The word which we translate " moderation," im- ports such a kind of meekness and gentleness as results from an indifference to the world, and a supe- riority to all the things of time and sense. Perhaps our language does not contain any word of precisely the same import : but the Apostle's meaning is sufficiently conveyed by the term that is here used. We should have a calm composed state of mind in reference to all things here below ; and maintain a constant " moderation,"
1. In our hopes and fears — [We are apt to magnify the importance of approaching events, and to have our feelings agitated by prospective good or evil, far beyond what they would be by the actual existence of the things foreseen. Good is regarded by us without its manifold circumstances of alloy ; and evil without its attendant consola- tions. In reality, as it is something future that is the main- spring of action to the whole world, so it is by anticipation, rather than by actual experience, that the happiness of man- kind is chiefly affected. We say not this in relation to things spiritual and eternal; for in reference to them the very reverse is true : the circumstance of their being future and invisible diminishes, and almost destroys their influence upon the mind: but in reference to things of a temporal nature it is so: upon them our imagination exerts all its energies: it paints them in colours of the liveliest or deepest hue ; and draws from them by far the greatest portion of its pleasures or its pains. The man whose ambition is fired by prospects of distinction, the heir who looks forward with uncertainty to the possession of an inheritance, the lover who seeks to be assured of a recipro- city in the object of his affections, what pictures do not these persons draw of happiness, if they shall attain, or of misery, if they shall lose, the object of their desire ! But such extrava- gant feelings ill become the Christian : his desires should be curbed by a sense of the vanity of all earthly things, and their utter insufficiency to make us happy. He should commit him- self, and all that pertains to him, to the disposal of an all-wise Providence ; and leave it to God " to give, or to take away," as he shall see fit ; prepared in either case to bless and glorify him for the dispensation. In a word, he should " be without carefulness," " casting all his care on God who careth for him." This lesson our blessed Saviour teaches us in his Sermon on the
Mount a and to have a practical experience of it in our
souls is one of the highest attainments of the Christian.]
a Matt. vi. 25 — 34.