The Warfare of the Soul Part 1

The Warfare of the Soul.

by Shirley C. Hughson.

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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.s through the wilderness of temptation, and with the result either that the innocence will be transformed into _sanct.i.ty_ 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 G.o.d. So each child in baptism is made by the operation of the Holy Ghost the child of G.o.d, and _then_ his whole life is a being led by one of two spirits--the Spirit of G.o.d, leading him through temptation to sanct.i.ty, 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 G.o.d they are the sons of G.o.d." This however must be proved by temptation.

Sanct.i.ty 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 a.s.saults, 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 sanct.i.ty.

ALFRED G. MORTIMER.

ST. MARK'S, PHILADELPHIA, Epiphany, 1910.

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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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d's people, may be found faithful at the end.

S. C. H.

ST. MICHAEL'S MONASTERY, SEWANEE.

Christmas, 1909.

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,--G.o.d, 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, G.o.d--the three Persons of the Ever-Blessed Trinity--is always to be the first thought of the Christian warrior,--G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d {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 a.s.signed 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 G.o.d,--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 compa.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 "l.u.s.ts which war against the soul";[4] "the law in our members warring against the law of our mind."[5]

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St. Paul exhorts us repeatedly to "put on the whole armour of G.o.d."[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 a.s.surance 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.surance that the struggle they are enduring is common to man, that G.o.d 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 a.s.sures them {6} that G.o.d 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 G.o.d "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 G.o.d 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.

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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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, that He fought and conquered.

Had he contended against Satan in His G.o.d-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 G.o.d and to our fellow-man.

(3) The enemy is Satan, the prince of this world and of the hosts of h.e.l.l; whose purpose in the warfare is the dishonour of G.o.d, and who fights against us just because we are the children of G.o.d.