LITERATURE. Aitken (W. H. M. H.), Temptation and Toil, 91. Banks (L. A.), The Great Promises of the Bible, 112. Boyd (A. K. H.), Counsel and Comfort from a City Pulpit, 251. Brooke (S. A.), Short Sermons, 269. Caulfield (S. F. A.), The Prisoners of Hope, i. 76. Cuckson (J.), Faith and Fellowship, 283. Davies (D.), Talks with Men, Women and Children, v. 41. Faithful (R. C.), My Place in the World, 157. Farrar (F. W.), The Silence and the Voices of God, 101. Fraser (J.), Parochial Sermons, 167. Hutton (J. A.), The Fear of Things, 81. Jones (J. D.), Elims of Life, 92. Kuegele (F.), Country Sermons, New Ser., iii. 93, v. 234. Mantle (J. G.), God's To-morrow, 67. Moinet (C.), The Great Alternative, 105. Mursell (W. A.), The Waggon and the Star, 49. Robinson (W. V.), Sunbeams for Sundays, 49. Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 1. (1904) No. 2912. Stalker (J.), in The World's Great Sermons, ix. 167. Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit) ix. (1872) No. 749. Christian World Pulpit, xlviii. 142 (Wickham); lxix. 298 (Dale) ; li. 217 (Gore). Churchman's Pulpit: Ninth Sunday after Trinity: xi. 129 (Field), 134 (Boyd), 137 (Rice), 140 (Cotton). Clergyman's Magazine, vii. 25 (Griffith); xv. 18 (Rogers); New Ser., vi. 95 (Proctor). Methodist Times, June 2, 1910, p. 6 (Hutton). TRUST IN GOD AND DO THE RIGHT. God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it.-1 Cor. x. 13. 1. THE reason for our confidence that every temptation can be overcome is that God is faithful. "God is faithful," says the Apostle, "who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it." Notice, the Apostle does not give as his reason for confidence that man is strong, but that God is faithful. Men who have faced temptation confiding only in their own strength have come to grief. It is the men who, distrustful of self, have leaned upon God who have come off more than conquerors. 2. Should we be disposed at any time to doubt this, we may reassure ourselves by remembering how God's faithfulness is guaranteed. (1) God cannot be true to His purpose of grace and yet allow us to be overcome by the sheer weight and pressure of evil without a possibility of escape. For what is the purpose which we see revealed in the gift of Christ? It is that we may be saved from sin; and salvation from sin implies that we shall be strengthened against the temptations by which it seeks to prevail. God is faithful to His purpose, and His purpose is to save and keep all those who put their trust in Him. He never departs from this. He has it always before Him. It is the end to which He makes everything subordinate. He is never off His guard, never asleep, never too busily engaged to attend to the wants of the very least of His children. Sin can lurk nowhere without being detected by His all-seeing eye. It can devise no stratagem without being clearly visible to Him. Still less can it strike down or fatally wound any who look to Him for help. (2) But not only would it be inconsistent with His purpose of grace were God to suffer overwhelming evil to assail us, it would also place Him in contradiction to Himself. His nature is to love goodness supremely, and He has pledged Himself by the gift of His Son to leave nothing undone to give it the victory. But if He were to stand aside, and see us beaten down by sin without interposing; if He were to allow temptations to muster in irresistible force; this would not only defeat His manifested purpose, but destroy His character for holiness. The very fact that God is good, that He loves and cherishes with a compassionate eye every movement of a human soul to purity and truth, involves His doing everything that wisdom, and power, and pity can do to make us triumphant over sin. ¶When man thus considers the wealth and the marvellous sublimity of the Divine nature, and all the manifold gifts which He grants and offers to His creatures, amazement is stirred up in his spirit at the sight of so manifold a wealth and majesty; at the sight of the immense faithfulness of God to all His creatures. This causes a strange joy of spirit, and a boundless trust in God, and this inward joy surrounds and penetrates all the forces of the souls in the secret places of the spirit.1 A beautiful instance is recorded in the life of Catherine of Siena. The plague was abroad, and Father Matthew, the Director of the Hospital, caught the infection while ministering to a dying person. The next day he was carried like a corpse, livid and strengthless, from the chapel to his room. The physician said that every symptom announced the approach of death. But Catherine loved him sincerely, and when she heard of his illness she went to his room and cried with a cheerful voice, “Get up, Father Matthew! Get up!" As she left the house, another friend -Raymond of Capua-was entering, and said to her, "Will you allow a person so dear to us, and so useful to others, to die? I know your secrets, and I know that you obtain from God whatsoever you ask in faith." She bowed her head, and, after a few moments, looked him in the face with her countenance radiant with joy, and said, "Well, let us take courage; he will not die this time." The good Father immediately recovered, and sat down to a light meal with his friends, chatting and laughing gaily with them. 1 M. Maeterlinck, Ruysbroeck and the Mystics, 140. |