Part 2

To be without religion is to be curtailed of the dimensions of man's character. Every state of mind and heart which religion commands is just so far a return to spiritual health. No human soul can be truly great while ignorant of God, alienated from God, opposed to God, slavishly in dread of God, and out of communion with God. Each grace of the Holy Spirit tends to lift man up towards the ideal of humanity. The trials of life bring all men into a certain conflict with adverse circumstances, producing pain. In this conflict many are conquered. But the Christian combatant finds every trial an occasion for bringing out latent reserves of a strength derived from Christ his Head. When he suffers therefore sharply and long, he is only like a soldier going from one battle to another, and waxing hardier and more courageous after each success. Hear how Paul, long tried in this athletic effort, expresses this Christian magnanimity, (1 Cor. ix. 25,) "I therefore run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air." And "Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life." There is reason to believe, that no great Christian character can be developed without some severe discipline, that is, without patience, in its large and scriptural sense.

4. _Confirmed patience tends to usefulness in the Church._ The very reverse is often thought by the sufferer himself, especially if his trial throws him into solitude, poverty, contempt of brethren, weakness of body, pains of old age, or separation from friends. In the chamber of melancholy seclusion how many a soul has mourned that all opportunity of doing any thing for Christ was cut off. But this is a short-sighted and defective conclusion. When God's infinitely wise and holy will is done, then the great end of our creation, and our redemption, and our sanctification is accomplished, so far as we are concerned; whether it be by doing or by suffering. If it were possible for a perfectly sinless angel to be perpetually bathed in sorrow by the will of God, the pure spirit would accept the coming trial with a yielding bliss. And when the perfectly sinless Jesus, who was "very man," sank in griefs which surpass comprehension, he was accomplishing the purposes of the Godhead, and said, "Not my will, but thine be done." Now by sending trials and educing the grace of patience in repeated acts, God fits the soul for labours incalculably beyond every thing it could have effected without this education. And these very pains, and the conduct of a believer under them, becoming visible to bystanders and fellow-servants, as well as to the ungodly themselves, go up as a costly odour, to magnify the grace of the gospel. So that no sermons ever preached so loudly as the transient view of a suffering saint has sometimes done, when in the fiery heart of the hot furnace, he has been seen unhurt, with one like unto the Son of God. (Dan. iii. 25.) In both ways, therefore, by preparing for action, and by exhibiting the glory of grace, patience tends to benefit the Church.

5. Finally. _Patience when duly sustained leads to a great reward._ Not in the sense of the Papists, who strike a commercial balance between pains and recompense, and set off so much trouble in this life against so much merited blessing in the life to come. But in perfect consistency with our belief that after all is done we are unprofitable servants, that all heavenly good is merited by our Saviour, and not by us, and that a man may suffer pain here which shall be swallowed up in greater pains hereafter, we maintain and teach, that in the case of true believer, the gracious deportment of the soul under earthly affliction carries it forward to higher happiness than it would otherwise have reached. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." By the work of God's Spirit, the soul that suffers receives greater capacity for eventual joy. Whoso bears God's burdens in a godly manner is made holier, and more fit and able to take in the surpassing blessedness of rest. And then our heavenly Father, who seeth not as man seeth, does not measure our obedience on a physical scale, by the amount and number of sensible acts, as if he reckoned up so many deeds outwardly done, so many palpable effects produced, so many words spoken; but by the quality of the inward affection and will, which may be heavenward and holy, and infinitely pleasing to God, in a poor creature locked in a dungeon, or motionless on a bed of illness. Where the soul _pleases God_, there the great work of life is accomplished; in an apostolic discourse or miracle, in a gift of charity, in a resistance of temptation, or in agony on a cross.

Patience, heavenly patience, under what God inflicts, is more pleasing to him than thousands of rams, and ten thousands of rivers of oil; which is of itself the all-comprehensive motive to pious submission and endurance. But what is pleasing to God, as the fruit of his Holy Spirit, God will graciously reward. "I know thy works," saith he to Ephesus, "and thy labour and thy patience." "I know thy works," saith he to Thyatira, "and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience." "Because," saith he to Philadelphia, "thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee." "Behold," saith he to Smyrna, "the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life!" May I not add with renewed emphasis the exhortation of our apostle, though it struck strangely on the ear at first, "My brethren, count it all joy, when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this that the trying of your faith worketh patience." O my brother--my sister--more patience will make us more like Christ. What are our sufferings to his! Meditate, step by step, on the degrees of his humiliation, accompanying Him whom your souls love, from point to point of his unexampled sorrows; and thus will you find sin grow more intolerable, and suffering more light.

THE END.