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it was said of the * wedge of gold,' Job xxxi. 24, And therefore if anything bath our affections more than God, or equal with God, that we make our god. It is a qiKTve of the greatest concernment in the world to put to our hearts. What do I make my god? as David putteth the quare to himself: ' Now, Lord, what is my hope ? is it not in thee ? ' And so put this qiutre to our- selves : Lord, what is my joy, what is my hope, what is my trust, what is my comfort ? is it not in thee ? If our hearts cannot make an answer to this in some sincerity, surely as yet we have not made God our God. Time may be that he may be so ; but till by the Spirit of God we be brought to see an emptiness and vanity in the creature, and nothingness in all in com- parison of God, that we can say, ' Whom have I in heaven but thee ? ' we have not comfort, because we do . not make him ours by a spirit of mutuahty. Where there is a covenant of grace there must be a mutual making of God our God, as he maketh himself to us.
Alas ! we may be ashamed of it ; the best do often forget themselves. Oh how do men value the favours of a man, and the promises of a man ; the seal of a man for such and such a benefice ; and how doth it grieve them to have the frowns of flesh and blood, the frowns of greatness ! But when their consciences tell them they are under guilt of many sins, and God is not in good terms with them, how doth this affect them ? And when their consciences cannot say they have promises sealed in Christ of the favours and mercies of God here and hereafter, alas ! it is dead com- fort: 'E//,o/ tI 'TTufov, Give me that which is present, and take you that which is to come, is the language of both. How few can say from sincerity of heart that they make good* to be their God ? And therefore it is of greater concernment than we take it.
Use 2. As it is a ground and foundation of comfort, so of all obedience to God, as it is prefixed before the commandments, ' I am the Lord your God,' Exod. XX. 2, ' you shall have no other gods but me,' and do all in obedience to me from this ground. But much more now. Then he was the Lord God that brought them out of Egypt ; but now God may prefix, * I am your Lord God in Christ,' that have brought you from hell and damnation, that intend you heaven and happiness, and therefore do so and so. Since this is the spring of all obedience, we ought to labour to ^ake it good, and often to examine ourselves, as before, what we make our god, and what we pitch our affections on. Alas ! is our soul for any- thing but God ? Hath not God made us for himself? and will our hearts rest in anything but God ? Why then should we love vanit}', and besot ourselves ? When death comes, they may say, as Saul said, ' The Philis- tines are upon me, and God hath forsaken me,' 1 Sam. xiii. 12. Death is on me, trouble, sickness, vexation of conscience is on me, and God hath forsaken me ; I have no God to go to. What a miserable estate is this ! And therefore, I beseech you, let us labour to have interest in the covenant of gi'ace, to make it good that God is our God in Jesus Christ.
Who giveth us a being to be Christians, to have a new nature, to have a good being, but God ? Who maintaineth and preserveth that being but God ? And who keepeth and preserveth us till we get into a glorious being in heaven but God, who is all-sufficient, self-sufficient, sole-sufficient, only sufficient ? This God is our God now in Christ.
God is to us in a more special singular manner than to other creatures, because he hath raised us to be a more excellent being, not only as men, we being in the highest rank of creatures next the angels ; and so he is a God
* Qu. ' god ' ?— Ed.
468 A HEAVENLY CONFERENCE.
to US more than to inferior creatures that have a more circumscribed and narrow being. Man hath a large being, a reasonable soul, and is fitted by nature to have communion with God, who is wisdom itself, and with angels ; but all this were little comfort unless we had higher degrees of being than this. If God be our God in Christ, we have a spiritual being, which is as much above the dignity and prerogative of our ordinary being as our being by nature is above the basest creature in the world. And so God setteth a style upon us suitable to the excellency of our spiritual being. There is nothing excellent in the world but we arc termed by it now, to set out the advancement and excellency of the dignity we have from God in a special manner ; to be * sons,' 'jewels,' his * portion,' his * diadem,' to bo whatso- ever you can imagine that is glorious and excellent : an excellent condi- tion, though spiritual and concealed from the world. God's children are concealed men, as 3'ou shall see aftersvard. They be hidden men. The world taketh no notice of them, because their excellency is seen with another eye than the world hath. ' The God of the world blindeth the eyes of worldlings,' 2 Cor. iv. 4. They cannot see into the excellency of God's children, no more than they know God himself and Christ himself. So you see what it is to be a God in nature and in grace ; to be all in all unto us ; to have our whole substance and dependence in him. ' In him we live, move, and have our being,' and well-being.