shame and dishonour which the wickedness of professing Christians often brings upon the Saviour's cause,— the wickedness of the neighbourhood in which they dwell-the drunkenness, the Sabbath profanation, the blasphemy which everywhere abound; the miseries which wicked men bring upon themselves and others, both in this world and in the next-must necessarily be peculiarly afflictive to all true Christians. In all these sufferings, then, believers have fellowship with Christ.

Believers are partakers with Christ in all those sufferings which arise from spiritual distress. We would not have supposed that Christ would ever have been exposed to such sufferings; on the contrary, we would have imagined that, as God's well-beloved Son, He would have enjoyed an abiding sense of the Divine love; that, however threatening the storms abroad, there would be perpetual sunshine in His soul. But there are, in the life of Christ, intimations given us, once and again, that He knew what spiritual distress was; as in the agony of Gethsemane, when He offered up strong crying and tears unto Him who was able to save Him from death; and on the cross of Calvary, when He complained of spiritual desertion. There is most certainly a mystery hanging over these sufferings of our Lord, which we cannot penetrate; this is one of those things which angels desire to look into.

Similar sufferings are experienced by believers. They have their seasons of spiritual distress, when the light of God's countenance is obscured. Their spiritual joys and hopes are often withdrawn, and there is the absence of sensible tokens of God's love. They sometimes feel as if God had deserted them, and had for ever withdrawn from them His grace; and thus they are constrained to cry out with the Psalmist, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" Now, it must be to them a blessed consideration, that they have a Saviour who can sympathise with them in these sorrows, that they have fellowship with Christ in these sufferings.

II. But let us consider, in the second place, the benefits arising from fellowship in suffering.

"It is better," says the wise man, "to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. Sorrow is better than laughter: for, by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better." Uninterrupted prosperity has a prejudicial influ

ence over our spiritual nature. It is not good for a man to be always fortunate; success is more frequently a curse than a blessing. Prosperity enervates character, weakens our moral powers, and tempts us to indulge in sloth and carnal enjoyment. We are thus led to forget God; we do not feel the sensible tokens of His presence; we are not alive to our need of Him, and are thus led to self-dependence and arrogance of mind. The world also insinuates itself into our hearts; we seek our happiness in it, and make its riches or honours the chief objects of our pursuits. The school of prosperity is unfavourable to the cultivation of religious feelings; there is much to tempt and draw us aside from God. On the other hand, in the school of adversity, we may form those habits and imbibe those feelings which are conducive to our moral training; here we may learn those lessons which will be useful to us in a world of glory.

Suffering purifies the soul. Affliction is a furnace which purifies. The spirit, loaded with the dross of earth, is purified by trial: the dross is removed, and the grains of pure gold remain. The evils contracted by prosperity are removed by adversity. We are withdrawn from the world; we lose our taste for its pleasures, its riches, and its honours; we are made sensible of its vanity. Our passions are mortified; our pride is humbled under a sense of our own infirmities; our covetousness is overcome by experiencing the vanity of riches; our ambition is weakened by the disappointment of our hopes; our lukewarmness gives place to fervency on the threatened approach of death ; and our hard hearts are softened by an actual experience of suffering. So also our graces are confirmed and strengthened; our faith in God and Christ, our sympathy with the distressed, our patience in suffering, our resignation to the Divine will, our hope of heaven, our dependence on God,-all these graces are exercised by suffering; and thus it is that suffering, in various ways, improves our moral character. "God," says the apostle, "chastens us for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness."

Suffering draws forth the better qualities of a man. There is something in trial which stirs a man's nature to its depths, weakens what is evil in him, and brings to light what is good. How often do we see men improved by trial! Many a man, for example,―perfectly listless and insipid in prosperity, without character, devoid of animation, entirely negative and unmeaning, useless and destitute of energy, a mere cipher, whose death would

be unfelt save in his own family,-is rendered truly noble by adversity, exhibiting virtues which he was never before known to possess, performing Christian works for which he once appeared totally unfit. Even bad men do sometimes, by the noble manner in which they bear adversity, by their heroic demeanour under trial, by the fortitude with which they meet their doom, command our respect, and almost, in our view, atone for their crimes. In many such cases, doubtless, affliction has had a sanctifying efficacy. So also, good men are often vastly improved by affliction. Qualities, formerly latent in the soul, are called forth. Noble feelings,—such, especially, as all the gentle graces, and all the passive virtues,-which were never known to exist, spring, as it were, into being. The seeds of virtue germinate in the hot-bed of affliction, spring up and flourish, and bring forth fruit unto eternal life. It is thus that suffering often makes a man a nobler character, a more marked being-not a mere insignificant unit, but a true man; one who feels that he has a life to live, a destiny to work out, and a character to form. It was good for me," says the Psalmist, "that I was afflicted, that I might learn Thy precepts.”

Suffering enables us to comfort others. Affliction is the great school wherein we are trained to do good to our fellow-men; here we are taught the art of sympathy. We thus learn to feel for others, to sympathise with them, to relieve their necessities. We are not only thereby stirred up to acts of benevolence, but we are taught how best to perform them; not merely to relieve the distressed, but to sympathise with them in their distresses; to remember them that suffer adversity, as being ourselves also in the body, liable to the same calamities. There is a great difference in the manner in which distress is relieved. One person may give largely of his money to the poor, but never come personally into contact with them; such a person experiences little advantage from his charity. But another person mixes with them, visits them in their houses, enters into their feelings, sympathises with them in their troubles; and thus, while in a more effectual manner he relieves their wants, he has at the same time his own heart improved and made better. Prosperity may induce a man to be benevolent; but he cannot, without adversity, enter deeply into the feelings of the distressed. The grace of sympathy is best learned by personal suffering. And hence it is that, in trouble, we seek for comfort from those who have been similarly tried, and who thus can have fellowship with

us in suffering. Men liable to the same infirmities-not angels, however perfect, but who never knew what trial is-are our comforters. "God," says the apostle, "comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted by God."

And lastly, suffering prepares for heaven. Our light affliction," says the apostle, "which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." We have already seen, in part, how it does so. It purifies the soul, improves our moral character, weakens our corruptions, strengthens our graces, draws forth our better qualities, and makes us sympathising, loving, and compassionate. Habits, also, which shall be useful to us in another world are formed by suffering, and could not be acquired by prosperity. In suffering, we are taught our continual dependence on God; then all the passive virtues are exercised, the gentler graces flourish, heaven and the things of heaven occupy our thoughts, faith exhibits to us the abodes of the faithful, and love to Him who died for us, and who sympathises with us in all our troubles, is strengthened and confirmed. The more the soul is purified by trial, the better is it prepared for the mansions of glory. The greater the trials, the sweeter the promises. The heavier the cross, the brighter the crown. The more plentiful the precious seed of sanctified affliction, the more abundant the harvest of joy. And as we are now partakers of the sufferings of Christ, we shall, in a future world, be partakers of His consolations; here, we are made. conformable to His death,-hereafter, we shall be made conformable to His resurrection.

One caution, and with it I conclude. You must not imagine that suffering by itself produces all those benefits which are here mentioned; it does so only when accompanied by the operation of the Holy Ghost. The fire, which melts some metals, hardens others; some are improved by suffering, and others, by reason of their own perverseness, are made worse. It is only unto them who are duly exercised thereby, that affliction yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness.

BLASPHEMY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT:

A SERMON.

BY THE

REV. WILLIAM REID, D.D.,

LOTHIAN ROAD UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, EDINBURGH.

"Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”—Matt. xii. 31, 32.

THE sin against the Holy Ghost has occasioned much perplexity. The learned have differed as to what it is, and the unlearned have feared lest they have committed it. The difficulty is so peculiar, and the distress occasioned by it is so great, that any attempt to solve the difficulty, and thereby remove the distress, is surely becoming.

Our Lord, you will observe, uttered the words before us on the occasion of delivering a man from a blind and dumb spirit. Many of those who witnessed this double miracle, saw in it a proof of His Messiahship, and gave expression to that conviction; for we read, "All the people were amazed and said, Is not this the Son of David?" That is-is not this the Messiah, the Christ? But His inveterate enemies, the Pharisees, made the miracle the ground of the vilest slander, inasmuch as they charged Him with casting out devils by the power of Beelzebub. Now, if ever, it was necessary for Christ to speak, and to speak with no bated breath. Indeed, He might have done something more than speak. Had He struck these revilers dumb for their blasphemy, and blind with a more terrible blindness, He would only have visited their offence with the award which it merited. "But in wrath he remembered mercy." First of all, He defends