OUR PATTERN IN TEMPTATION.
“We have not a high priest which cannot be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all
points tempted like as we are.”—Heb. iv. 15.
Come to the desert where sad Jesu went
Lone sinner!—there, as in God's mirror, see
Reflected truths, by gracious wisdom meant
To balk the arch-Fiend when he tempteth thee.
Prophetic actions, typically deep,
Forecasting all the future Church should feel
When blasting trials round her bulwarks sweep,
And fiend and foe combine against her weal
Were those dark trials, when by grace upheld
The fasting Saviour with a Demon fought,
And by His word the powers of darkness fell'd
And back to perfect heaven our Nature brought.
Unknown, the virtue which is never tried;
And principle by keen temptation proves
How much for God and glory is denied
The earth-born will our ruin'd manhood loves.
The triple force of this perverted world
Aims at our heart a threefold blow of sin:
And souls that would not from their faith be hurl'd,
By providence without and prayer within
Defence must find;—from these apart, they fail
The world, the devil, and the flesh to fight;
Darkness and doubt will o'er their creed prevail
And, Cain-like, plunge them in disastrous night.
How did Emmanuel each infernal dart
Repulse, unwounded, from His perfect soul?—
By words divine! those bucklers of the heart,
Temper'd by Heaven against the Fiend's control.
Alas! for souls, if in their perill'd hour
When sin and self, those Satans of the mind,
Besiege our graces with commingled power,
Staid reason prove the only shield we find.
Nor let the righteous who to Love belong,
Dream that temptation will not dog their path;
When saints are weak, alone they seem the strong,
And self-mistrust a true foundation hath.
E'en in pure ecstasies of prayer and praise
When nearest round the Throne of bliss they move,
Visions from hell may float before their gaze,
And hide the glories of the heaven they love.
Here is our wisdom,—with a wakeful mind
The sense to watch, and pray down each desire
Which tempts the conscience to be base, or blind,
By fanning embers of unhallow'd fire.
And oh, what deeps of consolation ope,
Like heavens of comfort, in this creed divine,—
That not alone with Darkness thou wilt cope,
For in temptation Christ believed is thine.
He left His Throne, The stricken Man to be,
Tempted and tried, by anguish spent and worn,
And drew from earth that boundless sympathy
By which He lives, to succour the forlorn.
Then cheer thee! O thou troubled, toss'd, and tried;
Orphan'd in spirit, dream not of despair,
Open yon heavens, and lo! The Crucified
Echoes thy heart in beating concord, there.
Thy Lord beseech, by all on earth He knew,
Facing the Demon in his dreadest hours;
Whose soul remains as tender and as true
As when it wept o'er Judah's fated towers.
A mother may her new-born child forget,
And exiled hearts their fatherland forego,
But Christ in heaven eternalizes yet
Each tone of Manhood He obtain'd below.
E'en there, behold our sympathising Priest
In feeling human as in form divine;
And seraphs listen, when of saints the least
May boldly cry,—“Incarnate Love is mine!”
