the cross shall return with Him to the Father's abode, clad in the royal robe of His righteousness.

Such is the way in which this sovereign consolation of Christ appears to us. It alone corresponds to the gravity of the misfortune, it alone is proportioned to its intensity, it alone reaches the lowest depth of our woes; and it has this glorious characteristic, that it proceeds in a certain sense from the bowels of suffering, but of suffering transformed, sanctified, and raised to the height of a free and loving sacrifice. It is not a consolation which merely dries up a few tears, or scatters a few flowers along our path; no, it attacks the very root of our sufferings. Our Comforter is the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. In all our distresses therefore, and in all our shipwrecks, there is but one shelter, and that is the

cross.

Behold the afflicted multitudes who from age to age ascend with groans the holy mountain: they are the representatives of every human sorrow. As they mount they utter the sad cry, "Son of David, have mercy on me. But when they have prostrated themselves before the holy Victim, and are descending from Calvary, nothing but hosannahs is heard, and a Divine joy beams on the countenances which had been wasted by suffering. Let us join these wailing crowds, let us ascend the holy mount: we shall not be deceived in our expectations; for our sorrows were borne on that great day, and for us also Christ said, "It is finished."

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III.

Suffering in its bearing on Conversion.

"My son, be not weary of his correction."-PROV. iii. 11.

We have

I HAVE spoken of our misery and of our hope. seen comfort arise even from suffering, since the Redeemer bore our sorrows, and transformed death, which is the sum of them all, into a free sacrifice of love, a holy offering, acceptable to His Father. Suffering, however, has not disappeared from the world since that great immolation, and not one tear less has been shed on earth since it was sprinkled with atoning blood. Eden has not been reopened, and the lamentations of the desolate still rise from our midst, drowning the songs of joy. Why this permanence of suffering? How can we explain the fact that affliction and pardon subsist together? Our text answers the question. "My son," says God to the sufferer, "do not be weary of My correction." In other words, there is nothing in your present affliction to make you despair, not even when it blasts everything around you and bows you down to the dust whither you are so soon to descend. Do not grow weary beneath its most cruel strokes. A great design is being carried out in regard to you. To show the beneficent result of suffering, with reference to the unconverted man, will be the object of this discourse and the best commentary on the text.

Let us first of all acknowledge that suffering is altered in character as soon as we enter into possession of the Divine favour. It is no longer absolute and irremediable; it forms part of the plan of Divine love. It has therefore undergone a radical transformation. An unpardoned world would be like the earth in the days of the deluge, when it

was wholly covered with a black and stormy night, and when the darkness of the sky corresponded to the darkness of the abyss. It is not so now; pardon has caused a brighter light than that of the rainbow to shine amidst the terrible gloom; Divine love irradiates the awful scene. The waters, it is true, still cover our shores, and fold them in a sombre winding-sheet. Affliction moves on like a wave that breaks upon every bank; but then on this sea there falls the rich light of a clear sky. Let us never forget that we no longer inhabit a world subject to the curse; the sentence has been blotted out. It has pleased God to reconcile all things to Himself by the blood of the cross. As long as this cross rises between our world and heaven, it will be the august sign of this reconciliation. On the accursed tree the curse ended, and human history henceforth unfolds itself beneath the eye of a merciful God, who can make all things work together for our everlasting good. This is the predominant and capital fact. A message of peace has been proclaimed ; a tender and glorious blessing hovers over our world.

True, suffering has not ceased to bear its character of chastisement. Evil still begets death, and sin has lost nothing of its bitterness; but then chastisement is not the execution of a decree against which there is no appeal. Redeeming love presides over it, as over our whole life; it is present in our sufferings. The hand that strikes is the hand that saves; and instead of the sword which wounds only to kill, I behold the paternal rod. Thus, far from there being any contradiction between pardon and affliction, they both tend to the same end. In my afflictions I find all my pardon, and in the chastisements which descend upon me all the love of the Redeemer.

It is not enough, however, to understand that in a general way affliction forms part of the plan of Divine love; we must seek to know how it helps to realize it.

1. First of all, it acts as a dyke against the overflow of evil, it incessantly restrains and thrusts it back. Imagine a rising ocean tide with no ebb, incessantly advancing, and

covering first the rocks along the shore, then the vallies, then the plains, then the mountains, engulfing fields and towns, urging on its way without a pause, inflexibly pursuing its devastating course till all life had disappeared. This is the picture of what evil would be if left to itself, without suffering to restrain it. Imagine all lusts, all passions, all evil desires, meeting with no obstacle, gradually accumulating hour by hour, and tell me what would become of the moral world. Man would attain to the infinite in evil. But the infinite of evil is destruction and annihilation, and at the foot of the slope of sin is the bottomless pit! But every day this formidable flood of iniquity is held back by an irresistible power; sin finds its limit in suffering; passion strikes against pain as against a fatal bourne, where it perishes; lust is quenched in disgust; however insatiable the thirst for pleasure, the cup of delight always contains bitter and terrible dregs which compel the most eager lips to turn from it; and death is there, to say to the raging waves of our dissolute passions, "Thus far shall ye go, and no farther!" Thus far, namely to that grave-stone against which evil always dashes itself at last! In short, it is a fact that if anything prevents our world from being destroyed by its own corruption, if there is a healthful substance, a purifying salt to stay this putrefaction, it is suffering and death. Yes, however startling the paradox may appear, pain is a restraining and preserving power in this sinful world.

2. But suffering is not a blessing simply because it acts as a restraint; but also, and especially, because it acts as a preparative. It is a bridle, but also a spur urging us towards the cross. Let us call to mind what our redemption is; we shall then understand the important part which affliction plays in the work of salvation. There was found a pure and holy Man, a true representative of our fallen race, because He was the Eternal Word, the only begotten Son, who had formed it in His image. He bore on His innocent head the burden of its condemnation; He entered into perfect fellowship with its suffer

ings; He was "the Man of sorrows;" and therefore He was the representative of the fallen race. Crowned with thorns, insulted with the grossest outrages, burdened with a cross, the symbol of all that is most terrible in death, He ascended Calvary and expired there. Now it was truly the sin of humanity, its fundamental sin, hatred of God, which drove the nails into His lacerated body. Exhibited as a spectacle to the earth which cursed Him, and to the heaven which veiled itself in darkness, and feeling the suffering of all generations entering into His soul, at the same time raising this suffering to the height of a great sacrifice by acceptance of all the consequences of the fall, not one of which He had deserved, He rendered His death a perfect satisfaction of Divine justice, a glorious atonement, a striking retractation of the rebellion of the first Adam; and so that which seemed to be the curse became the blessing, even salvation. It was thus the heart of man replied to the heart of God. An infinite suffering, an unlimited obedience,-such was the cross. At this cost heaven and earth were reconciled, and salvation was consummated.

great work of that and we can derive Apart from this, the faults to no purpose.

But it was in our name that the hour of atonement was performed, benefit from it only as we ratify it. righteous One died and expiated our He only will be saved who unites himself to Christ, not with a view of offering again a sacrifice which was perfect in itself, but in order to make it his own by an earnest acceptance and a living faith. If the imputation of Christ's merits was all external, it would be found that He had obeyed in order to dispense us from obeying. If that had been His object, He need not have left heaven at all. True, we are not shut up to our own merits; we believe most firmly that we could never succeed in weaving a wedding garment such as would allow of our sitting down at our heavenly Father's banquet. We must receive it from the Redeemer's hands, and this robe is His own royal robe, which He has dyed in the crimson of His