LECTURE VI. THE USES OF AFFLICTION. CHRIST IS MADE PERFECT BY SUFFERING. 1 PETER V. 10. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. PERHAPS there is no doctrine contained in the Holy Scriptures, less likely to be received with implicit deference and submission, none which it is more difficult to impress vitally and practically on earthly natures, than the necessity of suffering to perfect those who are called to be saints of God. When we hear of the "affliction of the Gospel, "* of being partakers of the * 2 Tim. i. 8. "sufferings of Christ,' "* though there be no actual rising up of the intellect in rebellion against the pure word, yet there is in the heart either a want of application of the truth, or a feeling of self-congratulation, that hitherto there has been no occasion to apply it. The feelings of the natural man, if not his understanding and experience, are slow to admit the doctrine, that "we must, through much tribulation, enter the kingdom of God." He had rather win an easier victory, and wear a less resplendent crown; and would willingly lose something of the final reward, if he might but travel towards it along a less rugged path. To the truth of these observations, I think, the secret convictions of most will bear me witness. If it has at any time pleased God to place them on this rough uneven road, they have found it hard even to be resigned to his dispensations; much more so with the apostle, to be "exceeding joyful," and "to glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation worketh patience.."§ * 2 Cor. i. 5. + Acts xiv. 22. 2 Cor. vii. 4. § Rom. v. 3. But if it be true that things are for the most part difficult of attainment in proportion to their value; and again, that the stedfast and cheerful encountering of hardships in the pursuit of any object, proves that object to be of very great value in the eyes of the pursuer, we are able to give an account on the grounds of reason alone, in the first place, why afflictions must be expected in travelling the road towards everlasting bliss, and in the second, how they become available in entitling, if we may so say, the Christian to a higher recompense of reward. The prize that each one at the close of his Christian pilgrimage hopes to gain, is confessedly beyond all price; something greater than eye hath seen or ear heard, or than it hath entered into the heart of man to conceive; something, in fine, with which all present sufferings cannot in reality be compared; and therefore, he who cheers himself with the hope that it may one day be his own, and sets himself to obtain it, must, from the very nature of the thing he seeks, expect to have to struggle long and painfully. And if this struggle be patiently endured unto the end, if there be no looking back, no taking the hand from the plough till the work be done, what does it shew but that the vision of faith is bright, that her gaze is directed immovably to the glory to be revealed, and that she is conscious of a strength more than mortal? And what is here manifested by affliction, nay increased and exalted, (for each victory of faith makes her more faithful), but that grace to which the blessings of the skies are pledged? And if we follow up this reasoning, and find that faith in things unseen and eternal lifts up the mind from things seen and temporal;—and if the very "law in our hearts" tells us the farther from the world the nearer to God, how can we do otherwise than conclude, that the man who has been tried by affliction, and endured through faith, is made more meet for his presence, less assimilated to things human, and more to things divine? While if, in addition to this, we reflect how flat and unprofitable worldly sorrow makes the things of the world appear, how readily the affections fly from them when their sting is felt, and with what fondness they dwell upon them while all is externally delightful, we shall not be at a loss for other reasons why afflictions are necessary to prepare the people of the Lord for a better and more enduring inheritance. In a state like that in which we at present find ourselves, where all is unstable and uncertain, and where sorrow is waiting upon all our paths, the humble inquirer after righteousness will be content to ask, whether the afflictions to which he finds himself exposed can be turned to any account. And here he will, as in all other questions connected with his Christian life, be fain to turn his eyes to the Captain of his salvation, and learn of him the things belonging to his peace. He looks to Him now; now, when he would know why God's saints are to pass through much tribulation, and he finds in Him a suffering Messiah; one who, though he is hereafter to lead him to the abodes of peace, and within the doors of paradise once lost, did, while on earth, bid him take up a cross which he also bore, and encircle his brow with a crown of thorns whose points had already pierced himself. In searching for the causes why all this |