Writing probably from Rome, certainly in one of the closing years of his life, St. Peter saw the great tendency of social and political circumstances around him towards that outbreak of violence against the worshippers of Christ which is known in history as the first persecution, in which he and St. Paul laid down their lives. He is anxious to prepare the Asiatic Christians for the trials which are before them. Then, as now, there were bad Christians who fell under the just sentence of the criminal law, and St. Peter reminds them that there is no moral glory in suffering that which we have deserved, even though we take our punishment uncomplainingly. "What glory is it if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently?" But he knew also that cruel and aggravated sufferings awaited numbers of inoffensive men and women, whose only crime would be that they were worshippers of the meek and lowly Jesus and centres of light and goodness in a corrupt and demoralised society. When the storm burst, as it would burst, they might be tempted to think that the government of the world was somehow at fault in this award of bitter punishment to virtuous and benevolent persons, conscious of the integrity of their intentions, conscious of their desire to serve a holy God, to do any good in their power to their fellow-creatures. Accordingly St. Peter puts their anticipated trials in a light which would not, at first sight, present itself, and which does not lie upon the surface of things: "If, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God." There is no glory in submitting to deserved punishment; there is a peculiar moral glory in patience under unmerited wrong, if not according to any human, yet certainly according to a Divine, standard. "This is acceptable with God." Now, many men have said, and more, perhaps, have thought, about such teaching as this, that it is a splendid paradox. That a criminal should suffer what he has deserved satisfies the sense of justice; that a good man should suffer what he has not deserved violates the sense of justice: and if he submits uncomplainingly, he acquiesces in injustice. Nay, he does more: he forfeits the independence, the glory, of his manhood. His business as a man, knowing himself to be innocent, is, we are told, to resist to the last extremity, and to submit at last, if he must submit, under protest against the violence which deprives him of his liberty or his life. The precept to take it patiently is, in a word, objected to as effeminate and anti-social.
I. Now, here it must be remarked that for serious Christians this question is really settled by the precepts and example of our Lord Himself. "Even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth: who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but submitted Himself to Him that judgeth righteously." In His public teaching our Lord made much of patient submission to undeserved wrong. He pronounced those men blessed who suffered for righteousness' sake. "Blessed are ye," He says, "when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely. Rejoice and be exceeding glad." Not in exemption from suffering, but in truthful endurance, would His true followers find their peace. "In your patience possess ye your souls." Nay more, Christians, He says, are to welcome such trials. They are to meet the persecutor half-way. If smitten on one cheek, they are to present the other. They are to do good to them that hate them, to pray for their persecutors, for their calumniators; and their example is the all-merciful God, who sheds the light of day, who sends down the rain, upon those who set Him at defiance, upon the just and the unjust. For Christians the question whether patience under undeserved wrong is right, is a duty, is not an open question. It has been settled by the highest authority our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. From His teaching there is no appeal. In His example we Christians see the true ideal of human life. "As He is, so are we in this world," says St. John; "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ," says St. Paul; "Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps," says St. Peter. And for thousands upon thousands of Christians in every generation this has decided the matter, and will decide it. If He in whom the prince of this world had no part, who is fairer than the children of men, thus came among us wounded and bruised for transgressions and iniquities which were not His own, why should we discuss the question any further whether patient submission to undeserved wrong is or is not a duty? It is ruled by the highest of all authorities, by the first of all precedents. "As He is, so are we in this world."
II. Although it is true that sin is followed by punishment, because God is righteousness, it does not follow that all human suffering in this life is a punishment for sin. The Jews came to think that, whatever sufferings befell a man, they must be in exact proportion to his personal sinfulness, and therefore that the very suffering and unfortunate among mankind were, so to speak, placarded by God's providence as the most conspicuous of sinners, that misfortunes and agony were sure proofs of known or undiscovered crime. The Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices were supposed to be sinners above all the Galileans. The eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell were adjudged worse men than any of their contemporaries. Such a theory would have regarded a fire attended with loss of life, or a great railway accident, as God's revelation of a certain number of possibly unsuspected, but certainly very wicked criminals indeed. Against this idea the Old Testament itself contains some very emphatic protests. Thus the book of Job has for its main object to show that Job's misfortunes are no real measure of his sins. His unyielding resistance to his friends on this point, followed by the Divine verdict in his favour at the close of the book, shows that pain and misfortune are not to be regarded as always penal. And if the question be asked by some anxious soul, "How am I to know? Is this unjust humiliation, or this insult, or this loss of means, or this illness, or this heartache, a punishment for past sin, or a tender discipline?" the answer is, "Conscience must itself reply." Conscience reveals to man the true meaning of pain, not pain the contents of conscience. No outward sign marks one misfortune as a penalty, and another misfortune as a discipline; but conscience, with the map of life spread out before it, is at no loss for information.
III. In this glad acceptance of undeserved pain we see one of the central forces of the Christian religion, by which, as a matter of fact, it made its way among men eighteen centuries ago and ever since. The religion of Jesus Christ, embodied in His own teaching, and illustrated by His cross, has brought to bear a mighty force upon human life: the force of passive virtue. Heathenism knew something of active virtue. Energy for good in many forms was highly rated by it; but the passive excellences of Christian character love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness were known very slightly, or known only to be despised as mean-spirited and effeminate. Yet, in truth, passive virtue often requires more courage than active virtue. In battle soldiers can often rush forward to the charge when they cannot keep their ranks under a heavy fire; and in life to do is again and again easier, far easier, than simply to bear. Patient endurance is, indeed, a moral accomplishment, in which, as a rule, women do better than men, but it is not, in the depreciatory sense of the term, effeminate. It belongs to the highest forms of human courage. Effeminate, indeed! It is the passive virtue which has conquered the world for Christ. In the early Church there was no great stock of those showy qualities which take society by storm. Not many mighty, we know, not many wise, not many noble, were called. Few could speak or act so as to control the attention of mankind at large; but there was a something that all could do. All such was Christ's strengthening grace all could suffer in such fashion as to show that a new power was abroad in the world a power before which pain, man's ancient enemy, had ceased to be formidable. Literature, social prestige, political influence, were all against the Church; but in the long run the old empire was no match for a religion which could teach its sincere votaries generation after generation to regard pure suffering as a privilege, as a mark of God's favour, as a pledge of glory. And if this way of taking the troubles which are laid upon us supplies Christianity with its force, so it secures to human life its best consolations. It will not matter much in the long run, if by discipline the neck of our natural pride is broken, and our old sins are finally put away, and love to God is purged from earthly alloy, and an advance is made in sweetness, in humility, in self-denial, in submission to God's will, in all the points which are least easy, even for serious Christians, to acquire. "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us an exceeding, an eternal, weight of glory." "Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit,New Series, No. 806.