4. Live upon the unchangeableness of God under the greatest and saddest changes of your spiritual condition ; God may cloud the light of his countenance over thy soul, he may fill thee with fears and troubles, and the Comforter that should relieve thee may seem to be far off; yet still maintain thy faith in the un- changeableness of his love ; trust in the name of the Lord, stay thyself upon thy God, when thou walkest in darkness, and hast no light, Isa. 1. 10. Thus shut thy door.
(3.) Improve the unchangeableness of God to thy best advantage in the worst times, by drawing thence such comfortable conclusions as these.
1. If God be an unchangeable God in his promises, and in his love to his people, what should hinder but the people of God may live happily and comfortably in the saddest times, and greatest trou- bles upon earth. " As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, " yet making many rich, as having nothing, yet possessing all ** things," 2 Cor. vi. 10. " Certainly nothing ought to quench a " Christian's mirth, that is not able to separate him from the " love of Christ," Rom. viii. 35.
2. If God be an unchangeable God in his love to his people, then it becomes all that have special interest in this God, to be unchangeable and immoveable in the ways of their obedience to- wards him : God will not cast you off, see that you cast not off your duties, no, not when they are surrounded with difficulties; he loves you, though you often grieve him by sin ; see that you still love him, though he often grieve and burden you by affliction : he will own you for his people under the greatest contempts and re- proaches of the world; see that you own and honour his ways and truths when you are under most rt.-proach from a vile world.
884- THE RIGHTEOUS MAN''s REFUGE,
Opening the care of God for his people in times of trouble, as the fifih chamber of rest to believers.
Sect. I. ^ARE, in the general notion of it, as it is applied to tho creature, imports the studiousness and solicitousness of our thoughts^ for the safety and welfare of ourselves, or those we love and highly value. Now, though there be no such thing properly in God, at whose dispose and pleasure all events are, and to whose counsels and appointments all difficulties must give way ; yet he is pleased to ac- commodate himself to our weakness, and express his regard and love to his people, by such things as one creature doth to another, to which it is endeared by relation or affection. To this purpose we may find many significant synonymous expressions in scripture, all importing the care of God over his people, in a pleasant variety of no- tion and expression, as Nah. i. 7. " The Lord is good, a strong hold " in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him.'''*
He knoweth them, i. e. he hath a special, tender, and careful eye upon them, to see their wants supplied, and to protect them in all their dangers ; for in the common and general sense he knoweth them that trust not in him, as well as those that do ; and farther to clear this sense of the place, it is said, Psal. xl. 17. " The Lord " thinketh on them." Importing not only simple cogitation, but the immoration or abiding of his thoughts upon them, as our thoughts are wont to do upon that which we highly esteem, espe- cially when any danger is near it. And yet farther, to clear this sense, it is said, John xxxvi. 7. " He withdraweth not his eye from *' the righteous." As when Moses was exposed in the ark of bul- rushes, where his life was in imminent hazard by the waters of Nilus on one side, and the Egyptian cut-throats on the other : his sister Miriam kept watch at a distance, to see what would be done to him. Her eye was never off that ark wherein her dear brother lay ; fear and care engaged her eye to keep a true watch for him. Thus the Lord withdraweth not his eye from the righteous. To the same purpose is that expression, Deut. xxxiii. 3. " Yea, he " loved the people ; all his saints are in thy hand." That which we dearly love and prize above ordinary, we keep in our own hands for its security, as not thinking it safe enough in any other hand or place. And once more, Isa. xlix. 16. God is said to en- grave them upon the palms of his hands, alluding to what is custo- mary among men, who, when they would charge their memories with something of special concernment, use to change a ring, or
THE RIGHTEOUS MAn's REFUGE. 385
t>ind a thread about the finger, to put them in mind of it. Thus is the care of our God expressed to us in scripture-notions. The amount of all which is given to us in that one proper and full ex- pression of the apostle, 1 Pet. i. 7. He careth for you. To open this chamber of Divine care as a place of sweetest rest to our anxious and perplexed minds, in times of difficulty and hazard, it will be necessary that you seriously ponder,
1. The grounds and reasons ^
2. The extent and compass 5-of the care of God.
3. The lovely properties J
(1.) The grounds and reasons of God's care for his people, which are,
1. The strict and dear relations in which he is pleased to own them. Believers are his children, and you know how naturally children engage and draw forth the father's care for them. This is the argument Christ uses. Mat. vi. 31, S2- " Therefore, take no " thought, saying, what shall we eat .? Or what shall we drink .? " Or wherewithal shall we be clothed ? For your heavenly Father " knoweth that ye have need of all those things." Children, espe* cially when young, disquiet not themselves about provision for back or belly, but leave that to the care of their parents, from whom, by the tye and bonds of nature and love, they expect provision 'for all those wants : Every one takes care for his own ; much more doth God for his own. children ; and, indeed, he expects his chil- dren should live upon his care as our children in their minority do upon ours.
2. God's precious estimation and value of them engage his con- stant care for them. Believers are his jewels, Mai. iii. 17. his pe- culiar people, 1 Pet. ii. 6, his special portion or treasure in this world, Deut. xxxii. 9. and as such he prizes and esteems them above all the people of the earth, and accordingly exercised his spe- cial care in all the dangers they are exposed to. Special love en- gageth peculiar care.