DISCOURSE XIII. THE USE OF RELIGION IN A TIME OF AFFLICTION. PSALM xlvi. 10. Be ftill, and know that I am God F all the leffons a Chriftian hath to learn none is fo difficult, as fubmiffion to the will of God under affliction. Not that the duty itself is hard to be explained or understood.-Far from it. What God requires of us in these circumftances is eafy to be apprehended: the dif ficulty lies in the practice of it. And that the difficulty is very great, appears not only from the teftimony of the wifeft and beft men who have been exercised with fevere trials, but from the reafon of the thing. A defire of happiness is the firft and leading principle in the human breaft. It is the hinge upon which our whole frame turns the pulfe of the foul: and the spring of all its actions. It is placed upon the throne of our hearts, to direct and influence our conduct. And it is fo deeply rivetted in our nature, that no force whatever can tear it thence. Which being the cafe, it follows that what thwarts or oppofes this defire of happinefs, or any way feems to have that tendency, must needs throw the mind into great disorder, and become a trial to its refolution and patience. patience. To abstain from pleasure, to which we are fo ftrongly impelled by this principle, is hard work; but to endure is much harder. Nature starts back at the approach of pain it fhrinks, at the very idea of it. And though reafon, unaffifted by revelation, may attempt to reconcile us to this and the other affliction, by telling us that what cannot be avoided ought to be quietly endured, and that our pains make way for our pleasures, and ferve to heighten and refine them; yet reason faulters in her discourse, and for want of fufficient energy to enforce her dictates, often fails in her endeavours to controul the tumultuous paffions of the foul. The whole ftream of nature therefore being against pain and affliction, it is no wonder that patience, whose business it is to ftem the tide, and to allay the ftorm, fhould be fo difficult to be practifed. But, what farther increases the difficulty of a calm fubmiffion to affliction, is the wretched depravity of the human heart. This put into the fcale with the natural averfion we feel to pain, preponderates almost every confideration that can be offered to foothe the troubled breast. Pride, paffion and unbelief, joining all their force with that principle of happiness I have been speaking of, raise fuch a tumult in the mind as can hardly be imagined, but by thofe who have felt it. Patience in thefe circumftances feems a grace abfolutely unattainable: and the cool, faint and abAracted reasoning of a by-ftander has little more effect, than the ufe of oars to a boat toffed about upon boisterous waves, which every moment threaten its deftruction. Now, it will be acknowledged, these things confidered, that to behave with meeknefs, compofure and firmness of mind under grievous and preffing afflictions, is a task too arduous to be performed without fuperior affiftance. The great utility therefore of religion at thefe times, is a fub. ject well deferving our particular confideration. Religion fteps in to the aid of the Christian when all other fupports fail. And what gives it the advantage above the reason ings ings of mere nature, is that it comes cloathed with divine authority. Its voice is the voice of God; the all-commanding voice of him who hath the paffions of the heart, as well as the waves of the fea, at his direction and under his controul-Be fill and know that I am God. There is a majefty in this language that is inimitable. It is like that of our Saviour, when in a florm with his difciples, he rebuked the wind, and faid unto the fea, Peace be flill; and the wind inftantly ceafed, and there was a great calm *. And that it hath had the like effect on the minds of many in the depths of affliction, hath been fufficiently attested by Scripture and by the beft of men in every age. In order therefore to fet the use and importance of religion at such a time in their proper light, let us confider, I. Our duty as it is here represented-Be fill. II. Our obligations to fuch a temper and conduct-I am God. And, III. The regard which religion teaches, and divine grace enables us to pay to these confiderations.-Know that I am God. F. I am to explain the duty of the afflicted Chriflian as it is here reprefented-Be fill. It is a figurative kind of expreffion; and fuppofes fomeextraordinary diforder or commotion of the mind and fpirits, occafioned by the loffes, difappointments, and troubles of the prefent life, especially when they come fuddenly upon us, and we are unprepared to meet them. The mind is hereby wrought into a violent agitation, just like the fea when a tempeft arifes. Innumerable uneafy thoughts, painful fenfations, and ruffled paffions, perplex and diftrefs the heart, fpread a gloom over the countenance, disturb our ufual peace and ferenity, and unfit us both for action and enjoyment. They who have endured affliction in any great degree, from whatever quarter it may have arifen, know well what this means. And by putting ourfelves in the fi Mark iv. 39. tuation tuation of perfons overwhelmed with this or that particular trouble, we may eafily imagine, though not perhaps in fo feeling a manner as they, what this state of the mind must be. It was a distressed condition the good old patriarch Jacob was in, when the fad tidings were brought him, that his beloved fon Jofeph was torn to pieces by wild beasts. The tendereft paffions of his breast were fenfibly touched. He rent his cloaths, put fackcloth on bis loins, and refufed to be comforted, faying, I will go down into the grave unto my fon mourning *. And, apprehending afterwards the lofs of Benjamin also, he cries out under this complicated preffure of grief, All these things are against me +.—The affliction of Job, that great and good man, was as uncommon as was the patience with which he endured it. And no doubt he felt this violent agitation of the passions, of which I am fpeaking, though by the grace of God he did not lofe the command of them, even when the form was at its height. One fad ftory followed another, till he found himself bereft of almost every cutward enjoyment. Fire, and sword, and tempeft, fpread defolation all around him. His body was afflicted with the most loathsome and painful disease. And, to complete the fcene, his friends, inftead of being his comforters, became his accufers. His own words best describe the tumult of his paffions, though his paffions, as I faid before, did not prevail to his deftruction. O that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now it would be heavier than the fand of the fea: therefore my words are fwallowed up. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poifon whereof drinketh up my fpirit: the terrors of God do fet themfelves in array against met. Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, Oye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me||.— The prophet Jeremiah was a man of a compaffionate as well *Gen. xxxvii. 34, 35. Chap. xlii. 36. Chap. xix. 21. as that as a pious heart. And how great must have been the distress he felt, while his eyes beheld Jerufalem laid wafte by the most tremendous judgments, and his countrymen led away, under the frowns of Heaven, into a fad and long captivity! The grief, perturbation and anguish of his breast are pathetically expreffed, in the Lamentations he penned on that mournful occafion. I am the man that bath feen affliction, by the rod of his wrath *.-Is_it_nothing to you, all ye pafs by? Behold, and fee, if there be any forrow like unto my forrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord bath afflicted me, in the day of his fierce anger +.-It is a peculiarly tender and affecting scene which the evangelifts exhibit to our view, when they relate the circumstances of our Saviour's laft converfation with his difciples, the night he fuffered. With what grief must their hearts have been overwhelmed at the fad tidings, that he was now to take his leave of them, that death awaited him in its most horrible form, and, which was worst of all, that one of them would traiterously betray him, and the reft ungenerously forfake him? Their countenances expreffed the inward pangs they felt, while each one with eagerness put the queftion, Lord, is it I? And yet their forrows were trifling in comparison with their Master's, who now faw himself just plunging into the depths of affliction and fuffering. I have a baptifm, faid he, to be baptized with, and how am I fraitened till it be accomplished! Now, the pain which the heart feels when exercised with fuch trials as thefe, must be very pungent. Nor can any figure better represent the confufion and agitation of the mind on these fad occafions, than that of a storm or tempest which the text fuppofes. The pfalmift adopts this metaphor, when he would describe the tumult of his paffions on a fimilar occafion Deep calleth unto deep, at the noife of thy water-fpouts all thy waves and thy billows are gone over *Lam. iii. I. + Chap. i. 12. + Luke xii. 50, me. |