[2.] Faith is tlie best midwife. By faith Sarah was delivered of a child. Women great with child are very solicitous about getting a good midwife ; tlie apostle commendetli one in this place, one that never miscarried in her work, and yet tbe saints have employed her for thousands of years. She expecteth not wages nor gifts ; faith doth most for tbem that are poor in spirit, and have nothing to give, that know not what to do without her. Other midwives come not willingly, but where there is some likelihood that they may go through with their business ; but faith doth best at a dead lift.
But to leave tbe metaphor, and to speak something by way of direc- tion in this case, which certainly is of weighty concernment. The apostle saith, G-al. ii. 20, ' The life which I now live in the flesh I live by tbe faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.' Faith is to be exercised, uot only in acts of worship, but in acts of your callings, and the ordinary offices of life. We are to trade in faith, to eat in faith, to drink in faith, to sleep in faith, to study in faith, to preach in faith. Now usually in all other cases men are taught how to live by faith, but seldom is anything spoken in this weighty case. How to* be delivered of a child by faith, as Sarah was, certainly the danger is great, and if in any extremity there is need of faith, much more where tlie life of the creature is so much concerned. Let me speak a few words to this matter.
(1.) We must be sensible what need we have to exercise faith in this case, that we may not run upon danger blindfold ; and if we escape then to think our deliverance a mere chance. Piachel died in this case, so did Phineas's wife, 1 Sam. iv. 19, 20, and it is a great hazard that you run ; therefore you must be sensible of it. God may take this advantage against you to cut you off ; you are in the very valley of the shadow of death ; deliverance, but that it is so ordinary, would be accounted miraculous. When you look upon it as a matter of course (and you need not trouble yourself about it but only to get the accustomed means), there is no room for faith to work ; when difficulty and danger is apprehended in tbe case, then faith comes : 2 Chron. xx. 12, '0 our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are unto thee ; ' 2 Cor. i. 9, ' We had the sen-
VeR. 11.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. 277
tence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.'
(2.) Because the sorrows of travail are a monument of Gods dis- pleasure against sin, therefore this must put you the more earnestly to seek an interest in Christ, that you may have remedy against sin : Gen. iii. 16, ' Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception ; in sorrow, thou shalt bring forth children.' Wo- men's pains are more grievous than the females of any kind ; sin is the reason of it. Death waylays the child as soon as it is born ; the sentence is in force, and there is no remedy but in Jesus Christ the redeemer. Who durst venture upon the pains of travail without a sealed pardon? The sweetness of the second Adam will be your com- fort when you feel the bitterness of the first.
(3.) Muse upon God's promise' 1 Tim. ii. 15, 'Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in child-bearing if she continue in faith, and charity, and holiness, with sobriety.' The apostle speaketh there of the woman's being first in the transgression. There is the promise, and the evi- dences of interest in the pi'omise : ' She shall be saved in child-bearing ' that is the promise, which is made good temporally or eternally, as God seeth cause. Some render Sia t?}? TeKvoyoviw?, by chikl-bearing, as if this was a way by which women go to heaven. But take it as we render it, ' in child-bearing,' it is a promise that serveth to awaken faith, that you may not be amazed with the danger, and if deliverance be obtained, you may look upon it as a blessing of the promise ; but generally it is to be understood as all temporal promises, with the exception of God's good pleasure.
(4) The faith you exercise must be glorifying his power, and casting yourselves upon his will. That expresseth that kind of faith which is proper to all temporal mercies, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst save me ; which indeed is enough to ease the heart of a great deal of trouble and perplexing fear.
1st. To glorify his power. Consider to this end the experiences of the saints: Ps. Ixxvii. 10, ' I said, This is my infirmity ; but I will remem- ber the years of the riglit hand of the Most High ; ' 2 Cor. i. 10, ' Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver ; in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us/ For all that danger can do, he is able to deliver us. If you have not your own experiences, yet reflect upon the experiences of others ; how God hath assisted them in such-like cases. In every age there are monuments to which we may have recourse, as they said, Ps, Ixxviii. 3, ' Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.' So say, Lord, others have told us what thou base done for them in such cases, supporting weak vessels in great danger.^ and extremities, why cannot God do the like ? yea. Lord, thou canst. Say it still ; do not consider your own frailty and fears, but God's power. In innocency there would be no pain at all, though it be caused by natural causes, yet God could have slacked it ; and now certainly after the fall, he can mitigate the sentence, especially to those that have an interest in Christ.