Sermons on Deuteronomy (continued)
5. It is not through thin own righteousness or for the rightness of your heart, that you are come to the possession of their Land. But for the wickedness of those nations, has the Lord your God driven them out before your face: and to perform the word which the Lord your God swear to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
6. Know you therefore that it is not for thin own righteousness that the Lord your God has given you this good land to possess: for you are stiff necked people.
We have two extreme vices in us. The one is that God promise us anything, and we find it hard: we be utterly dismayed, and to our see is no way for God to perform the thing that he has spoken: wherein we deface his power, and yield him not his due honor. For as soon as God has said the word: although the thing seem utterly impossible: yet ought we to conclude, that he will find means well enough to bring it to pass. And why? For his power is infinite and ought not to be measured after our imagination. Therefore we must glorify the Lord, saying: Alas my God: indeed I am at my wits end in this case: but I leave that matter in your hand, you cannot work after such a fashion as I cannot now comprehend. But instead of honoring the Lord after that manner, we be full of doubting and unbelief, and fall to scanning whether God will be as good as his word or no. And if any let come in our way, we think we be disappointed of our hope.
Also there is another extremity on the contrary part: which is, that when God has brought things to pass, and matters are dispatched, we father the doing of them upon ourselves, as though God were