He is the salvation of my countenance ; that is, he will so save as I shall see, and my enemies shall see it ; and upon seeing, my countenance shall be cheered and lifted up ; God's saving kindness shall be read in my countenance, so that all who look on me shall say, God hath spoken peace to my soul, as well as brought peace to my condition.
He saithnot salvation, but salvations (j) ; because as our life is subject to many miseries, in soul, body, and state, public and private, &c., so God hath many salvations. If we have a thousand troubles, he hath a thousan.d ways of help, Mille mali species, mille salutis erunt. As he hath more bless- ings than one, so he hath more salvations than one. He saves our souls from sin, our bodies from danger, and om- estates from trouble. He is the Redeemer of his people ; and not only so, but ' with him is plenteous redemption,' Ps. cxxx. 7, of all persons, of all parts both of body and soul, from all ill, both of sin and misery, for all times, both now and hereafter. He is an everlasting salvation.
David doth not say, God will save me ; but God is salvation itself, and nothing but salvation. Our sins only stop the current of his mercy, but it being above all our sins, will soon scatter that cloud, remove that stop, and then we shall see and feel nothing but salvation from the Lord. ' All his ways are mercy and peace,' Ps. xxv. 10, to a repentant soul that casts itself upon him.
Christ himself is nothing else but salvation clothed in our flesh. So old Simeon conceived of him, when he had him in his aims, Luke ii. 29, and was willing thereupon to yield up his spirit to God, having seen Christ, the salvation of God. When we embrace Christ in the anus of our faith, we embrace nothing but salvation. He makes up that sweet name given him by his Father, and brought from heaven by an angel to the full, Luke ii. 14; a name in the faith of which it is impossible for any believing soul to sink.
The devil, in trouble, presents God to us as a revenging destroyer, and unbelief presents him under a false vizard ; but the skill of faith is, to pre- sent him as a Saviour clothed with salvation. We should not so much look what destruction the devil and his threaten, as what salvation God pro- miseth. To God belong 'the issues of death,' Ps. Ixviii. 20; and of all other troubles, which are lesser deaths. Cannot he that hath vouchsafed an issue in Christ from eternal death, vouchsafe an issue from all temporal evils ? If he will raise our bodies, cannot he raise our conditions ? He that brought us into trouble can easily make a way out of it when he pleascth. This should be a ground of resolute and absolute obedience, even in our greatest extremities, considering God wiU. either dehver us from death, or by death, and at length out of death.
So then, when we are in any danger, we see whither to go for salvation, even to him that is nothing else but salvation ; but then we must trust in him, as David doth, and conceive of him as salvation, that we may trust in him. If we will not trust in salvation, what will we trust in? and if salvation itself cannot save us, what can ? Out of salvation there is nothing but destruc- tion, which those that seek it anywhere out of God, are sure to meet with.
260 THE soul's conflict.
How pitiful then is their case, who go to a destroyer for salvation ! that seek for help from hell !
Here also we see to whom to return praise in all om' deliverances, even to the God of our salvation. The Virgin Mary was stirred up to magnify the Lord ; but why ? ' Her spirit rejoiced in Grod her Saviour,' Luke i. 47. "VMaosoever is the instrument of any good, yet salvation is of the Lord ; whatsoever brings it, he sends it. Hence in their holy feasts for any de- liverance, the cup they drank was called the cup of salvation ; and therefore David when he summons his thoughts, what to render unto God, he re- solves upon this, to take ' the cup of salvation,' Ps. cxvi. 13, But always remember this, that when we think of God as salvation, we must think of him as he is in Christ to his. For so everything in God is saving, even his most terrible attributes of justice and power. Out of Christ, the sweetest things in God are terrible. Salvation itself will not save out of Christ, who is the only way of salvation, called the way, the truth, and the life, John xiv. 6. ■
David addeth, ' He is the salvation of my countenance,' that is, he will first speak salvation to my soul, and say, I am thy salvation ; and when the heart is cheered, which is as it were the sun of this little world, the beams of that joy will shine in the countenance. True joy begins at the centre, and so passeth to the circumference, the outward man. The coun- tenance is as the glass of the soul, wherein you may see the naked face of the soul, according as the several affections thereof stand. In the counte- nance of an understanding creature, you may see more than a bare counte- nance. The spirit of one man may see the countenance of another's inner man in his outward countenance ; which hath a speech of its own, and declares what the heart saith, and how it is affected.