Afflictions.

"MANY are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all."-Ps. xxxiv. 19.

Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."-2 COR. iv. 17.

Our afflictions are but few and a thousand times deserved; our mercies are many and a thousand times forfeited.

Afflictions are God's most effectual means to keep us from losing our way to our heavenly rest. Without this hedge of thorns on the right and left we should hardly keep the way to heaven.

When God makes the world too hot for His people to hold they will let it go.

God brings us into straits that He may bring us on our knees. Where sin sits heavy affliction sits light.

That which gives us occasion for sorrow should give us occasion for prayer.

In those disappointments which to us are very grievous God has often designs that are very gracious.

Fiery trials make golden Christians; sin hath brought many a believer into suffering, and suffering hath kept many a believer from sinning.

Afflictions are the medicines of the mind. It is not required in physic that it should please, but that it should heal.

The excellent and gracious drift of our afflictions is the bettering of our souls.

He loses the good of his afflictions who is not the better for them.

"Despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of His correction: For whom the Lord loveth He correcteth."PROV. iii. 11, 12.

He went like one that hath been stunn'd

And is of sense forlorn :

A sadder and a wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.

All the peace and favour of the world cannot calm a troubled heart; but where the peace is which Christ gives, all the troubles and disquiet of the world cannot disturb it.

Graces multiply by afflictions as the saints did by persecutions.

What numbers guiltless of their own disease,
Are snatched by sudden death, or waste by slow degrees!

Aromatic plants bestow

No spicy fragrance where they grow;
But crush'd and trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.

None have ever been so good or so great, or have raised themselves so high, as to be above the reach of troubles. Our Lord was a man of sorrows.

To each his sufferings: all are men
Condemn'd alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,

Th' unfeeling for his own.

Sanctified afflictions are an evidence of our adoption: we do not prune dead trees to make them fruitful, nor those which are planted in a desert; but such as belong to the garden and possess life.

Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.

So part we sadly in this troublous world,
To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.

The diamond of piety never sparkles so brightly as when the Christian is surrounded with the darkness of affliction.

Almighty Power, I love Thee! Blissful name,
My healer, God! and my inmost soul
Love and adore for ever! Oh, 'tis good
To wait submissive at Thy holy throne,
To brave petitions at Thy feet, and bear
Thy frowns and silence with a patient soul.
The hand of mercy is not short to save,
Nor is the ear of heavenly pity deaf

To mortal cries.

As the rod of God is of use to enforce the Word, so the Word of God is of use to explain the rod, that the voice of both together may be heard and answered.

God uses not the rod where he means to use the sword.

No affliction for the time seems joyous; all time in affliction seems tedious. I will compare my miseries on earth with my joys in heaven, and the length of my miseries with its eternity; so shall my journey seem short and my burden easy.

Ambition.

AMBITION-the glorious frailty of the noble mind.
Ambition is the dropsy of the soul,

Whose thirst we must not yield to, but control. Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.

To reign is worth ambition, tho' in hell;

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

Julius Cæsar used to say, he would rather be the first man in a country village than the second man in Rome.

Many a man besides Julius Cæsar has said: "Aut Cæsar, aut nullus-I will be first, or nowhere; I will be 'all in all, or not at all.'

Lucan says of Julius Cæsar: "He rejoices to have made his way by ruin."

What millions died that Cæsar might be great!

You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him the kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition ?
When that the poor hath cried, Cæsar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices: so climbing is performed in the same posture as creeping.

I charge thee fling away ambition;

By that sin fell the angels.

Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts.

Juvenal says:

"Even those who do not wish to kill a man

would gladly have the power."

Such is the spirit of ambition in the human mind, that even those who are least likely to abuse this power, wish for a control over their equals.

Themistocles was roused up with the glory of Miltiades, and the trophies of Achilles moved Alexander.

When Darius offered Alexander ten thousand talents to divide Asia equally with him, he answered: "The earth cannot bear two suns, nor Asia two kings." Parmenio, a friend of Alexander, hearing the great offers Darius had made, said:

"Were I Alexander I would accept them." "So would I," replied Alexander, "were I Parmenio."

Shall we alone whom rational we call

Be pleased with nothing, if not blessed with all?

A slave has but one master; the ambitious man has as many masters as there are persons, whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortune.

If aught disturb the tenor of his breast,

'Tis but the wish to strike before the rest.

The tallest trees are most in power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune.

Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.

Sir W. Raleigh.

If thy heart fail thee do not climb at all.

Queen Elizabeth.

Lord Eldon, who longest held the office of Chancellor, and who most highly prized the distinction, said: “A few weeks will send me to dear Encombe as a resting-place between vexation and the grave."

Far from the maddening crowd's ignoble strife,

Their noble wishes never learned to stray;

Along the cool sequestered vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Ambition's like a circle on the water,
Which never ceases to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.

Heaven is not reach'd with pride, but with submission.

Ambition, Avarice—the two demons these,

Which goad through every slough our human herd,
Hard-travelled from the cradle to the grave,

How low the wretches stoop!

I will not seat myself higher than my place, lest I should be disgraced by a humiliation; but if I place myself lower than my seat, I may be advanced to the honour of, "Friend, go up higher." I had rather be exalted by my humility, than be brought down by my exaltation.

Anger.

"BE ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath."-EPH. iv. 26. We must be angry at nothing but sin. Anger may pass through the heart of a wise man, but rests in the bosom of fools. Shimei gave David provocation to anger, but by thinking upon God David maintained a meek and calm spirit.

St. Chrysostom says: "Art thou prone to anger? Be so against thine own sins: Chastise thy soul, scourge thy conscience, be a severe judge and merciless in thy sentence against thine own sins. This is the way to turn anger to profit. It was for this that God implanted wrath within us."

Let us, says Paley, consider the indecency of extravagant anger; how it renders us, while it lasts, the scorn and sport of all about us, of which it leaves us, when it ceases, sensible and ashamed; the inconveniences and irretrievable misconduct into which our irascibility has sometimes betrayed us; the friendships it has lost us; the distresses and embarrassments in which we have been involved by it; and the repentance which, on one account or other, it always costs us.

Anger is only sinful when it springs from selfishness and malevolence, when causeless or above the cause, and when expressed by unhallowed words or acts.

Anger, though natural to man, becomes like every other passion hurtful and sinful when not restrained within the bounds of strict moderation. It is far from being a selfish passion, since it is naturally raised by injuries offered to others as well as to ourselves.

Anger is a desire of revenge for some injury offered.

The use of anger is to stir us up to self-preservation, and to put us upon our guard against injuries. When it has done this it has done all that belongs to it.

Wise anger is like fire from a flint; there is great ado to bring it out; and when it does come it is out again immediately. Has a man said anything to me in anger, I had better look into it—his reproach may be true, and I may richly deserve it. Seneca says: "If anger is not restrained it is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it."

Confucius, the Chinese heathen philosopher, gives this advice: When anger rises, think of the consequences.