it fball not ftand: for God is with us. Sanctify, therefore, the Lord of Hofts; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread, and he shall be for a fanctuary*. For God will fave Sion, and will build the cities of Judah. The pofterity alfo of his faints fhall inherit it; and they that love his name full dwell therein. Their children fhall continue, and their feed fhall be eftablished before him ‡.

• If. viii. 9, 10, 13, 14.

Pfal. Ixix. 35. 36.

Pfal. cii. 8.

SER

SERMON CXXI.

(Preached in 1745-)

AGAINST EXTREME SOLICITUDE CONCERNING WORLDLY AFFAIRS; AND THE WISDOM OF REPOSING UNBOUNDED CoxFIDENCE IN THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD,

PHIL. iv. 6, 7.

Be careful for nothing: but in every thing, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds, through Chrift Jesus.

ANGERS are fo conftant, and fufferings fo frequent, in

human life, that behaving properly under the apprehenfions and experience of them, conftitutes a very confiderable part of our bufinefs here. But when Providence permits a peculiar degree of either to be our lot, it calls us peculiarly to think what methods will beft preferve us from them, or carry us through them. Now thefe are of two forts; worldly prudence, and religious wifdom. The precepts of the former it is not the bufinefs of this place to deliver, but to limit and perfect them by the dictates of the latter; that we may neither endeavour to fecure ourfelves by acting wrong, nor doubt of fupport in acting right. We are apt to look on religion, very injuriously, as only prefcribing disagreeable duties; whereas it fuggefts the kindeft advice, and fuperadds the most comfortable promifes; which cannot be done more completely, in the great point of moderating fear and uncafinefs, than it is in the text; where we have

I. A friendly caution: Be careful for nothing.

II. A most neceffary direction: But in every thing, by prayer and fupplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.

III. An affurance of the happy effect which this conduct will produce: And the peace of God, which paffeth all underfanding, fhall keep your hearts and minds, through Chrift Fefus.

I. A friendly caution: Be careful for nothing. Words which neither common reafon allows us to take in their utmoft extent, nor fcripture itfelf. For it every where demands from us the most earnest care about the things of another world; and enjoins, quite as often as it needed, a moderate care about the affairs of this. Being careful, therefore, muft mean, in the paffage which I have read to you, as an expreffion mighty little varied from it, being full of care, doth, for the most part, in our daily fpeech; not a difcreet and rational, but a difquieting and tormenting folicitude: and that principally, not concerning our behaviour, which is the only thing in our power, but the event, which is often entirely out of it. This the original Greek phrafe elsewhere ufually fignifies, though not always. In the fixth of St. Matthew, it is many times rendered, Take no thought. But there alfo we must remember, that only what is immoderate was intended to be forbidden; which it had been happy if our tranflation had more determinately expreffed.

Thoughtfulness concerning our deportment, our welfare, that of others, and the public, fo far as it will really be of ufe, is a duty of indifpenfable obligation. And firft acting at random, then turning our eyes from the evil day, when we fee it coming, inftead of confidering how we may avert it, or make the best provifion against it, will prove the fureft way to bring it on with its blackeft horrors. But the contrary extreme, anxiety, is both a miferable feeling in itself, and the parent of many farther mischiefs, without any mixture of good. It reprefents every object of terror as vaftly greater than it is in truth; and frequently gives far more pain beforehand, than the prefence of all that we fear is capable of giving. Nay, it makes us tremble at mere spectres; and fills us with the most alarming fufpicions, fometimes of what can

not happen, often of what is highly improbable. And yet, were it ever fo likely, exceffive dread will do nothing to wards preferving us from it. Calm reflection will inftruct and excite us to do every thing for ourfelves which we are able to do; and the utmoft agónies of difquiet can never carry us beyond our abilities. Indeed, very commonly vehement emotions either hinder us from feeing what is fit, or difqualify 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 otherwife entirely mafters of ourfelves, that cagernefs of looking farther than we can fec, which they always beget, hath a powerful tendency to miflead us very unhappily. Dangers which we think we difcern 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 fudden. Thefe are no reafons againft prudent forecast; but they are frong reafons against extracting wretchedness out of fpeculations on futurity, inftead of following quietly and cheerfully the proper bufinefs of the prefent day; fince we know not what another may bring forth; and, confequently, require us to contrive or execute, to grieve or rejoice at. To-morrow, our bleffed 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 guefs now, what precautions we are to take, and what judgments we are to form, about remote affairs and fince all that appears at this inftant likely to fall out, or wife to do, may poffibly in the next ap pear quite otherwife, we ought ftudioufly to moderate both our actions and our paflions, by recollecting the mutability of the world; which would fave us a vaft deal of fruitlefs labour and needlefs mifery. We every one of us think the forrows of life abundantly enough; why then fhould we multiply them by long anticipations, and load ourfelves at once with misfortunes prefent and to come, unmindful of our gra cious Lord's important maxim, Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof? Had cur Maker framed the human mind in

fuch

* Prov. xxvii. I.

† Matth. vi. 34.

Matth. vi. 34.

fuch manner, that we must have been always forecasting grievous things; and fuffering every hour, in thought, all that through a course of years we are to fuffer in reality, and much more, we should certainly have looked on it as very hard ufage. 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, left the forefight 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 fee, is more than folly; it is evidently fin. He intended us to live here in comfort and peace; and we are not at liberty to fruftrate his defign, by making ourselves uneafy and wretched. Both nature and scripture plainly forbid it. Nor have we the leaft ground to hope, that the fault will be deemed a punishment severe enough for itself. Many others are accompanied with grievous mifery, to which, notwithstanding, more hereafter is defervedly threatened. And the guilt of inordinate folicitude 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 fpirits, and fouring the temper, it renders us different, in many refpects, from what we should be, to all around us. It leads perfons into strong temptations of raifing and cheering themselves under their troubles, by false and pernicious fupports, or of feeking deliverance from them by dishoneft arts and compliances. It infects others, who fee it, with the fame apprehenfions; which may produce the fame or worse effects on their quiet, náy, their innocence. And in proportion as difcouraging alarms become epidemical, the calamity dreaded becomes likely to happen. Still, fo much of this wrong turn as is really conftitutional and unavoidable weaknefs, will certainly not be imputed as criminal and therefore we ought not to double our uneaĥinefs, by adding to involuntary anxieties a rigid condemnation of ourselves for them, but ftrive against them to the utmost of our power; and then be fatisfied with the consciousness that we have done fo; only not deceiving our VOL. III. heart

U u

• Wifd. xvii. 1I.