be weak and ready to faint, it never dies. It is an infirmity of the better sort, not like the atheism and malignity of the ungodly. This distemper is not incidental to carnal men: "Mine eyes fail with looking up," Psalm xxxviii. 14. It argues a vehemency in our hope; they, that mind not spiritual things, are never troubled with such a spiritual disease; for this failing cannot be but where there is vehemency of desire and expectation. The world feel none of this, for there is a difference between them and others; though God's people have their weaknesses, yet their faith doth not quite expire-they are weary of watching, but they do not give up waiting. Fainting is one thing, and death is another; they strive against the temptation, though no end of their difficulties may appear, they wait still keep looking upwards, though the vigour of the eye be abated by long exercise. There is life in them, though not that liveliness they themselves could wish. They do not fall to rise no more, nor are they quite overthrown by the blast of temptation. They confess their weakness to God, take shame to themselves, and beg new strength. It is an excellent way to cure such distempers, to lay them forth before God. in prayer, for he helpeth the weak in their conflicts. When we debate dark cases with our own hearts, we entangle ourselves the more. This should reprove our despondency and impatience, when we cannot bear a little while; Christ reproached his disciples, "What, could ye not watch with me one hour?" Matt. xxvi. 40. With some their whole voyage is through storms: Christ bids us take up our cross daily, Luke ix. 23. Some are kept all their life long under this discipline ;-and shall we bear no check from Providence? We would have all done in an hour or 66 in a year; we can bear nothing when God calleth us to bear much and long. Beware, lest if we cannot abate a little of our wonted comfort, God should strip us of all. Let us look for longsufferings: we need much grace, because we know not how long our great troubles may last. Sufferings are like to be long when the cross maketh little improvement-carrieth little conviction with it. While the stubbornness of the child continues, the blows are continued. God will withdraw himself till his people acknowledge their offence," Hosea v. 15. When we eye instruments, and pour out our rage upon them, or look for deliverance when we repent not; when provocations are long, then will it happen to us as to the children of Israel: "If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD; then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance," Deut. xxviii. 58, 59. XCII. God doth sometimes bring such trials and afflictions on his people, as shall hold them all their days, and scarce afford them any intermission; and, if it prove so with thee, O christian, know that thy patience ought to run parallel with thy trouble. If God will not take thy burden off, but make thee travel with it till the evening, till thou liest down to take thy rest in the grave, thy patience must hold out till then, if thou wouldest have it perfect. Look then, upon thyself as a traveller; make account that, whatsoever burden God is pleased to lay upon thee, he may perhaps not take it off till thou come to the end of thy journey. If he discharge thee of it sooner, acknowledge his mercy; but be sure thou discharge not thy patience, before God discharge thy burden. Sometimes our sorrows are very deep our burdens very heavy; and God brings upon us not only long, but sharp sufferings; he may give thee a deep draught of the bitter cup, and squeeze into it the very quintessence of gall and wormwood. Now, in this case, thy patience must be strong, as well as lasting. But, if thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small," Prov. xxiv. 10. Thou must suffer too, and not repine; otherwise thy patience is only extorted; thou must thank and bless that God, taking from thee whom thou didst bless giving to thee. 66 The motives to patience are many and powerful; and such, indeed, they had need be, to persuade our fretful natures, to the exercise of so hard a grace. There are none of us, who at all reflect upon the working of our own spirits, but find it a difficult matter to keep down the risings of our unruly passions. When a cross providence intervenes, either to frustrate our expectations, or deprive us of our present enjoyments, they will rebel; so that it is almost as easy an undertaking to persuade the sea into a calm, when winds and storms beat boisterously upon it, as it is to compose the minds of men into an equal temper, when they are assaulted with any cross providences. Yet grace can work those wonders, which nature cannot and that God, to whom all things are possible, can make our hearts calm, when our outward condition is tempestuous; and though he lets forth his winds upon us, can keep us from being ruffled by them; and lay the same command upon our passions, as Christ did upon the waves, "Peace, be still." There is nothing more necessary for a christian, in the whole conduct of his life, than the work and exercise of patience. What saith the apostle? "Ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise," Heb. x. 36. It is a most necessary grace for a christian, not only as all other graces are necessary to make him such, but the apostle speaks of it by way of special remark, "Ye have need of patience," need of the continual exercise, strength, and perfection of this grace. Our whole life is but a scene of sorrows and troubles. They spring up thick about us, and surround us in every condition: in whatever state of life thou mayest be, still thou shalt find something to molest and disquiet thee, for our rest is not here. Who can recount the personal, domestic, or more public sorrows, which he undergoes? as if breath were only given to us to spend it in sighs and groans. The truth is, we pass through the world as men that run the gauntlet, and must receive a lash at every step we take, Job v. 7. Trouble is man's inheritance, it descends to him from his father Adam; entailed upon him by the curse of the law annexed to our first transgression: our troubles come upon us naturally and spontaneously. Now, if sufferings do thus make up the greatest part of our lives, is it not absolutely necessary to fortify our hearts with patience-quietly and meekly to bear whatsoever it shall seem good to the all-wise providence of God to inflict upon us? Afflictions are necessary for us; more necessary and more advantageous than prosperity; to arouse our sloth, and awaken our security; to make us remember God and ourselves. And shall afflictions be thus necessary for us, and shall we not have patience to undergo them? While thou livest in this world, thou sailest upon a rough sea: the waves rise high; and wilt thou expose thyself to these storms, like a forlorn vessel without ballast to be tossed up and down, ready to be swallowed up every moment, or dashed against every rock in thy way? Patience too lightens the afflictions we suffer. The same burden shall not, by this means, have the same weight in it. There is a certain skill in taking up our load upon us, to make it sit easy; whereas, others that take it up untowardly find it most oppressive; let the same affliction befal two persons; the one a patient, meek, self-resigning soul; the other a proud, fretful one, that repines and murmurs at every cross, and every disappointment; and with how much more ease shall the one bear it than the other! the burden is the very same, but with the one it doth not wring nor pinch him, but the other's impatience hath galled him, and every burden is more intolerable to him, because it lies upon a raw and sore spirit. And therefore, since sufferings are unavoidable in this life, which is a vale of tears and misery, if thou wouldest make thy sufferings supportable, fret not thyself at any dispensation of the Divine Providence; and whatsoever burden it shall please God to lay upon thee, add not to it by thy impatience; be not ingenious to torment thyself by thy own troublesome thoughts and reflections, nor to find out circumstances to aggravate thy sufferings; swallow down the bitter draught that God has put into thy hand, for so the trouble will be sooner over and less distasteful. It is not so much the wearing, as the striving with our yoke, that wrings and galls us; and, as it is with beasts caught in a snare, so it is with impatient men; the more they struggle, the faster they draw the knot, make their sufferings the greater, and their escape impossible. But patience gives the soul some liberty under afflictions; the christian may be "troubled on every side, but yet he is not distressed." He is God's prisoner; and though the afflictions come very close to his outward man and his temporal comfort, it can never eat |