Psalms 88:15

I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer Thy terrors, I am distracted.

Religious terrors

As the comforts which true religion affords are the only sure support against the evils and calamities to which every condition of life is more or less exposed, so the terrors of religion, being very grievous in themselves, exclusive of these comforts, add weight to all our miseries, and are a burden too heavy for the spirit of a man to sustain. These terrors arise from--

I. Uncertainty in religion. The religious man fears God because he knows Him; and therefore he fears Him, as a wise, just, good, and merciful Father and Judge ought to be feared: his fear is full of love and reverence, and has nothing dreadful in it, unless guilt and a wounded conscience arm it with unnatural terrors; but the superstitious man fears God, just as children and weak men fear spirits and apparitions; he trembles at the thought of Him, he flies from he knows not what, seeks refuge he knows not where; and this hurry and confusion of mind he calls religion; but the psalmist has given it a better name, it is distraction.

II. False notions of God, and of the honour and worship due to Him. We ought never to expect more from God than He has expressly promised, or than He may grant consistently with the measures by which His providence rules and governs the world. If we exceed these bounds, religion, instead of being our comfort, will soon become our torment; but we, and not religion, will be to blame. If we consider that this world is a state of trial, and that afflictions are trials, we can never lay it down to ourselves, that God will relieve us at our request from all afflictions; for this would be owning ourselves in a state of trial, and, at the same time, expecting that no trial should come near us: It is supposing that God has shown us a way to defeat the great end of His providence in sending us into this world; He sent us here to be proved, and yet we think to prevail on Him not to prove us.

III. A conscience wounded under the sense of guilt. Natural religion has no cure for this; because the title by obedience being forfeited, there are no certain principles of reason from which we can conclude how far, and to what instances, the mercy of God will extend; because we can have no assurance of ourselves that our sorrow is such, and our resolutions of amendment such as may deserve mercy; and lastly, because this whole matter is founded upon reasons and speculations too exact, and too refined, to be of common use to mankind. This last reason alone will sufficiently justify the wisdom and goodness of God, in proposing to the world a safe and general method for the salvation of sinners; for what if you have penetration enough to see a way for sinners to escape under natural religion; must your great parts be a measure for God’s dealing with the world? Shall thousands and thousands live and die without comfort because they cannot reason as you do? This consideration should make those who have the highest opinion of themselves, and therefore of natural religion, adore the goodness of God in condescending to the infirmities of men, and showing them the way to mercy, which they were unable to find out. This He has done by the revelation of the Gospel of Christ, which is the sinner’s great charter of pardon, a certain remedy against all the terrors and fears of guilt.

IV. Accidental disorders of mind or body. Whatever the union of soul and body is, so united they are, that the disorders of one often derive themselves to the other. A melancholy mind will waste the strength and bring paleness and leanness upon the body; disorders in the body do often affect the mind; a stroke of the palsy will rob a man of the use of his understanding, and leave him disabled in mind as well as body. For this reason it is that I ascribe some religious fears to the disorders of the body, though they properly belong to the mind. These terrors cannot be imputed as a blemish to religion; not by him, at least, who acknowledges the providence of God, and whose principle of religion is reason; for all madness is destructive of reason, as much as these terrors are of religion: they are both destructive: they are evils to which we must submit; and if we cannot account for the reason of them, it becomes us to be dumb, and not open our mouths in His presence whose ways are past finding out. (Bp. Sherlock.)