BAPTIST THE MAGAZINE. FEBRUARY, 1835. A SERMON BY THE LATE REV. ANDREW FULLER, PREACHED AT MAZE POND, MAY 23, 1802. JAMES i. 4: "Let patience have her perfect work; that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." its perfect work;" instead of despairing under present trials, to "count it all joy when they fell into divers temptations." Let me have your attention, my brethren, while I attempt, I. To offer a few explanatory remarks upon the exhortation, "Let patience have her perfect work;" and, II. To point out the influence which patience thus working has upon the Christian character, rendering it "perfect and entire, wanting nothing." WE sometimes speak of the troubles of the present state, and are ready to sink under the complicated afflictions in our lot; but it might be useful to us to recollect the disparity between us and the primitive Christians. Compare your lot, my brethren, with that of people who have been harassed, persecuted from city to city, finding no certain restingplace, their lives ever in danger, their dearest friends at variance with them-and all this on account of their attachment to Christ-the father set against the I. Let us then inquire, first, into son, the tenderest of natural the meaning of the exhortation. ties almost dissolved, on account Every term the Apostle makes use of an adherence to Christ and of seems to be full of meaning, the gospel :-think of those, and and it becomes us to endeavour then ask, "What are my afflic-fully to enter into it. Here, three tions? The world to me has been or four questions seem to present a quiet habitation, in comparison themselves to us for answer. 1.What to that which it has been to them; is patience? 2. What is the work the persecutions which heretofore of patience? 3. What is the perraged have been, in a great mea- fect work of patience? and, 4. sure, laid asleep." And yet we may What is denoted, by our letting notice, that the apostle admo- patience have its perfect work? nishes the Christians in those times to take well whatever God should lay upon them; "to be patient, yea, to let patience have VOL. X., 3rd SERIES. 1. What is patience? we ask. The word so rendered, I believe, signifies rightly, to bear up under, as a man that carries a burden, H derest sensibilities, the most re or a cross if you please, and yet makes progress; goes on notwith-fined feelings. All that gospel patience aims at is, to govern, to direct, to keep those feelings in submission to God. Thus it is beautifully expressed by our Sa sess ye your souls.' The soul sometimes becomes like an ungoverned steed; but patience holds the reins and preserves it in awe, and so subjects all the feelings and sensibilities of the mind to a right direction. This is the patience of the gospel. standing the load that lies upon him. In other words, patience is that grace, in the exercise of which we quietly endure present ills in hope of future deliver-viour himself, "In patience posance. Perhaps we shall form à still clearer and more forcible idea of it by contrasting it with a few things that bear some resemblance to it. There is a species of quiescence that arises from mere fatality, or a consideration that things cannot be altered. This was the patience of the ancient heathens, and must be the patience of modern heathens. Men who have nothing better to hope for can draw their sources of submission from no higher principle. Cicero, and several of the great names of antiquity, when they lost their children, are represented as composing and quieting themselves from nothing but merely the consideration that it could not be altered: we must submit to fate. But this, my brethren, is the patience of despair, while the disposition here recommended is the patience of hope; and how great the difference between the patience which heathenism can produce, and the patience which is the effect of the gospel! 2. But I pass on to inquire, What is the work of patience? It is supposed that patience works; for though it be a passive grace, or its principal exercise consists in suffering rather than in acting, yet it is connected with activity. Hence the scriptures speak of "patient continuance in welldoing." It is not to lie under a load of sorrow, and make no movement; it is to follow Christ though we have a cross to carry; it is that kind of sensation which is connected with a perseverance in well-doing. What is the work of patience? Patience is not only represented as operative, but we are informed what it is that it works: "Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope." If we would look, then, for the work of patience, we must go into the variety of difficulties and trials with Again, there is a sort of quiescence of mind arising from insensibility, and this in every age and in every country. There are per-which Providence afflicts the chilsons who are not greatly affected dren of men, the children of God. with their trials, and who are There we shall find patience workthought to be very patient undering; there we shall see the work them; but the truth is, it is the of patience in the path of afflicmere effect of insensibility or tion, persecution, and the like. stupidity. This is not gospel patience. Gospel patience does not extinguish the feelings, but governs them: it supposes the sensibilities of the soul to be most alive; it comports with the ten That tribulation which affords occasion for patience may be distinguished into three general kinds: the visitations of God; and there the work of patience consists in bowing in submission; God suspends this expected good, the work of patience is to preserve the injurious treatment of men; and there patience consists in rendering, not evil for evil, but good for evil; and lastly, the suspen-"maketh the heart sick." Here sion of expected blessings; and there patience consists in quietly waiting for God's mercy. Here, then, you will find the work of patience. Are you visited by the afflicting hand of God? Does God afflict you in your person? Does he diminish you in your *circumstances? Does he bereave you of your children and dear friends? Does he inflict wound upon wound, and stroke upon stroke? Here is the work of patience. Imitate the example of that godly man who said, in the deepest of his afflictions, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Are you exposed to unkind treatment from your fellow-sinners? It is possible: though you are not exposed to legal persecutions for the sake of the gospel; though you cannot be haled to prison, and have your lot in a dark and noisome dungeon; though you cannot be dragged to the stake; yet there are many ways in which you may be called to suffer for Christ's sake. Ungodly relations, ungodly neighbours, ungodly connexions, may cause you to feel the weight of their resentment and malignity in a variety of ways; and here, it is your business and mine, as Christians, to let "patience have its perfect work," to beware that we render not evil for evil, to beware that our spirits are not overset by these things, and that we yield not to the temptation of rendering vengeance, which is the prerogative of God. Or it may be, that you have conceived the hope of some desired good, and have been in expectation of it; and it may be, that 3. But a third question presents itself, What is the perfect work of patience? I apprehend, this term expresses the degree of it. It denotes, that patience not only be strong but habitual; that patience be not interrupted in its work, and that it hold out unto the end. Patience is often interrupted in its work by the intervention of fits of despondency, seasons of discontent, times in which we are apt to lose the possession of our souls under the afflictive dispensations of God. Job was very patient to a certain degree, but it did not last to the end; it had not "its perfect work." We hear the same lips which once said, "Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil also?" cursing the day that he was born, and the hour in which he was brought forth. This was a sad interruption, and affords a melancholy proof of the depravity of the best of men. the resentment of our fellowcreatures, our fellow-christians, there is great danger that after having exerted great patience, and kindness, and meekness, and after having rendered much good for evil, in some unguarded moment Under passion or resentment will take the place of Christian meekness. Yes, some who have borne evil nobly for a time, have yet permitted passion and resentment to get the better of their sober judgment. Let your patience be habitual and uniform; let there be perseverance even to the end; there is need to pray for grace, and great grace, that we may, by perseverance in well-doing, go on till we lay hold of immortality; patiently endure to the end. Thus it was with the holy martyrs of Jesus; their patience lasted to the end; in patience, fortitude, and expected triumph in the cause of Jesus, they possessed their souls. But why do I speak of the martyrs of Jesus? It were enough to look to Jesus himself. He was a perfect pattern. "Behold the Lamb of God." See him meekly enduring affliction, enduring the indignities and cruelties of his most inveterate enemies, and the promised good still withheld. See him exercising patience. It may be said in its completest sense to have had its perfect work in him: it was wanting in nothing. He never slackened in the exercise of this grace; not once did he complain; not once did he exercise violent resentment: he "endured the cross, despising the shame;" and this in consequence of the joy that was set before him, and which his eye was constantly fixed. He knew that he should "see of the travail of his soul, and should be satisfied." Oh! that we may be enabled to keep the example of our Lord always before our eyes. on Patience must have its perfect work in this life, if it has it at all; for this is the only world in which it is to work. There are graces that shall live and operate in the bright world above, but patience does all here. There will be no occasion for it in the blessed state above. There will be no visitations from God to try us; no more shall he hide his face from us; no more shall he chasten the beloved of his soul. Neither shall men nor devils be able to put our patience to the proof. Their injuries, their resentments, their persecutions, shall be removed far away. Nor will there be any waiting for an expected good, no more sickness of heart on account of hope deferred, for there the crown is in possession. Patience is the vessel, the use of which is to bear us over this stormy ocean; but when we shall ride in this bark into the haven of everlasting rest, we shall not need it any further. We 4. Once more, we ask, What is denoted by the exhortation, "Let patience have her perfect work?" This kind of language intimates that we are exceedingly prone to make objections; that we are very apt to hinder the operation of patience; and this is the case particularly in these ways. are unwilling to take the cross; nay, we are naturally studious to avoid it. Indeed we are not called upon to choose affliction ; but when the path of duty lies through suffering, we may, by our own folly, bring trouble on ourselves by going out of our way to avoid the latter. God requires that we should take up the cross when he lays it in our way; but alas! how often do we go out of our way to miss it; and leave the path of duty, in order to shun trouble! Aye, here this exhortation looks us in the face. "Let patience have its perfect work." Let not your anxiety to avoid trouble lead you into sin. The path of sin will assuredly bring a heavier cross than you are trying to avoid. Do not dis pute with Providence. Take these troubles, and bear them in the strength of the grace that God will grant to you. serve to throw some light on the exhortation. II. I proceed, secondly, to remark the influence of patience on Again, this exhortation appears the Christian character; for this is to apply, when we are under any supposed. "Let it have its perparticular trials that exercise our fect work; that ye may be perfect patience, and when we are soli. and entire, wanting nothing." citous to get rid of them. The There seems to be a beautiful heart not only wishes to avoid correspondence noticed by the this and that trial; but when it apostle, between the perfect work comes, we are too apt to show the of patience and the perfect chaspirit of Ephraim, we try to shake racter of the Christian: Let it it off, to escape from a difficulty, have its perfect work, and it will being much more solicitous to get perfect you. I scarcely need rerid of trouble than of sin; much mark, that perfection here is more desirous of being delivered not to be taken absolutely, but from affliction, than that it comparatively. There is no abshould be sanctified, and leave solute perfection in the present a blessing behind it. That world. It is rather a perfection is the spirit of Ephraim, of of parts than of degrees. The "a bullock unaccustomed to the child that has all its limbs is yoke." Christian, you may lay taken to be a perfect child; but your account, that if you feel thus, this is not a perfection of deyour trouble will be continued as grees, for there is still room for it was with Ephraim, till he said, its growth to a perfect man. In "Turn thou me, and I shall be heaven we shall arrive at the perturned." Or, if God should suffer fect stature of a man; there will you to shake off your burden be- be perfection in degrees. But fore it has produced its proper there is a perfection of character, effect, the loss of it will be your comparatively speaking, in the heaviest curse. God may suffer present world; and this it is you to escape from a trouble, and which the perfect work of patiyet give you one which is far ence has a tendency to produce. worse. He may be saying, "Let The perfection to which I allude, him get rid of his sorrows; but there is an uniformity of character, a shall be a blast on his prosperity-conformity to the divine will. The there shall be a curse on his delights." Oh, tremble, lest you should wish to shake off these loads before they have answered their purpose, and be more solicitous to get rid of the sin than of the trial. All this seems to be implied in the exhortation. I hope the solution of these four questions,-What is pa-What is patience? What is the work of patience? What is the perfect work of patience? and, What is it to let it have its perfect work?-may apostle himself explains what he means, "entire, wanting nothing." That is the very idea he wishes to give here. Now, where there is a want of uniformity in the Christian character, we cannot be said to be "entire, wanting nothing." There is much wanting indeed in us all, but there is a great deficiency in many characters in point of conformity. For example, we often see characters that are distinguished by their natural generosity; they are ready |