Nor is it at all uncommon for men of the greatest fortitude thus to sink. To produce this, is the tendency of calamities of any kind, jierHonal, domestic, or public. See the Apostle's caution to the Church of Corinth respecting their conduct towards a member whom they had excommunicated from among them. As they had been formerly too backward to punish his offence, so now they were too backward to restore him ; on which oc- casion St. Paul says to them, " Ye ought rather to forgive him, and to comfort him, lest perhaps such an one should be swal- lowed up with over-much sorrow''." Here the grief was purely personal : but in Jacob it was of a domestic nature. He had, in his own apprehension, lost his favourite son, Joseph ; and now he was afraid of losing Benjamin also: that, he said, would fill up the number of his sorrows, and " bring down his grey hairs with sorrow to the graved" How many at this day have ground to adopt this complaint, in reference to their children ! Public calamities, it is true, do not so often press with an unsupport- able weight upon the mind : yet have we several instances of their depressing, almost to the lowest ebb of sorrow, persons of the strongest and the holiest minds. How were Moses and Joshua discouraged, when unexpected circumstances arose to render doubtful the ultimate success of their mission ^ ! Nor was it a love of life, or a fear of death, that made Hezekiah so extremely dejected at the prospect of his approaching dissolution, but an apprehension of the evils that would accrue to his country in the event of his removal ; and that one consideration reduced him to such a state of grief as would in any other view have been utterly unworthy of him as a saint of God*'.]
3. By guilt upon the conscience —
[What terrible effects did this produce on the mind of the traitor Judas ! He could not retain the wages of his iniquity, nor bear his own existence ; but sought in suicide a termination of the sorrows he could no longer endure^. Nor is it at all un- common for persons who once " made a mock of sin," to feel so bitterly the torments of an accusing conscience, as to be driven by them to habits of intoxication, and even to death itself, as a refuge. Even good men, previous to their having received a renewed sense of God's pardoning love upon their souls, have been brought to such terrors and despondency, as to find within their own souls a foretaste of hell itself David's experience in this particular is a just, but lamentable, exhi- bition of this painful truth s ]
4. By violent temptations —
^ 2 Cor. ii. 7. ^ Gen. xlii. 38. and xliv. 31.
'1 Exod. V. 22, 23. Josh. vii. 7, 8. e Jsai. xxxviii. 13, 14. f Matt, xxvii. 3 — 5. S Ps. xxxi. 9, 10. and xxxviii. 1 — 8. and xl. 12,