This

is to form men to the love of GOD. cannot be done without grief of heart that there are enemies to GOD, and that all the divine goodness is defpifed, and our endeavours and exertions to bring men to GoD are of no effect. It is the diftinguishing character of the disciples of CHRIST to love one another; they are pitiful and tender hearted, they put on bowels of compassion, they weep with those who weep: they do good and rejoice with thofe who rejoice: can they but be grieved in the miferies, and the apprehended defolation and ruin, of war? Do we live by faith in a world to come, and confider death as the paffage to an eternal state, to the good and to the bad, according to their works, without exclaiming, How unfavourable are campaigns and fieges, and battles, to the tranquillity and joy of the faint, the repentance and converfion of the finner! The men of piety, of benevolence, of faith, like the mourning prophet, weep for these things; their eyes run down with water: they are in distress, their bowels are troubled, their heart is turned within them. The defolations of Jerufalem, described fo pathetically in the book of his Lamentations, did not exceed

thofe

those our LORD predicted in the passage before us in ftill more glowing colours: "In "thofe days," fays he, "fhall be affliction, "fuch as was not from the beginning of the "creation; nevertheless," he adds, " in pa

"tience poffefs ye your fouls: when you hear

"of wars and commotions, be not terrified."

THE Caution and exhortation is addressed to guard men against dejection of fpirit, violent agitation, becoming enfeebled and unfitted for the duties to which they are called refpecting GoD and man, refpecting this world and that which is to come; when there are wars and rumours of wars.

1. IN the first place, when our Saviour fays, "See that ye be not troubled," he exhorts them to beware of melancholy and dejection of mind. Men and women, of feeble minds, of weak nerves, and gloomy imaginations, dwell on the evils that surround them, and are coming upon them; they magnify them they figure calamities and miferies. that do not exift and never will be realized; or, fhould their fears be juftified, are more terrible and overwhelming to them than to

others:

others there is no more spirit in them: enjoyment is infipid: health is impaired: life is a burden. Be not fo troubled in mind.

2. By trouble of mind is more frequently, perhaps, meant the perturbation of violent paffions and emotions. Against this, poffibly, the apostles are more especially cautioned by our LORD. Of this we are much in danger, when there are wars and rumours of wars. Men who are fanguine in their expectations and keen in their pursuits; who are distinguished by warmth of affection and high intereft and enjoyment, in whatever they chufe and poffefs; are greatly difconcerted and agitated when their expectations fail: when favourite objects of pursuit are thwarted, they are thrown into great diforder the danger and lofs of high gratifications; and the removal, the fufferings, the deaths, especially the fudden and violent deaths, of those who are much endeared to them; trouble them exceedingly. Alas! wars have done, and the profpect of wars has done, all this. Emotion and violent paffions appear in the time of war; and the apprehenfion of its defolations unhinge the minds

of

of many. The fons of peace, those who remain at home, the Minifters of religion themfelves, as well as the fathers and mothers, the wives and children of foldiers and failors, and foldiers and failors themselves, from the highest to the loweft, need to be on their guard against being fo troubled, when there are wars and rumours of wars.

3. OUR LORD's exhortation guards us against that distress and confufion of mind, in whatever manner it is occafioned or explained, by which its powers are unhinged, perverted, and enfeebled; by which men are rendered incapable of the duties and exertions to which they are called. Producing melancholy and perturbation of mind, wars and rumours of wars render men incapable of the duties and exertions to which they are called: for melancholy and agitation unhinge, pervert and enfeeble, them. Rapacity, revenge, cruelty, the vices that distinguish a time of war, are the very counterparts of the distinguishing characters of the difciples of CHRIST: while melancholy and agitation and fuch vices prevail, where are the folemn and delightful meditations of

piety, where the fervours of genuine devotion? With their prevalence, gratitude to GOD, confidence and hope in his providence and promises, and refignation to his difpenfations are incompatible. In men overwhelmed with forrow, diftracted by paffion, yielding to the temptations of times of diforder and violence, and blood; the tenderness and gentleness, and schemes and exertions, and pleafures of goodwill, are not to be looked for: fuch men are incapable of attending to the more immediate and pressing duties of life : they cannot perform the duties of parents, of fons, of neighbours; the duties of fubjects to their fovereign, of friends to their country. By fuch men, injury, instead of being repelled, is invited; every oppofition and enemy is formidable to them; and all that renders life comfortable, all that conftitutes the safety and the happiness of society, is abandoned.

THE trouble of grief and sadness, of pasfion and emotion, prevents or destroys due preparation for eternity, darkens or extinguishes the animating and foothing hopes of being received into the regions of everlast