Consid. 4. It is not enough to acknowledge justice, but we must also acknowledge faithfulness ; not only his just severity in the punish- ments of the wicked, but his fidelity and love in the correction of his children : it is not enough that we justify God, and forbear to murmur against his afflicting us, but we must see his love and faithfulness in it, and that he performeth his covenant love. His wisdom and justice, that suppresseth murmurings ; his love and faithfulness, that giveth hope, and comfort, and courage : the one concerneth the honour of God, he righteth himself by his just judgments; the other concerneth our benefit and eternal welfare. Faithfulness is to us, and for our good. Pharaoh could own justice: Exod. ix. 27, ' The Lord is right- eous, but I and my people are wicked.' But it is a higher thinj^ to own faithfulness ; that supposeth faith, as the other doth conviction. Guilt will sooner fly in our faces, and extort from us an acknowledg- ment of God's justice, than we can own the grace of the new covenant, especially when carnal sense and smart seemeth to speak the con- trary. The sight of his justice checketh murmurings, the sight of his faithfulness fainting and discouragement. God's dispensations are just with respect to the sentence of the law, faithful with respect to the promises of the gospel. In short, the cause of all affliction is sin, therefore justice must be acknowledged ; their end is repentance, and therefore faithfulness: the end is not destruction and ruin, so they might be acts of justice, as upon the wicked ; but that we may be fit
VeR. 75.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 293
to receive the promises, such to whom God will perform the promise of eternal life, and so acts of faithfulness.
Consid. 5. Faith must fix this as a ground not once to be ques- tioned, much less to be doubted of or denied, that God is just, upright, and faithful in all his dealings, though weak man be not able to conceive the reasons of them. His justice may be dark, as when he permitteth us to the will of wicked men, who afflict us without a cause, and lay on without any mercy and pity, and God seemeth to befriend their cause, at least doth not restrain them, nor give check to their fury. We are apt to be tempted to thoughts of rigour and injustice in God's dispensations, but we must consider not men's dealing, but God's. It is unjust as to men, but we have no cause to be angry with God, and complain of God, as if he did not do right. No ; though we do not see the reason of it, yet it is just. ' God's judgments are a great deep.' We should believe the righteousness and goodness of God in the general, Ps. xxxvi. 7, before we can find it out. The people of God have maintained their principle, when they have been puzzled and em- brangled in interpreting God's providence : Jer. xii. 1, ' Kighteous art thou, 0 Lord, when 1 plead with thee;' and Ps. Ixxiii. 1, ' Yet God is good to Israel.' In all such cases it is best to acknowledge our own ignorance, and rather accuse ourselves of blindness than God of in- justice. This is a fixed truth, that God is righteous, though Ave cannot 60 clearly make it out. And sometimes we are tempted to doubt of his fidelity and truth, when we feel nothing but the smart of the rod : the benefit is future, not an object of sense, but faith ; and it must be evident to faith before it is evident to feeling: Heb. xii. 11, 'No affliction for the present seemeth joyous, but grievous ; but afterwards it bringeth the quiet fruit of righteousness.' When all is sharp and hard to sense, faith can see all is for our profit, for our good. Here is nothing repugnant to God's truth, nothing but what is necessary to make good his truth. Faith must determine it to be, when sense will not find it so. God's works are misexpounded when we go altogether by present sense, whether internal or external : many times we know not what God is about to do, as Christ told Peter : John xiii. 7, ' What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.' That which the Lord is doing tendeth not to ruin and wrath, though through our ignorance and mistake we so interpret it. Alas ! no wonder we are in the dark, when we so judge of his work, who is ' wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working;' who will not always satisfy our sense and curiosity, but chooseth such a way as will most suit his intent. But ever in all such cases faith must determine that God is just and faithful, and will cast all things for the best, though we see it not ; we must assent by faith, when we cannot find it by sense internal or external : ' I know in faithfulness thou hast aflSicted me.'
Secondly, I am to show you, and to prove to you, that there is much of justice and faithfulness to be observed in all the afflictions which come upon us.