5. It is rather hard to divide impatience into a just impatience and an
unjust impatience. The point may be too fine for definition, but Scripture
and experience both prove that sanctification does not make one perfectly
patient. In fact, who should judge as to what perfect patience is if it
were a possible attainment? Sanctification does make us patient. The
constant ruffling of soul over untoward events stops. We grow patient. We
trust God. We wait and hope. But we read that "tribulation worketh
patience" (Romans 5:3); so hard experiences make us patient, that is, if
we bear them. James says, "The trying of your faith worketh patience"
(James 1:3). So what tribulations and trials work is not completely done
by the Spirit when we are sanctified.
6. It used to be said by some that sanctification destroyed social
instincts to the point of making social diversions distasteful. It seems
very hard to disentangle the true state of holiness from asceticism.
Once, holy men were supposed to be dead to social enjoyments--they would
not marry, they would not wear ordinary clothing, they would not associate
on a common plane with their fellows. But Jesus did not live that way.
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