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THE HIDDEN
LIFE
Or
A
CHRISTIAN.
CSERM X.
formed
surprising
services
for
God
iñ
the
world,
they
are
yet contented
to
submit
to
smarting and
heavy trials
from the hands
of their
heavenly
Father,
without
being
angry
at
their God
;
they know he loves them,
and
he
designs all things shall work
together
for
their
good.
Besides all
this,
they
bear dreadful persecutions, cruel
mockings,
and
scourgings,
and tortures,
from the hands
of
men,
and
go
through
all the 'sorrows
of
martyrdom.
What
noble instances
and
miracles
of
this
kind
did the
primitive
age
furnish
us with,
so
that
their tormentors
Were
amazed
?
They
saw
not
the secret springs
of
divine
life which
supported
them
;
they knew
not
the grace
of
God,
and
the power
of
Christ,
by
which the
christians
were upheld
in all
their labours and
their
sufferings.
The
spring
of
their
life was
almighty,
but it
was
hidden
-from
the
eyes
of
men
:
It
was
concealed' and reserved
with
Christ
in
God.
Read the labours and the
sufferings
Of
St.
Paul;
Cor.
xi.
23.
In
stripes
above
measure, in
prisons
fre-
quent, in deaths
often:
He
was
beaten
with rods,
he
was
stoned,
he
suffered
shipwreck, in
perpetual
perils
by
land
and
sea,
in weariness, in painfulness,
in
watch-
ings
and
fastings, in
hunger and thirst,
in
cold and
nakedness.
One
would
think
his
bones were iron, and
his flesh was
brass.
He
was
invisibly
supported
by
Christ
the spring
of
his life.
Read
his
wonderous
vir-
tues and
self
-
denial;
Phil.
iv,
11,
12, 13.
I
know
how
to be abased, and
how
to
abound;
I
can
be full,
and
be
hungry; I,can
possess plenty,
and
I
can
suffer
want;
I
can
do all things
through Christ strengthening
me.
This
was the
fountain
of
his life
and strength:
I
acknowledge,
says
he,
in
another
place,
that
I
am
nothing,
I
have
no
sufficiency
of
myself to think
so
much as one
good
thought: But
all
my sufficiency
is
of
God, in
whom
my
life
is
hid;
2
Cor.
iii. 5.
And
with
what a devout
zeal
does he ascribe
his
life
to
Christ, in
that
glorious amassment
of
spiritual para-
doxes
!
Gal.
ii.
20.
I
am crucified
with Christ,
never-
theless
I
live;
yet, not
I,
but
Christ
liveth
in
me
:
and
the lifewhich
I
now live
in the flesh,
I
live
by
the
faith
of
the
Son
of
God,
who
loved
me,
and gave
himself
for
me.
Therefore
I
can be delivered
to
death
daily
for
Jesus
Christ's
sake;
troubled and
perplexed, and
yet
not
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