324 THE ISSUES OF AFFLICTION. days are darkened by the death of one we love, or when a long or incurable illness becomes our lot. Then plainly, and without any disguise, the cross is laid upon us. These are not complex and mysterious events, in which we may be at a loss to recognise the divine hand, but we see the direct and immediate work Here we have the strongest consolation, of God. Christ. Here is the true following of The obligation is express and universal. We must follow Christ without the gate, bearing His reproach. The denying of ourselves daily seems to be the minor degree of which the taking up the cross is the greater. Day by day we shall find both-the constant opening for self-denial, the absolute necessity in the divine life for taking up the cross. The Christian must bear it meekly, submissively, enduringly, even as the Divine Sufferer toiled up the steep of Golgotha beneath His awful burden. We pray to God for all such that He will give them patience under their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions. That happy issue God often vouchsafes His people,―restoring joy to their dwellings, and giving them the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Often it comes late, and, indeed, is none other than the issue of all things, when all our afflictions come to their natural term. Indeed, properly speaking, there is no other respite. Selfdenial is a revealed path, and the cross a daily lot. THE USES OF TEMPTATION. 825 The Christian's hope is the crown at the last, when the good and faithful servant shall enter into his Master's joy. These 3. Daily temptation. There may be some fine natures with whom life moves on in such exact harmony of outward and inward circumstances, that, comparing their lot with the lot of others, we may almost say that the tempter toucheth them not. But there are others whose whole life seems fraught with temptation. Temptation encompasses them on every side. There is no avenue of sense or spirit, but they find there the potent incursions of this inimical warfare. The enemy indeed comes in as a flood. temptations awfully indicate the radical corruption of our fallen nature. But even the subject of temptation admits a large measure of consolation. The fact that the temptation is felt, indicates that the temptation is resisted. Temptation is the law of the Christian life. "Something," says Cecil, "must be left as a test of the loyalty of the heart: in Paradise, the tree; in Israel, a Canaanite; in us, temptation." In itself, temptation is not sin. The very multitude of temptations may even be a help to the heavenward course. For here, too, is a likeness to our Lord, who was tempted on all points like as we are, yet without sin. "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.' Those incessant, fiery trials of temptation may be purifying the soul, and fitting it for shape and use. "When God besets the soul with temptations, He 326 THE BESETTING SIN. is calling it to something high in spiritual enterprise and great in spiritual attainment." Some eminently good man has said that prayer, meditation, and temptation make the minister. so Wordsworth: "More skilful in self-knowledge, ever more pure As tempted more; more able to endure As more exposed to suffering and distress; And One very distressing form of temptation is the temptation to the besetting sin. I am not sure whether, in Hebrews xii. 1, "the sin that doth so easily beset us," is an accurate rendering of the text; but I am quite sure that the received text represents a profound and unhappy truth. On every side we are surrounded by the possibilities of many sins, and preeminent in the ghastly crew is the besetting sin. The danger is lest the besetting sin should beset us so often and closely that it should become a habit of second nature, and work itself into the very constitution of our being. It is a miserable case when the besetting sin becomes the bosom sin. Self-recollectedness is of the very highest importance. I may say that it is important to those of a temperament easily excitable. Such soon find that their spirituality of mind is very easily unhinged. They may have been happy in their prayers and avocations, their reading and meditation. From this attitude of quietness and devoutness they pass into SELF-RECOLLECTEDNESS. 327 the busy world, to some conflicts of minds and interests, to some scene of social enjoyment and entertainment, or, speaking generally, into some worldly scenes, where the reaction from the devout life is very real. Such a reaction is fraught with a measure of peril to the soul. The mind becomes dissipated, or is strongly allured in some direction contrary to the bent of the best impulses. Then comes-I would say inevitably-a disinclination for prayer and the study of the Word of God-the two matters which are both cause and symptom of disastrous declension. This, I believe, was the reason why the pious Puritans objected generally to the whole system of innocent relaxations, and why their system, at least in part, largely moulds the opinions of many at the present day. Let it be said that they proceeded, not on fanciful, but on very real grounds. The danger is real, and the Puritanic way of fighting it-namely, by absolute flight-was, in one point of view, a very good way, and is sometimes the only way. Still, carried out to its logical results, this method would land us at the absurd conclusion of the anchorite's life or the Puritan's formalism. There is yet a more excellent way. Let us prepare ourselves beforehand for what is coming upon us. Let us distinctly recognise the difficulty and the temptation. Let us make such a matter of prayer and of sacred resolve. When the difficulty or the temptation arises, let us momentarily retire into ourselves. Let us hush the tumult of the mind by |