The gospel of Christ is so fraught with this design, that it is called by the Apostle John "the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ."

4. Sympathy, also, is learned in this school. Jesus Christ is represented as compassionate, and ready to succour those who are tempted; because He has been tempted also. From whom do you most expect sympathy? From those who never knew a trial? No, my brethren; they are not the persons most ready to "weep with those that weep." Those who have been themselves afflicted are best qualified to feel for others.

5. And, finally, affliction weans us from the world, and fixes our thoughts on another state. It is when our path is thorny, and our prospect clouded, that we feel ourselves strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and look forward with desire and hope to a better world. Heaven never appears so bright as when it is contrasted with the sorrows of earth! "These are they that came out of great tribulation!" As the weary traveller sighs for his evening rest; so it is, when he has learned to die daily, that the Christian is enabled to say, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!" Affliction has a powerful tendency to quicken the spirit of pray. er. "Is any one afflicted?" says the Apostle James; "let him pray." "I am in trouble," says the Psalmist, "but I give myself unto prayer." And of our Saviour we read that, “being in an agony, He prayed the more earnestly."

III. From the subject thus considered, 1. Let the afflicted derive comfort. Consider your affliction, my dear brethren, as a mark of your relation to the Father of your spirits; a proof of his love and care; of his preparing you for his kingdom! He is melting you in the furnace, that you may bear his image. He values you too much not to bestow pains upon you. This is the mysterious process by which He is conducting you to heaven, and training you for its enjoyment. Be not, then, overmuch cast down! Remember the immutability of his promises; the stability of his covenant; the perpetuity of his love! "Remember the years of the right hand of the Most High!"

2. Let those who have been afflicted seriously consider what has been the effect of their trials upon themselves. If no effect has been produced, what can they expect but "sorrow upon sorrow?" What, but greater severity, since the former chastening has failed of its purpose? It is a fearful thing to have come out of the furnace hardened! to have produced none of those "fruits of righteousness," for the production of which the chastening was sent! Consider that unsanctified affliction can only be succeeded, either by final impenitence, or by greater affliction, in order to our recovery. Let us be anxious that, being made, by our trials, more patient, more spiritual, we may be found, as gold tried and purified, to praise and honour, at the appearing of Jesus Christ!

LXXXI.

CHRISTIAN PATIENCE.*

HEBREWS, X., 36: Ye have need of patience.

Preached at Broadmead, Bristol, Thursday evening, April 8, 1830, preparatory to the Lord's Supper.]

THE Hebrew Christians were suffering persecution from the Jews at the date of this epistle; the Jews regarded the Jewish converts as apostates from the law of Moses, and assailed them with malice and cruelty. We are mercifully spared such a trial. Still, the prescriptions of holy writ are never antiquated; they were written by that Spirit who foresaw the condition of Christians in every age. We shall consider,

I. The call which the Christian life makes on us for this grace of patience. The need of patience results from two things-the presence of sufferings, or the privation of blessings. Patience is exercised either in the enduring of evils, or in waiting for desired good. Both these views of patience are implied in Scripture, and in this passage. It cannot be doubted that the latter is here designed, from the connecting words, "that ye might receive the promise for yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry." There are trials, besides those common to man, which are peculiar to Christians. Persecution is generally, in a degree, an appendage of the profession of Christ. "If any will live godly in Christ, he shall suffer persecution." Where there is nothing like open persecution, there will often be a diminution of respect and attention, a watchfulness for haltings, a disposition to explain away the excellences of pious persons; and, even where they are not actively opposed, they will feel the influence of this silent contempt. "Wo to you, when all speak well of you." Besides which, there are spiritual trials within, from the corruptions of the heart, which none but those who have experienced them can understand. And religion, instead of hardening the feelings, makes them more sensitive, more delicate; it gives the mind a finer edge. The Christian is the only man who must wait, even to the end, for the good which he desires; he alone is a stranger on earth, who must walk by faith, not by sight; he alone must both hope, and quietly wait, for the glory to be revealed, and must rise above the present world. This is a difficulty which only the Spirit can enable us to overcome. It is a mysterious life that we are called to live: "we are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God."

From the notes of the Rev. T. Grinfield. Another sermon, founded on the same text, printed from Mr. Hall's own notes, may be found in vol. iii. of this edition of his works, p. 154-157; but as the two sermons pursue different trains of thought, I am persuaded the reader will not regret having both placed before him.-B.

II. We proceed to notice the great advantages of patience. The patience of a Christian is a divine gift. There may be a resemblance of patience in the unconverted; but this is the work of the Spirit; a frame of mind adapted to suffering; a composure and acquiescence in what God appoints, instead of an attempt to resist and shake off the yoke. It is a very different thing to accept sufferings with the equanimity with which a good man resigns himself to the hand of God; or to bear them with a stoical stubbornness and the turbulent tossing of the ungodly man, like a fish in a net. Among the advantages of patience,

1. It lightens affliction, disarms it of half its sting. Impatience greatly adds to the momentum of affliction; but the firmness and sedateness which belong to patience prepare us to bear the pain: what, indeed, is fortitude but patience? Hence, in protracted sufferings, you never hear the righteous complain; and the reason is, that they are endowed by "the God of patience" with this precious grace. How vain is all opposite behaviour, all impatience against the Almighty! It is but to kick against the pricks, which can only render the wound more deep, the pain more intense.

2. Patience gives room for those moral effects which are designed in the affliction. A tranquil state of mind gives us an advantage for receiving the benefits of our affliction; being purified, having the unholy fires of the soul quenched, the beauties and beatitudes of the Spirit imparted. But these divine purposes are not fulfilled in a turbulent mind. There the Spirit is grieved, and retires. In the composed mind "patience has its perfect work;" we are prepared for receiving the light of God's countenance by receiving the corrections of his hand. While some are only hardened in the furnace, others come forth refined and brightened as gold.

3. Affliction, endured with patience, redounds to the glory of God. Nothing is a more practical proof of devotedness to God than submission; nothing more recognises God as the great Governor of the world than obedience to Him, as well in what He inflicts as in what He prescribes; the spirit that says, "Not My will, but Thine, be done." This is rendering a glorious homage to the greatness of the Divine character, while nature retains its property of shrinking from pain.

This is also to glorify God in the view of others. "Here," they are led to exclaim, "is the patience of the saints!" What can show the truth of religion more than the being "out of weakness made strong!" It is praise "perfected in the mouths of babes." The patience of the saints is as great a proof of grace as their purity. How this is seen in martyrs! Would you glorify God? Then cultivate patience. "We have had fathers of our flesh, who corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not rather be in subjection to the Father of our spirits, and live?"

III. I proceed to mention a few considerations adapted to strengthen this virtue.

1. Affliction is sent by God. His hand is there. "Be still, and know that I am God:" such is the voice to which the afflicted saint replies, "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it." It is the will of Him whose power is felt throughout the universe; before whom angels hide their faces; who does what He pleases; to whom none can say, What doest thou? ilim who giveth no account of his matters! What am I, that I should rebel against Him?

2. Consider the gracious and glorious design which God has in afflicting us. It is "for our profit;" for nothing less than this, "that we may be partakers of his holiness!" It is thus that He would refine us into his image, and fit us to shine with his saints in eternal light. These afflictions are some of his grand means of purging away our darkness, sensuality, impetuosity, pride. He that is not thus treated, is not treated as a son. This consideration has always had a great effect on the minds of good men : they knew that God was never more their Friend than when He was chastening them.

3. There are some familiar comparisons, naturally suggested to a reflecting mind, which tend to support the afflicted. One is, the comparing of our trials with those of many others among the people of God. What are ours to theirs; to those of David; Isaiah, supposed to have been sawn; Jeremiah, cast into a dungeon; or the martyrs of later times? "If these things were done in the," comparatively, "green tree, what should be done in the dry?" They came out of great tribulation." Above all, what are ours to the sufferings of Christ? Was ever sorrow like his, when He cried, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!"

4. Again, what are our troubles compared with our deserts? "Why should a living man complain? a man for the punishment of his sin?" If we merit eternal death (and if we do not, Jesus Christ cannot be our Saviour from it), how mercifully are we afflicted! We have reason to bless God, instead of complaining.

5. Once more, what are our sufferings compared with our eternal prospects and hopes! What are all the sorrows of time! They are lost and absorbed in that immortal glory. "I reckon,' says the apostle, "that the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed." "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory."

6. Finally, the time is hastening on when all these afflictions will be no more. "In a little while, He that shall come will come." Soon we shall go to Him, if He does not first come to us. "It remains that we weep as if we wept not, and rejoice as though we rejoiced not ;" and look forward to the day when "the redeemed shall come to Zion with everlasting joy on their heads, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Let us often look forward to that day, and say, with the holy John, "Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly."

LXXXII.

THE PRIMITIVE MARTYRS.*

REVELATION, xii., 10: Here is the faith and patience of the saints

[Preached at Cambridge, December 5, 1801.]

OUR Saviour told his disciples that the time would come when they should be given up to persecution and afflictions; that they should be hated of all men, and be called before kings for his name's sake. This prediction was soon verified. Other systems have been established in the world by fraud and by conquest, but the Christian religion grew up amid persecution and death. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. Whether we consider it a part of human nature to triumph in this way, or the fulfilment of our Saviour's prediction, it forms the most instructive spectacle that can be contemplated. If we wish to know what the peculiar character of Christianity is, we must look into the conduct of the martyrs, where we shall see in what the faith and patience of the saints consist. Let us consider the subject of martyrdom: first, As it illustrates the truth of Christianity; and, secondly, As it shows the spirit of it.

I. As a strong proof of the evidence of Christianity, we may observe the great length of the persecutions that attended the promulgation of it. The first in order was that which took place under the Emperor Nero, that master-spirit of persecution, who, as Tertullian says, persecuted nothing but what was good, and that under false charges. To satisfy his cruelty, stakes were thrust through the jaws of the Christians; they were literally rolled up in garments saturated with pitch, and were set up as lamps to illuminate the city of Rome; others drew the emperor's chariot, while he tortured them. This persecution, which ceased at the death of Nero, was revived by Domitian, in whose reign the Apostle John was banished to the Isle of Patmos. It was continued, with little interruption, during the reigns of Trajan, Antoninus, and Decius, until the time of Dioclesian. There was a standing law, by which Christians were condemned to death, without a fresh decree of the Senate. The severest persecution was exercised under Dioclesian, and was more extensive and cruel than any which preceded it. It commenced with the bishops or pastors, and descended in its progress, until it comprehended all orders of men. The effect of this was a revolution, which placed a Christian emperor at the head of the world, when these proceedings entirely ceased. This illustrates the truth of Christianity; for we have no account of any religion triumphing over all others as this has done. If it had been the offspring of fanaticism, the ardour of first impressions might have been accounted for; but it is evident, from the length of time during which these * From the notes of John Greene, Esq.

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