August 17

Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction. - Psalms 88:9.

ONE source of David’s sorrows was affliction. He had many trials and troubles which his greatness could not prevent or even alleviate. Oh, how happy was he in the village, in the retirement of Bethlehem, with his sheep, his harp, and his muse, going home in the evening to old Jesse, his father, and to the embrace of his loving mother, to whom he so often refers in his psalms. But when he had begun to rise in the world and to entertain the expectation of the throne, what did he? He soon found that it was “through much tribulation that he must enter the kingdom;” and when he had entered it he said, “Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest; I would hasten my escape from the stormy wind and tempest.”

Obliged to appear cheerful in public, yet when he had given orders to his generals, and audiences to his ambassadors, and had left the company of his courtiers, we find him alone, bleeding at every pore. And he makes no scruple to lay it down as a maxim, even under a dispensation which abounded with worldly promises, that “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.”

Nor are Christians to be insensible under these afflictions. Religion allows them to feel; religion requires them to feel. Their trials would never answer their moral ends without feeling, and feeling severely, too. There is no grace in bearing what we do not feel. There is neither patience nor resignation in a stone. If we look at our Saviour himself, shall we find that he was insensible under reproach? “Reproach,” saith he, “hath broken my heart; and I looked for some to take pity, and there was none; and for comforters, and I found none.” Did he deem pain no evil? His “soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.” He said, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

The affliction of others also drew forth his tears. And Paul says, “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is afflicted, and I burn not?” We are commanded not only to “rejoice with them that rejoice,” but “to weep with them that weep.” And a woe is denounced upon those that are “at ease in Zion,” and who are “not grieved for the afflictions of Joseph.”