Remember that temptation is not sin unless it is accompanied with the consent of your will. There may seem to be even the inclination, and yet the real choice of your spirit is fixed immovably against it, and God regards it simply as a solicitation and credits you with an obedience all the more pleasing to Him because the temptation was so strong. We little know how evil can find access to a pure nature and seem to incorporate itself with our thoughts and feelings. When, however, we resist and overcome it we remain as pure as the sea fowl that emerges from the water without a single drop remaining upon its burnished wing. The harp, struck by a rude or clumsy hand, gives forth a discordant sound-not from any defect o the instrument but because of the hand that touches it. But when the Master's hand pluck strings it produces chords of exquisite delight. In nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God (Philippians 1:28).
