The Warfare of the Soul: Practical Studies in the Life of Temptation. Shirley Carter Hughson

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СКАЧАТЬ 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, 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.

      (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. 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.

      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.

      (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 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 СКАЧАТЬ