in reversions; so if we would forbear our present murmurings and importunities, and stay the full time, till the interruptions our own sins or his providence cast in the way, are worn out, we should in the end receive a large interest for all our expectation, and have cause to magnify our purchase; we should rather conclude, when we are disappointed, that the conditions are broken on our part, which we are so unapt to perform, than that God hath broken his promise, which he was never known to do; we should call to our memory, that most of the calamities which befell his own chosen people, proceeded from their own murmurings and impatience, and that the least impatience towards him, grows by degrees to an infidelity in him, which we cannot endure to be thought guilty of: we should remember with what disdain we look upon those who will not take our word, which many times is not in our power to keep, seldom in our will; and yet we make no scruple to doubt the accomplishment of God's word, though we know all things to be in his power, and whatsoever is good for us in his purpose: whereas patience is so much and so essentially of the character of a Christian, that no performance of our duty, and of his com

mands on our part, can be a security and an assurance of his blessing upon us without it; which was very evident to St. Paul, when, in the 10th chapter of his epistle to the Hebrews, at the 36th verse, he says, "For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise;" as if God had made no promise to those who are not patient to expect his performance. The truth is, God cannot so well know, that is, we do not so well and clearly manifest, that we have done his will out of piety and devotion to him, as by our patience to wait his pleasure when we have done it. There may be design in the practice of all external duties of Christianity for our advantage in this world: the formal outward profession of religion may be, and we see too often is, to get so much reputation, and interest, and dependence with men, as may enable us to destroy religion; our exercise of charity may have pride and vanity to be recommended and magnified, and even covetousness in it, that we may get credit enough to oppress other men, and upon the stock of that one public virtue, be able to practise twenty secret wickednesses. But our patience (I speak of that Christian patience of waiting God's own time for the

receiving those blessings we pray for, and is an internal submission of the mind to him) can have no stratagem upon this world, nor do us credit and advantage with ill men, being all that time subjected to their insolence, reproach, and tyranny; and therefore St. James makes it the end and complement and crown of all that we do: "Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing," James i. 4. Which though Tremellius renders, "et in nullâ re sitis destituti," as if patience so supplied all wants and defects, that we are not over sensible or grieved with those wants, yet the Vulgate (and with that Beza concurs) hath it, "ut sitis integri, in nullo deficientes," that you may be entire, wanting in nothing; which seems most agreeable with the original: as if it were impossible we could be defective in any thing, if we were endowed with patience, which can proceed only from the conscience of having done our duty, or the reasonable confidence that God hath accepted us as if we had; for the bold habitual wicked man, pretend what he will to temper and sobriety, never had, never can have patience. Though this incomparable sovereign virtue is of great use and comfort to us in the whole course of our

life, be it never so pleasant and prosperous, without any interruptions of nature, by infirmities, sickness, or diseases, or accidents of fortune in the casual interruptions in our very conversation and commerce with men, yet the most signal and glorious use of it is in our adversity and calamity, when the hand of God is heavy upon us, by the perfidiousness of friends, the treachery of servants, the power, injustice, and oppression of those men with whom we are to live; and in those afflictions, which deprive us of the comfort of our families, the supply of our estates, the joy of our liberty, and all those particulars which render life pleasant to us; and in lieu thereof expose us to want and poverty, and to the insolence and contempt which usually attends that miserable condition. And truly, in this case, if we could give ourselves no other argument for patience, methinks it should be enough that never any man found ease, benefit, or relief, by impatience, but improves, and extends, and multiplies the agony, and pain, and misery of whatsoever calamity he undergoes by it; whereas patience lessens and softens the burden, and by degrees raises the constitution and strength to that pitch, that it is hardly sensible of it. And if we would but

deal faithfully with ourselves and the world, and report and acknowledge how much we have found ourselves the better for our adversity; how by it we have corrected the follies and infirmities of our nature, improved the faculties of our mind and understanding, mended ourselves towards God and man; we should be so far from needing patience to bear it, that we should even thirst, and long and desire to undergo it: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted (says the man after God's own heart) that I might learn thy statutes," Psal. cxix. 71. He that had been brought up from his cradle in the knowledge of God, and lived suitable to that education, learned more from his affliction than he had done all his life before: that presented all his infirmities to him in a true mirror; he discerned his pride and his passion in their own colours, which appeared before to him only in the dress of majesty and power. The greater and the higher we are in place, the more we want this sovereign remembrancer. Mean and inferior people have their faults as often objected to them as they commit them, it may be oftener; the counsels of friends, the emulation, envy, and opposition, of equals, the malice of their enemies, and the authority and pre