grow, not more and more mean, and brutal, and carnal, but more and more
noble, and human, and spiritual; to crush down our base passions, our
selfish inclinations, by the help of the Spirit of God, and to think of
and to pray for, whatsoever is like Christ and like God; to pray for a
noble love of what is good and noble, for a noble hate of what is bad;
and whatsoever things are pure and lovely and of good report to think of
these things. And to pray, too, for forgiveness from Christ, and for the
sake of Christ, whenever we have yielded to our low passions, and defiled
the likeness of God in us, and grieved His Spirit, lest at the last day
it be said to us, if not in words yet in acts, which there will be no
mistaking, no escaping,--"I made thee in My likeness in the beginning of
the creation, I redeemed thee into My likeness on the cross, I baptised
thee into My likeness by my Holy Spirit; and what hast thou hast done
with My likeness? Thou hast cast it away, thou hast let it die out in
thee, thou hast lived after the flesh and not after the spirit, and hast
put on the likeness of the carnal man, the likeness of the brute. Thou
hast copied the vanity of the peacock, the silliness of the ape, the
cunning of the fox, the rapacity of the tiger, the sensuality of the
swine; but thou hast not copied God, thy God, who died that thou mightest
live, and be a man. Then, thou hast destroyed God's likeness, for thou
hast destroyed it in thyself. Thou hast slain a man, for thou hast slain
thy own manhood, and art thine own murderer, and thine own blood shall be
required at thy hand. That which thou hast done to God's likeness in
thee, shall be done to that which remains of thee in a second death."

And from that may Christ in His mercy deliver us all. Amen.



SERMON VII. TEMPTATION