"Who comforteth us in all our affliction, that we may be
able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith
we ourselves are comforted of God."
2 Cor. i. 4.
IF there is one point of character more than another which belonged
to St. Paul, and discovers itself in all he said and did, it was his power
of sympathising with his brethren, nay, with all classes of men. He went
through trials of every kind, and this was their issue, to let him into
the feelings, and thereby to introduce him to the hearts, of high and low,
Jew and Gentile. He knew how to persuade, for he knew where lay the perplexity;
he knew how to console, for he knew the sorrow. His spirit within him was
as some delicate instrument, which, as the weather changed about him, as
the atmosphere was moist or dry, hot or cold, accurately marked all its
variations, and guided him what to do. "To the Jews he became as a Jew,
that he might gain the Jews; to them that were under the Law, as under
the Law, that he might gain them that were under the Law: to them that
were without Law, as without Law, that he might gain them that were without
Law." "To the weak," he says, "became I as weak, that I might gain the
weak. I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some."
And so again, in another place, after having recounted his various trials
by sea and land, in the bleak wilderness and the stifling prison, from
friends and strangers, he adds, "Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is
offended, and I burn not? If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things
which concern mine infirmities." Hence, in the Acts of the Apostles, when
he saw his brethren weeping, though they could not divert him from his
purpose, which came from God, yet he could not keep from crying out, "What
mean ye to weep, and to break my heart? for I am ready, not to be bound
only, but also to die at Jerusalem, for the Name of the Lord Jesus." And
even of his own countrymen who persecuted him, he speaks in the most tender
and affectionate terms, as understanding well where they stood, and what
their view of the Gospel was. "I have great heaviness and continual sorrow
in my heart; for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for
my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." And again, "Brethren,
my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.
For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according
to knowledge." And hence so powerful was he in speech with them, wherever
they were not reprobate, that even King Agrippa, after hearing a few words
of St. Paul's own history, exclaimed, "Almost thou persuadest me to be
a Christian !" [1 Cor. ix. 20-22. 2 Cor. xi. 29, 30. Acts xxi. 13. Rom.
ix. 3; x. 1, 2. Acts xxvi. 28.] And what he was in persuasion, such he
was in consolation. He himself gives this reason for his trials in the
text, speaking of Almighty God's comforting him in all his tribulation,
in order that he might be able to comfort them which were in any trouble,
by the comfort wherewith he himself was comforted of God.
Such was the great Apostle St. Paul, the Apostle of grace, whom we hold
in especial honour in the early part of the year. At this season we commemorate
his conversion; and at this season we give attention, more than ordinary,
to his Epistles. And on Sexagesima Sunday we almost keep another Festival
in his memory, the Epistle for the day being expressly on the subject of
his trials. He was beaten, he was scourged, he was chased to and fro, he
was imprisoned, he was ship-wrecked, he was in this life of all men most
miserable, that he might understand how poor a thing mortal life is, and
might learn to contemplate and describe fitly the glories of the life immortal.
"Experience," he tells us elsewhere, "worketh hope,"—that grace which
of all others most tends to comfort and assuage sorrow. In somewhat a similar
way our Lord says to St. Peter, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired
to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee,
that thy faith fail not; and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren."
[Luke xxii. 31, 32.] Nay, the same law was fulfilled, not only in the case
of Christ's servants, but even He Himself, "who knoweth the hearts;" condescended,
by an ineffable mystery, to learn to strengthen man, by the experiencing
of man's infirmities. " In all things it behoved Him to be made like unto
His brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people; for
in that He Himself suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that
are tempted." "We have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are,
yet without sin." [Heb. ii. 17; iv. 15.]
Such is one chief benefit of painful trial, of whatever kind, which
it may not be unsuitable to enlarge on. Man is born to trouble, "as the
sparks fly upward." More or less, we all have our severe trials of pain
and sorrow. If we go on for some years in the world's sunshine, it is only
that troubles, when they come, should fall heavier. Such at least is the
general rule. Sooner or later we fare as other men; happier than they only
if we learn to bear our portion more religiously; and more favoured if
we fall in with those who themselves have suffered, and can aid us with
their sympathy and their experience. And then, while we profit from what
they can give us, we may learn from them freely to give what we have freely
received, comforting in turn others with the comfort which our brethren
have given us from God.
Now, in speaking of the benefits of trial and suffering, we should of
course never forget that these things by themselves have no power to make
us holier or more heavenly. They make many men morose, selfish, and envious.
The only sympathy they create in many minds, is the wish that others should
suffer with them, not they with others. Affliction, when love is away,
leads a man to wish others to be as he is; it leads to repining, malevolence,
hatred, rejoicing in evil. "Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become
like unto us?" said the princes of the nations to the fallen king of Babylon.
The devils are not incited by their own torments to any endeavour but that
of making others devils also. Such is the effect of pain and sorrow, when
unsanctified by God's saving grace. And this is instanced very widely and
in a variety of cases. All afflictions of the flesh, such as the Gospel
enjoins, and St. Paul practised, watchings and fastings, and subjecting
of the body, have no tendency whatever in themselves to make men better;
they often have made men worse; they often (to appearance) have left them
just as they were before. They are no sure test of holiness and true faith,
taken by themselves. A man may be most austere in his life, and, by that
very austerity, learn to be cruel to others, not tender. And, on the other
hand (what seems strange), he may be austere in his personal habits, and
yet be a waverer and a coward in his conduct. Such things have been,—I
do not say they are likely in this state of society,—but I mean, it should
ever be borne in mind, that the severest and most mortified life is as
little a passport to heaven, or a criterion of saintliness, as benevolence
is, or usefulness, or amiableness. Self-discipline is a necessary condition,
but not a sure sign of holiness. It may leave a man worldly, or it may
make him a tyrant. It is only in the hands of God that it is God's instrument.
It only ministers to God's purposes when God uses it. It is only when grace
is in the heart, when power from above dwells in a man, that anything outward
or inward turns to his salvation. Whether persecution, or famine, or the
sword, they as little bring the soul to Christ, as they separate it from
Him. He alone can work, and He can work through all things. He can make
the stones bread. He can feed us with "every word which proceedeth from
His mouth." He could, did He so will, make us calm, resigned, tender-hearted,
and sympathising, without trial; but it is His will ordinarily to do so
by means of trial. Even He Himself, when He came on earth, condescended
to gain knowledge by experience; and what He did Himself, that He makes
His brethren do.
And while affliction does not necessarily make us gentle and kind, nay,
it may be, even makes us stern and cruel, the want of affliction does not
mend matters. Sometimes we look with pleasure upon those who never have
been afflicted. We look with a smile of interest upon the smooth brow and
open countenance, and our hearts thrill within us at the ready laugh or
the piercing glance. There is a buoyancy and freshness of mind in those
who have never suffered, which, beautiful as it is, is perhaps scarcely
suitable and safe in sinful man. It befits an Angel; it befits very young
persons and children, who have never been delivered over to their three
great enemies. I will not dare to deny that there are those whom white
garments and unfading chaplets show that they have a right thus to rejoice
always, even till God takes them. But this is not the case of the many,
whom earth soils, and who lose their right to be merry-hearted. In them
lightness of spirits degenerates into rudeness, want of feeling, and wantonness;
such is the change, as time goes on, and their hearts become less pure
and childlike. Pain and sorrow are the almost necessary medicines of the
impetuosity of nature. Without these, men, though men, are like spoilt
children; they act as if they considered everything must give way to their
own wishes and conveniences. They rejoice in their youth. They become selfish;
and it is difficult to say which selfishness is the more distressing and
disagreeable, self in high spirits, or self in low spirits; self in joy,
or self in sorrow; in the rude health of nature, or in the languor and
fretfulness of trial. It is difficult to say which will comfort the worse,
hearts hard from suffering, or hard from having never suffered; cruel despair,
which rejoices in misery, or cruel pride, which is impatient at the sight
of it. The cruelty, indeed, of the despairing is the more hateful, for
it is more after Satan's pattern, who feels the less for others, the more
he suffers himself; yet the cruelty of the prosperous and wanton is like
the excesses of the elements, or of brute animals, not designed, more at
random, yet perhaps even more keen and trying to those who incur it.
Such is worldly happiness and worldly trial; but Almighty God, while
He chose the latter as the portion of His Saints, sanctified it by His
heavenly grace, to be their great benefit. He rescues them from the selfishness
of worldly comfort without surrendering them to the selfishness of worldly
pain. He brings them into pain, that they may be like what Christ was,
and may be led to think of Him, not of themselves. He brings them into
trouble, that they may be near Him. When they mourn, they are more intimately
in His presence than they are at any other time. Bodily pain, anxiety,
bereavement, distress, are to them His forerunners. It is a solemn thing,
while it is a privilege, to look upon those whom He thus visits. Why is
it that men would look with fear and silence at the sight of the spirit
of some friend departed, coming to them from the grave? Why would they
abase themselves and listen awfully to any message he brought them? Because
he would seem to come from the very presence of God. And in like manner,
when a man, in whom dwells His grace, is lying on the bed of suffering,
or when he has been stripped of his friends and is solitary, he has, in
a peculiar way, tasted of the powers of the world to come, and exhorts
and consoles with authority. He who has been long under the rod of God,
becomes God's possession. He bears in his body marks, and is sprinkled
with drops, which nature could not provide for him. He comes "from Edom,
with dyed garments from Bozrah," and it is easy to see with whom he has
been conversing. He seems to say to us in the words of the Prophet, "I
am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of His wrath. He hath led
me and brought me into darkness, but not into light ... He hath bent His
bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow." [Lam. iii. 1, 2, 12.] And they
who see him, gather around like Job's acquaintance, speaking no word to
him, yet more reverently than if they did; looking at him with fear, yet
with confidence, with fellow-feeling, yet with resignation, as one who
is under God's teaching and training for the work of consolation towards
his brethren. Him they will seek when trouble comes on themselves; turning
from all such as delighted them in their prosperity, the great or the wealthy,
or the man of mirth and song, or of wit, or of resource, or of dexterity,
or of knowledge; by a natural instinct turning to those for consolation
whom the Lord has heretofore tried by similar troubles. Surely this is
a great blessing and cause of glorying, to be thus consecrated by affliction
as a minister of God's mercies to the afflicted.
Some such thoughts as these may be humbly entertained by every one of
us, when brought even into any ordinary pain or trouble. Doubtless if we
are properly minded, we shall be very loth to take to ourselves titles
of honour. We shall be slow to believe that we are specially beloved by
Christ. But at least we may have the blessed certainty that we are made
instruments for the consolation of others. Without impatiently settling
anything absolutely about our own real state in God's sight, and how it
will fare with us at the last day, at least we may allow ourselves to believe
that we are at present evidently blessed by being made subservient to His
purposes of mercy to others; as washing the disciples' feet, and pouring
into their wounds oil and wine. So we shall say to ourselves, Thus far,
merciful Saviour, we have attained; not to be assured of our salvation,
but of our usefulness. So far we know, and enough surely for sinful man,
that we are allowed to promote His glory who died for us. Taught by our
own pain, our own sorrow, nay, by our own sin, we shall have hearts and
minds exercised for every service of love towards those who need it. We
shall in our measure be comforters after the image of the Almighty Paraclete,
and that in all senses of the word,—advocates, assistants, soothing aids.
Our words and advice, our very manner, voice, and look, will be gentle
and tranquillizing, as of those who have borne their cross after Christ.
We shall not pass by His little ones rudely, as the world does. The voice
of the widow and the orphan, the poor and destitute, will at once reach
our ears, however low they speak. Our hearts will open towards them; our
word and deed befriend them. The ruder passions of man's nature, pride
and anger, envy and strife, which so disorder the Church, these will be
quelled and brought under in others by the earnestness and kindness of
our admonitions.
Thus, instead of being the selfish creatures which we were by nature,
grace, acting through suffering, tends to make us ready teachers and witnesses
of Truth to all men. Time was when, even at the most necessary times, we
found it difficult to speak of heaven to another, our mouth seemed closed,
even when cup heart was full; but now our affection is eloquent, and "out
of the abundance of the heart our mouth speaketh." Blessed portion indeed,
thus to be tutored in the sweetest, softest strains of Gospel truth, and
to range over the face of the earth pilgrims and sojourners, with winning
voices, singing, as far as in the flesh it is possible to sing, the song
of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb [Rev. xv. 3.]; severed
from ties of earth by the trials we have endured, without father, without
mother, without abiding place, as that patriarch whom St. Paul speaks of,
and, like him, allowed to bring forth bread and wine to refresh the weary
soldiers of the most High God. Such too was our Lord's forerunner, the
holy Baptist, an austere man, cut off from among his brethren, living in
the wilderness, feeding on harsh fare, yet so far removed from sternness
towards those who sincerely sought the Lord, that his preaching was almost
described in prophecy as the very language of consolation, "Comfort ye,
comfort ye My people ... speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem."
Such was the high temper of mind instanced in our Lord and His Apostles,
and thereby impressed upon the Church of Christ. And for this we may thank
God, that much as the Church has erred in various ways since her setting
up, this great truth she never has forgotten, that we must all "take up
our cross daily," and "through much tribulation enter into the kingdom
of God." She has never forgotten that she was set apart for a comforter
of the afflicted, and that to comfort well we must first be afflicted ourselves.
St. Paul was consecrated by suffering to be an Apostle of Christ; by fastings,
by chastisements, by self-denials for his brethren's sake, by his forlorn,
solitary life, thus did he fill up day by day those intervals of respite
which the fury of his persecutors permitted. And so the Church Catholic
after him has never forgotten that ease was a sin, favoured as she might
be with peace from external enemies. Even when riches and honours flowed
in upon her, still has she always proclaimed that affliction was her proper
portion. She has felt she could not perform the office of a comforter,
if she enjoyed this world; and, though doubtless her separate branches
have at times forgotten this truth, yet it remains, and is transmitted
from age to age; and though she has had many false sons, yet even they
have often been obliged to profess what they did not practise. This indeed
is strange news to men of the world, who are bent on gratifying themselves,
and who think they have gained a point, and have just cause for congratulation,
when they have found out a way of saving themselves trouble, and of adding
to their luxuries and conveniences. But those who are set on their own
ease, most certainly are bad comforters of others; thus the rich man, who
fared sumptuously every day, let Lazarus lie at his gate, and left him
to be "comforted" after this life by Angels. As to comfort the poor and
afflicted is the way to heaven, so to have affliction ourselves is the
way to comfort them.
And, lastly, let us ever anxiously remember that affliction is sent
for our own personal good also. Let us fear, lest, after we have ministered
to others, we ourselves should be castaways; lest our gentleness, consideration,
and patience, which are so soothing to them, yet should be separated from
that inward faith and strict conscientiousness which alone unites us to
Christ;—lest, in spite of all the good we do to others, yet we should have
some secret sin, some unresisted evil within us, which separates us from
Him. Let us pray Him who sends us trial, to send us a pure heart and honesty
of mind wherewith to bear it.
