April 21

"My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience."—James 1:2. 3.

WHILE there is here a case supposed, namely, the existence of trials; there is

A COURSE RECOMMENDED. "Count it all joy." We are prone to take a very different view of our trials to this. Are they not too often the ground of our sorrow and murmuring, instead of the occasions of our joy and thankfulness? Did philosophy ever teach such a lesson as the one before us? Here is a calculation to be made; but none can do it without a Divine Tutor. This heavenly arithmetic baffles all the powers of human reason, and mocks at the wisdom of the world. How are we to estimate here?

By Scripture, and not by reason. The Bible should be the book used in the school of adversity; and the more we consult it, the better. Affliction is called by Luther the Christian man's divinity.

By faith, and not by sense. Without the exercise of this grace, we shall take but a very narrow view of things. On this principle Moses acted, when he "chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." In the exercise of faith, Paul reckoned that the sufferings of this present time are not to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in believers.

THE CONSIDERATION URGED. "Knowing that the trying of your faith worketh patience."

The design of affliction. "The trying of faith." Affliction is the furnace in which God tries his people; sin is the dross that is purged away; and when they come forth, it is as gold that has been purified and refined. Faith is the grace principally tried, because it is the root of all other graces; and is most called into exercise. Thus Jesus said to Peter, "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not."

The result of the trial. "It worketh patience." It not only gives scope for its exercise; but

"Lays the rough paths of peevish nature even, And opens in each breast a little heaven."