ment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

Take, for example, the course of this world. The course of this world is a temptation: it abounds with opportunities of doing what is displeasing to God, but is pleasing to men. Friends flatter, inclination persuades, custom leads: then is the trial of faith. "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." But which will ye serve? Will you follow common

practice; i. e. will you follow the world, against God's will? or will you obey what you believe to be the will of God, and leave the world to think of you as it may, and treat you as it chooses? No one can go through life without encountering such temptation, in some shape or other. And when such trial of faith has been successfully undergone; when there has been such contest, and faith has proved victorious, then he may count it joy. He carries testimony about him, that he is not one who once "gladly received the word, and in time of temptation falls away: but one who "retains the word in an honest and true heart, and brings forth fruit with patience."

Even the assaults of Satan may, in the end, furnish ground for satisfaction. A besetting sin is a trial courting compliance, urgent for concession. It may be suffered to remain and harass. God, we know, permitted the enemies of the Israelites to remain, for the express reason that he might prove them, "whether they would keep the way of the Lord." 3 And for a like reason he permits his people to remain with hearts Judges xi. 22.

3

still liable to transgression, and he permits Satan to tempt them to transgress: he allows "the flesh to lust against the spirit," that this trial of faith may work patience may prove constancy, and sincerity, and self-denial. There must be proof-such is human fickleness-proof that we are not satisfied with resolving against sin, but are actively opposing it-proof that we can resign something present for the sake of promises to be fulfilled hereafter-proof that, "if the right hand offend thee, thou canst cut it off, and cast it from thee," rather than disobey the commands of God. Though therefore for the time the Christian grieves at trials like these -as the Israelites must have grieved when harassed by the Philistines; though this he will especially lament, that so much corruption should still remain within him;—yet in the end he will count it joy: he has had strength to "take up the cross and deny himself:" he has been not "a hearer only, but a doer of the word :" he "has resisted, striving against sin:" and therefore he trusts that the blessing may be his, which is promised to the man " who endureth unto the end."

The inference, then, to be drawn from this passage is full of comfort: of comfort to all, at least, who are content to regard this world in a true scriptural light, not as a world of enjoyment, but a world of laborious preparation. It is a comfort to know, that all things, whether pleasing or displeasing now, shall work together for good to them that love God. Afflictions, reproach, disappointments, losses, whatever the craft and subtlety

of the devil or man worketh against us, do not "spring out of the dust," but are part of a foreknown and predetermined plan, leading the Christian to final glory.

4. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

This must be well remembered. Not temptation, but resistance of temptation: not affliction, but the patient endurance of affliction: not loss or sacrifice, but cheerful submission to the loss or sacrifice, proves the faith to be perfect and entire. Just as it is not the entering into the crucible, but the coming out of the crucible as gold tried in the fire; not the application of the touchstone, but the result of the test, which proves the metal to be pure and unalloyed. Job has been handed down to us as an example of patience, not because his children were taken from him, and his substance plundered, and his body wasted by disease: but because, when all these things were against him, he had yet strength to say, "Shall we receive good from the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?" 4. because patience had its perfect work, and he endured to the uttermost, exclaiming, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." 5

So when God saw fit to try the faith of his servant Abraham, and to say unto him, "Take thy son, thy only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him 96 as a sacrifice on the altar-the trial itself could not be counted joy. The command

* cho xi. 10.

5 ch. xiii. 15.

6 Gen. xxii. 2.

which was laid upon him, to slay his eldest son, could be spoken of in no other way than as an afflictive dispensation. It was when his faith had proved stronger than his natural feelings; when his love to God had enabled him to overcome his paternal affection-it was then that he was happy to have endured. He was found perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Nothing could separate him from the love of God. So St. Paul bids the Hebrew Christians to have confidence; not because, after they had received the truth, they had been forced to enter upon "a great fight of affliction ;" but because, though assailed, they had come off victorious. Their patience had endured. It is not the contest which gratifies, but the triumph: not the afflictive process, but the glorious result. Had Job, like the Redeemer, known the calamities which awaited him, Job also might have prayed, that so bitter a cup might pass from him. St. Peter spoke as one who knew the feelings which belong to man, when he addressed his people as those who might now “be in heaviness through manifold temptations." And so Paul: "No chastening is for the present joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby."7

But the delightful result of the whole is to see the wisdom and the mercy of God thus employed in the preparation of his people for the glory to which he has called them. Trials, we find, have a purpose; and that purpose is, that the people of God may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

7 Heb. xii. 11.

Had Job fallen into no such temptation as that which his his extraordinary misfortunes brought upon him, he might have practised integrity, and charity, and piety; but in sight of that “cloud of witnesses," which behold the people of God struggling against an evil nature and a tempting world, in their sight it would not have been shown that his faith could bear reverses; that he could feel towards God, when chastening him with adversity, as he had felt towards him when loading him with worldly blessings. And so in every case. Trials are sent to the people of God as the discipline, the preparation which the soul requires. Opportunity is thus given, that they may "add to their faith, virtue, and temperance, and patience," and resignation that after having "suffered for a while, the God of all grace may stablish, strengthen, settle them."

Shall we not, in conclusion, pray, Lord, increase our faith! To whatever trials the course of thy providence may lead us, enable us to "glory in infirmities," to " endure hardships," to " fight a good fight, to keep the faith," to "look not on the things that are seen, which are temporal, but at the things which are not seen, and are eternal!" Because, "Blessed is the man who endureth temptation : for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him."