Use. The use of it in a word is this, That God having stooped so low to poor creatures, to be a father and a friend to them, will suffer them familiarly (as there is a great deal of familiarity in the spirit of adoption), yet reverently, to lay open their griefs into his bosom, and reason the case with his Majesty, without sin. Why, Lord, am I thus forsaken ? what is the matter ? where are the sounding of thy bowels ? where are thy former mercies ? &c. There is another kind of famiUaiity between God and his children than the
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world takes notice of; yet withal remember, they are not murmuring com- plaints, but seasoned with faith and love, as here, my God, my God still. Whence you see that,
Christ in his greatest extremities had a spirit of faith.
8. There is a question between the papists and us about Christ's faith ; they will have him to be a comprehender and a traveller, &c. Indeed, he needed no justifying faith to apply anything from without him, because he had righteousness enough of his own ; but yet to depend upon God as his Father, so he had faith ; neither was he alway in the state of happiness, for that distinction is a confusion of the abasement of Christ and his exaltation. Howsoever, there was the happiness of union (the human nature being alway united to the Godhead), yet there was not alway the happiness of vision ; he did not see the face of God, for then why did he cry out, * My God, my God,' &c. ? Sight was due to him from his incarnation in himself considered, not as our surety. Now that which made a stop of the influence of comfort to his soul was, that he might fully sufler for our sins, that he might be humbled and tempted, and sufier even death itself. Therefore, in regard of the state of humihation, there was faith in him, faith of dependence ; there was hope in him, and he made great use thereof to support himself.
Quest. But what supported the faith of Christ in this woeful, rueful estate he was in, being forsaken of God as om* surety ?
Ans. Christ presented to his faith these things.
1. The unchangeable nature of God, my God, &c. * Whom he once loves, he koves to the end,' John xiii. 1 ; therefore he lays claim to him ; thou hast been my God heretofore, and so thou art stiU.
2. Again, faith presented to the soul of Christ, God's maimer of dealing. He knew well enough that God by contraries brings contraries to pass. He brings to heaven by the gates of hell, he brings to gloiy by shame, to life by death, and therefore resolves, notwithstanding this desertion, I will depend upon my God.
3. Again, Christ knew well enough that God is nearest in support when he is furthest off in feehng. So it is oft, where he is nearest the inward man, to strengthen it with his love, he is furthest off in comfort to outward sense. To whom was God nearer than Christ in support and sanctifying grace ? and yet to whom was he farther off' in present feeling ? Chi'ist knew that there was a secret sense of God's love, and a sensible sense of God's love ; he had a secret sense of God that he was his Father, because he knew himself to be his Son, but he had it not sensibly. Faith must be suitable to the thing believed. Now Christ, in saying My God, suits his faith to the truth that was offered to him ; he knew God in the greatest extremity to be nearest at hand. ' Be not far off, for trouble is near,' &c., Ps. xxii. 11.
This should teach us in any extremity or trouble, to set faith on work, and feed faith vrith the consideration of God's unchangeable nature, and the unchangeableness of his promises, which endure for ever. We change, but the promise changeth not, and God changeth not ; 7ny God still : ' The word of the Lord endureth for ever,' 1 Pet. i. 25. God deals with his people in a hidden manner ; he supports with secret, though not with sensible comfort, and will be nearest when he seems to be furthest off his childi'en. I beseech you, acquaint yourselves with these things, and think it not strange that God comes near you in desertions, considering that it was so with Christ. Present to thy soul the nature of God, his custom and manner of dealing, so shalt thou apprehend favour in the midst of
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wrath, and glory in the midst of shame. "We shall see life in death ; we shall see through the thickest clouds that are between God and us. For as God shines in the heart in his love secretly through all temptations and troubles, so there is a spirit of faith goes back to him again : my God, my God. For faith hath a quick eye, and seeth through contraries. There is no cloud of grief but faith will pierce through it, and see a father's heart under the carriage of an enemy. Christ had a great burden upon him, the sins of the whole world ; yet he breaks through all. I am now sin, I bear the guilt of the whole world, yet under this person that I sustain, I am a son, and God is my God still, notwithstanding all this weight of sin upon me. And shall not we, beloved, say. My God, in any affliction or trouble that befalls us ? Oh yes. In the sense of sin, which is the bitterest of all, and in the sense of God's anger, in losses and crosses, in our famiUes &c., let us break through those clouds, and say. My God, still.