Cleanse Thou me from secret faults.

Secret faults T. F. Crosse, D. C. L. Temptation comes to all men everywhere, and St. Bernard roundly says, "All life is a temptation," which means that it is a history of attacks and resistances, victories and defeats, in spiritual things. How could we ever expect to hear the praise, "Well done, good and faithful servant," if we had gained no victories over self? And how shall we gain them without effort? Temptation has various sources — our own weakness, Satan's plots, and God's purposes. Examination shows that temptation is allowed for in God's plan. Still, we are not to think God is Himself the author of temptation. The fact is, temptation has different meanings and objects, according to the different sources from which it comes. It was from mere malignity Satan tempted Job. It was from party spirit and self-sufficiency the lawyers questioned Christ, tempting Him. It is from coveting that those who would be rich fall into temptations; but when God allows us to be tempted, His trials are for our good, to disclose our weakness, to increase our strength, to rebuke our waywardness, or bring back our wandering steps. Even in their fails God's love pursues and overtakes His children. The first thing for us to do is to discover what is our temptation and our tempter. There are inveterate habits of thought, speech, and conduct which are chronic temptations one has hardly a knowledge of, and no will to resist. And here, in these, are the great battlefields for us; and the discovery of these to us is a special occasion of God's grace to us. When you have found out your special sin, the next thing is to enter the lists against it in a solemn way, a solemn and prepared way. We want the Holy Spirit's help to know what cannot otherwise be known, the sin which doth most easily beset us. This is to be prayed for, and waited for, and worked for, and part of the prayer must be the attitude of the praying life, a watching soul, a secretly self-questioning soul, a retirement into a sort of inner oratory in one's own self, there expecting and asking that God may show us ourselves, and enable us to discover, judge, and disapprove ourselves. (T. F. Crosse, D. C. L.)