maiming self of the right hand, mortifying the deeds of the body—­they are something very much deeper and more awful than poetical symbols and metaphors.  They teach us this, that there is no growth without sore sorrow.  Conflict, not progress, is the word that defines man’s path from darkness into light.  No holiness is won by any other means than this, that wickedness should be slain day by day, and hour by hour.  In long lingering agony often, with the blood of the heart pouring out at every quivering vein, you are to cut right through the life and being of that sinful self; to do what the Word does, pierce to the dividing asunder of the thoughts and intents of the heart, and get rid by crucifying and slaying—­a long process, a painful process—­of your own sinful self.  And not until you can stand up and say, ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,’ have you accomplished that to which you are consecrated and vowed by your sonship—­’being conformed unto the likeness of His death,’ and ‘knowing the fellowship of His sufferings.’

It is this process, the inward strife and conflict in getting rid of evil, which the Apostle designates here with the name of ’suffering with Christ, that we may be also glorified together.’  On this high level, and not upon the lower one of the consideration that Christ will help us to bear outward infirmities and afflictions, do we find the true meaning of all that Scripture teaching which says indeed, ‘Yes, our sufferings are His’; but lays the foundation of it in this, ‘His sufferings are ours.’  It begins by telling us that Christ has done a work and borne a sorrow that no second can ever do.  Then it tells us that Christ’s life of obedience—­which, because it was a life of obedience, was a life of suffering, and brought Him into a condition of hostility to the men around Him—­is to be repeated in us.  It sets before us the Cross of Calvary, and the sorrows and pains that were felt there;—­and it says to us, Christian men and women, if you want the power for holy living, have fellowship in that atoning death; and if you want the pattern of holy living, look at that Cross and feel, ’I am crucified to the world by it; and the life that I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.’

Such considerations as these, however, do not necessarily exclude the other one (which we may just mention and dwell on for a moment), namely, that where there is this spiritual participation in the sufferings of Christ, and where His death is reproduced and perpetuated, as it were, in our daily mortifying ourselves in the present evil world—­there Christ is with us in our afflictions.  God forbid that I should try to strike away any word of consolation that has come, as these words of my text have come, to so many sorrowing hearts in all generations, like music in the night and like cold waters to a thirsty soul.  We need not hold that there is no reference here to that comforting thought, ’In all our affliction