DISCOURSE V.

THE VICTORY OF CHRIST OVER SATAN.

"And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil," etc.-Luke iv. 1-13.

MY DEAR CHRISTIAN FRIENDS:

The conflict of Jesus has reconciled us to that which we must endure His victory will be a pledge that we too shall conquer

in turn.

That which makes us feeble to resist temptation, is our uncertainty as to the issue of the strife. Nothing would be impossible to us, were we assured of victory; but doubt, bitter doubt, destroys our courage. You are tempted by a spirit of sloth; you wish you could become "fervent in spirit," and "instant in prayer ;" but you doubt whether you can overcome your spiritual indolence-and, in spite of yourself, you continue to creep slowly along the path in which God invites you to run. You are tempted by a spirit of discontent : under the weight of a heavy and prolonged affliction, you wish you could abound in thanksgiving; but you doubt whether you will be able to overcome the grief which oppresses you-and your life continues to be spent in fruitless and ungrateful complainings. You are tempted by a spirit of unbelief; you wish you could rely upon God's word with an unshaken confidence; you well know that from this source must come your peace, your strength, your satisfaction; but you doubt whether you will be able to eradi

cate a sluggishness of faith which has been fostered by temperament, by education, by example, by habit-and you go on wretchedly vacillating between the truth of God and the cavils of the natural heart. You are tempted by a spirit of lust; while abstaining from such excesses as would dishonor your Christian profession, "you make provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lust thereof," and you feel weighed down under a humiliating yoke which is burdensome to bear; but you doubt whether you can address yourself to a life of self-sacrificing devotion—and you go on indulging in a pleasurable and enervating indolence.

Oh! you, who recognize yourselves in this sad picture, come and learn from the history of my text, that you can conquer every temptation. Jesus, like you, has been tempted; and while the first Adam yielded in Eden, the second Adam has gained a universal conquest in the wilderness. His victory is complete. After forty days of unceasing attacks, after a final and desperate assault, the adversary sees himself at last compelled to raise the siege, ashamed and convinced of his weakness, and Jesus has acquired the right to say: "The prince of this world has nothing in me." Not one of "the fiery darts of the wicked" could find an open way to His heart. It is written: "He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin;" no sin before nor with the temptation; no sin after the temptation, nor proceeding from it. In him we have "an high priest who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." Well, if Jesus has thus conquered, you too may conquer.

Here, as before, we must begin by setting aside the mysterious part of our subject, and the questions more curious than useful to which it has given rise. Between the temptation of Jesus and our temptation, the analogy is not complete; for, as children of a corrupt race, we harbor within us lusts which Jesus never knew. Although He took upon himself the infirmities which sin had introduced into our nature, far be it from us to suppose that He shared in the slightest measure the sinful tendency itself. We may distinguish three kinds of temptations: that of Jesus, that

of Adam, and our own; the first was without sin, both before and after the trial; the second without sin before the trial, but not after; the third accompanied by sin before, as well as after, according to the declaration of St. James in that passage of his epistle: "Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed; then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin." Hence, upon the moral character of temptation, and the degree of holiness to which we can attain during this life, have arisen those questions which have more than once agitated the church, but which we think it neither necessary nor possible satisfactorily to solve. However this may be, I here confine myself to the application which concerns us in our actual condition, and I leave the subject on that practical ground chosen by the Apostle James in the words just quoted. Our business is to prevent lust from conceiving, and from bringing forth sin; we can always do this. Of all the temptations you encounter on your way, there is not one which you cannot overcome, as Jesus overcame his, and as Adam might have overcome his also. Thus, you who are tempted by a spirit of sloth, can "have life, and have it more abundantly." You who are tried by a spirit of discontent, can "rejoice evermore," and sing aloud "with the voice of thanksgiving." You who are tempted by a spirit of unbelief, can "continue in the faith, stablished, strengthened, and settled;" and you who are tried by a spirit of sensuality, can "keep under your body, bring it into subjection, and mortify its deeds through the spirit." You can do it: for, what you are called upon to do, Jesus has already done.

Perhaps you will answer: Jesus was the Son of God; His victory proves nothing as to us. If such an objection were valid here, it would be equally so elsewhere. Then would it be vain to set forth the pattern of Jesus before men; then would the Holy Spirit have said in vain : "Christ has left us an example, that we should follow His steps." But this objection comes from a source which accounts for many other errors, both of doctrine and of practice; which is, that we ignore, or, at all events, lose

sight of the human nature of our Lord, which it is quite as necessary to be kept in mind as His divinity. Yes, Jesus was the Son of God, but He was also the Son of man; and as it was in His human nature that He was tempted, in His human nature likewise He overcame temptation. In thus speaking, we by no means leave out of sight the divine nature of the Lord in the narrative of the text. We do not forget that Jesus had been, immediately before the temptation, declared to be the Son of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, and thereby strengthened for the conflict which awaited Him. I would only have you observe, my dear friends, that during the conflict itself the narrative of the Evangelists shows us in Jesus the Son of Man alone, while the Son of God disappears. And yet I mistake—the Son of God does show himself, but only in the words of Satan. The devil reminds Jesus of that title, for the purpose of tempting Him now by doubt, then through presumption, and then again through ambition: but Jesus does not make use of it as a means of defence. Had He wished to display His divine power, He might have prayed-as He himself declared in that other struggle which marked the close of his career-" to His Father, who would have given Him more than twelve legions of angels." What do I say? He needed no angel; one word from His lips, and Satan would have been overthrown like the messengers from the Sanhedrim in the garden of Gethsemane. But He does nothing of the kind; He confines His energy to man's sphere of action. He wrestles against Satan with man's infirmities, and with the means which man has at his disposal. He endures hunger, and allows himself to be approached, parleyed with, and tempted like a man. Like a man, He stands through confidence in God, and triumphs by the power of God.* Above all, like a man, He quotes the Scriptures, which were written by men for men. As we see Him on another occasion in His anguish supported by an angel-Him "whom the angels of God worship "-so we here

Ephes. vi. 10, and following verses. In this passage St. Paul seems to allude to our Lord's conflict.

see Him resting upon Moses, Lord and master of Moses as He is! Wondrous source of astonishment and of admiration! What need had He to turn over as we do the books of His servant, in order to find answers to the seductions of the evil one? Might He not have drawn them from His own resources? Is He not the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father," who is in heaven, and who "speaketh from heaven?" Yes, but it was necessary that here He should speak from earth, to be an example for those who are "of the earth." This remark is so true, that, not satisfied with appealing only to the Scriptures, He selects from the Scriptures only those passages which apply indiscriminately to all believers. As for the numerous testimonies concerning the Messiah exclusively, and which guarantee to Him the victory, He alludes to none of them-so resolved is He to draw merely from the common treasury of the whole church. The more extraordinary this circumstance, the more manifest is its intention. Against a temptation common to man, Jesus gains by human resources a human victory, to teach human beings that they may overcome even as He overcame.

Still farther not only did Jesus conquer in humanity, but for humanity. Engaged in the contest of the wilderness as the Saviour and representative of man, it is in the name and on the behalf of man that he gains a victory, the fruits of which will be gathered by all who believe in his name. Had he not conquered for us, how could his triumph strengthen us against the tribulations of the world? "In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. He alone could "bind the strong man ;" but the strong man once bound, he does not enter alone "the strong man's house, and spoil his goods;" we also enter after him. Satan is already defeated, before he attacks us; and his power is so much the less against us, as he finds Him present in us by whom he was vanquished in the wilderness. The victory is made so sure unto us in Jesus, that the Scriptures represent us as having already obtained it: "Ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in