Some brief thoughts from Richard Sibbes

By the way, the only time I ever get comments on my blog is when I write about some author I don't like.

Whence we may further observe, that we are prone to cast down ourselves, we are accessory to our own trouble, weave the web of our own sorrow, and hamper ourselves in the cords of our own twining. God neither loves nor wills that we should be too much cast down. We see our Savior Christ, how careful he was that his disciples should not be troubled, and therefore he labors to prevent that trouble might arise by his suffering and departure from them, by a heavenly sermon; 'Let not your hearts be troubled.'

The context is his exposition of a psalm of David, in which David says, "Why, O soul, are you cast down within me?"

In this sense, cast down means not struck with a sense of one's sin. Nor is he saying that suffering and sorrow are things that we can avoid through "right thinking" or increased faith, or that they are directly linked to our own sin, as if, a illness, or death of a loved one were the result of some sin committed.

Rather, he is saying that the soul that refuses to find joy in Christ in the midst of sorrows, does so out of sin. This is not meant harshly, but honestly.

Sin, after all, is constantly at work to hinder our intimacy with God. This is true in me, and is the testimony of the Scriptures.