more fruitful, so does God purify and sanctify believers by the circumstances of life in which He places them.
Trial, to speak plainly, is the instrument by which our Father in heaven makes Christians more holy. By trial He calls out their passive graces, and proves whether they can suffer His will as well as do it. By trial He weans them from the world, draws them to Christ, drives them to the Bible and prayer, shows them tiieir own hearts, and makes them humble. This is the process by which He " purges " them, and makes them more fruitful. The lives of the saints in every age, are the best and truest comment on the text. Never, hardly, do we find an eminent saint, either in the Old Testament or the New, who was not purified by suffering, and, like His Master, a " man of sorrows."
Let us learn to be patient in the days of darkness, if we know anything of vital union with Christ. Let us remember the doctrine of the passage before us, and not murmur and complain because of trials. Our trials are not meant to do us harm, but good. God chastens us " for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holi- ness." (Heb. xii. 10.) Fruit is the thing that our Mas- ter desires to see in us, and He will not spare the pruning- knife if He sees we need it. In the last day we shall see that all was well done.
Notes. John xv. 1 — 6.
1. — [I am. ..Vine. ..Father. ..husbandman^ In this and the follow- ing chapter, our Lord proceeds to give instruction rather than consolation. Having cheered and comforted the timid disciples in the fourteenth chapter, He now presses on their attention certain great truths which He would have them specially re- member when He was gone. And He begins by urging the ab- solute necessity of close union and communion with Himself, by means of the illustration of a vine and its branches.
We must always remember that the passage before us is a parable, and as a parable must be interpreted. We must be
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