ontradiction to positive principle."--Liddon, _Passiontide Sermons_,
p. 88.

[13] Gen. i, 31.

[14] Gen. iii, 5, or rather "as God." The word in the Hebrew is simply
_Elohim_.

[15] St. Mark i, 11.

[16] See Pusey, _Parochial Sermons_, Vol. II, p. 148.

[17] 1 St. Peter v, 8.

[18] _Imitation_, IV, xxx.

[19] See page 142.

[20] 1 St. Peter v, 8.

{46}

CHAPTER IV

THE UNIVERSALITY OF TEMPTATION

I. _The Common Lot_

"So long as we live in this world we cannot be without tribulation and
temptation. Whence it is written in Job,[1] 'The life of man upon
earth is a temptation.'"[2]

Man did not have to wait for the full revelation of God in His Son
before knowing this truth. Holy Job testifies to it out of his own
experience, and the Son of Sirach gives the warning, "My son, if thou
come to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation."[3] The
constant and definite warning and promise of our Lord and His Apostles
were to the same effect. In the only prayer He taught His disciples, a
prayer He commands us to use daily, they are taught to say, "Lead us
not into temptation";[4] and on the night in which He was betrayed,
full of tender solicitude for their souls, He warns them, "Pray that ye
enter not into temptation."[5]

{47}

In all His teaching He takes it easily for granted that temptation is
an inevitable factor in the life of those who would follow Him. In the
parable of the Sower He assumes, without so much as making the
statement, that temptation must come to every heart in which the seed
of the Word is sown.[6]

Everywhere His Apostles give us the same teaching. St. Paul testifies
to the presence of temptation in his own life, and warns and comforts
his converts concerning it, telling them of the sweetness and loving
care of God in it all: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as
is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that ye are able."[7] And further, God reveals to us the
depth of our Lord's temptation as a source of comfort and
encouragement: "In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is
able to succour them that are tempted";[8] and again, He "was in all
points tempted like as we are."[9]

So likewise is it through the writings of all the Apostles. St. James
assumes the universal fact, and points out the way of temptation as the
way of joy;[10] St. Peter shows how temptation {48} leads on to "praise
and ho