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SERMON CCXV.

The true remedy against the troubles

of life.

SERM.

first

:

JOHN xiv. 1. Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in GOD; believe also in me.

MI

N which words our blessed SAVIOUR does, upon CCXV. a particular occafion, prescribe an universal reThemedy against trouble. And the particular occafion fermon on of this confolatory discourse, which our SAVIOUR this text. here makes to his disciples, was this; he had often told them of his sufferings; but the conceit which they had entertained of his temporal reign, would not suffer them to admit any thought of fuch a thing, as the fufferings or death of the Meffias; and therefore it is said that these things did not fink into them, and that they understood them not; men being generally very flow to understand what they do not like, and have no mind to. At last our SAVIOUR tells them plainly, that how backward foever they were to believe it, the time of his fufferings and death was now approaching, and that he should shortly be " betray"ed into the hands of men," and be " crucified and " lain." At this his disciples were struck with great fear, and exceedingly troubled, but in contemplation of his fufferings, and of their own invaluable loss. To comfort them upon this occafion, our SAVIOUR directs his disciples to that course, which was

not only proper in their present cafe, but is an uni

versal antidote and remedy against all trouble what-SERM. foever, and will not only ferve to mitigate our trouble, and fupport our spirits under the fear and apprehenfion of future evils, but under present afflictions and fufferings; and to quiet and comfort our minds under the faddeft condition, and forest calamities that can befal us. "Let not your heart be troubled":

CCXV.

66

ye believe in God, believe also in me."

He does not only forbid them to be troubled, and counfel them against it; fuch advice is easily given, but not so easily to be followed: but he prescribes the proper remedy againfte trouble, which is, truft and confidence in God the great creator and wife governor of the world; and likewife in himself, the bleffed Son of God, and SAVIQUR of mankind. "Ye be"lieve in God, believe alfo in me.".

66

The words are variously tranflated; by some in-' dicatively, "ye do believe in God, and ye do be" lieve in me," therefore "be not troubled;" by others imperatively, "believe in God, and believe " likewise in 'me;" and then you can have no cause of trouble. Or else the first clause may be rendred indicatively, and the latter imperatively; and fo our tranflation renders the words, "Ye do believe in GOD, "believe also in me;" as you believe in God" the creator and governor of the world, fo " believe " also in me" the Son of God, and the SAVIOUR OF the world. But which way foever the words be rendered, the sense comes all to one; that faith in GOD, and in our blessed SAVIOUR, are here prescribed as the proper and most powerful remedies against trouble. "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe "in God; believe also in me."

In the handling of these words I shall do these

two things.

VOL. XI.

!

H

First,

1

SERM.

First, I shall consider what sort of trouble is here CCXV. forbidden, or with what reasonable limitations this general prohibition of our SAVIOUR is to be understood, " let not your heart be troubled."

Secondly, I shall endeavour to shew what virtue and force there is in the remedy here prescribed by our Saviour, to mitigate and allay our trouble, and to support and quiet our minds under it.

First, we will confider what fort of trouble is here forbidden, and with what due and reasonable limitations we are to understand this general prohibition of our Saviour to his disciples, " let not your hearts "be troubled." And this we shall best find out by considering the various objects of trouble, together with the several causes or grounds of them. And these may all be ranged under these three heads; evils past, present, or to come. For the ground of all trouble is some evil, either really and in itself fo, or what is apprehended by us under that notion: and the feveral kinds of trouble, are either the reflection upon evils past, or the sense of an evil that is present, or the fear and apprehenfion of some future evil which threatens us and hangs over us.

1. For the first, the trouble caused by reflection upon evils paft, this must either be the evil of affliction or fin. The former of these, when it is past, is seldom any cause of trouble, the remembrance of past sufferings, and the evils which we get over, being rather delightful than grievous; so that it is only the evil of fin, the reflection whereof is troublesom. And this is that which we call guilt, which is an inward vexation, and discontent, and grief of mind, arifing from the confciousness that we have done amiss, and a fearful apprehenfion of some vengeance and punishment that will follow it, and there is no trouble that is comparable to this, when the conscience of a finner SERM. is thoroughly awakened.

Now upon this account our hearts ought to be troubled, and we can hardly exceed in it, provided our trouble do not drive us to despair, but to repentance: but there can be no fufpicion that this comes within the compass of our SAVIOUR'S prohibition.

II. As for the troubles caused by the sense of the present evils, either of lofs or fuffering, though this do properly enough fall within the compass of our SAVIOUR'S prohibition, " let not your heart be "troubled," yet it admits of several limitations; therefore in order to the fixing of it's due and proper bounds, I shall briefly shew, what trouble for present evils and afflictions which are upon us, is not forbidden, and what is.

1. We are not here forbidden to have a just and due sense of any evil or calamity that is upon us; because this is natural, and we cannot help it: for there is a real difference of things in themselves; some things are in their nature good and convenient for us, and agreeable and delightful to our senses ; and other things are in themselves evil, that is, naturally difpleasing and grievous; and we must not only be stoicks, but even stocks and stones, if we have not a just sense and resentment of this difference, Our bleffed SAVIOUR had fo; and as he was afflicted more than any man, and fuffer'd more than any of the fons of men, so was he likewise very sensible of his fufferings, and had a natural dread and horror of them; infomuch that he himself tells us, that "his foul was " exceeding forrowful, even to death," upon the apprehenfion of what he was to undergo; which made him pray so earnestly, and to repeat that petition fo often, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass H2

" from

CCXV.

CCXV.

SERM. " from me." Nay, the very anguish of his mind, caused by the dread and horror of his fufferings, was so great as to force his blood through the pores of his body, fo that "he sweat as it were thick drops " of blood falling upon the ground."

1

And this is not to be wondered at, because our blessed SAVIOUR, as he had the greatest endowments of human nature in their greatest perfection, so he had a perfect sense of the evils, and pains, and fufferings of it. And all philofophy that will not acknowledge loss, and pain, and suffering to be evils and troublesom and terrible, is either obftinate fullenness or grofs hypocrify.

2. Nor doth this prohibition of our SAVIOUR exclude natural affection. This is a plant which Gon himself hath planted in human nature, and that for very excellent ends and purposes; and having made us men, and endowed us with fuch paffions, he does not expect that we should put off our nature, and transform ourselves into another fort of creatures than what we were when we came out of his own hands. To " be without natural affection," and to have no afflictive sense of the loss of nearest relations, is condemned in fcripture, as a mark of the greatest degeneracy and depravation of human nature. And therefore we cannot imagine that our SAVIOUR did intend to forbid fuch a moderate and well regulated degree of trouble upon these occasions, as is the proper and genuine issue of those natural affections, which GOD himself hath implanted in us.

3. When our SAVIOUR forbids us to be troubled, he doth not forbid us to have a just sense of GOD's judgments, or of his hand, in procuring or permitting the evils which befal us; much less of our own fins, which are the meritorious cause of them: nay,

on