Again, If God be our God, xre will trust in him, rely and depend upon him above all things ; for whatsoever our trust is most in, that is our god. Now if our conscience tell us that we trust most in God, more than in wealth or friends, and will not, to displease God, please any man, it is a sign that we have made God our God, because we trust in him. And surely, if we would examine ourselves, the best of us all, it would bring us on our knees, and make our faces be confounded, to consider what a deal of atheism there is in our heart (though we are not altogether atheists, yet what a deal there is), that must be mortified and subdued. For if an honest man, and that we know is faithful, should say to us, I will be yours ; I will take upon me to provide for j^ou, to defend you, to protect you, to stand by you against all adversaries ; we believe and hope that he will do
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THE FAITHFUL COVENANTEE.
it. Bat do wo so to God ? Hath he our trust and affiance ? Alas, no ! so far forth, I moan, as we are not subdued to God. A Christian, indeed, in some measure is enabled to make God his trust and confidence, but there remains abundance of atheism even in the best of us. If God be our God, why do we not trust in him, depend upon him for all things ; depend upon him for protection and deliverance from all ill, spiritual ill specially, from sin, Satan, hell, and wrath ; depend upon him for all good, the good of grace spocialh% for the change of our nature and the forgiveness of our sins, for spiritual privileges, adoption and sonship, for the inheritance of heaven, &c. It is a sign, I say, that God is our God when we trust in him above all the world, and trust other things only from him and for him. I will trust man, but man may deceive me. I will not trust him therefore with an absolute confidence. No. That were to make a god of him. What is the reason that God confoundeth proud men at last ? David shews the reason. ' This man he took not the Lord for his God.' When men will, in contempt of religion, set up themselves and somewhat else to rely on, besides God, God at the last brings it to pass, that the world shall note them out, This man trusted in his greatness ; he trusted in his policy, in his wit, in his friends ; this man took not the Lord for his God.
Again, If we make God our God, ive viay know it by our obedience, espe- cially by the obedience of the inward man. When the inward man is vowed to God, when a man yieldeth inward obedience to God, it is a sign that God is his God. When a man can arraign his thoughts and desires before God, and when lusts rise in his heart contrary to the Spirit, he checks them pre- sently. This becometh not those that are God's ; it beseemeth not those that walk after God, that have God's Spirit for their leader. Therefore he is ashamed presently of base tentations.* A Christian can perform the first and last commandments, which are the most spiritual commandments. He can make God his God in his affections. His affections are placed upon him alone, as I have shewed before. He can yield up all his inward affections of fear and love and joy, and such like, unto God, which is the sum of the first commandment ; and he can be content not to have his lusts rage and range, suppresses his very thoughts and desires, will not suffer anything to rise in his heart unchecked and uncontrolled, which is the sum of the tenth commandment. I mean, he can do it in some measure. And there is a inwai'd passive obedience too. It is God, as David and other saints said. ' It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good in his own eyes,' Ps. cxix. 68. I am God's, and he shall dispose of me. The soul that knoweth God to be his God hath an inward obedience of conton- tation with his estate. God is my portion, and it is large enough. The earth is his, and the fulness thereof, Ps. xxiv. 1. Therefore I will be con- tent to be at his disposing, whether it be more or less ; and if any murmuring arise in his heart, against God in respect of his estate or otherwise, he presently suppresseth it, as being contrary to the blessed government that a Christian is under, that should resign his whole soul unto God.
Thus by our affections, by the trial of them, we may know whether God be our God, if we give him the affections of the heart, which religion most stands in ; when we make the whole inward man stoop, and bow, and bend unto him ; when we make him our king, and give him the supremacy ; when we set the crown upon his head ; when he hath our fear, our joy and delight, our love, our trust ; I mean, when he hath the supreme of all, for we may love man, as God derivethf good to us by him, and so for the rest. * That is, ' temptations.' — G-. % That is, ' communicateth.' — G.