sorrow come to us from our being true to God's claims, and true in recognising our own responsibilities as creatures, we cannot be said to "suffer as a Christian," as Peter says (1st Epistle, iv. 16). A broken limb, a fever, penury, may be common to me and to my unconverted neighbour - He may repine and I may find in each such sorrow, an occasion of patience, courage, and endurance, as becomes a Christian. Again, in many a question of governments, of commerce, etc., the fear of God, and respect to the just claims of man, will distinguish the consistent Christian from the worldling. But in neither of these two cases does the trial spring from the position in which the faith of Christ has set us; in neither case would a spirit-led heavenlyminded Christian act differently than would a righteous Jew, whose hopes and thoughts went not beyond the earth. But there are sufferings which grow up out of faith in an earth-rejected and heaven-honoured Christ, who, from heaven, has revealed Himself, through faith. Christ has His sympathies and His feelings about things down here, and has a path of sorrow, of death, and resurrection, for His chosen flock to pass through. The sufferings of that path, grow up out of fellowship in life with Christ, and are the expression of intelligence in His mind, and of sympathy with His heart. Such are the sufferings, together with Christ, which we are considering. Pilgrimage and strangership here below; the exercise of heart and mind as seeking His honor among His people; the sorrows of the failure of the testimony, and of the weak state of the flock, with all the suffering that comes out of the holding the position of being one, practically one, one in heart and mind, one in interests and in feelings (alas! how little do we attain to it) with a heaven-honored Christ, who is ever seen to us by faith, while we are in the place where and whence He was rejected, and which, as a place, knows us not, because it knew Him not; these are the sort of sorrows which are meant by suffering as a Christian. His anointing is upon us, and we are one with Him; and we must needs suffer, as ourselves dying daily, if the life of Christ is to be made manifest in us. All God's counsels turn around the Anointed One, so to speak. Because the Son of Man is on high, creatorial, providential, and dispensational, purposes all stand fast, and can be acted upon or towards by God. I cannot doubt but that, because Messiah is on high, Israel is remembered on high; because the Messiah, who is the head of government and worship upon earth, is on high, therefore, also, the nations, as they are, and the nations as they shall be, are thought of and acted towards. But then the spiritual, heavenly believer, while his faith sees all this, and finds joy as to Christ, and rest as to himself in it, knows that the range of life, and of the positive action of the Spirit in life, and as the Comforter or Paraclete is circumscribed. The Lord Jesus has a present testimony connected with His present place, and the Paraclete, has a present work connected with the present faith. God made us what we are, and God found us where we were, and God sees us where we are; but that which is of us while it may be, and is, the occasion for God and Christ to be recognised and honored by us, is a very very different thing from that which flows out of the anointing; which is connected with the Person of the Anointed One who is in heaven, and which we have to live out, and act out, and own here, according to the mind of Christ, and by the Spirit. This, in every part of it, is connected with divine and heavenly grace; but to us, if living in it, with suffering. Not only did the Son of God learn obedience as Son of man, by the things which He suffered, but, further, it was impossible for the life of God to be perfectly displayed in such a world as this, save amid sufferings. Mercy needs circumstances of need and want in which to shew itself. And mercy cannot see such circumstances without a correct, and to itself, a sad, estimate of them in themselves, and of the sin which has produced them. Man may see affliction, and may try to alleviate it, without our hearts really tasting the bitterness, not of those in the circumstances only, but of what caused the circumstances. It was never so with Christ; is never so with the spirit-led man, so far as he is really taught of God. And who can see what the fallen state of the church is, what the triumph of evil, what the supremely good opinion man has of himself is now, and see it with eyes enlightened by the glory of Christ, and with affection quickened towards Christ by the Spirit, and not find a world of woe for him, as a Christian, as one who cares for God and His Christ, as one who enters into and sympathises with Christ in His thoughts, and feelings, and desires, for the glory of God, and the blessing of the people of God down here on earth. Such is the fellowship of his sufferings. To enter into His sympathies to sympathise with Him, and to live out that sympathy, is "suffering together with Christ." "THE CHURCH OF GOD," ACTS xx. 28. "THE Church of God," amazing, precious thought! Angels around the throne that never fell,— The holy patriarchs before the flood, Nor Israel since,-compose the "Church of God." Distinct in glory from the Church they shine, Renew'd and quicken'd by the Holy Ghost, That little band commenced the "Church of God." The Church is one, it has one glorious Head, United to her risen Head above, E'en now she knows the sweetness of His love; Soon will he come and take His Church away - A VERSE OF PRAISE. To Thee, who hast loved us, and saved us by blood, END OF VOL. X. G. LITTLEWOOD, PRINTER, 93, LONDON WALL. T. A.M. |