“WE glory in tribulations also” (Rom. v. 3). The peculiarity of the believer’s position does not lie in his being exempted from severest sufferings, but of his being possessed of an Antidote, whereby he can, with ease, take away every trace of bitterness from the waters of his Marah (Exodus, xv. 23); nay, turn them into the most delicious sweetness. Sometimes the enemy suggests to me the thought, that the cup which I am called to drink, is filled with bitterness; and, if one were to judge of things by natural feeling, there is no denying it. But wherever I feel this taste of bitterness, I know that there is something wrong, not in the cup (for that is exactly as it should be), but in myself. And then I seek to get the wrong corrected at once, and that is not hard to do. First, I look upward to God for the succour always needed, and refused never. Then I turn the mind to a few considerations, which at once remove the bitterness. First, I let the mind rest a little, on the most tender sympathy of the Man of Sorrows. How sweet is sympathy to the afflicted! None really knows how sweet, except the afflicted. But who can describe the whole-hearted compassion of Him whose Nature and whose Name is love. Why, in order that He might be able fully to sympathise with us, He got a cup mingled for Himself similar to ours, and incomparably more bitter, and of that cup He drank for three and thirty years. And then I remind myself, that this cup of mine was compounded expressly for me, by Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That all the infinite resources of divine wisdom and love have been exercised in the making of it up, as a perfect remedy for all my diseases. How then shall I dare to think, that there can be a tint of evil, in what God regards as being His very best. And then my present cup is not the one which originally belonged to me. That was a truly fearful cup. It was the cup of God’s righteous indignation, and it was filled to the brim with the wine of His wrath, poured into it without mixture, and it was to be drunk for ever and ever (Rev. xiv. 10). But this fearful cup I never saw. Ere it was passed into my hands, the blessed Son of God took it, and drank it to the last drop. It cost Him dear. And now, having been raised from the dead—for the drinking of my cup caused Him to die—He has compounded this other cup for men, and brought it to me. And I am constrained to say “This cup which my Father hath prepared for me, which my Saviour brought to me, and which the Holy Spirit has filled full of blessings for me, shall I not drink it?”