Christians, in the world you must have trouble : suppose you have, yet in him you shall have peace, who hath overcome the world ; Isa. xxvi. 3., " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace," (in peace, peace, as it is in the original) " whose mind is stayed on thee ;" Ps. Ixxxv. 8., " I will hear what the Lord God will speak ; he will speak peace to his people, and to his saints." What a clattering is there in the world ! What tu- mults and commotions are raised about the followers of Christ, as if the world were falling about their ears ! The devil speaks wrath ; evil men speak death and bonds to them ; breathing out threatenings, reproach- es, persecutions against them. In the midst of all this fearful noise, I will hearken, saith the Psalmist, what the Lord God will speak. Whatsoever men or devils speak, I will hearken, if the Lord God speaks at the same rate. O no, he will speak peace to his saints ! Let the sons of contention do what they can, the sons of Ciod shall be sons of peace ; they shall live in peace, they shall die in peace, they shall dwell in peace for ever. Isa. xxxii. 17, 18., " The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness shall be quietness and assurance for ever. And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-pla- ces." O how great is the peace that they have who love thy law ! Christians, fear not to follow God ; let not that sad word, nor the fulfilling of it, scare you out of your duty, " All that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution." What if they do ; whilst you arc able to say, I am persecuted, but I have peace ; I am poor, but I have peace ; in a prison, but I have peace ; in a wilderness, but I have peace ; though all the world be against me, God is at peace, my soul is in peace, what discour- agement should all that l)e to you ?
2. He that is the God of peace is the God of power. He promises peace, and he pro- mises no more than he can perform. He can create peace, he can make their ene- mies to be at peace with them. He can
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mal<e a Icagrue for tliem with the beasts of the field, with the lions, with the wolves, with the most brutish among the people. He can say to the proud winds and waves, " Peace, be still," and tliey obey him. He can give them rest from the days of ad- versity ; he can give them rest in the days of adversity ; he can give his beloved sleep upon the points of swords and spears.
3. He that is the God of peace, is the God of patience. This is my great fear, that though God gives, yet I shall break my peace. The God of peace with me ! Oh ! this is he whom I dishonour, and dis- oblige daily, by my distrusts, discontents, impatiences, murmurings ; and what peace to such an heart ? what peace, so long as such unbelief, — so much iniquity as I find daily within me, remains upon me ? Will he, with whom no iniquity can dwell, dwell in that heart, where there is so much ini- quity, by which he is provoked every day ? But he that is the God of peace, is also the God of patience : who though he will not bear the iniquities of his adversaries, yet he will bear much with the infirmities of his people : Ps. Ixxxix. 30, &c., " If his chil- dren forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments ; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments : then will I visit their transgressions with a rod, and their iniquities with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from liim, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail."
4. He that is the God of peace, is the God of hope. I have no peace in possession, whatever there be in the promise. I live in the fire, — am born a man of contention. What likelihood is there that I should ever live to see a good day ? My comforts are broken, my estate is lost, my liberty is gone ; friends I have none, enemies I have many, and mighty ; I dwell in Mesech, I have my habitation in the tents of Kedar ; I am for peace, they are for war ; wherever I look, round about me, before me, behind me, on the right hand, or on the left, all speaks trouble and terror to me. I have no peace. What, nor no hope of peace, neither ? Where is thy God, man ? hast thou a God in thee, and yet no hope in thee ? The God of peace, and yet no peace ! tlie God of hope, and yet no hope ! " the God of hope
will yet fill thee with joy and peace in be- lieving," Rom. XV. 13. " Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God," Ps. xliii. 5. The God of hope will open a window of hope in the darkest times, a door of hope in the most desperate cases. The God of hope will bear up the spirits of his saints, in hope against hope ; and this hope will never disappoint them. It shall never be said, there is no peace, there is no hope, till it can be said there is no God in Israel.