Scripture the precepts of patience: '' My son, in man.'"' Whence even if it chance them
ON PATIENCE. 33! <a ah al UN ie NE IS RE Rape ammmnereeeeenmmeemmrreeemereemeesere ese tee a a a mT have inflicted pain upon themselves, and hereafter not only for their impiety towards God but for the very cruelty which they have exercised upon themselves will deservedly suffer pains of His inflicting, do yet seek moreover the glories of Martyrs? since, even if for the true testimony of Christ they suffered persecution, and killed themselves, that they might not suffer any thing from their persecutors, it would be rightly said to them, "**'Woe unto them which have lost patience !"' For how hath patience her just reward, if even an impatient suffering receives the crown? or how shall that man be judged innocent, to whom is said, '* Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,"* if he commit murder upon himself which he is forbidden to commit upon his neighbor?
poor receive it from that Rich One, to Whom is said, "'My God art Thou, because my goods Thou needest not:'% of Whom is "every good gift, and every perfect gift;" 9 to Whom crieth the needy and the poor, and in asking, seeking, knocking, saith, '* My God, deliver me from the hand of the sinner, and from the hand of the lawless and unjust: because Thou art my patience, O Lord, my hope from my youth up." But these which abound, and disdain to be in want before God, lest they receive of Him true patience, they which glory in their own false patience, seek to °*' confound the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his hope.''* Nor do they regard, seeing they are men, and attribute so much to their own, that is, to the human will, that they run into that which is written, **Cursed is every one who putteth his hope in man.'"' Whence even if it chance them that they do bear up under any hardships or difficulties, either that they may not displease men, or that they may not suffer worse, or in self-pleasing and love of their own presumption, do with most proud will bear up under these same, it is meet that concerning patience this be said unto them, which concerning wisdom the blessed Apostle James saith, '' This wisdom cometh not from above, but is earthly, animal, devilish." For why may there not be a false patience of the proud, as there is a false wisdom of the proud? But from Whom cometh true wisdom, from Him cometh also true patience. For to Him singeth that poor in spirit, '' Unto God is my soul subjected, because from Him is my patience:?7 4
11. Let then the Saints hear from holy Scripture the precepts of patience: '' My son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand thou in righteousness and fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation: bring thine heart low, and bear up; that in the last end thy life may increase. All that shall come upon thee receive thou, and in pain bear up, and in thy humility have patience. For in the fire gold and silver is proved, but acceptable men in the furnace? of humiliation."3 And in another place we read: '*' My son, faint not thou in the discipline of the Lord, neither be wearied when thou art chidden of Him. For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.''* What is here set down, ''son whom He receiveth," the same in the above mentioned testimony is, 'acceptable men." For this is just, that we who from our first felicity of Paradise for contumacious appetence of things to enjoy were dismissed, through humble patience of things that annoy may be received back: driven away for doing evil, brought back by suffering evil: there against righteousness doing ill, here for righteousness' sake patient of ills.
13. But they answer and speak, saying,
If the will of man without any aid of God by strength of free choice * bears so many grievous and horrible distresses, whether in mind or body, that it may enjoy the delight of this mortal life and of sins, why may it not be that in the same manner the self-same will of man by the same strength of free-choice, not thereunto looking to be aided of .God, but unto itself by natural possibility sufficing, doth, in all of labor or sorrow that is put upon it, for righteousness and eternal life's sake most patiently sustain the same? Or is it so, say they, that the will of the unjust is sufficient, without aid of God, for them, yea even to exercise themselves in undergoing torture for iniquity, and before they be tortured by others; sufficient the will of them which love the respiting of this life that, without aid of God, they should in the midst of
12. But concerning true patience, worthy of the name of this virtue, whence it is to be had, must now be inquired. For there are somé' who attribute it to the strength of the human will, not which it hath by Divine assistance, but which it hath of free-will. Now this error is a proud one: for it is the error of them which abound, of whom it is said in the Psalm, ''A scornful reproof to them which abound, and a despising to the proud."? It is not therefore that '' patience of the poor" which '' perisheth not forever."® For these
10 Ps, Ixxi. 4, 5. 8 Ps, xvi. 2. 9 James i. 17. i. 13 James iil. 15. iI Ps, xiv. 6. 12 Jer. xvii. 5. 14 Ps, Ixii. 5. 15 Liberi arbitrit.
3 Ecclus. ii. 1-5. 2 Receptibiles. she 6 Ps, cxxiii. 4. += Matt. xix. 19.
5 Pelagians. 4 Prov. iii. 11, 12. 7 Ps, ix. 18.