This power that the praying soul has over G.o.d (we dare use such an expression with entire freedom) is one of the mysteries of our union with Him, and since He has given us so repeated a revelation of it, we can expect nothing of Him if we neglect it.
One or two Scripture pa.s.sages will make this clear to us. When Israel rebelled and Moses prayed for them, G.o.d"s answer was, "Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them."[8] Why should the Omnipotent One have spoken thus since none is able to hinder Him or bind His hands? The Holy Ghost, speaking by the Psalmist ages after, gives us the meaning when He says: "He said He would have destroyed them had not Moses, His chosen, stood before Him in the gap."[9] The wrath of G.o.d was paralysed in the face of the prayer of the Saint.
Isaiah, sounding his lament over the lost condition of Israel, says, "There is none that calleth {136} upon Thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee."[10] The Hebrew tongue affords us no stronger expression than that which the Spirit here inspired the prophet to use. The meaning is, to lay, as it were, violent hands upon G.o.d, by means of prayer, and with a holy audacity to hold Him back from launching the thunderbolt of His wrath against the apostate nation.
The expression "stirreth up himself" indicates by a bold rhetorical stroke the power which the prophet knew such a one would have if he could be found among the sons of Israel. When used in the Old Testament it invariably implies the arousing of some mighty force, which when once awakened would sweep all before it, as when Balaam prophesied concerning Israel, "He couched, he lay down as a lion, as a great lion; who shall stir him up?"[11]
Thus in the power of prayer shall we be able to sweep all before us, if in the hour of temptation we pray with a like holy audacity.
(2) But not only does prayer in the hour of temptation call the power of G.o.d to our succour, but the bare fact that we pray at such a time completely overreaches Satan. The primary reason {137} of his temptation is to draw us away from G.o.d. If the invariable result of temptation is thus to draw us the more surely and closely to His feet in prayer, the tempter will not be slow to realize that he is being used as the instrument, and his a.s.sault as the occasion, of accomplishing this very thing that his labour is directed against.
When he realizes this, baffled and discouraged, he will have no alternative but to withdraw.
We must say a word about ejaculatory prayer, for in the hour of temptation this method of prayer is to be our chief source of strength.
Most frequently, perhaps, in temptation there is no time or occasion for formal prayer. Our appeal to G.o.d in such times must be instant.
These prayers of e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n have been described as "short, sharp, and swift darts [Latin, jaculum, a dart], and desires, shot by our burning hearts, and reaching heaven in an instant. Our forefathers, the Saints, frequently used them, for being short, they trouble not the memory; being fervent, they rouse our dulness and dryness to affection and devotion; being frequent, they still renew our attention to G.o.d"s presence, and put us perpetually in mind of our duties."[12]
To this, it may be added that ejaculatory {138} prayer is apt to be a measurably perfect prayer, because, being so quickly finished, the devil has not time to chill its fervour by distractions, such as we invariably suffer from in longer forms of prayer. Even were it so disposed, the average mind cannot act with sufficient quickness to perceive the distraction ere the prayer be finished.
Those who study G.o.d"s word piously will find numberless prayers in the very language of the Holy Ghost, which will be most effective in the moment of danger. The briefer these are, the better. The Psalter is full of them, and there is no better military exercise for the Christian soldier than to spend his time when not actually in battle, in learning as many of them as possible by heart, so that they may be ready at hand when the battle begins.
Short, quick prayers like the following will be found of great profit:
"O Lord, my G.o.d, in Thee have I put my trust; save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me."[13]
"Save, Lord, and hear us, O King of Heaven."[14]
"Save me, O G.o.d, for Thy Name"s sake, and avenge me in Thy strength."[15]
"Have mercy upon me, O G.o.d, after Thy great goodness."[16]
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"Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick."[17]
"Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my soul after Thee, O Lord."[18]
"Why art thou so heavy, O my soul, and why art thou so disquieted within me? O put thy trust in G.o.d, for I will yet give Him thanks which is the help of my countenance and my G.o.d."[19]
"O G.o.d, Thou art my G.o.d, early will I seek Thee."[20]
"Thou, Lord, art my hope."[21]
"O help us against the enemy, for vain is the help of man."[22]
"Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice."[23]
We need not multiply instances of these prayers. Let each one take the Psalter, the Gospels, and other parts of Scripture, and go over them for himself, copying them out, committing them to memory in quiet times, thus filling his quiver full of heaven-tempered darts, the use of which in time of stress will surely put to flight the audacious enemy.
It is well to remember in the use of prayer in the moment of temptation, that the mind must be wholly set upon G.o.d. There is real danger {140} in trying to pray while at the same time our thoughts are upon the special form of temptation that is being presented. Turn your back upon it, and cry to G.o.d. Think only of Him, His goodness, His loving protection. The diversion of the mind alone is a victory over the tempter; and where it is turned from him, and set upon strong and holy appeals and aspirations, it is not possible but that the enemy will be driven utterly from our path.
IV. _A Holy Perversity_
Another effective method of resistance is to make a rule of doing, in a definite and precise way, and instantly if possible, just the contrary of what Satan is seeking to induce us to do. For instance, he insinuates into our minds some bitter, resentful, and uncharitable thought. We know the thought is evil, and we abhor it accordingly, nor do we give any sort of consent to its presence; but still it is not easy to crush. Perhaps it is a revival of some old bitterness in regard to a real wrong done us long ago. We fight hard against it, and thus save ourselves from sin; but how much shall we add to Satan"s discomfiture, how shall we indeed crown our victory, if, instead of expending our energy in the merely negative {141} work of refusing admittance to our hearts of an unloving thought, we proceed to do or say some loving thing; or at any rate offer a resolution instantly to G.o.d to watch for an opportunity, and, if need be, to go out of our way, to perform some act of kindness before the day is over.
Or in case of temptation to pride, personal vanity or self-a.s.sertion, to perform some little act of meekness; or when the temptation is to some form of self-indulgence or selfishness, deliberately to do some unselfish thing, preferring for our greater self-denial something that naturally we should not care to do.
A simple ill.u.s.tration will show how discouraging such a course will be to the tempter. Suppose whenever you had occasion to ask a certain acquaintance to do something for you, instead of complying with your request, he did just the contrary thing, and that with a precision and regularity that gave evidence of a deliberate plan and policy. Suppose again that this contrary thing was the very act that he knew was most displeasing to you. How long would you persist in your applications to him? Surely, not for long. So will it be with Satan. He is far too intelligent a creature, and knows and serves his own interests all too faithfully, to continue his efforts long under such conditions.
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V. _Scorning the Tempter_
A most excellent method, which can often, though not always, be applied, is that of ignoring the tempter. It is a helpful thing in the Christian warfare to remember always that Satan is the embodiment of pride. Nothing cuts the proud soul so deeply as being ignored. It can endure opposition, even defeat, but the thing that is intolerable is to be taken no account of. So when Satan attacks, in not a few instances, the resistance that to him will be the most cruel will be to go calmly on one"s way, ignoring him. As St. Francis de Sales says: "You should not answer, or seem even to hear, what the enemy says. Let him hammer as he will at the door; do not you even say so much as, Who is there?... Beware that you never open the door, either to peep out and see what it is, or to drive away the clamour."[24]
An ill.u.s.tration similar to the one employed in our discussion of resisting by doing the thing contrary to the temptation will help us here. Imagine yourself having occasion frequently to apply to a certain person for a service. Imagine such a person deliberately ignoring you whenever you spoke, pretending not to hear you, {143} gazing with feigned absent-mindedness out of the window. Do you think you would long continue your application to such an one? Indeed you would not. Pride, even right-minded self-respect, would forbid it; and you can be sure Satan, acting on the same principle, will soon cease to annoy you when he finds himself the object of so studied a contempt.
Since the human mind, however, always demands something upon which to be engaged, we can much more successfully ignore Satan"s addresses if we divert the mind by an act of the will into some totally different channel. "Temptations," says Walter Hilton, "vex the soul indeed, but do not harm it, if so be a man despise them and set them at naught; for it is not good to strive with them, as if thou wouldst cast them out by mastery and violence, for the more they strive with them, the more they cleave to them. And therefore they shall do well to divert their thoughts from them as much as they can, and set them upon some business."[25]
This diversion of the mind will be all the more effective if it is in the direction of those holy things which Satan abhors. Therefore "let us turn our hearts to converse with G.o.d, which is better than to reflect upon our temptations and {144} troubles. Let us be so attentive to Him, that we have neither leave nor leisure to give ear to Satanic suggestions."[26]
VI. _Staying not the Hand_
We are told in the Second Book of the Kings[27] that when the prophet Elisha was fallen sick of the sickness whereof he died, Joash, the King of Israel, came unto him. The man of G.o.d commanded him to take the arrows and smite upon the ground, whereupon the King, weak in ambition, and with no vision of G.o.d"s destiny for him as a national deliverer, smote thrice upon the ground and stayed. "And the man of G.o.d was wroth with him and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it." If he who goes forth to fight for G.o.d would utterly consume the enemy, he must seek the vision of His purpose for him, and if he is truly ambitious of heavenly honours it is not far to seek.
We can quite safely say that G.o.d never predestined any soul barely to win the victory. He plans high things for all his children, but how many are there who never attain them because, like the king of Israel, they are giving Him a {145} spiritless service. They smite thrice with the arrows of deliverance and stay their hand. They are content to remain on a low spiritual plane, within the pale of divine grace indeed, but satisfied with this, and using their further energies for pa.s.sing earthly things instead of devoting them with a burning splendour of enthusiasm to an ever higher service in the kingdom that shall have no end.
How disappointing are such lives to G.o.d! He had meant to promote them to great honour, and they have no aspiration above the lowest place.
Nor can they plead that they know not His purpose for them. The Scriptural revelation is full of the highest a.s.surances. G.o.d lays wide open before us the plan He has prepared for our glory. He tells us in a hundred pa.s.sages, every utterance eloquent with love, what it all is, and He stays in His description only when the finite mind of man cannot follow Him; and then He cries: "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which G.o.d hath prepared for them that love Him."[28]
If we are to rise up to satisfy the divine measure of our predestined glory, we must smite not thrice, but five or six times. We must smite not only {146} until we feel the a.s.sault stayed, but until we are sure that the tempter has acknowledged himself defeated. Some spiritual guides advise the soul pursuing the tempter, not allowing him to depart from us without further chastis.e.m.e.nt and humiliation. "Do not leave off the conflict until the enemy is, as it were, wearied out, dead, and yields himself up discomfited."[29]
"When the a.s.saults have ceased," says Scupoli, "excite them again, so as to have an opportunity of overcoming them with greater force and energy. Then challenge them again a third time so as to accustom yourself to repulse them with scorn and horror."[30]
Remember, however, as a point of the most extreme importance, that this course should never be adopted in temptations against faith or against purity. In these cases there should be an immediate avoidance of the thought and occasion of the temptation, and the mind should be instantly diverted utterly from it by definite occupation of a contrary nature.
VII. _The Final Phase of Victory_
The counsel of the author of "The Spiritual Combat," appeals to us not only as coming from {147} a great guide of souls, but because (as is always the case with the wisdom of the Saints), it answers our sense of the fitness of things. A poor soldier he would be who never planned to fight on the offensive, who never sought to carry the war into the enemy"s country. The Blessed Christ has organized the armies of the Kingdom not merely for the protection of a weak and incapable people, but for the positive conquest of Satan through the strength and aggressiveness of His soldiers. In the account of the armour of G.o.d as given us by St. Paul,[31] we are, it is true, told of the breast plate, the shield, and the helmet, all armour of defence; but we are also told of the feet shod that the soldier might march straight forward; and of the sword of the Spirit with which we are to slay the adversary.
Under the old dispensation, too, the Spirit taught the like truth. In one of the chiefest of the Psalms of consolation,--the 91st,--the soul is spoken of as finding its refuge in the very secret place of the Most High; as being covered with His wings,--shielded from the mysterious terror that walks by night, from the arrow that flies by day; and there is mention of shield and buckler, weapons of defence. But also there is mention of the splendid feats of aggressive conquest that {148} G.o.d expects from those to whom He accords His almighty protection. "Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet."
The contrast between the earlier part of the Psalm and this sudden promise is startling. Heretofore G.o.d and the angels have been the actors prosecuting their work of protection and defence. Now it is as though He said, "I have hid thee in My tabernacle, and now it is _Thou_, the defenced one, who shall tread upon the lion and adder; Thou, and I only as acting in and through thee!"[32]
The Hebrew form of expression the Holy Spirit employs presents two powerful word-paintings. When it is said, "Thou shalt _tread_ upon the lion and adder," there is the suggestion of stamping in pieces, of treading one"s enemies as grapes are trodden in the wine-press; and where the promise is made, "The young lion and the dragon shalt thou _trample under feet_," the Holy Ghost is lifting up before ancient Israel, in their own language, the picture of the terrible onset of {149} armed hors.e.m.e.n beating down the enemy with ruthless trampling beneath the iron-shod feet of the horses.