Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire And lighten with celestial fire.
2. This enthusiasm needs nurture. There is a danger that the wide divergences of our interests in modern life diminish and impoverish the intensity of our devotion. How did our fathers keep the fire burning? There are some words found very
46 THE TWO BAPTISMS
frequently in their letters, and diaries, and sermons, which awaken similar feelings to those aroused by types of extinct species that are sometimes unearthed from the deposits of a far- off and unfamiliar age. Here are two such words, " meditation " and "contemplation" — words which appear to suggest an unfamiliar day, when the world was young, and haste was not yet born, and men moved among their affairs with long and leisurely strides. Our fathers steeped their souls in meditation. They appointed long seasons for the contemplation of God in Christ. And as they mused the fire burned. Passion was born of thought. What passion ? The passion which Faber so beautifully describes as the desire which purifies man and glorifies God : —
But none honours God like the thirst of desire, Nor possesses the heart so completely with Him ; For it burns the world out with the swift ease of fire, And fills life with good works till it runs o'er the brim.
T| Let us muse upon the King in His beauty, let us commune with His loveliness, let us dwell more in the secret place, and the unspeakable glory of His countenance shall create within us that enthusiastic passion which shall be to us our baptism of fire, a fire in which everything unchristian shall be utterly consumed away.
Oh then wish more for God, burn more with desire, Covet more the dear sight of His Marvellous Face; Pray louder, pray longer, for the sweet gift of fire To come down on thy heart with its whirlwinds of grace.1
1 J. H. Jowett, Apostolic Optimism, 224.
A Question of Life.
17
Literature.
Alford (H.), Sermons, i. 152.
Archibald (M. G.), Sundays at the Royal Military Collie, 73.
Brooks (P.), The Spiritual Man, 47.
Burgon (J. W.), in The Expositor's Library, i. 202.
Chapin (E. H.), God's Requirements, 173.
Conn (J.), The Fulness of Time, 117.
Eyton (R), The Temptation of Jesus, 12.
Ford (H.), Sermons with Analyses, 93.
Gibbons (J. C), Discourses and Sermons, 143.
Hitchcock (R. D.), Eternal Atonement, 109.
Jowett (J. H.), Things that Matter Most, 183.
Knight (G. H.), Full Allegiance, 83.
Lewis (F. W.), The Master of Life, 3.
M'Connell (S. D.), Sons of God, 203.
Macl&ren (A.), Expositions : St. Matthew i.-viii., 76.
Macmillan (H.), Sun-Glints in the Wilderness, 22.
Massillon (J. B.), Sermons, 242.
Momerie (A. W.), The Origin of Evil, 135.
Morgan (G. C.), The Ten Commandments, 6.
Mur.<ell (W. A.), Sermons on Special Occasions, 233.
Plummer (A.), Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St.
Matthew, 35. Vaughan (C. J.), The Two Great Temptations, 113. Vincent (M. R.), God and Bread, 3. Welldon (J. E. C), The Spiritual Life, 140. Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., iii. 96 (H. Wace).
A Question of Life.
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.— Matt. iv. 4.
1. The Temptation Story. — Our Lord's temptation, next to His death and passion, is the greatest event recorded of Him in the Gospels. The reason of this is evident. It was the Messiah's first encounter with His great enemy, Satan. Viewed aright, the scene so simply and briefly described in Scripture is the most terrific that can be imagined, as well as the most sublime ; for we cannot forget that it is none other than a contest, on the issue of which depended the salvation of all mankind. On the one side was the Eternal Son, made flesh ; sinless indeed, yet compassed with all the infirmity of man's fallen nature : on the other, the chief of the fallen angels, Satan ; that old serpent who, in the beginning by deceiving our first parents, had brought death and sin and sorrow into the world. Satan knows his rival, and yet he knows Him but partially. He strides out to meet Him in desperate duel, as Goliath did the stripling whom he despised ; and both hosts pause and gaze.
(1) In all probability the temptation of our Lord followed immediately upon the baptism, for St. Mark uses the word "straightway," and St. Luke states that Jesus returned from Jordan full of the Spirit and was led by Him into the wilderness. It was, moreover, the natural counterpart of the baptism, which had ended with the declaration of the Divine Sonship of Jesus. From this the tempter takes his first occasion of evil suggestion, while Jesus takes the next step in the fulfilment of all righteous- ness by meeting the attacks of evil on the same footing as all men since the first temptation. That was the ordering of His Father in Heaven, to fit Him more perfectly for His work, by giving Him an experimental acquaintance with the force of our tempta- st. matt. — 4
$6 A QUESTION OF LIFE
Lions clay by day. But probably His own reason for going away from the crowds into a desert place was to have more undisturbed communion with His Father and to meditate upon the great work given Him to do. Yet into these holy hours the tempter came ; and what He expected would be a time of calm and hallowed inter- course with Heaven was turned into a time of dire conflict with all the subtlety of hell.