Benefiting from Affliction ⁽¹⁾
2. Adversity, and Who Has Sent It?
James Buchanan

In the day of adversity, you should consider (1) your adversity itself. You should not turn your mind away from it because it is distressing to you, or allow your thoughts to dwell on more pleasing topics with a view to forgetting what has befallen you. But steadily and deliberately you should look at your afflictions in all their real magnitude and probable consequences. This direction may at first sight appear to be unnecessary as affliction can hardly fail to command attention, especially when it is severe. To a certain extent this is true; yet we believe it will often be found that the mind is unwilling to take a deliberate view of its afflictions - as a man on the eve of bankruptcy is too apt to shut his eyes to the fact of his danger, or as a man smitten with mortal disease is unwilling to be convinced that his recovery is hopeless. And the consequence of this is that the mind is not suitably impressed by God's dispensations, nor qualified to derive from them the benefit which they might otherwise confer.

The reason why we ask you to consider your actual condition, and especially the nature and probable consequences of your affliction, is that so long as you refuse to consider it, or take only a partial view of it, you do not read aright the lesson which God has placed before you - a lesson which you cannot understand if you turn your thoughts away from it. Thus worldly men contrive to frustrate the beneficial design of affliction in their own case, and seek to obliterate from the hearts of their friends the impression which it is fitted to produce. They have recourse to business, to society, to change of scene, or to frivolous amusements, with the avowed purpose of diverting their thoughts from afflictions, which they cannot endure to think of with calm deliberation. And they are ever ready to prescribe to others the only remedy which they have tried for themselves.

But, if this advice is offered to any of Christ's disciples, we beg him to remember that a remedy has been provided for him of which the worldly man knows nothing. It is a remedy whose efficacy depends on affliction not being forgotten, but on its being duly considered - a remedy which, so far from requiring a diversion of thought as essential to our comfort, acts through the medium of thought and makes affliction itself subservient to our good. The Christian is indeed not precluded from availing himself of any benefit that might arise from change of air or scene - viewed simply as a means of relieving him, under God's blessing, from the physical weakness or disease under which he labours. This may even be his duty, a duty involved in the great law of self-preservation. And in attending to it, he may have a supreme view to the glory of God, his own spiritual improvement and future usefulness in the world, but he is solemnly debarred from seeking relief to his soul by banishing the thought of affliction and death.

It is a dangerous error - it may be even fatal - to act on the supposition that we may lawfully seek relief by forgetting the calamities that have befallen us. These calamities are warnings addressed to us as rational beings and, as such, they loudly claim our serious consideration. To have recourse to business, to society, to change of scene, or to frivolous amusement, in such circumstances, is to "despise the chastening of the Lord" - it is to do violence to those feelings which affliction naturally produces and which instinctively point to retirement and reflection as appropriate to our condition - and notwithstanding the favour with which this course is regarded by worldly men, it will be found to be opposed to the common sentiments of society if it were pursued at those seasons when our sorrows are the most overwhelming. If a husband were seen in the theatre on the evening of that day which witnessed the death or interment of his beloved wife or child, or if a man smitten with poverty were seen to join in the dance, would not the moral sense of the whole community be offended? Yet, if the recipe be good for anything, it should stand in our greatest extremities.

No. Adversity is a serious thing. It calls for solemn consideration. It never can be improved nor endured as it ought, unless we think of it and learn the lesson which it affords. View it in whatever light you please; consider it as a trial fitted to exercise your minds or as a discipline designed to improve them or as a chastisement for past transgression or as a preparation for future duty. In every aspect in which it can be contemplated, it claims thoughtful consideration. And if this be refused, it will harden the heart, and all the more if it be superseded by the cares and pleasures of the world. Were no better remedy provided for the afflicted, or were the mind to brood over its sorrows while the remedy is unknown or overlooked, then it might indeed be our wisest course to seek diversion in the world. But a remedy has been provided; and the Christian disciple can well afford to look on his affliction in all its magnitude without incurring the least hazard of troubling the springs of his comfort. If he fall into melancholy or dejection, it is only because he omits some one thing from his consideration which the Bible presses on his attention.

In the day of adversity, you should consider (2) from whose hand it has been sent to you. It comes direct from the hand of God. Intermediate agencies may have been employed in inflicting it; a chilling wind may have been the messenger of disease, a treacherous friend the cause of bankruptcy, an avowed enemy the author of reproach and shame, Satan himself may have been allowed to smite you. But through whatever secondary agency it may have been conveyed, adversity comes from God's hand. "I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things" (Is 45:7). "Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good? Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?" (Lam 3:38,39). "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2:10). From these and many other passages, it is plain that temporal evil is ascribed to God in the Holy Scriptures; and no one who acknowledges God's providence at all can fail to believe that the numerous calamities of human life are permitted, appointed and overruled by the Supreme Governor of the world.

This is a consideration of great practical importance and should be seriously weighed in the day of adversity. First of all, it assures us that our afflictions are neither imposed by a fatal necessity, nor produced by the uncertain vicissitudes of chance; they come forth from the hand of one who is infinitely wise and just and good. Secondly, it is fitted to minister at least a certain degree of comfort, inasmuch as it demonstrates that we have the security of all His attributes against the infliction of greater or more protracted suffering than is required by the necessities of our case and the rules of perfect justice and wisdom and love. Thirdly, it teaches us in many of our afflictions, and those which it is indeed most difficult to bear, to look beyond, and to rise above, the consideration of the mere human agency by which they have been inflicted. I refer to such as are brought on us through the malice of our fellow men, in regard to which we are too apt to consider the secondary agency through which they fall upon us, instead of steadily contemplating God as addressing to us, through that agency, the warnings and lessons which we need to learn and improve.

Thus it is that this class of afflictions - comprising calumny and defamation, extortion, oppression and such like - are too little improved. Indeed they seldom fail to produce an exasperation of spirit, diametrically opposed to that submissive temper which other afflictions, recognised as coming more directly from the hand of God, are fitted to produce. Whereas, if we consider all afflictions, of whatever kind, as emanating from the same source, we would find that even those which the hand or the tongue of man inflicts are a wholesome discipline and means of spiritual improvement. And finally if we habitually bear in mind the consideration which I am now pressing on your attention, we should be the more disposed, and the better prepared, for inquiring with becoming earnestness into the reasons which may exist for such dispensations, and the grand ends and uses for which they are designed. Let us remember then that every affliction, through whatever channel it may flow, comes to us ultimately from God's hand.

1. Taken, slightly edited, from Buchanan's book The Improvement of Affliction. The first article appeared last month.