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of the former it is not the Business of this Place to deliver; but to limit and perfect them by the Dictates of the latter that we may neither endeavour to fecure ourselves by acting wrong, nor doubt of Support in acting right. We are apt to look on Religion, very' injuriously, as only prefcribing difagreeable Duties; whereas it fuggefts the kindest Advice, and fuperadds the most comfortable Promifes which cannot be done more com

pletely, in the great Point of moderating Fear and Uneafinefs, 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 Supplication, with Thankf giving, 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 passeth all Understanding, fhall keep your Hearts and Minds, through Chrift Jefus.

I. A friendly Caution: Be careful for nothing: Words, which neither common Reafon allows us to take in their utmost Extent, nor Scripture itself. 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 must 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 Speech; not a discreet and rational, but a difquieting and tormenting Solicitude and that principally, not concerning our Behaviour, which is the only Thing in our Power; but the Event, which is often intirely out of it. This the Original Greek Phrase elsewhere ufually fignifies, though not always. In the Sixth of St. Matthew it is many times rendered, Take no Thought. But there also we must remember, that only what is immoderate was intended to be forbidden : which, it had been happy, if our Translation had more determinately expreffed.

Thoughtfulness concerning our Deportment, our Welfare, that of others, and the Public, I 3

fo far as it will really be of Ufe, is a Duty of indispensable Obligation. And first acting at random, then turning our Eyes from the evil Day, when we see it coming, instead of confidering how we may avert it, or make the best Provifion against it, will prove the furest Way to bring it on with its blackest 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 Presence of all that we fear, is capable of giving. Nay, it makes us tremble at mere Spectres and fills us with the most alarming Sufpicions, fometimes of what cannot happen, often of what is highly improbable. And yet, were it ever fo likely, exceffive Dread will do nothing towards preserving us from it. Calm Reflexion will inftruct and excite us to do every thing for ourselves, which we are able to do: and the utmost Agonies of Difquiet can never carry us beyond our Abilities. Indeed very commonly vehement Emotions either hinder us from seeing what is fit, or disqualify us from performing it: nay, hurry

hurry us into what is very unfit, and prejudi cial to the Point, which we have in View.

But were they to leave us otherwise intirely Masters of ourselves, that Eagerness of looking farther than we can fee, which they always beget, hath a powerful Tendency to mislead us very unhappily. Dangers, which we think we difcern at a Distance, may have no Reality : Danor if they have, may never draw near. gers that are near, may never reach us: and Evils, that have reached us, may vanish on a fudden. These are no Reasons against prudent Forecast: but they are ftrong Reasons against extracting Wretchedness out of Specu lations on Futurity, instead of following quietly and chearfully the Bufinefs of the proper prefent Day; fince we know not what another may bring forth*, and consequently require us to contrive or execute, to grieve or rejoice at. To-morrow, our bleffed Saviour hath told us, fhall take Thought for the Things of itself: Time, as it runs on, will direct us much better than we can guess now, what Precautions we are to take, and what Judgments we are to form, about remote Affairs: and fince all,

Prov. xxvii. 1.

+ Matt. vi. 34.

I 4

that

that appears at this Inftant likely to fall out, or wife to do, may poffibly in the next appear quite otherwife; we ought studiously to moderate both our Actions and our Paffions, by recollecting the Mutability of the World: which would fave us a vast deal of fruitless Labour and needlefs Mifery. We every one of us think the Sorrows of Life abundantly enough: why then should we multiply them by long Anticipations; and load ourfelves at once with Misfortunes present and to come, unmindful of our gracious Lord's important Maxim: Sufficient unto the Day is the Evil thereof? Had our Maker framed the human Mind in fuch manner, that we muft have been always forecafting 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 fhould 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 fhould have complained of him, as cruel? He hath mercifully hid future Events from us, left the Forefight of them should make

*Matt. vi. 34.

1 Wifd. xvii. 11.

us

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