[2.] There is weakness of faith to yield to the temptation, and to go off upon every repulse ; yea, sometimes too too plain unbelief and atheism, as if there were no mercy to be expected from God, or no good to be obtained by spiritual means. Faith is to believe what we see not. The woman of Canaan cometh to Christ ; at first she gets not a word from him, and afterwards his speech is more discouraging than his silence ; she is put out of the compass of his commission : ' I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel ; ' but still she is importunate ; afterwards a rough answer : ' It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it unto dogs.' She turneth his rebuke into an encouragement ; then, ' 0 woman, great is thy faith,' Mat. xv. 26. Many times we pray for blessings, and the oracle is dumb and silent ; though God love the supplicant, yet he will not seem to take notice of his desires : yea, the more they pray, the more they may go away with a sense of their unworthiness and revived guilt ; yet the work of faith is to make an answer out of God's silence, a gracious answer out of his rebukes, and to increase our importunity the more.
[3.] Want of love to God, or coldness of love. It is the property of love to adhere to God, though we be not feasted with felt comforts and present benefits ; yea, though he appear an enemy ; for so will God try the affection and deportment of his children : Isa. xxvi. 8, ' Yea, in the way of thy judgments have we waited for thee ; the desire of our souls is to thee, and to the remembrance of thy name ; ' Job xiii. 15, ' Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.' Not only
VER. 146.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CX1X. 57
when our affections are bribed : a child of God should love God for his judgments, as well as fear him for his mercies ; as lime, the more water you sprinkle upon it, the more it burnetii. It was a high expression of Bernard's affection to those that he took to be the people of God, Adhcerebo vobis etiamsi velitis etiamsi nolitis ; so should we adhere to God now. When you can only wait on him in the way of his mercies, not in the way of his j udgments, your waiting and praying is discouraged upon every difficulty and disappointment, you have little love to him.
[4.] Want of patience, or tarrying God's leisure till the promise bring forth. Some are hot and hasty ; if God will appear presently they can be content to observe him ; but to be crying and crying till their throat be hoarse and weary of crying, and no good come on it, they cannot away with this : 2 Kings vi. 33, ' This evil is of the Lord ; why should I wait on the Lord any longer ? ' They are discontented that God maketh them stay so long. Though God wait long upon them, and had reason enough to take the discouragement and be gone, yet they cannot tarry a little for God, and think prayer a useless work, unless it yield them a quick return, and that it is better to shift for themselves.
Use. Keproof to two sorts : —
1. To those that cease praying or crying to God, if they have not a present answer, especially if they meet with a contrary rebuke in the course of his providence. You must cry, and cry again, not imagine that God will be at your beck ; but foolish men suddenly conclude, Mai. iii. 14, ' It is in vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts ? ' Oh no ! Consider something is due to the sovereignty of God, that we should wait his leisure ; for he is supreme, and will govern the world according to his own will, not ours. And therefore we must stay his time for the mercies we expect : Ps. cvi. 13, 14, ' They soon forgat his word, they waited not for his counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert.' And something is due to the stated course of _ his providence. We cannot expect that God should turn all things upside-down for our sakes, and invert the beautiful order of his dis- pensations : Job xviii. 4, ' Shall the earth be forsaken for thee, and the rock removed out of his place ? ' shall God alter the course of nature, or change the order of governing the world for us, or to please our humour ? Something is due to the present estate of mankind, who are not to live by sense, but by faith : Hab. ii. 3, 4, ' For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie : though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Behold, his soul which is lifted up, is not upright in him : but the just shall live by his faith.' And that appointed time is for our trial, to see if we out of duty and principles of faith, can keep up our respects unto God, though his providence doth not presently gratify our desires or satisfy our necessities. Besides, it concerneth us to suspect ourselves rather than to blemish God's dispensations. Those always complain most of God's not hearing prayer who least deserve to be heard : Isa. lviii. 3-5, ' Wherefore