our eyes from the evil day, when we see it coming, instead of considering how we may avert it, or make the best provision against it, will prove the surest way to bring it on with its blackest horrors. But the contrary extreme, anxiety, is both a miserable feeling in itself, and the parent of many farther mischiefs, without any mixture of good. It represents every object of terror as vastly greater than it is in truth and frequently gives far more pain beforehand than the presence of all that we fear, is capable of giving. Nay, it makes us tremble at mere spectres and fills us with the most alarming suspicions, sometimes of what cannot happen, often of what is highly improbable. And yet, were it ever so likely, excessive dread will do nothing towards preserving us from it. Calm reflection will instruct and excite us to do every thing for ourselves, which we are able to do: and the utmost agonies of disquiet can never carry us beyond our abilities. Indeed very commonly vehement emotions either hinder us from seeing what is fit, or disqualify us from performing it: nay, hurry us into what is very unfit, and prejudicial to the point which we have in view. But were they to leave us otherwise entirely masters of ourselves, the eagerness of looking farther than we can see, which they always beget, hath a powerful tendency to mislead us very unhappily. Dangers, which we think we discern at a distance, may have no reality or if they have, may never draw near. Dangers that are near may never reach us: and evils, that have reached us, may vanish on a sudden. These are no reasons against prudent forecast but they are strong reasons against extracting wretchedness out of speculations on futurity, instead of following quietly and cheerfully the proper busi ness of the present day; since we know not what another may bring forth *, and consequently require us to contrive or execute, to grieve or rejoice at. To-morrow, our blessed Saviour hath told us, shall take thought for the things of itself†: time, as it runs on, will direct us much better than we can guess now, what precautions we are to take, and what judgments we are to form, about remote affairs: and since all, that appears at this instant likely to fall out, or wise to do, may possibly in the next appear quite otherwise; we ought studiously to moderate both our actions and our passions, by recollecting the mutability of the world: which would save us a vast deal of fruitless labour, and needless misery. We every one of us think the sorrows of life abundantly enough: why then should we multiply them by long anticipations; and load ourselves at once with misfortunes present and to come, unmindful of our gracious Lord's important maxim: Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof? Had our Maker framed the human mind in such manner, that we must have been always forecasting grievous things §, and suffering every hour, in thought, all that through a course of years we are to suffer in reality, and much more; we should certainly have looked on it as very hard usage. Why then will we bring ourselves into a state, in which if God had placed us, we should have complained of him, as cruel? He hath mercifully hid future events from us, lest the foresight of them should make us unhappy. And we pry into them by conjecture, and dwell upon them by imagination, that we may be unhappy whether he will or not. This, you see, is more than folly: it is evidently sin. * Prov. xxvii. 1. Matt. vi. 34. + Matt. vi. 34. peace: He intended us to live here in comfort and and we are not at liberty to frustrate his design, by making ourselves uneasy and wretched. Both nature and Scripture plainly forbid it. Nor have we the least ground to hope, that the fault will be deemed a punishment severe enough for itself. Many others are accompanied with grievous misery, to which notwithstanding more hereafter is deservedly threatened. And the guilt of inordinate solicitude is greater than we generally apprehend. It implies, not only disobedience to God, but distrust in him. It unfits us for the offices of piety and of common life. By dejecting the spirits, and souring the temper, it renders us different, in many respects, from what we should be, to all around us. It leads persons into strong temptations, of raising and cheering themselves under their troubles by false and pernicious supports, or of seeking deliverance from them by dishonest arts and compliances. It infects others, who see it, with the same apprehensions: which may produce the same or worse effects on their quiet, nay their innocence. And in proportion, as discouraging alarms become epidemical, the calamity dreaded becomes likely to happen. Still, so much of this wrong turn, as is really constitutional and unavoidable weakness, will certainly not be imputed as criminal. And therefore we ought not to double our uneasiness, by adding to involuntary anxieties a rigid condemnation of ourselves for them: but strive against them to the utmost of our power; and then be satisfied with the consciousness, that we have done so: only not deceiving our hearts with a notion, that we have resisted fears, which in truth we have indulged. But some will say, "How can we resist them? Must we not of necessity be terrified a+ hat we perceive is terrible; be concerned about what we " are sensible is of great concern to us? Where is "the virtue of pretending to blind ourselves, or even "of doing it actually, if we could?" None at all certainly. But the rule prescribed you is, not to shut, but open your eyes, and contemplate the whole of your case deliberately and impartially. For perhaps it is not so bad, perhaps not near so bad, as you conceive, though you were to look on it only in a worldly view. And yet were outward appearances, and our own strength, all that we had to look at, there would be no wonder, if sometimes our hearts fainted within us at the prospect; for the stoutest and the proudest hearts have fainted, before us, on like occasions. But the never-failing foundation of comfort is this. A being infinitely powerful, wise, and benevolent, superintends the universe continually; these attributes afford us large ground of hope, and, that our own unworthiness may raise no doubt, his express declarations give us full assurance, that if we fly to him with humble faith, he will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape*. The most usual anxiety of men is about the daily necessaries of life. With respect to these therefore he condescends to argue with us particularly; and the argument will hold as well concerning less common exigencies; that since he sustains the vegetable part of the creation, which can do nothing for itself, and the animal, which cannot do near so much as we; certainly he will take of us, on doing what we ought, a care proportionable to the superiority of our nature. For in this lies the force of our Saviour's reasoning. And when he saith, Behold the fowls of the air; they sow * 1 Cor. x. 13. not; neither do they reap; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them: are ye not much better than they? He doth not mean, that they take no pains, and therefore we are to take none. They take a great deal, in seeking food and contriving security against dangers, for themselves and for their young, according to the extent of their faculties. And we are to take as much, in proportion to the extent of ours. But then, as Providence furnishes to them, so far as consists with its wise purposes, whatever they need, and cannot acquire by their own power; the same Providence will certainly watch over us with more peculiar tenderness, even in the present state: besides that, what we suffer now shall increase our happiness hereafter. And therefore, since they are easy in their condition, well may we in ours. For it would be strange indeed, if that order of earthly beings, which enjoys the greatest favour beyond all comparison, should be the only one discontented. Reflect then: where human care ends, the divine care begins. The duty of to-day is our business; the event of tomorrow is our heavenly Father's and surely you do not wish to remove it out of his hands into your own; or surmise, that you can possibly be, unsafe, while under the protection of him, with whom the very hairs of your head are all numbered †. Here then we have a secure refuge against inquietude. But let us remember if, having it, we use it not; if, professing faith in God, we allow ourselves to be as much disconcerted and perplexed on every alarm, as they that have no hope, and are without God in the world ‡; we either think unworthily of him, or behave quite unsuitably to what we think; and our guilt is greater, as our temptation to it is less. When therefore, on * Matt. vi. 26. + Matt x. 30. Eph. ii. 12. |