WITH HIS PEOPLE IN THEIR GREATEST TROUBLES. 499
together for good.' The wicked know not this secret, as the Philis- tines understood not Samson's riddles, Judg. xiv. 12-14 ; but we know that all the world sliall not hinder the cross from working for our good. (2.) From a description of them that love God, they are ' called according to God's purpose ; ' that is, God hath purposed the salva- tion of his people, he hath chosen them to salvation, and called them to it ; and therefore it must needs be that all these aflflictions that befall his people must work together for their internal and eternal good, otherwise he should do that which should cross his own purpose, which wise men will not do ; and oh, how much less will the most wise God act counter-cross to his own purpose ! So Jer. xxiv. 5, ' Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good.' To be carried captive to Babylon was doubtless a very sore and matchless affliction : Dan. ix. 12, ' And he hath confirmed his words which he spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil ; for under the whole heaven hath not been done, as hath been done upon Jerusalem.' This may be the abridgment of Jeremiah's Lamentations : Lam. i. 12, * Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger ;' chap. iv. 16, ' For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was over- thrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.' Sodom sus- tained not any siege from foreign forces, they were not vexed and plagued with the armies of the Chaldeans ; there was no hand of man in the destruction of Sodom, but a hand of heaven only. Sodom was not kept long in pains and misery as I and my people have been, but was suddenly overwhelmed, and in an instant despatched ; all which shews that their miseries and sufferings were incomparable and match- less ; and that they were so indeed will evidently appear, if you please but seriously to consider either the antecedents of it or the consequents of it. The antecedents of it : what went before their captivity — viz., blood, and slaughter, and dreadful devastations. Or if you consider the consequents of it : as, (1.) The enslaving of their persons under a fierce and most cruel enemy ; (2.) The loss of their estates ; (3.) The leaving of their country and the land of their nativity ; (4.) A depri- vation of the ordinances and worship of God; (5.) The scorns and reproaches, the exultations and triumphs of their adversaries, that pleased and delighted themselves in their captivity and misery.^ These were the woeful consequences of that captivity, and yet all the power and malice of men in the world could not hinder these amazing and astonishing trials from working together for the spiritual and ever- lasting good of his captive people. That God will do his people good by the most terrible dispensations that they are under, you may see more and more evident by comparing the scriptures in the margin together. 2 As the apothecary of poison makes treacle to drive out
' See Ps. cxxxvii. 7 ; Obad. xii. 13-16 ; Ezek. xxv. 6 ; Ps. xliv. 13, 14. ' Deut. viii, 15, 16 ; Ps. cxix. 71, 75; Heb. xii. 10.
500 THE SIGNAL PKESENCE OF GOD
poison, SO can God make the poison of afflictions, which in themselves are the curse of the law, to drive out the poison of sin. All the world can never hinder the affliction, troubles, and evils that befall the people of God, from working for their good; for God does and will by these means, (1.) Discover sin ; (2.) Prevent sin ; (3.) Imbitter sin ; (4.) Mortify sin. And God will by afflictions, troubles, &c., (1.) Kevive, quicken, and recover his children's decayed graces ; (2.) Exer- cise his children's graces ; (3.) Increase his children's graces ; (4.) Make a further trial and discovery of his children's graces, i Let the enemies of Sion storm and rage, plot and combine, &c., yet they shall never be able to hinder the greatest troubles, the deepest distresses, and most deadly dangers, from working for the internal and eternal good of all the sincere lovers of God. I have read a story of one Pereus, who, running at another with a sword to kill him, by ac- cident the sword only run into his imposthume an(i broke that ; and so he was instrumental to save him whom he designed to have killed : and so all the afflictions and troubles that the righteous meet with, they do but serve to cure them of the imposthume of pride, or of the imposthume of earthly-mindedness, or of the imposthume of self-love, or of the imposthume of hypocrisy. Look upon the revolution of the heavens, how every planet moves in its proper orb. Their motions are not alike, but various, nay, opposite each unto the other. Hence those different conjunctions, oppositions, and aspects of the planets, yet by the wheeling round of the primum mobile, they are brought about to one determinate point. The people of God have many enemies in the world, vrhose course and scope, whose aims and ends and actions are not the same, yea diverse, nay adverse, one thwarting and crossing the other, yet the overruling providence so sways all subordinate and inferior instruments and enemies, that in the midst of their mutual jars they conspire in a sacred harmony, as if they were entered into a holy league, or some sacred combination for the good of his chosen. Wherever our enemies be in respect of their places, who- soever they be in regard of their persons, and however they are dis- joined in regard of their affections, yet all their projects and practices shall tend and end in the good of those that love God. But,
[6] Sixthly, ' If God be with us, who can be against us ?' I an- swer. None, so as to hinder our communion and felloioship loith the Father, Son, and Spirit : 1 John i. 3, ' That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye may have fellowship with us : and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.' Man's summum bonibm stands in his communion with God, as Scripture and experience evidences. A man whose soul is con- versant with God, shall find more pleasure in a desert, in a den, in a dungeon, in a fiery furnace, yea, and in the valley of the shadow of death, than in the palace of a prince.^ There is a sweet and intimate communion which believers have with God; hence they are said to ' walk with God,' Gen. v. 24, and vi. 9 ; and to ' talk with God,' as
^ See my ' London's Lamentations,' pp. 34-.')3. See also my ' Mute Christian under the Smarting Rod.' [Former in vol. vi. and the latter in vol. i. — G.]