XX

THE EFFICIENCY OF THE PASSIVE VIRTUES.

REV. i. 9-" The kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ."

KINGDOM and patience! a very singular conjunction of terms, to say the least, as if in Jesus Christ were made compatible authority and suffering, the impassive throne of a monarch and the meek subjection of a cross, the reigning power of a prince and the mild endurance of a lamb. What more striking paradox! And yet in this you have exactly that which is the prime distinction of Christianity. It is a kingdom erected by patience. It reigns in virtue of submission. Its victory and dominion are the fruits of a most peculiar and singular endurance. I say the fruits of endurance, and by this I mean, not the reward, but the proper results or effects of endurance. Christ reigns over human souls and in them, erecting there His spiritual kingdom, not by force of will exerted in any way, but through His most sublime passivity in yielding Himself to the wrongs and the malice of His adversaries. And with Him, in this most remarkable peculiarity, all disciples are called to be partakers; even as the apostle in his exile at Patmos writes, “I, John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus." I offer it accordingly to your consideration, as a kind of first principle in a good life, which it will be the object of my discourse to illustrate—

That the passive elements, or graces of the Christian life, well maintained, are quite as efficient and fruitful as the active.

It is not my design, of course, to discourage or restrain what are called active works in religion. Christ himself was active beyond almost any human example. All great and true servants of God have been men of industry, and of earnest and strenuous application to works of duty. I only design to exhibit what many are so apt to overlook or forget, the sublime

efficacy of those virtues which belong to the receiving, suffering, patient side of character. They are such as meekness, gentleness, forbearance, forgiveness, the endurance of wrong without anger and resentment, contentment, quietness, peace, and unambitious love. These all belong to the more passive side of character, and are included, or may be, in the general and comprehensive term, patience. What I design is to shew that these are never barren virtues, as some are apt to imagine, but are often the most efficient and most operative powers that a true Christian wields; inasmuch as they carry just that kind of influence which other men are least apt and least able to resist. We too commonly take up the impression that power is measured by exertion; that we are effective simply because of what we do, or the noise we make; consequently, that when we are not in exertion of some kind, we are not accomplishing anything; and that if we are too humble, or poor, or infirm, to be engaged in great works and projects, there is really nothing for us to do, and we are living to no purpose. This very gross and wholly mistaken impression I wish to remove, by shewing that a right passivity is sometimes the greatest and most effective Christian power, and that if we are brothers and companions in the kingdom and patience of Jesus, we are likely to fulfil the highest conception of the Christian life. Observe then

First of all, that the passive and submissive virtues are most of all remote from the exercise or attainment of those who are out of the Christian spirit and the life of faith. All men are able to be active. Most men do exert themselves in works that are really useful. A vast multitude of the race have excelled in forms of active power that are commonly called virtuous, without any thought of religion. They have been great inventors, discoverers, teachers, law givers, risked their life, or willingly yielded it up in the fields of war for the defence of their country or the conquest of liberty, worn out every energy of mind and body in the advancement of great human interests. Indeed it is commonly not difficult for men to be active or even bravely so; but when you come to the passive or receiving side of life, here they fail. To bear evil and wrong, to forgive, to suffer no resentment under injury, to be gentle when nature burns with a fierce heat, and pride clamours for redress, to restrain envy, to

bear defeat with a firm and peaceful mind, not to be vexed ur fretted by cares, losses, or petty injuries, to abide in contentment and serenity of spirit, when trouble and disappointment come-these are conquests, alas how difficult to most of us! Accordingly it will be seen that a true Christian man is distinguished from other men, not so much by his beneficent works, as by his patience. In this he most excels and rises highest above the mere natural virtues of the world. Just here it is that he is looked upon as a peculiar and partially divine character. The motives seem to be a mystery. What can set a man to the suffering of evil and wrong with such a spirit? Thought lingers questioning round him, asking for the secret of this mysterious passivity. Even if it be derided there is yet felt to be a something great in it; truly he is another kind of man and not of us, is the feeling of all who are not in Christ with him. By this he will be seen and felt to belong to a distinct order of being and character. He is set off by his patience to be a brother and companion in the kingdom and patience of Jesus.

Consider also more distinctly the immense power of principle that is necessary to establish the soul in these virtues of endurance and patience. Here is no place for ambition, no stimulus of passion, such as makes even cowards brave in the field. Here are no exploits to be carried, no applauses of the multitude to be won. The disciple, knowing that God forgives and waits, wants to be like Him; knowing that he has nothing himself to boast of but the shame of a sinner, wants to be nothing, and prefers to suffer and crucify his resentments, and, since God would not contend with him, will not contend with those who do him injury. He gets the power of his patience wholly from above. It is not human, it is divine. Hence the impossibility of it even to great men. Napoleon, for example, had the active powers in such vigour that he made the whole civilised world shake with dread. But when he came to the place where true greatness consisted only in patience, that was too great for him. Just where any Christian woman would have shone forth in the true radiance and sublimity of an allvictorious patience, he, the conqueror of empires, broke down into a peevish, fretful, irritable temper, and loosing thus, at once, all dignity and composure of soul, died before his time, because he had been resolved into a mere compost of faculty by

the ferment of his ungoverned passions. On the other hand, we have in Socrates an illustrious example of the dignity and sacred grandeur of patience. The good spirit or genius he spoke of as being ever with him, was, in fact, the teacher of this noble and truly divine submission to wrong. It wears no merely human look, and the world of all subsequent ages has been made to feel that here is a certain sublimity of virtue, which sets the man apart from all the great men of profane history. No ancient character stands with him. He is felt to be a kind of sacred man, who, by means of his wonderful passivity to wrong, and his gentleness toward his enemies, is set quite above his kind, revealing as it were the gift of some higher nature. You perceive in his example that the passive virtues both involve and express a higher range of principles; hence they are necessary to all highest character in the active. We can act out of the human, but to suffer well requires a participation of what is divine. Hence the impression of greatness and sublimity which all men feel in the contemplation of that energy which is itself energised by a self-sacrificing and suffering patience. And accordingly there is no power over the human soul and character so effective and so nearly irresistible as this.

Notice, again, yet more distinctly, what will add a yet more conclusive evidence, how it is chiefly by this endurance of evil that Christ, as a Redeemer, prevails against the sin of the human heart and subdues its enmity. Just upon the eve of what we call His passion, He says, in way of visible triumph, to His disciples, "The prince of this world is judged;" as if the kingdom of evil were now to be crushed, and His own new kingdom established by some terrible bolt of judgment falling on his adversaries. It was even so; and that bolt of judgment was the passion of the cross. We had never seen before the sublime passivities of God's character, and His ability to endure the madness of evil. We had seen Him in the smoke, and heard Him in the thunders of Sinai. We had felt His judgments, we had trembled under His frown, we had seen the active management and sway of His providence. But now, in the cross, we see Him bearing wrong, receiving the shafts of human enmity, submitting Himself, in His sublime patience, to the fury of the disobedient, and so, melting down by His gentleness what no terrors could intimi

Thus our

date, and no frowns of judgment could subdue. blessed Redeemer made Himself a king, and set up a kingdom. It is the kingdom of His patience. When law was broken, and all the supports of authority set up by God's majesty were quite torn away, God brought forth a power greater than law, greater than majesty, even the power of His patience, and by this He broke for ever the spirit of evil in the world. The sinner could laugh at God's thunders, and stiffen himself against all the activities of His omnipotent rule, when exerted to abase and humble him, but when He looks upon the cross of Jesus, and beholds the patience of God's love and mercy, then he relents and becomes a child. The new-creating grace of Christianity is scarcely more, in fact, than a divine application of the principle, that when nothing else can subdue an enemy, patience sometimes will.

Again, it is important to notice that men, as being under sin, are set against all active efforts to turn them, or persuade them; but never against that which implies no effort-viz., the gentle virtues of patience. We are naturally jealous of control by any method which involves a fixed design to exert control over us: therefore we are always on our guard in this direction. But we are none the less open, at all times, to the power of silent worth, and the unpretending goodness of those virtues that are included in patience. If a man is seen to live in content, and keep a mind unruffled by vexation, under great calamities and irritating wrongs, we have no guard set against that, we almost like to be swayed by such a kind of power. Indeed we should not have a good opinion of ourselves, if we did not admire such an example and praise it. And in just this way it happens, that many a proud and wilful soul will resist the most eloquent sermon, and will then be completely subdued and melted by the heavenly serenity and patience of a sick woman. For a similar reason, all the submissive forms of excellence have an immense advantage. They provoke no opposition, because they are not put forth for us, but for their own sake. They fix our admiration therefore, win our homage, and melt into our feeling. They move us the more, because they do not attempt to move us. They are silent, empty of all power but that which lies in their goodness, and for just that reason they are among the greatest powers that Christianity wields.