THE WARFARE OF THE SOUL

PRACTICAL STUDIES IN THE LIFE
OF TEMPTATION

BY

SHIRLEY C. HUGHSON

PRIEST OF THE ORDER OF THE HOLY CROSS

WITH A PREFACE BY
THE REV. ALFRED G. MORTIMER, D.D.
Rector of St. Mark's, Philadelphia

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1910

Copyright, 1910, by
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND Co.

The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

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 God, 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 pass through the wilderness of temptation, and with the result either that the innocence will be transformed into sanctity or will be lost and give place to sin.

When our Lord was baptized, as He came up 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 God. So each child in baptism is made by the operation of the Holy Ghost the child of God, and then his whole life is a being led by one of two spirits—the Spirit of God, leading him through temptation to sanctity, 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 God they are the sons of God." This however must be proved by temptation.

Sanctity 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 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 assaults, 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 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 sanctity.

ALFRED G. MORTIMER.

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

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 God 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 God's people, may be found faithful at the end.

S. C. H.

ST. MICHAEL'S MONASTERY, SEWANEE.
Christmas, 1909.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE WARFARE OF THE SOUL

1. A Personal Issue
2. Not Peace, but a Sword
3. The Terms of the Warfare
4. The Nature of Temptation
5. Precept and Counsel

CHAPTER II

THE TEMPTER: HIS HISTORY AND NATURE

1. Satan's Fall and its Effects
2. The Hopelessness of his Warfare
3. The Limitations of the Tempter
4. The Restraint of the Divine Decrees

CHAPTER III

THE TEMPTER: HIS CHARACTERISTICS AND METHODS

1. Satan, The Deceiver
2. The Fact of his Personality
3. His Experience and Wisdom
4. The Methods of his Might
5. The Soul's Safety

CHAPTER IV

THE UNIVERSALITY OF TEMPTATION

1. The Common Lot
2. Enduring Hardship
3. The Sufferings of the Saints
4. Satan in the Sanctuary
5. The Sacrament of Temptation

CHAPTER V

THE SPIRIT OF SOLICITUDE

1. True and False Anxiety
2. Worry Versus Faith
3. The Cure of a Doubting Spirit
4. God's Sympathy

CHAPTER VI

OUR PREPARATION FOR TEMPTATION

1. A Double Weapon
2. The Spirit of Vigilance
3. Prayer and Temptation

CHAPTER VII

TRAINING THE INNER LIFE

1. Environment and Character
2. Educating the Memory
3. Guiding the Imagination
4. The Practice of Constancy
5. The Practice of Calmness
6. The Practice of Patience
7. The Practice of Diligence

CHAPTER VIII

THE STAGES OF THE BATTLE

1. The Satanic Suggestion
2. The Response of the Natural Heart
3. The "Inferior" and "Superior" Wills
4. The Fatal Consent

CHAPTER IX

IN THE HOUR OF BATTLE

1. Realizing God's Friendship
2. The Divine Example of Humility
3. Instant in Prayer
4. A Holy Perversity
5. Scorning the Tempter
6. Staying not the Hand
7. The Final Phase of Victory

CHAPTER X

THE TESTS OF VICTORY AND DEFEAT

1. The Test of Common Sense
2. The Test of Doubt
3. Signs of the Soul's Victory
4. Spiritual Safety, Spiritual Victory
5. The Truest Test

CHAPTER XI

THE SCHOOL OF THE HOLY GHOST

1. The Teaching of Temptation
2. The Bulwark of Love
3. The Lesson of Humility
4. The Lessons of Consolation
5. How to Learn our Lessons

CHAPTER XII

THE RETURN FROM CAPTIVITY

1. Hastening to Repent
2. A Tranquil Sorrow
3. A Spirit of Reparation
4. The Work of Amendment
5. The Gainsaying of Satan

CHAPTER XIII

THE GROUND FOR CHRISTIAN COURAGE

1. Members One of Another
2. The Church's Treasury of Grace
3. God's Interest in our Victory

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,—God, 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, God—the three Persons of the Ever-Blessed Trinity—is always to be the first thought of the Christian warrior,—God, 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 God, 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 God 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 assigned 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 God,—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 compass 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 God 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 God, reverencing His image in man, refrains His power 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 "lusts which war against the soul";[4] "the law in our members warring against the law of our mind."[5]

St. Paul exhorts us repeatedly to "put on the whole armour of God."[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 assurance 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 seriousness of the conflict in which he is about to engage.

Every baptized soul is a member of the army of the living God. 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 God 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 assurance that the struggle they are enduring is common to man, that God 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 assures them that God 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 God "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 God 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.

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 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 often—in fact, generally—tempted to accept the lower. For example, a young man may have set before him, at some particular time of his life, the alternative of serving God in work in his home parish, or of giving himself, by one great and final act of sacrifice and dedication, to the service of God in the monastic life. The former alternative is thoroughly good and holy, but none will deny that the latter is better. But the monastic life is a call of such a nature that compliance is never required under pain of sin; and one may even feel entirely sure that the call is directly from God, and yet be at liberty to refuse it because it is a form of service that belongs to counsel and not to precept.

While the soul is weighing the question, strong temptation invariably comes to choose the lower service. Not that the tempter is interested in our serving God in any sphere whatever, but he hopes that if he can induce us to choose the lower now, he may be able later on still further to lower our ideals, and so in the end induce us to reject the divine will in some matter that belongs to the precepts of God's law. With this hope he even strives earnestly to induce us to do a good thing in order to dissuade us from choosing that which is better.

So while it is entirely true, as we said above, that the rejection of a counsel is never, in itself, sinful, yet there is great peril always in refusing the known will of God, even when He does not bind us to that will under the penalty of sin. The soul that truly loves is ever alert to perform the entire will of the beloved.

"The noble love of Jesus forceth man to work great things, and stirreth him up always to desire the most perfect. Love wills to be aloft and will not be kept down by any lesser thing."[21]

[1] St. Matt. x, 34.

[2] Exod. xxxii, 18.

[3] Rev. ii and iii.

[4] 1 Pet. ii, 11.

[5] Rom. vii, 23.

[6] Eph. vi, 11. See also Rom. xiii, 12; 2 Cor. vi, 7, and 1 Thes. v, 8.

[7] 1 Tim. i, 18.

[8] 1 Tim. vi, 12.

[9] 2 Tim. ii, 3.

[10] 2 Tim. iv, 7.

[11] See Pusey, Parochial Sermons, Vol. II, pp. 113-114.

[12] 1 Cor. x, 13.

[13] 2 St. Pet. iii, 9.

[14] Eccles. viii, 8.

[15] Eph. v, 30.

[16] 1 Cor. ii, 16.

[17] Gen. xxii, 1.

[18] 1 Cor. x, 13.

[19] St. James i, 13.

[20] Jer. v, 31.

[21] Imitation, III, v. (Bigg's Trans.)

CHAPTER II

THE TEMPTER: HIS HISTORY AND NATURE