4. The imagery of this book seems to suggest that the stages of the tribulation are so ordered that it achieves the ends of a great spiritual discipline. The convulsions which rend the earth are one and all determined by movements before the throne of God in heaven. The saints are sealed ere the restless forces of destruc- tion rush forth upon their errands, and the trials which are to prove high qualities take place under the eye of a watching God and amidst the ministries of His messengers. The distracted world is not a sheer anarchy of diabolism, as the sufferers might be tempted to think. The Sovereignty in heaven directs the path * F. J. de Siguenza, The Life of Saint Jerome (ed. 1907), 374.
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of the storms, and the storms do not break till the elect of God are made ready for their ordeals. The appointed cycles of tribu- lation test the faithful as they tested Job in the ancient days. Scenes of disquiet and calamity cannot work the spiritual havoc one might fear, making religious faith all but impossible. In- numerable hosts come forth out of the great tribulation. It is indeed the very discipline that prepares God's people for their triumph. As needful is it that the children of light before the throne should be tried and perfected by their keen and manifold distresses, as that they should be washed from their sins in the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. It is because their fidelity has been verified in the struggles of the past that they are before the throne, to the praise and glory of Him who redeemed them. They are welcomed with tenderness and fostered with exquisite care because of all that through which they have passed. The waving of the palm branches would have been mere pantomime, and the ringing jubilations an empty stage-chorus, apart from the stress, con- flict, and vicissitude over which the Lord's people have triumphed.
If The Kev. J. W. Dickson of St. Helens supplies the following among the obiter dicta dropped by Dr. Paton during his lectures at the Institute at Nottingham: — "When Kichard Baxter was told that he would have a glorious reward because he had suffered so much in the cause of Christ, he replied that he didn't want any reward other than a little more persecution. He was not weary, but willing to have more of it, if God willed it. He gloried in tribulation, like Paul, and panted for more of it, resolutely assured that no foe could work anything upon him other than the will of God desired and permitted." ^
Tj Presumably for most of us tribulation rather than ease con- structs the safe road and the firm stepping-stone. Better to be taught with thorns of the wilderness and briars, than on no wise to be taught. Better great tribulation now than unexampled tribulation hereafter.
Good Lord, to-day
I scarce find breath to say:
Scourge, but receive me. For stripes are hard to bear, but worse Thy intolerable curse;
So do not leave me.
1 John Brovm Paton, by his Son (1914), 362. REV. — 13
194 THE NOBLE ARMY OF MARTYRS
Good Lord, lean down In pity tho' Tliou frown;
Smite, but retrieve me : For so Thou hold me up to stand And kiss Thy smiting hand.
It less will grieve me.
" Tribulation," that is, sifting : sifting reclaims and releases good from bad, while aught of good remains. " Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous : nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." ^
II.
The Triumph.
1. They all come out of the great tribulation. Now they cele- brate their triumph. Every one of them carries the palm of victory. Some reminiscence of the Feast of Tabernacles perhaps lies in the background of the picture. The Jews were accustomed to observe that season of rejoicing by putting up triumphal arches, camping out upon the tops of their houses in arbours of ever- greens and waving branches of trees, thus testifying to their joy at escaping from the hand of Pharaoh, and from the terrible plagues which had blasted the country of their sojourn. This vision assures the exiled Seer that the life beyond the veil is a festival of victory. He had perhaps been tempted to look upon himself and his companions in tribulation as defeated, crushed, fatally discredited, and overthrown. But the victims of a pagan persecuting Imperialism are now seen to be victors, and they ascribe their salvation to God and to the Lamb, who Himself con- quered sublimely at the cross in His apparent overthrow. They have risen above those judgments of wrath which a retributive Providence let loose for a time upon the world to desolate the adversaries of Christ's Kingdom. They have triumphed over unseen hosts, leagued together against God's elect and the cause they had at heart. Through faith they have prevailed against the wrath of Antichrist, and the great pagan empires are led captive
1 Christina G. Rossetti, The Face of the Deep, 235.
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to adorn their triumph. They have proved stronger than their own frailties in all the distresses appointed for the testing of their fidelity. By their contemporaries they were counted as filth and offscouring. They left the world as defeated men, un- pitied as they were thrown to the wild beasts, scoffed at as the sword fell upon them ; but they reappear in the realms of light "more than conquerors."