The church seemed to be in a perishing condition, and David saith, * I am cast out of thy sight, yet thou heardest the voice of my prayer,' Ps. xxxi. 22 ; yea, a prayer joined with such expressions that I said, * God Lath forsaken me.' The spirit sighs and groans, and God regardeth such a prayer. And so, that howsoever in regard of the flesh we be in desperate conditions, yet the Spirit hath an eye to God, and moveth a sigh and tear to him, and at the same time fetcheth help from heaven. You see then the point is clear.
Verse 9. ' We are persecuted, but not forsaken.' 5;wxo7x?!/o/. The Greek word signifieth to pursue. God sometimes,; personates an enemy, and seemeth to be against us, and that is a heavy case. It was Job's case : ' Thou writest bitter things against me,' Job xiii. 26. In divine temptations God seemeth to be our enemy. We are persecuted and pur- sued ; sometimes by the arm of the Almighty, sometimes again by Satan, and by his instruments. When we have made by conversion to God escape from the world, the world sendeth hue and cry out after the saints, pursuing and labouring to bring them to their old conditions and labours, to trip them in their ways. The children of God have been from the beginning of the world so pursued, that they never leave pursuing them, till they have driven them to death, and even to hell itself. And this is the state of all God's childi'en if once any will be righteous. * Whosoever will live godly in Christ Jesus must sufler persecution.' He may be civil,* and no man will say black is his eye ; but if he have power of religion, and labour * That is, ' moral.'— G.
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to express it iu his conversation, he shall have persecution of the tongue or of the hand. Saint Austin saith well, Though we live well in times of peace, yet, audi, audi mi f rater, begin to live as a Christian should live, and see if you bo pursued ; you shall find a Babylon in Jerusalem (s). And truly in times of peace a man will find enemies enough at home. For it is almost equally difficult to be truly righteous at all times. Iu the primitive church the doctrine of religion was opposed in applying the truth of doctrine. Now the power of practisers. At all times religion hath been so much perse- cuted, as may stand with salvation. The devil is content with profession. The thing mnj stand with lust and sin, but so much as is necessary to bring to heaven that hath been always under persecution in one kind or other. * Though persecuted, j'et not forsaken,' viz., of God. No. So far from being forsaken of God, that God is never nearer them than when trouble is nearest of all. ' Be not far otf,' saith the psalmist, ' for trouble is nigh,' Ps. xxii. 11. Then there is most use of God's presence and comfort. In persecution usually the souls of God's people fly under the shadow of his wings, and being driven to him they find more support and succour than at other times. It was a good speech of the Landgrave of Hesse, Philip the First, that was of fame and note, to Charles the Fifth, when not only the Duke of Saxony, but he, was taken prisoners, and a great while continued so. How did you all the time demean yourselves ? Said he, ' I found those divine comforts that I never felt before.* So that there is certain evidence of God's presence in persecution and standing out in a good cause, which God's children never felt before, as after. There is a hidden manna con- veyed to them, which is appropriated to those times. So saith he, ' We be persecuted, but not forsaken ;' nay, God is never nearer than at that time. When there is a new moon, the space between the old and the new is interlunium (i), that it is as good as lost now, yet hath more light in itself than ever it had, for it is nearer the sun than ever, though it appears not to the world. And though the comforts of the soul appear not in afflictions, yet then God shineth more upon them than at any other time.
' Cast down, but not destroyed.' Cast down, by persecution prevailing. Persecution prevailing doth cast men down, and give them the worst in the eye of the world, but yet we are not destroyed. The children of God go masked, many thousands of them, to the sight of flesh and blood, and in appearance of flesh destroyed. But they be nothing less than destroyed. For to take it at the worst, though their meat is taken from them, yet they are not distressed.
(1.) For what is the worst the world can do ? They take away their lives which they must leave ere long, and thereby they are made partakers of their wish, which every child of God hath, ' to depart and to be with Christ,' Phil. i. 23. Now when they drive them out of the world, they make them partakers of what they most desire, for they have more com- munion with God in heaven than ever they had before ; they are in their seats and proper place.