Now, in these experiences of the afflicted, there is a real consolation. Such tears are sweet, and it will probably be the unanimous testimony of all true penitents, that they have enjoyed a tender and refined delight in those moments of grief, in which they came to God as a forgiving God, and heard him say to their souls, in accents at once of gentle rebuke and comfort: "Behold I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction," "for mine own sake will I defer mine anger." "For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee: In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer." Isa. liv.

3. Chastisement is useful as a trial of faith.

To use the expression of Bishop Hall, "untried faith is uncertain faith." There often is in professors of religion enough of the semblance of piety to lull their consciences while they are prosperous, but not enough of the reality to support them in time of trial. Adversity makes the exercise of faith needful, and puts the strength of that faith to the test. It is compared to the fire, the furnace, the fining-pot or crucible, because it not only purifies, but tries; it not only consumes the dross, but ascertains the gold.

There is no true believer who does not desire this trial. The very supposition of being found wanting, at the day of judgment fills him with horror. His daily supplication is: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Christian reader, give a moment's thought to this question, "Is your faith sufficient to support you in the hour of death, if that hour (as is very possible) should soon and suddenly arrive?" Are you not ready to sink under ordinary afflictions? How then will you bear this greatest of trials? To adopt the language of Jeremiah, (xii. 5) "If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? And if, in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swellings of Jordan?"

This trial of your faith is plainly important, and it is the office of chastisement to constrain you to such a trial. If your standing in the covenant is so firm, through humble. trust in God, that you can say, "But he knoweth the way that I take, when he hath tried me I shall come forth as VOL. IV. No. III.-2 X

gold," you are happy indeed. But this conviction is not likely to be strong in those who have not passed through the furnace. The apostle Peter, in comforting the dispersed saints, explains to them this end of their chastisement, "If need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found. unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ,"

We have already seen, in the course of our meditations, some of the ways in which faith is tried by affliction. If any be afflicted he will pray. But there can be no comfort in prayer, where there is not a belief that prayer is heard, and will be answered. The supplication of one who pours out strong crying and tears, in a great fight of afflictions, is a very different thing from the formal addresses of one at ease. The sufferer cannot be consoled until he finds that God is his friend; he cannot find this without faith; and in this manner, most directly, chastisement convinces the soul, that it is still unprovided with the shield of faith, or awakens the exercise of this grace, with great and unspeakable satisfaction. And thus the tribulations which have succeeded one another through life, give us stronger and stronger reliance on God, for the approaching hour of death. At some future day it will be sweet to remember how the Lord sealed us with his Spirit of adoption, in these times of trial. Therefore, "beloved brethren, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you, but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that when his glory be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. 4. Chastisement is useful, as it strengthens faith, by leading the believer to the promises, and especially to the Lord Jesus Christ.

shall

There is no expression in the word of God better suited to reconcile the Christian to trials, than that of the Apostle Paul: "He [that is God,] chastens us for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness"-partakers of His holiness! What words are these! This is the very summit of your desires. This you have been toiling for, and longing after. This you have earnestly implored, and are you now ready to shrink from the very means by which your Father in heaven is about to promote your sanctification? By no

means will you be led to relinquish this appointment of God for your good. Now it is by these very trials that your graces are to be invigorated.

We have seen that these trials disclose the reality and degree of our faith. We may go further and observe that faith is greatly increased and strengthened by the same process. Faith is strengthened by exercise. As the touch, or any natural faculty, becomes obtuse and often useless by want of exercise, or the removal of its proper objects, so faith languishes and seems ready to perish, when those truths which are to be believed are long kept out of the mind. The most valuable truths of the Christian are "the exceeding great and precious promises." He does not feel his need of these promises while he is indulging in that self-pleasing which usually accompanies prosperity. In penning these lines we say advisedly, no man can fully value health who has not been sick, nor appreciate the services of the kind and skilful physician, until he has been healed by him. And thus also, no man can fully prize, or fully understand the promises of the Scriptures, until they are made necessary to his support in adversity. Many of the most precious portions of revelation are altogether a dead letter to such as have never been exercised by the trials to which they relate.

The believer who is in sufferings or straits of any kind, comes to God by prayer; and in attempting to pray, seeks some promise suitable to his precise wants. Blessed be God! he needs not to search long-so rich are the treasures of the word. These promises he takes as the very truth of God. He pleads them at the throne of grace; he believes them, relies on them, rejoices in them. This is faith; these exercises are vital exercises of the renewed soul. So long as the Christian is oppressed with affliction, these exercises must be continual; and in proportion as the trial is great, must the faith be great also, so that he often finds every earthly support cut away, and is taught, with implicit trust, to hang on the simple word of Divine faithfulness. This is emphatically the life of piety; and it is encouraged, developed, and maintained in time of trial.

Affliction is sanctified when we are made to feel that nothing can satisfy us but God, and when we actually wait upon God, and rely on Him as our only hope. It is then that the Christian finds the promises confirmed to him: "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every

son whom he recieveth." "No chastening for the present is joyous, but grievous," &c. Then he rolls his burden on the Lord, commits his way to Him, leans upon Him, trusts in Him with all his heart, so that with a meaning altogether new, he can sing with the Church: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble: therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea."

Some appear to entertain the mistaken opinion that the only relief which is afforded to the Christian in suffering, must arise from some hope of speedy deliverance or escape. This is so far from being true, that perhaps the greatest solace under afflictions is derived from direct acts of faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and communion with Him; in which the soul is so much absorbed that the present suffering is forgotten, and the mind wholly occupied in its exercises of piety. And herein the chastisement is profitable. In pain, and despondency, and grief, we go to Jesus as to a friend that sticketh closer than a brother: we pour our sorrows into his friendly ear, and ask his aid, and then, when he reveals to us his love, and speaks his promises, and unveils his face, even though he give no assurance that we shall be set free, he does more, he gives us Himself, and faith is refreshed and nourished by receiving him. And shall we not regard as a mercy, that sickness, or that bereavement, or that alarm, which so embitters the world's cup, as to lead us to Christ, that we may see his beauty, and be filled with his love?

Prosperity leaves us to wander, and offers temptations to wandering. Afflictions alarm us and drive us back to the right path. Prosperity casts a glittering but delusive veil over divine realities, and encourages unbelief. Afflictions rend and destroy this covering, and show us the truths of another world. Prosperity seldom leads to increase of faith. Affliction, by God's blessing, is in many cases, made the instrument of sanctification to such as are truly pious.

Dear Brethren, that God who "doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men," offers you in your trials these "peaceable fruits of righteousness." Taste of the sweetness of his promises, and each of you shall say with David:

"It is good for me that I have been afflicted."

5. Chastisement is useful, because it leads the believer to exercise entire submission to the Divine will.

It is an undeniable truth, and one of which the child of

God is very deeply convinced, that "the Lord reigneth," that it is infinitely right and fit that he should reign; and that the first duty of every intelligent being, is to submit promptly, cheerfully, and unreservedly to every ordinance and dispensation of God. It is not very difficult to keep the soul in correspondence with this truth, so long as our self-love is not interfered with, nor our present happiness invaded; but when the sovereignty of God is manifested in despoiling us of our most precious possessions and delights, our souls are often ready to falter, and our weakness betrays itself when, with hesitating lips we endeavour to say, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" It is common to hear those who are ignorant of the Scriptures cavilling at the representation of Job as a man of eminent patience; but where, except in his biography, shall we look for the instance of a man, suffering in one day the total loss of immense wealth, and of ten beloved children, and still saying, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord."

Without exercise, Christian graces do not grow, and severe afflictions are probably intended to cultivate this important grace of entire submission. Nothing is more common than for persons, under chastisement, to indulge in such thoughts as these, 'I could endure almost any affliction better than this; it is that which I have most dreaded, for which I was least prepared, and now it has overtaken me! It is so strange, new, and unexampled, that I am unmanned, and my soul sinks. within me.' These are the symptoms of a rebellious and unsubdued will; the murmurings of a proud and stubborn heart, which must be humbled in the dust. This is just the trial by which, perhaps, God graciously intends to bring down the imaginations and high thoughts of your soul into captivity to the obedience of Christ. And patience will not have had its perfect work in any case, until the afflicted soul is prepared to make no reservation, to claim no direction, but to give up all into the hands of the most wise, most righteous, and most merciful Creator. If the suffering were less, it would not have this humbling efficacy, and he mistakes the nature of the covenant, who supposes that such peculiar trials are excluded. It was, no doubt, a visitation sudden and alarming as a stroke of lightning, when Aaron beheld his sons consumed by fire from the Lord. It was an awful sanction to that rule, "I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified." Yet, on seeing and