VIII.

The Spirit willing, the Flesh weak.

MATT. xxvi. 41:

"Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

THERE are two natures in each of us: the body and the soul, the instincts and the aspirations, the promptings of the spiritual nature, and the gravitation towards ease or self-indulgence of the natural man. And for the most part the two natures are suffered to maintain an independent existence, neither being brought into permanent subjection, but weak and powerful by turns, cach having its way in its season of predominance.

And so little do we question ourselves about any ruling purpose, any order and symmetry of life-a long habit of committing ourselves to courses that are determined by accident, by pressure from without, by inclination, has so stifled a demand for the harmony and unity of being, which all other creatures instinctively observe, that we escape any painful or revolting sense of discord and inconsistency: we not only yield

to changing moods, but seem to carry our whole nature into them; so that being, for the time, natural in each of our states, we make nature its own justification, without inquiring which nature it is we are obeying, and live without suspicion of the manifold contradictions our characters present.

This is the description of a being in whom conscience takes no place of command, and is only a co-ordinate power, one among the crowd of directing inclinations; and it is very much the habitual life of us all we do as nature inclines, or as circumstances determine; we are what we are, or we are as it may happen; but we impose no law upon ourselves, and enforce no unity of spirit. Thus Peter was perfectly natural, and perfectly sincere, in the sense of reflecting truly the whole feeling of the time, when he vowed that he would cheerfully go to meet death for his Master, and no doubt, if the crisis had come at the moment, would have proved equal to the boast; and then, yielded to the next direction of his nature, which happened to be one of mere weariness and exhaustion, sinking into slumber when wakefulness was most needed; and then, awoke suddenly, without forethought or preparation, to find danger close at hand, and yielded to an instinct of terror, and let the cowardprompting carry him to such a pitch of surrender to the nature that was uppermost, as in his Lord's presence, and with panic oaths, to deny that he knew

him; and then, met the eye of Christ, and yielded to that power, and went out and wept bitterly.

Wherever the soul is put in charge of the life, wherever there is spiritual solicitude and clear perception of the duty of self-discipline, such easy submission to mere tendencies becomes impossible; at least a painful sense of discord is created, a disturbed self-consciousness appears; and if there is still a divergence between the Spirit and the Flesh, it is no longer because each in its season is permitted its own way, without an attempt to reconcile them, but because the willingness of the Spirit is left at the mercy of the unguarded weakness. of the Flesh, and then all the peculiarities of positive sin come into existence,—namely, a sense of defeated desires, of betrayed purposes, of abandoned right, with the testimony of a guilty conscience.

There are three imperfect states in which the relations of our actual life to our ideal, or rule of life, may exist: two of them absolutely wrong, the third only an approximation to right. Instead of introducing the ideal life into the actual life, as outward conditions and the growing strength of the affections and the conscience will permit, a man may give over any real attempt to embody a heavenly spirit in an earthly life, and yet, in a meditative, sentimental, self-centred dream, devote himself to the contemplation of what is good and perfect; and this is the mystic's way of living above the world, and of having a unity of being. His.

ideal and his actual are never in felt opposition, because he turns from the actual and lives in the ideal alone.

Again, there is the antithesis of this, when the actual, life as it is, this warm, breathing world, is embraced with healthy zest and energy, whilst the ideal of life is unthought of and disappears; and this is the way in which the natural man has a unity of being. With him the ideal and the actual are never in recognized opposition, because he turns from the ideal and lives in the actual alone. The mystic ignores the actual, the kingdom of God in the world; the natural man ignores the ideal, the kingdom of God in the soul; and neither even attempts the true problem of life, which is to incorporate the ideal in our actual-to be in this world, according to our power and our place, what Christ was, even the Word made flesh. By obliterating one side of God's demands upon us, though we cannot reach spiritual harmony, we may, for a time, escape conflict.

And, thirdly, there is the mixed state, the common condition of us all, in which the ideal and the actual are brought, or sought to be brought, into some practical correspondence—but feebly, fitfully, incompletely -in which the prompting of the spirit often yields to temptation, and infirmity prevails with the express knowledge of sin. This may be a more Christian condition than that of the mystic or of the natural man, for at least the true spiritual problem is before us, the work and achievement of THE WILL in our earthly

discipline distinctly set out; yet is it a condition of more suffering; for the sense of internal discord is painfully awakened, the willing Spirit and the weak Flesh are in felt opposition, and unless strength is obtained for the higher principle, it may end in distresses of conscience from which the mystic and the worldling, to whom the sense of sin is not present, can now escape. Spiritual unrest, so far better than unreal peace, may mark a soul that at least is seeking God, longing after Him, though as yet it has not found Him.

Now it is this condition of spirit, this state of recognized infirmity, in which a weakness, a temptation, that is against our conscience, against our desires, yet conquers us, which we are at present to consider. We may desire to be what is right, to do what is right, and yet be practically thwarted by our own weakness, whilst yet a power to conquer remains with us, if we would exert it. "The good that I would," says St. Paul, describing this condition, "I do not: the evil which I would not, that I do." When does this take place? What is the nature of the cases in which the willing spirit is thus betrayed and defeated by the mortal instruments?

I. There are impulses from the spirit, promptings from within, which are not properly ours until we have made them so, by breathing, and living, and having our being within their inspiration. They come