THE POOR man's eiches. 253
* And they shall trust in the name of the Lord.'
This is the carriage of these poor and afflicted people. * They shall trust in the name of the Lord.'
God hath no delight in afflicting his children ; he joys and delights in the prosperity of his children. It is our sinful nature that forceth him to afflict us, that he may wean us from the world, because we are prone to surfeit upon things here below. All that God doth is that we may trust in him, which we would never do unless he did afflict us, and make us ' poor in spirit ;' but when we are afflicted and poor in spirit, and have nothing at home, we will make out abroad, as people in necessity will do. Supply must be had, either at home or from without ; and when the soul is beaten and driven out of itself, which requires much ado, then we are fit for this blessed act here spoken of, to ' trust in the name of the Lord.' And the one is an evidence of the other. How shall we know that we are suffi- ciently humbled and made poor in spirit ? When we trust in the name of the Lord.
In the unfolding of these words, take these for grounds ; which I will but name.
First, That natural^ every man will have a trust, in himself, or out of himself.
Secondly, That God is the trust of the poor man ; what he wants in himself he hath in God. God is the rock or the castle to which he retires. He hath supply in him. The third is, that
Obs. God is trusted as he is Jmown. They shall ' trust in the name of the Lord.' For God can be no otherwise trusted than he hath made his will known. It is presumptuous boldness to challenge anything of God that we have not a promise for ; or to attribute that to him that he is not. God is therefore trusted as he hath made himself by some name known to us. He hath made himself known by his attributes, by his nature and essence, Jehovah ; and by his word, and the promises in his word. For his word is one of the best and sweetest names whereby he hath made him- self known. The name of God is glorious in all the world, in the creation ; and every creature hath a tongue to shew forth the power, and wisdom, and goodness of God. But what is this to us, if we know not the will of God toward us ? There is the name of God discovered ; what he is in himself ; something of his power and wisdom, &c. But what he is to us, gracious, and merciful, and sweet ; that we must gather out of the discovery of his own breast. He must come out of that ' light that none can attain unto,' 1 Tim. vi. IG, and discover himself as he hath done in his word ; and by this name of God, his word, we come to make use of his other names. The next thing I will speak of is the improvement of God when he is known, to trust in him, to pitch our trust and confidence upon him. ' They shall trust in the name of the Lord.'
Obs. For there must be an application of the sold to God. We must lay our souls upon God. Though he be a rock, yet we must lay our soixls upon him ; and though he be a foundation, yet we must build upon him and his truth revealed. There is an adequate comfort in God and in the Scrip- tures, and superabundant too to all our necessities whatsoever. It transcends them all. There is more in the spring than we want ourselves. Yet not- standing there must be grace in the soul to repair to God. There must be an hand, an empty beggar's hand, such as faith is, to reach that help that God yields. There must be a wing to fly to our tower. The wing of the
254 THE RICH POVKRTY ; OR,
soul is this trust and faith ; and when these two meet, faith or trust, and God, what a sweet meeting is there ! For emptiness and fulness, poverty and riches, weakness and strength, to meet together, these will grasp sweetly ; for the excellency and all-sufficiency of the one, and the necessity of the other meeting together, breeds a sweet correspondency. We must ' trust,' therefore, in the name of the Lord. That is the way to improve whatsoever is in God for our good.
Faith, the nature of it is, after it hath applied itself to the grounds of comfort, to draw virtue and strength from God. Of itself it is the most beggarly grace of all. Love is a rich grace, but yet notwithstanding in the covenant of grace, wherein grace and mercy must have the glory, God hath established such a gi-ace to rule there as ascribes all out of itself, and is an empty grace of itself, to make use of the riches that is out of itself ; there- fore God hath made choice of this trusting instead of all other graces, as indeed leading to all other gi-aces whatsoever. God brings us home by a contrary way to that we fell from him. IIow did we fall from God at the first, that was our rock, our defence, and trust ? We fell from him by dis- trust, by having him in a jealousy, as if he aimed more at himself than at our goods. So the devil persuaded our first parents. The next way, there- fore, to come back again to God, it must be to have a good conceit of God, not to have him in jealousy, but to be convinced in our souls that he loves us better than we can love ourselves, in spite of the devil and all his temptations. So to trust God is to rely upon him in life and death. Therefore God hath appointed this grace, as he saith here, ' They shall trust in the name of the Lord.'