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ST. MARK 29
reminds us, " Our sage and serious poet Spenser, describing true temperance under the guise of Guyon, brings him in with his palmer through the cave of Mammon and the bower of earthly bliss, that he may see and know and yet abstain."
IT The temptation was involved in the Incarnation — it was necessary; it could not be avoided. That is purpose enough. If you meet a man in a steamer going to Europe, and ask him why he came to sea, he tells you what his business is in Europe — • why he had to go there. The purpose of his going there is his purpose in crossing the sea. He could not do one without the other. And so we can well believe that the perfect holiness could not come into this wicked world to save us without coming to struggle with the sin of which the world is full. The Incarnation was a real Incarnation. Christ did not play at being made man. Into everything that really belongs to man He perfectly entered.^
And so I live, you see, Go through the world, try, prove, reject, Prefer, still struggling to effect My warfare; happy that I can Be crossed and thwarted as a man, Not left in God's contempt apart. With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart, Tame in earth's paddock, as her prize.^
2. He was tempted that we might know Him to be man, that we might recognise Him unmistakably as of ourselves, and take Him for an example. It is in temptation that we need His example most of aU. And if He had not been a man in His temptation He would have been no example.
H I believe it can be shown that these experiences so follow the lines of the genericaUy human, of what is true for all men, and point the way to the solution of so many problems affecting human life universally, as to compel the conviction that this is, at least, one design behind the record of His career, namely, that it should exhibit once for all the central, archetypal human life in its victory over all incompleteness, and over aU evil. This conviction is specially forced upon any one who ponders much on the story known as the Temptation of Jesus. Standing where it does in the record of His career, a rdsum^ of the main elements in His soul-travail as He stood on the threshold of His life's work, it reflects not His temptations only, but ours : setting
* Phillips Brooks. ' E. Browning, Ea^r Day.
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so THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
forth, under the veil of parable, the universal human threshold fight, the multiform yet essentially threefold moral conflict which men everywhere must endure who would at the outset of their career place themselves in the path to true success.^
IT Sometimes we meet people of much piety and sweetness of character, who have lived quiet lives and gained much respect, but who do not carry with them a rebuke of sin, because sinners say, " They have never been tempted." The poor, fallen woman sometimes says, as the world's wife and daughter sweep by her with disdain, " They would have been no better than I, had they lived as I have done." The thief thinks that magistrate and judge might have been in the dock with him, had they known what it was to be unable to get work and food. We look at the Lord Jesus, and say, "Man was never tempted as He was tempted," and we hail Him as Saviour, not because Satan left Him alone, but because Satan assailed Him on every hand and was defeated.^
" Gret thee hence, Satan ! " at His withering look Hell's tottering kingdom to its centre shook; While from the myriad Angel hosts on high Burst forth loud shouts of praise and victory. 'Gainst man the fiend had tried his worst in vain And hope for ruined man shone forth again. Dismayed, undone, the baffled tempter fled, In lowest hell to hide his bruised head; Crippled his power, his reign of darkness o'er, The kingdoms of the world his own no more. Yet not unscathed the Conqueror in the strife. Who there had won for unborn millions life; Crushed was the foe beneath His conquering tread, But bruised the Victor's heel by that foul head. As Man, not God, He fought in that dark hour. And braved alone the tempter's utmost power; The Woman's Seed, the Virgin's mighty Son, As Man had fought, as Man the victory won ; Wielding that sword alone which man can wield, Quenching the fiery darts with man's own shield. And still as Man, with fasting faint and worn, His inmost soul by that fierce conflict torn; Alone He stands upon the mountain now. Cold drops of anguish on His suffering brow. Sadly foreshadowing that tremendous night, When drops of blood should start in deadlier fight.
' 6. A. Johnston Ross. * L. B. Eawnsley.
ST. MARK 31
Alone ? no, not alone, for swift draw near Bright Angel forms, to strengthen and to cheer; To minister to all His wants and woes, And soothe His weary form in calm repose.^
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3. He was tempted in order that we might feel assured of His sympathy. " For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Heb. iv. 15).