all the members of His mystical body, became partakers of his mastery over the kingdom of darkness, and over the devil, the prince of this world. So, through persecution, and distress, and torment, in the provinces and cities of the world, in market-places and theatres, in the wilderness and in solitude, they overcame the strength and the subtilty of the tempter; and in weakness confounded his power whom all the world worshipped.

This temptation of our Lord Jesus Christ lays open to us the reality and nature of our own. It lifts the veil which is upon our eyes, the unconsciousness which is upon our hearts, and shows us what is really going on at all times in the spiritual world around us; by what we are beset, and what are the mysterious powers which are exerting themselves upon us. Much that we never suspect to be more

than the effect of chance, or hazard, or the motion of our own minds, or the caprice of fancy, may be the agency of this same awful being who tempted both the first Adam and the Second. There is something very fearful in the thought that Satan, whom we so slight or forget, is an angel—a spiritual being of the highest order-endowed therefore with energies and gifts of a superhuman power; with intelligence as great as his malice; lofty, majestic, and terrible even in his fall. Next to the holy angels, what being can it be more fearful to have opposed to us, and that with intense and vigilant enmity, and at all times hovering invisibly about us?

From what we read, then, of the temptation of Christ we may learn:

1. First, that it is no sin to be tempted; nor is our being tempted any proof of our being sinful. This is a most consolatory thought; for among the afflictions of life few are so bitter and perpetual as temptation. Sorrows, pains, dis

appointments, crosses, oppositions, which come upon us from without, are not to be compared in suffering to the inward distress of being tempted to evil deeds, words, desires, and thoughts. The subtilty and insinuation of evil is so great that it gains an entrance before we are aware of it: sometimes it seems to glance off by a sort of reflection from things the most opposite in their nature; sometimes to be taken into our minds unperceived in the midst of indifferent thoughts, and then suddenly to unfold itself. Every one who is seeking for Christian perfection must have found how thoughts of resentment, pride, self-complacency, repining, and others unholier still, sometimes seem to shoot off from the holiest acts and contemplations, and again to spring up out of subjects of the greatest purity and humiliation; sometimes also in times of deep sorrow and depression, when our minds are most remote from any conscious indulgence of their own evil. This, and much more which is implied by this, will be recognised by all who are seeking after holiness; and it is this that causes the bitterest and most sickening distress of mind. Sometimes it makes us doubt of our whole religious life—almost of our regeneration. Am I not even yet in the flesh, "in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity ?" can I dare to pray? is not even prayer a mere profession? how can I approach God with a soul haunted and darkened by such a presence of evil? It is, indeed, well to be suspicious and selfaccusing; for there can be no doubt but that most of our mental temptations find their opportunity in actual faults, past or present, or in that original taint of sin which is still in us that is to say, in those parts of our nature which are the effects of the fall of man, and of our own personal disobedience. But the susceptibility of temptation belongs to us, not as fallen beings, but as men. Perfect beings may be

tempted, as the angels: and sinless, as Adam in the garden, Christ in the wilderness.

So long as we are in this state of probation, and in this world of conflict between sin and holiness, it must be so. Even though we were made sinless at this very hour, still the power and subtilty of evil by which we are surrounded would not cease to approach us, and to force itself upon our perception and our hatred. Thus much we may learn for our comfort: though we should convert it into a snare, if we were to solve the fact of our daily consciousness of evil thoughts and inclinations by this truth alone. It is too true that, for the most part, we are tempted because we have aggravated and inflamed our original sinfulness. We by disobedience have given to it a vividness and appetite which by nature it did not possess. Old thoughts, wishes, associations, practices, are the source of most of our inward defilements. To our natural susceptibility and our original corruption we have added an immeasurable range of inclinations to things forbidden; and on these Satan fastens. However, we may take this comfort: after we have assured ourselves by strict self-examination that the temptation by which we are distressed is not the result of any act of our own will, we may rest in peace, thanking God for the pain it inflicts upon us, praying Him to make that pain, if He sees fit, sharper and deeper, that it may issue in an intense hatred of evil, in a more vivid consciousness of our own misery, in lower humiliation, and greater purity of heart. Any suffering is to be welcomed which teaches us sorrow and hatred for sin. In this way temptations are turned by the Holy Spirit against themselves. That which in its first intention would be the defilement, if not the death, of the soul, turns to chastisement, mortification, and cleansing. It wakens and quickens all the powers of the soul; fear, self

restraint, watchfulness, caution, sensitive shrinking from the least appearance of evil, strong and persevering efforts to deaden and destroy so much as the very liability to be affected by temptations. So it was with the Corinthians to whom St. Paul said: "Behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter."* The very sorrow and distress are our safeguard. We should be in danger if we did not feel them: and we are safer as we feel them more acutely, and use them for our humiliation and spiritual cleansing.

2. Another truth following on the last is, that nothing can convert a temptation into a sin but the consent of our own will. This one principle, clearly seen, is a key to nine-tenths of all questions of conscience on this subject. The worst of temptations, so long as they are without our will, are no part of us: by consent they become adopted and incorporated with our spiritual nature-thoughts become wishes, and wishes intents. Consent is the act of the whole inward man. So long as we refuse to yield, it matters little what temptations beset us; they may distress and darken, and even for a time seem to defile our hearts: but they cannot overcome us. The thought of satisfying His natural hunger, of vindicating His divine Sonship by miracles, the visions of this false world, the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them, were cast like shadows on the clear brightness of our Lord's spirit; but they won no assent, left no traces, no deposit of doubt, desire, or inclination. They were simply hateful, and were cast forth with

*2 Cor. vii. 11.

an intense rejection; and that because they encountered a holy will, which is of divine strength even in man.

In measure it is so in every saint: it may be so with us. As the will is strengthened with energy, and upheld by the presence of Christ dwelling in the heart of the pure and lowly; so the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, are expelled from us, and lose all share in our personal existence. This explains the various degrees of power that temptations have over various men. Some seem never mastered by them, some seldom, some often, and some always. Of the first we have spoke enough. The others will be found in two classes: they are either those who, without positive habits of sin, are also without positive habits of holiness; or those whose habits are positively unholy. When I say, those who, without positive habits of sin, are also without positive habits of holiness, I mean such persons as are pure in their lives, benevolent, upright, and amiable, but not devout towards God. This in itself is of course, in one sense, sin, because it is a coming "short of the glory" and acceptance of God. I am using "sin" in its popular sense, of wilful acts of evil. Now such people are open to the full incursions of the tempter in the whole extent of that natural sinfulness which is in them. This gives them a predisposition on which he acts with daily success. They are open and unguarded, and the will that is in them is weak and undisciplined; it has no expulsive power in it, by which evil is cleared from a heart that is sanctified by a life of holiness. We see such people become inconsistent, vain, ostentatious, worldly, and then designing, farsighted for their own interests, selfish, unscrupulous, false to their friends, their principles, their professions. We are surprised by unexpected acts out of keeping with what we believe them to be, and lines