ue and the Scripture-taught heart.
'Great is our Lord, and His understanding is infinite. Who covereth the
heavens with clouds, and prepareth rain for the earth, and maketh the
grass to grow upon the mountains. He giveth snow like wool; He
scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes; He casteth forth His ice like
morsels. Who can stand before his cold?' Here is the patience and the
faith of the saints. Here are they that keep the commandments of God and
the faith of Jesus Christ.

And, then, when through rain or frost or fire, when out of any terror by
night or arrow that flieth by day, any calamity comes on the man who is
thus pointed and practised in his patience, he is able with Job to say,
'This is the Lord. What, shall we receive good at the hand of God and
not also receive evil?' By far the best thing I have ever read on this
subject, and I have read it a thousand times since I first read it as a
student, is Dr. Thomas Goodwin's _Patience and its Perfect Work_. That
noble treatise had its origin in the great fire of London in 1666. The
learned President of Magdalen College lost the half of his library, five
hundred pounds worth of the best books, in that terrible fire. And his
son tells us he had often heard his father say that in the loss of his
not-to-be-replaced books, God had struck him in a very sensible place. To
lose his Augustine, and his Calvin, and his Musculus, and his Zanchius,
and his Amesius, and his Suarez, and his Estius was a sore stroke to such
a man. I loved my books too well, said the great preacher, and God
rebuked me by this affliction. Let the students here read Goodwin's
costly treatise, and they will be the better prepared to meet such
calamities as the burning of their manse and their library, as also to
counsel and comfort their people when they shall lose their shops or
their stockyards by fire.

'Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.'

And, then, in a multitude of New Testament scriptures, we are summoned to
great exercise of patience with the God of our salvation, because it is
His purpose and plan that we shall have to wait long for our salvation.
God has not seen it good to carry us to heaven on the day of our
conversion. He does not glorify us on the same day that He justifies us.
We are appointed to salvation indeed, but it is also appointed us to wait
long for it. This is not our res