6. It cannot be but all the providences of God shall work to the good
delicious fruit of the first ripe figs, wherewith a weary traveller recruits his spirits after a long and trying journey. And God hath a greater delight in the fruit he receives from the church, than in it simply as it is his inheritance; for no inheritance is valued but for the fruit and revenue it yields; and therefore God orders all his blackest providences in the world, like dark clouds, to be the watering-pots of this his garden, that the fruit and flowers of it may be brought to maturity, which yield him so much pleasure and honour. God only is acknowledged by them and in them, as the Jews were bound to acknowledge God the author of their mercies, by presenting the first fruits of their increase to God. And believers are called so: Rev. 14:4,
'These were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits to God and the Lamb.' It is by and in them that God hath the acknowledgment of all his mercies and blessings to the world.
6. It cannot be but all the providences of God shall work to the good of his church, if we consider the affections of God.
(1.) His love. What hath God in the world as an object to bestow his affections upon, and communicate the rays of his love unto, since he created it, but his church? The men of the world hate him; he can see nothing amiable in them; for what was first lovely they have defaced and blotted out, but the church hath God's comeliness put upon her:
Ezek. 16:14, 'It was perfect through my comeliness which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God;' and he did not lay those glorious colours upon her, to manage his government, or any part of it against her, to deface her. Besides their loveliness, which is conferred upon them by God, they have a love to God, and no man will act against those whom he thinks to be his friend. God being purus actus, there being nothing but purity and activity in God, his love must be the purest and highest love, the most vigorous and glowing; as fire, which sets all other bodies, so this all other powers in the world in motion for them. God cannot love them, but he must wish all good to them, and do all good for them; for his love is not a lazy love, but hath its raptures and tenderness, and his affection is twisted with his almighty power to work that good for them, which in their present
condition in the world they are capable of. Now it is certain God loves his church; for, [1.] He carries them in his hand, Deut. 33:3; and that not in a loose manner to be cast out, but they are engraven upon the palms of his hands, Isa. 49:16, that he cannot open his hand to bestow a blessing upon any person but the picture of his church doth dart in his eye.
God alludes to the rings wherein men engrave the image of those that are dear to them. And the Jews did in their captivity engrave the effigies of their city Jerusalem upon their rings, that they might not forget it.* If his eye be alway upon the church, his thoughts can never be off it in all his works.
[2.] He loves the very gates and outworks: Ps. 87:2, 'The Lord loveth the gates of Sion;' he loves a cottage where a church is more than the stately palaces of princes. The gates were the places where they consulted together, and gave judgment upon affairs. God loved the assemblies of his saints because of the truths revealed, the ordinances administered, the worship presented to him.
[3.] Nay, one saint is more valued by him than the whole world of the wicked. God is the God of all creatures, but peculiarly the God of Abraham and of his seed. One Abraham is more deeply rooted in his heart than all the world, and he doth more entitle himself the God of Abraham than the God of the whole world; for in that style he speaks to Isaac: Gen. 26:24, 'I am the God of Abraham thy father,' much more the God of Israel, the God of the whole church, of which Abraham was but a member, though the father of the faithful, and a feoffee of the covenant. God hath a greater value for one sincere soul than for a whole city. He saves a Lot, and burns a Sodom; yea, than for a whole world, he drowns a world and reserves a Noah; he secures his jewels, whilst he flings away the pebbles.
[4.] He loves them so, that he overlooks their crabbed and perverse misconstructions of his providence. When the Israelites had jealous thoughts of him, and of Moses his instrument, when they saw that
mighty Egyptian army just at their heels, and themselves cooped up between mountains, forts, and waters, God doth not upon this provoking murmuring draw up his cloudy pillar to heaven, but puts it in the rear of them, when before it had marched in the van, Exod.
14:19, and wedgeth himself in between them and Pharaoh's enraged host, to shew that they should as soon sheath their swords in his heart as in their bowels; and if they could strike them, it should be through his own deity, which was the highest expression of his affection. And though they often murmured against his providence after they were landed on the shore, yet he left them not to shift for themselves, but bore them all the way in his arms, as a father doth his child, Deut. 1:31, and bare them like an eagle upon his wings,
Deut. 32:11. And God loves them magnificently and royally: Hosea 14:4, 'I will love them freely,' † without any doubting, without any reluctancy. I will love thee without any repugnancy in my heart to draw me back from thee; 'for mine anger is turned away,' as the streams of a river, quite another way. Now, all this considered, can the Governor of the world, the King of saints, act anything against his own affections? Yea, will he not make all things subservient to them whom he loves?
(2.) His delight. See what an inundation of sweetening joy there was in him, for which he had not terms of expression to suit the narrow apprehensions of men: Zeph. 3:17, 'The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love; he will joy over thee with singing.' He seems in his expression to know no measure of his delight in the church, and no end of it: 'I will rejoice over thee with joy.' Joy sparkles up fresh after joy; it is his rest, where the soul and all that is within him centres itself with infinite contentment 'Joy over thee with singing:' a joy that blossoms into triumph. Never had any such charming transports in the company of any he most affected as God hath in his church; he doth so delight in the graces of his people, that he delights to mention them. He twice mentions Enoch's walking with him, Gen.
5:22, 24. And certainly God cannot but delight in it more than in the world, because it is a fruit of greater pains than the creation of the