any man, nor to recompense evil for evil. Nor is patience less necessary for enabling us to undergo the various inconveniences and troubles to which the make of our bodies exposeth us, and with which we are perpetually tormented. For since in the first instance of sin which was ever committed, we lost the original vigour of our bodies, when we forfeited our title to immortality, and weakness and infirmities came upon us when we were obnoxious to death; and since we cannot recover our primitive strength of constitution till we recover our immortality; there arises hence a necessity of struggling always with these several infirmities, which would be absolutely insupportable to us without the aids of patience. Various are the trials and afflictions wherewith we are exercised by the hand of providence, in the ruin of our fortune, in the rage of fevers, and in the loss of our nearest and dearest friends. Nor is there any thing which more distinguishes the righteous from the wicked, in these calamities, than this signal circumstance of their respective deportment under them; for whilst the wicked is impatient and blaspheming under a sense of his misfortunes, the righteous man is approved, and his patience abides the test.

11. To this test holy Job was brought, and, in his example, patience had her perfect work and her highest commendations. With what variety of torments did the tempter press him? With what innumerable darts did he attack him? He

broke his fortunes; he deprived him of a numerous and hopeful issue: He who a little while was rich in his possessions, and richer yet in his children, lost on a sudden the one and the other; and, to add to his misery, he was full of sores. And, that no circumstance of temptation might be wanting to complete his trial, the devil made his wife an instrument of assaulting him; herein resorting to his old artifice, and fancying that, because his first success was procured by this stratagem, he might always expect the like advantage, and pervert that sex into an engine of promoting his fraudulent and mischievous purposes; yet the good man had no disadvantageous impressions made upon him by this or any other struggle he was put to; but amidst all his sufferings and pressures, his patience enabled him still to bless God, and to celebrate his maker's praise.

12. Farther yet, my brethren, let us compare the advantages of patience with the mischiefs of its opposite; and thence let us form our estimate: For as patience is a christian virtue, so impatience is a diabolical vice; he therefore in whom Christ dwelleth, always approves himself meek and patient in disposition and behaviour; as he is the very reverse of this character, who hath his mind possessed by the malice of the tempter. Let us proceed to trace this evil to its rise, and to observe it in its progress. The devil was first impatient at man, being made after the image of God;

thence he fell himself, and drew in others to fall with him. Adam could not bear with the restraint under which the commandment of God had laid him; so his impatience proved fatal to him, and he forfeited that guardian grace, which he might have preserved, would he have stood firm to his duty: Cain could not endure the acceptance which his brother's sacrifice and oblation found at the hauds of God; and so he embrued his hands in his brother's blood. The reason of Esau's forfeiture and loss of birth-right was founded in his inability to bear with the present want of a little pottage. And was not the original crime of the Jews, who have since been so infamous for their ingratitude and disobedience; was it not, I say, at first this very species of sin? They grew restless and uneasy at the delay of Moses, who staid longer than they expected in the mount communing with God; and so presumed to demand other gods to lead and to march before them, even the head of a calf, and a figure made with men's hands; and they proceeded ever after agreeably to that beginning; never enduring to be led by the counsel of God, but advancing from the murder of his servants and prophets, to shed at last the blood of his Son our Lord, and to nail him upon a cross.

13. Impatience likewise makes heretics in the church, and draws in men to a rebellion against Christ, like that of the Jews; it causes them to

break the bonds of peace and love, and to engage in the fiercest contests with each other; and, not to enter into the detail of numberless particulars, whatsoever patience would build up, or whatsoever it would contribute by its happy effects to the ornament and honour of our nature, that impatience pulls down, and contributes just as much to our reproach and scandal. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let us put the advantages of patience into one scale, and the mischiefs of impatience into another, and let us weigh them together with a just and equal balance; and then certainly we shall abide by patience, through which we abide in Christ, and hope to come unto God with him: This is a large and extensive virtue, is confined to no scanty measures, nor is bounded by any narrow limitations.

14. Patience, I say, is a very comprehensive virtue, and though it hath only one name, and all its streams proceed from one common fountain, yet doth that fountain spread itself into many rivulets, which form distinct canals, each of them meriting distinct commendations. For, to leave our metaphor for the strict truth of things, there can no single instance of virtue be carried to its just perfection, unless there be a firmness in the mind to raise it to its proper pitch of excellence. 'Tis patience which brings us into favour with God, and keeps us in it; 'tis that which softens our temper, bridles our tongue, prescribes to each

motion of our minds, regulates all discipline, abates the fury of lust, restrains the exorbitance of pride, extinguishes the flames of discord, is a check upon the power of the rich, and a support to the needy in their distress and indigence: in prosperity, it makes men humble; in adversity, it enables them to endure hardness; under affronts and injuries, it persuades to gentleness and forbearance; teaches men to pardon those who have offended them; and if they themselves have offended, to ask forgiveness with great and repeated importunity: By it we are prepared to endure temptation, and to conquer it; to undergo the severities of persecution, and finally to finish our course in a blessed martyrdom. In short, 'tis that which guards the foundations of our faith, which enlarges and increases our christian hope to the highest and noblest advances, which regulates our actions, orders our steps in the way of Christ, and directs us to follow his example in suffering: and thence we persevere in being the children of God, as copying after the pattern of his forbearance and long-suffering.

15. But, my brethren, since I am very sensible how many there are amongst us, who, through a raging sense of the injuries they have received, and the displeasure thence arising against the persons offering them, are in haste for vengeance, and cannot bear the delay of it till the great day of retribution; these I would with all fit persuasives exhort to forbear till then, and to try what advan