Matthew 6:34

34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Ver. 34. Take therefore no thought for the morrow] The Lord Christ, well knowing which way our heart hangs and pulse beats, beats much upon this string, drives this nail home to the head. When things are over and over again repeated and inculcated, it imports, 1. the difficulty, 2. the necessity, of the duty, 3. our utter averseness, or, at least, dulness to the doing of it. How hardly we come off with God in this most necessary but much-neglected duty, who knows not, feels not, bewails not? The world is a most subtle, sly enemy: and by reason of her near neighbourhood, easily and insensibly insinuates into us, and insnares the best hearts. Our Saviour saw cause to warn his disciples of the cares of life: and where was Thomas, when Jesus appeared to the rest of the disciples, the doors being shut, but either lurking for fear of the Jews (in probability), or packing up, and providing for one, now that his Master was slain, and taken from him? Whatever the cause was, the effect was woeful, Joh 20:24-25. And albeit in both Testaments (as Scultetus observeth) the saints of God have been noted to be subject to divers infirmities, yet not tainted with this enormity of covetousness. Yet St John saw cause to say to those that were fathers also: "Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world," 1Jn 2:15. And David prays heartily, "Incline my heart to thy testimonies, and not to covetousness," Psa 119:36. Satan will be busy with the best this way, as he was with our Saviour himself: he knew it a most prevailing bait. And when this would not work, he fleeth from him, as if despairing of victory. "Be sober therefore" (in the pursuit and use of these earthly things) "and watch, for your adversary the devil" watcheth you a shrewd turn by them, 1Pe 5:7. They are so near and so natural to us, that, through Satan’s policy and malice, when we think upon them (that we may the better learn to flee and slight them) they stick to our fingers when we should throw them away; they catch us when we should flee from them; they come over us with feigned words usually, 2Pe 2:3; to hide our faults from the view of others, or subtle thoughts and evasions, to blindfold the conscience, with colour of Christ, necessary thrift, &c. Whence it is called, cloaked and coloured covetousness, 1Th 2:5. A Christian hath ever God for his chief end, and will not, deliberately, forego him upon any terms. He errs in the way, thinking he may mind earthly things and keep God too: so being insnared with these worldly lime-twigs (like the silly bird), before he is aware, the more he struggleth the more he is entangled and disabled. All this, and more than this, our Saviour well knew; and therefore reiterates his exhortation, and sets it on with so many arguments. "Care not for the morrow," &c. "I will be careless, according to my name," said that martyr John Careless; "for now my soul is turned to her old rest again, and hath taken a sweet nap in Christ’s lap. I have cast my care upon the Lord, who careth for me," &c. And Bishop Hooper, in a letter to certain good people taken praying in Bow churchyard, and now in trouble, writeth thus: "Read the second chapter of Luke; there the shepherds that watched upon their sheep all night, as soon as they heard Christ was born at Bethlehem, by and by they went to seek him. They did not reason, nor debate with themselves, who should keep the wolf from the sheep in the mean time; but did as they were commanded, and committed their sheep to him, whose pleasure they obeyed; so let us do now we be called, commit all other things to him that calleth us. He will take heed that all things shall be well; he will help the husband, comfort the wife, guide the servants, keep the house, preserve the goods, yea, rather than it shall be undone, he will wash the dishes and rock the cradle. Cast therefore all your care upon God," &c. Judea (as one hath well observed) {a} lay utterly waste for seventy years. Insomuch that after the slaughter of Gedaliah, when all, man, woman, and child, fled into Egypt, there was not a Jew left in the country. Neither find we any colonists sent thither, or any displaced to make room at their return. A wonderful providence, that so pleasant a country, left destitute of inhabitants, and compassed about with such warlike nations, was not invaded not replanted for seventy years’ time; but the land kept her sabbaths, resting from tillage, &c., and God kept the room empty, till the return of the naturals. Jeremiah, immediately after he had foretold the captivity, and the Chaldeans were now besieging the city, was bidden to buy a field of his uncle’s son; which also he did, weighing him the money, and sealing the evidences: for although it might seem an ill time to make a purchase, yet he took no further care than to trust God, who had said, Houses, and fields, and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land. Now God’s promises, he knew, were the best freehold, Jer 32:15. So in every seventh year’s rest, the people were taught to depend on God’s providence by faith. For though the owner of the field might gather, even on that year, for the maintenance of himself and family, Lev 25:6, yet he was neither to sow his field, thereby to greaten his harvest, nor to hedge his field, or lock up his vineyard.