Of Patience. 171 days andfiell of trouble, he is born to it as the SERM. 'parks fly upward; we meet with it every VII. day, and almoft in every circumftance or-"") life, though- upon a general eftimate of our condition, it is overbalanced with good ; and we are not left without many undeniable wit- nefies of the divine mercy, yet our trials are various, and the preflure of them fo great, that any religious inftitution might well be reckoned defective, if it did not teach us how to bear them. The apoftle very properly adds patience to temperance, which is the foundation of it. It is the prevalence of carnal appetites and worldly afeEtions that makes affliction fo painful to us. It is on thefe affections that the calamities of life bear fo hard, and upon them they make fo fenfible and deep im- prefl'ions. Poverty and reproach, and hard labour and difappointments, would not be fo galling and fo uneafy as ; they are, were it not for the excefs of our delires (which tem- perance ought to corred) to riches, honour, eafe, and other prefent enjoyments, There- fore, the man who has learned to live foberly, to moderate his appetites and paffions, to con- tain them within due bounds, to think meanly of the objects of them, and treat them with 8 in-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=