ministration of his word. Above all, be sure to look to God, and not to man ; lest you provoke your God to jealousy, and he withhold from your souls his saving benefits.]
THE TRIALS OF CHRISTIANS THE MEANS OF MAGNIFYING THEIR LORD.
2 Cor. iv. 11. We tckick lire are alivay delivered tmto death for Jesiis sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
THAT the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, was the Creator of all things, is readily ac- knowledged : nor will the assertion, that " without him was not any thing made that was made," be for a moment disputed by any one who beheves the Scriptures : but when the same expressions are used in reference to the events of daily occurrence, they gain not the same easy access to our minds : yet it is true in reference to all the works both of providence and grace, that " without him is not any thing done that is done :" all the evil that is done, is done by his permission : and all the good, by his agency. To direct the attention of men to him as the Sove- reign Disposer of all events, is the continual aim of the sacred writers, who teach us to regard him as ^' upholding all things by his own power," and over- ruling them for his own glory. One reason for his committing the ministration of his Gospel to a few poor fishermen was, that the enriching of the world with its treasures might not be ascribed to human wisdom, but altogether to the Divine power ^ For the same reason did he leave these ''earthen vessels" to be treated in such a way as almost to preclude a hope of any long continuance of then' ministrations : it was, to give the most decisive evidence to the world, that He reigned on high, and by his almighty power preserved them, till they had finished the work which he had given them to do.
* ver. 7.
2015.] christians' trials magnify their lord. 493
St. Paul, maintaining the authority of his Apostle- ship against those who disputed it, shews, that, whilst the trials to which he was exposed appeared to ren- der his divine mission questionable, the supports and consolations that were afforded him placed it beyond a doubt ; yea, both the afflictions and consolations were sent on purpose that the almighty power and continual agency of the Lord Jesus Christ rnight be the more conspicuously seen, and more universally acknowledged. Twice is this declared in the short space of two verses'' ; and it is a truth that demands from us the most attentive consideration. But that we may take the subject in the connexion in which it stands, we shall shew, I. What was the state of the first Christians—
Perhaps the Apostle primarily refers to himself and his fellow Apostles —
Their trials were beyond all conception great. Whilst their Divine Master continued upon earth, they were screened from persecution "^i but when he was removed, they stood in the fore-front of the battle. At the very commencement of their work, they were all imprisoned, and beaten for their Lord's sake^: and from that time they were treated with all imaginable contempt and cruelty. St. Paul, in this very epistle, enumerates such a catalogue of sufferings as would have broken the spirit of any man who was not miraculously strengthened by Divine grace : " He was in labours more abundant than any other Apostle, in stripes above measure, in prisons more fre- quent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews, he five times received nine-and-thirty stripes ; (forty being the utmost that the Jewish magistrates were authorized to inflict on any criminal ;) thrice was he beaten with rods ; once was he stoned ; thrice he suffered shipwreck ; a night and a day he was (on some piece of a wreck) in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painful ness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness®." Now though he had a greater measure of these trials than others, they were to a very great extent the common lot of all : for it