murmur, either of the lip or heart ? which opens up to us so much more of God, and lets us more fully into the secrets of his heart, must be blessed, however hard to bear. That which discovers to us the evils within ourselves, which makes us teachable and wise, which gives to the stiff wrill flexibility and obedience, which teaches the cold heart to love and expands each straitened affection, which melts the callous conscience into ten- der sensitiveness, — which trains up the whole soul for the glorious kingdom, tjmt must be precious indeed.
Besides it is the Father's will ; and is not this enough for the trustful child ? Is not chastisement just one of the methods by which he intimates to us what he would have us to be ? Is not his way of leading us to the kingdom, the safest, surest, shortest way ? It is still the paternal hand that is guiding us. What though in seeking to lift us up to a higher level, it has to lay hold of us with a firmer, or it may be a rougher grasp ? It is still the paternal voice " that speaketh unto us as unto children," — dear children — only in a louder, sharper tone, to constrain the obedience of his too-reluctant sons.
THE FAMILY DISCIPLINE. 63
One remark more would I add to these con- cerning this family discipline. It is not de- signed even for a moment to separate between them and their God, or to overshadow their souls with one suspicion of their Father's heart. That it has done so at times, I know ; but that it ought never to do so I am most firmly persuaded. Is it not one of the tests of sonship, and shall that, without which we are not accounted sons, make us doubt our son- ship, or suspect the love of our God ? That love claims at all times, whether in sorrow or in joy, our simple, full-hearted, peaceful con- fidence. It is at all times the same, and chas- tisement is but a more earnest expression of its infinite sincerity and depth. Let us do justice to it, and to him out of whom it flows. Let us not give it the unworthy treatment which it too often receives at our thankless hands. Let us beware of " falling from grace," at the very time when God is coming down to us, to spread out before us, more largely than before, all the treasures of his grace. " We have known and believed the love that God hath to us," is to be our song. It ought always to be the family-song ! And shall it cease or sink low at the very time when it ought to be
64 THE FAMILY DISCIPLINE.
loudest and strongest? Should not trial jusi draw from us the apostle's triumphant boast ? " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or per- secution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us ; for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."* For is it not just when we are brought under chas- tening, that wre enter upon the realities of con- solation, the certainties of love, and the joyg of heavenly fellowship, in ways unknown and unimagined before ?
* Rom. viii. 35.
CHAPTER Y.
THE FAMILY RODS.
WE heai of the " rod of the wicked," and we are told that it '• shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous."* This may mean that wicked men are God's rod for chastening his people, and that,, though permitted to light upon them, it shall not rest or abide upon them, but shall be destroyed, as was the Assyrian, who was used by God as the "rod of his anger" for afflicting Israel. In this sense it gives us the blessed assurance that the triumph of the wicked over the saints is short ; that their de- vices and oppressions shall last but for a mo- ment, and that the church's sufferings at their hands shall soon be over. Wicked men may be " the sword of God,"t as was Pilate, when he lifted the sword against the man that was Jehovah's fellow, or as Herod was when he be- headed John in prison; but that sword shall soon be broken. A wound now and then it may inflict, but that is all. It neither moves
* Ps. cxxv. 3. t Ps. xvii. 13.
6*
66 THE FAMILY RODS.
nor smites, save when God allows. Nor does it come, save with a blessing on its edge. " They mean it not so," yet God means it. and that is enough for us. He makes the wrath of man to praise him. " There shall no evil happen to the just ; when he shall hear of evil tidings he shall not be afraid."