Arg. III. The covenant doth not only alter the nature and property of the saints afflictions, but it also orderly disposes^ and aptly places them in the frame of providence, among the other means and instru- ments of our salvation ; so that a council of angels could never place them, or the least circumstance belonging to them, more aptly and advantageously than it hath done. The knowledge of this must needs quiet and fully relieve the afflicted soul : And who can doubt it that believes it to be a covenant ordered in all things, as the text speaks? Here all things, yea, the most minute circumstances that befal you, are reduced to their proper class and place of service ; so exactly ordered, that all the wisdom of men and angels know not how to mend or alter any thing to your advantage.
If a small pin be taken out of the frame of a watch, and placed any where else, the motion is either presently stopped, or made irre- gular. And as Galen observes of the curious fabric of an human body, that if the greatest naturalists should study an hundred years to find out a more commodious situation, or configuration of any part thereof, it could never be done. It is so here : No man can come after God and say, this or that had been better placed or timed than it is, if this affliction had been spared, and such an enjoyment stood in the room of it, it had been better. All God's providences are the results and issues of his infinite wisdom : For " he works all things ^' according to the counsel of his own will," Eph. i. 11. The wheeU^ i. e. the motions and revolutions of providence are full of eyes, Ezek. i. 18. They are well advised and judicious motions, Non cceco im^ petu •volvuntur rotce ; they run not at random. The most regular and excellent working must needs follow the most deep and perfect counsel, Isa. xxviii. 29- " He is deep in counsel, and excellent in *' working."
Now, every affliction that befals God's covenanted people, being placed by the most wise and infinite counsel of God in that very order, time, and manner in which they befal them, this very affliction, and not that, at this very time, and not at another, (it being always a time of need, 1 Pet. i. 6.) and ushered in by such forerunning occa- sions and circumstances : it must follow, that they all take the proper places, and come exactly at the fittest seasons ; and if one of them Avere wanting, something would be defective in the frame of your happiness. As they now stand, they work together for your good, ■which displaced, they would not do.
It is said, Jer. xviii. 11. " Behold, I frame evil, and I devise a de- *' vice." It is spoken of the contrivance and frame of afflictions, as the proper works of God. The project of it is laid for his glory and the eternal good of his people. It turns to their salvation, Phil. i. 19. But O how fain would we have this of that affliction screwed out of the frame of providence, conceiving it would be far better out
APPLIED TO AFFLICTED SAIKT5. 101
than in ! O if God had spared my child, or my health, it had been better for me than now it is. But this is no other than a presump- tuous correcting and controuling of the wisdom of God, and so he interprets it. Job xl. 2. " He that reproveth God, let him answer it." God hath put every affliction upon your persons, estates, relations, just where you find and feel it; and that whole frame he hath put into the covenant, in the virtue whereof it works for your salva- tion ; and therefore let all disputings and reasonings, all murmurs and discontents cease ; nothing can be better for you, than as God hath laid it; and this, one would think, should heal and quiet all. You yourselves would mar all, by presuming to mend any thing. *' Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor, *' hath taught him.? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed *' him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him *' knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding .?^ Isa. xl. 18, 14. Well then, be satisfied it is best as it is; and nothing can be so advantageous to you, as God's projects and contrivance, ■which you are so uneasy under, and dissatisfied about.
Arg. IV. As the covenant sorts and ranks all your troubles into their proper classes and places of service, so it secures the special, gracious presence of God with you in the deepest plunges of distress that can befal you ; which presence is a full relief of all your troubles, or else nothing in the world is or can be so.
The very heathens thought themselves well secured against all evils and dangers, if they had their petty household-gods with them in their journeys: but the great God of heaven and earth hath engaged to be with his people, in all their afflictions and distresses. As a ten- der father sits up himself with his sick child, and will not leave him to the care of a servant only ; so God thinks it not enough to leave his children to the tutelage and charge of angels, but will be with them himself, and that in a special and peculiar way : so run the express "Words of the covenant, Jer. xxxii. 40. " I will not turn away from *' them to do them good, but I will put my fear into their hearts ; *' and they shall not depart from me.*" Here he undertakes for both parts, himself and them. / will not, and they shall not.
Here is the saints security for the gracious presence of God with them, a presence which dispels all the clouds of affliction and sorrow, as the sun scatters the morning mists. The God of all consolation is with you, O poor dejected believers, and will not such a presence turn the darkness into light round about you ? There is a threefold presence of God with his creatures.
1. Essential, which is common and necessary to all.
2. Gracious, which is peculiar to some on earth.
3. Glorious, which is the felicity of heaven.
The first is not the privilege here secured; for it is necessary to all, good and bad : In him we all live, and move, and have our being. The vilest men on earth, yea, the beasts of i\iQ field, and the very devils
102 tHE BALM OF THE COVEXA^^t
in hell, are always in this presence of God^ but it is tlieir torment, rather than their privilege. The last is proper to the glorified saints and angels. Such a presence embodied saints cannot now bear ; but it is his special gracious presence which is made over and secured to them in the covenant of grace ; and this presence of God is mani- fested to them two ways.
1. Internally, by the Spirit.
2. Externally, by Providence.