CHAPTER XX.—Of the method of trusting in God; and the trial of that trust
knowledge and love of the best things in it; otherwise, where affections to anything below get much strength in the soul, it will by little and little be so overgrown that there will be no place left in it either for object or act, God or trust. God cannot come to take his place in the heart by trust, but where the powers of the soul are brought under, to regard him and those great things he brings with him above all things else in the world besides.
In these glorious times wherein so great a light shineth, whereby so great things are discovered, what a shame is it to be so narrowhearted as to fix upon present things. Our aims and affections should be suitable to the things themselves set before us. Our hearts should be more and more enlarged, as things are more and more revealed to us. We see in the things of this life, as wisdom and experience increaseth, so our aims and desires increase likewise. A young beginner thinks it a great matter if he have a little to begin withal, but as he grows in trading, and seeth further ways of getting, his thoughts and desires are raised higher. Children think as children, but riper age puts away childishness, 1 Cor. 13:11, when their understandings are enlarged to see what they did not see before. We should never rest till our hearts, according to the measure of revelation of those excellent things which God hath for us, have answerable apprehension of the same. Oh, if we had but faith to answer those glorious truths which God hath revealed, what manner of lives should we lead!
CHAPTER XX.—Of the method of trusting in God; and the trial of that trust 13. Lastly, to add no more, our trusting in God should follow God's order in promising. The first promise is of forgiveness of sin to repentant believers; next, 2, of healing and sanctifying grace; then, 3, the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven to them that are sanctified;
4, and then the promises of all things needful in our way to the kingdom, &c. Now answerably, the soul being enlightened to see its
danger, should look first to God's mercy in Christ pardoning sin, because sin only divides betwixt God and the soul; next to the promises of grace for the leading of a Christian life, for true faith desires healing mercy as well as pardoning mercy, and then to heaven and all things that may bring us thither.
By all this we see that it is not so easy a matter as the world takes it, to bring God and the soul together by trusting on him. It must be effected by the mighty power of God, raising up the soul to himself, to lay hold upon the glorious power, goodness, and other excellencies that are in him, Eph. 1:20. God is not only the object, but the working cause of our trust; for such is our proneness to live by sense and natural reason, and such is the strangeness and height of divine things, such our inclination to a self-sufficiency and contentment in the creature, and so hard a matter is it to take off the soul from false bottoms, by reason of our unacquaintance with God and his ways; besides, such guilt still remains upon our souls for our rebellion and unkindness towards God, that it makes us afraid to entertain serious thoughts of him; and so great is the distance betwixt his infinite majesty, before whom the very angels do cover their faces, and us, by reason of the unspiritualness of our nature, being opposite to his most absolute purity, that we cannot be brought to any familiarity with the Lord, so as to come into his holy presence with confidence to rely upon him, or any comfort to have communion with him, till our hearts be sanctified and lifted up by divine vigour infused into them.
Though there be some inclination, by reason of the remainder of the image of God in us, to an outward moral obedience of the law, yet, alas, we have not only no seeds of evangelical truths and of faith to believe them, but an utter contrariety in our natures, as corrupted, either to this, or any other good. When our conscience is once awaked, we meditate nothing but fears and terrors, and dare not so much as think of an angry God, but rather how we may escape and fly from him. Therefore, together with a deep consideration of the grounds we have of trusting God, it is necessary we should think of
the indisposition of our hearts unto it, especially when there is greatest need thereof, that so our hearts may be forced to put up that petition of the disciples to God, 'Lord, increase our faith,' Luke 17:5;
Lord, help us against our unbelieving hearts, &c. By prayer and holy thoughts stirred up in the use of the means, we shall feel divine strength infused and conveyed into our souls to trust.
The more care we ought to have to maintain our trust in God, because besides the hardness of it, it is a radical and fundamental grace; it is, as it were, the mother-root and great vein whence the exercise of all graces have their beginning and strength. The decay of a plant, though it appears first from the withering of the twigs and branches, yet it arises chiefly from a decay in the root; so the decay of grace may appear to the view, first in our company, carriage, and speeches, &c.; but the primitive and original ground of the same is weakness of faith in the heart; therefore, it should be our wisdom, especially, to look to the feeding of the root. We must, 1, Look that our principles and foundation be good; and, 2, Build strongly upon them; and, 3, Repair our building every day as continual breaches shall be made upon us, either by corruptions and temptations from within or without; and we shall find that the main breaches of our lives arise either from false principles or doubts, or mindlessness of those that are true. All sin is a turning of the soul from God to some other seeming good, but this proceeds from a former turning of the soul from God by distrust. As faith is the first return of the soul to God, so the first degree of departing from God is by infidelity, and from thence comes a departure by other sins, by which, as sin is of a winding nature, our unbelief more increaseth, and so the rent and breach betwixt our souls and God is made greater still, which is that Satan would have, till at length, by departing further and further from him, we come to have that peremptory sentence of everlasting departure pronounced against us; so that our departure from God now is a degree to separation for ever from him. Therefore, it is
Satan's main care to come between God and the soul, that so unloosing us from God, we might more easily be drawn to other things; and if he draws us to other things, it is but only to unloose
our hearts from God the more; for he well knows, whilst our souls cleave close to God, there is no prevailing against us by any created policy or power.
It was the cursed policy of Balaam to advise Balak to draw the people from God, by fornication, that so God might be drawn from them.
The sin of their base affections crept into the very spirits of their mind, and drew them from God to idolatry. Bodily adultery makes way for spiritual. An unbelieving heart is an ill heart, and a treacherous heart, because it makes us to 'depart from God, the living God,' &c., Heb. 3:12. Therefore we should especially take heed of it as we love our lives, yea, our best life, which ariseth from the union of our souls with God.
None so opposed as a Christian, and in a Christian nothing so opposed as his faith, because it opposeth whatsoever opposes God, both within and without us. It captivates and brings under whatsoever rises up against God in the heart, and sets itself against whatsoever makes head against the soul.
And because mistake is very dangerous, and we are prone to conceive that to trust in God is an easy matter, therefore it is needful that we should have a right conceit of this trust, what it is, and how it may be discerned, lest we trust to an untrusty trust, and to an unsteady stay.
We may by what hath been said before, partly discern the nature of it, to be nothing else but an exercise of faith, whereby looking to God in Christ through the promises, we take off our souls from all other supports, and lay them upon God for deliverance and upholding in all ill, present or future, felt or feared, and the obtaining of all good, which God sees expedient for us.
1. Now that we may discern the truth of our trust in God the better, we must know, that true trust is willing to be tried and searched, and can say to God as David, 'Now, Lord, what wait I for, my hope is in thee,' Ps. 39:7; and as it is willing to come to trial, so it is able to
endure trial, and to hold out in opposition, as appears in David. If faith hath a promise, It will rely and rest upon it, say flesh and blood what it can to the contrary. True faith is as large as the promise, and will take God's part against whatsoever opposes it.
2. And as faith singles not out one part of divine truth to believe and rejects another, so it relies upon God for every good thing, one as well as another; the ground whereof is this, the same love of God that intends us heaven, intends us a supply of all necessaries that may bring us thither.
A child that believes his father will make him heir, doubts not but he will provide him food and nourishment, and give him breeding suitable to his future condition. Fides non eligit objectum. It is a vain pretence to believe that God will give us heaven, and yet leave us to shift for ourselves in the way.
3. Where trust is rightly planted, it gives boldness to the soul in going to God; for (1) it is grounded upon the discovery of God's love first to us, and seeth a warrant from him for whatsoever it trusts him for.
Though the things themselves be never so great, yet they are no greater than God is willing to bestow. Again, (2) trust is bold because it is grounded upon the worthiness of a mediator, who hath made way to God's favour for us, and appears now in heaven to maintain it towards us.
4. Yet this boldness is with humility, which carries the soul out of itself; and that boldness which the soul by trust hath with God, is from God himself. It hath nothing to allege from itself but its own emptiness and God's fulness, its own sinfulness and God's mercy, its own humble obedience and God's command; hence it is that the true believer's heart is not lifted up, nor swells with self-confidence; as trust comes in, that goes out. Trust is never planted, and grows but in an humble and low soul. Trust is a holy motion of the soul to God, and motion arises from want. Those, and those only, seek out abroad that want succour at home. Motus ex indigentia. Plants move not
from place to place, because they find nourishment where they stand; but living creatures seek abroad for their food, and for that end have a power of moving from place to place. And this is the reason why trust is expressed by going to God.
5. Hereupon trust is a dependent grace, answerable to our dependent condition. It looks upon all things it hath or desires to have as coming from God and his free grace and power. It desireth not only wisdom, but to be wise in his wisdom, to see in his light, to be strong in his strength. The thing itself contents not this grace of trust, but God's blessing and love in the thing. It cares not for anything further than it can have it with God's favour and good liking.
6. Hence it is that trust is an obsequious* and an observing grace, stirring up the soul to a desire of pleasing God in all things, and to a fear of displeasing him. He that pretends to trust the Lord in a course of offending may trust to this, that God will meet him in another way than, he looks for. He that is a tenant at courtesy will not offend his lord. Hence it is that the apostle enforceth that exhortation to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, Phil. 2:12, 13, because it is
God that worketh the will and the deed, and according to his good pleasure, not ours. Therefore faith is an effectual working grace; it works in heaven with God, it works within us, commanding all the powers of the soul; it works without us, conquering whatsoever is in the world on the right hand to draw us from God, or on the left hand to discourage us; it works against hell and the powers of darkness; and all by virtue of trusting, as it draweth strength from God. It stirs up all other graces, and keeps them in exercise, and thereupon the acts of other graces are attributed to faith, as Heb. 11. It breeds a holy jealousy over ourselves, lest we give God just cause to stop the influence of his grace towards us, so to let us see that we stand not; by our own strength. Those that take liberty in things they either know or doubt will displease God, shew they want the fear of God; and this want of fear shews their want of dependency, and therefore want of trust. Dependency is always very respective; † it studieth contentment and care to comply. This was it made 'Enoch walk with
God, and study how to please him,' Heb. 11:5. When we know nothing can do us good or hurt but God, it draws our chief care to approve ourselves to him. Obedience of faith and obedience of life will go together; and therefore he that commits his soul to God to save, will commit his soul to God to sanctify and guide in a way of well pleasing, 1 Peter 4:19. Not only the tame, but most savage creatures, will be at the beck of those that feed them, though they are ready to fall violently upon others. Disobedience, therefore, is against the principles of nature.
7. This dependency is either in the use of means, or else when means fail us. True dependency is exactly careful of all means. When God hath set down a course of means, we must not expect that God should alter his ordinary course of providence for us; deserved disappointment is the fruit of this presumptuous confidence. The more we depend on a wise physician, the more we shall observe his directions, and be careful to use what he prescribes; yet we must use the means as means, and not set them in God's room, for that is the way to blast our hopes. The way to have anything taken away and not blest, is to set our heart too much upon it. Too much grief in parting with anything, shews too much trust in the enjoying of it; and therefore he that uses the means in faith, will always join prayer unto
God, from whom, as every good thing comes, so likewise doth the blessing and success thereof. Where much endeavour is and little seeking to God, it shews there is little trust. The widow that trusted in God, continued likewise 'in prayers day and night,' 1 Tim. 5:5.
The best discovery of our not relying too much on means is, when all means fail, if we can still rely upon God, as being still where he was, and hath ways of his own for helping of us, either immediately from himself, or by setting awork other means, and those perhaps very unlikely, such as we think not of. God hath ways of his own.
Abraham never honoured God more than when he trusted in God for a son against the course of nature; and when he had a son, was ready to sacrifice him, upon confidence that God would raise him from the dead again, Gen. 2:2. This was the ground upon which Daniel, with
such great authority, reproved Belshazzar, that he had not a care to glorify God, in whose hands 'his breath was, and all his ways,' Dan.
5:23. The greatest honour we can do unto God, is when we see nothing, but rather all contrary to that we look for, then to shut our eyes to inferior things below, and look altogether upon his allsufficiency. God can convey himself more comfortably to us when he pleaseth, without means than by means. True trust, as it sets God highest in the soul, so in danger and wants it hath present recourse to him, as the conies to the rocks, Prov. 30:26.
8. And because God's times and seasons are the best, it is an evidence of true trust when we can wait God's leisure and not make haste, and so run before God; for else the more haste the worse speed. God seldom makes any promise to his children but he exerciseth their trust in waiting long before, as David for a kingdom,
Abraham for a son, the whole world for Christ's coming, &c.
9. One main evidence of true trust in God is here in the text; we see here it hath a quieting and stilling virtue, for it stays the soul upon the fulness of God's love, joined with his ability to supply our wants and relieve our necessities, though faith doth not, at the first especially, so stay the soul as to take away all suspicions fears of the contrary. There be so many things in trouble that press upon the soul, as hinder the joining of God and it together, yet the prevailing of our unbelief is taken away, the reign of it is broken. If the touch of Christ in his abasement on earth drew virtue from him, Mark 5:30, certain it is that faith cannot touch Christ in heaven but it will draw a quieting and sanctified virtue from him, which will in some measure stop the issues of an unquiet spirit. The needle in the compass will stand north, though with some trembling.
A ship that lies at anchor may be something tossed, but yet it still remains so fastened, that it cannot be carried away by wind or weather. The soul, after it hath cast anchor upon God, may, as we see here in David, be disquieted awhile, but this unsettling tends to a deeper settling. The more we believe, the more we are established.
Faith is an establishing grace, by faith we stand, and stand fast, and are able to withstand whatsoever opposeth us. For what can stand against God, upon whose truth and power faith relies? The devil fears not us, but him whom we fly unto for succour; it is the ground we stand on secures us, not ourselves.
As it is our happiness, so it must be our endeavour, to bring the soul close to God, that nothing get between, for then the soul hath no sure footing. When we step from God, Satan steps in by some temptation or other presently. It requires a great deal of self-denial to bring a soul either swelling with carnal confidence, or sinking by fear and distrust, to lie level upon God and cleave fast to him. Square will lie fast upon square, but our hearts are so full of unevenness, that God hath much ado to square our hearts fit for him, notwithstanding the soul hath no rest without this.
The use of trust is best known in the worst times, for naturally in sickness we trust to the physician, in want to our wit and shifts, in danger to policy and the arm of flesh, in plenty to our present supply,
&c.; but, when we have nothing in view, then indeed should God be God unto us. In times of distress, when he shews himself in the ways of his mercy and goodness, then we should especially magnify his name, which will move him to discover his excellencies the more, the more we take notice of them. And, therefore, David strengthens himself in these words, that he hoped for better times, wherein God would shew himself more gracious to him, because he resolved to praise him.
This trusting joints the soul again, and sets it in its own true restingplace, and sets God in his own place in the soul, that is, the highest, and the creature in its place, which is to be under God, as in its own nature, so in our hearts. This is to ascribe honour due unto God,' Ps.
29:2; the only way to bring peace into the soul. Thus, if we can bring our hope and trust to the God of hope and trust, we shall stand impregnable in all assaults, as will best appear in these particulars.