4. This trust ever succeeds well. It will be of great use to you to still and calm your thoughts, and free you from many anxious cares, and in due time it will bring deliverance according to his promise. How may we thus trust in God ? Why ! commit and submit your persons and all your conditions and affairs to his providence. This is to trust in God, to make him your hiding-place and your shield. These notions are often used in scripture, 2 Tim. i. 12 ; Prov. xvi. 3 ; Ps. xxxvii. 5. If there be a thing to be brought about for you, commit it and submit it to God ; he is able, wise, loving, and faithful ; he will do what shall be for the best. Commit your comforts, your health, liberty, peace, your all into God's hands, for he is the author of all; let the Lord do what he will. This is to trust in God, when you can thus without trouble or anxious care refer yourselves to the wise disposal of his providence.
[1.] No hurt can come to you without God's leave. No creature can move or stir, saving not only by his permission, but by his influ- ence. Others may have a will to hurt, but not power unless given them from above, as Christ told Pilate. The devil is a raging adver- sary against the people of God, but he is forced to ask leave to touch either Job's goods or his person ; he could not touch his skin, or any- thing that belonged to him without a commission from God, Job i. ; nay, he must ask leave to enter into the herd of swine. Mat. viii. 31. And Tertullian hath a notable gloss upon that. If God hath num- bered the bristles of swine, certainly he hath numbered much more the hairs of the saints ; if he cannot enter into a herd of swine, he cannot worry a friend of Christ's, without God's leave.
[2.] Consider how much God hath expressed his singular affection, and his care and providence over his people. There are many emphatical expressions in scripture ; that is one. Mat. x. 29, 30, ' The very hairs of your head are numbered.' Mark, he doth not speak of the heart, or hands, or feet, those that we call parts which are neces- sary to the conservation of life ; but he speaks of the excrementitious parts, which are rather for convenience and ornament than necessity. What is more slight than the shedding a hair of the head ? Thus he expresses the particular care of his people. Again, Zech. ii. 8, ' He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.' No part is more
176 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [SeR, CXXY.
tender than the eye ; and the apple of tlie eye, hovv- hath nature s;uarded it, that it may receive no prejudice ! ^o Isa. xlix. 15, ' Can a mother fori^et her sucking-chihl ? ' &c. See liow his tender affection and yearning howels are expressed ; passions in females are most vehement, therefore God alludes to mothers' affections. And mark, it is not a child that can shift for itself, hut a sucking-child, that is wholly helpless, that was but newly given her to draw her love. Nature hath left tender affections on the hearts of parents to their tender infants ; yet if a woman should be so unnatural, ' Yet will I not forget thee,' saith the Lord. Now, shall we not trust him, and make him our hiding-place ? Isa. xxvii. 3, ' I the Lord do kee[) it ; I will water it every moment ; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.' God will keep his people by day, lest by force they break in upon his heritage ; and keep them by night, lest they steal in privily, and by secret machinations hurt them.
[3.] Again, consider how many arguments there are to work us to this trust. Sometimes the scripture teacheth us to argue from the less to the greater : Mat. vi. 30, ' If God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, 0 ye of little faith ? ' Sometimes the scripture teacheth us to argue on the contrary, from the greater to the less, Rom. viii. 32. If God hath given us his Christ, will he not with him freely give us all things ? Sometimes the scripture teacheth us to argue from things past. God hath been your shield and helper, he hath delivered from the mouth of the lion and bear, and tliis un- circumcised Philistine shall be as' one of them, 1 Sam. xvii. 37. Some- times from things past and present to things to come : 2 Cor. i. 10, ' Who hath delivered from so great a death, and doth deliver ; in whom we trust that he will yet deliver.' Sometimes from things to come to things present : Luke xii. 32, 'Fear not, little liock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.' Anne dahit regnum, et non dahit vlcdicum ? If he give a kingdom, will he not give daily bread ? Will he not preserve you while he hath a mind to use you ? Thus our unbelief is overpowered by divers arguments to press us to this trust. Well, then, run to your security. How so ?