March 22

Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. - Philippians 1:29.

HERE is an honour often conferred upon Christians. Nothing strikes us like a fact; and nothing is ever so impressive as the display and the exercise of the passive graces in the believer. God, therefore, gives his people the grace of being placed in a state of affliction, in order that they may become his witnesses; that they may be examples to display to others the truth of the excellency and efficacy of the religion of the gospel; and they are often enabled peculiarly to glorify God in the fire of tribulation.

Sometimes, when they are laid by, through accident, or an affliction, or a disease, they are ready to think they are approaching a very useless part of their lives. They are led to conceive of it as Job says, as being “made to possess months of vanity,” during which they can do nothing for God or their generation, when, in fact, they have been in such circumstances as to be approaching the most useful part of their lives, when they have been enabled to suffer as Christians; when their whole frame and character has been expressive of the language, O Lord, I mourn, but I do not, dare not murmur; “I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.” “Let, I pray thee, thy merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to thy word unto thy servant.” And how salutary has the effect of this been! how useful has been the impression it has produced! And even where Christians have lived, perhaps, in a mud-wall cottage-stretched, it maybe, on nothing better than a pallet of straw, where they are hardly observed by any of their fellow-creatures-by the manner in which they suffer, for aught we know, they may excite even praise and thanksgiving in another world; for the Apostle tells us we are made a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men.