5. As a wrestler therefore he enters the lists last of all; he raises his eyes to heaven, he sees that even the heavenly _creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope_. He sees that _the whole creation groaneth in pain together, waiting for redemption_. He sees that labour awaits us all. He raises his eyes, he sees the circlets of lights, he surveys the orbs of the moon and stars: _For the just, who overcome, shall be as the stars in heaven_. And he chastises his body, that it may not be his enemy in the combat, he anoints it with the oil of mercy, he exercises it with daily trials of virtue, he smears himself with dust, he _runs_ to the goal of the course but _not as uncertainly_, he aims his blows, he darts forth his arms, but not into empty space, he strikes the adversary whom he sees not, for he has respect to Him alone to Whom all enemies give way, even those who are invisible, in Whose Name the powers of the air were turned aside. It is he therefore who poises the blow, but it is Christ Who strikes, it is he who lifts up his heel, but Christ Who directs it to the ground. Lastly, although Paul saw not those whom he struck, he was not _as one that beateth the air_, because by the preaching of Christ he wounded those evil spirits which assaulted him. Rightly therefore did man, for whom a race was prepared, enter the course last, that he might be preceded by heaven which was to be, as it were, his reward. Sidenote: Eph. vi. 12. Sidenote: Gen. ix. 21. Sidenote: 2 Cor. xi. 26. Sidenote: Acts xvi. 22. 6. But we wrestle not only _against spiritualities of wickedness in high places_, but also _against flesh and blood_. We wrestle with satiety, with the very fruits of the earth, with wine, by which even a righteous man was made drunk, and the whole people of the Jews overthrown; we wrestle with wild animals, with the fowls of the air; for our flesh, if pampered by these, cannot be brought to subjection; we wrestle _with perils of the way, with perils of waters_, as Paul says; we wrestle with rods of the wood, those rods with which the Apostles were beaten. You see how severe are our combats. Thus the earth is man’s trial-ground, heaven is his crown; and fitting therefore it was that as a friend, what was to minister to his wants should precede him, as a combatant, his reward. Sidenote: 1 Cor. xv. 49. Gen. i. 27.