptation when he finds it {156} has been detected and discussed by
those against whom he has been plotting.
III. _Signs of the Soul's Victory_
In the course of the struggle there are many circumstances and
conditions by which we can test how the battle is going. We shall
consider some of these, choosing certain ones which Satan often uses
for our discouragement by presenting them to us in a wrong light. It
is a favourite device of his to snatch at the very circumstance which a
good God, ever tenderly solicitous of our safety, allows for the
consolation of His faithful soldiers, and by presenting it from a false
point of view, turn it into an occasion of scruple and unnerving
anxiety.
(1) Continuance and increased severity of attack is proof that the will
has not yielded to the temptation. An army does not direct its
assaults against an enemy who has already surrendered. So rather than
be frightened, we should draw comfort from the fact of continued
temptation.
"It is a good sign," wrote St. Francis de Sales to Madame de Chantal,
"when the enemy storms so lustily at the door; it proves that he is not
attaining his end. If he had attained it, he would {157} not clamour
any more; he would go in and be satisfied. Keep this in mind so as to
avoid scruples."[11]
But although Satan's fiercer malignance of attack be a sign that the
soul has not yielded, it is far from being the kind of sign that
justifies our pausing in the struggle. If the tempter uses renewed
energy and fierceness in his assaults, the soul, in order that it may
continue in safety, must also employ a corresponding increase of energy
in bringing into action the increased grace that the Holy Spirit stands
always ready to give to those who ask Him. It is just for this that
the Blessed Spirit waits upon and presides over the conflict. "Hence
gather we this comfort," writes the saintly Andrewes for our
consolation, "that the Holy Ghost is not a stander-by as a stranger
when we are tempted, _tanquam otiosus spectator_, but He leads us by
the hand, and stands by as a faithful assistant."[12]
(2) A sense of fear that we have consented, or at the thought of the
possibility of consenting, is an excellent indication that we are, as
yet, free from the sin to which we are being tempted. He who has
actually entered into the sin and made it his own by a deliberate
operation of his will, {158} has not ordinarily the attitude of fear
towards his sin. The act of consent brings a certain complacency with
respect to the sin, and a blindness of spiritual vision, which leaves
no room for fear, and which is only disturbed by penitence.
"You will not yield to the temptations which you know and fear; for the
fear of falling is one of the best gifts of the Holy Spirit. Through
that holy fear He arms His servants against danger, and teaches them
how to conquer themselves.... If you had no fear I should fear for
you.... Fear then, and let your holy fear be lifelong. 'Blessed is
the man that feareth always.' But keep that fear within due limits, so
that you do not become discouraged and forsake your work; let it rather
move you to renewed hope, and more earnest watchfulness, self-mistrust,
and confidence in God."[13]
(3) Grief at the temptation implies, of necessity, that the will is
still in a state of opposition to the suggestion. "So long as you are
grieved at the temptation, there is nothing to fear, for why does it
grieve you save because your will does not consent to it?"[14] A
glance at the nature of grief shows this to be true. Grief is {159}
the emotion that arises when we are forced to suffer that which is
contrary to the will.[15]
On the other hand, the absence of grief should rouse us to inquire if
our souls be not in a dangerous state of tepidity. If one were
seriously to suggest our doing something that would be a marked
dishonour to an earthly friend and benefactor, there would be an almost
immediate sense of shock and grief that we should be thought capable of
such baseness.
There would, in all likelihood, be a sense of disappointment with
ourselves that we had given so poor a testimony of our love and loyalty
that anyone could think it possible for us to be thus untrue to our
friend. So, along with the grief at the presence of the temptation let
us make sure that there be a very deep searching of heart to find what
there is in our life to encourage the tempter to think we would be
untrue to a Father who has loved us with an everlasting love,[16] and
whose tender compassions are renewed to us every morning.[17]
(4) A consciousness of the existence of temptation is generally a sign
that the will has not wholly, at any rate, yielded consent.
{160}
The entrance of sin into the soul by consent marks the cessation of
struggle, and therefore, when there is still a clear sense of struggle,
we are to conclude that as the temptation is still going on we have not
yet given full consent. Dom Baker assures us that "A well-minded soul
may conclude that there is in the will a refusal to consent to the
suggestion, even in the midst of the greatest disorder thereof, _whilst
the combat does not cease_."[18] Those who are wholly unconscious of
temptation are too often those who have yielded to the tempter, and he
troubles them no more. Those who still feel the pressure of his enmity
can thank God and take courage that the devil still counts them worthy
of his antagonism.
Says Walter Hilton: "The soul needeth to be ever striving and fighting
against the wicked striving of this image of sin, and that he make no
accord with them, nor have friendship with them to be pliable to their
unlawful biddings, for in so doing he beguileth himself. But verily if
he strive with them, he need not be much afraid of consenting, for
striving breaketh peace and false accord."[19]
{161}
IV. _Spiritual Safety, Spiritual Victory_
The reader will observe that although we are speaking of the soul being
kept from the power of Satan, yet the heading of the foregoing section
speaks of the signs, not of the soul's _safety_, but of the soul's
_victory_. There is a significance in this choice of words, for in the
spiritual combat the soul that is safe is indeed victorious. Herein
lies one of the radical differences between the spiritual warfare and
any other. In the world's wars an army may be safe from defeat and
capture, and yet be far from victorious. But in the spiritual life, to
be safe is to be the victor. There are no drawn battles in this
warfare. Once the soul has been enlisted in God's army, once it has
been signed, and sealed, and has put on the whole armour of God,
thenceforth to be safe is to be victorious, not to be conquered is to
conquer Satan. So we may seem to be making but little progress, but if
we hold fast that which we have no man can take our crown.
This is made quite clear to us in the message of the Spirit to the
Seven Churches of Asia.[20] The Church at that time was hard-pressed.
The fires of persecution were burning out the dross, and purifying her
over against the coming {162} of the Lord. It was a time for
longsuffering, for patient waiting until the arm of the Lord should be
bared to avenge her of her adversaries. So the Spirit speaks not of
Pentecostal achievements; there is no mention of mighty triumphs that
the world could see and applaud. It was a patient waiting, finding her
strength in sitting still.[21]
What is it under these conditions that God requires? No aggressive
plan of advance is outlined; only a patient faithfulness wherein would
lie victory and reward. Examine them one by one. Ephesus receives
praise of God because "Thou hast borne and hast had patience." Smyrna
is only to "Fear none of those things that thou shalt suffer."
Pergamos is praised, because "Thou boldest fast My name, and has not
denied My faith." To Thyatira it is said, "That which ye have already,
hold fast till I come." Sardis has lost somewhat of the heavenly gift,
but she will yet be safe if she will but "Strengthen the things that
remain." Philadelphia is accounted worthy of great promises because
"Thou hast a little strength, and hast kept My word and hast not denied
My name." Nor has Laodicea, "neither hot nor cold," over whom the
curse is suspended, great things demanded of her. It is only, "Be
zealous therefore {163} and repent." Let her only undo her evil and
she, too, will have the blessing.
From none of these are great things asked. If they will but hold fast,
and in the power of the Spirit let not Satan have the advantage, the
grace of God within them will so operate of its own inherent force and
activity that each will be counted among those that overcome, and will
receive the gracious reward promised to those who are worthy to be
ranked among the victors in the Kingdom. What strong consolation is
here! What proof of the love and compassion of our God! Only yield
not to Satan, hold fast that which thou hast, and thine shall be a
share in the glory of the victorious Son of God.
V. _The Truest Test_
We have considered briefly some of the tests by which we may try
ourselves in the battle, but, after all, is it best to engage ourselves
in the application of any tests? There are indeed certain strong,
God-reliant souls who are not content unless they can thus test
themselves. If they believe the Holy Spirit is leading them to this,
well and good. Let them follow such a divine call wherever it may take
them, for the leading of the Spirit can never be other than a {164}
leading of perfect wisdom and perfect love. But doubtless for most of
us who desire to serve God in true simplicity, it is far better to
place our whole trust in Him, do what we can, lean in childlike faith
upon His great love, and not seek to measure our progress on the way.
Such tests may help many, but they should be strictly avoided if they
lead to introspection and self-analysis, those deadly foes of true
devotion; above all, if they lead to self-satisfaction and pride. If
the application of these tests produces mental doubt, distress, and
scruple, or vain complacency, take it as a distinct warning from God to
let them alone, for in souls of this temperament any such testing of
self will cause them to fall by the wayside, or else to fix their eyes
so earnestly on the road they are treading that they will lose sight of
Him Who is at once their Guide and their Goal. "Let us love Him," says
one who knew the love of God very deeply, "without striving to inquire
too inquisitively what we are doing for love's sake, so long as we know
that our aim is to do all things in and through that love."[22]
Yes, our safety is to keep the love of God warm in our hearts. If this
be done, nothing else matters. If we can say, or even have an earnest,
{165} honest desire to say, with the pilgrim in Hilton's parable, "I am
naught, I can do naught, I have naught, and naught do I desire to have,
but only Jesus and His love,"[23] this will be the highest test of our
spiritual progress; and this love of God increases most when not held
down by formal tests and methods. Says St. Bernard, "_Modus diligendi
Deum, est diligere sine modo_"; which saying Augustine Baker
beautifully paraphrases: "The measure and manner of loving God is to
love Him immeasurably and freely, without a prescribed manner."[24]
[1] _Spirit of St. Francis de Sales_, chap. xii.
[2] Gaume, _Manual for Confessors_ (Pusey Translation), p. 179.
[3] Gury, _Compend. Theol. Moral._, II, pp. 278-279.
[4] St. Francis de Sales, _Spiritual Letters_, cxiv.
[5] Ps. xliii, 5-6.
[6] St. Francis de Sales, _Letters to Persons in Religion_, p. 141
(Mackey Trans.). This same Saint warns us against discouragement that
enters under the guise of humility. Speaking of the virtue of
self-mistrust he says: "Your mistrust of self is good, so long as it is
the groundwork of confidence in God; but if it ever should lead you to
being discouraged, disturbed, vexed, or melancholy, then I entreat you,
reject it as the greatest possible temptation, and do not allow your
mind to argue or dally with the anxiety or depression to which you are
disposed. It is a simple and certain truth that God permits those who
seek to serve Him to encounter many difficulties, but also that He
never leaves them to sink under the burthen so long as they trust in
Him. The great thing you must heed is never to let your mind argue in
favour of the temptation to be discouraged, under any pretext whatever,
not even under the plausible pretext of humility."--_Spiritual
Letters_, cii (Lear Edition).
[7] Ezek. xviii, 4.
[8] 1 Cor. xii, 26.
[9] Gen. iv, 9.
[10] For conditions under which doubtful sins should be mentioned in
confession, see Lehmkuhl, II, 317.
[11] St. Francis de Sales, _Spiritual Letters_, xi.
[12] Andrewes, _Sermons_, Vol. V, p. 499.
[13] Gaume, _Manual for Confessors_ (Pusey Trans.), p. 90.
[14] St. Francis de Sales, _Spiritual Letters_, xiii.
[15] Speaking of certain temptations which result from past faults of
our own, Dr. Pusey says, "They are suffering, not sin; nay, so long as
they are suffering they are not sin."--_Parochial Sermons_, II, 334.
[16] Jer. xxxi, 3.
[17] Lam. iii, 22, 23.
[18] Baker, _Sancta Sophia_, p. 237.
[19] Hilton, _The Scale of Perfection_, Bk. II, Pt. 2, chap. iv.
[20] Rev. ii and iii.
[21] Isa. xxx, 7.
[22] St. Francis de Sales, _Spiritual Letters_, xxxvii.
[23] Hilton, _The Scale of Perfection_, Bk. II, Sec. 1, chap. viii.
[24] Baker, _Sancta Sophia_, p. 413.
{166}
CHAPTER XI
THE SCHOOL OF THE HOLY GHOST
One of the most precious promises in Holy Scripture which is repeatedly
made to the faithful is that they shall be taught of God. "Them that
are meek shall He guide in judgment, and such as are gentle them shall
He learn His way."[1] "I will inform thee, and teach thee in the way
wherein thou shalt go; and I will guide thee with Mine eye."[2] "All
thy children shall be taught of the Lord";[3] "The Comforter, which is
the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach
you all things";[4] "He will guide you into all truth."[5]
I. _The Teaching of Temptation_
One of the chief courses of instruction in the School of the Holy
Spirit is that of temptation. Victory over Satan is a very glorious
achievement, but it is only half, and so far as our earthly life is
affected, the smaller half, of God's purpose in sending and permitting
temptation. He means {167} us in every battle to gain a knowledge of
self, a knowledge of our weak points, that realizing them our wills may
be incited to co-operate with His to re-enforce them.[6]
(1) One of the first lessons it is needful for us to learn is that when
great difficulty is experienced in resisting a temptation we are to
regard the point of this particular assault as one that requires
strengthening. How wonderfully does the divine wisdom force Satan
himself to be our instructor and, in permitting him to buffet us,
compel him to proceed according to a principle which teaches the soul
its own needs, and so turns to his own undoing, and to the profit of
the one who is tempted.
Even when, for the time being, he gains a victory, the same principle
holds good. After true penitence has come to make good the breach, how
much has the soul learned, how sensitive it is at that particular
point, how alert to perceive any renewed attack, how full of a holy
desperation that the same disaster come not again.
Satan's desire is to keep us in ignorance of our {168} weakness, and he
would persuade the sinner that his relation with God is at all points
what it ought to be. Then, having soothed the soul with the opiate of
deception, he would bind us hand and foot. But whatever he may be able
to do with those who have submitted themselves to his unholy will, God
will not have it so with those who are seeking to be faithful, but
forces Satan to act as His messenger to warn us.
"Temptations," it has been said, "are often very profitable to us
though they be troublesome and grievous."[7] We have much to learn in
the consideration of this saying. Why should a child of God who is
daily and consciously receiving and enjoying the gifts of a loving
Father find the direct solicitation to offend Him so difficult to
overcome? If one whom we knew to be our enemy should try to persuade
us to commit some act that would be a deep dishonour to a loving
earthly parent, we should not find it hard to repel the suggestion.
More than this, the fact that such a thing had been proposed would
instinctively impel us to some immediate word or act of devotion, that
would leave no shadow of doubt upon our love and loyalty.
An answer to this question comes from the Holy Ghost in the very
temptation that is vexing us, for in it He would teach us two truths:
{169}
(1) The first is a very humiliating one, namely, that although our
reason recognizes our relation and duty to God, yet somewhere in our
nature there is a powerful tendency to choose evil rather than good,
the service of Satan rather than the love of God.
The Apostle describes his own experience in his letter to his Roman
converts. "That which I do, I allow not," he says, "for what I would,
that I do not, but what I hate, that I do.... The good that I would,
that I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do."[8]
Nor need we be in the dark concerning its extent, for the struggle for
the right is always grievous in proportion to the strength of the
tendency to choose what Satan offers.
(2) Again, when God permits a temptation that is hard to overcome, He
is giving us a sign that should teach us that our love for Him is
wanting, and that He means us to try by every means to increase it. We
ought to be able to act towards God as we do when one whom we love with
an earthly love is involved. We read the lives of the Saints, and we
see with what ready indignation they rejected Satan's suggestions. It
was because their hearts were full of love for God; and when they were
asked to {170} dishonour Him, they felt that an indignity had been put
upon them, and they rose up against it with all the force of a nature
made strong and pure by divine grace.
II. _The Bulwark of Love_
At the risk of a digression, we must here consider how we can increase
our love and acquire that quality in our souls which will enable us to
meet with a sense of outrage any persuasion to violate God's will.
The difficulty we experience in repelling Satan points directly to the
duty of practising those things which will give us an increase of love
and loyalty to God. This is to be accomplished by the execution of
some practical resolution which might be framed in this fashion: "I
found it hard to refrain from wounding Him; I know, therefore, that my
love for God is weaker than I thought. I will therefore this day seek
to increase my love in two ways: (1), I will watch for the evidence of
His love for me, and will meditate upon it, and upon my unworthiness of
it; (2), I will, by His help, force opportunity of doing a definite
number of loving acts toward Him and others, that by the practice of
love I may increase my love."
Then if we would secure a sure increase of love, {171} we must permit
no sort of indefiniteness to enter into the fulfilment of our
resolution. It must be carried out with precision.
For our meditation, nothing could be more profitable than to write out
with fulness and care the account of some blessing that has come to us
through God's love; and by the side of it write a like definite account
of some infidelity of ours toward Him. The shame of the contrast, if
our hearts be not wholly bad, cannot but drive us to Him with a fuller
desire, which will win from Him the gift of a renewed and strengthened
love.
The acts, too, must be of the most definite kind. Go out of your way
to speak or do some loving thing, offering it, at the time, to God as
your work of love to Him. Or it may be some simple act of prayer, such
as kneeling with great recollection and deliberation, folding the
hands, and lifting the heart in silence for a moment to God, then
repeating, very reverently and devoutly, the Lord's Prayer, or some
other short devotion. Then, after a pause, add, "Dear Lord, I offer
Thee this, to show Thee that I love Thee, and that I want to love Thee
more"; or some such little prayer as that of Fenelon's: "Lord, take my
heart, for I cannot give it Thee; and when Thou hast it, keep it, for I
cannot keep it for Thee; and save me in spite of my sins."
{172}
Many a sinner has followed some such simple, child-like method, and
God's response has come into his heart with a thrill of awakening love
that has startled it with its sweetness and power, and filled him with
a keen sense of personal dishonour at ever again wounding the heart of
Jesus by parleying even for a moment with the tempter.
III. _The Lesson of Humility_
The greatest of all lessons the Holy Ghost teaches us is that of
humility. Thomas à Kempis shows that one of the special points of
profit in temptation lies in the fact that in it "a man is humbled."[9]
The most necessary virtue the Christian soul must learn is that of
humility. When our Lord would give His disciples the chief reason why
they should learn of Him, He said it was because, "I am meek and lowly
in heart."[10]
It was a common expression of the Fathers of the Church that humility
is the mother and mistress of all virtues, and they loved to see in the
etymology of the word (_humus_, earth), the suggestion of the soil
under our feet, in which, though often unpleasant and repulsive, all
fair flowers and fruits have their root and draw their sustenance.
{173}
We have only to consider pride, the vice which is the contrary of
humility, to understand what is meant by the statement that without
humility no other virtue can exist.
The first of the great virtues, Faith, can certainly not exist along
with pride, for it is of the essence of pride to make for
self-confidence, as opposed to trust in God or in anyone else besides
one's self.
Hope cannot exist, for the true God-ward Hope which constitutes this
virtue has in it an element of meekness and patient waiting on God that
is incompatible with the presence of pride.
Nor can Love and pride exist in the same heart, for love is necessarily
unselfish, and the proud soul is essentially bound up in self.
How then are we to obtain this so necessary virtue of humility? St.
Bernard gives us the answer, an answer by no means original with him,
however, but which has been the burden of the spiritual masters of
every age of the Church. "_Humility is nurtured only by
humiliations_." The soul that constantly rejects that which humiliates
can never acquire the virtue of humility, for it is deliberately
refusing to learn the lesson set for it by the Holy Ghost.
Let us not be surprised if God then sets very definite lessons for us
in the school of humility. {174} We should not be so foolish as to
think we could acquire the knowledge of an earthly trade or profession,
without applying ourselves to the lessons set for us. If a young man
applied to a lawyer to be allowed to study the law under his direction,
he would feel that it was hopeless if the lawyer said: "You need not
trouble to work at this thing very much. Just stay around my chambers
for a year or so, and you will find yourself a pretty good lawyer."
This would not satisfy him. He wants to be told that the law is a
jealous mistress, that he must labour long and hard if he would win her
honours. His common sense tells him that this is necessary. But,
alas, in learning the highest of all knowledge, that of humility, we
refuse to use common sense. We think we can acquire it without the
lesson of humiliation.
(1) Temptation humbles the soul by showing it the possibilities of its
degradation. Satan knows us much better than we know ourselves, and it
is not likely that he would solicit us to commit a certain sin unless
he saw something in us that encouraged him to think we would, with some
persuasion, be willing to do it. Let us be sure that the presence of a
special temptation, however it may at the time repel us, is the proof
that there is something definite in our {175} nature that would be
attracted by this solicitation, if the grace of God were not holding us
back. So temptation brings self-knowledge, and self-knowledge is the
first degree of humility.
(2) Temptation, by showing us the possibilities of degradation which,
but for the grace of God, would become actualities, enables us to
exercise the virtue of humility towards others. If we really
understand the natural tendency towards what is evil, and that only
through the divine mercy are we saved from the worst forms of sin and
corruption, it will be impossible to maintain an "Holier than thou"
attitude towards others.
"If thou shouldst see another openly sin, or commit some heinous
offence, yet oughtest thou not to think the better of thyself, for thou
knowest not how long thou shalt be able to stand fast in good. We are
all frail, but thou shalt esteem none frailer than thyself."[11]
This humbling self-knowledge will also produce a train of virtues which
will grow out of and at the same time, by their operation, further and
deepen, a spirit of humility. Let us consider three of them.
(1) How quick we are to criticise the sin we see in others, but there
could be no such {176} arrogance if through Satan's temptations we were
daily made to realize what is possible in ourselves. On the contrary,
we should be filled with the gentle sympathy that a man feels for one
who is in the grip of some dread disease from which he himself has just
recovered; and sympathy is always humble.
(2) The sight of the degradation of the world in its sin will fill us
with a true gratitude to God that we have so far escaped the peril into
which Satan had succeeded in leading others, and true gratitude is
necessarily humble because even the smallest exercise of it is, as far
as it goes, a recognition of our dependence on another, and pride would
be unwilling to admit any such dependence.
(3) There will, in view of sin as it appears in life about us, be
awakened a wholesome fear, such as that which seizes upon a man whose
companion has been struck down at his side by the sting of a deadly
serpent,--a fear that will drive him back in humble dependence on God,
and make him realize how utterly powerless he is, of himself, to avoid
a like fate.
IV. _The Lessons of Consolation_
The teaching of the Holy Ghost is not confined to warning us of danger.
He has also many lessons of encouragement and consolation for us {177}
in the hour of temptation. Certain of these have already been
considered, and those that we shall consider now, must be disposed of
briefly. Perhaps some of us may take them up at another time as themes
for further thought and meditation. Such an exercise would be of great
profit, for Satan so constantly seeks to discourage us in the field,
that we may be sure that it is the loving will of God to offset this by
holding before us always that which will enhearten us, and fill us with
somewhat of that "stern joy" of the battle which must ever thrill the
true soldier in the discharge of his trust.
(1) Temptation is an advertisement to the soul that it is, at least in
some degree, in the grace of God.
To forget this is always a cause of weakness. It is a common thing to
hear the complaint, "Something must be wrong with me, or temptation
would not come so persistently and in such manifold forms."
To see the fallacy that underlies this complaint, one has only to think
of our Lord "in all points tempted like as we are."[12] No one was
ever so beset with temptation as He was, and if constant temptation be
a sign of something wrong within, then no one was ever quite so far
{178} gone from righteousness as was our Lord Christ Himself.[13]
Something is indeed wrong, from Satan's point of view, with the soul
whom he besets with many snares. He is not satisfied with us. There
is altogether too much divine love and power in our hearts to please
him, and so he sets the battle in array against us. Surely it is a
thankworthy thing, one that must bring great joy, to have the evidence
that Satan regards us as his enemy.
Suppose no temptation assailed us,--what a terrible significance this
would have! When we went to prayer, or to Communion, or about the
commonplace, God-sent duties of the day, what a fearful thing it would
be if Satan, observing us, were to reflect that he had no reason to
attack us because, do what we might, he was sure that no harm could
come to his kingdom through us!
There are men in the world, many of them, indeed, who have no
temptations, and who cite the absence of such experience as proof that
the Christian teaching concerning the devil and his work is false.
{179}
Alas, they know not their own misery, for "never art thou more strongly
set upon than when thou believest thou art not at all assaulted."[14]
Satan does not assail them, and in thus refraining he acts on the same
principle as does a warring king who lays no siege to a fortress that
is already in his possession, whose sometime defenders lie in his
dungeons, chained hand and foot.
But as we saw in our first chapter when considering the terms of this
warfare, the captivity that such untempted souls are enduring is no
idle, passive confinement in some spiritual prison. These worldly
souls are the most effective soldiers of him whose very existence and
power they deny. He has no reason to unmask himself to them. He
"leaves them alone, they are doing his work. The blasphemer is not
tempted to blaspheme. Why should he be? He blasphemes already. The
unbeliever is not tempted to unbelief,--he has lost his faith. The
scoffer is no longer tempted to scoffing,--he scoffs enough already to
satisfy even the 'god of this world.'"[15]
(2) Temptation is also an advertisement to the soul that God has some
special mark of His love to bestow at the particular time.
{180}
Every occasion of temptation is pregnant with graces and heavenly
favours which God has in store for the victor. Calling us forth to the
battle is just His way of calling us to lay hold of some increase of
strength He has prepared for us.
(3) Great comfort is laid hold of by the soul in contemplating that in
temptation God is but furnishing us the opportunity to carry out His
commands,--"Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven";[16] and, "Work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling."[17] Unless such
commands are fulfilled there can be no redemption for us. God has done
His part and done it perfectly. So far as His work is concerned, He
could, when yielding up His soul on the Cross, most truly cry, "It is
finished,"[18] for everything necessary for God to do in order that man
might lay hold on salvation was accomplished. But man must have his
part. Salvation can come to no soul that does not labour for it, and
temptation is the opportunity definitely prepared and presented to us
by a loving God that the work of the Cross may not for us have been
wrought in vain. Therefore great consolation must come with every
assault, and as we feel the weight and thrust of the awful conflict,
let us joyfully cry, "Now is the accepted time; now is the day {181} of
salvation! Why art thou so heavy, O my soul, and why art thou so
disquieted within me! Look up and lift up your head, for your
redemption draweth nigh!"[19]
(4) The greater and more prolonged the temptation, the greater should
be our consolation. The fact that the assault is fierce and persistent
gives the blessed assurance that the soul has been faithful in the
little temptations. The tempter realizes that if he is to have us at
all, it must be at great cost and labour; that we are not going to sell
ourselves cheap.
(5) We sometimes hear men complain against God's justice because He
permits souls to be so beset by the Evil One; but as a matter of fact
his antagonism reassures us on this very point. Temptation is Satan's
tribute to the divine justice. He is the Accuser of the brethren, and
in tempting us he is acknowledging that he must have something real
wherewith to accuse us at the Judgment.
(6) When strange, terrible, and unaccustomed flashes of temptation
come, we learn with great joy that the tempter is puzzled concerning
us. Our steadfast service of God has baffled him, and he can only
experiment with us, as it were, hoping a weak point may by some means
be {182} discovered. Such temptations, in many cases, mean that the
tempter is working in the dark.
(7) Great comfort must be found in the thought of the victory that
awaits us if we are faithful. This should not arise merely from the
sense of relief at escaping a fall, but from the happy thought that in
every such victory, great or small, Satan is weaker in my life than he
was before, and God and His love are stronger. True, great conflicts
may be still in store for me, but I have greater strength than ever
before for meeting them and overcoming. So while the warfare
continues, the soul grows keener for the struggle, and finds greater
joy in it, because it realizes its strength, and rejoices, as does
every strong man, to use it.
Many other points of consolation may be found in the spiritual combat,
but these will suffice to show us how much of joy there is in the
active, militant life of the Christian, if we only try to find it.
Let us, then, thank God for temptation, and if it presses us hard, let
us rejoice the more, for it is His way of sending us the pledge of our
peace with Him, the guerdon of His love.
{183}
V. _How to Learn our Lessons_
How are we going to recognize all these lessons as they are presented
by the Spirit? There is hardly time in the thick of the battle to
pause to think these things out, as we have done in the quiet hour we
have given to the reading of this chapter. The soldier cannot stop to
draw calm conclusions, and to study the purpose and effect of tactical
movements, when the enemy is thundering at the gate, and all but making
his way in.
One simple suggestion may help us. Let us make a practice of studying
our past temptations, as soldiers are wont to study the great military
campaigns of history in order to learn methods of warfare. Go to some
War College and see the eager young officers as they follow a skilled
instructor, all poring intently over a diagram of some battle fought
and won a century ago. "Here Napoleon made his mistake; there was the
movement by which the field was won; that splendid manoeuvre turned the
enemy's flank." They study every move, the effect it wrought, whether
it failed or succeeded, and why. And thus, combined with their own
practice, men learn the art of war.
In some such way let it be with us in the spiritual conflict. The
School of the Holy Ghost is a {184} War College in which the campaigns
of the armies of God and Satan are to be studied under the guidance of
our divine Instructor. How constantly has the Church studied the great
campaign prosecuted against Satan by our own great Captain in the
wilderness! How much has been learned by the study of His methods of
resistance and attack! The lives of the Saints, too, are but studies
of military campaigns waged for God.
But perhaps most profitable of all will be the study of our own
battles. Under the guidance of the Spirit, go back to some recent
temptation, (always excepting scrupulously temptations against faith
and purity); study its circumstance, how it arose, if it came through
any fault of ours. Did we presumptuously run into occasion of perilous
temptation? If not, what occasion did the enemy seize upon for his
attack? Was there parleying with him? Did we meet it in the first
moment with prayer and acts of faith, hope, love, contrition, and
humility, or were these powerful weapons not brought to bear? Through
it all, did we strive to keep our lines of communication with our
headquarters and our base of supplies open by prayer? Or did we forget
who our Leader was and grow panic-stricken? Can we recall the
particular point at which downfall {185} began? Or, if there was
victory, what prayer, what thought, was it that imparted a sudden
strength to the heart, and drove home the thrust that put the enemy to
flight? Or what painful pressing on, inch by inch, forced him at last
to fly the field? And when we beheld him fleeing, did we secure
ourselves, and spike his guns, as it were, by fervent acts of gratitude
to God who had given us the victory?
We may not be able to find answers to all these questions, but if in
the beginning of such a study, we find only a few, well and good. We
shall profit by them, and in the next temptation use the knowledge
gained; and so shall we go on, gaining more and more knowledge out of
the study of our own experience, and more and more faithfully putting
that knowledge to use, until we become skilled and practised
campaigners in the wars of the Lord; until, indeed, we become worthy to
be enrolled among those of whom the Apostle speaks, "Who by reason of
use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."[20]
{186}
All this while, however, we are not to neglect our study of the
spiritual campaigns of others. In the pages of the Bible, in the lives
of the Saints and holy men, in their own experiences that they have
recorded for us in their spiritual writings, we can find innumerable
things with which we can compare, and by which correct, the conclusions
of our study of the principles of the warfare.
These are especially valuable when found in the biographies of the
great servants of God, for in such records we find the theory actually
worked out in the lives of men of like passions with ourselves.
A beautiful illustration of this is recalled from the life of that
great champion of the Faith, Bishop Gray of Capetown. When in the
midst of his contest with the heretic Colenso, when the Church and the
world seemed combined against him, from one of his long wagon-journeys
across the lonely African veldt, he writes, "I find great comfort in
repeating the first three petitions of the Lord's Prayer." What a
mighty weapon was that! Have we used it as did this servant of God?
[1] Ps. xxv, 8.
[2] Ps. xxxii, 9.
[3] Isa. liv, 13.
[4] St. John xiv, 26.
[5] St. John xvi, 13.
[6] "One does not arrive at virtue except through knowledge of self and
knowledge of Me, which knowledge is more perfectly acquired in time of
temptation, because then man knows himself to be nothing, being unable
to lift off himself the pains and vexations which he would flee."--St.
Catherine of Siena, _Dialogue_, p. 119. (Thorold Trans., London, 1907.)
[7] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[8] Rom. vii, 15 and 19.
[9] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[10] St. Matt. xi, 29.
[11] _Imitation_, I, ii.
[12] Heb. iv, 15.
[13] St. Luke says, "When the devil had ended every kind of temptation,
he departed from Him until a convenient season."--Chap, iv, 13. "He
was tempted throughout the forty days, and that what is recorded is
merely an illustration of what took place. The enemy tried all his
weapons, and was at all points defeated."--Plummer, _Internal. Crit.
Comment_, in loc.
[14] St. Jerome, Epistle to Heliodorus.
[15] H. E. Manning, _Sin and its Consequences_, p. 173.
[16] St. Matt. vi, 20.
[17] Phil. ii, 12.
[18] St. John xix, 30.
[19] 2 Cor. vi, 2; Ps. xliii, 5; St. Luke xxi, 28.
[20] Heb. v, 14. The words of the author of the Epistle may be
paraphrased somewhat as follows: "Who by reason of the possession of
perfected habit have the mental faculties exercised (by a course of
spiritual gymnastics), for discriminating between good and evil." See
Westcott and Alford _in loc_. St. Macarius, speaking of these
spiritual gymnastics, says, "We have need of many and great efforts, of
much secret and unseen toil, to be able thoroughly to sift and
scrutinize our thoughts, and to exercise the languid senses of the soul
to discern both good and evil. We must continually arouse and excite
the debilitated members of the soul by a close application of our minds
to God."--_Institutes of Christian Perfection_, Bk. I, ch. vii.
{187}
CHAPTER XII
THE RETURN FROM CAPTIVITY
We may set before ourselves the methods of warfare that lead to
spiritual victory; we may study them with all care and prayer; but the
weakness of our nature being what it is, we must not expect to go
through life without meeting defeat at the hands of the enemy. Even
the Saints have not been immune from sin. When St. Paul spoke of
sinners, he added, "Of whom I am chief."[1] St. John not only said,
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves," but he added
those terrible words, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a
liar."[2]
A most necessary part, therefore, of our instruction in the school of
the soldier is concerning the course we are to follow when we find we
have fallen; how we are to find our way back from the captivity; by
what means we are to renew our allegiance to our divine Leader.
We all know that the necessary thing is _Repentance_, but it is not
everyone who understands what repentance is. In its essence repentance
is {188} not an emotion; it is not a mere attitude of mind; it is a
work, a serious work, and in many instances a hard work. In this
chapter we do not purpose using any special method, scholastic or
otherwise, of showing what this work is, or how it should be
accomplished. In a simple, perhaps informal way, we shall, as the Holy
Ghost may guide us, consider some of the aspects of the interior spirit
we must cultivate if, after a fall, we would by true repentance come
back to our loving Father.
I. _Hastening to Repent_
It will help us if we recall one of the principles we thought of in the
beginning of our study, when we were considering the terms and
conditions of the warfare. We learned then that any fall into sin, in
the measure of its seriousness, means, "not an idle, passive
confinement in some spiritual prison, but an active enlistment in the
armies of hell to fight against our Lord Jesus Christ."
When we think of this, we shall understand that the first consideration
must be the speed with which we must hasten to release ourselves from
the horrid bondage into which we have fallen. Two reasons for this
haste suggest themselves.
(1) First of all, the soul that desires to love will make all speed in
order that God's Name may {189} be relieved of the dishonour that
befalls it when one of His family, one called by His name, signed and
sealed as His soldier, renounces Him and gives in his allegiance to the
Devil. We can brook no delay in such a matter. How keenly sensitive
is human honour in like affairs! Let us not think that the divine
honour is a duller thing than that indefinable possession men guard as
the most sacred of all their moral treasures.
(2) Again, for our own sakes, no time is to be lost in returning to
God. Sin is a poison. Every moment the poison remains in the system
makes it more difficult to expel. It is absorbed and carried to every
part of the body, working wherever it touches with deadly effect. If
we should take a poisonous draught by mistake, how instant we should be
that we might be rid of it. How much more insistent should we be that
the poison whose effects are eternal should not be given time for its
deadly work.
It is at this point that Satan's temptation comes in. "What is the
use?" he whispers, "you will sin again." So does he try to discourage
us, and the soul who thinks only of self is apt to stop and listen.
Not so with him whose penitence has its root in love; not so with him
who feels keenly that his act has dishonoured a loving, tender Father
and Friend. He will not brood over his {190} fall, for he knows that
every hour of such weak repining is an hour of added sin. He will
sweep the temptation aside, and cry with strong resolution, "I will
arise and go to my Father!" For he knows that if he waits, the numbing
influence of the poison will creep into heart and will, and that after
a time he may have neither desire nor power to repent.
We must not leave this subject, however, without finding a reply to
Satan's suggestion,--"It is of no use; you will sin again." Many a
soul has been entrapped by it. Many a one, through fear of future
failure, has been held back from righting the present wrong. But to
yield to such a fear is to commit a special offence against the Holy
Ghost. No promise is more constant in Holy Scripture than that if we
rise in the strength He will give us, go forward again, and set no
special task for ourselves beyond just doing the best we can, He will
keep and sustain us. "He shall give His angels charge over thee to
keep thee in all thy ways;"[3] "Fear not, little flock, for it is your
Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."[4] "Let not your
heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid;"[5] "I will never leave
thee nor forsake thee."[6]
{191}
What completer assurance can we ask of the Holy Spirit than these
repeated promises that God will fight for us, defend us on every side,
and give us the victory? and he who fears to rise and go forward in the
face of such assurances, is assuming that the Spirit has spoken
falsely, or that God will not keep His word.
II. _A Tranquil Sorrow_
Our penitence, though prompt and swift, must withal be tranquil. True
penitence allows no place for excitability.
(1) Because it grasps the truth that our fall was not a matter for
surprise. It was only what we are to expect when, failing to use the
grace God constantly offers, we venture upon our own strength. The
only wonder and surprise should be that we do not fail a hundred times
more frequently.
(2) Because surprise at falling indicates pride. We imagined we were
strong. In self-righteousness we prided ourselves on our security, and
we found that "security is the suburbs of hell." But true penitence
knows no such pride, and therefore feels no surprise. The broken and
contrite heart is, of necessity, the humble heart; it is the heart that
thanks God with wondering gratitude for every hour of faithfulness to
Him.
(3) Again, true penitence is tranquil because {192} it is sure of
acceptance at the Father's hands. Perturbation in its approach to God
would indicate uncertainty of mind as to its reception; and this would
mean a lack of trust in His promises. Consider again what the promises
are: "Turn unto the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and of great kindness";[7] "To the Lord our God belong
mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against Him; neither
have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God;"[8] "Him that cometh to
Me I will in no wise cast out";[9] "The Blood of Jesus Christ His Son
cleanseth us from all sin."[10]
Can the heart desiring to return to the allegiance of our God have any
qualm of doubt in the face of such promises? If there is true
penitence, rather will it return in a confident peace, knowing with a
most assured certainty that "the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting
to everlasting upon them that fear Him."[11]
(4) The penitent soul turns to the Father in tranquillity because it
knows that, though there has been grievous fall, yet all is not lost.
He will give it another chance. In the Father's house are many
mansions, and He is still preparing a place for us. All the treasures
of His {193} Kingdom may yet be ours if we come back in true sorrow.
We broke our resolution, we wounded Him again in the same old sin, but
He has not given us up. Even while we are wondering how we can ever
face Him again, He is starting out on His way to the wilderness to seek
the sheep that is lost. The stones of the way cut His Sacred Feet; the
thorns and briars of sin tear His Hands as He bends down to extricate
the entangled soul; but He cares naught for these if only He can fetch
home again His banished one.
We are told that "The Saints are the sinners who kept on trying." They
reign in glory to-day not because they were pure from sin, but because
when sin entered in they did not forget the Father's tender love, but
came back, calm and sure, to the peace of His pardoning embrace.
III. _A Spirit of Reparation_
A heart that loves, and that has offended the object of its love,
naturally longs for opportunity to make reparation. If our return to
the divine allegiance after a fall is in the smallest measure sincere,
we shall not have to spur ourselves on to a desire for reparation. It
will spring up unbidden, strong and dominant. The heart will be
restless and disquieted until opportunity be found.
This desire is not a supernatural gift only. It {194} belongs even to
the natural heart of man. We see it showing itself in little children.
Mark the child who has offended a loving mother, who has wept out its
heart-broken confession on her bosom, and been forgiven and soothed,
and sent away restored to the mother's favour. How quick is that
little one all day long to watch for and grasp opportunities of
responding to her slightest wish. The little heart instinctively longs
to make good the wrong of its disobedience. So with the heart that,
having sinned against God, has repented. This is one of the best tests
of true and godly repentance. If we long to repair the wrong, if we
are quick to seize opportunities to honour Him whom our sin had
dishonoured, there can be no question that we have sorrowed after a
godly sort.
How does God meet this spirit on the part of the penitent?
Here enters the divine Love and says, "My child, you have indeed
dishonoured Me in your sin, and wounded and crucified Me afresh. Your
love demands an opportunity for reparation and my answering love will
give it you. Go forth to this renewed battle; show that you can be a
good soldier of the Cross. Fight valiantly that you may win even
greater glory for My Name than that which was lost by your failure."
{195}
What more can the generous heart ask of God? Suppose when we came to
Him in deep sorrow for our fault, He should say to us, "I will pardon
you, but never will I give you the opportunity of serving me again. I
trusted you once and you failed me. I will not trust you again."
Would our hearts desire heaven on such a condition? I think there is
not one of us who would not feel that to stand in His presence among
the redeemed on such terms would be the veriest hell. But the love of
God deals not thus with sinners. "Though you have failed Me," He says,
"I will trust you again. Go forth once more. My grace will make you
strong; My love will hedge you round about."
IV. _The Work of Amendment_
The true test of penitence is amendment of life, but God does not
require actual amendment before receiving us back into His service.
What He demands is that we have a firm purpose of amendment. No man
can say what he will do in the future. The future belongs to God. It
may never be ours at all. It is ours at the present moment to make a
resolution of amendment, and then to trust in God to fulfil in us this
resolve.
From the nature of things we can never arrive {196} at any mathematical
demonstration of having amended. On the contrary, it is the invariable
experience of those who are striving most earnestly in God's service,
that the more they strive the less they think they are accomplishing.
St. Paul did not think when he was persecuting the Church that he was
the chief of sinners. But when he had seen the Lord in the way, after
he had been rapt to the third heaven, after he had suffered hunger and
thirst, cold and nakedness, stripes and imprisonment, for His Name's
sake, after he had given up everything that the world counted dear,
after men saw he had attained to such sanctity that his name was one of
power in all the Churches, then came to him the deep sense that he had
accomplished nothing. He thought of himself as the chief of sinners,
and counted that he had laid hold of nothing for God; that he must
forget the things that were behind and reach forth unto the things that
were before if he was to attain the prize of the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus.[12] Men trembled at his words of burning rebuke, while
he trembled lest having preached to others he himself should be a
castaway.[13]
The experience of the great Apostle is shared by every soul who loves
God, and the reason is plain.
{197}
The nearer we approach to our Lord, the more vivid is the contrast
between our sin-stained souls and His perfect life. In the
illumination of His near presence every fault stands out in awful
prominence, and though there may not be a tenth of the sin that once
filled our lives, our consciousness of it is a hundred-fold increased.
This must be the case if we are vigilant; and Satan finds in this
condition much occasion for temptation. Let us illustrate. A certain
man has all his life been a slave to the sin of anger. Every day he
has been guilty of it. It becomes so common a thing in his life that
he sins habitually, forgetting it five minutes afterward. He kept no
account with himself. Had he been questioned about it, he could have
given no idea of the frequency of the sin. This man is converted. He
now fights hard, and maintains a careful watch over himself. Where sin
formerly came and went without attracting notice, now every approach of
it is keenly felt. At the end of the day he can recall distinctly a
half-dozen falls, and he is tempted to think the case is hopeless. But
last week there was a score of falls, though he scarcely remembered two
of them at the end of the day. Now he remembers thrice that number
with terrible vividness. But the increase of consciousness of sin is
not the increase of sin. {198} He is amending his life, though quite
the contrary _seems_ the case.
These considerations show us how untrue, of necessity, must be all our
estimates of our progress in amendment. We have no outside point of
view from the vantage-ground of which we can form a right judgment.
Therefore God says to the sinner, "Make your resolution in honesty of
purpose; commit it to Me; do the best you can; above all things never
violate your own conscience; and under no circumstances try to estimate
your progress. If you should see that you had advanced, pride and
presumption would arise to imperil you; if you could see no progress,
the temptation to despair might unnerve you. Commit your ways unto Me;
that will bring a man peace at the last."
V. _The Gainsaying of Satan_
We have said that the true test of penitence is amendment of life. We
can hardly read this sentence without being conscious of temptation,
for it is here that Satan brings in one of his most subtle suggestions.
We can hear him taunting the soul: "Is this all you have to depend on
for your hope of salvation? Have you ever really amended your life?"
And then with that mysterious power that {199} God has given him for
the trial of the Saints, and which he uses so pitilessly, he flashes
upon the mirror of the mind old sins, sins of long ago, of which we
repented in bitterness and tears, it may be; but which we took again to
our hearts time after time. We made our Confession, we said to God in
the presence of His priest (for he could not have absolved us without
this), "I firmly purpose amendment." Then we went away and sinned
again and yet again. After a time we came back to Confession. The
same acknowledgment, the same promise,--and then the same old sin again.
Thus has life gone on, year after year, and yet we dare to look to God
to take us back to our old allegiance. Satan tells us all this; and it
loses nothing in the telling. It is very terrible, and the soul
shrinks back appalled.
Then swift as thought the voice of the tempter comes again: "What is
the use? You will sin again; why not give it all up?" Many a soul has
followed his counsel to its eternal loss. It sounded plausible. It
seemed to fit exactly into our own experience; and yet it was a lie.
It was a lie because in all that he said the tempter was deceiving us
as to the true meaning of amendment. Satan's knowledge of what
perfection is, is a very strange and wonderful thing. {200} An angel
from heaven could not set up a higher standard than he is able to do
when he is seeking to discourage a struggling soul. _Amendment does
not mean perfection of life; it does not mean never committing some
particular sin again_. This was not what we resolved; it was not what
we told God we purposed doing. What amendment does mean is, "_to
change for the better_."[14] This is to be the spirit and resolution
with which we return from the captivity of sin. It is all God asks.
But the tempter is not yet vanquished. Quick comes the whisper in the
soul,--"Have you done even this? Has there been a change in your life
for the better? Have you any assurance that your life is in the
smallest degree better than it was a year ago?"
Staggering questions these, to the soul that is ignorant; but the soul
that is wise, the soul that is really under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit, has its answer ready.
"I do not know whether I have done this or not. I know not if my life
is changed for the better, or if I am living more as Christ would have
me live than I did a year ago. Moreover, I am not concerned to give
you, God's enemy and mine, any answer to these questions. I have no
account to render to you. But one thing I know; {201} when I sin I can
come back to Him. I kneel at His feet, I put my hands in His, I look
up into those eyes brimming with love, and I say, 'Dear Lord, here is
my poor heart all full of sin again; I lay it at Thy feet. Wash it in
Thy Precious Blood, and make me strong to serve Thee better. I am
sorry and I purpose to amend, but I am weak. Be Thou my strength;
fight Thou against them that fight against me, and let me be the victor
in the end.' I speak thus to Him, and leave it all with Him. I sin
again, and again I come and kneel at His feet; and though I have to
come daily to Him with the same burden, His embrace is never less
tender, His words not less sweet, His eyes are ever full of the same
old love.
"Am I amending my life? I know not,--He knows. Is my soul a saintlier
thing than it was a year ago? I know not,--He knows. All I know is
that I love Him, and I want to love Him more; and that when I think on
Him my heart is at peace."
[1] 1 Tim. i, 15.
[2] 1 St. John i, 8 and 10.
[3] Ps. xci, 11.
[4] St. Luke xii, 32.
[5] St. John xiv, 27.
[6] Heb. xiii, 5.
[7] Joel ii, 13.
[8] Dan. ix, 9, 10.
[9] St. John vi, 37.
[10] 1 St. John i, 7.
[11] Ps. ciii, 17.
[12] Phil. iii, 13-14.
[13] 1 Cor. ix, 27.
[14] _Vid._ Webster.
{202}
CHAPTER XIII
THE GROUND FOR CHRISTIAN COURAGE
In His instructions to His disciples, while not hiding from them what
were to be the hardships and, as the world counts it, loss, that must
accompany His service, our Lord was ever full of words of
encouragement. He strove always to show them that while the following
of Him was not what the natural heart would look for as a flowery path,
yet, if understood aright, His yoke was easy and His burden light, and
that those who bore it would find rest for their souls.[1]
Particularly in His last discourse to them He sets forth repeated words
of encouragement. Twice He used those words of tender assurance, "Let
not your heart be troubled," adding, "Neither let it be afraid."[2]
Four times He declares in substance, "Whatsoever ye shall ask in My
name, that will I do."[3] He assures them that He Himself will be
diligent in praying the Father for them that the Blessed Comforter may
{203} abide with them forever.[4] He declares that if they will but
abide in Him, they will be able to bring forth eternal fruit of
victory.[5] Sorrow indeed shall be theirs, but "Your sorrow shall be
turned into joy," a joy that "may be full," a joy that "no man taketh
from you."[6] And the great discourse concludes with a pledge of their
final victory,--words of lofty encouragement that should ever be in the
hearts of His soldiers, sustaining in them the spirit of a divine
valour: "These things I have spoken unto you that in Me ye might have
peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I
have overcome the world."[7]
Let us therefore, as the final study we are to make of the conditions
and progress of our spiritual warfare, consider the grounds we have for
encouragement at every stage of the battle.
I. _Members One of Another_
The Church of God, "the Body of Christ,"[8] as St. Paul repeatedly
calls it, which is "the blessed company of all faithful people," is a
living {204} organism. When the Apostle says it is "the Body of
Christ," and speaks of us as members of that Body, he means that the
members bear the same relation to every other member as, for example,
my hands and my feet, members of my physical body, bear to each other;
and that all are partakers of the one life which flows through the
whole Body and which constitutes it what it is. The effect of all this
he sets forth in a brief saying: "Whether one member suffer, all the
members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members
rejoice with it."[9] When my hand is diseased my whole body is sick;
and when health and strength return to it again, my whole body rejoices
in that healing.
If we keep this principle in mind, the tempter will be powerless to
discourage us in the conflict. Rather will our hearts be ever full of
high hope, which will carry us rejoicing through the darkest hour of
the conflict.
Think of our share in every prayer and good work that is being offered
to God anywhere to-day in all the world. Think of the Eucharists in
which we share. As the sun follows its course, and looks with each
revolving day upon a million altars whose fires ring the world, it
looks upon nothing in which I have not my part. Think {205} how many
times this day the cry has sounded forth, "Let us pray for the whole
state of Christ's Church Militant!" With each exhortation there
ascended to God a prayer for me, that my soul might be strong, that I
might be victor in the end. The great Sacrifice of the Altar is lifted
up, and it is for me; and whatever grace comes to those far-off souls
of priest and people through their faithful performance of that duty,
comes also to me. No grace can enter their souls without flowing on to
mine; they could not be lifted up to a higher and godlier plane of life
without drawing me up with them.
Little do we dream of the power of the unknown prayers of God's people.
This very day Satan may have planned some deadly snare in which to
entrap my feet; and the snare, it may be, was broken and swept from my
path through the power of a simple prayer for tempted souls, offered
this morning by a little child half-way round the world.
Picture a man walking on a dark night along a lonely mountain trail. A
deadly viper lies across his path. He steps across the venomous thing;
it coils and strikes,--just a moment too late! The traveller passes
on, never to know the danger he was in. So with us in our journey
through life. We may never know the hidden {206} dangers; we may never
know the grace that came through the prayer or good works of some
far-off soul, that saved us. But what courage does the thought infuse!
I had thought myself alone on this far outpost of temptation. I knew
not how my soul could be reinforced by my comrades in the strife. But
the help came. I was made strong; and that which might have been a
grievous and hurtful battle was to me an easy victory.
Such is the power of intercession,--here a heart lifted up to God,
yonder a soul made strong; here a spirit wrestling with Him, yonder a
crown of victory won.
"The weary ones had rest, the sick had joy that day
And wondered how.
The ploughman, singing at his work, had prayed,
'God help them now.'
"Alone in foreign lands, they wondered how
Their feeble word had power.
At home the Christians, two or three, had met
To pray an hour.
"So we are always wondering, wondering long
Because we do not see
Some one, unknown perhaps, and far away,
On bended knee."
{207}
II. _The Church's Treasury of Grace_
Since, then, no soul in the Church of God, whether in this world or
beyond, can increase in grace without that same grace flowing also into
my soul and helping me, the recollection of the Communion of Saints and
the vast treasury of spiritual power upon which I can continually draw
must be a never-failing source of hope and courage.
I may be far from the state of spiritual perfection that constitutes
what the Church calls a Saint, but no gift of grace is ever laid hold
upon by a Saint in which I do not have a share. The gifts of God, in
whatever form they may come, and upon whomsoever they may be directly
bestowed, are "for the edifying of the Body of Christ,"[10] for the
enriching of every member thereof.
Nor do these graces operate but for a little time, and then lose their
activity. Once the grace of God is set in operation, it goes on
forever. The sanctity of the Saints moves on through the ages. The
Church to-day is strong with the strength which long labour and
faithfulness won for the Apostles and Prophets, the Confessors, the
Martyrs, the Virgins. The grace {208} bestowed upon St. John in his
earthly life still holds its place in the Body of Christ, and so long
as I am in that Body that very grace which was given to him helps me,
and is a part of the defence of my soul in the hour of battle, if I
will only rise up to use what God is offering me.
More wonderful than this, however, is the relation of the Saints in
glory to my soul. Not only am I helped by the grace they received in
their earthly pilgrimage, but every access of glory given them in their
heavenly life is a like increase of grace to every member of the same
Body of which I am a part, and so an added help to me.
Thus wondrously does the law of divine grace work. When the Saints on
earth go on from strength to strength, their strength flows into me;
when the Saints in heaven pass, in their unceasing progress, from glory
to glory, I again am made the beneficiary of what is given them.
All this, however, operates on one condition. Am I keeping the
channels open through which the life and strength of the Body flow into
the members? If I bind fast a member of my body with a cord the
circulation ceases, and strength and life begin to ebb in that member.
If I permit myself, a member of the Body of Christ, to be bound with a
cord of sin, the circulation of {209} the divine life and grace is cut
off from me, and grace begins to fail, strength is reduced, and
spiritual death will ensue, unless by penitence I cut the cord and let
the life-blood flow freely once again.
Prayer and faithfulness in the use of what I already have will keep the
channels open. Every cry of my soul to God, every effort to do His
will, every resistance of the Evil One, produces a stronger, more
vigorous circulation in the Body, that makes my strength greater, my
life richer, with the communication of all that the Body of Christ
possesses for the edifying of its members.
III. _God's Interest in Our Victory_
There is among men to-day a wide-spread notion of Christianity that
bases everything upon a spirit of utter selfishness. It tells me to
think always of my own soul; that if I find a reasonable assurance that
this soul of mine will in the end "be saved," I need give no thought to
further service of God. In short it is a strange and monstrous belief
that teaches me to look out for myself, to serve God for just what I
can get out of Him, to drive as shrewd a bargain with Him as I can, and
win heaven on as cheap terms as is in any way possible. It is a
Christianity, falsely so called, that leaves out of consideration the
{210} most important fact of all, namely, that God has an infinite
interest in me and my victory, because His first relation to me is that
of a tender, loving Father whose heart yearns over me, who loves me
with an everlasting love.[11]
When I think of this, I can understand how strong an encouragement I
can draw from the consideration of His interest in the issue of the
battle to which He calls me. My victory involves the destiny of my
soul, but the destiny of my soul involves the eternal honour of God.
(1) Our Lord has gone to prepare a place for me. This place is
awaiting me, a place in the heavenly choirs among those whose eternal
occupation is to serve God day and night in His temple. What that
service is in its nature and detail I know not. But one thing I know;
that so deeply is it bound up with the divine interest and honour, that
God counted it worth while to sacrifice the life of His eternal Son,
amid the torments of the Cross, in order to win me for that service.
There is the place awaiting me; the heavenly ranks are not full; the
heavenly task is not yet done: a rift is in the heavenly praises, a
hand wanting in the work, until I come thither to have my part among
those who are counted worthy of the eternal rest of Paradise, {211} but
who nevertheless rest not day nor night from His perfect service.
When I think of all this, I see that my relation to God cannot be a
selfish one. God has infinitely more at stake than I have; my victory
is infinitely more to His interest than it is to mine, just because He
is so infinitely greater than His creature. Seeing that this is so, we
can understand how mightily He will strive to give us the victory. No
matter what undreamed of gifts of grace are needed, He stands ready to
bestow them. Having given such infinite hostages already to make sure
of us, nothing can be too great with which to equip us if it be
necessary to our victory; for the victory is bound up in the bundle of
life with the everlasting honour of the Godhead. "He that spared not
His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him
also freely give us all things."[12]
(2) Time and again in Holy Scripture does the Holy Ghost lead the
inspired authors to call upon God for help and deliverance "for His
Name's sake." The expression is so common that we pass it over too
often, as though it were a mere adjuration which, like many that find
their way into human speech, has no real significance. But the Holy
Spirit never uses {212} language in this meaningless fashion, and a few
moments' consideration will show us how definite and deep a meaning
there is in this expression used so constantly in Holy Writ.
It means nothing less than that our pardon, our deliverance, or
whatever it is that is being asked "for His Name's sake," involves the
honour of the Divine Name. God's Name is dishonoured among men
whenever a Christian sins. A simple illustration will show us how this
is. A son leaves the paternal roof; he goes out into the world and
disgraces himself. How quickly do men say, "This man did not have the
proper, honest training; his parents must have been indeed careless of
his bringing-up, since he has turned out so badly." Here we find the
father's good name being spoken against because of the sins of the son.
Is not the like thing being constantly said of our Heavenly Father
because of the sins of His children? A Christian is guilty of some
dishonest, or mean, or selfish act. He is known to the world as a
Christian man, and how often have we heard it said, "Well, if he is
what you call a Christian, I do not care to be one." Thus is God's
Name dishonoured and blasphemed among men, through the sins of His
children. He and the power of His Gospel are held to be of small
account because those who confess Him {213} fail to be faithful to Him.
Well did the Spirit inspire the holy men of old to pray for deliverance
for the sake of His Holy Name, that it might not, through their
failure, be brought into disrepute.
So in the time of temptation the Psalmist cries, "Save me, O God, for
Thy Name's sake;"[13] and when he fails, his prayer is "For Thy Name's
sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity."[14] Realizing his sins, he asks
for forgiveness, but with no selfish motive. He thought not of his own
salvation alone. It was the honour of his Father's Name that he had at
heart, and so he asked for pardon lest his sins should give the enemy
occasion to blaspheme.
Nor is it only for deliverance that the Psalmist prays. His sins being
forgiven, he knows that he cannot walk in the paths of righteousness
save through the divine guiding, and that if his feet wander from the
way, again will that Name be dishonoured. And so he cries, "For Thy
Name's sake, lead me and guide me";[15] and again desiring more and
more of the divine life of the Spirit, he cries, "Quicken me, O Lord,
for Thy Name's sake."[16]
The lesson for our encouragement is clear. So {214} jealous is God of
His own Name, so deeply dishonoured is that Name whenever we sin, that
the Spirit again and again, in teaching us to pray against the devil,
tells us to plead with God on this very basis. When His Name is
involved God will rise in His might, and come to our help with a mighty
hand and a stretched-out arm. Even if His mighty love were not a
motive force, we can trust Him to care for His own good Name, to do His
utmost to save us, since the fall of one who is called by His Name will
lay His honour in the dust.
(3) Again, consider what is the meaning of each particular defeat to
God. Every baptized soul is a point on the far-flung battle line of
the Church Militant; every baptized soul is His soldier, made in His
image and sealed with His Sign of adoption, and set to defend a
definite point in the front of God's army. Is it nothing to Him that
such a soul be beaten down by the foe? Is it nothing to Him that His
divine image be marred and denied with the marks of the Fiend, and that
he who bears it be dragged away a captive of hell?
Unless all revelation concerning His love be false, even the smallest
defeat in the battle is to God something at which the imagination
staggers when it seeks to grasp it. What would a loving {215} earthly
father think to see his beloved child torn from his bosom, and carried
away into the power of a savage enemy, consigned to untold and eternal
woe? Would he take it philosophically, dismissing the whole affair
from his mind after a time, justifying himself that this dread calamity
came by the child's fault, and was the result of its own disobedience?
And is our heavenly Father less loving, less tender, of His children,
than an earthly father? True, suffering in any human sense, cannot
touch the Godhead, but there must be some awful and mysterious thing
which human thought can never fathom, and which we dare not seek to
understand, that enters, as it were, into the Godhead when souls fail
and are lost; or else the Holy Spirit could never have inspired the
Apostle to reveal concerning the risen, ascended, and glorified
God-Incarnate, that in our surrender to Satan there is a crucifying of
Him afresh.[17]
Where then have we warrant for discouragement? When Satan sets the
battle in array against my soul, I am not alone. The call to arms
rings through all heaven. The Lord Christ Himself goes forth to war in
the unconquerable might of His Sacred Humanity. Angels and archangels,
and all the glorious company of heaven, spring {216} forward to action.
The great multitude which no man can number, of all nations and
kindreds, and people, and tongues, that stand before the throne and
before the Lamb, war for me in the might of their ceaseless
intercession; and as the vast and splendid front of the armies of the
living God sweep on to the conflict, my soul is caught up in the mighty
movement and advance, and their spirit becomes my spirit, as we go
forth, conquering and to conquer, in God's behalf and mine.
[1] St. Matt. xi, 29-30.
[2] St. John xiv, 1 and 27.
[3] St. John xiv, 13; xv, 7 and 16; xvi, 23 and 24.
[4] St. John xiv, 16.
[5] St. John xv, 16.
[6] St. John xvi, 20, 22, and 24.
[7] St. John xvi, 33.
[8] "Now ye are the Body of Christ, and members in particular."--1 Cor.
xii, 27. See also Rom. xii, 5; Eph. i, 23; iv, 12; and v, 23 and 30;
Col. i, 24.
[9] 1 Cor. xii, 26.
[10] Eph. iv, 12.
[11] Jer. xxxi, 3.
[12] Rom. viii, 32.
[13] Ps. liv, 1.
[14] Ps. xxv, 11.
[15] Ps. xxxi, 3.
[16] Ps. cxliii, 11.
[17] Heb. vi, 6.
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