out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to do, of his good pleasure,’ The means are of God’s appointing, in the diligent use of which they go from strength to strength.  The grand means is faith in God’s promises, of which there are very many in the Scriptures.  Believers are to put forth their own exertions, as the children of Israel were called to go out against their enemies, in the faith that God would give them victory and lead them to their promised rest.  The battle was the Lord’s, and he fought for them; but the means were their exertions.  Believers are God’s workmanship; but this work he carries on by exercising their natural powers, which he sanctifies to a different end from that to which they were formerly by their own spirit directed.  Still, the Scripture testifies that if any man say he has no sin, he deceives himself, and the truth is not in him; and while sin remains, its consequence, suffering, must.  The judgments of God, as the moral Governor of the world, are denounced against, and executed upon the workers of iniquity.  The children of God experience personal chastisements for personal sins, as a provision of the covenant.  Psalm 89:30.  And, if I mistake not, there are afflictions experienced by individuals, as members of Christ’s body, in which God does not bring into view the personal sins of the sufferer.  In this sense I read Paul’s epistle to the Colossians, 1:24:  ’Who now rejoice in my sufferings, and fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh, for his body’s sake, which is the church.’  ’I sent Timotheus to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith, that no man should be moved by these afflictions; for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto.’ 1 Thes. 3:3.  ’Yea, if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all; for the same cause do ye joy and rejoice with me.’  Phil. 2:17.  ’And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; or whether we be comforted, it is for your salvation and consolation.’ 2 Cor. 1:6.  There is no conscious personal sin expressed in these sufferings; on the contrary, Paul says, ’For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.’ 2 Cor. 1:12.

“Most of the prophets and apostles suffered martyrdom.  They indeed sustained public characters, but the beggar Lazarus, who, in addition to poverty, was full of sores, was carried by the angels from the rich man’s gate to Abraham’s bosom.  And thousands and tens of thousands of redeemed highly sanctified ones have suffered lengthened martyrdom, and perished with hunger, in holes and caves of the earth, unknown in history, except in groups—­unseen at the time, except by the eye of the omniscient Jehovah, by whom the hairs of their head are numbered; their tears are in his bottle; nor shall one sigh nor one groan perish without its result.