_Now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations._
1. IN the preceding discourse I have particularly spoken of that _darkness_ of mind, into which those are often observed to fall, who once walked in the light of God’s countenance. Nearly related to this is the _heaviness_ of soul, which is still more common, even among believers: indeed almost all the children of God, experience this, in an higher or lower degree. And so great is the resemblance between one and the other, that they are frequently confounded together: and we are apt to say indifferently, such an one is in _darkness_, or such an one is in _heaviness_; as if they were equivalent terms, one of which implied no more than the other. But they are far, very far from it. Darkness is one thing; heaviness is another. There is a difference, yea a wide, an essential difference, between the former and the latter. And such a difference it is, as all the children of God are deeply concern’d to understand: otherwise nothing will be more easy than for them to slide out of heaviness into darkness. In order to prevent this, I will endeavour to shew,
I. What manner of persons those were, to whom the apostle says, _Ye are in heaviness_: II. What kind of heaviness they were in. III. What were the causes, and IV. What were the ends of it. I shall conclude with some inferences.
I. 1. I am in the first place to shew, what manner of persons those were, to whom the apostle says, _Ye are in heaviness_. And, first, It is beyond all dispute, that they were believers, at the time the apostle thus addrest them. For so he expresly says, ver. 5. Ye _who are kept through the power of_ God _by_ faith _unto salvation_: again, ver. 7. he mentions, _the trial of their_ faith, _much more precious than that of gold which perisheth_. And yet again, ver. 9, he speaks of their _receiving the end of their faith, the salvation of their souls_. At the same time therefore that they were _in heaviness_, they were possessed of living faith. Their heaviness did not destroy their faith: they still _endured, seeing him that is invisible_.
2. Neither did their heaviness destroy their peace, the peace that passeth all understanding, which is inseparable from true, living faith. This we may easily gather from the second verse: wherein the apostle prays, Not that _grace and peace_ may be given them, but only, that it may _be multiplied unto them_; that the blessing which they already enjoyed, might be more abundantly bestowed upon them.