TEXT:

THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT.

"Led by the Spirit into the Wilderness, being forty

days tempted of the devil."-St. Luke IV, 12.

REV. ERASTUS W. SPALDING, D. D.

Rector of St. John's Church, New Decatur, Alabama.

T is first to be noted in the lesson before us that Jesus was led to His temptation, and to the separation from the world by which the trial was to be accompanied. He was led by the spirit of God. And henceforth, as the Apostle declares, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God."

The only-begotten Son of God was first led, and ever after Him His brethren, the sons of God.

Again, Jesus was alone—alone as far as human companionship was concerned-alone with His enemies in the wild, desolate land; solitary, as is every soul in the hour of real trial, within the recesses of its own consciousness, where the battle is ultimately fought.

And it is next to be noted that Jesus under the leading of the Spirit, had undertaken to discipline Himself; nor was it the ordinary discipline which is part of every good life. It was an extraordinary act of self-denial, and for a special purpose.

The power of Christ's human life, as of every human life, lies in the practical exercises of self-denial, and this in its measure according to the leading of the Spirit of God; Jesus came, not to do His own will, and the life of

His followers must be the same. He invites them to selfdenial: "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me." "Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple." We may set that truth down at the outset, and that the self-denial must be according to the leading of the Spirit of God.

And so, of course, upon self-denial would be the issue when the devil came to assault Jesus, just as it has been the first point of attack ever since.

In the abstinence of those forty days' separation from the world was contained a great vital principle, even the nature and character of the true life of man upon earth, according to the will of God. And the battle between Jesus and the Tempter was joined just there.

The Second Adam, like the First Adam, whose wrong He was trying to rectify, was allowed to be tested to see if He would deny Himself, and, under the leading of the Spirit, let alone for those forty days, or for all days, what God wished let alone. And the devil, who had tempted and ruined the First Adam, now tried to do the same for the Second Adam, as he has ever since been doing for His spiritual descendants.

And, further, the trial of Jesus was exhaustive. If one thing would not answer, another must be attempted. The trial was made to cover the whole range of human infirmity-the "lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life”—which St. John declares to be “all that is in the world," and to be "not of the Father, but of the world."

After a review of these considerations, one hardly needs to be told that the Temptation of Christ would be, and has been, a subject of absorbing interest, and of

profound importance to all Christians; to each in proportion to his understanding, his devotion and his disposition to do thorough work with himself. And there has been a sort of natural impulse or instinct to the devout and loving heart to imitate the Lord in His long trial, and, in its degree to participate in it. And the aggregation of the impulse of the many individuals has recorded and expressed itself in the impulse of the great heart of the Body Corporate. The Church in all lands and in all time, has crystalized the scene in the wilderness and the principle involved in it. She has made a pronounced Lenten observance the object lesson of what the year should be in its lesser degree, and of what the whole life should be. She has made it at once a memorial of the great example of her Lord, and also a mode of teaching, by its practical duties and observances, what it is to be "in the world and not of the world.". And she has thought the length of time prescribed by the Spirit for the Saviour an indication of the proper time for Christians.

It is next to be noted, as a fact, and one by no means to be unexpected, that where a Christian is invited to make use of the blessed season as appointed by Christ through His Church, just so soon as he has decided to obey, and suffers himself to be led by the Spirit up, out of the ordinary plane of a devotional life into the wilderness made by the absence of worldly pleasures and companionships, he is at once tempted of the devil. He is. immediately made to experience the reality of the picture which we have before us to-day. It is no myth or idle tale any more to him, but a narrative of dreadful facts. and actual spiritual occurrances, as he can see by his own case. He suddenly becomes aware that, wittingly or not,

he has joined issue with the adversary of souls, just as his Master did. He has thrown down the gauntlet and the battle is begun.

And the battle is fought over the same old ground, and oft-times the assaults are made in the same old order, just as St. Luke has given them. There is also to be distinguished the same devilish subtilty, the same quiet, plausible approach, the same master-hand shaping the attack, the same dexterous quoting of scripture, and appealing to the appetite, and the allurements of the world, and the innate human pride and self-sufficiency which incites to disobedience—and, under all, the same unalterable purpose of hate and ruin.

The attack almost invariably begins through the Lust of the Flesh. It comes first upon the abstinence from food, upon the idea of fasting at all, just as with the Saviour. The adversary seems to understand that this which has to do with one's self, and the house in which one's soul lives, is somehow at the foundation of all other powers of resistance, and exercises of discipline.

And so he tempts to eat. He gives reasons. People generally are mostly engaged in reasoning instead of obeying, and must have supply for that demand, and he provides the supply. "Letting food alone is trivial and idle and childish and useless, and besides is dangerous to the health," says the tempter. (The devil is very much. concerned, at such a time, about the Christian's health.) "And distinguishing between different kinds of food is simply vexing and nagging and unprofitable. Fasting and abstinence is not suited to this climate and this age. It is Pharisaical. It is righteous overmuch.' There is no command in scripture, to abstain from food or to lessen its amount. Command then that these stones

these hard rugged requirements, these occasions of daily stumbling-be converted into food. Return to the ordinary diet. Rise above these petty punctilios, and put some sensible and charitable Christian act in the place of them."

And if this mode of attack will not serve the end, he then appeals to the lust of the eye. All the old enjoyments. of the more loose and careless Christian living are made to come trooping back to the fancy in all their enticement and fascination-the balls, the parties, the concerts, the secular lectures, the theatre, the card-parties, the billiards, the social triumphs, the "kingdoms of this world and the glory of them." "Cease to serve the God, who is a Spirit, and must be served in spirit and in truth," says the tempter. "Retire from the leading of the Spirit and come back from the wilderness of self-denials and discipline to the old delights. Live the life of carnal enjoyment. In the day appointed for your fast find pleasure, and do not try to 'delight thyself in the Lord.' Return to the world i. e., worship me; I am the god of this world." And if these two will not do the work, then spiritual pride is appealed to. Assault is made upon old usages and practices, and the authority of the changeless Church of all ages, and the Church interpretation of scripture. "Cast thyself down." "Use your private judgment," again says the tempter. "Make not so much of these husks and shells of piety, these vague and useless formalities. Cut thyself loose; serve God more freely, more as it were, at large; less as a slave and more as a child. God does not care so much about the letter of obedience as about a disposition of general trustfulness which lacks 'anxious particularity. Cast thyself down from the pinna