: in His goodness, to do it in our stead. Sometimes He lops off the shoots from His vine, sometimes digs around His fig-tree, and sometimes transplants His flowers into another bed and as the weak eye often does not know the rank shoots and weeds to be what they are, it is equally blind to the means He sees fit to employ for their extirpation. It may be quite a secret and inconsiderable cross, and yet it may work great effects upon the character. A slight which has been experienced, the failure of some petty enjoyment, a broken sleep, a misunderstanding with a friend, all these are things which, in the hand of the Gardener, may be used as instruments to eradicate the weeds. Never then, O reader, open thy mouth against the Sovereign Disposer of all events, either on account of the great or the little crosses of thy life. Know that all is well ordered, and expressly calculated to heal thy infirmity. Wilt thou not so far put trust in Him? Remember thine eye and thine understanding are no match for His. Unerring is His skill, Who undertakes Thy cure; And patiently endure; It matters not what instrument he wield, 28. Le hath filled me with Bitterness. Because thou art alone when sorrow lowers, Of man's deep wretchedness and woe, None like the holy PROPHETS know. LAM. iii. 15-39. "He hath filled me with bitterness, He hath made me drunken with wormwood. He hath also L broken my teeth with gravel stones, He hath covered me WHAT HAT are all the heartbreaks and tribulation of which any of us have to complain, compared with what the witnesses for God in the olden times endured? The Lord bids us "rejoice, and be exceeding glad for great," He says, "is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you; "1 and He thereby directs our attention to the fact that as we are not the first, so neither also shall we be the last whose appointed lot it is to eat the bread of sorrow, whether in the Lord's cause or on some other account. As in the ark of the covenant, so upon His table the rod and the manna are placed side by side.2 In this view it is likewise consolatory to read in the Old Testament the histories of those worthies whom the Epistle to the Hebrews calls the cloud of witnesses, and in the 11th chapter mentions by name. But above the rest, I have always found that my faith was greatly strengthened by reading the prophet Jeremiah. Truly he was a man of tears. Can any one hear without being deeply moved, when, for instance, at the commencement of the 9th chapter, he exclaims, "O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people"? or when, in his Book of Lamentations, he bewails his lot in the passage cited as the text, and in a subsequent verse cries out, "Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people: mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not without any intermission, till the Lord look down and behold from heaven"? Think of the great personal sufferings, the unmeasured derision, the blows, the cruel imprisonment, and all but a death by hunger, which he endured for the testimony he bore to the truth. But little did he account of his own calamities when compared with those of his people. Yes, this prophet is the right master to teach us the duty of looking on the affliction of others as if it were our own. These Lamentations were written at the time when King Zedekiah, with his eyes put out and his limbs bound with fetters of brass, was dragged off to Babylon-when Jerusalem and the Temple were burned, the wall of the city laid level with the ground, and the whole population of the land, save some of the poorest class, carried away into captivity. It was then that the prophet took his seat upon the ruins of the city 2 Heb. ix. 4. 8 Jer. xx. 37, 38. 1 Matt. v. 12. "2 which had once been "great among the nations, and a princess among the provinces." 1 He had tarried behind with the poor remnant of the people; but even from them he reaped only mockery and insult, and at length was obliged to accompany them on their flight to Egypt, although assuring them at the time that the strong arm of Nebuchadnezzar would reach them even there. "I was a derision," he says, "to all my people, and their song all the day." 2 We see from this that even strong-minded men like the prophets knew the bitterness and temptation of despair no less than we, the weakly children of an effeminate age. And surely in the fellowship of their tears there is strong consolation. O heaven! is it possible that a man like Jeremiah could cry out: "Ever since I spake, and cried, and preached of violence and spoil, the word of the Lord has been made a reproach unto me, and a derision daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name: but His word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay"? Is it possible that such a man of faith could curse, like Job, the day of his birth, and say, “Would that He had slain me from the womb, or that my mother might have been my grave"? 3 I always supposed that seasons in which the tempter thus fiercely assails the soul were a secret of my own history, and here I plainly read that such seasons were known even to God's holiest servants. And, doubtless, there are many of whom we least suspect it, and who yet are wading in the deep waters up to the throat. Blessed, therefore, be God for the comfort that I can extract from their lamentations. I now know with greater certainty than I ever hoped for, that even when we feel the bitter pain of temptation, and when Satan seems to be on the point of laying hands upon our souls, the mercy of the Lord does not fail. The Psalmist says it is new unto us every morning. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."4 1 Lam. i. I. Lam. iii. 14. 3 Jer. xx. 9, 17. 4 Psalm xxx. 5. Yes, even in the darkest nights of tribulation an inward voice whispers that His compassion will reappear with the dawn. "Thou wilt remember these things," he here says, "for my soul telleth me." 1 Yes, my soul telleth me" that He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." And if He do it unwillingly, the correction, when it has accomplished its purpose, will come to an end. "Though He cause grief," saith the prophet, "yet will He have compassion, according to the multitude of His mercies." And again, "It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." Such are the words of this man of tears-of him who had preached for half a century, and continually earned for his pains only fresh contradiction and ingratitude; and, being his, they are words of experience, on which we can safely build. I too, therefore, will "put my mouth in the dust, if so there may be hope." Wait patiently the happy hour For come it surely will with power, Nay, more, to put to shame thy fear, All that the prophet suffered, he suffered from his fellowmen; and when the Lord puts into human hands the rod of our chastisement, the chastisement is always worse to bear than when He keeps it in His own. And for this many reasons may be assigned. One is that when it is man who brings his brother into the furnace, it is less easy to think, according to the words of David, that "the Lord hath bidden him." In such cases, likewise, more than in others, the old Adam resists more stoutly, and therefore it is necessary always to bear in mind with Jeremiah, "Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?" How precious a text this is! It teaches us, in the first place, that all misfortunes, however insidious may be their attacks, are mere agents and 1 Lam. iii. 20-Luther's vers. |