461

SERMON XXIII.

2 CORINTHIANS i. 3, 4.

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

THE open profession of faith in Christ, to which we have lately called your attention, cannot be unattended with many peculiar difficulties and sorrows. The general beneficial tendency of Christianity will remarkably appear in the manner in which consolation is provided for these emergencies. For the goodness and wisdom of God may be traced, not only in the highest ultimate ends to which these afflictions are made subservient, but also in many intermediate and subordinate purposes. For as sympathy and mutual love are amongst our most difficult and yet most important duties; so, to convey consolation to the injured and

distressed, through the medium of the consolations afforded to their pastors in like circumstances, must have an eminently beneficial tendency, by creating in each a larger measure of that disinterested fellowfeeling, by which the christian morality heals the irritated passions of a distracted world; and by uniting with it in the highest degree, that fortitude and magnanimity and hope of ultimate success, which, when thus conjoined, constitute the highest felicity of which our nature is capable.

Thus St. Paul, in the passage of which the words of the text are the commencement, wishing to animate the Corinthian converts to bear up courageously under persecution, bursts forth into a sublime strain of gratitude to God for having afforded him adequate consolation under his own various troubles, in order that he might be better enabled to convey similar comfort to them. "Blessed be God," says this great apostle, "even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of

the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation."*

There is no one, on reading this song of triumph, but would imagine that the apostle was then at least in a state of peace and tranquillity; with a breathing-time which permitted him to reflect at his ease on past occurrences. But not so; he wrote these words when persecuted on all hands, when making his way through difficulties, when just escaped from "so great a death," that the sentence of it impended still; and when, in short, he had nothing to trust to but "God who raiseth the dead." This magnanimous language is for the consolation of his converts. His sorrows and his joys are appointed him, as channels of his apostolic usefulness amongst his flocks. Their consolation and salvation were bound up in his; and this is the consideration which fills him with the most exalted joy.

The proposition then, which I shall endeavour to illustrate from this fine passage is, That God consoles his faithful people under the sufferings which they have to endure for Christ, by means of the comfort afforded in like cases to ministers.

In considering which, we must notice, the tribulations here referred to; the consolation which Almighty God pours in through the channel of ministers; and the gratitude due to him for this appointment.

* Ver. 3-7.

I. The tribulations themselves here referred to are those which St. Paul and his Corinthian converts were called to endure, for the sake of Christ and the gospel.

What a history of afflictions is that of St. Paul. "We would not, brethren, have you ignorant," he says, in the verse following those I have read, "of our trouble which came to us in Asia; that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead." The apostle is in all probability alluding to the tumult raised at Ephesus by Demetrius and his craftsmen,* when the populace were inflamed with wrath, the whole city was filled with confusion, and Paul was with difficulty restrained by his friends from entering in, and addressing the maddened crowd, who for two hours continued shouting in the amphitheatre, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” His description is the calm recollection of a mind emerged from the confusion of instant danger; and is marked with that devotion and solemnity of thought which follows a great deliverance.* He was then, indeed, " pressed out of measure, beyond strength," by inward disquietude about the state of the churches, concurring with these external dangers; so that his burden was insupportable by any strength which he had previously possessed; and he was led almost to despair of being any + Paley.

* Acts xix.

longer preserved in life to execute his plans of usefulness. He even considered himself as a condemned person, whose doom was inevitable; and who carried about with him "the sentence" of the judge. Nor, indeed, had he any method of escape by his own contrivance or effort, or by any confidence in himself; but was compelled to cast himself unreservedly on the Almighty power of "Him who raiseth the dead;" from the unspeakable blessedness of which no human cruelty could debar him.

This tumult, though most evere, was yet only a specimen of the holy apostle's sufferings for the sake of Christ. Read the account in the Acts, filled up with those details of his afflictions which the boasts of the false apostles compelled him to make in his Epistles. See how "the sufferings of Christ abounded in him;" rose high; swelled as a river; overwhelmed and bore him away. There never was any sufferer, except the blessed Jesus himself, who endured so many kinds of sorrow as St. Paul. He was tossed from wave to wave; he escaped one calamity only to be plunged into another; he was exposed to afflictions all sorts of ways, in every place, from all descriptions of enemies, and throughout the whole course of a long ministry, till he closed the tragical scene under the sword of the executioner.

2. Nor were his converts exempt from a measure of the same tribulations. They also were "in trouble;" the sufferings of Christ abounded in them;"

H H