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really follow Him, we must be content to undergo an amount of sorrow and distress which, as it is represented by the Cross, cannot be inconsiderable or trifling. But if we aspire to higher degrees of blessing; if we would fain reach to larger endowments of grace and perfect ourselves in superior heights of holiness; if we desire to sit upon His right hand or upon His left in His kingdom, then are we no longer bidden to take up our Cross but His, to drink of the Cup which He drank of and be baptized with the baptism that He was baptized withal.[1] Observe too the very nature of the blessings promised to believers upon earth: what is it but houses, and lands, and friends, with persecutions?[2] Take the spirit of this declaration, and do we not see that there is no warrant for any expectation of unmingled peace below; but, that even those who have deserved most and have had richest promises made them, have also a large amount of tribulation annexed, as if necessarily, to their lot?
Had there never been an alien element admitted into our nature, had sin never triumphed over us, this would not have been the case. But now, as in an unsound body, it sometimes happens that health can only be restored by the painful process of cautery or excision; so also there may be circumstances in our moral condition which demand a not less grievous mode of cure. Either we must suffer,
