appeals
which, as we have seen all along, were straining their spiritual
allegiance, but by actual outrages (see _e.g._ x. 34), by the
"scourging" (ver. 6) of bitter social persecution. Well, "looking off
unto" Him who had so greatly endured, they were, in these things also,
to see the unseen and to presentiate the future. From the Proverbs (iii.
11, 12), that book where the apostolic insight so often finds the purest
spiritual messages,[O] he quotes (verses 5, 6) the tender words which
bid the chastened child see in his chastening the assurance (ver. 8) of
his happy, holy sonship in the home of a Father, "the Father of our
spirits," who, unlike our earthly fathers even at their best (and that
was a noble best indeed), not only chastens, but chastens with an
unerring result of holiness in the submissive child--yea, a holiness
which is one with His own (ver. 10), His Spirit in our wills.

[O] It was evidently a book dear to St. Peter's mind, as his First
Epistle shews.

Beautiful is _the sympathy_ of this appeal to live, by faith, the life
of victorious patience. "All chastening, for the present, seems not to
belong to joy but grief" (ver. 11). Yes, the immediate pain is here
fully recognized, not ignored. It is not spoken of as if, in view of its
sequel, it did not matter. "It belongs to grief." Scripture is full of
this tender insight into the bitterness of even our salutary sorrows,
and its appeals to patience are all the more potent for that insight.
"Nevertheless, afterward, it produces the peace-bringing fruit of
righteousness," the sense of a profound inward rest, found in conformity
to the "sweet, beloved will of God," in living correspondence to the
Father's rule, "for those who have been exercised, as in a spiritual
_gymnasium_ ([Greek: gegymnasmenois]), thereby." That "exercise" was to
tell at once, as they surrendered their wills to it in faith, in a
present sense of the certainty of future blessing. "Brace the slack
hands" to toil, "and the unstrung knees" to march (ver. 12), "and make
straight paths for your feet," using your will, faith-strengthened, to
choose the line of the will of God, and that alone. So should "the lame
thing" be "healed" rather than "turned aside." The walk, feeble and
halting always when the will is divided, should be restored to firmness
and certainty again.

"Nevertheless, afterward." That is the watchword of the whole pregnant
passage. Nature, shortsighted and impatient, can d