to wait on God, and it is your strength to exalt and lift up God, and it is your strength to walk with God ; it is your strength to live, and your strength to die, and therefore be sure to keep up your joy in God. It is one of the saddest sights in all the world to see a man that hath God for his portion, with Cain to walk up and down this world with a de- jected countenance. It was holy joy and cheerfulness that made the faces of several martyrs to shine as if they had been the faces of angels. One observes of Crispina, that she was cheerful when she was appre- hended, and joyful when she was led to the judge, and meiTy when she was sent to prison, and so she was when bound, and when lift up in a cage, and when examined, and when condemned.^ O Christians ! how can you number up the several souls that you deject, the foul mouths that you open, and the bad reports that you bring upon the Lord and his ways by your sad, dejected, and uncomfortable walking! It is very observable that the Lord takes it so very unkindly at his people's hands when they go sighing, lamenting, and mourning up and down, whenas they should be a-rejoicing and a-delighting of themselves in him and his goodness, that he threatens to pursue them to the death with all manner of calamities and miseries upon that very score : Deut. xxviii. 47, 48, ' Because thou servest not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things, therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things ; and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck until he have destroyed thee.' But,
(8.) Eighthly. If the saints have such a great, such a large, and such an all-sufficient portion as hath been shewed they have, then certainly they shall never want anything that is good for them. David tells you that his cup run over, Ps. xxiii. 5, 6. The words are an allusion to the Hebrew feasts. David's table was richly and nobly spread, both in sight and spite of all his enemies. In one God is every good ; and what can he want that enjoys that God ? God is a bundle of all good- ness and sweetness. And look, as God is the best God, so he is the greatest and the fullest good. He can as easily fill the most capacious souls up to the very brim with all inward and outward excellencies and mercies, as Christ did once fill those water-pots of Galilee up to the very brim with wine, John ii. 1-11. If God hath enough in himself for himself, then certainly he hath enough in himself for us ; that water that can fill the sea can much more easily fill my cup or my pot : ' My people shall be satisfied with goodness, saith the Lord,' Jer. xxxi. 14 ; ' And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good, yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good ; and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart, and with my whole soul,' Jer. xxxii. 40, 41 ; ' My God shall supply all your need,' Philip, iv. 19, or, ' My God shall ("^rXi^^usu") fill up all your need,' as he did the widow's vessels in that 2 Kings iv. 3-6. Godliness hath the promise both of this life and that which is to come, 1 Tim. iv. 8. He that hath God for his portion shall have all other things cast into his store, as paper and packthread is cast into the bar- gain, or as an handful of corn is cast into the corn you buy, or as huck- * August, in Ps. cxxxviL [Clarke as before. — G.]
Lam. III. 24.] an ark for all god's noahs. 61
sters cast in an overcast among the fruit you buy, or as an inch of measure is given into an ell of cloth, Mat. vi. 25, 31-33. O sirs, how can that man be poor, how can that man want, that hath the Lord of heaven and earth for his portion ? Surely he cannot want light that enjoys the sun, nor he cannot want bread that hath all sorts of grain in his bams, nor he cannot want water that hath the fountain at his door ; no more can he want anything that hath God for his portion, who is everything, and who will be ever3rthing to every gracious soul. O sirs ! the thought, the tongue, the desire, the wish, the conception, all fall short of God, and of that great goodness that he hath laid up for them that fear him, Ps. xxxi. 19 ; and why then should they be afraid of wants ? Ps. civ. 10-31. How doth that pretty bird the robin-redbreast cheerfully sit and sing in the chamber window, and yet knows not where he shall make the next meal, and at night must take up his lodging in a bush. Oh what a shame is it that men that have God for their portion should act below this little bird. I have read of famous Mr Dod, who is doubtless now high in heaven,' who intended to marry, was much troubled with fears and cares how he should live in that con- dition, his incomes being so small that they would but maintain him in a single condition ; and looking out at a window, and seeing a hen scraping for food for her numerous brood about her, thought thus with himself : This hen did but live before it had these chickens, and now she lives with all her little ones ; up6n which he added this thought also, I see the fowls of the air neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet my heavenly Father feeds them, Mat. vi. 25 ; and thus he overcame his fears of wanting.^ O Christians! you have such a Father for your portion, as will as soon cease to be, as he will cease to supply you with all things necessary for your good. It was a good say- ing of one, I would desire neither more nor less than enough ; for I may as well die of a surfeit as of hunger, and he is rich enough that lacketh not bread, and high enough in dignity that is not forced to serve. Plutarch's reasoning is good, «■« '"wv p/X5v 'xa.yra. xotm, friends have all things in common ; but God is our friend, ergo we cannot want; a rare speech from an heathen. Rather than Israel should want, did not God feed them with manna in the wilderness ? and rather than Elijah and the widow should not have their wants supplied, did not God work a miracle, by causing the handful of meal in the barrel, and the little oil in the cruse, to last and hold out till he supplied them in another way ? Rather than Elijah shall want, God will feed him with a raven, and by that miraculous operation save him from a perishing condition. O sirs ! all the attributes of God are so engaged for you that you cannot want, and all the promises of God are 60 engaged to you that you cannot want, and all the affections of God are so set upon you that you cannot want ; and why then should you fear wants ? O sirs ! hath God given you his Son, his Spirit, his grace, his glory, yea, himself, and will he deny you lesser things,^ Rom. viii. 32. Hath he given you those things that are more worth than ten thousand
• Died 1645, aged 96 ; for other references to this holy and venerable man, see Index, mb nomine. — G.
» See Life of Dod in Brook's ' Puritans,' Vol. iii. seq. — G.