and unarmed, which are here in the mouth of danger, and can no way pass to the place of bliss prepared for them, but through their enemies' quarters. When Israel took their march out of Egypt toward the promised land, few or none would trust them to travel through their country, but all rose up in arms against them. The Christian will find his march much more troublesome and danger- ous to heaven : Satan is not grown tamer than he used to be, nor the wicked world better affected to the people of God. O, what a mercy is it, that we have this sword by our side, which puts us out of danger from any of them all ! This is in thy hand. Christian, as tlie rod was in Moses's. What though an army of devils be behind thee, and a sea of sins before, roaring upon thee, with this sword, by faith wielding it, thou mayest cut thy way through the waves of the one, and set thyself out of the reach of the other. Truly, the Scripture is a mercy incomparably greater than the sun in the heavens : that might be better spared out of its orb, than this out of the chiu'ch. If that were gone, we should be but knocked off our worldly business, and be only in dan- ger of losing our bodily life, by falling in this pit and that pond ; but if deprived of the word, the work of salvation would be laid aside, or gone about to little purpose, and our souls must needs miss the right way to happiness, and stumble inevitably upon hell, while we think we are going to heaven, unless a miracle should interpose to prevent it.
But more particularly bless God for three mercies in reference to the Scripture.
Section I. — Bless God for the translation of the Scriptures. The word is our sword ; by being translated, this sword is drawn out of its scabbard. What use could a poor Christian, that hath but one tongue in his head (that understands but one language I mean, which his mother taught him,) make of this sword when presented to him as it is sheathed in Greek and Hebrew ? Truly, he might even fall a weeping with John at the sight of the sealed book, because he could not read in it. Rev. v. 4. O bless God, who hath sent men furnished, by the bless- ing of God on their indefatigable labours and studies, with abilities to roll away the stone from the mouth of this fountain ! And were it not sad to see the water of life brought to you Avith the expense of their spirits and strength, wasted in the work, to be spilled on the grovmd, and basely undervalued by you, so as hardly to be put in the catalogue of the mercies you praise God for? O, God forbid ! It cannot be, if ever you had the sweetness of any one promise in it milked out unto you, or the power of one of its divine truths impressed on your hearts. Melchior Adam tells us that Bugenhagius, whose assistance Luther had, with others, in translating the Bible, when the work was brought to a happy conclusion, was so affected with the incomparable mercy therein to the churches of Christ in Germany, that every year he invited his friends to a solemn feast, that day whereon the work was finished, which they called 'The Feast of the Ti-anslation of the Bible.' When Queen Elizabeth, our English Deborah, opened the prisons at her coming to the crown, one piously told her, that there were yet some good men left in prison undelivered, and desired they might also partake of her princely favour, meaning the four Evangelists and Paul, who had been denied to walk abroad in the Englisli tongue when her sister swayed the sceptre. To this she answered. They should be asked, whether they were willing to have their liberty ; which soon after appearing, they had their jail- delivery, and have ever since had their liberty to speak to you in your own tongue at the assemblies of your public worship, yea, to visit you in your own private houses also. Now is that happy day come, and long hath been, which holy Mr. Tindale told a popish doctor of, when a poor ploughman should be able to read the Scriptures, and allowed as freely to converse with them as any doctor of them all ! A blessed day, indeed, it is to the souls of men ! Now, Christian, when thou art a prisoner to God's providence, and kept by his afflicting hand at home, thou hast the word of God to bear thee company in thy solitude ; and so, though thou canst not sit up with thy brethren and sisters at thy Father's table in his public ordinances, j^et thou dost not wholly go without thy meal ; thou canst not, it is likely, carve so well for thyself as the minister used to do for thee, yet it is an incomparable mercy that thou hast liberty to pick up out of the word for thy present counsel and comfort, as thou ai-t enabled to do by the Spirit of God, upon thy humble prayer for his assistance. Admirable hath been
AND THE SWOHD OF THE SPIRIT. 5g9