תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

authority, and troubled the peace and union of the whole body of the faithful. They corrupted the doctrine of salvation, and endangered the souls of their hearers. This then was the very affliction which would of all others most severely press upon his mind. And yet this he was assured would turn to his salvation; because this he knew would most effectually wean him from himself, take him off from dependence on the creature, place his entire reliance on the divine grace, mortify the remaining pride and selfishness of his heart, teach him his own insufficiency and weakness, increase his value of Christ and his salvation, and quicken his ardent longings after the peace and purity of heaven. Other afflictions, which did not affect him so nearly, would obviously have this tendency in only a proportionably lower degree. It is disappointment in the favourite object, which loosens the soul from earth, and draws it more powerfully towards Christ and heaven.

It has been thus with the sincere servants of God in every age. Jonah must mourn over his withered gourd. Hannah must long remain childless. David must fly from his throne. Jacob must lose his beloved Rachel. Abraham must offer up Isaac,-even he that had received the promises, his only begotten son. God knows the most tender part, and suits his providences to our temptations and our necessities. The very thing which our disposition, our turn of mind, our duties and pursuits make most dear to us, he will sometimes smite, on purpose that we may adequately feel the stroke. Thus we learn to subdue an excessive passion, to be separated from the creature, to know our own hearts, to die to the world, and to live by faith in closer union with Christ our Lord. No created thing ought to be essential to our happiness. When general afflictions have been applied in vain, some more piercing and appropriate calamity is often suffered to arrive, in

B B

order to leave such a deep and abiding impression, as may produce in us afterwards the peaceable fruits of righteousness.

This effect, however, is not always obvious and direct. The expression, I know that this shall TURN to my salvation, seems to imply that such a consequence shall eventually take place, though things may appear for a time to have a very different tendency. Afflictions may seem rather to threaten to injure and retard our salvation; they may be brought about by wicked instruments; much that is connected with them may be criminal and sinful, so far as the agents themselves are concerned; they may for a time excite distrust and unbelief and murmurs in our minds; they may remove us from the means of grace, may expose us to peculiar temptation, may check our joy in religion and paralyse our exertions, may deprive us of the occasion of doing much good, may lessen our strength and capacities for the service of God, and abridge our influence over others; and yet at length they may turn and fall out, unexpectedly perhaps, and even wonderfully, to our final benefit. They may be diverted from their apparently natural tendency, and be guided to a new and surprising event. Out of the eater, to apply the proverbial expression, may come forth meat, and out of the strong may come forth sweetness. Like the component parts of an efficacious medicine, they may lose their distinct and proper qualities, and be so modified by combination, that they shall exert new agencies, and produce effects of a higher and more important order. The Christian may not remark this operation for a long time; in some instances he may never be able to discern it but yet, the process is not the less sure. He may think a particular trial to be decidedly hostile to his best interests, and to be approaching him as an enemy; but ere long, like Esau when

coming to meet Jacob, it shall forget, as it were, its fierceness, and embrace him with the tenderness of a brother.

Nothing could seem to be more unlikely for the good of the Apostle Paul, than the envy and divisions occasioned by the false teachers; and yet God ordained them for his salvation. Nothing could appear more unpromising to Joseph than the jealousy of his brethren, his being sold to the Ishmaelites, his removal to Egypt, his being falsely accused by the wife of Potiphar, and then cast into prison and forgotten. How could these events be capable of promoting Joseph's salvation? Yet they doubtless humbled him before God, prepared him for his future elevation, protected him from the pride of power, and guarded him in the court of Pharaoh. Who can say that there was any part of these dispensations which was not absolutely necessary, in the order of means, to his reaching heaven? We are so full of folly and perverseness and worldliness, so subject to declension in religion, so apt to be languid and cold and formal, so ready to relapse into temptation, so prone to choose a flowery path rather than a safe one, so little able to judge of our dangers and our enemies, that we should inevitably depart from our God, if his gracious care did not order and direct the affairs of life, so as to promote, not perhaps our fancy but our benefit, not our feelings but our graces, not our fond schemes and projects but our attention to our heavenly vocation, not the interests of time but of eternity, not our ease but our salvation. And surely if we resign ourselves, nay submit with gratitude, to salutary medical discipline, however painful or severe, much more should we lie patiently in the hands of that heavenly Physician who understands intimately all our spiritual maladies, who perceives the tendency of our circumstances, who knows the stations to which he

means to call us, and sees the indispensable necessity of preventing or checking the pride and vanity and self-confidence to which we are so greatly prone.

O infinite mystery of divine mercy, wisdom, and grace! O the unsearchable depths of the counsels of redemption! And is it then in this way, O our God and Saviour, that, unknown to us, thou art furthering our final salvation? How unfathomable is thy love, that, after the sacrifice of thy own life on the cross, thou hast condescendingly brought us to thyself by the secret energy of thy Spirit, and still guardest us in the ways of righteousness by thy providential control! And is it thus that thou leadest us, as thou didst Israel of old, in order to humble us and to prove us, to know what is in our hearts, to do us good at our latter end? Is it thus that thou bringest us by a right way to a city of habitation? Ŏ continue thy goodness and mercy to us! O leave us not to our own choice and our own wisdom! O administer to us such discipline as thou seest needful for us! O preserve us in thy faith, fear and love, and "grant that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal."

We now come to consider,

II. THE PARTICULAR MANNER IN WHICH THIS CONFIDENT HOPE OF THE HUMBLE CHRISTIAN WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED-through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

The sanctifying effect of all events is produced by the mutual prayer of Christians for each other, and by the gracious influences of the Holy Ghost. The first is the appointed means, the second is the efficient cause. The first regards our duty, the second the influence of divine grace. The two are inseparably united. God gives his Spirit, ordinarily, in answer to prayer.

The effectual fervent prayer even of an individual Christian on behalf of others, availeth much. United supplications are yet more successful for our Saviour has said, If any two of you agree on earth, touching any thing ye shall ask, it shall be done unto you of my Father which is in heaven. The intercessions therefore of all the several Christian churches for the Apostle Paul must have been eminently calculated to ensure the divine blessing upon him in his afflictive circumstances. This is implied in his language to them. He says to the Corinthians, Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver; in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us; you also helping together by prayer for us. And to the Ephesians, Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the Gospel; for which I am an ambassador in bonds. He tells Philemon, Withal prepare me also a lodging, for I trust through your prayers I shall be given unto you. He exhorts the Thessalonians and the Hebrews, Brethren, pray for us.

THE CONSEQUENCE OF THIS FERVENT SUPPLICATION for St. Paul was that favourable direction of all the events in which he was concerned, which he was persuaded God would vouchsafe him. We are dependent for many blessings on each other, and God attaches to mutual prayer his highest graces. Now never was any one more beloved by the whole body of the faithful than the holy Apostle; never was a closer intercourse of intercession maintained than between him and the several churches which he had planted. On his part he remembered each of them without ceasing in his prayers, he always laboured fervently for them in prayer, that they might stand

« הקודםהמשך »