5. Fifthly, The whole interest of God in the world lies in his church
63:8, 'And he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their Saviour.' God is brought in, as one that had heard the cries of his church, and had not been moved; but when he recollects himself, and considers that they were his people, and that he was in a special manner related to them, he became their Saviour; he could no longer bear it, but stirs up himself to relieve them. Nay, it hath so strong an influence upon him, that if this note be often sounded in his ears, it doth as it were change his voice, and when he seems to have a mind to cast them off he cannot. When Israel had offended by erecting and worshipping a golden calf, he calls them no more his people, but Moses's people: Exod. 32:7, 'And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.' As though God had not been concerned in this miraculous conduct out of Egypt; and ver. 9, 'this people,' as if he had had no interest in them, but particularises them with disdain. God had here discarded them, and turned them over upon Moses's hands, as if he would have no longer anything to do with them; but Moses in prayer turns them upon God again, and would not own them as his, but pleads that they were God's proper goods: ver. 11, 'Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt?' And ver. 12, again, 'thy people;' and God at last resumes his former notes, ver. 14, 'And the Lord repented him of the evil he thought to do unto his people.' Now they are God's people again; the repetition of this relation is a powerful rhetoric to persuade him to own them again, which he had cashiered and turned off.
5. Fifthly, The whole interest of God in the world lies in his church and people. He sees little of himself in any part of the corrupted world, but only in them. It is in the church he hath put his name; it is there he sees his image, and therefore places his love there; and shall all this signify nothing? Shall the Governor of the world let things go contrary to his own interest? They are like to him in that which is one of his greatest perfections, viz., his holiness, which gives him a greater interest in them. It is his interest that is opposed by an opposition to the church. All the hatred any bear it grows from the
inward root of enmity against God himself: Ps. 44:22, 'Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long.' God surely will concern himself in the church's interest, since it is his own. His interest lies,
(1.) In the persons of his people. It is his inheritance, Isa. 19:25. It is his portion: Deut. 32:9, 'The Lord's portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.' Every part of an inheritance and a portion doth as particularly belong to the owner as the whole. Every part of the ground which belongs to the inheritance is the heir's, as well as the whole field. He will not suffer the world, which is but the work of his hands, to lay waste his church, which is his proper inheritance. It is his treasure, and where a man's treasure is, there is his heart; and where God's treasure is, there is God's heart.
(2.) In the services and actions of the church. If the church should be destroyed, whom hath God to love and imitate him, and to shew forth his glory? If the candlestick is broken, what is fit to hold out the light to the world? He hath none in the world besides, that do intentionally mind his honour, that take pleasure in glorifying his name, and writing after his copy, and observing his works. And will it stand with his interest to govern things contrary to theirs, which is really his own?
When God had made the world, and pronounced it good, what would it have signified if he had not brought in man as his rent-gatherer, and the collector of his tribute, to return it to him! And what would man signify, since the corrupted world embezzles that which is God's right, and turns it to its own use, if God had not some honest stewards, who faithfully act for him, and give him the glory of his works! And God will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him. God hath no voluntary service in the world but from them, therefore he is more interested in their good than in the good of the world besides. The services of the church are all the delight
God hath in the world: Hosea 9:10, 'I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig-tree at her first time.' They are as the refreshing wine and grapes, as the