July 25

In the world ye shall have tribulation. - John 16:33.

SURELY we need not have recourse to our Bibles to learn that this earth is a vale of tears. Where must we live if we do not daily and habitually see and hear enough to convince us of this? For let us not be unjust to religion; let us not charge religion with being the author of the sufferings which others endure as well as ourselves. Are not the men of the world exposed to failures in their schemes, to worldly losses, to family bereavement, to bodily accidents and sickness, to mental irritation and anxiety? The apostle, therefore, tells the Corinthians that in a thousand instances of this kind nothing had befallen them but what was common to man.

Some may, perhaps, be disposed to think that surely God will exempt his friends who are infinitely dear to him from all those calamities that others meet with: but no; so far are they from being exempted from them, that they may suffer more from them than others. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” And there is a reason for it. God has so much to accomplish in them and by them. The husbandman does not prune the bramble-bush, but only the vine; and he prunes it that it may bring forth more fruit. The stones that are designed for the heavenly palace require more cutting and hewing and polishing than those that are designed for a common purpose. Discipline and correction,-these are for the true-born children. “If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, then are ye bastards, and not sons.”

Now, it is not necessary that Christians should be senseless under these outward afflictions; yea, they are not only allowed, but they are required, to feel them; and, unless they feel them, their moral purpose can never be accomplished. We are not more to despise the chastening of the Lord than we are to faint when we are rebuked of him; and it is worthy of our observation that the apostle says, “Now, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby,” -not to those who are unfeeling and careless under it: and we may always observe that people’s trials do them no good unless they are exercised thereby,-unless their feelings, their principles, and their graces are exercised thereby. Individuals who experience this are the persons who derive from them “the peaceable fruits of righteousness.”

Yea, we may go further, and say that Christians in many respects feel more under the common afflictions of life than others do, because, First, They cannot have recourse to worldly dissipation, and diversion, and stupefaction.

Secondly, They feel a sense, an awful sense, of the evil of sin, as having produced all these evils; Thirdly, They are fearful lest they should be proofs of the divine anger with regard to them, and therefore they kneel and pray, “Do not condemn me;” “Show me wherefore thou contendest with me;” and, Lastly, They are all anxious under the suffering, lest the affliction should not be sanctified; for they very well know that if the curse be not turned into a blessing the blessing will prove a curse. No wonder, then, that they are more exercised by these things, in various respects, than others.