Self-Conquest

‘This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.’

Matthew xvii. ar.

c Hfr?HY could not we cast him out?” Because of your unbelief.’ The energy that was wanting was the energy of faith. Faith is the expulsive force; and if that be wanting, the powers of darkness will enjoy a secure and increasing dominion. We have no othei power with which to confront the empire of devilry. We have minor forces which ma) co-operate with faith, but without faith they are almost as inefficient as a pair of bellowji without a fire.

What is faith? I am not attempting an exhaustive definition, but one which may be sufficiently definite for our immediate purpose. Faith is a restful realization of the gracious and almighty presence of the eternal God. The very pith and marrow of faith is the realization of God. It perceives God as real.

To realize God is to turn a name into a presence, a doctrine into a friend. God is no longer conceived as remote and unusable. He is very nigh, an inseparable companion in all the steps of the common way.

But faith is more than a realization of God. It is a restful realization of the gracious presence of God. Faith is not timid, not fearful lest the gracious presence should depart. It does not glance round with nervous trembling, wondering if the Divine Companion is still near. Faith ’ feels His presence every passing hour, In faith there is no strain. It ‘rests in the Lord, It knits the life together in restful realization of God; and in that quiet and fruitful assurance we become so identified with God as to be mighty to cast out devils. How is this faith to be acquired? What are the means to its culture? Our Lord provides the answer in the words of the text. The means to the culture of faith are prayer and fasting — prayer, the discipline of the spirit; fasting, the discipline of the flesh.

i. ‘By prayer, — Prayer is ‘the practice of the presence of God, The act of prayer is a sublime assumption. It is an experiment with the supposed presence of God. What is the testimony of those who have made the ii2 (TfteWaftone for Qutit Qftomente

experiment? It is this, that the timid experiment leads to an assured experience. Prayer, which begins in a faltering assumption, results in a glorious certainty. Prayer becomes the means of mutual communication between me and God. I communicate to Him an aspiration; He communicates to me an inspiration. Prayer finds its symbol in the mystic ladder of the patriarch’s dream. On the line of communication there are angels ascending and descending. The ascending angels are the aspirations of the suppliant; the descending angels are the inspirations of our God. And so we find the Master saying, ‘Men ought always to pray, and not to faint.’ In the life of the Spirit we begin to expire the moment we cease to aspire. Spiritual aspiration makes spiritual expiration impossible. Men ought always to pray, and they would never faint.

Now if prayer, beginning as a large assumption, elicits the fruit of a spiritual communication from God, surely prayer is a means to the realization of the gracious presence of God. Prayer multiplies the witnesses which bear testimony to the loving nearness of God. Every communication I receive from the Infinite tends to make God more real Prayer is thus a means to the

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restful realization of the Eternal, and so is a means to the culture of faith.

2. ‘By fasting, — It is by my spirit that I am to realize the presence of God. Has the flesh any relation to the spirit? Yes, ’ the flesh lusteth against the spirit, I cannot give the reins to the flesh, and preserve the health and sanity of the spirit. The flesh can burden and enslave the spirit. In Tennyson’s Vision of Sin, the soul is compared to a finelyorganized steed

‘that would have flown, But that his heavy rider kept him down.

The flesh can be a heavy rider restraining the soul from its flights. To live coarsely in the body is to vulgarize the soul. A man’s eating has direct relation to the quality of his spiritual organism, and to be negligent about the one is to seriously impair and imperil the other. I do not wish to be drawn into any minor issues as to whether our Lord countenanced or enjoined any systematic abstinence. I prefer to declare this broad and fundamental teaching, that we should have more spiritual refinement, more sensitiveness to perceive and realize God, if we gave more wise and restraining care to the heavy rider which so frequently burdens and vulgarizes the soul. The discipline of 5

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the flesh and the discipline of the spirit are assured means for the culture of that faith which enjoys a restful realization of the gracious and almighty presence of the eternal God.