4. It is comfort in the loss of outward enjoyments. Alas! their nature is vanishing, even the most glorious of all the creatures. The heavens shall be like a scorched scroll : Ps. cii. 26, ' They shall perish, but thou shalt endure ; yea, all of them shall wax old as doth a gar- ment, as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed.' But you have an intei-est in a more lasting comfort, in a Christ whose days are prolonged, though all things else perish before you.
Use 2. Is advice to the world, first, to get an interest in Christ; his friendship will last. Make a friend of him, that you may be sure will abide by you to the last. This is Christ's argument for improve- ment of wealtli : ' They will receive you into everlasting habitations,' Luke xvi. 9, to wit, those whose bowels you have refreshed. Make friends of the saints, but especially of Christ, that when other things fail, you may have an eternal God to stand by you. Christ is a friend that can never fail. Barzillai commended his son to David, 2 Sam. xix. 37 ; but David must yield to the fate of all men, and was forced to leave him to Solomon, 1 Kings ii. 7. Oh, commend your souls to Christ, and he will not leave them to another. His days are pro- longed, and he doth not yield to the fate of the creatures. Well then, choose him. Those are not friends that beguile you in your hopes (and then are not able to stead you), as the creatures do. Christ is a friend that is able to stand by you in the worst of times ; he will confess you before his Father in heaven.
2. He will give you long life, which is the great desire of the crea- tures : Ps. xxxiv. 12, ' What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good ? ' What man is there that doth not desire to live long? that is the meaning of it: Prov. iii. 16, ' Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left riches and honour,' Length of days is the right-hand blessing of wisdom ; it is the blessing of Jesus Christ. Therefore it is said, Eternal life is in the Son : and he that hath the Son hath life ; his days are prolonged, and he will prolong and lengthen out yours to eternity.
Having showed the things most proper to this phrase, I come now to the latter clause, that ' the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands.' The point is, that all the will and pleasure of God shall prosper and be effectual in the hands of Jesus Christ.
Reasons —
1. Because he is the choice instrument of God, the special servant of his decrees, therefore everywhere called his servant: Isa. xlii. 1, ' Behold my servant, whom I uphold.' Pie is God's servant as Media-
398 A PRACTICAL EXPOSITION UPON [IsA. LIII. 10.
tor, therefore God will uphold him, and hear him out in his work : Isa. liii. 11, ' By his knowled<^e shall my righteous servant justify many,' Certainly God's will and work will thrive in the hands of Christ. When God raiseth up any special instrument among the creatures to accom- plish his pleasure, they are successful. Nehuchadnezzar, that was but a reuKiter servant of God's decrees, and one taken in by the by to do God's will, he was prosperous: Jer. xxv. 9, 'Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and will make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolation.' So the Medes and Persians, when called to the service of God's decrees, they were successful : Isa. xiii. 3, ' I have commanded my sanctified ones ; I have also called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness.' They are set apart for that work. The lowest servants of the decrees cannot miscarry, much less, then, can Christ, the choicest instrument of God's decrees.
2. Because the Lord Christ is so qualified that tlae wall of God must needs ])rosper with him.
[1.] He is willing and ready to comply with the will of God the Father. It is motive sufficient to Christ that it is the Father's plea- sure : John iv. 34, ' My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.' It is Christ's pleasure, as much as God's, to work out the good of the creatures. Work is best done by a willing servant ; now Christ is willing. As God gave Christ, so Christ gave himself to die for man. The Father's delight is to you, and so is the Son's ; and therefore the business is not like to miscarry, Prov. viii. 31. Christ is brought in speaking as the AVisdom of the Father, ' re- joicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and my delights are with the sons of men.' Christ's delights were with men ; it was a pleasure to him to do them good. The pleasure of the Lord will prosper in any hand, but especially in the hands of Christ, for it is his own pleasure.