The Warfare of the Soul: Practical Studies in the Life of Temptation

by Shirley Carter Hughson

CHAPTER VII

TRAINING THE INNER LIFE

I. Environment and Character

A psychological principle we should never lose sight of is that the attitude of mind and heart towards all moral questions is just what we choose to make it. Surround a man with debasing associations, and let him yield to the resulting influences, and he becomes debased. On the other hand, the influence of a pure and noble environment makes for purity and nobility of character. Every man in his inner character, and in that outward expression of character that we call life, is the product of the influences to which he yields himself.

One of our chief dangers, however, is that many influences flow out from our daily environment of which we are quite unconscious. We are not always in a position to realize our surroundings and their effect, and even when we can realize them, it is often beyond our power to control them. But before an external influence can work any hurt to us, there must be something within that answers to it. A child may pass unscathed through an environment of vice, because there is nothing in the child-heart that responds to the call of sin.

Our Lord had this in mind, perhaps, when He laid it down as a condition necessary to entrance into the Kingdom of God that we should become as little children,[[1]] and He was able to make this condition quite absolute, because while no man can control his external environment and the consequent influences, he can, by the deliberate use of his will, acting in the power of the Holy Ghost, create, in very large measure, whatever interior condition he wishes. By his daily course he can develop a moral and spiritual interior that will habitually respond with alacrity to the evil and be deaf to the good; or, on the other hand, one that will not only rise up quickly to entertain every good influence and suggestion, but will in a large measure (though never wholly in this life) be even unconscious like little children of the presence of evil influences.[[2]]

So let us learn how to create an interior environment in which the Holy Ghost will be the dominant force. Otherwise Satan will surely surround us with so much of sin, that becoming accustomed to it, and to the thought of it, we shall be unable to resist the effort he will make to use our faculties as instruments for his work.

Nor must we wait until conscious of his approach before seeking to create the proper interior environment. In most cases it will then be too late. It is not easy to surround ourselves with an atmosphere of good and pious thought in the moment of assault. We must be beforehand with him. In times of peace we must prepare for war.

We may be quite sure that it is with the intention of affording us the opportunity to do this that God often gives us rest from the attacks of the enemy. He does not mean us to lie idle at such times, but to seize the opportunity to train for future battles, just as soldiers in barracks engage in daily drill that they may be more efficient fighters when again called to take the field. "After thou hast escaped these temptations, or else if our Lord hath so kept thee (as He doth many by His mercy), that thou hast not been troubled much by any such, then it is good for thee that thou beware of turning thy rest into idleness."[[3]]

Let us consider how Satan uses certain of our faculties as instruments of sin, and see how by a definite system of spiritual exercises we can so forestall him that he will find nothing in us ready for his use.

II. Educating the Memory

How much sin, for example, is due to the action of memory! It is indeed strange that this wonderful faculty, which more than any other operates to give unity, consistency, and proportion to our life, should be so often used to call up past sins that we may sin them over again in will if not in deed. We linger with pleasure, by the exercise of this faculty, over past sins, making them our own again, staining our souls once more with that which we thought had been buried forever in the far-off years.

We bring to renewed life old revenges, ancient hates, and revel again amid scenes of impurity which can never be re-enacted in real life. Such acts, frequently indulged, grow into a habit, and the habit becomes necessity when the memory not only easily and naturally reverts to those events and conditions of the past that were bound up with sin, but becomes so trained that it must recall the evil, and can only with great stress, difficulty, and distaste be made to recall that which is good.

If, on the other hand, by persistent acts of will we force the memory to recall the righteous passages from our past, far-off happenings sweet and holy, we, little by little, train it to retain these righteous things, while all other impressions grow more and more dim as the years go by.

Those who have practised such methods find that after a time the memory, even when left alone, will engage itself with that which is good, just because it has become accustomed to it, and will reject the evil (in many cases, of itself, without the direct interposition of the will), because long exercise has so trained it that in its ordinary operation evil memories are repugnant to it.

Therefore keep the memory definitely busy. Too often when we think it is browsing, as it were, carelessly among the fields of the past, it is, as a matter of fact, being subtly directed by Satan, until, ere we know it, it has fallen upon some evil thing whose touch is poison.

III. Guiding the Imagination

So likewise with the imagination. Perhaps no human faculty is responsible for so much sin, and there is a peculiar heinousness in sins of the imagination. In His mercy God has limited our sphere of sin. There are certain evils impossible for us because He has withheld us from the condition necessary for their commission.

Instead, therefore, of being grateful for such a blessed limitation, we use the imagination to conjure up impossible situations. We create new worlds for ourselves, new theatres for our exploits of pride and wickedness, and in them, through will and imagination, we enact the sin that it would be impossible to commit in our actual external lives.

This strong activity of the imagination can and must be directed. If this mysterious faculty be so prone to produce its own creations, if we indeed will dream of things that do not belong to the present moment, let them be holy things.

Yes, let the imagination run as fast as it will, check it in nothing save in the subjects of its activity. Let it transport us to heavenly places. Let it picture to our astonished vision the things that will be hereafter, the company of heaven, the companionship of the Saints, the glory of the Lamb.

Or, if these ranges be too lofty, let the fancy create new earthly theatres for our activity. Let us picture ourselves following Jesus as He "went about doing good";[[4]] let us see Him healing the lepers, opening the eyes of the blind, raising the dead, blessing the little children; let us bring vividly before us the great example of His life; and let the picture so burn itself, through the power of the imagination, into the very fabric of the brain, that we cannot choose but make it the model for our own lives.

So, after a time, the imagination will become so trained that it will ever be creating holy things, and presenting them for our consideration, and will become incapable, in the end, of producing any picture that could not find ready reflection in the stainless mirror of the human mind of our Blessed Lord.

When we consider the method of thus training the inner man, we find that our course must be shaped by means of certain practices, which should be strenuously pursued if real progress is to be made. These practices will be, as à Kempis says particularly of one of them, as a rudder guiding the ship, keeping it on its proper course. Those we shall consider especially are: (1) Constancy of mind and will; (2) Patience; (3) Calmness; (4) Diligence.

IV. The Practice of Constancy

Thomas à Kempis says, "The beginning of all evil temptations is inconstancy of mind, and small confidence in God, for as a ship without a rudder is tossed to and fro by the waves, so the man who is slack and quits his purpose is many ways tempted."[[5]]

God, knowing human weakness and incapacity, requires but little of man, but He does emphatically require that this little be resolutely purposed, and definitely executed. The soldier who threshes wildly about the field, however fiercely and courageously, is not the one to contribute to the victory. He who sets a definite purpose before him; who knows just what he wants to do, and allows nothing to shake his purpose, is the one on whom the commander can depend to accomplish something in the battle.

So in our spiritual warfare the most important factor is definiteness of purpose, and constancy in executing it. The Christian warfare must be conducted by rule. When I arise each morning to the work of another day, I must know, as far as possible, what that work is; I must know the particular method by which it is to be performed; I must have submitted it all to God so that, feeling assured of "a right judgment in all things," I shall be able to go forward to my duty without doubt or hesitation. The army that knows not when to fight, whose officers are in confusion and uncertainty regarding the next move, falls an easy prey to the enemy. But let the same army be provided with a definite plan of campaign; let every officer and man, each in his place, know just what he is to do under every condition that may arise; and the enemy will have no easy task to defeat it.

This all points to the necessity of the Christian having a Rule of Life, and holding fast to it; allowing himself to be drawn off to nothing else until that be fulfilled. Satan has a subtle way at times of seeking to disturb our spirit of constancy by suggesting something that, in itself, is better and higher than that we have resolved upon. But let us not be deceived by this clever move on his part. If we have undertaken a definite thing for God, that is the highest and best for us until it be accomplished; and the thought that any thing can be more pleasing to Him is but a wile of the devil; and to entertain the suggestion is to be guilty of pride. Better a small and humble service well performed, than great things poorly done. "Our advancement and perfection consist not in the performance of very extraordinary things, or in the being employed in the highest and most labourious offices of religion, but only in doing our ordinary actions well, and in acquitting ourselves well of whatsoever obedience employs us in, be it ever so mean or easy."[[6]] So Christian perfection, against which all temptation is directed, consists in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

The conclusion of the matter is that we cannot be safe unless our whole life is lived by definite, practical rule; a rule for rising in the morning, for prayers, for our Bible reading, our Communions, our Confessions, for the commonest details of our daily routine, leaving nothing to be decided by chance or whim. A life thus ordered and carried out with constancy of purpose and will, for the glory of God, is a standing menace to Satan's power. He fears it, because he knows that it possesses a power against which his long experience and consummate skill are as nothing.

V. The Practice of Calmness

A life lived as has been described above is one that will be dominated by a spirit of calmness, a calmness born of strength. The strong man is always the calm man. An agitated spirit is the evidence of a conscious weakness. The soldier who has faith in his commander, who knows he can rely on the weapons furnished him, and who is certain that his strength is greater than that of his enemy, is not excited in the face of attack. He receives it with serenity because he feels assured of what the result will be. It is uncertainty that brings agitation; it is the uncertainties of life that produce the worry that kills—and worry means want of faith. But the Christian soldier is beset by no uncertainties. If, in unswerving trust, he keeps his will firm for God, knit up with the perfect human will of our Lord, he knows there are no contingencies in the warfare he is waging. There can be but one issue,—that of complete and glorious victory.

If this assurance concerning the issue produces calmness, the spirit of calm will in its turn react upon us for the greater certainty of the victory.[[7]] The heart that is calm is the one that is capable of seeing all things in their true nature and relation. Such a heart is not easily deceived by the tempter, nor can it be frightened by the clamour of his onslaught. With steady hand it parries his deadliest thrusts, and assuming the offensive is able in its turn to inflict mortal wounds upon the power of Satan wherever it may be manifested.

VI. The Practice of Patience

Patience is also a necessary virtue that has constantly and assiduously to be cultivated if we would be ready always for the battle.

(1) We are to be patient with God, biding His time, tarrying His leisure,[[8]] awaiting whatever He may send in the conflict, assuring one's heart always that He rules and overrules, and that all things work together for good to those who love Him.[[9]]

(2) We know the necessity of patience with our fellow-men. Our daily experience show us how large a proportion of temptation arises from failure to bear with those among whom we live, not infrequently those who hold the first place in our hearts. A wholesome remedy for impatience with those about us is to remember ourselves. "Endeavour to be patient in bearing with the defects and infirmities of others of what sort soever they be: for thou also hast many which must be borne with by others. If thou canst not make thyself what thou wouldest, how canst thou expect to have another to thy liking? We are glad to see others perfect; and yet we mend not our own faults. We will have others severely corrected: and will not be corrected ourselves. The large liberty of others displeases us: and yet we will not have our own desires denied us. We will have others restrained by laws: but will not in any way be checked ourselves. And thus it appears: how seldom we weigh our neighbour in the same balance with ourselves."[[10]]

(3) All these things we have just been considering are doubtless familiar to us, but perhaps the thought of patience with ourselves is not so common a one, although there is no more important a factor in all the Christian warfare.

Patience must be exercised towards oneself as towards a weak and wayward child. We are not to expect too much of ourselves. To turn upon oneself angrily or bitterly because we cannot immediately drive away some persistent temptation, or because we have yielded,[[11]] is an act of spiritual pride. It shows that we thought ourselves quite able to cope with the tempter; prided ourselves indeed upon our spiritual powers; and are now in a state of surprise and indignation that we should have failed; when all the while, had we known ourselves, we should have seen that the real wonder is that we are ever able at all to resist him successfully.

Nor must we be surprised if there seem to rise up out of our own hearts foul and humiliating temptations. We are not to forget that we are made from the dust of the earth that can, of itself, bring forth naught but thorns and thistles. The material of temptation is everywhere, within and without, the soul "having the worst temptation within itself in its own temptibility."[[12]]

Nor will he who understands himself and his own weakness grow impatient with the long continuance of the battle. He will recognize that if he had his just deserts he would long since have been cast out from God rather than permitted to wear the King's uniform, and fight battles for the honour of His Name. He who knows himself will go softly all the days of his life, knowing that only by so great a salvation as that wrought on Calvary has he been preserved from the power of the enemy. So "by little and little, and by patience with long suffering through God's help thou shalt better overcome, than by hardness and thine own pertinacity."[[13]]

VII. The Practice of Diligence

There remains to be considered the spirit of diligence that must characterize the soldier of Christ. Keep yourself always busy with the things of God. Keep the whole mental faculty engaged; keep it under the command of the Holy Ghost, for just as in all else that belongs to man, if God does not direct it, Satan will. There is a deep spiritual truth in the old proverb, "An idle brain is the devil's workshop."

Not only will this course superinduce such habits of thought and character as will strengthen us mightily, but, the human mind being what it is, will render it often impossible for Satan to find lodgment in it for his temptation.

The mind can only be engaged with a limited number of things at any one time. This varies with various persons, according to their mental training and development, but even the most highly developed mind can compass but few things at the same moment. Our common mental processes consist of one thought, or group of thoughts, thrusting out others, and taking their place until in their turn they are displaced. Since this is the case, one's safety from evil thoughts lies in diligently keeping the mind filled with good and holy thoughts. Keep the will at work calling up a continuous procession of suggestions and pictures of things righteous and God-like, and when Satan approaches to insinuate into the heart his temptations, he will find it so full that there will be no room in it for him or his works.

This must be done in an organized and methodical way. Let us not trust to chance opportunity. At every moment the will is, consciously or subconsciously, making a choice either for good or evil. Our part is to seize upon these moments and force that inevitable choosing to be not only righteous, but definitely and explicitly a choice of righteousness.

Practise over and over again the work of choosing God. Arraign before the mind things good and evil, the higher and the lower, that the will may be drilled in the repeated preference of what belongs to Him.

This will be a much simpler method than may seem at first. How many moments are there in each day when we are, of necessity, unoccupied. We have to wait five minutes for an appointment; we spend a quarter of an hour on a crowded car; we have a little distance to walk to reach some destination; or occasionally there is a wakeful hour at night. What are we doing all this time? We can be sure the will is operating. It stands sentinel to admit or repulse every thought that comes; and what is the nature of the thoughts admitted? Idle thoughts, critical thoughts of those about us, silly vain thoughts of self,—how covered with confusion and shame we should be if some by-stander were able to look within and see the busy, thronging procession that streams through our mind unchallenged, nay more, welcomed and indulged. Yet this is the very opportunity God gives us to busy ourselves for Him: and instead of using it, we let it run to sinful waste, marring our whole character, for as a man thinks, so he is.

How much better would it have been had we said, when we realized the unoccupied minute: "I will use this little time to make an act of love, of hope, of faith. I will speak to Him familiarly in some ejaculation of prayer. I will, for His praise, repeat some psalm I may know by heart. I will pray for some of these people, strangers though they be to me."[[14]] Then immediately perform this resolution in a most definite way, framing with care even the very words with the lips, that the body as well as the mind may have its part in the work.

Try this for a month, earnestly and persistently, and at the end of that time see if the whole inner being does not spontaneously turn to such holy exercises. So far as the human aspect of it is concerned, it is a mere matter of psychology. The mind acts thus, because it has been trained to it. The repeated act has formed the habit, and the habit in its turn repeats the act; but through and in it all is divine grace, the very life of God, operating in the infinite activity of His love.

Especially must we exercise this diligence when we perceive the tempter's approach. When we become conscious of the slightest suggestion that seems to point to sin, let the will rally all our faculties to expel it, and to fill the mind so full that it can have no chance of returning. But here as everywhere else must we be on our guard against Satan's subtilty and power. Often in response to such an attitude on our part, he presents some attractive thought, pure and good, perhaps; then another and another, leading the soul that is not watchful by a long train of associated ideas up to the goal he has prepared, to some one thought that is either itself sin if consented to, or the ready vehicle of sin.

Accustom the mind with unwearied diligence to such thoughts as we can readily, conceive finding place in the mind of Christ, rejecting all others. "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."[[15]]

Let the mind be thus employed, and Satan may indeed be able to lead us along some line of thought up to the place of temptation, but it will be only to find, as with our Lord, when he bore Him up to the pinnacle of the temple, that this place of his own choosing will prove the scene of his own utter defeat.

[[1]] St. Matt. xviii, 3.

[[2]] "A temptation can never be divorced from a course of life. It is woven into the very texture of life's continuity. It is a temptation because of what we are at the time. It is the conditions of the crisis which make a moment, a decision, critical.... It is thus the whole setting of a life which brings temptation. So temptation is never clean detached from the past, or the future, of the tempted; for there is no such thing as a human experience which has not its roots in the past, and its fruit in the sequel."—H. J. C. Knight, The Temptation of our Lord, p. 55.

[[3]] Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection, Bk. I, Pt. II, chap. i.

[[4]] Acts x, 38.

[[5]] Imitation, I, xiii.

[[6]] Rodriguez, The Practice of Religious and Christian Perfection, Vol. I, p. 86. Pere Grou teaches "that nothing is small or great in God's sight; whatever He wills becomes great to us, however seemingly trifling, and if once the voice of conscience tells us that He requires anything of us, we have no right to measure its importance.... There is no standard of things great and small to a Christian, save God's will."—The Hidden Life of the Soul, p. 206. ("Half-a-Crown" Ed.)

[[7]] "Be still, then, and know that I am God."—Ps. xlvi, 10. "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength."—Isa. xxx, 15.

[[8]] Ps. xxvii, 16.

[[9]] Rom. viii, 28.

[[10]] Imitation, I, xvi.

[[11]] "You are vexed at the vexation, and then you are vexed at having been vexed. I have seen people in the same way get into a passion, and then be angry because they had lost their temper!"—St. Francis de Sales, Spiritual Letters, xxvii.

[[12]] S. T. Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 186. (Bohn Ed.)

Bishop Andrewes in his second sermon on the Temptation of Christ, speaking of it being impossible for Him to have sinned since there was no fire of concupiscence in Him, quaintly says: "To us the devil needs bring but a pair of bellows, for he shall find fire within us."—Andrewes, Sermons, Vol. V, p. 508.

[[13]] Imitation, I, xiii.

[[14]] A busy Wall Street financier not long since told the writer that for several years, whenever stepping from an omnibus or car, in the thronged street or crowded railway station, he had made a practice of offering an ejaculation of prayer for his fellow-passengers.

[[15]] Phil. iv, 8.