A Christian Library, Chapter 16 – Part 1
CHAP. 16. How it increaseth their Patience.
13 BEcause the malice of our Enemies makes for the increase of our patience, We rejoyce in tribulation, saith Saint Paul, knowing that tribulation bringeth forth patience, Rom. 5.3. My Brethren, saith Saint James, count it exceeding joy when ye fall into divers temptations, knowing that the trial of your faith bringeth forth patience, Jam, 1.2, 3 Thus the malice of our enemies doth both prove and improve our patience: see it exemplified in Iob and David, whose practice doth most excellently confirm this point; you know Iob was not so miserable in his afflictions, as happy in his patience, Job 31.35, 36, 37. And David after he had been so many years trained up in the School of affliction, and exercised with continual sufferings from innumerable Enemies of all sorts; became a wonder of patience to all succeeding ages: as take but notice of his carriage towards Shimei, and you will say so; when this his impotent subject cursed and cast stones at him, and all his Men of War: called, him Murderer, wicked man, &c. he was so far from revenging it (when he might so easily) or suffering others; that you shall hear him make that an argument of his patience, which was the exercise of it: Behold my son (saith he) which came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life, how much more now may this Benjamite do it? 2 Sam. 16.11. The wickednesse of an Absalom may rob his Father of comfort, but shall help to adde to his Fathers goodnesse: it is the advantage of great crosses, that they swallow up the lesser. One mans sin cannot be excused by anothers: the lesser; by the greater: if Absalom be a Traitor, Shimei may not curse and rebel; but the passion conceived from the indignity of a stranger, may be abated by the harder measure of our own.
Indeed in the provocation of Nabal; he had his lesson to seek: but even that slip made him stand the faster afterward. And Paul being taken upon the sodain, reviled Gods High-priest: but he soon checkt himself for it, Acts 23.3, 5. A weak heart faints with every addition of succeeding trouble, perhaps is like that Maid in Scaliger, who swoonded at the sight of a Lilly: but the strong recollects it self, and is grown so skilful that it bears off one mischief with another. As in the Fable, When the new and old Cart went together; the new made a creaking noise under the load, and wondred at the silence of the old: which answered, I am accustomed to these burthens, therefore bear them, and am quiet: So, what a degree of patience have some men attein'd unto? What a load of injuries can some Christians digest, that have been frequent in sufferings, and long exercised in the School of affliction? Not that they bear them out of baseness or cowardliness, because they dare not revenge; but out of Christian fortitude, because they may not: they have so conquered themselves, that wrongs cannot conquer them. Nay, we read of some Ethnicks that could say this of themselves. When Alcibiades told Socrates, that he could not suffer the frowardness and scolding of Xancippe, as he did: Socrates answered, but I can, for I am accustomed to it. And we read, that Aristides after his exile, did not so much as note them that were the cause of his banishment, though he were now advanced above them. Yea, Diogenes rather than want exercise for his patience; would crave alms of dead mens statues: for, being demanded why he did so, he answered, That I may learn to take denials from others the more patiently. Now, if we can therefore suffer, because we have suffered; we have well profited by our afflictions otherwise not.
To shew that there is nothing so hard and difficult, but may be atte…n'd to by use and custome; give me leave to clear it by some familiar instances. We know the custome of any hardship (whether it be labour, cold, or the like) makes it easie and familiar: you shall have a common Labourer work all day like a Horse, without once sweating, or being weary: Let a Scholar or Gentleman, but dig one quarter of an hour; you must give him leave to take breath all the day after: The face that is ever open, yea, the eye that is twice as much open as shut, is able perpetually to endure the coldest winde can blow; when as the rest of the parts would complain of the least blast that is cold: Let him that is next neighbour to the Belfrey, tell me, whether Ringing doth so molest his silent sleep now, as formerly. Yea, the fall of the River Nilus, which makes a new commer stop his ears; to the natural inhabitants, is not so much as heard. At Milton, neer Sittingborn in Kent, is (or lately was) one William Allen a Tailor, that eats between thirty and forty grains of Opium every day, the tythe whereof would kill him that is not accustomed thereunto; neither can he sleep (no, not live) without it: he began but with one grain, and so increased the quantity, as the operation and quality of it decreased. But this is nothing, for you have slaves in the Turkish gallies, that wil eat neer an ounce at a time, as if it were bread. Neither, in my judgement, is it less rare for men to drink a pottle or a gallon of the richest old Canary every day, as is usual with some of our Sack-drinkers, and Good-fellows; without the least inflammation: it hath no other operation in them than a cup of six hath with me, or hath had with them in diebus illis.
To conclude, as that Girle which Aristotle writes of, being nursed with poison in her infancy, lived with it after, as we do with meat: and as that young woman at Cullen in Almain, who was frequently seen picking Spiders off the wall, and eating them, digested the same into nourishment, as Albert an eye-witness affirms. And as Mithridates, by his accustomed eating of poison, made his body unpoisonable. So the Godly, notwithstanding they are by nature as a wilde Ass-colt, as Zophar speaks, Iob 11.12. Yet, by their frequent and accustomary suffering of injuries, these wilde Asses are made tame, and the ablest to carry burthens of any creature: yea, though they were once as fierce and cruell as Wolves, Leopards, Lions and Bears; and as mischievous as Aspes and Cockatrices; yet Christ will so change their natures, partly by his Word, and partly by his rod of affliction, that they shall now be as apt to suffer evill, as they have been to offer it: What else means the Prophet? when he tels us that the Wolfe shall dwell with the Lambe, and the Leopard with the Kid, and the Lyon with the Calfe, so that a little childe shall lead them: that the Cow and the Beare, and the Lion and the Bullock shall eat straw together, that the sucking childe shall play upon the hole of the Aspe, and the weaned childe shall put his hand upon the Cockatrice hole, Isa. 11.6. and so forward.
And so you see, that according to the ancient Proverbial speech, Use makes perfectness; and that custom is not unfitly called a second, or new nature. Wouldest thou then attein to an unconquerable patience, & be able to undergo great trials hereafter? accustom thy self to a silent suffering of thy present and smaller griefs, tongue-provocations, and the like. If, with Milo, thou shalt take up a Calf, some small crosse; and enjoyn thy self to carry the like every day a little; in process of time thou shalt be able to carry an Oxe, the strongest and biggest affliction can come. For nothing is miserable, saith Seneca, which once custom hath made natural. Familia…rity even with Lions, takeh away the fear of them: and the being used t… Tempests, giveth heart and courage to endure them: whereas any new disaster is tedious and irksom to the unexperienced: but hard occurrences fall heavy upon them, for that the yoak is most cumbersome to a tender neck.
An end of the first Part; fitted, and parted for the penurious: who usually offer for a considerable Book; the price of a Ballad.
The Second and Third follows: for their sakes; that are more generous and ingenious.
Pag. 15. line 40. for them read then. Page 49. line 35, for repentance read recompence.
THE VICTORY OF PATIENCE: Extracted out of the choysest Authors Ancient and Modern; both Holy and Humane. Wherein are a multitude of rare Examples, necessary to be read of all that any way suffer Tribulation.
The Fourth Impression.
By R. YOUNGE Florilegus.
Imprimatur, THO. GATAKER.
HAving shewn in the former Part, the severall Reasons, why God suffers the best of his Children to be afflicted; with the manyfold benefits and advantages they make thereof. I shall in this second Part, shew the Reasons, why the godly are so patient in their sufferings.