Church of England -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 19th century
Do you ever have such thoughts as those come over you, my friends,
when you are thinking of the Lord Jesus, and praying to him? If you
do, shall I tell you what to say to them when they arise in your
minds, 'Get thee behind me, Satan.' Get thee away, thou accusing
devil, who art accusing my Lord to me, and trying to make me fancy
him less loving, less condescending, less tender, less
understanding, than he was when he wept over the grave of Lazarus.
Get thee away, thou lying hypocritical devil, who pretendest to be
so very humble and reverent to the godhead of the Lord Jesus, in
order that thou mayest make me forget what his godhead is like,
forget what God's likeness is, forget that it was in his manhood, in
his man's words, his man's thoughts, his man's actions, that he
shewed forth the glory of God, the express image of his person, and
fulfilled the blessed words, 'And God said, Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness.' Get thee behind me, Satan. I believe
in the good news of Easter Day, and thou shall not rob me of it. I
believe that he who died upon the Cross, rose again the third day,
as very and perfect man then and now, as he was when he bled and
groaned on Calvary, and shuddered at the fear of death, in the
garden of Gethsemane. Thou shalt not make my Lord's incarnation,
his birth, his passion, his resurrection, all that he did and
suffered in those thirty-three years, of none effect to me. Thou
shalt not take from me the blessed message of my Bible, that there
is a man in heaven in the midst of the throne of God. Thou shalt
not take from me the blessed message of the Athanasian Creed, that
in Christ the manhood is taken into God. Thou shalt not take from
me the blessed message of Holy Communion, which declares that the
very human flesh and blood of him who died on the Cross is now
eternal in the heavens, and nourishes my body and soul to
everlasting life. Thou shalt not, under pretence of voluntary
humility and will-worship, tempt me to go and pray to angels or to
saints, or to the Blessed Virgin, because I choose to fancy them
more tender, more loving and condescending, more loving, more human,
than the Lord himself, who gave himself to death for me. If the
Lord God, the Son of the Father, is not ashamed to be man for ever
and ever, I will not be ashamed to think of him as man; to pray to
him as man; to believe and be sure that he can be touched with the
feeling of my infirmities; to entreat him, by all that he did and
suffered as a man, to deliver me from those temptations which he
himself has conquered for himself; and to cry to him in the
smallest, as well as in the most important matters--'By the mystery
of thy holy incarnation; by thine agony and bloody sweat; by thy
cross and passion; by thy precious death and burial; by thy glorious
resurrection and ascension;' by all which thou hast done, and
suffered, and conquered, as a man upon this earth of ours, good
Lord, deliver us!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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