105 SERMON XIII. CONFIDENCE IN GOD A SURE SOURCE OF COMFORT IN TROUBLE. 1 ST. PETER, v. 6, 7. "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you." THERE are many passages in this first Epistle of St. Peter which mark it to have been written in times of danger in times when the Christians were called to a good deal of anxiety and suffering, - probably in those disorderly days which preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, when our Lord's prophecy was fulfilled in its first sense, that there should be "distress of nations with perplexity; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that were coming on the earth." Thus in the sixth and seventh verses of the first chapter St. Peter uses the expression, “wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ." And, again, in the latter verses of the fourth chapter: "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery .... trial which is to try you; but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy." "The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator." These, I say, are passages which indicate that affliction was coming upon the Christians to whom the Apostle was addressing himself; and the same strain is continued in the fifth chapter, from which my text is taken : "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you." The advice therefore this Apostle gives to these Christians as that which will support them best under their approaching distresses, is that they should give themselves up to God - leave Him to deal as He thought fit: sure that He was all-wise and would do the best for them, all-merciful and would do the kindest, all-powerful and could not be resisted, whatever they might do. - St. Peter was not giving this advice without having proved its value by his own experience. Times had gone but roughly with him, and were to go more roughly with him yet, as he knew; for his Lord and Master had told him beforehand that the day would come, when they should gird him and carry him whither he would not. Times had gone but roughly with him already. We read enough of him in the Acts of the Apostles, short as that history is, to be aware of this fact: we read of the Sadducees "laying hands on him and putting him in hold”—of the rulers, and elders, and scribes "threatening that he should speak no more in the name of Jesus "—of Herod "apprehending him and putting him in prison, and delivering him to soldiers to keep till Easter;"-and we read again, in his Second Epistle, that he was aware from our Lord's own information that worse things were to befal him yet- "I think it meet," says he in that Epistle, "as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance: knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me." The staff therefore which he himself leaned on in all his troubles past, present, and to come, and which he had found bear him up well, he recommended to others; even to "humble themselves under the mighty hand of God—and to cast their care upon Him." And yet their condition was such as to require no common support they were no common troubles they had to encounter. The country in which they lived full of tumult and disorder-the state to which they belonged, hastening to its overthrow and all those miseries which reach to every fireside when a nation perishes already compassing them about. Our lot, my friends, has fallen upon better times than these, and the cup we may be called upon to drink may not be so bitter as theirs ; - but still, let us be in what times we will, and in circumstances favourable as we may, it will be ever true that "man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery." There are thorns scattered along every man's path of life which he cannot help treading on-sacrifices he has to make-sufferings he has to endure cares he has to struggle with hopes that are to fail him - crosses that are to bear him down. And every man therefore has need of a principle within him that shall prepare him for these things, and set him above them when they come. And that principle still is, as it was in the Apostle Peter's days, and as it will be till this earth shall pass away, one and the same, viz., to "cast our care upon God,". "to commit ourselves unto Him, as unto a faithful Creator." For how different become all our views of life, when we habitually have God in all our thoughts! We are no longer the inhabitants of a world of chance, but a world of Providence. We feel that things are not left to run wild and at random, but that there is a reason for everything that comes to pass, howbeit we may not be always able to see it. We feel that such reason must be sound, without flaw, above all suspicion or cavil, because it is the reason of Him who is all reasonable, all wise. We feel that He might have ordered the event otherwise, had there been any sufficient cause for so doing, because He is Lord of all; events are at His disposal, and cannot resist His governance. We feel that they are mercifully meant, and will in the end prove to be so to our own satisfaction, however mysterious they may seem as yet; because every thing tends to convince us, that the end and object which God has ever before Him is the increase of good, the abatement of evil. We feel that all fretting on our side beyond that which naturally and properly arises from a consciousness of our own folly and misdeeds—is vain and idle; for that the hand of God, by which we are humbled, is mighty, and that no man can stand against it. altogether to one who Suppose that he is poor, and hardships which at Life wears a different aspect cherishes in himself these views. and exposed to the many trials tend that lot in life, he will still remember that God, in whose hands are the issues of all things, has allowed this. that it is not a matter of accident. He will cast about why He may have allowed it, and what good He may be making spring from it. He will think that God perhaps foresaw 109 that it was better for his soul that he should be poor than rich-that he was of a temper to whom riches might have proved a snare that if his condition has laid on him a burden, it may have spared him a temptation-that when the time comes that he must lie down to die (a moment this which levels all distinctions), he will have the advantage, in his turn, over those who have great possessions; for he will have no pangs at parting with what he has; he will be willing and ready to go. He will think that if he is made fitter to meet his God by having had a hard portion here, there is much to reconcile him to it; that a better place in heaven for ever, is worth purchasing at the price of a worse place on earth for a few years an eternal weight of glory cheaply bought by light afflictions for a moment. These are some of the comfortable thoughts which would cross the mind of a poor man who humbled himself under "the mighty hand of God"—who cast his care upon Him thoughts which would sweeten his trial while he was sustaining it, and without hindering him from bettering his lot by honest industry, would give him an infinite advantage, in point of happiness, contentment, and tranquillity of mind, over any other poor man who left God and His providence and government out of the reckoning, and only fretted like a worldling that another should have so much whilst he should have so little. Take any other case of trouble-sickness for instance. Suppose sickness to reach a man who was not in the habit of having God in all his thoughts, humbling himself under His law, casting on Him his care; who did not, in short, regard it in the light of God's visitation ;—and how restless and unhappy is that man under it. He reproaches himself with having done this, or left undone that, which might have spared him the suffering. He is vexed and disappointed |