Chapter II.—God Himself an Example of Patience.

To us ^[9020] no human affectation of canine ^[9021] equanimity, modelled ^[9022] by insensibility, furnishes the warrant for exercising patience; but the divine arrangement of a living and celestial discipline, holding up before us God Himself in the very first place as an example of patience; who scatters equally over just and unjust the bloom of this light; who suffers the good offices of the seasons, the services of the elements, the tributes of entire nature, to accrue at once to worthy and unworthy; bearing with the most ungrateful nations, adoring as they do the toys of the arts and the works of their own hands, persecuting His Name together with His family; bearing with luxury, avarice, iniquity, malignity, waxing insolent daily: ^[9023] so that by His own patience He disparages Himself; for the cause why many believe not in the Lord is that they are so long without knowing ^[9024] that He is wroth with the world. ^[9025]