Even without the positive infliction of chas- tisement, there is enough to solemnize a saint, in what he sees and knows of things as they are. A dying world ; a groaning creation ; a
/ V
138 THE SOLEMNIZING.
curse-laden earth ; a divided bleeding church ; an absent bridegroom ; — these are, at all times, enough to subdue and soften a believer's frame. And thus he walks through earth, like Paul after he had been in the third heaven — an in- habitant of another star, — one who has his conversation in heaven, — who is too happy ever to be gloomy, but too happy also ever to be light or vain.
CHAPTER XII.
THE WARNING.
AFFLICTION is full of warnings. It many voices, and these of the most various kinds. It speaks counsel, it speaks rebuke, it speaks affection. But it speaks warning' too. Let us hear some of its words of warning. /"" 1. It says, " Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world ; if any man love the world, the love of the father is not in him."* There is no enforcement of this warning so solemn as that which affliction gives. It ex- poses the world's hollowness, and says, " love not." It shows us what a withering gourd its beauty is, and says, " love not." It points out to us its hastening doom, and says, " love not." It declares the utter impossibility of loving both the world and the Father, " If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." " Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God/' There can be no com- panionship between God and the world. They cannot dwell together under the same roof or in
the same heart.
* 1 John ii. 15.
140 THE WARNING.
2. It says, " take heed and beware of covet- ousness."* Riches cannot help, neither earthly comfort avail us in the hour of grief. They cannot dry up tears, nor reunite broken bonds. They cannot heal the living, nor bring back the dead. They profit not in the day of dark- ness. Their vanity and emptiness cannot then be hidden. " Thou fool, this night thy soul shall .be required of thee, then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided." It is then we find that we need a " treasure in the heaven that faileth not." "I counsel thee to buy of ME gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich."
3. It says, " abstain from all appearance of evil."t " Hate even the garments spotted by the flesh." It is not the flesh merely that we are to hate, but even its garments. Nor is it the garments dyed and defiled with the flesh, but even " spotted " with it. It is not merely abstain from evil, but from all appearance of evil. Suffering teaches us to shrink from sin, — • even from the remotest and most indirect con- nection with it. It says, "Oh. do not that abominable thing which I hate."
4. It says, "grudge not one against the
* Luke xii. 15. f * Thes8- v- 22-
THE WARNING. 1 tl
other."* Let there be no half-hearted affection in the family of God. Let there be no envy, no jealousy, no misunderstandings among the brethren. Why should we be less than friends who are both fellow-sufferers and fellow-soldiers here ? Why should we, who are sharers in a common danger and a common exile, bear to each other ought but the sympathies of an in- tense affection? Why should we not love one another with a pure heart fervently? Yet oftentimes it needs affliction to teach us this, to remove our jealousies, and to draw us together as brethren in sympathy and love.
5. It says, "Keep yourselves from idols."t J If there be one remaining idol, break it in pieces, and spare it not. Nothing is so fruitful a cause of suffering as idolatry. Nothing so forcibly displays the vanity of our idols as suf- fering. It is with this whip of chords that Christ scourges out of us the buyers and sellers, —suffering no earthly traffic to proceed in his Father's house.
I give these warnings merely as specimens ; a few out of many which might be adduced. There is no room for citing more, though more might easily be found. The two great points,
* James v. 9. 1 1 Jobu v. 21.
142 THE WARNING.
against which the warnings of chastisement are directed, seem to be, selfishness and world- liness. To scourge these thoroughly out of ua is God's design.
1. Selfishness. " All seek their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ's." This was Paul's complaint, not of the ungodly, but of the churches of Christ. It was the selfishness he saw in the saints that gave occasion to these sorrowful words.