— John xiv. 27.
Let not your hearts be troubled, nor fear.
THE holy Apostles having gathered themselves together by the special appointment of Christ, and being in expectation to receive from him such instructions as they had been accustomed with, were told that which they least looked for, namely, that the time of his departure out of the world was now come. Whereupon they fell into consideration, first, of the manifold benefits which his absence should bereave them of; and secondly, of the sundry evils which themselves should be subject unto, being once bereaved of so gracious a Master and Patron. The one consideration overwhelmed their souls with heaviness, the other with fear. Their Lord and Saviour, whose words had cast down their hearts, raiseth them presently again with chosen sentences of sweet encouragement. “My dear, it is for your own sakes that I leave the world. I know the affections of your hearts are tender, but if your love were directed with that advised and staid judgment which should be in you, my speech of leaving the world, and going unto my Father, would not a little augment your joy. Desolate and comfortless I will not leave you; in spirit I am with you to the world’s end: whether I be present or absent, nothing shall ever take you out of these hands; my going is to take possession of that, in your names, which is not only for me but also for you prepared; where I am, you shall be. In the mean while, ‘My peace I give; not as the world giveth, give I unto you: let not your hearts be troubled, nor fear.’ ” The former part of which sentence having otherwhere already been spoken of, this unacceptable occasion to open the latter part thereof here I did not look for. But so God disposeth the ways of men. Him I heartily beseech, that the thing which he hath thus ordered by his providence, may through his gracious goodness turn unto your comfort.
Our nature coveteth preservation from things hurtful. Hurtful things being present do breed heaviness, being future do cause fear. Our Saviour to abate the one speaketh thus unto his disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled;” and to moderate the other, addeth, “Fear not.” Grief and heaviness in the presence of sensible evils cannot but trouble the minds of men. It may therefore seem that Christ required a thing impossible. Be not troubled. Why, how could they choose? But we must note, this being natural and therefore simply not reprovable, is in us good or bad according to the causes for which we are grieved, or the measure of our grief. It is not my meaning to speak so largely of this affection, as to go over all particulars whereby men do one way or other offend in it; but to teach [touch?] it so far only as it may cause the very Apostles’ equals to swerve. Our grief and heaviness therefore is reprovable sometime in respect of the cause from whence, sometime in regard of the measure whereunto it groweth.
When Christ the life of the world was led unto cruel death, there followed a number of people and women, which women bewailed much his heavy case. It was natural compassion which caused them, where they saw undeserved miseries, there to pour forth unrestrained tears. Nor was this reproved. But in such readiness to lament where they less needed, their blindness in not discerning that for which they ought much rather to have mourned, this our Saviour a little toucheth, putting them in mind that the tears which were wasted for him might better have been spent upon themselves; “1Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, weep for yourselves and for your children.” It is not, as the Stoics have imagined, a thing unseemly for a wise man to be touched with grief of mind; but to be sorrowful when we least should, and where we should lament there to laugh, this argueth our small wisdom. Again, when the Prophet David confesseth thus of himself, “2I grieved to see the great prosperity of godless men, how they flourish and go untouched;” himself hereby openeth both our common and his peculiar imperfection, whom this cause should not have made so pensive. To grieve at this is to grieve where we should not, because this grief doth rise from error. We err when we grieve at wicked men’s impunity and prosperity, because their estate being rightly discerned they neither prosper nor go unpunished. It may seem a paradox, it is a truth, that no wicked man’s estate is prosperous, fortunate, or happy. For what though they bless themselves and think their happiness great? Have not frantic persons many times a great opinion of their own wisdom? It may be that such as they think themselves, others also do account them. But what others? Surely such as themselves are. Truth and reason discerneth far otherwise of them. Unto whom the Jews wish all prosperity, unto them the phrase of their speech is to wish peace. Seeing then the name of peace containeth in it all parts of true happiness, when the Prophet saith plainly3, that the wicked have no peace, how can we think them to have any part of other than vainly imagined felicity? What wise man did ever account fools happy? If wicked men were wise they would cease to be wicked. Their iniquity therefore proving their folly, how can we stand in doubt of their misery? They abound in those things which all men desire. A poor happiness to have good things in possession. “4A man to whom God hath given riches and treasures and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that it desireth, but yet God giveth him not the power to eat thereof;” such a felicity Salomon esteemeth but as a vanity, a thing of nothing. If such things add nothing to men’s happiness where they are not used, surely wicked men that use them ill, the more they have, the more wretched. Of their prosperity therefore we see what we are to think. Touching their impunity, the same is likewise but supposed. They are oftener plagued than we are aware of. The pangs they feel are not always written in their foreheads. Though wickedness be sugar in their mouths, and wantonness as oil to make them look with cheerful countenance; nevertheless if their hearts were disclosed, perhaps their glittering estate would not greatly be envied. The voices that have broken out from some of them, “O that God had given me a heart senseless, like the flint in the rocks of stone,” which as it can taste no pleasure so it feeleth no woe; these and the like speeches are surely tokens of the curse which Zophar in the Book of Job poureth upon the head of the impious man, “5He shall suck the gall of asps, and the viper’s tongue shall slay him.” If this seem light because it is secret, shall we think they go unpunished because no apparent plague is presently seen upon them? The judgments of God do not always follow crimes as thunder doth lightning, but sometimes the space of many ages coming between. When the sun hath shined fair the space of six days upon their tabernacle, we know not what clouds the seventh may bring. And when their punishment doth come, let them make their account in the greatness of their sufferings to pay the interest of that respect which hath been given them. Or if they chance to escape clearly in this world, which they seldom do; in the day when the heavens shall shrivel as a scroll and the mountains move as frighted men out of their places, what cave shall receive them? what mountain or rock shall they get by entreaty to fall upon them? what covert to hide them from that wrath, which they shall be neither able to abide nor to6 avoid? No man’s misery therefore being greater than theirs whose impiety is most fortunate; much more cause there is for them to bewail their own infelicity, than for others to be troubled with their prosperous and happy estate, as if the hand of the Almighty did not or would not touch them. For these causes and the like unto these therefore be not troubled.