rise:  when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall lighten me.”  Remember all those martyrs what they have endured, the utmost that human rage and fury could invent, with what [3803]patience they have borne, with what willingness embraced it.  “Though he kill me,” saith Job, “I will trust in him.” Justus [3804]inexpugnabilis, as Chrysostom holds, a just man is impregnable, and not to be overcome.  The gout may hurt his hands, lameness his feet, convulsions may torture his joints, but not rectam mentem his soul is free.

[3805]  ------“nempe pecus, rem,
Lectos, argentum tollas licet; in manicis, et
Compedibus saevo teneas custode”------

       “Perhaps, you mean,
        My cattle, money, movables or land,
        Then take them all.—­But, slave, if I command,
        A cruel jailor shall thy freedom seize.”

[3806]"Take away his money, his treasure is in heaven:  banish him his country, he is an inhabitant of that heavenly Jerusalem:  cast him into bands, his conscience is free; kill his body, it shall rise again; he fights with a shadow that contends with an upright man:”  he will not be moved.

------“si fractus illabatur orbis,
Impavidum ferient ruinae.”

Though heaven itself should fall on his head, he will not be offended.  He is impenetrable, as an anvil hard, as constant as Job.

[3807] “Ipse deus simul atque volet me solvet opinor.”

       “A God shall set me free whene’er I please.”

Be thou such a one; let thy misery be what it will, what it can, with patience endure it; thou mayst be restored as he was. Terris proscriptus, ad coelum propera; ab hominibus desertus, ad deum fuge.  “The poor shall not always be forgotten, the patient abiding of the meek shall not perish for ever,” Psal. x. 18. ver. 9.  “The Lord will be a refuge of the oppressed, and a defence in the time of trouble.”

       “Servus Epictetus, multilati corporis, Irus
        Pauper:  at haec inter charus erat superis.”

       “Lame was Epictetus, and poor Irus,
        Yet to them both God was propitious.”

Lodovicus Vertomannus, that famous traveller, endured much misery, yet surely, saith Scaliger, he was vir deo charus, in that he did escape so many dangers, “God especially protected him, he was dear unto him:”  Modo in egestate, tribulatione, convalle deplorationis, &c.  “Thou art now in the vale of misery, in poverty, in agony,” [3808]"in temptation; rest, eternity, happiness, immortality, shall be thy reward,” as Chrysostom pleads, “if thou trust in God, and keep thine innocency.” Non si male nunc, et olim sic erit semper; a good hour may come upon a sudden; [3809] expect a little.

Yea, but this expectation is it which tortures me in the mean time; [3810] futura expectans praesentibus angor, whilst the grass grows the horse starves:  [3811]despair not, but hope well,