1 Peter i. 6.
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 dark-
