Man and the Gospel

“My brethren, count it all joy when
ye fall into divers temptations.” — ST JAMES i. 2.

‘HT^HERE is an old story of two knights who fell into a quarrel, almost into a combat, about a shield — the one asserting, and prepared with his sword to maintain, that the shield was made of gold; the other as positively asserting that it was not gold but silver. Both were right; and there was no more occasion for quarrel between them than there has often been between good men in religious controversy. Looking at a doctrine from different points of view, not having the same stand-point, as it is called, they quarrelled; and the quarrel was a mistake. These two knights saw one and the same shield; but looking on it from opposite sides, each saw a different face; this was of silver, that of gold.

Like that shield, the word temptation, as used in Holy Scripture, has to be regarded under two aspects. It has two meanings; and unless care be taken to distinguish the one from the other, we may fall into a very serious mistake. Sometimes temptation is employed as another word for afflictions, trials; at other times in a sense so different, that, instead of counting it all joy, we should dread nothing more than to fall into divers temptations. Whatever is calculated to inflame our corruptions, and has a tendency, from its own nature and ours, to seduce us into sin, is temptation; and it is in this sense the word is used when it is said, “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. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his lust, and is enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.”

In this, the most common sense of the word, to fall into temptation, is often, notwithstanding our best and strongest resolutions, to fall into sin. Such is the weakness of our nature! and how can that, which leads in so many cases to sin, ever be an occasion of joy? Who would keep his body under, as the apostle says, who would be temperate in all things, who would hold the old man nailed to the cross, who would mortify the flesh with its affections and lusts, who would keep his marriage garment unspotted of the world, will not throw himself into the arms of temptation, but rather shrink from it with fear and dread. He will go out of his way to avoid temptation, as he would the road frequented by a ravening lion, a house or street where coffins were rife, and the plague was raging. “He fell among thieves,” is true of him who falls into divers temptations; and he would often die under his wounds, but for Him who drew His own portrait in the picture of the good Samaritan. Beset by robbers and assassins, he may conquer through divine strength, but he has a hard fight for it, nor comes out of the battle without some wounds to heal.

“Stand in awe, and sin not;” “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation,” are warnings which no good man should disregard. Is this to be a coward? Anything else were the height of rashness. Who sleeps by a magazine of gunpowder needs to take care even of sparks; who walks on slippery ice, let him not go star-gazing, but look to his feet, and take care of falling. Whatever provokes to sin, though beautiful as Bathsheba, - — what is in its nature calculated, and by the cunning fiend intended to draw us into transgression, — is a danger against which we cannot be too much upon our guard. Though in themselves innocent, pleasures are sought at too great hazard that grow on a dizzy crag, or among the grass where adders creep, or in the lofty crevice of some tottering wall, or on the brink of a swollen flood; and all the more if, such as our poet describes, —

“Pleasures are like poppies spread,
We nip the flower, the bloom is fled;
Or, like the snow-flake on the river,
A moment white, then gone for ever.”

The language of joy is praise: but when a man is passing through temptation, the time is not for praise but prayer; it is for sighs, much more than songs; for strong crying, and tears, and holy fears; for deep horror, and the drawn sword that gleamed in the hand of Christian, as, amidst spectral forms, hideous sights and sounds, he trode the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Count it all joy? Who consults his soul’s peace, purity, and safety, instead of counting it all joy to fall into divers temptations, will do his utmost to avoid them; his constant, daily, earnest prayer, “Lead me not into temptation;” and when he falls into it, his cry — St Peter’s on the sea, — “Save me, I perish!” — that of one with the coils of a monstrous snake contracting round his form, “Make haste unto me, O God, thou art my help and my deliverer; O Lord, make no tarrying.”

It is in an old, but now rather uncommon, use of the word that we are to understand temptation, as used by St James when he says, “Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” It stands there for what in common language we call trials; — those troubles from which the best no more than the worst are exempt; the bitter ingredients that mingle with every man’s cup; the cup that is found in every man’s sack; the sufferings that, in some form or other, are ever occurring between the cradle and the grave, and that chequer a life which at birth begins with a cry, and at death ends with a groan. And what a grand faith is that which glories in these tribulations! The world, a cold philosophy tell us to bear what we cannot throw off, stoutly to face what we cannot shun, and, like one who holds his breath and sets his teeth to some painful operation, to endure what we cannot cure. How divine the faith which, thrusting these cold comforters aside, comes to the mourner weeping by the coffin, visits the captive pining in his dungeon, stands by the martyr bound to his stake to say, “Glory in tribulations” — “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!” Since trials more or less painful are the lot of all, God’s people should learn how to bear them.

In Old Testament times Christianity was in the opening bud; now it is in the full-blown flower. Sustained then by types and symbols, it was the eaglet when the mother stirs her nest and bears it on her wings; now a full-feathered eagle with her foot on the rock, and her far-piercing eye on the sun, she springs upwards to cleave the parting clouds and soar high above them. Still, though without our advantages, these Old Testament saints present remarkable instances, among other graces, of resignation; and as we see the trees in early spring living, standing, though autumn blasts and winter frosts have stripped off all their leaves, we see in these patriarchs how stoutly faith in God can stand when trials have robbed life of every green joy, and the days come, of which he says, “I have no pleasure in them,” the poor sufferer would be happy with his head beneath the sod, to sleep where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. What an illustrious example of this was Job, when deep answered unto deep at the noise of God’s waterspouts! Billow after billow went over him; he goes down, never as it seemed to rise again; but faith cannot drown, and how wonderful to see his head emerge, and, as he looks around on the desolation, fortune and family ingulfed, to hear him say, “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord;” or, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him;” He has slain mine, my sons, my daughters, my joys and hopes, all are dead and gone; now let Him slay not mine but me also, yet will I trust in Him. What faith! What sublime resignation! And would we, now suffering under trials, bear them, or, having to suffer, would we meet them with like submission, we must learn to yield to, not to resist God’s will. Strive to enter in at the strait gate, — at all cost and hazard; let sinners strive after conversion — to be in Christ; but strive not, impatient of trials, to get out of them. If, like many, you are “bound in affliction,” it will do you no good to fret against it; that will but make the iron cut deeper into the flesh. The yoke sits easiest on the neck of the patient ox; and he feels his chain the lightest who does not drag but carry it. Bow before the trial, as I have read travellers do when overtaken in the desert by the dreadful simoom. The Simoom! When that cry rises, striking terror into the boldest hearts, and the purple haze sweeps on, which to breathe is death, they make no attempt to fly — the swiftest Arab scours not the desert like the wing of this scourge — but, instantly, they throw themselves on the ground; every head is muffled; and there, low in the dust, trembling, dumb, in awful silence they lie, and let the poisonous wind blow over them. “Hide thee in the dust,” hide thee in the dust, is the voice of God in our calamities; and the lower we lie there before Him, passive under His mighty hand, yielding to His sovereign will, we shall suffer the less when days of darkness come.

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