things must come to pass. Lo, I have told you before." The exhortation of Peter is very nearly parallel with that of his brother Paul, in an epistle written about the same time: "Let no man be moved by these afflictions, for yourselves know that ye are appointed thereunto." 1

II-BE NOT DEPRESSED BY YOUR SUFFERINGS.

The second direction given by the apostle to his brethren is, "Be not depressed by your sufferings." Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of the sufferings of Christ; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of (blasphemed), but on your part he is glorified."

In these words the apostle first calls on them generally not to be depressed by their sufferings for Christ, but, on the contrary, to rejoice in them. He gives at the same time very good reasons for his injunction, reasons applicable to all sufferings, of whatever kind, for the cause of Christ; and he then calls on them not to be depressed by a particular form of suffering, that of reproach, which is very much fitted to have this effect; and enforces this exhortation by a very powerful and appropriate motive.

The apostle calls on Christians, for two reasons, not to be depressed by, but to rejoice in, their sufferings for Christ, whatever form they might wear; whether loss of property, reputation, liberty, or life:First, because in enduring these sufferings, they are partakers of Christ's sufferings; and secondly, because their fellowship with Christ in his sufferings is, by the Divine appointment, connected with fellowship with him in his enjoyments at the revelation of his glory.

1. Christians in suffering for Christ are "partakers of the sufferings of Christ." In all their afflictions Christians may be viewed as having fellowship with Christ. When they suffer, they are treading in his steps, who was, by way of eminence, a sufferer;-"the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;" and it is the communication of his Spirit which enables them to bear their sufferings in the same temper in which he bore his. But there is a peculiar propriety in representing them, when suffering for their attachment to him, as being partakers of his sufferings. The sufferings they then endure are endured in the same cause in which his sufferings were endured: the cause of truth and righteousness, the cause of God's glory and man's happiness. They are inflicted on them just because they are like him; and they who persecute them would, had they it in their power, persecute him as they persecute them. They stand in his place; they are his representatives. They are "in the world as he was in the world ;" and are therefore treated by the world as he was treated by the world. "Therefore the world knoweth not," acknowledgeth not in their true character, "them, because it knew not," acknowledged not, "him" in his true character. They are so identified with

1 Matt. xxiv. 6. 1 Thess. iii 3

him, that he considers what is done to them as done to Him. He that touches them touches the apple of his eye." "Saul, Saul," said he from the opened heavens, "why persecutest thou ME?" And, at last, from the throne of universal judgment, shall he say to those who have cruelly neglected, or despitefully used his suffering people, "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to ME. Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these, ye did it to ME.

Every true Christian, suffering in the cause of Christ, may say with the Apostle Paul, "I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh." We are not to We are not to suppose that our Lord left any sufferings to be endured by Paul, or any one else, as the expiation of the sins or the ransom of the souls of his people. These great objects were fully secured by his sufferings "in his own body," "the body of his flesh by death." On the cross, in reference to them, he said, "It is finished." These sufferings were his personal burden. We partake of them, not in the way of supplementing them by our sufferings, but by becoming sharers of their precious fruits. They are accounted to us as if they had been ours; and we are acquitted, and justified, and saved by them, as a full satisfaction to the demands of the law on us as sinners. The endurance of these expiatory sufferings is something absolutely peculiar to him. We have, we can have, no part nor lot in that matter. The meaning of the apostle plainly is, I am so closely connected with Christ, that he regards those sufferings endured by me in his cause, as his sufferings in my body. I know there is a certain measure of such sufferings allotted to me, as to every other Christian. I have undergone already a part of those sufferings; and in the sufferings which I now undergo for the sake of you, Thessalonians, a part of his body, I rejoice to think that I am filling up what remains of the sufferings appointed me, and which I delight in thinking of as the sufferings of Christ in my body.' "The filling up spoken of by the apostle is not the supplementing Christ's personal sufferings, but it is the completing that share allotted to himself as one of the members of Christ-as sufferings which, from the intimacy of union between the head and the members, may be called his sufferings. Christ lived in Paul, spoke in Paul, wrought in Paul, suffered in Paul; and in a similar sense the sufferings of every Christian for Christ are the sufferings of Christ."

This is a view of suffering for Christ well fitted to prevent depres sion and to produce holy joy. "It seems obviously fit," as Leighton says, "that we should follow where our Captain led. It is not becoming that he should lead through rugged, thorny ways, and we pass about to get away through flowery meadows. As his natural body shared with his head in suffering, so ought his mystical body with him who is their head."

And as this is fit, so it is pleasant. It is good, no less than becoming well. "It is a sweet, joyful thing, to be a sharer with Christ in anything. All enjoyments wherein he is not are bitter to a soul who loves him, and all sufferings with him are sweet. The worst things of Christ are more truly delightful than the best things of the world;

1 Col. i. 24.

his afflictions sweeter than their pleasures, his reproaches more glorious than their honors, and more rich than their treasures. Love delights in likeness and communion; not only in things otherwise pleasant, but in the hardest and harshest things which have not in them anything desirable, but only that likeness. So that this thought is very sweet to a heart possessed with this love. What does the world by its hatred and persecutions and revilings for Christ, but make me more like him, give me a greater share with him in that which he did so willingly undergo for me. 'When he was sought to be made a king he escaped,' says Bernard," the last of the Fathers; "but when he was sought for the cross, he freely yielded himself." And shall I shrink and creep back from what he calls me to suffer for his sake? Yea, even all my other troubles and sufferings I will desire to have stamped thus with this conformity to the sufferings of Christ, in the humble, obedient, cheerful endurance of them, and the giving up my will to my Father's. The following of Christ makes any way pleasant; his faithful followers refuse no march after him, be it through deserts, and mountains, and storms, and hazards that would affright self-pleasing, easy spirits. Hearts kindled and actuated by the Spirit of Christ, will follow him whithersoever he goeth." 1

2. A second reason assigned by the apostle, why persecuted Christians should not be depressed by, but rather rejoice in, their sufferings is, that this fellowship with Christ in his sufferings is, by the Divine appointment, connected with fellowship with him in his enjoyments at the revelation of his glory. "Ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy."

The glory of Christ is the transcendent personal excellence, and official dignity and authority, which belong to the God-Man Mediator. Of that glory a partial manifestation is made in the word of the truth of the gospel, and in his administration of that universal empire which he possesses, as well as in his dispensations towards the church as a body, and towards its individual members, with whom he stands connected in a relation so intimate and peculiar. By those who by his Spirit are led to understand and believe the gospel, and by its light to contemplate the dispensations of his kingdoms of providence and grace, this glory is partially apprehended; and, whenever it is so, it casts all other glory into the shade. That which had glory has now no glory, by reason of the glory that excelleth. The Word, who was made flesh, and dwelt among men, may be seen in his wondrous works as in a mirror; and all who in them behold his glory, acknowledge that it is a glory worthy of the only-begotten of the Father,” and that he is indeed full of grace and truth. And by the believing contemplation of this glory they themselves in their measure become glorious; they are changed into its likeness, made glorious by that which is glorious, converted by glory into glory.

3

It is, however, but a dim reflection of his glory that reaches this dark earth. His glory, like himself, is "hid with God." The great body of men see it not at all, being destitute of the spiritual organs by which alone it can be discerned; and even they who see most of

Leighton.

3 ΩΣ μονογένους παρὰ πατρός. John i. 14.

3 2 Cor. iii. 18.

it, see at best “through a glass," or by means of a mirror, "darkly ;" "they know but in part, they understand but in part.

But this glory is not always to continue so imperfectly manifested in our world to its inhabitants. Out of his heavenly sanctuary he is yet to shine forth gloriously. His "glorious appearance," or the appearance of his glory, is "the blessed hope" of all who believe. At the close of the present order of things, he will come "in his own glory, and in the glory of his Father, and in the glory of his holy angels." He will come "in clouds, and every eye shall see him.' He will come "in flaming fire, to take vengeance on those who know him not, and who obey not his gospel; and to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe." 1 He will come to manifest the glories of his power, and wisdom, and righteousness, and grace, removing entirely and forever the cloud of mystery which hangs over the Divine character and dispensations, and manifesting himself at once in all the glories of untarnished holiness and inflexible justice, and infinite, omnipotent, all-wise benignity, as the righteous Judge and the all-accomplished Saviour.

This revelation at once of the glories of his righteousness and grace, shall be a source of the highest satisfaction to all his redeemed ones; and then shall be fully compensated all the privations, and sacrifices, and sufferings to which they have submitted for his name's sake. Then "shall they rejoice with exceeding joy." In this last time," when the salvation to which in the present times they are kept by the power of God through faith shall be revealed, and in the revelation of which shall be revealed the glory of Christ the Saviour, "they shall rejoice with a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory."

"When

And they shall have good cause thus to rejoice; for when He who is their life appears, is manifested, they shall also appear, or be manifested, in glory. His glorious appearing, and their manifestation as the sons of God, by their entering on full possession of all the privileges of divine sonship, shall be contemporaneous. He shall appear in glory, and they shall be "like him, seeing him as he is." the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, when he shall sit on the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations," he will make those who have been partakers of his sufferings exceeding glad in the fellowship of his glory. Having re-united their glorified spirits to their once mortal but now immortal bodies, he shall place them at his right hand as his honored friends, and shall say to them in the presence of the assembled universe of intelligent beings, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." And then. they shall go into life eternal;" 2 and conquerors, more than conquerors, through his love, sit down with him on his throne, even as he, when he had overcome, sat down with his Father on his throne, and shall "reign in life" with him forever and ever. Such are the blessings which await all the faithful at the coming of the Lord; and there is reason to conclude that the measure of the enjoyment and glory of individuals, will correspond to the measure of labor and sufferings submitted to in his cause.

1 2 Thess. i. 7-10.

2 Matt. xxv. 31-46.

This is a consideration well fitted not only to prevent depression of mind under suffering, however severe, but to fill the heart with holy triumph, and enable the Christian to glory in such tribulation as is connected with so glorious a hope, counting it indeed "all joy to be" for Christ's cause "brought into manifold temptations." Well, as the pious Archbishop says, may Christians "rejoice in the midst of all their sufferings, standing upon the advanced ground of the covenant of grace, and by faith looking beyond this moment, and all that is in it, to that day wherein the crown of everlasting joy, that diadem of beauty, shall be put upon their head, and when sorrow and mourning shall fly away. Oh, that blessed hope! How soon will this pageant of the world, that men are gazing on, these pictures and fancies of pleasures and honors, falsely so called, vanish and give place to the real glory of the sons of God, where the blessed First-born among many brethren shall be seen appearing in full majesty, as the Only-begotten of the Father, and all his brethren with him, beholding and sharing his glory, having 'come out of great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'" Believing that if we suffer with him it is that we may be glorifiod together with him, we cannot but "judge that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us;" so that we may well rejoice amid these sufferings, especially as we know that "these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, are working out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." There is something more than mere sequence here. "We are partakers of his sufferings; that, when his glory is revealed, we may rejoice with exceeding joy.

Having thus enforced the general exhortation not to be depressed by, but to rejoice in, sufferings for Christ, of whatever kind, from a consideration of the nature of these sufferings, as sufferings in which they have fellowship with Christ, and of the design and certain issue of such sufferings, the bringing of them into the fellowship of the Saviour's glory and joy, the apostle next calls their attention to a particular form of suffering, in its own nature peculiarly fitted to depress the mind, "reproach," and shows that even it is a proper ground not of depression, but of exultation. "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye, for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth on you; on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.”

وو

Reproach was one of the most common and most severe of the trials of the persecuted primitive Christians. And few things are more fitted to break the heart; as the psalmist, in the person of the Messiah, says, "Reproach has broke my heart; I am full of heaviness." 2 Their "names were cast out as evil." They were "accounted as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things;" and they were thus reproached for being Christians, for bearing his name, and professing his religion; for believing its doctrines, for cherishing its hopes, for observing its institutions, for obeying its laws. On this account they were represented as despisers of the gods, enemies of the commonwealth, haters of mankind, the accomplices or the dupes of an

1 Rom. viii. 17, 18. 2 Cor. iv. 17, 18.

2 Psal. lxix. 20.