4. Hence follows a certain security against a good man's want. If God
shew himself strong for him whose heart is perfect towards him,' 2
Chron. 16:3.
3. Hence it will follow that the spirits of good men have sufficient grounds to bear up in their innocent sufferings and storms in the world. Innocent sufferings. There is a righteous governor who orders all, and will reward them for their pains as well as their service: Heb.
6:10, 'For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love;' there is one that presides in the world, who sees all their calamities, and cannot be mistaken in their cause, who hath as much power and wisdom as will to help them. It would be an affliction indeed if there were no sovereign power to whom they might make their moan in their distress, to whom they might ease their consciences, if there were no governor to whom they might offer up their petitions in the storms they meet with in the world. How doth the presence of a skilful pilot in a weather-beaten ship cheer the hearts of the fearful passengers! What a dread would it be to them to have the vessel wherein their lives and all are concerned left to the fury of winds and waves, without an able hand to manage it? God hath a bridle to check the passions of men, to marshal them according to his pleasure; they are all but his instruments in the government, not the lords of it. God can lay a plot with more wisdom for a good man's safety than the enemy can for his destruction; he can countermine their plots with more power than they can execute them; he can out-wit their craft, overpower their strength, and turn their designed cruelty against them, as a knife into their own breasts.
4. Hence follows a certain security against a good man's want. If God take care of the hairs, the ornamental superfluities, why should we doubt his care of our necessary supply? If he be the guardian of our hairs, which fall off without our sense of their departure, shall he be careless of us when we are at a pinch for our all? Will God reach out his care to beasts, and deny it to his children? What would you judge of that father who should feed his servants and starve his sons? He supplies his enemies, and hath he no bowels for his friends? The very unjust as well as the just are enlightened by his sun, and refreshed by
his rain; and shall he not have a providence for those that have a special interest in that Mediator, whose interposition kept up those standing mercies after our forfeiture of them by sin? If he bless with those blessings those who are the objects of his curse, will he not bless those that are in his special favour with them, so far as they may prove blessings to them? Ps. 34:10, 'The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing,' ver. 9, 'for there is no want to them that fear him.' A good man shall have what he needs, not always what he thinks he needs.
Providence intends the supply of our necessities, not of our desires; he will satisfy our wants, but not our wantonness. When a thing is not needful, a man cannot properly be said to want it; when it is needful, a good man shall not be without it. What is not bestowed upon us may not be so beautiful at that time wherein we desire it, for everything is beautiful in its season, Eccles. 3:11. He that did not want God's kindness to renew him, shall never want God's kindness to supply him; his hand shall not be wanting to give, where his heart has been so large in working. Others live that have an interest only in common providence, but good men have providence cabineted in a promise, and assured to them by a deed of covenant conveyance; he was a provider before, he hath made himself now your debtor. You might pray for his providential care before with a common faith, now with a more special expostulation, for in his promise he hath given a good man the key of the chest of his providence, because it is 'the promise of this life, and that which is to come,' 1 Tim. 4; of this life, not to our desires, but necessities; of the life to come to both, wherein they shall have whatsoever they can want and whatsoever they can desire.
Again consider, God doth exercise a more special providence over men, as clothed with miserable circumstances, and therefore among his other titles this is one, to be 'a helper of the fatherless,' Ps. 10:14.
It is the argument the church used to express her return to God:
Hosea 14:3, 'For in thee the fatherless find mercy.' Now what greater comfort is there than this, that there is one presides in the world who is so wise he cannot be mistaken, so faithful he cannot deceive, so
pitiful he cannot neglect his people, and so powerful that he can make stones even to be turned into bread if he please!
Further, take this for a comfortable consideration; God doth not govern the world only by his will as an absolute monarch, but by his wisdom and goodness as a tender father. It is not his greatest pleasure to shew his sovereign power, or his unconceivable wisdom, but his immense goodness, to which he makes the other attributes subservient. What was God's end in creating is his end in governing, which was the communication and diffusion of his goodness; we may be sure from hence that God will do nothing but for the best, his wisdom appointing it with the highest reason, and his goodness ordering it to the most gracious end; and because he is the highest good, he doth not only will good, but the best good in everything he acts.
What greater comfort can there be than that we are under the care of an infallible, unwearied, and righteous governor! infallible because of his infinite wisdom, unwearied because of his incomprehensible omnipotency, and righteous because of his unbounded goodness and holiness.
Use 3. Of exhortation.
The duties arising from hence will run as a thread through the web of our whole lives, and all the motions of them. This doctrine hath an influence upon our whole course; there is nothing we meet with but is an act of providence, and there is no act of providence but calls for some particular duty. Is there any good we want? We must seek it at his hands, we must depend upon him for it; we must prescribe no methods to him, but leave the conduct of it to his own wisdom. Is it a cross providence, and contrary to our desires and expectations?
Murmur not at it. Is it afflictive and troublesome? Submit to it. Is it either good or bad, and present? We must study to understand it. Is it a good and present? Give God the glory of it.