Scene of hopeless Mifery. As we value therefore even the Pleasures of this Life, and our Share in the good Things of the World, which the Providence of God has placed before us, let us keep ourselves in a Capacity of enjoying them, by holding fast the Comforts of Religion. These only can give us a true Relish of our Pleasures; these only can enable us to bear like Men our Share of Evil and Affliction: Our Hearts will often be difquieted within us, and we fhall, in the Multitude of our Thoughts, find a Multitude of Sorrows: Let us therefore keep God our Friend, whofe Comforts will refresh our Souls,

DISCOURSE

DISCOURSE XIII.

PART I.

PSALM 1xxxviii. 15.

While I fuffer thy Terrors, I am distracted.

A

S the Comforts which true Re

ligion affords, are the only fure Support against the Evils and Calamities of the World, to which every Condition of Life, is more or lefs expofed; fo the Terrors of Religion, being very grievous in themselves, (exclufive of these Comforts,) add Weight to all our Miseries, and are a Burden too heavy for the Spirit of a Man to fuftain. But furely there is fomething monftrous in fuch Terrors! They come not from Religion by natural

U 2

natural Birth: For it is much easier to believe that all we fee is Chance and Fortune, and Religion itself a vain Thing, than to believe that an all-wife all-powerful Being has formed us to be miserable, and given us a Senfe and Knowledge of himself, that we may live in perpetual Terror and Distraction. And yet, in fact, this is often the Case; we fee many rendered unhappy by fuch Fears and Jealoufies: And of all the Fears incident to Man, these are the most fearful, and give us the quickest Sense of Mifery; they are, what the Pfalmift has described them to be, Diffraction. A Man in this fad State employs all his Reason to his own Destruction; he is fagacious in finding out new Torment for himself, and can give a thousand Reasons to justify his unreasonable Fears: If you offer a thousand more for his Comfort and Confolation, he rejects them all; his Mind is under fo thick a Cloud, that no Ray of Light can find Admittance. This Evil is the more to be lamented, becaufe Virtue and Innocence are not always a Security against it; nay, fometimes the very Defire to be better than we are, and to render ourfelves more acceptable to God, makes us think ourselves to be worfe than we are, and quite out of his Favour. What a wretched

State

State is this! to fuftain at once the Burden of the Righteous, and of the Wicked; to deny ourselves and the World for the fake of God, and yet to fuffer under the forest Evils, which can befal even the Wicked in this Life, the Torments of a distracted Mind!

But bad as this Cafe is, it is not always the worst of the Cafe: For, as to fuch who suffer under these Terrors, and yet retain their Integrity, there is this Comfort, which, whether they can receive it now or no, they will one Day find, That however they deal with themselves, yet God will judge a righteous Judgment; and, for the fake of their Innocence, deliver them from the Fears of the Guilty. But others there are, who, not able to bear these Fears of Religion, in the Haste they make to run from them, leave Religion itself behind them; and imagining that they cannot be good enough to obtain the Rewards of Religion, take effectual Care to be bad enough to deferve the Punishment of it. This is evidently their Condition, who fortify themselves against the Apprehenfions of Futurity by Vice and Intemperance; and seem to have no greater Concern upon them in this Life, than to fecure themselves from Thought and Re

flection. This may likewise, in fome Meafure, be their Cafe, who employ all their Reason in hardening their Minds against the Senfe of Religion; who seem to think it an eafier Matter to arrive at Peace, by rejecting the Belief of a God, than to come to any reasonable Terms with him, and to find Comfort and Security under the Apprehenfions of his Power and Majefty. This irreligious Phrenzy is, of the two, the greatest; and will, in its Confequences, be more fatal than the other. A weak Man, who fears God more than he should do, may be worthy of Compaffion; but the bold Man, who despises him, has no Reason to expect any.

In whatever View we confider the Effects of these Terrors of Religion, they afford us but a melancholy Prospect: It is a fad Thing to see the Wicked defperate, or the Righteous in despair. Were thefe Terrors the natural Effects of that Fear of God which is the Foundation of all true Religion, Religion itself would be Distraction, and not the reasonable Service of a reasonable Creature; unless you can imagine, that he who made us reasonable Creatures, and diftinguished us by the nobler Faculties of the Mind, can take Pleasure in seeing us lofe our Reafon and Understanding.

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