CHAPTER XXXIV.—Of confirming this trust in God: seek it of God himself. Sins hinder not: nor Satan.
and constant. The spirit aimeth at such a condition as it beholdeth in God towards itself.
This constancy is upheld by endeavouring to keep a constant sight of God, for want of which it oft fares with us, like men, that having a city or tower in their eye, passing through uneven grounds, hills, and dales, sometimes get the sight thereof, sometimes lose it, and sometimes recover it again, though the tower be still where it was, and they nearer to it than they were at first. So it is oft with our uneven spirits: when once we have a sight of God, upon any present discouragement, we let fall our spirits, and lose the sight of him, until by an eye of faith we recover it again, and see him still to be where he was at first. The cherishing of passions take away the sight of God, as clouds take away the sight of the sun; though the sun be still where it was, and shineth as much as ever it did. We use to say, when the body of the moon is betwixt the sun and us, that the sun is eclipsed, when indeed not the sun but the earth is darkened: the sun loseth not one of its glorious beams. God is oft near us, as he was unto
Jacob, and we are 'not aware of it,' Gen. 28:17. God was near the holy man Asaph, when he thought him afar off. 'I am continually with thee,' saith he; 'thou holdest me by my right hand,' Ps. 73:27. Mary in her weeping passion could not see Christ before her; he seemed a stranger unto her. So long as we can keep our eye upon God, we are above the reach of sin or any spiritual danger.
CHAPTER XXXIV.—Of confirming this trust in God: seek it of God himself. Sins hinder not: nor Satan. Conclusion and Soliloquy § I. But to return to the drawing out of our trust by waiting. Our estate in this world is still to wait, and happy it is that we have so great things to wait for; but our comfort is, that we have not only a 'furniture of graces,' 2 Pet. 1:5, one strengthening another as stones
in an arch, but likewise God vouchsafeth some drops of the sweetness of the things we wait for, both to increase our desire of those good things, as likewise to enable us more comfortably to wait for them. And though we should die waiting, only cleaving to the promise, with little or no taste of the good promised; yet this might comfort us, that there is a life to come, that is, a life of sight and sense, and not only of taste but of fulness, and that for 'evermore' Ps.
16:11. Our condition here is to live by faith and not by sight; only to make our living by faith more lively, it pleaseth God when he sees fit, to increase our earnest of that we look for. Even here God waits 'to be gracious to those that wait for him,' Isa. 30:18. And in heaven Christ waits for us, we are part of his 'fulness,' Eph. 1:23; it is part of his joy that 'we shall be where he is,' John 17:24; he will not therefore be long without us. The blessed angels and saints in heaven wait for us.
Therefore let us be content as strangers to wait a while till we come home, and then we 'shall be for ever with the Lord,' Rev. 22:5; there is our eternal rest, where we shall enjoy both our God and ourselves in perfect happiness, being, as without need, so without desire, of the least change. When the time of our departure thither comes, then we may say as David, 'Enter now, my soul, into thy rest,' Ps. 116:7. This is the 'rest which remaineth for God's people,' Heb. 4:9, that is worth the waiting for, when we shall rest from all labour of sin and sorrow, and lay our heads in the bosom of Christ for ever.
It stands us therefore upon to get this great charter more and more confirmed to us, that God is our God, for it is of everlasting use unto us. It first begins at our entering into covenant with God, and continues not only unto death, but entereth into heaven with us. As it is our heaven upon earth to enjoy God as ours, so it is the very heaven of heaven, that there we shall for ever behold him, and have communion with him.
The degrees of manifesting this propriety* in God are divers, rising one upon another, as 'the light clears up by little and little till it comes to a perfect day,' Prov. 4:18. 1. As the ground of all the rest, we apprehend God to be a God of some peculiar persons, as favourites
above others. 2. From hence is stirred up in the soul a restless desire, that God would discover himself so to it, as he doth to those that are his, that he would 'visit our souls with the salvation of his chosen,'
Ps. 106:4. 3. Hence follows a putting of the soul upon God, an adventuring itself on his mercy. 4. Upon this, God, when he seeth fit, discovers by his Spirit that he is ours. 5. Whence followeth a dependence on him as ours, for all things that may carry us on in the way to heaven. 6. Courage and boldness in setting ourselves against whatsoever may oppose us in the way, as the three young men in Daniel, 'Our God can deliver us if he will,' Dan. 3:17. 'Our God is in heaven,' &c., Ps. 115:3. 7. After which springs a sweet spiritual security, whereby the soul is freed from slavish fears, and glorieth in God as ours in all conditions. And this is termed by the apostle, not only assurance, but the 'riches of assurance,' Col. 2:2. Yet this is not so clear and full as it shall be in heaven, because some clouds may after arise out of the remainder of corruption, which may something overcast this assurance, until the light of God's countenance in heaven for ever scatters all.
There being so great happiness in this nearness betwixt God and us, no wonder if Satan labour to hinder the same, by interposing the guilt and heinousness of our sins, which he knows of themselves will work a separation; but these, upon our first serious thought of returning, will be removed. As they could not hinder our meeting with God, so they may cause a strangeness for a time, but not a parting, a hiding of God's countenance, but not a banishing of us from it. Peter had denied Christ, and the rest of the apostles had left him all alone; yet our Saviour, after his resurrection, forgets all former unkindnesses; he did not so much as object it to them, but sends Mary, who herself had been a great sinner, as an apostle to the apostles, and that presently, to tell them that he was risen, Mat. 28:7; his care would have no delay. He knew they were in great heaviness for their unkindness. Though he was now entered into the first degree of his glory, yet we see his glory made him not forget his poor disciples. Above all, he was most careful of Peter, as deeper in sin than the rest, and therefore deeper in sorrow. 'Go tell Peter,' he
needs most comfort. But what is the message? that 'I ascend not to my Father alone, but to your Father; not to my God only, but to your
God,' John 20:17.
And shall not we be bold to say so after Christ hath taught us, and put this claim into our mouths? If once we let this hold go, then
Satan hath us where he would; every little cross then dejects us.
Satan may darken the joy of our salvation, but not take away the God of our salvation. David, after his crying sin of murder, prays, 'Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation,' Ps. 51:12; this he had lost; but yet in the same psalm he prays, 'Deliver me from blood, O God, thou God of my salvation,' Ps. 51:14; therefore, whatsoever sense, reason, temptation, the law, or guilt upon conscience shall say, may, however
God himself, by his strange carriage to us may seem to be, yet let us cast ourselves upon him, and not suffer this plea to be wrung from us, but shut our eyes to all, and look upon God 'all-gracious and allsufficient, who is the Father, the begetter of comfort,' 2 Cor. 1:3; the God, the creator of consolation, not only of things that may comfort, but of the comfort itself conveyed through these unto us. 'Who is a God like unto our God, that passeth by the sins of the remnant of his people?' Micah 7:18. This should not be thought on without admiration; and indeed there is nothing so much deserves our wonderment as such mercy, of such a God, to such as we.
Since God hath 'avouched us to be his peculiar people,' Deut. 26:18, let us avouch him, and since he hath passed his word for us, let us pass our words for him that we will be his, and stand for him, and to our power advance his cause. Thus David out of an enlarged spirit saith, 'Thou art my God, and I will praise thee; thou art my God, and I will exalt thee,' Ps. 119:28. Whatsoever we engage for God, we are sure to be gainers by. The true Christian is the wisest merchant, and makes the best adventure. He may stay long, but is sure of a safe and a rich return. A godly man is most wise for himself. We enter on religion, upon these terms, to part with ourselves, and all, when God shall call for it.
§ II. God much rejoiceth in sinners converted, as monuments of his mercy, and because the remembrance of their former sins whets them on to be more earnest in his service, especially after they have felt the sense of God's love. They even burn with a holy desire of honouring him, whom before they dishonoured, and stand not upon doing or suffering anything for him, but cheerfully embrace all occasions of expressing obedience.* God hath more work from them than from others; why then should any be discouraged?
Neither is it sins after our conversion, that nullify this claim of God to be ours. For this is the grand difference betwixt the two covenants, that now God will be merciful to our sins, 'if our hearts by faith be sprinkled with the blood of Christ,' Heb. 10:22. Though one sin was enough to bring condemnation, yet the free gift of grace in Christ is of many offences unto justification. And we have a sure ground for this, for the righteousness of Christ is God's righteousness, and God will thus glorify it, that it shall stand good to those that by faith apply it against their daily sins, even till at once we cease both to live and sin. For this very end was the Son of God willingly 'made sin,' Gal.
3:13, that we might be freed from the same. And if all our sins laid upon Christ could not take away God's love from him, shall they take away God's love from us, when by Christ's blood our souls are purged from them?
O mercy of all mercies, that when we were once his, and gave away ourselves for nothing, and so became neither his nor our own, that then he would vouchsafe to become ours, and make us his by such a way, as all the angels in heaven stand wondering at; even his Son, not only taking our nature and miserable condition, but our sin upon him, that that being done away, we might through Christ have boldness with God as ours, who is now in heaven appearing there for us, until he bring us home to himself, and presents us to his Father for his for ever!
Think not then only that we are God's and he ours, but from what love and by what glorious means this was brought to pass. What can
possibly disable this claim, when God for this end hath founded a covenant of peace so strongly in Christ, that sin itself cannot disannul it? Christ was therefore manifest, 'that he might destroy this greatest work of the devil,' 1 John 3:5, 8. Forgiveness of sins now is one chief part of our portion in God. It is good therefore not to pore and plod so much upon sin and vileness by it, as to forget that mercy that rejoiceth over judgment. If we once be God's, though we 'drink this deadly poison, it shall not hurt us,' Mark 16:18. God will make a medicine, an antidote of it; and for all other evils, the fruit of them is by God's sanctifying the same, the taking away sin out of our natures; so that lesser evils are sent to take away the greater. If God could not over-rule evils to his own ends, he would never suffer them.
§ III. I have stood the longer upon this, because it is the one thing needful, Luke 10:42; the one thing we should desire, that this one
God, in whom and from whom is all good, should be ours. All promises of all good in the new covenant, spring first from this, that God 'will be ours, and we shall be his,' Jer. 32:38. What can we have more? and what is in the world less that will content us long, or stand us in any stead, especially at that time when all must be taken from us? Let us put up all our desires for all things we stand in need of, in this right we have to God in Christ, who hath brought God and us together. He can deny us nothing, that hath not denied us himself. If he be moved from hence to do us good, that we are his, let us be moved to fetch all good from him, on the same right that he is ours.
The persuasion of this will free us from all pusillanimity, lowliness, and narrowness of spirit, when we shall think that nothing can hurt us, but it must break through God first. If God give quietness, who shall 'make trouble?' Job 34:29. If God be with us, who can be against us? This is that which puts comfort into all other comforts, that maketh any burden light; this is always ready for all purposes.
Our God is a present and a seasonable help. All evils are at his command to be gone, and all comforts at his command to come. It is but, go comfort, go peace, to such a man's heart: cheer him, raise him; go salvation, rescue such and such a soul in distress. So said
and so done presently. Nay, with reverence be it spoken, so far doth God pass over himself unto us, that he is content himself to be commanded by us. 'Concerning the work of my hands command you me,' Isa. 45:11; lay the care and charge of that upon me. He is content to be out-wrestled and overpowered by a spirit of faith, as in Jacob, and the woman of Canaan, to be as it were at our service. He would not have us want anything wherein he is able to help us. And what is there wherein God cannot help us? If Christians knew the power they have in heaven and earth, what were able to stand against them?
What wonder is it if faith overcome the world, if it overcomes him that made the world? that faith should be almighty, that hath the Almighty himself ready to use all his power for the good of them to whom he hath given the power of himself unto? Having therefore such a living fountain to draw from, such a centre to rest in, having all in one, and that one ours, why should we knock at any other door?
We may go boldly to God now, as made 'ours, being bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh.' We may go more comfortably to God, than to any angel or saint. God in the second person hath vouchsafed to take our nature upon him, but not that of angels. Our God and our man, our God-man is ascended unto the high court of heaven, to his and our God, clothed with our nature. Is there any more able and willing to plead our cause, or to whom we may trust business with, than he, who is in 'heaven for all things for us, appertaining to God?'
Heb. 5:1.* It should therefore be the chief care of a Christian, upon knowledge of what he stands in need of, to know where to supply all. It should raise up a holy shame and indignation in us, that there should be so much in God, who is so near unto us in Christ, and we make so little use of him. What good can any thing do us if we use it not? God is ours to use, and yet men will rather use shifts and unhallowed policies, than be beholden to God, who thinks himself never more honoured by us than when we make use of him. If we believe anything will do us good, we naturally make out for the obtaining of it. If we believe anything will hurt us, we study to decline it. And certain it is, if we believed that so much good were in God, we would
then apply ourselves to him, and him to ourselves. Whatsoever virtue is in anything, it is conveyed by application and touching of it; that whereby we touch God, is our faith, which never toucheth him, but it draws virtue from him. Upon the first touch of faith, spiritual life is begun. It is a bastard in nature, to believe anything can work upon another without spiritual or bodily touch. And it is a monster in religion to believe that any saving good will issue from God, if we turn from him, and shut him out, and our hearts be unwilling. Where unbelief is, it binds up his power. Where faith is, there it is between the soul and God, as betwixt the iron and the loadstone, a present closing and drawing of one to the other. This is the beginning of eternal life, so to 'know God the Father and his Son Christ,' John
17:4, as thereby to embrace him with the arms of faith and love as ours, by the best title he can make us, who is truth itself.
Since then our happiness lies, out of ourselves, in God, we should go out of ourselves for it, and first get into Christ, and so unto God in him; and then labour, by the Spirit of the Father and the Son, to maintain acquaintance with both, that so God may be ours, not only in covenant, but in communion, hearkening what he will say to us, and opening our spirits, disclosing our wants, consulting and advising in all our distresses with him. By keeping this acquaintance with God, 'peace and all good is conveyed to us,' Job 22:21.
Thereafter as we maintain this communion further with him, we out of love study to please him, by exact walking according to his commands; then we shall feel increase of peace as our care increaseth; then he will 'come and sup with us,' Rev. 3:20, and be free in his refreshing of us; then he will shew himself more and more to us, and manifest still a further degree of presence in joy and strength, until communion in grace ends in communion in glory.
But we must remember, as David doth here, to desire and delight in God himself more than in anything that is God's. It was a sign of St Paul's pure love to the Corinthians when he said, 'I seek not yours,
but you,' 2 Cor. 12:14. We should seek for no blessing of God so much as for himself.
What is there in the world of equal goodness to draw us away from our God? If to preserve the dearest thing we have in the world, we break with God, God will take away the comfort we look to have by it, and it will prove but a dead contentment, if not a torment to us.
Whereas, if we care to preserve communion with God, we shall be sure to find in him whatsoever we deny for him, honour, riches, pleasures, friends, all; so much the sweeter, by how much we have the more immediately from the spring-head. We shall never find God to be our God more than when, for making of him to be so, we suffer anything for his sake. We enjoy never more of him than then.
At the first we may seek to him, as rich to supply our wants, as a physician to cure our souls and bodies; but here we must not rest till we come to rejoice in him as our friend, and from thence rise to an admiration of him for his own excellencies, that being so high in himself, out of his goodness would stoop low to us. And we should delight in the meditation of him, not only as good to us, but as good in himself; because goodness of bounty springs from goodness of disposition. He doth good, because he is good.
A natural man delights more in God's gifts than in his grace. If he desires grace, it is to grace himself, not as grace, making him like unto God, and issuing from the first grace, the free favour of God; by which means men come to have the gifts of God without God himself; dona Dei, sine Deo. But, alas! what are all other goods, without the chief good? They are but as flowers, which are long in planting, in cherishing, and growing, but short in enjoying the sweetness of them. David here joys in God himself; he cares for nothing in the world but what he may have with his favour; and whatever else he desires, he desires only that he may have the better ground from thence to praise his God.
§ IV. The sum of all is this, the state of God's dear children in this world is to be cast into variety of conditions, wherein, they, consisting of nature, flesh, and spirit, every principle hath its own and proper working. They are sensible as flesh and blood; they are sensible to discouragements as sinful flesh and blood; but they recover themselves, as having a higher principle, God's Spirit, above flesh and blood in them.
In this conflicting state, every principle labouring to maintain itself, at length by help of the Spirit, backing and strengthening his own work, grace gets the better, keeping nature within bounds, and suppressing corruption. And this the soul, so far as it is spiritual, doth by gathering itself, to itself, and by reasoning the case so far, till it concludes, and joins upon this issue, that the only way to attain sound peace is, when all other means fail, to trust in God. And thereupon he lays a charge upon his soul so to do, as being a course grounded upon the highest reason, even the unchangeable goodness of God; who, out of the riches of his mercy, having chosen a people in this world, which should be to the glory of his mercy, will give them matter of setting forth his praise, in shewing some token of good upon them, as being those on whom he hath fixed his love, and to whom he will appear not only a Saviour, but salvation itself; nothing but salvation. As the sun is nothing but light, so whatsoever proceeds from him to them tends to further salvation. All his ways towards them lead to that; which ways of his, though for a time they are secret, and not easily found out, yet at length God will be wonderful in them, to the admiration of his enemies themselves, who shall be forced to say, God hath done great things for them; and all from this ground, that God is our God in covenant; which words are a stern* that rule and guide the whole text.
For why should we not be disquieted when we are disquieted? Why should we not be cast down when we are cast down? Why should we trust in God as a Saviour, but that he is our God, making himself so to us in his choicest favours? doing that for us which none else can do, and which he doth to none else that are not his in a gracious
manner. This blessed interest and intercourse betwixt God's Spirit and our spirits, is the hinge upon which all turns; without this no comfort is comfortable; with this, no trouble can be very troublesome.
Without this assurance there is little comfort in soliloquies; unless, when we speak to ourselves, we can speak to God as ours. For in desperate cases our soul can say nothing to itself to still itself, unless it be suggested by God. Discouragements will appear greater to the soul than any comfort, unless God comes in as ours.
See therefore David's art; he demands of himself why he was so cast down? The cause was apparent, because there were troubles without and terrors within, and none to comfort. Well, grant this, saith the Spirit of God in him, as the worst must be granted; yet, saith the Spirit, Trust in God. So I have.
Why, then, wait in trusting; 'light is sown for the righteous,' Ps. 97:11; it comes not up on the sudden. We must not think to sow and reap both at once. If trouble be lengthened, lengthen thy patience.
What good will come of this?
God will wait to do thee that good, for which thou shalt praise him; he will deal so graciously with thee, as he will deserve thy praise; he will shew thee his salvation. And new favours will stir thee up to sing new songs. Every new recovery of ourselves or friends is as it were a new life, and ministers new matter of praise. And upon offering this sacrifice of praise, the heart is further enlarged to pray for fresh blessings. We are never fitter to pray than after praise.
But in the mean time I hang down my head, whilst mine enemies carry themselves highly, and my friends stand aloof.
God in his own time, which is best for thee, will be the salvation of thy countenance; he will compass thee about with songs of deliverance, and make it appear at last that he hath care of thee.
But why then doth God appear as a stranger to me?
That thou shouldst follow after him with the stronger faith and prayer; he withdraws himself, that thou shouldst be the more earnest in seeking after him. God speaks the sweetest comfort to the heart in the wilderness. Happily thou art not yet low enough, nor purged enough. Thy affections are not thoroughly crucified to the world, and therefore it will not yet appear that it is God's good will to deliver thee. Wert thou a fit subject of mercy, God would bestow it on thee.
But what ground hast thou to build thyself so strongly upon God?
He hath offered and made himself to be my God, and so hath shewed himself in former times; and I have made him my God, by yielding him his sovereignty in my heart; besides the present evidence of his blessed Spirit, clearing the same, and many peculiar tokens of his love which I daily do enjoy; though sometimes the beams of his favour are eclipsed. Those that are God's, besides their interest and right in him, have oft a sense of the same, even in this life, as a foretaste of that which is to come. To the seal of grace stamped upon their hearts, God superadds a fresh seal of joy and comfort, by the presence and witness of his Spirit; and shews likewise some outward token for good upon them, whereby he makes it appear that 'he hath set apart him that is godly for himself, as his own,' Ps. 4:3.
Thus we see that discussing of objections in the consistory of the soul settles the soul at last, faith at length silencing all risings to the contrary. All motion tends to rest, and ends in it. God is the centre and resting-place of the soul, and here David takes up his rest, and so let us. Then whatsoever times come, we are sure of a hiding-place and sanctuary.
FINIS 'Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall
yield no meat, &c., yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation,' Hab. 3:17.
'He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall lodge under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord,
He is my refuge, and my fortress; My God, in him will I trust,'
Ps. 91:1, 2.
'My strength and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever,' Ps. 73:26.
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